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April 28, 2011

Opening Night

For the sake of recording: here is how Opening Night in New York went. I arrived, I took a cab to my host's house in Queens, I hastened to take a nap. I awoke. Aaron Hillis had asked me to get to the theater at 5:45 for a tech check. I'd planned to take another cab, but my host, the valiant Karl Jacob, had a better idea. He'd just bought a motorcycle, and proposed a jaunt through Brooklyn on the back of this new bike. I eagerly accepted, donned a helmet and climbed aboard. Together we rocketed through Queens, into Williamsburg, as the diorama of Manhattan slipped by in opposition. My hands were frozen solid by the time we pulled up to the theater in Dumbo, but it was worth it.

I climbed off and climbed the steps and met Aaron. He gave me a quick tour. We walked back to the projector and he extended both his hands and I slapped them in an enthusiastic double high-five before realizing that he was actually holding them out to receive the Blu-Ray disc we were going to use to exhibit the movies. Which I didn't have. I'd overnighted two Blu-Rays a few week ago, but they hadn't worked in the theater's player and from that malfunction a misunderstanding had grown and flowered and now saw both of us standing there, on either side of a flickering projector beam, wondering what exactly we were going to show the already-clamoring throngs taking their seats before us.

The answer was to show both films straight off the HD copies on my MacBook, which I'd left at Karl's house, which thus mandated a hop back onto motorcycle and race back across Brooklyn to fetch it. Which we did, and did, and then turned back and retraced our steps yet again. My hands had no feeling at this point. We had thirty minutes until showtime. Which was why, this being an independent film exhibition, it was the perfect time for a cop to pull us over for switching lanes.

Thus began our twenty-minute standstill on the shoulder of the BQE, as we waited for the police officer to figure out what we'd done wrong. I could just about see the ReRun Theater from the overpass where we were held. Of course this would be how opening night went off, I thought. Something would be going wrong if this hadn't happened.

Eventually a citation was issued, the engine was revved, we made it the rest of the way to the theater, the files were opened, an HDMI cable procured (thanks, Josh and Jim) and everything was ready to roll by 7:17. The lights dimmed and the theatrical engagement began.

Sorry, no pics.

Posted by David Lowery at April 28, 2011 3:26 AM