AFF: Corey’s Take

Posted on October 29, 2007
Filed Under Film Fests |

“Sunday also starts with an S.”

–Julie Fay, LAFG Screenwriter

AFF Anecdotes. That’s what road trips are all about, and our excursion to the Austin Film Festival is certainly no exception.

After spending a day attending panels with directors, producers, screenwriters, video game developers, and other professionals from the entertainment industry, I may have picked up a few helpful tips on writing successful screenplays and breaking into Hollywood, but far more valuable (to me) are the stories that I’ll always remember. Such as:

The Transformers producer explaining why the movie wasn’t as popular in Japan as one might expect, since Japan is largely a female-driven film market, and giant robot fans are still considered geeks there, just like in America.

Or screenwriter Scott Alexander explaining that some of the scenes in 1408 were in-jokes based on his experiences in hotels while working on earlier films.

Or getting Scott Alexander to admit that Andy Kaufman enjoyed Man on the Moon, even though he supposedly died 15 years before the movie’s release.

Or hearing Oliver Stone’s personal recollections from his long and fascinating film career.

Or the quote at the top of this post from our very own Julie Fay, which I jotted down in a notebook as we sat waiting for Oliver Stone to arrive for his Q&A. Would it make sense in context? Sure, but where’s the fun in that? (If you really want to know what she was talking about, you’ll have to wait for AFF: Julie’s Take.

Most of the stories we heard in Austin are too long to do justice in a blog post (and as Ken suggested, the best ones all came from screenwriter Scott Alexander). But they’re fun to repeat when you’re hanging out with fellow movie geeks.

Also wonderful are the projects I would never have known about if panelists hadn’t mentioned them, such as Atom Films’ Possum Death Spree, or InSex, a short film from Project Greenlight winners Efram Potelle and Kyle Rankin.

The problem with these AFF panels is that there were so many good ones scheduled at the same time, making it difficult to pick and choose. Thankfully, Cinematical covered a couple of the panels we missed, including this one with the writers of the Harold & Kumar movies, and one on Writing Family Films.

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AFF: Corey’s Take

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