Final Call

I ought to make this my last post. Thanks to those of you who have been reading this all along.

I may have been vague on some details, partly because the festival is a professional outlet for me, and I want to keep on the up and up. I'm also vague bc I value the company I keep out there, and I don't want to say anything that would jeopardize some of my relationships. I would make a terrible gossip rag hag.

Reading my hometown paper's coverage of the festival has been amusing, from the day they referred to Park City as a 'quaint mountain town'. There's been so much development out here in the nine years I've been coming, Park City really isn't the same place. It isn't just the festival, which has indeed grown. The tech and media bubbles at the turn of the century pushed the boundaries, but the Olympics really pushed Park City over the edge. There are more condos developed out here, chains have bought local establishments, and the festival has had to fight the sense of becoming a market instead of a festival.

My hometown paper has coverage here and here.

Heath Ledger died, and that was weird.

I found myself wondering where the festival fits into my life. I know several regulars out there, folks I only see there and on Facebook. Most are Canadians, and because of that, I am ofte assumed to be Canadian myself. I think I decided that the festival is where I get to be an experienced leader, part of a team outside of my regular workspace. I get to work with the people I always thought I should be running with, the cool kids, now a little bit more grown up.

None of us were into heavy partying this year. There were parties, at our house and elsewhere, but we are all more relaxed, more settled into our careers or at least working hard to keep them going. It's just a different place than when I first started going in my twenties, not long out of college, when it was fun enough to drink and dance and mingle with the starz.

But, as Kevin Smith often quotes, "What have we learned, Charlie Brown?" That the industry is just that, an industry; that dreams are dreams but filmmaking is hard work; that people, en masse, are animals, or children, or a little bit of both; and that some nights, you can lie in a hot tub, surrounded by ice, stare up at a clear night sky and all the stars and the moon, and think, this is a pretty good life.

And then you get in the car to the airport, and you fly back home, and you go to work the next day, wondering what will happen during the year that will pass until then.

adieu

For more blogging from Julie, visit her post site.