Sundance Film Festival
By
Monday. Feb 27, 1:51 PM
(Part one) Greetings from Sundance: the life of a tired-ass freelancer!

So here I am at Sundance. I have a love/hate relationship with this festival! As an entertainment producer with a decade of experience in the biz, it's a great opportunity. BUT, as with anything that gets too commercial and full of itself, it gets harder every year to just show up and cover the damn thing.

For those of you who wanna think that the whole high school clique thing goes away once you're grown… I can't lie to ya, boo. It gets worse with every year, and just takes on a different uglier face. Enter the cretins running the SFF press office. Nuff said.

For the past several years, I've worked the festival for a national network. In fact, it took me two years of cold-calling the entire building and straight-up making a pest of myself to get here. A sweet gig that makes me the envy of my local TV peers? Yeah, except for the fact that they always wait until at least a day into the festival to tell me exactly which interviews they want and which “target demo” they're speaking to this year.

After no return phone calls. I call my network cohorts first thing Saturday morning before the sleep’s out of my eyes and my ‘fro’s lookin’ right. Yep, a good two days into the festival, they should be ready by now. They cheerfully inform me that their budget is a fraction of what we agreed on, and I will have to haul ass in the field. What?! You need interviews with all of the stars and directors of the “target demo” movies to air for Tuesday?

Why didn’t I have the good sense to marry up while I had the chance?

So here I am, getting “beat up” in the field. My wish list this year: Beastie Boys, Rosario Dawson, any really good band in a small venue, and to get through this thing with my indie spirit in tact. Wish me luck.
festival.sundance.org

Alana Yorn

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