SXSW Film

This past week I attended SXSW for the second year. Last year I went with an Interactive badge and this year went gold to do Film as well. I have been slowly getting into film making and writing the past year and thought it would be a great change to not only see some awesome films but attend some panels along the way. I have spent a lot of time recently writing and storyboarding ideas but haven’t actually shown anybody yet. One thing that was different having both badges versus last year is spare time. This year I didn’t have nearly the amount of time I did last year to do other parts of SXSW like the tradeshow, screenburn, trying new places to eat and just in general hanging out at the convention center. I found myself bouncing from panel to panel pretty quickly and then heading to the Paramount for film screenings which included either a decent walk or the film shuttle and then standing in line for awhile. Plus the hours spend watching films eat up a lot of time that I had last year.

That being said, having a film badge this year was awesome and I will be doing Gold from now on. I attended some great film panels on storyboarding, shooting films improve style, visual effects on a budge and blowing stuff up. I learned some great things from these panels and got inspired the entire time. I attempted to bounce between interactive and film panels as much as I could and felt a little disappointed that I didn’t get to attend more film panels. Along with the panels comes great film screenings. The opening night movie and my first film to see at SXSW was Kick-Ass. We waited in line for awhile and the movie was just amazing. There is something very different about attending not only a film screening/world premier but watching it in a 1,200 seat theater with the cast, writers and crew of the movie. Kinda makes you want to see every movie at a screening. Staying for the Q&A after every film is also worth it. (more…)