SHot of the Day #243: FrightFestX Day 5: Tea Time

Shot with iphone, click to enlarge.

At this point, Im frakkin' lucid. Everything feels like a dream, or just a floaty, hyper-real environment. Walking around London on this, our last day, feels like almost intangible, but I think that may be the lack of sleep finally catching up to me. Even if we weren't technically WORKING (although we shot the last of BC in a cool alley and got our final, inspired interview for the 5th short shot and edited in immediately.

Same day service, folks, its amazing and terrifying. Mostly amazing.

But at this point, last week feels like last year, yet it sped by like we just arrived. But the bossest moment was yet to come....

At 2am last night I got an invite from Landis for Lunch/Tea, and hot darn if i wasn't gonna fucking pass that up. Now, there were some hotly-anticipated movies playing today, including Ti's HOUSE OF THE DEVIL (with pal AJ Bowen, my brother-in-beards who Im a big fan of and I was excited to see), CASE 39 (which was shot at the same time I shot WT2 in Vancouver and STILL hasnt come out, hmmm) HEARTLESS (with Jim Sturgess, who Im also a big fan of) and of course THE DESCENT 2 (which, Im mixed about it's inception at all), but this might be cool, so we told him after DEVIL (which he said he wanted to see as well) we'd love to tag along.

CUT TO: FLoaty Joe off to the Empire, where we met up with everyone and enjoyed the slow-burn terror of HOUSE very much, thank you (Cleary, Ti's best flick to date, and Im a big TRIGGER MAN fan. Hey, that's catchy). Outside, we met John, who also invited Joe, Parker and DiBlassi as well for the ride. We decided on his hotel for food, which was supposedly serving lunch on him (and Universal...thanks guys!), but we had to hoof it a few blocks, which was fine for us; exercise good. Lo-mein, bad....

So, here's 5 young filmmakers being courted around by one of Cinema's most recognizable face of the last 50 years (seriosuly, everywhere we went, people politely gawked and pointed), and we're standing in Picadilly Circus as he gives us a shot-by-shot glimpse into the making of the final scene in the movie movie (by now, you'd think Id be sick of AWIL; nope ;) ) as well as a guided tour of the walking distance vicinity, complete with stops in grand department stores-where John kept shoving pieces of strange delicicies in our mouth, explainging after it's ingredients ("Oh, that was a deviled Quail egg wrapped in pig fat and head cheese on a cracker made of cranberries and goat shit. Good, huh???")-to parks where Terry Giliam used to take him "because it was ugly".

We finally made it to his hotel, which wasn't serving lunch (BOO) but was serving Tea (YES!). So in a room by ourselves, we traded insults and mostly listened to Landis as he told some amazing stories...sorry, you just had to be there. But lunc-er, "tea" was actually great, with the first bite of real food I had all week (a plain chicken sandwich on sundried tomato bread and of course, plenty of mayo...with awesome fries) and one of the best Creme Brulee's I've ever had the honor of consuming (and I loves me some CB). We were there for close to 2 1/2 hours before John had to leave for Les Mis (man, that guy is cultured) with an elegant, elderly movie star that I could not for the life of me tell you who it was, and we walked back with smiles on our faces. To be here, now, with good friends, (mostly) terrible food and some true icons of cinema in this electric city that I know mostly from one film...you can see why I mention "dream-like" above, right? So we missed CASE 39 & HEARTLESS, but those movies will be available to see again. Moments like the one we had are once in a lifetime....at least to us.

Shot with iphone, click to enlarge.
(Yes, I have my hair in pig-tails. Please, dont even ask.)

It's gonna be sad tonight, saying goodbye to everyone, especially the FF Guys (Alan, Ian, Paul & Greg) and the Lovelies (Ailsa, Sian, Jen, Kat & yes, even Ed) and hell....everyone here for that matter, old friends and new.
When you're at FrightFest, you're family. Jesus, I sound like an Olive Garden Commercial.

Off to see the last short (oh boy), demand the FrightFest Guys get a standing O for their tireless, dedicated work and then DESCENT 2. Wish me luck. Then to the final Phoenix night. PLEASE wish me luck there.

Joe