"The Outdoorsmen" premiere and other things

Earlier this month I pimped a few showings of a film called The Outdoorsmen: Blood, Sweat, and Beers, which is a documentary about big dumb guys and the big dumb things they do. The Austin premiere (its theatrical premiere, in fact) was this past Thursday and it was a sold-out good time. So good, in fact, that the Alamo Drafthouse added another four screenings, beginning February 20th. (There are also screenings this weekend in NYC at the Tribeca Cinemas.) If you were there, my gratitude goes to you for showing up and supporting this splendid film -- which brings me to those "other things."

If you were paying attention to that post, you noticed that I added the disclaimer that I work for B-Side Entertainment, the company that holds the theatrical rights to The Outdoorsmen. It was my little way of disclosing the fact that, after years of work in the IT world and a year of scraping by in various stages of semi-employment, I am now working (mostly) full time in entertainment. Most of my work week will go to B-Side, a terrific Austin-based startup with some pretty ambitious goals in the world of independent film and film festivals, and some of my time will go towards promoting the Austin Film Festival, where I volunteered last year. To be making an actual (if meager) living in the film industry is something I've wanted for years now, and it's kind of surreal to finally be here.

I've been thinking about these new positions and how they fit in with Stomp Tokyo and this blog in particular. Promotions related to my employment could be perceived as an exploitation of what small audience I have, but trying to ignore the film-related projects I'll be involved with seems downright silly. I've decided that plugging AFF and B-Side projects is something I'll do here occasionally, so long as I believe in the films and programs in question, and with full disclosure each time that I work for the sponsoring organizations. Hopefully all of these things will enhance one another and everyone involved will be better off for it.

Stick around, there's cool stuff to come.