It Came from Lake Michigan Film Festival - Day 3 Finale

The last of the ICFLM posts.

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Sunday was the shortest day of the festival, and I decided beforehand that I'd spend nearly all of the day in the vendor area.  Kendall quickly scheduled a day full of activities and vanished into the screening rooms.  Unfortunately, he left his keyboard locked (and me without a password), so I couldn't live blog as I'd intended to.  Oh, well.  So I just had to have fun instead.

The day began with our new friend Heather moving her space from the "clown room" (the facility has a clown museum) into an empty space opposite my table.  Director Mike Conway dropped by, as did Rogue Cinema guru Duane L. Martin -- www.roguecinema.com -- and of course Mike and Carrie still occupied the booth next door.  (Many thanks to them for looking after our stuff, especially when I accidentally left the laptop unattended during a seminar!)

The last day of a show is usually pretty relaxed, with a lot of time devoted to socializing and trading products with other vendors and guests.

Sunday got off to a good start when model/actress Sofiya Mina Smirnova -- SofiyaSmirnova.com -- treated everyone in the room to brunch.  Food always seems problematic at these kind of events, and when free food and coffee shows up, it's a real blessing.  Thanks Sofiya!

A couple of people dropped by the booth to pick up books.  One was Kentuckian Nic Brown of www.bmovieman.com -- a very nice guy.  (Let me know how you liked the book!)

I also had a nice talk with two of the Living Dead Girls, Shamika and Julie -- who are a kind of zombie dance troop.  They have me half convinced that I should make Live Journal the main page for my blogs.  (What do the rest of you think?)  It was also nice when they were shocked to discover I began working professionally in publishing in 1980.  Us "old" guys like it when pretty girls think we're younger than we really are.  (Of course, I'm still very young at heart.)

I finally remembered to bring a camera on the last day, so if I end up doing a blog that supports pictures, y'all will be able to see what many of my new friends look like.  (The picture where Heather towers above Kendall and me -- did I mention she's 6' 1" in her stocking feet? -- is pretty amazing.)

The best part of the day was getting to trade merchandise with my new friends.  I'm particularly happy to have copies of two of Heather's films -- Samurai Terror, and The Awakening.  I hope she enjoys the books she got from me as much as I know I'll like the flicks.

Ending an event like this always brings a mixture of relief and sadness -- it's hard to say goodbye to friends, but it's always nice to get out of the hustle and bustle and back home.  Kendall had another great day of movies and seminars -- and I hope to persuade him to blog about the whole experience some time.

I plan to return to the festival next year, though I'm not sure I'll have a booth again.  Maybe I'll just go and watch films.  :-)

This year's ICFLM was a great step forward from last year's premier show.  Any troubles they had can be attributed largely to growing pains, and I'm sure that the third annual show will be even better.  Big thanks to Wayne Clingman, Bill Zenobia and all the other people who worked so hard to make this festival a success.

See you next year!

And, hey, if you've gotten these bulletins and aren't already a member, please consider signing up for my main Yahoo group.  Details can be found at -- www.stephendsullivan.com

And, lucky me, I got home just in time to see the Red Sox win the World Series.  Considering I spent the first 40+ years of my life thinking my beloved Sox would never win, a 2nd title is another amazing and unexpected gift.

Hope to see you all soon.

-- Steve Sullivan, October 29, 2007