Helping a friend... and getting into show business!

Friday night, Linda and I went to the Vaudeville Mews to act as a local liaison for Scott, filmmaker husband of one of Linda's friends. He was doing some work related to RAGBRAI, the Register's Annual Great Bike Ride Across Iowa, and needed someone to act on his behalf at the Vaudeville Mews in downtown Des Moines. Scott had registered to participate in The 48 Hour Film Project and needed Linda to draw the genre.

We, like a few others, showed up a little early and had to wait outside while final preparations were made. While we waited, we got to chat with a woman who was going to also be making a film; she and her family had spent the day at Adventureland so the kids were asleep in the car with her husband. She was looking forward to the next forty eight hours of little sleep with some concern. Fortunately, she had a writing team waiting for the specifications so she'd be able to sleep on the ride home.

The doors open and we filed in to a very dark venue. Soon, representatives of forty teams were seated and ready to draw. Four groups of ten went on stage to pull their fate from a fuzzy, black and white, leopard spotted hat. Teams reacted as desired or dreaded genres were drawn from their pool. Some of those possible were horror, drama, comedy, buddy, road, and musical / western. Scott had hoped for a road film and really did not want horror. Linda was in the last group and next to last to draw. We were both happy when horror was drawn a few places before her. She drew Fantasy, sounded okay.

After each team had drawn, the final elements were given. A character named John or Juanita Shold, a tourist, had to appear, a business card had to appear as a prop, and someone had to say "If at first you don't succeed... you know the rest."

We left the Mews and Linda phoned the information to Scott. Linda said he seemed happy but was very careful about getting the elements right. She said you could almost hear the concepts bouncing around as he asked the details over and over. Others were milling around outside the Mews, asking one another what they had drawn, wishing each other well. It was fun! We look forward to seeing the screening later this week.