Starz Denver Film Festival

Volunteer work at the Starz Denver Film Festival, 2007

The 2007 Starz Denver Film Festival has come and gone.  This year’s festival was the most fun I’ve had at a festival.  It was not the four films I saw, but instead the volunteer work I did in support of the festival.  For the record, the films I saw were Juno, Grace is Gone, Clint Eastwood: ALife in Film, and August Rush.

Each year the Denver Film Society sends an e-mail to its membership calling for volunteers to work at the festival.  Last year I worked “program distribution”.  That’s a one evening affair where one delivers the “film guide” to local businesses.  This year I repeated my support of program distribution and added being a festival driver and working theater operations.

I was told again and again how much fun driving was and how drivers return year after year.  Well, it was pretty fun.  A local dealership donates cars to the festival.  One arrives for the shift and is issues a cell phone, a car, petty cash for gas, and a driver’s identification badge.  Depending upon when and what’s happening during the shift, one may simply drive between the Film Center and local hotels.  Each evening there is some celebration or party – evening shift drivers transport filmmakers and patrons from the Film Center to the location of that evening’s event.  Other shifts involve running to the airport to pick up or drop off someone for a flight.  Those drives are fun because the drive is long enough for a real conversation to take place. 

I drove three shifts.  I planned to drive six shifts, but my paying job interfered with three of those shifts.  In those three shifts, I transported a sponsor, a few staff members, and over a dozen filmmakers.  Probably the most interesting drive was taking a group of filmmakers and their festival host to a local bar after the regular festival activities were complete for the evening. 

I think the most fun drive was driving a particular filmmaker from his hotel to the evening event.  This particular artist was the screenwriter and star of American Fork, Hubble Palmer.  While my assignment was to take Mr. Palmer to the evening’s event, I was asked by the transportation department to stop by the film center for another person that would join us going to the event.  It turns out that that person hopped into another car and was already gone when we arrived at the film center.  Anyway, this gave Mr. Palmer and me a chance to talk.  What a nice person he is – outgoing and ready to meet new people and have a conversation.  We talked about films I liked and why I was working the festival and similar things.  We talked a little about his film – it sounds interesting.

I also had a very nice conversation with the director of an animated short – her name is Becky James and her film is Snake (2007).  I took her and Mr. McCollum (Director of Milk in the Land: Ballad of an American Drink (2007)) to the airport and there was an interesting conversation about animation, different art forms, and the difference between “comic books” and “graphic novels”.  It was made clear to me that they are the same thing and that the serious author knows that they are, and is proud to be, creating a comic book – not the make-it-like-it-is-something-else “graphic novel”.

Theater operations was also fun as I was able to see many people on their way to see films.  There was a lot more interaction, but much less time with each person.  American Fork was playing that evening and Mr. Palmer was there – he gave me a warm greeting and returned to thinking about how his film might be being received as it played.  It was like the scene in Finding Neverland where Mr. Barrie sneaks a peek at the audience, worried that they will not like his play.

It is interesting that so much was presented to me on how much fun driving would be.  I found my single evening of theater operations just as enjoyable as the driving.  I am honestly already looking forward to doing both things again next year.  It was a lot of fun!  If you live in the Denver Metro area, I strongly recommend that 1) you join the DFS, and 2) help out during next year's festival.