NOMFA 2010: Part One - The Way There

I left North Bay a little later than planned, my belly churning with a stew of coffee, sleeplessness and half hatched chrysalises. The Lake was nominated for editing (Kevin Hoffman) and cinematography (Patrick Gilbert and Ed Regan) at the Northern Ontario Music and Film Awards and Pat had left for Sudbury the night before to present our film to a packed house, indulge in the musical showcase, and tie one on in a fury of networking. It was my job to get Jaymee and Nicole there in one piece, and join Pat in the remainder of the day’s activities.

By the time we passed through the not-as-moon-like-as-it-used-to-be dark rocked wilderness and into Sudbury, I had already heard about the warm reception The Lake received the night before; how I could rest assured that my mug looked “pretty good” on a 50 foot screen; how Thunder Bay wanted our film for their festival; and how we didn’t have a chance against the wealth of talent at the year’s event.

For two weeks I had been reminding Pat that our surprise win the year before (in a category that included an IMAX film) might be a sign that we did have a chance – even though we were definitely the untrained amateurs of the ball...

We arrived at the Comfort Inn and quickly chauffeured the ladies out to the mall before speeding back to the hotel for the final information seminar that we had planned to attend. It was a fairly full house and we sheepishly snuck in late and slid ourselves into a row of seats at the back of the room to listen to the CEO of the NOHFC and a pair of representatives from the Ontario Arts Council tell us about available funding. Bill Plumstead was also there, but the room was mostly filled with familiar (but not really at all familiar) faces. When the talks concluded, we moved to the lobby for some networking that resulted in a failed attempt by Pat to introduce himself to Paul Stephens, one of the producers of Oliver Sherman (a film starring Garret Dillahunt, Molly Parker and Donal Logue that Pat had done some art design on), and a successful attempt to introduce myself to Mark Palumbo (after two years).

We decided to head out once we realized that time was slowly slipping by and it would be time for the award ceremony before we knew it. That and the girls were hungry so we picked them up and went for dinner at Montana’s (where we had a brief chat with my parents who had come to see the awards again). Once the girls had been successfully sequestered in the hotel room, Pat and I took a quick jaunt back across town to grab some beer, then rushed back to the hotel.

We changed quickly, chugged a drink, and made it downstairs in time to catch the shuttle over to the university where the awards ceremony would be held in the Great Hall... It was show time and things were about to kick into overtime.

Make sure you come back tomorrow for the conclusion of our thrilling 2010 NOMFA Adventure!