Cool! Guest post on Adaptistration

Toward the end of my time at the Grand, I stumbled on to arts management blogs that dealt with the complexities and problems that seem to crop up for all arts managers.

I still follow many of them, and I was very happy that after an e-mail conversation with Drew McManus, the Adaptistration blogger, he accepted a short "guest post" from me about one of the ways I considered new ideas and tried to think about the Grand.

How are we like an art museum, how are we not? How are we like a community theater, how are we not? Etc.

Check it out! And thanks to Drew for the opportunity to share some thoughts on his site.

Take the Helm!

Two friends from the Grand, Peter Lynn and Sean Alexander, are opening an art gallery tomorrow on Broadway in the Bostwick. Actually, it's directly below my old apartment, which is kind of cool.

The gallery is called The Helm, and it's going to be on the cutting edge of art. They're opening is tomorrow as part of the Third Thursday Art Walk.

After Critical Line closed and ArtRod dissolved, some people have questioned whether a gallery with similar aspirations would survive. But I think they are on the right track. Critical Line opened new shows every three months, which left the gallery empty of patrons and without sales for months at a time. The Helm will be changing shows monthly. They'll also be offering residency to artists looking to work for two weeks in Tacoma, which is totally awesome.

Looking forward to another cool place!

365 days can feel very short sometimes

One year ago I signed a document that ended my time as the Managing Director of the Grand.

It's been quite a year since then, one I certainly could not have expected or predicted at the time.

Producing theater, returning to my old high school, creating podcasts with Exit133, my first trip to New York, getting to compete in the 72 Hour Film Competition after creating the event two years ago ... there have been many surprises.

But one of the biggest surprises has got to be a whole re-ordering of perspective. One of those kinds of shifts where a few months of thinking hard and reflecting back on some experience makes the world look a little different. Which is great. Because I get to explore all over again.

David Minikel, 1941 - 2007

David Minikel, a local civil lawyer and civil rights activist, died over the weekend.

I first met David in 2004 when he sat on the hiring committee of the Grand and brought me aboard. We worked pretty closely together during my first year at the Grand when he was Treasurer of the Board.

David seemed to be working all the time, going from his work to the Grand to a legal fight against the City. He was very passionate, whether he was talking about open government or film (a favorite topic, as you might expect, at the Grand).

So long, David.

Boomsday, by Christopher Buckley

I've never read a Christopher Buckley novel before, although I greatly appreciated the film version of his book "Thank You For Smoking," which we played at the Grand last spring.

The man knows satire, that's all there is to it.

Boomsday, the word, refers to the date when Baby Boomers start to retire and put a huge financial strain on social security. Buckley also paints a federal government catering to the huge demographic of Boomers and passing the burden on to the kids of the Boomers (like me).

The novel is good fun, thanks to Cassandra, who suggests on her blog that Boomers voluntarily kill themselves at age 70 in exchange for waiving the estate tax and some other benefits. Of course, Washington being Washington, by the time the proposal is actually considered (and it is) those benefits include a 2 week all expenses paid vacation and full tax write-offs for Segways and mausoleums.

It's a funny read and I think I'll try out some more Buckley soon.

Downtown Galaxy Theater?

Dan Voepel has an interesting scoop from the Vegas (where my sister is now and I will be Friday).

He (and Krista) and there for the International Council of Shopping Centers annual conference and reports that Galaxy Theaters is telling him "the stars have aligned now to make downtown Tacoma viable for a multiscreen theater."

Wow! Big news.

Of course, there's a big question, which is, "What does that mean for the Grand, the only urban movie theater right now?" I think it's only going to mean good things.

If people will go downtown to see Pirates of the Caribbean, then seeing an art film downtown a few weeks later isn't as scary anymore.

And it's not like the current Galaxy plays many "Grand Cinema" movies. While I was at the Grand, there was a narrow field of overlap where the Galaxy and the Grand were in competition for the same film--Pride and Prejudice (Galaxy got it), Thank You For Smoking (Grand got it), House of Flying Daggers (Galaxy), Brokeback Mountain (Grand).

But usually the markets are totally different.

The big winner is downtown. The Grand has averaged about 100,000 tickets sold a year since it got popular in 2001. But a multiplex, even a 6-screener like the current Galaxy, is going to do substantially higher numbers than that. It will be a boon to restaurants in the area and will be yet another incentive for the neighboring stores to keep their doors open late (as the Two Vaults does next to the Grand).

But still, big news!

More 72-Hour Film at Exit133

Exit133 has posted two more films from the film competition--"South 5," which won the Audience Award Thursday as well as "Five Dollar Watch," a fun entry set at Blackwater.

Glad to see Tacoma filmmakers taking advantage of the Internet!

"Tintinnabulation" Wins Twice!

Yahoo! "Tintinnabulation" -- the film produced by the Horatio and our friends over at Exit133 -- won two awards tonight at the Grand's 72-Hour Film Competition, Best Use of Location and Best Use of the Action Shot.

The requirements for the film, again, were:

• Use a Tacoma landmark
• Use a hat or a cap
• Use the line "What we have here is a failure to communicate."
• And something has to be thrown, tossed, or dropped.

Thanks to the acting pair of Aaron and Jenny Jacobs and some help from friends around town, we ended up with a fun film.

Enjoy!



Full winners list can be found at Exit133.

Tintinnabulation

I'll get a Google Video of my movie from the 72-Hour Film Competition up Friday so that the world may watch. But not till Friday, because otherwise some of y'all might not come see all the films Thursday. And that just wouldn't be fair.

72 Hours and the clock is ticking

In 2005 I came up with a new program at the Grand--the 72 Hour Film Competition, which attracted 11 teams of filmmakers (counting 3 staff films). The feeling on the sidewalk after the screening of the films was electric. It played to a packed house of 111 at the Grand.

In 2006, we took it bigger and moved the screening to the Rialto. 26 films, 500+ people for the screening, and then they got to be shown on Click! after that.

So this year, as I'm no longer at the Grand, I got the unique opportunity to compete in the event I created. I got my criteria Thursday night, brainstormed with the actors that night, and got the 4 page script out during lunch Friday.

Worked Saturday morning trying to secure a location to shoot, and we didn't get started until about 2. We shot until about 5:30 (after which I darted over to the SOTA Auction, which was a lot of fun). And then Sunday ... Sunday was about 11 hours of editing, with a break for picking up a couple extra shots.

After going through it, my hat is off to the filmmakers who competed before. It's a hard weekend. I got my film in 9 minutes before the deadline and I'll be at Thursday's screening at the Rialto to see all 30+ films.

You should come! Films start promptly at 7:00, and the cost is $10 ($8 if you're not a member). Vote for "Tintinnabulation" if you like it for the Audience Favorite. (If you had Mr. Dudas with me freshman year at Bellarmine, by the way, you might recognize Tintinnabulation as one of our infamous Dudas words.)

Anyway, it's a really really fun night. Come cheer on Tacoma's filmmakers!

The Queen

After the Golden Globe nominations last week I was inspired to see The Queen at the Grand and see what all the fuss was about. It was a darn fine film. Helen Mirren was incredible and Michael Sheen as Tony Blair was very very good, too.

The movie really feels like you're peering behind the crown, even though, from what I understand, the writers would not have had any privileged information about what the Queen was actually going through.

The movie also showed me, once again, that I am an Anglophile to the core. I love the English. I know many Francophiles, but for the life of me I don't get them. Call me an Anglo Saxon.

Alt Man

Robert Altman's death today marks a loss for film. I was so impressed with his last movie "A Prairie Home Companion" as well as many other films of his that have stuck with me, including The Player, MASH, and Gosford Park.

While the Grand had Prairie playing I used to sneak in the back and watch some of the songs. I would watch the Bad Jokes song over and over, not just to listen to the audience laugh but also to watch the uncannily good filmmaking that Altman used to make that scene as funny as it was. Watch the scene. And then watch it again and again. It's brilliant comedic filmmaking.

I sincerely appreciate his films and will miss the opportunity to see him keep working.

From the Film Festival Opening

Big searchlights light up the front of the Merlino Art Center at tonight's Film Festival opening. Check out films through the week! Here's the link again.

Film Festival

Tonight begins the 1 week event of the Tacoma Film Festival, sponsored by the Grand. It looks like a lot of good movies, so check some of them out.

What else are you going to do in this drizzle? Here's a riddle. What follows two days of rain in Tacoma? ...... Monday.