Fast Forward

• Early birds: parking galore in Park City before 9am
• Wi-Fi is hit-or-miss outside lounges and libraries, which are sure things
• Political groups and activists counter some of the celebrity gossip
• Bistro 412's upstairs bar and Java Cow's back room offer escapes from the crowd
• Everyone's shooting video; only a select few beam it up to YouTube on location (like your's truly)
• Buy tickets in advance or risk waiting in the cold for hours for a few spare tickets
• Staying in Salt Lake City and trucking it to Park City is rare; look for rooms at the small cities along the main highway instead
• People come for to sell-out their movies, to cheerlead their friends' movies, to hawk their next movie, to report back to everyone else, or to ski and be about their own business
• Most if not all parties are exclusive, rarely dealing with tickets and almost always dealing with influence
• Enjoy the historical downtown: walk instead of taking the crowded bus every time
• Sundance volunteers are amazing: informed, friendly, and dedicated
• If you're not at Sundance on business, prepare to find like-minds within the first couple days, follow them around with leads on this party or that screening, and consider shacking up or sleeping in the tub
• Flyers that are passed out, involve condoms, or are well-designed get word-of-mouth attention, but might not translate into warm seats
• Celebrity sightings are daily, if not hourly
• There's not quite any experience like Sundance: the sidewalks overflow, the films you pick are instead of five others that might be the next big thing, and you're often in the wrong place at the wrong time
• As a filmmaker, you're going to leave inspired, discouraged, and/or exhausted

Pack the trunk, check the oil, and hit the gas. You've got a screening to make upstate, and you're bringing the film, the projector, and the independent spirit.

Jay Craven, a Vermont film director, screenwriter, and professor of Film Studies at Marlboro College, is digging deep roots by traveling far. Interviewed today on NPR's All Things Considered (listen now at NPR.org), they talked about packing community theaters — screening his films, which have included Michael J. Fox and Kris Kristofferson, working for free or for scale — where he knows his audience is. Like our post on "Cinema Alfresco" last July, hat's off to taking it to the community.

The Academy Award nominee for Magnolia and Boogie Nights, and Best Director winner at Cannes for Punch-Drunk Love, took his chances with teasing There Will Be Blood on YouTube. Viral buzz ensues.

On the Friday in June 2007, director Paul Thomas Anderson uploaded a trailer of his yet-to-be-released film. After a note to Ain't It Cool News, and by one day's time, the tenacity of bypassing studio oversight turned into the "YouTube incident of 2007," notes Anderson in an interview in the Los Angeles Times this weekend:

While editing the movie last summer, Anderson decided to enliven things by cutting a trailer, which he posted on YouTube. The simplicity of the process — not dealing with the studio or the Motion Picture Assn. of America — was "like a filmmaker's fantasy."

"And the studio went nuts," he said, smiling about his mischief.

"We put it up on Friday and I remember they called on Saturday morning at 6 a.m.: 'Do you know there's this thing on YouTube?' I said, 'Yeah, we put it there.' They were like, 'What the hell are you doing? Are you mad?' "

The trailer's warm reception pacified the executives, Anderson said, and ever since "There Will Be Blood" has ridden a wave of good publicity and honors, including a Golden Globe nomination for best drama.

The unique trailer direct from Anderson via YouTube has been seen over 435,500 times:

Two weeks ago, the same "channel" had a midnight movie screening promo to stir up the buzz again for There Will Be Blood.

Meanwhile, the film's studio, Paramount Vantage, "leaked" the screenplay (PDF) in October — two month before the film's release, giving guild members and anyone else a rich-media overview of their projects.

There Will Be Blood started in limited release (read: 2 theaters) on December 26, 2007. On January 4, it went into 51 theaters, abuzz with attention and packing 3pm screenings on days like today.

Also web-savvy: P. T. Anderson fan site, Cigarettes and Red Vines, notes the production had a photo blog site. Today, only an Archive.org copy has a record of littlebostonnews.com before it turned into a trailer jump-page.

(There Will Be Blood poster is by Concept Arts.)