Before every screening at this year’s Sundance Film Festival, which concluded last Sunday, a series of “Sundance Myths,” performed by Muppet-style versions of artsy independent filmmakers, introduced each film.
For example, “Sundance Myth #9,” was “You’ll Be Fine Up There,” and showed a “director” puppet standing onstage after the credits of his movie had rolled, desperately hoping to be asked some questions during his obligatory Q-and-A session, and finding nary a single hand raised.
“Sundance Myth #4,” “You Can Never Be Too Early,” had the same director and his “producer” shivering in the cold, early morning Utah air, waiting hours before a film was to begin in the hopes of attaining tickets.
While these short skits were intended mostly to amuse festival audiences, they were generally received with hearty laughter because myths about Sundance really do abound. The moment you tell anyone who has been there that you’ll be heading to Park City, be prepared to get an earfull of popular legends, many of which may be far from the truth.
Besides cautionary tales about how hard it is to get into screenings, or even how hard it can be to get an alcoholic beverage that isn’t completely watered down, the biggest myth was at least partially debunked for me during my time at the legendary independent film festival. For filmmakers, getting accepted into Sundance does not necessarily mean your career is about to take a giant leap forward.
My friend Jason Wishnow directed a short film that was in competition in this year’s festival. It’s an eight-minute, stop-motion animated version of Sophocles’ “Oedipus,” performed by vegetables.
It took him a year to shoot it, frame by frame, with a still camera. And it is quite possibly the most impressive thing I have ever had the pleasure of witnessing a close friend bring into being. The guy got folks at Industrial Light and Magic to do the post-production for basically nothing, based solely on having seen a few of his dailies.
It is a hilarious, gorgeous-looking film. And when he told me back in November that he got into Sundance, I felt sure that the moment he arrived he would be inking a deal to direct a major motion picture, coming soon to a theater near you.
So maybe I was being more than a little naive. Yes, getting into Sundance is a big deal (Wishnow often compared it to the college application process: hoping for the fat envelope in the mail, instead of the thin one; going to orientation and realizing there are an awful lot of other people who are smarter and more talented than you, etc.), but with 70-some-odd short films in competition, and only one or two awards that will go to any of them, it can be pretty tough to stand out in the crowd.
The truth was, “Oedipus” did stand out. I had more than a few experiences overhearing people who had just seen it talking about how amazing they thought it was. Two guys from Miramax even gave me their cards to give to Wishnow when they found out I knew him. But by the festival’s end, Wishnow still had to head home and figure out what to do next. No big studio deal. No epiphany. Just a decent festival experience and some good feedback.
Maybe that’s all anyone should expect from Sundance. Wishnow didn’t seem to have many illusions about what his participation in the festival would amount to, so why did I? Why, when we were chatting with Brian Dannelly, the director of “Saved!” a comedy that will be in theaters this April, was I so discouraged to hear him say flat-out that “no one really cares about short films”?
I think it has something to do with hope, as cheesy as that sounds. As a soon-to-be college graduate, I need to believe that people I know can make it in their chosen careers, because that means that I can too.
I realized that although Wishnow may not have found the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow on his first try, he did officially start his journey, and that will have to be hope enough for me.