LA Film Fest

I got up relatively early on Sunday morning and packed an overnight bag for the trip. My flight out was at 1:15pm, and I was meeting a friend at the airport who was also going to the film fest. We got to LA around 2:15 and picked up the rental car. They ran out of small cars, so I got a free upgrade to a PT Cruiser.

We drove up to Westwood, which was where the week-long film festival was taking place. I picked up my pass and tickets, and then we drove to the theater where the panel was going to take place. We were still early, so we hung out at a nearby Borders to stay cool, because it was friggin' hot in LA.

The panel started at 7, and we got into an informal line at around 5 (the theater itself wouldn't let us start lining up until 6). In the meantime, I had a bunch of extra tickets since I'd bought a package, and I'd managed to sell them all on Craigslist, so I had all these people meeting up with me to pick them up. I felt like a ticket scalper.

At 6pm they moved us to a formal line, and the line ended up wrapping around the block. I think the theater sat like 500 people. Needless to say, the show had been sold out weeks before.

Finally, a little after 7, they started letting us file into the building. David Duchovny and Chris Carter were out front taking pictures, and I was like 8 or 10 feet away from them. I quickly stopped and snapped a photo, which I'll post tonight. So I have now been about 20 feet away from Gillian, and 10 feet away from David. Woohoo! He looked good, better than I think he looks in the film.

So we filed into the theater, and my friend and I got pretty good seats right in the middle. It was a cute little place. They started out by showing two clips from the movie - the second one had Mulder and Scully in it - squee! - and it actually was pretty substantiative of a clip. I'm even more excited to see the film now, if that's possible. I tried to get video, but I had the camera in my lap and couldn't really see what I was filming. Turns out I'd aimed the camera too high, and my video subsequently only has about the top foot of the screen in view. Sucks.

After the clips, CC, FS and DD all came out on stage for a discussion panel. A woman from Entertainment Weekly asked them a bunch of questions and then opened it up to questions from the audience (I didn't ask any). Chris Carter is surprisingly quiet, and not necessarily quick to laugh/smile, although I don't know if that's just because he's reserved, or if it's because he's not listening, because a few times he had to ask the lady to repeat the question. David Duchovny has a fast, dry wit - it's always fun to watch him talk.

They handed out signed posters at the end of the panel. My friend and I then went to grab something to eat, and then we headed back to my hotel, where Marc was waiting for us. He found out on Friday that he had to go to LA for a meeting on Monday, so he decided to fly down Sunday night. My friend was catching a red eye flight out, so I drove her to the airport later that evening.

So this morning I caught my flight back to San Jose and drove to work. Marc's still down there for his meeting. I'm tired, but it was a great trip. :)