COVID Dystopia screened of the first day of the Iowa Independent Film Festival. That evening there was a party for filmmakers at The Boulevard (1311 Bayou Road Clear Lake Iowa).
After COVID Dystopia screened I was approached by a crew of 5 filmmakers who had a music video in the festival. Their music video Infinite Battleground was about two men struggling to balance work with their passion for music. The production is as dark and sinister as my own film, so we hit it off. Director Kristopher J. Gathercoal is in my sketch holding a beer. He wasn’t actually playing pool but I put him in as the second player to fill out the scene. The drummer hooked me up to the groups Through the Darkness youtube page. One of their music videos featured a sketch of a classroom and he wanted me to check it out.
Most of the filmmakers crowded into a back room consuming flat bread and drinks while chatting. The seating arrangement made it so that you would stay with on click the whole time. Since I had to plan to eat indoors, I decided instead to sketch the music video filmmakers as they played pool. The pool table I drew had a definite slant to is so that the balls always rolled to one corner. After two games at that table they switched to the table to my right. I had to get up a couple of times to allow for clean shots. One played became unbeatable once he had a few drinks. He explained that the buzz made him focus extra hard. It was a fascinating use of beer to promote zen.
The bar owner came up to me while I was sketching to talk. He was also a graphic designer and had designed the blue and gold mural on the wall. He was quite pleased that I was sketching it. He took a few pictures as I sketched.
At the awards ceremony, the filmmakers from Infinite Battleground sat next to me in the back row. Their film was nominated for best music video and my film COVID Dystopia was nominated for best animated film. I had no expectations, but they had been at this festival multiple times before and were looking forward to their first win. I was pleased that a good chunk of the intro to my film was played. That was the most eyeballs to view my film in Iowa. I think there were about 22 people in the theater when the film first screened, but this theater was packed for the awards ceremony, so there were hundreds of eyeballs. I paused my sketching when the winner for best animated film award was about to be announced. My fountain pen snapped in half and a big blob of ink splashed on to the sketch. I got distracted and tried to clean up the mess.