LAFF

I'm exhausted. Interning for the LA Film Festival, or any festival for that matter, does a number on the body. It's basically the same throwing out of whack that occurs during finals week in college. The nomZ and zZz's schedule goes to sh*t, to be blunt. These are insignificant cons, though, canceled out by my already ridiculous lifestyle of insomnia and 24/7 eating.

I still don't have a plan. Life is a beautiful and stressful question mark. But I definitely enjoy working in this festival atmosphere 100%. I love greeting and serving our filmmaker "customers". I love meeting volunteers, staff, and festival folk that are just great people. I even think I might've grown a pair tonight at the filmmaker reception and schmoozed a bit. And by schmooze, I mean talking up a "thank youuu" and "can I take 3 of these?" storm with the waiters carrying food while I stuffed my face. So yeah, I'm a gawd awesome schmoozer. I did carry on some entertaining conversations with our filmmaker guests.

Let me tell you something about the schmoozing. There's the kind that sucks: the fake flirting (whatistheflirting?), the networking, the selling yourself, the throw your head back and laugh at anything even if it's not that funny because why? Although, my laughter, being rather obnoxious, probably works against me in this scenario.

The kind I enjoy is just connecting in casual and lighthearted convo without ulterior motives. That being sad, one of the interns and I were having a deep chat (oxymoron?) about networking. Some things he noted made me realize that I am being a bit hypocritical and assumptive about networking. Guilty. I think I talk smack because I have no purpose or need for networking since I have no idea what I'm doing with myself. It hit me that I need a business card, but that card would be sans title. Megan Lee. Company ?. Freelance ?. Phone. Email. Meh. Another thing on the list of to-do personal improvements. By the way, since mentioning this whole business card thing, I will dedicate at least an hour after posting this to desigining a personal card, putting it in an online shopping cart, then leaving it be forever.

The arrow to the heart about working LAFF is not being able to watch all the competing and showcased films. I'd love to view all the international documentaries, narratives, the MVs, shorts, free screenings, and even the high school films. There's just not enough time, not enough screenings. Most of the competing films have uncertain futures, are lucky if they find solid distribution past the festival, and thus, rarely screened again anytime soon.

Oh yes, the economy sucking, sucks as well. The festival has been downscaled significantly from last year (and last year was apparently a downscale from the year before, meaning, I missed even better free swag from TARGET). Yes, I complain because the freestuffs is lacking and not as abundant as last year.

Well, LAFF is halfway through. I'm dying. Almost fell asleep at the desk today..it was a pretty sight. Plenty more updates to come, but we'll see if I can keep the posts regularly. Expect a brief hiatus until festival end, then a giant blog vomit summarizing everything. Excited?