Long story short, the festival is rough. Tons of bad work that lacks emphasis, narrative density and other very depressing things. In the midst of this, looking at my film on a bad projector with bad sound a few lessons finally settled in. Anybody back at CalArts, take this to heart! Make a SHORT film, ten minutes or less. Turns out the world doesn't care about your vision if it isn't disciplined. If its loose, its going to get walked on. I'm taking some heavy shots and I thought I'd done OK. I was wrong. The films that are getting love here are short and too the point. All the spacious, moody films look like junkers next to those.