TFPF Tour '08: Dallas

I wrapped up my 5-day tour of the Metroplex Monday night with a TFPF workshop at the KERA offices in downtown Dallas, home of both the NPR station and the PBS station for Dallas. Bart Weiss of the Video Association of Dallas was again my local liaison and a good crowd came out for the event. My celebrity guest was David Lowery, a DFW-area filmmaker (and tireless blogger), who has gotten two TFPF grants over the years, the most recent last year for his new feature ST. NICK, which just finished shooting this February. We went through his project description, budget and other materials pretty thoroughly and also looked at the video sample he submitted, the festival-hopping short film A CATALOG OF ANTICIPATIONS (which also just picked up an Honorable Mention and the just-concluded AFI Dallas Film Festival). He was also nice enough to screen a 4-minute clip of ST. NICK, which he is currently editing. The clip was beautifully shot, entirely wordless, and definitely whet my appetite for more. Hurry up, David!

A couple people who helped David make ST. NICK came out to the workshop to see the footage - Clay Liford and Adam Donaghey, both film-types and bloggers themselves. Check out Adam's recent post which includes some pretty hilarious pics from a short film Clay made over the weekend entitled MY MOM SMOKES WEED. This one in particular cracks me up every time I look at it:

A couple more folks from this particularly tight-knit group of DFW filmmakers showed up for the post-workshop bite-and-a-drink gathering at the Meridian Room - Yen Tan & James Johnston. James I mentioned before as my gracious host in Fort Worth; Yen, like David, also got some kudos from AFI Dallas recently - his new feature CIAO got Honorable Mention in the Texas film category.

The Meridian is where we went last year right after the workshop and I was compelled to order their delicious Flemish Beef Stew and sweet potato fries again. Why buck a tradition when it's just starting?