Inauguration Day – My View

We started the day with all of us answering e-mails – Atom working press possibilities and updating our schedule, me working on the blog, and Anna doing some guerrilla marketing. For the first time since we arrived on Friday, we turned on the TV (muted) to watch the coverage of the inauguration.

At 9:40 we ran out to catch the shuttle, arriving at Sundance headquarters just before 10:30 for a roundtable with funders and broadcasters of feature-length documentaries. Instead, every television screen in the building was turned to the inauguration as Barack Obama spoke to our nation for the first time as president. Applause, shouts of “amen,” and cheering broke out from time to time. For me, I was quite moved by his words. I teared up. Many of us have waited a very long time for a leader like Barack Obama to move us away from the greed and aggression that has informed our culture and driven our politics for decades. It was a great moment. Yet at the same time, as he called the nation to include people of all religions, even those who are not religious, and as he named all the different colors of people, calling on us to break down the boundaries, there was one glaring omission. He did not speak to the prejudice and discrimination against those of us with different sexuality. From the anti-gay campaign of Anita Bryant and the Southern Baptist Church through the harrowing years of the AIDs epidemic that gutted the gay community, to the devastating passage of Prop 8 in California, gays, lesbians, and others have been used as scapegoats in the most horrifying manner in the name of religion and conservative politics. I heard nothing in his speech that included me. Sure, I’m white. I have no religious affiliation. But I am still vulnerable to the whims and fears of people that do not recognize me as a full human being. The majority should never be able to vote on a law that would remove the rights of any minority. It is antithetical to the intent of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights.

So as the national anthem began, for the first time in my life, I did not stand up. When I am given the same rights as my fellow citizens, then I will stand.

Day 6 – Getting on with the work

OKAY! So I got that out of my system. The round table began late at Sundance, since everyone watched the inauguration. So from 11:30 to 12:45, Atom, Anna, and I split up and moved from table to table to listen to representatives from many funding agencies and broadcasters, and also to pitch our documentary to them. I spoke with POV (the PBS show) and was able to give a screening copy to both TV2 Denmark and HBO. The response was all very positive. Afterward, we were very jazzed, and at the same time drained. It’s hard to have the ON switch flipped day after day. After a lunch that took 2 hours (very slow service), we hit the Queer Lounge for our meeting with a representative from a very good company that has shown quite a lot of interest in our film. They act as a middleman between filmmakers and all the distribution platforms, somewhat like an agent. It was a heady meeting, incredibly positive. Anna and I have been discussing the distribution strategy we think would work best for Graphic Sexual Horror. And the proposed distribution deal was almost identical. So we celebrated by purchasing a vintage bottle of Chateauneuf du Pape and spending another late evening in the hot tub, not sure if we should hold our breath or breathe a sigh of relief. And Atom missed her flight home.
Karaoke on the way home in the Music TaxiHot tub outside at night: Barb, Anna and Atom, our lovely friend-for-hire

The 18th was D-day for us - our world premier. It started at 8:30 in the morning with an APTV interview with Mike Cidoni, coordinated by Fifteen Minutes (a media and public relations company) to promote LGBT directors and films at Sun/Slamdance. I was one of a long line of LGBT directors, cast members, and producers that spent about 10 minutes with Mike, pitching our film and answering a few quick questions. Immediately afterward, Anna, Princess Donna and myself were ushered downstairs for a quick video interview that’s posted on the GLAAD blog at:
http://glaadblog.org/2009/01/19/graphic-sexual-horror-at-queer-lounge/

Here's the video

From there we taxied to the Outfest Brunch, a huge gathering of LGBT filmmakers in town for Sun/Slamdance, with free food, drinks, and open bar. I learned from the bartender that they were mixing their drinks at the newly legalized 1.5 ounces of alcohol per mixed drink, rather than the prior 1.0 ounce legal maximum. They have special measure and pour containers for accuracy.

Park City frothed with tourists, film buffs, celebrity appearances on Main Street – a party atmosphere punctuated with prowling police in SUV’s and on foot. By 1 PM, my partner texted from the Salt Lake City airport. She was driving toward Park City. Also Toban, one of the ex-members of the Insex website with whom we’d been in contact, arrived in town to view the screening. As I texted back and forth while sitting in the back of a panel on digital marketing, the pace I’d been keeping up for the past weeks hit me and I could feel myself starting to crash. Princess Donna and Atom had barely slept the night before and we had a big night ahead. I picked up the car from our primo parking space, gathered Anna, Atom, and Donna, and we drove back to the hotel for hot tub and sleep.

By 5 PM we’d all showered, dressed, and primped. We ate an early dinner. Toban graciously offered to drive us into the boil of film activity called Park City. As our screening time neared, our World Premier sold out. Anna and I entered the screening room and worked with the projectionist to make a few small adjustments to the sound.

After that, it all happened quickly. The room filled. Some sat on the floor. Anna and I took seats along the back wall after our introduction. The room went black and there it was, Graphic Sexual Horror on a large screen. It went much better than I had guessed. We only had a net loss of about three or four people who left in the middle. But the attentive crowd sat and watched, obviously affected by our film, the result of more than two years of work. The questions during the Q & A were insightful. The people attending had obviously understood the larger questions we sought to address in our film.

We had to cut the Q & A short in order to clear the room for the next screening. And as we filed out, Jonathon Hickman of e-Insiders pulled Anna and I and Princess Donna aside for our third interview of the day. By that time, Anna had to take over. I felt I had started to babble. Afterward, we talked with interested people who still milled around in the Slamdance lobby. Anna left to watch Mum & Dad by Steven Sheil. The rest of us went for wine and pizza. I left with my partner for the night, and Atom pretended to be me and finagled the hotel staff to open the hot tub at 1 AM for Princess Donna and herself. A shower of stars filled the night sky of Utah.

It’s Friday and screenings at Sundance and Slamdance have begun. As I walk down Main Street, I notice that our posters have all been taken down. Every square millimeter of placard space is covered with other posters and flyers. Films that aren’t even playing in Park City have posters up. Poster domination is out of control. I sit through a couple sponsored events and learn about aspect ratio and color bit rates, then make my way down the hill into Sundance-land. Police and security guard the celebrity lounge. White tents fill Main street. The smell of money permeates. In the press of the crowd, about half of the people hold a cell phone to their ear. I try to call Atom, our press person. She’s picking up Anna at the airport. But the signal keeps failing. Finally, I resort to texting, and that fails twice. The cell phone capacity of Park City is overloaded. A few months ago, while Anna and I were still finishing the film, I kept asking myself why we were making our film. No one will want to see it, I kept telling myself. Because the subject of Insex and PD’s footage is so extreme and taboo. But here, people are genuinely interested. So I find myself sitting on the bus next to a nice upper middle class woman whose business sponsored a couple of Sundance films. And she wants to see our poster. So there I am unrolling a 17 X 26 picture of Koko in the tank and talking about Insex and the Patriot Act and it’s all rather extraordinary. After meeting up with Atom and Anna, we make our first trip into the “step and turn” room at Slamdance headquarters. This is where filmmakers and cast members stand in front of the “media wall” and get photographed. The “media wall” is a large white backdrop filled with the logos of all the Slamdance sponsors. “Step and turn” is a phrase that describes how celebrities walk in front of a pile of photographers. They take a step and turn to the cameras, take another step and turn to the cameras. This is truly a new phase of my notoriously unfamous life. After the sound of camera shutters stops, we skirt into the next room where the noise of Happy Hour blasts out the door. We talk sales reps with a couple of Slamdance staff, screaming over the music to hear each other. On our way out, some teenage volunteers at Slamdance get wowed by our Graphic Sexual Horror T-shirts and we get their sizes and promise them shirts tomorrow. Afterward, we wonder if it’s a good idea to have underage teens sporting T-shirts for a film they clearly will not be allowed to watch. . .

My novel, "Stacking in Rivertown," was due to be released by Simon & Schuster in July 2000 and so I was visiting New York to keep in touch with my agent. But also, I was ready to get out of the stifling culture of Indiana and celebrate finally breaking into publishing. I met Anna (zeta) at a private party in New York in 2000. It was then through her that I met PD.

PD has a fascinating personality. He is not someone that you can be lukewarm about. Just when you think you have him pegged, he'll completely surprise you. His personality and his vision controlled every aspect of the Insex product and the climate at the studio, from how and when everyone ate to every detail of the bondage in the shoots. And PD was intrigued with me because "Stacking in Rivertown" contained very realistic BDSM content, had been published through a major house, had an urgent storyline, and received very good reviews in spite of having such edgy content. PD wanted to create more “story” around his work. He has been quite influenced by Hollywood and horror movies and was interested in the intersection of bondage and a solid story.

So for about a year or more, I visited the studio if I happened to be in New York, watching shoots and an occasional Live Feed. PD paid me to write a screenplay that was never shot. It was during this time, as I experienced my first Live Feed, that I began to see the potential of utilizing the characters and situation at the Insex studio in a movie. The individuals that came and went at the studio were better than anyone could make up. The whole brew – the atmosphere at the studio, the staff (most of which were artists trying to pick up some extra cash) – was rich with human drama.

After 9/11, I visited New York less often. I didn’t see PD or zeta for a year or two. Then out of the blue in the spring of 2003, PD called me and wanted me to work with him on a special project. He wanted to create a website for a mainstream audience, a web serial broadcast based upon strong characters and plot that would include bondage and SM. He threw out a couple possible story lines and asked me to come up with something and we’d talk. I broached the idea that we should make Insex the story – a quasi-reality show with scripted parts. PD didn’t like that idea, so instead, we came up with a very basic plot and I wrote the screenplay for the pilot. It ended up being very Hitchcockian. Zeta put together the cast, which included Donna and AZ (both of whom we interview in GSH). It was during our collaboration on that project that zeta and I learned that we worked well together. That piece was shot and edited, but never released by PD.

But I kept the idea of Insex as a movie in my head. I’d already constructed characters and scenarios. So when zeta and I began to talk doing a project together, it was clear from our excitement in talking about the studio, that we should follow the energy. When somebody drops a golden egg in your lap, you should pay attention. So we decided to do a documentary of Insex. That was in the spring of 2006.