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June 14, 2009

Nine AM

I watched St. Nick all the way through yesterday for the first time since the premiere at SXSW. But first, let me say that I haven't been to a festival outside of Sundance that has screenings earlier than 11:30am, and so it was with equal amounts relief and surprise that I saw the line of people waiting to get into the nine o'clock showing of St. Nick yesterday morning. It was gray and cold and cloudy. There were about fifty people there, and as the lights dimmed, I decided on a whim to stay with them and take the movie in.

There were things I found frustrating. Parts of the sound mix that I wish we'd finessed more, and that I can still fix. There were sequences that I thought were unnecessarily long, and yet I couldn't think of a reason for them not to be there. There's a lugubriousness to the pace that, I now recall, I intentionally maintained throughout the edit. Leaving the wrong moments in. Rough edges felt like the right choice for this movie, but I'd forgotten about them, and they jarred me in exactly the way I must have intended them to. And then there were the scenes that surprised me and delighted me, where I felt I really achieved something, and I found myself wishing that regular old wish that I could see the movie blindly, like everyone else in the audience, and see what it's really like to feel those moments for the first time.

An elderly gentleman stopped me on the way out and told me that he felt what I wanted him to feel from the very first shot. Afterwards I walked through the beautiful gloom and couldn't resist having a cup of coffee for the first time in two weeks (at a cafe that roasts their own beans behind a glass partition). Then I went back to the hotel and listened to my favorite Joanna Newsom record, and took a short nap and dreamed that I awoke to a snowstorm.

Today it's bright and sunny. I've got two hours before the next screening, and I've been drinking mojitos since eleven, so I should ace the Q&A. Meanwhile: I've been receiving intermittent reports from CineVegas, where Adam was apparently sighted making out with Clay's mom, the titular namesake of his hit short film. It's a testament to Waterfront that I don't feel like I'm missing out...

Posted by David Lowery at June 14, 2009 1:20 PM