On the Sunny Side of the Country, Part #2: LA

Holy moly!  We just got back from a whirlwind trip to California.  Our first stop: San Francisco.  The second: LA!

KFINK ESCAPES TO LA

FRIDAY, 7/23

We’d both been to LA before, but only Jessica had driven along the coast, so we spent Friday, July 23rd, in a rental car trying to find a road by the sea.  This might sound crazy, but we had a heck of a time finding water.  We were blocked by mountains, water towers, and fertile fields full of who knows what.

Cali rush hour stopped us cold in Santa Barbara, so we took a walk and caught up on interweb work.

Once we got to our hotel in 90210, we realized that we were both sleep- and food-deprived.  While we were tempted to stay in and eat our hair, we braved the streets of WeHo to grab a bite at Real Food Daily. Then we headed to bed.

Saturday, 7/24:

Our second morning in LA was spent catching up on the TILT fund raising campaign.  We wrote some thank you notes for new supporters, added some backer bios to TILTtheTown, caught up on emails, and chilled out by the pool.

In the afternoon we headed to Altadena to see our friends Andy and Caroline and their new baby, Clara.  Andy and Caroline offered us a welcome evening off from hotels and restaurant food.  Their little Clara was beautiful, engaging, and officially the first baby not to fall instantly in love with Julie.  This was a GENIUS move on tiny Clara’s part, as Julie will now spend the rest of her life trying to win her favor.

It wasn’t Clara’s fault – Julie can be a little overwhelming for first-timers.  It has something to do with the gap between her two front teeth.  Despite the tears, we had a wonderful time and made secret signals to each other to trick Andy and Caroline into inviting us over again. (It totally worked, by the way.)

SUNDAY, 7/25:

FILM COURAGE DAY! We woke up excited and nervous about our Film Courage interview at noon with David Branin and Karen Worden. We met Julie’s Uncle Lee (one of Julie’s first loves and a very generous TILT backer) for breakfast at La Conversation for way too much coffee and not nearly enough french pastries.

Then it was off to Film Courage.  We arrived very early, drank even more coffee, then stalked Karen and David outside their studio.

Upon meeting Karen Worden and David Branin of LA Talk Radio’s Film Courage for the first time, we were immediately put at ease.  They have a calm, kind energy and are 100% at ease in the radio station.  They said that everything would be fine. And they were right.

We think our interview on Film Courage went well, but you can judge for yourself here.  After the interview, David recorded a little “Outside the Studio” video (which you can see below) with his ever-present Flip camera, we took some pics, we met their amazing technical guy Ronin, and then it was off to lunch.

After talking, playing, and planning for 4 (5? 6?) hours, we parted ways with Karen and David, safe in the knowledge that we’d get to see them the following evening at their Film Courage Interactive event.  If we hadn’t had those plans, though, you can be sure that we’d have MADE more plans, because we thoroughly enjoyed geeking out with them about indie movies.

We headed back to our hotel and grabbed dinner at Real Food Daily (again).  Then…someone must have rufied our organic macrobiotic meals, because we have NO idea what happened.  We might have gone to see strippers.  We might have just gone to bed.  No one will ever know. Apparently LA is tough on the memory…

MONDAY, 7/26:

Film Courage Interactive DAY! We spent the morning and afternoon catching up on Kfinky and TILTy work at the hotel.

Then we headed downtown to meet Andy Black and Nathan Cole (“The Waterhole“) for dinner before the movie screenings.

We’ve known Andy forever, so seeing him is always great, but this was our first time meeting Nathan.  We liked him instantly, and he must have liked us, too, seeing as though we didn’t scare him away by shoveling food from Urban Noodle into our noodle holes as fast as we could. Then it was off to the main event.

As soon as we got to the Downtown Independent, we saw Karen and David, and then things started spinning.  Introductions were made. Hands were shaken. Cards were exchanged. Interviews were taped. Short films were screened (including Libidoland), a quick all-female director Q&A (which we MIGHT have been a part of) was facilitated, and THEN we saw the indie feature One Hour Fantasy Girl.  Fifty percent of the proceeds from the evening went to the Downtown Women’s Center, and we were proud to be there on such a special night.

Take a look at some of the people we met:

Other great people we met included producer Saskia Wilson-Brown (Cinema Speakeasy), director Phil Calderone (“Manhaters“), actor John T. Woods (“I Fucking Hate You”), Mark Smillie (Stone Henge Productions), Michael Barnard (“A Father and Son“), Kevin Deen, and several other kind LA-ish folks.  We had a great time and wish we lived closer so that we could take advantage of these regular indie meet-ups.  If only someone would start something like this in Chicago…

Whew. That LA recap made us tired. BUT we’re not finished yet.  Check out our Kfink Escapes to LA video and read our third and final CA trip post to out what happened in our final few days in LA in. Questions answered may or may not include:

This entry was posted on Monday, August 2nd, 2010 at 4:35 pm. It is filed under FILM and tagged with Beverly Hills, David Branin, Downtown Independent, Film Courage, film courage interactive, karen worden, Libidoland, Los Angeles, One Hour Fantasy Girl, Santa Barbara. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.