As some of you may already know, I was one of many people featured in Melody Gilbert's documentary Urban Explorers: Into the Darkness. If you enjoyed my post about my trip into the rocket engine silo in the FL everglades then you will certainly enjoy the film. My portion of it mostly focuses around my trip into the silo and a bit of other assorted geekery.This past week it made the "New and
Noteworthy" section on iTunes under documentary films, right next to Werner Herzog's Encounters At the End of the World (which was totally great too). So go on over to iTunes and check it out.Participating in the creation of the film was a pleasure and I got to know Melody, some of her crew, and other explorers from around the country. The film itself is pretty great, it's definitely one of the most realistic and honest documentaries on the subject I've seen. I think that mostly has to
do with Melody's style of allowing the subjects to tell the story themselves without introducing her own narrative to it, it's all genuine, from Slim Jim's quirkiness to the social interactions in the Parisian catacombs.After the film was completed I got to
participate in a handful of the screenings in the festival circuit which were always great. I really enjoyed doing Q+A and talking to the audience, and even met a few people I later went exploring with at the Boston Underground Film Festival screening. You can see a photo from one of the screenings above as well as a shot of myself with Melody and Charlie Gerszewski (editor for the film) at Cinequest in San Jose, where after winning the favor of the hotel bartender and having a few too many free beers, I ended up talking trash about some of the other film productions and nearly getting into a fight or two. Good times indeed.