HOORAY FOR HOLLYWOOD

I volunteered for Cinequest, the San Jose film festival, a few weeks ago. A woman at work had told me about it about two months ago. I remembered about it on March 3rd and searched thinking I had already missed it. I was happy to find out that it had just started, so I submitted a volunteer request and the next day Mary, the head of volunteers, e-mailed me for my schedule. By Thursday of that week I figured it wasn't going to happen, but she called me at work to see if I could come on Friday to work a forum. I was excited to find out that the forum was on screenwriting. The work itself was easy-just standing around telling people not to bring food and drink into the theater. Once the first part began, they let me go in and listen for a while. It was very interesting. The speaker is a professor from San Jose U. and one of the volunteers said she had taken his class and he was very good. I had to leave before the third part started and that was the one I really wanted to check out. It was an interview with Christopher McQuarrie who wrote the screenplay for The Usual Suspects. I would have loved to have been able to listen to that for a minute, but I couldn't. Before I left, Mary gave me two tickets to the closing night movie and asked if I'd be interested in working one of the after-show parties. Hell yeah! I don't think I said that, but I might have. It turns out I wasn't able to go to the movie which was too bad, but I had to be at the Voodoo lounge at 8 which meant I would have to leave the movie early. When I showed up I found out that there was nothing for me to do, so I sat around and talked to Mary and her husband and had a few beers. The party was different to say the least. This one was at a bar and the music was way too loud for everyone. There was a buffet of sorts-if you can call cookies and cole slaw a buffet. That's right, cookies and cole slaw! Perhaps this is usual eats at an after-show party. This being my first one, I really don't know.

There were two highlights to the evening. The first came when Stephen Baldwin walked in and waved at me. I nodded back knowing that he must be mistaking me. The second came with a performance by a woman who danced with a giant balloon. She is a burlesque performer, so I think you can use your imagination with that. I'll just say that she ended up inside the balloon. It was very graceful and quite entertaining. Needless to say, after that my night was over. Can't do much to top that.

I came back the next day to help clean up and got some posters and a couple of free magazines out of the deal. All in all, I had fun. I got to talk to several interesting people and Mary said she would definitely call me next year. My only regret is that I didn't get to see any of the movies. There were several I would have liked to have seen. Next year I will set aside some time so I can help out more and catch a few flicks.

After this experience I decided to continue my volunteer work and signed up for the San Francisco Film Festival. I am waiting to hear more, so hopefully I'll get to help with that, too. I figure it's a great way to network and I can put it on my resume.

Hollywood, hear I come!