One year ago at the Wild Goose Festival…

That’s when we first screened Hellbound? in public. It was an inauspicious beginning. About 40 people–and two pigs–turned up for the 11pm showing of what was billed as a “mystery item” in the schedule. It took place in a tent with fireflies occasionally flickering across the screen.

I was pretty tense seeing as it was going to be shown in standard definition instead of Blu-ray, and I wasn’t confident of the quality. More importantly, three members of my cast–Frank Schaeffer, Michael Hardin and Brian McLaren–were going to see it there for the first time. In public. So if they wanted to strangle me afterwards, they would have to seize a moment when the crowd dispersed.

Thankfully, no one felt the need to commit bodily harm against me afterwards. (Either that or they couldn’t find me in the dark.) In fact, the overall reaction was quite positive. Even the pigs issued a grunt of approval from time to time. And as it turns out, my concerns about screening it in standard def were unfounded. It turned out to be a blessing in disguise seeing as I later discovered the sound on our Blu-ray disc was out of sync.

One year later, I find myself deep into production on a documentary that I “accidentally” started filming about two months ago. Where will I be one year from today? Only the pigs know for certain…