Presidential Opening

Carl, as president, opens the first Coffs Harbour Short Sharp Film Festival on Saturday night. We had an audience of 250 and it all went swimmingly. Phew.

Festival Update

With only ten days to go, I think you’re due an update on the Short Sharp Film Festival.

Not much has been happening, frankly, because when we reviewed the entries the day before the closing date, we were confronted with a bunch of sausages talking about road safety and a guy with a hangover vomiting over a priest. While the latter was heavy with symbolism (possibly the former too, but it escaped me), and we did have a couple of potential winners, we didn’t feel we had enough to justify making a night of it.

In true media tradition, though, there was a flood on the last day and we seem to be in business. After viewing all the entries, two things occur.

Technology, in the form of relatively cheap cameras and editing packages, is a great enabler for people of all ages. It’s hard to see how you could have mounted a festival like this ten years ago. However, to return to an old theme, just because you can use the technology, doesn’t mean you should, unless you’ve got something to say or show. The fact that you clearly need traditional elements like inspiration and an ability to tell a story is reassuring, I think.

The exercise has afforded a fascinating and sometimes chilling insight into people’s minds, which is exactly what a creative endeavour is supposed to do. If you want to know any more, you’ll have to turn up at the screening the weekend after next.

Presidential Power

I was walking along the beach with Carl and John, looking for a spot to surf, when I was voted on to the committee of Coffs Harbour’s Short Sharp Film Festival. It’s still not clear to me exactly what I’m doing there but I appear to have agreed, so that’s that.

I have discovered that we need to tread carefully as there appears to be a question mark over the organisation of the previous film festival, which could be fatal in a small town, so we have to appear serious and responsible at all times. John, who is also on the committee, interprets this as being given black Armani suits to wear on the night, but he may be disappointed.

Carl is key to all this, of course. When I suggested he might want to run my membership past the other committee members first, he just said: “Nah, I’m the President.” Then we went surfing.

That was pretty much his last act as President, as he's since been re-titled “chair”. He says he’s used to being sat upon. It’s also sadly removed the opportunity for John and I to say, a la The West Wing, “we serve at the pleasure of the President.”

Hello, Possums

Sitting outside Coffs Harbour council chambers in the dark the other night, waiting for Sara to finish work, something moved in the bushes at the bottom of the steps. A large possum emerged, with head-lamp eyes and a huge, erect bottle-brush tail, and stalked confidently across the road to the park. He was followed shortly after by a female with a young possum clinging to her back. They didn’t brave the road, though, and on seeing me, scrambled up a palm tree.

I’ve seen possums twice before – two fighting on the roof of a bed-and-breakfast in Bangalow and one peering at me out of tree one night in Canberra.