So we came to the final day of Everything Is Festival, the final night didn’t start until 6.30PM, so I had a lazy day not really doing anything except hitting a few stores near Cinefamily to look for Dickies trousers in weird colours, which produced zero results.

The final night of the festival was a double bill of Rob Schrab & Dan Harmon’s Found Crap plus the documentary The Search For Weng Weng. It was a strange feeling walking into Cinefamily for possibly the last time, over the last 5-days it’s become home and I’ve tried to take in as much as possible and to join in everything here. I can remember our last night at the Alamao Drafthouse, Austin and feeling quite sad about it going away, but this time around I actually felt really fine, i’s had such a great time and met so many great people that it felt like having being here was actually the start of something, not the end.

I wasn’t sure what to expect for the Found Crap, I know this has been a regular fixture if the festival over the years, but wasn’t sure what to expect. One of the many things that’s been great about the festival is that every show is different in format and style, so this one had a different format as well. Turns out that the Found Crap is a mix tape style show, with all the amazing clips cut together into one roughly 40-minute experience, which is added to by Rob keeping a mic and chiming in once in a while, he’s also got a laser pointer which is used hilariously to highlight additional oddities through the clips. This was a great comp and showed some great obscurities along with some great clips from more familiar films, including a great use of footage from Lethal Weapon 2. 

Then is was back into the patio for one last time, to chat with everyone and just enjoy the evening, what’s great is that I keep getting introduced to people and they’re always so cool. Got talking to a UK guy about how great Alex Cox’s intros to Moviedrome used to be and how no one in the USA knew about them, so he was super glad to chat to me about how he still had them on VHS here in LA, so great.

it was funny that the closing film was The Search For Weng Weng, I’d had numerous chances to watch this in London, but for one reason or another I’d kept missing it, which turned out for the best as I’d now get to see it as the final film of the festival. The doc was great, I’m a big fan of when someone sets out on a quest to uncover some previously unknown story. Enjoyed this a lot and it’s style, subject and ethos was the perfect way to finish the festival.

I wasn’t sure if anything was happening after the final film, but it turned out the patio was still open and that they needed as much help as possible to box up the 8000 Jerry Maguire VHS tapes that had been turned into a huge sculpture out the back. It was really quite surreal to help out doing this and to see so many people walking around with all these Jerry VHS tapes! It took a while but we finally managed to get everything boxed up and stored out the back of the cinema. They asked if anyone was free the next day to help load the boxes into a van, guess who’s free? ME! Yes so I’m heading back there later today to help Rem Lazar load everything up, it’ll be fun to be back at Cinefamily for one more time.

So that was the end of the Festival, but not the end of my holiday, I’m going to keep writing these over the rest of the week, until I get back home. I was originally planning on heading to San Francisco over these last 4 days, but I hadn’t actually planned anything for this, it was more an idea, yesterday when I looked at prices for flights, hotel etc I realised it was going to cost me a lot more then I expect, so I’ve decided to stay here in LA, there’s a lot of cool people here who want to meet up over the next few days, so there’s actually a lot happening! 

I’ll write more about how I feel about the festival and my time here later on, but I will say it’s been amazing and so incredibly worth coming out for this, Cinefamily is so great, the festival is so fun and everyone has been so welcoming and made me feel so at home, it’s so good. An extra big thanks has to go to Merritt from Cinefamily for being the ultimate volunteer and looking after me so well and Everything Is Terrible’s Dimitri for being a total gentleman all the way through the festival, including the time he suggested taking me to a strip bar.

I also have a new ambition, I want nothing more than to put on a show somewhere and have Dimitri and Evrim co-host it together, it would be the ultimate, they’re both so great at being hosts, I’d just love to see that happen!

So this was the big one, today was the Found Footage Battle Royale – I’ll cut straight to the chase and let you know that I went out in the first round, my clip didn’t play well at all, hardly getting any laughs. 

But before I get to the details here’s a quick look at what else happened yesterday. First up was The Death Of Superman Lives, we got a long intro from the director, then an extended 20-minute preview clip, followed by a long Q&A session. the documentary looked great and featured a load of costume design video footage,  this should be really interesting when it comes out. After that is was Handmade Puppet Dreams, which featured a great compilation of recent puppet short films, all of which we’re incredibly well put together. Then we had Kyle Mooney & Nathan Fielder’s YouTube Treasures, which was so funny, we had both of them take us through some of their favourite YouTube obscurities, I’d never seen any of these before, they’d uncovered some amazing finds.

Then it was time to do battle in the Found Footage Battle Royale, which turned out to be a lot simpler than I thought it was going to be. We all got lined up and Dimiti introduced us one by one, the house was packed by the way, every single seat gone. I got the microphone to say Hi when I was introduced, so great that Dimitri said me coming over was very special indeed! Then with everyone lined up against the far wall the clips commenced, they played one clips from all sixteen contestants, when it came to my one I was really excited, but as it went on no one was laughing with it, it got a few laughs he and. There, but just didn’t play well, the odd thing is that I’m used to introducing my clips and giving it some context, here they just play cold, with the audience having no idea what’s coming. 

Then after all the clips we’re played the judges huddled together and decided who would go through the next round, and that was it, I was out! Which is fine, but I’d have loved to go through to the next round, but it just wasn’t to be this time around. So the battle continued and more people got cut as it went on, the clips we’re so good though, it was such a wild mixture of different things, not knowing what’s coming next really adds to the unexpected craziness of the night.

One of the great things about the night talking to the other contestants, everyone was so great and into it, it was so good to meet and chat with people who I’d only known by an online name. Also the atmosphere in the room is incredible, that really added so much to it.

And then it was all over, I had such a great time, yes I’d have loved to have gone further, maybe if I had my clips I’m a different order I’d have lasted longer, but I was only really there for the fun and it was such a great night. After that we all headed for the back patio and talked and laughed well into the night, it was just so much fun!

So the second day of Everything Is Festival was an evening event, leaving me free during the day, so I did one of my all time favourite things – going to the cinema. I headed down to the Searchlight to catch two new releases: As Above So Below and The November Man. Sad to report that they’re both average, As Above does have some good ideas, but didn’t grab me, while November Man just seemed to be made up of lots of  SHOUTING! Top marks though the Arclight for having an introduction from a member of staff and asking everyone to keep their phone etc off and not to talk.

Then I took the massive walk from the Arclight to Cinefamily, it wasn’t as hot today but I’m still having to drink so much water, plus now my arms have gone very brown.

This being my second night at Cinefamily I now know the deal on how things work and could take the time to look around and enjoy the place. First up of the two shows tonight was Most Outrageous Video Games 2014, which I’d really been looking forwards to, though you could actually say that about everything happening this weekend. But before that started I was given a seat upgrade by one of the super helpful and friend staff in the screen, man sitting in the sofas is so good! 

The show was great, I knew some of the things that showed, but there was a lot I’d never seen before including some horrific looking Atari Porn games from the 1980s. Also loved the conversational presenting, more like hanging out with people and sharing things. There was a really funny collection of game glitches, a look at rip off games, including a very similar Pac Man rip off called Munchy. 

Then is was back into the patio area out back for more drinks and chat, this time around I spent a while talking with the great Commodore Gilgamesh, who proved to be totally cool and gave me some great advice about something very important, which if it comes off will benefit all of you Duke Warriors out there! 

Then back in for show two, Beyond The Mind’s Eye, which is a 1990s CGI music trip video, here given a brand new score by three current electronic artists, all of which performed live tonight at the show. Now I know I’d not seen this before, but I have a sneaky suspicion that I might have sold loads of copies of this in the video store back in the 1990s, if it wasn’t this then it was something with a very similar cover.

This was a fairly short show which meant the main activity ended earlier than I expected, so I hung out for a bit afterwards and then headed home for what I thought might be an earlier night. But when I got back we ended up listing to a load of the seven inch singles I’d picked up in Amoeba yesterday, so once again I’m writing this at 2AM! Tomorrow is a super busy day, with the first show starting at 11.45AM and going through until probably 2AM, I can’t wait for it all!