Thursday, May 06, 2010

Way Out West

My poor blog has been feeling somewhat neglected of late! I've been travelling you see, with not much access to the internet, I'm currently suffering from withdrawal symptoms, so needed a fix! Luckily I've landed somewhere I have some access!

As you know I've been travelling. Newport Beach, as reported below, a great fest with a continuing great responce to the film. From Newport Beach and a couple of days in LA I flew to Denver where I met my wife and daughter, which has been the highlight of the trip so far, watching them walk through the gate and have my little daughter recognise me imidiately and give me a huge smile and a riggle of excitment was better then any premiere!

We hung out in Denver for a few days, which was fun, among other things I screened 140 at the Starz Film Centre for the Denver Film Society. It went really well. Good crowd and the film was warmly recieved. There was a long Q&A afterwards with Ron Henderson. People were intrigued and fascinated about the film and the idea behind it. So that was fun.

Following that we met my wife's parents and drove from Denver to Bozeman in one day. That's a 14 hour drive, so you know, that goes through Colorado, Wyoming and into Montana. It wasn't too bad I must say, in terms of length. We broke it up well enough, taking a break every two hours or so and stopping for meals. We stopped in Cheyenne and bought Irish Whiskey! We drove along to original Oregon Trail, where you can actually still see some of the old wagon tracks. We passed through Laramie, Little Big Horn, the site of Custars infamous battle, the hide out of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, as well as the Crow Nation Indian reservation.

It got a bit hairy as we drove out of Billings. A rain storm came out of nowhere and got stronger the further we drove. It was dark by now and as we moved toward Bozeman to enter the Bozeman Mountain pass the rain got heavier, the wind bullied the car and in the dark distance lightening crackled on the horizon. We were in the 13th hour and tired. It wasn't a pleasent experience. But thanks to the solid driving of Maryann's Dad we were fine and came out the other side unscathed. Having left Denver at 9:30am we pulled into my wife's parents house at 11:30pm... exhausted! But happy!

Today I'm meeting with one of the lecturers of the film department of the Montana State University (MSU) to chat about all things film in Montana and elsewhere state side. I had hope to have a screening here in Bozeman, but my contact here seems to have disappeared, so nothing is set unfortunately. Too bad.

While I was traveling my kickstarter account reached it's target, which is fantasic, so my sincerest and heartfelt thanks to everyone who supported it and the film!

Well, that's been my western adventure so far. I'm looking forward to getting home next week and getting back to work - not before a long rest though, a pint in Clarkes!

Talk soon!

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Technically, the drive should have been more like 11 - 12 hours, had it not been for the weather and the numerous stops for food and booze. :) Hee hee, but it was fun anyway and great that most of the day was sunny and clear!

Frank W. Kelly said...

True, wouldn't been as much fun if we'd had the weather at the end for the entire day!