Long Awaited...

that photo does her no justice. you had to see her in person
LA Film Festival recap – Day 1

Hello there everyone. Some people have been asking me to write my post about my little experience volunteering for the LA Film Fest. Well here it is folks!!! It will be split though. Enjoy. :D

Day 1 – Theatre Shift at the Landmark Theatre – Film: Poker House

The day started out as good as it could be I guess. I catch all my busses on time and I get to my location an hour earlier. I am happy to be there so early when I realize that the next location that I have to go to pick up my volunteer shirt and badge is well over a mile away. The clock is set at 2pm and running. Destination: the corner of Broxton and Kinross. Time limit is to be one hour to and back. I start walking from the corner of Pico and Westwood.

I am heading down Westwood. As I am unsure if I am heading in the right direction I called my Aunt Linda to give me some directions. Turns out I am heading in the right direction. I walk for what seems likes forever. I walk uphill and I walk across long crosswalks. I walk past slow walkers and bypass kids selling candy. I finally make it to my destination. I check the time, 2:43pm; there is no way I am going to make it back to the Landmark by 3pm.

I pick up my t-shirt and my badge. Then next thing I know I have to get my photo taken. Great, I am sweaty, read and hot and now I have to take a photo. I write my first and last name in large print on a blue paper and stand in the sun a smirk for the camera. I see that one of the volunteer managers, Shelly to be precise, is also at the booth. So, I say to her “Shelly, I just wanted to let you know I am going to be late for my shift at the Landmark. I had to walk from there to here to get my shirt and my badge.” Her eyes widen and she responds “You walked from the landmark to here?” and I say, “Yes.” She soon puts stars next to my name as a reward for my effort and she informs me that she will call ahead and let the people know I would be late.

I start my journey back to the landmark. I see a Big Blue Bus and I decided to ask if they stopped at Pico. Which they did, so I paid my 75 cents and put on my shirt and badge. I am cooled and relieved that I will not be late like I had originally thought. I reach my stop and off the bus I go.

I walk into the theatre and I ask an associate if he could please inform me the location of John Olivas or Kent, my shift managers. He says, “I don’t know who they are. You should go to concierge maybe they could walkie them” I walk over to the concierge and the guy there tells me, “I have no idea where those guys are. They are around here some where.” Gee, thanks.. Ass.. So I wander around to the third floor where I meet up with Kent. There is only one other volunteer there, Sarah is her name, and he tells me to relax and wait for the others to arrive. He gives me a bottle of water and I sit on the nice little cushioned bench.

Not too much longer Sarah sits down beside me and we start chatting about films and such. She is quite a lovely woman. She is very friendly and funny. Soon the other volunteers arrive and we get assigned our jobs. I am to be the ticket taker for this event. As we wait in our positions I see the lovely Lori Petty walk out of the theatre. She directed the film, Poker House, and she had just gone over some technical stuff. She passes by me and says hello. I say hello back and I was surprised at how calm I was. I was pretty proud of my composure.

People start arriving and I take their tickets. There is nothing too exciting to report on there, sorry. The film starts and then Lori comes out visibly upset because the screen has gone black. The tech people are scurrying to fix the problem. I would love to say that was the end of it but sadly, the film went black two more times. Lori is very upset, as she should be. The theatre is sold out and they are sitting in there watching a black screen.

What people don’t realize or would call a hissy fit from directors is that their films are their babies. All the work they put in to making, producing, editing and everything else that comes along with it is a lot of hard work. It has to become their baby and for your film to keep stopping and blacking out like that. Well, it is pretty bad. So what some people would consider a bad thing I saw as understandable. I would have done the same thing as Lori.

Back to the day; well, after they finally got the film to play we counted the tickets and we were told to take a break. After a quick walk around the mall we arrive to see the next shift of volunteers arrive and John decides to let us off early. So ends my volunteer shift of day one!

All in all it was pretty eventful and I got to meet some great people.