Good morning dear readers. Another beautiful day in Austin at SXSW. Yesterday saw some surprises the first of which came at my daily hangout in the PBS Lounge where I usually write emails and do other work related things before moving on to workshops and screenings. As I sat writing yesterday's blog post I struck up a conversation with a nice man who told me it was his first SXSW experience. We introduced ourselves, and his name was Walter Isaacson. For those of you that don't know he was the Chief of CNN and also wrote the number 1 selling biography of all time with his authorized biography, "Steve Jobs" which many of you may have read. After that I went to a workship on UAVs or unmanned aerial vehicles, or drones. I got to talk with the head of "user experience" Randy Braun and tell him about Texas Tech Public Media's upcoming documentary, "Between Earth and Sky" which we'll be filming in July in Alaska. We'll be taking a DJI Inspire drone with us and he was very interested in seeing the film afterward and doing some PR stuff around the film. Exciting stuff for us, we continue to bear TTU's banner far and wide with new connections and exciting things happening.
I went to two more panels yesterday, one was on big power in small moments in film. I learned a lot about capturing strong emotional moments even with small budgets and small stories. I also caught a panel discussion with Brian Grazer who has made billions for Hollywood in his partnership with Ron Howard and Imagine entertainment. "Parenthood", "Backdraft", "A Beautiful Mind" and "Apollo 13" are just some of his massive achievements. One interesting thing about Grazer is that he has made it a life goal to have curiosity conversations every two weeks with new and interesting people. He makes it his mission to learn from others and has chatted with writers, philosophers, poets, engineers, CIA directors, and many more people who inform his work and open his mind to new and different ideas that help guide his career. He has a book out about all of this and I found it really fascinating and inspiring.
Finally last night I went to a "work in progress" screening of "Trainwreck" the new film by Judd Apatow and Amy Schumer(her first film). It was really funny and Schumer is a star! Lebron James also had a stellar role and Bill Hader who plays opposite Schumer was fantastic. A little wonky in pacing, which I'm sure will be worked out by the actual release, I highly recommend this return to form for Apatow and what should skyrocket Amy Schumer to world wide fame.
Things usually slow down on Monday but I have a lot of panels lined up that should bear good creative fruit with workshops on 4K shooting and production, "always talk to strangers", about documentary filmmaking, and creating diverse marketing campaigns.