Back from Phoenix: The Festival Report

I’m back from Phoenix, and as promised, here’s the report on how it went.

The Screening

Shelf Life screened at the AMC Arizona Center to a small audience. The festival was more modest in scale than I anticipated - intimate would be a kind way to describe it.

The festival itself was smaller and less formal than I expected. It was more of a gathering than the curated event I’d imagined. But that ended up not mattering as much as seeing the work on screen.

In my last newsletter, I said I was nervous about how the film would land. The audience was small - about a dozen people - and they responded with the same polite applause to most films in the lineup. So I couldn’t gauge specific audience connection the way I’d hoped. But that turned out not to matter as much as I thought it would.

What I Learned

The most valuable part was seeing the film on a theater screen. The aesthetic choices I worried about - the storybook illustration style, the intentional roughness, the non-photorealistic visuals - they all translated well in that context.

The film was unique. Nothing else in the lineup looked or felt like it, and I mean that in a good way. The humor landed, the pacing held, and those “rough edges” I was nervous about actually made sense on a big screen.

Seeing that the creative decisions held up outside of my editing software was the validation I needed.

DESCENT

I ended up not attending DESCENT’s screening. It was scheduled late on the second night, and I decided to conserve energy after the first day.

The Takeaway

I said in my last post that I’d bet on story over shine. Seeing the film in that context, I think that bet paid off. Not in terms of overwhelming audience reaction, but in terms of the work holding together as a coherent piece.

That’s what I went to find out, and I got my answer.

What’s Next

I’m thinking about what’s next for this Substack and my work more broadly. I’m interested in exploring different kinds of stories and may shift focus in the coming months.

More on that when I’ve figured it out.

Thanks for following this journey.

Best,
C.E.