After the total debacle at the Boston Intl. Film Festival where they assured us they would promote and we wouldn't have to, which resulted in a screening with only TWELVE PEOPLE in it (8 of whom were involved in either our film or one of the shorts playing ahead of our film), I was determined to make sure we had a good turn out for the Rhode Island Intl. Film Festival. This is not so easy since it was a Wednesday night in August, there are over 200 films at the festival, and Providence isn't that big to begin with. With the help of my long-time Williams pal, fellow singer, and Providence resident Wayne Wilkens, I posted the screening on RISD and Brown "Daily Jolt" boards and on a cappella sites, took out a small ad in the Providence Journal, went on a local radio talk show show, bought some :10 second mentions on NPR, and hired a PA to plaster the poster and put out post-cards announcing the screening all over town. About 250 people showed up which is great. Since every theater is different, I asked the festival folks if I could test the film before the screening to make sure the audio and color were right. This was my first screening in a large theater with the new color correction and mix and I wanted the full glory of it. The film before us was running very late but they let me go in to look at the film for a moment while the crowd, anxious and sweating, waited in the lobby. But when they played the film THERE WAS NO AUDIO. They tried and tried but could not find audio anywhere on the tape. But this was my HD Cam master and I've HEARD it myself in an edit room. They let the audience in and explain there's a technical problem and I try to do a Q&A to keep people amused while the projectionist struggles to find audio. No luck. No meters moving on the machine. Not to worry, I say. I'm a good Boy Scout and I have an HD Cam clone of the film in my backpack that I hand carried out here from LA. So I scramble and get it, we put it in the machine, and it has NO AUDIO EITHER. This can't be happening. We're 40 minutes late, the audience is growing annoyed, and I have no audio. They take another film on HD Cam and put it in the machine and it plays perfectly, seemingly confirming that somehow the audio has been erased from both my tapes. As a last resort, I get a DVD from my bag [Filmmakers: let this be a lessen. Bring MULTIPLE copies and formats of your film with you to all festivals.] and we have to project DVD -- with an on-screen anti-piracy bug, no less -- for the screening. I'm dying inside as the audio and video are so inferior to HD Cam but the audience loved the movie, laughing throughout, cheering at the end. Nearly everyone stayed for Q&A and when we were thrown out for the next screening, people waited to talk to me outside, ask me questions, and even get my autograph which was hilarious. Of course, as with every step of this film, as soon as there's glory it is sure to be followed by pain. I go up to my hotel room grinning from ear-to-ear, check my email, and there's a fresh rejection from the distribution company that I most wanted to release the film. From "grinning big" to "teeth kicked in" in less than 30 seconds. Epilogue: 5 days later we were informed we won the Audience Award/Best Feature as well as a First Place for Score and Music. Second Epilogue: a few days ago I was recounting the 'audio hell' story at a facility that was helping me pull high rez stills off the HD Cam to use for publicity and the editor clicked on the audio and it was THERE PLAIN AS DAY. Somehow, the projector in Rhode Island had been set in some weird way that it didn't read the audio which was plainly on the main channels 1 and 2 all along. Go figure.