Now that I am on the broadcast kick, I am looking at all sorts of venues to expound upon the virtues of Classical music in film (specifically my classical music). In this process, I sponsored and attended the Nashville Film Festival, a local festival that has been given quite a bit of noteriety on the national scene. My experiences and comments are as follows: * This is a great festival! The showings are organized and with only one venue, the schedule easy to plan around. I have learned tons about the indy film world in only a short week.
* Opening night featuring William H Macy! need I say more? Bill was in attendance to preview his great indy film, "The Deal". This may have been an indy produced film, but nothing about it seemed independent. There was a stellar cast of characters including Meg Ryan, Elliot Gould and LL Cool J along with Mr. Macy. The plotline was fantastic and I laughed so hard my gut hurt. There was a meet and greet opening party at BMI afterwards where we all rubbed elbows, waxed poetic on the state of the film industry and vied to meet Mr. Macy. I succeeded!
* The panels were provocative, yet predictable. The Music Supervisors panel (of prime interest to me) featured a handful of heavy hitters from Hollywood. While most of what the talked about was interesting, it was not the first time I had heard it. It seems that there is still a real issue with filmmakers' willingness to pay for quality music for their projects. It seems that unless you have a hit song, you are a bit dead in the water... this is disheartening. Other panels I attended included a panel on film financing and another about the process of taking an independent film into distribution. Not really compelling for a music guy, but interesting nonetheless.
* The closing party and film featured the Wrecking Crew, the background band famous for many of the fantastic recordings of the 60's and 70's and who were notoriously Phil Spector's "Wall of Sound." Elbow rubbing and hububbing aside, the evening was a nice closure for the event. Many new friends had a chance to convene and reflect on the past eight days' events. The Cannery Ballroom was hopping and there were good times had by all.