Things have been really quiet so far, but the police have had the riot gates out for a couple days. Main street has been being slowly blocked off in terms of parking. I went out last night and didn't really see anyone — though I'm told that most people get in opening day and jump right into things. It's only 6:15 a.m. here, so I'm just on my way down to main street where a lot of the sponsor and press tents are being set up as we speak. Screenings start at 8:30 a.m. this morning and run from 8:30 a.m. to midnight for eleven days strait.

Celebs and swag:

Most of the screenings include Q&As with the writers, directors, and/or stars, so there will be A LOT of industry people around, in addition to big names who come to support the festival and independent film. Jason Reitman and America Ferrara are among the Jurors, so will be keeping an eye out for them.

The "Day One" party is tonight at the Legacy Lounge, from 10p.m. to 1 a.m. This is one of the biggest parties, because it's on opening day and gives all the celebs and filmmakers a chance to meet up at the start of the festival. That party is officially hosted by Sundance.

Throughout the festival there are COUNTLESS parties, usually put on by production companies. I'm hitting up as many as possible. Saturday night I'm going to a party with Part 2 Pictures, the New York company that produced the documentary "The Redemption of General Butt Naked". The title sounds toungue-in-cheek, but it's actually rumored to be very powerful and at times horrific. It explores the "rebirth" of a man formerly known as "General Butt Naked", who trained and exploited children in Liberia, leading them to commit terrible acts. In some industry screenings, viewers had to leave the room because it was too disturbing. It should be a really powerful and controversial film.

For the third year in a row, Timberland is the official footwear and outerwear sponsor of the festival, with Superdy, Burton, and Samsung among other sponsors, so there should be a lot of great swag from them. The "Bing" search engine is hosting a hotspot for celeb meetups and press events—with Oprah rumored to be attending.

Two "buzz" films":

One in particular is a lot lighter fare — A new Miguel Arteta comedy called Cedar Rapids, staring Ed Helms from The Hangover and John C. Reilly. They play insurance salesmen who meet at an annual convention in cedar rapids. You may have already seen previews for it, as trailers have been playing at indie theaters around the country.

There's also a Kevin Smith horror film, which is a new genre for him. The movie is called "Red State", and its villain is a Christian fundamentalist. He's gotten attention for it by refusing to do any press interviews or discussions about it. He's also creating a buzz because he has claimed he is going to auction off the distribution rights at its Sunday night premier.

Our first full day at the Sundance Film Festival! I'm here with my friend Jimmy, a cameraperson and partner in production at Synchronicity Films.

We're staying in a studio apartment at The Canyons, a Park City resort. The bed folds out from the wall and it feels hopelessly literary. The bathroom is sweet—a walk-in shower, washer and dryer, classy architecture. The whole studio (all 3-rooms-in-one of it) radiates balance and wellbeing. We got into town yesterday night, met with friends for dinner, and crashed in the room.

Waking up to rain, Jimmy and I tried to go to the Sundance Headquarters for an early lunch. We pulled up and saw twenty to thirty cars—including two cop cars—lined up to enter the facilities. When cars started turning around, we got the scoop that there had been mudslides. The facilities were closed off for the next hour or two until the roads were clear.

Since we were out, we played around in Orem for a few hours, shopping and getting lunch at a Brazilian BBQ joint. At our first shopping locale, we mostly got necessities: Shaving cream, contact solution, etc. Our second shopping local quickly degenerated into a hot mess. We got buckets of stuff, which we justified by calling "props". To make our justification feel legit, we decided to cap off our afternoon with a sunset photoshoot.

Jimmy knew a fantastic spot to drive up and take some shots—mountains, lake, and setting sun behind us. There was a strip of yellow light partway up the clouds. I was skeptical when Jimmy said if we waited twenty minutes the sky would explode in reds, blues, purples, beaming off the lake, making fog rainbows, and setting the hazy sky on fire. He said it might even be the best sunset he'd seen yet. As a cameraperson, he films a lot of sunsets.

I wasn't sure about waiting twenty minutes. The expression in my photos was getting progressively more menacing because my feet were freezing cold and my lips were getting chapped. The sunset of our lives did happen though. It was the best I'd ever seen, too, with fire behind us and blue and purple looming on the other side, daunting blobs of shining clouds and fog and mountains and rainbows surrounding us, pushing down on us and lifting up to a sky that was cobalt blue. We got pics of it all.

I forgot that I was freezing and that Jimmy was making me stand barefoot in the snow. Last night I confided in him my fear of losing my fingers and toes to frostbite. At the time he said he would tape them back if they fell off. I found it a bad omen that he had purchased three rolls of scotch tape on our necessities run.

On our way back, the mudslide had been cleared so we made a second attempt at Sundance HQ. We sailed right in, and went to The Foundry Grill, the celeb-hotspot we had intended to go to for lunch. The festival being a full four days away, the restaurant was relatively quiet. Lots of children and families—overall a nice, chill vibe. The food was spectacular, service to match. Skiiers and boarders poured down the mountain.

Everything was lit by the full moon, and we walked out the restaurant to watch people disappear up the lifts and appear again at the bottom of the moonlit slope. How we got a sunset like we did and a shining, sparkling moon pouring light over the mountaintops, I have no idea. We definitely did not engender enough Karma to bring it on. 100% appreciated nonetheless.

On the eve of departure for Sundance, I thought it would be good to finally note the experience of my first "mainstream" film festival. In 2003, I served as the youngest accredited member of press to attain access to the Cannes Film Festival in Cannes France. I was naive, unsure of what to expect, and therefore hugely less bashful than I probably ought to have been in requesting a press pass.

I was studying at a university in Aix-en-Provence when I applied for accreditation. Aix is a small town in the south, blanketed by golden sun and the bluest skies I have ever seen. It's the hometown of painter Paul Cezanne and hosts the towering rock—Mount Saint Victoire—that Cezanne immortalized in several paintings. To explain why I even thought to apply, we'll have to step back a minute into a year earlier, when I first started working as an entertainment reporter.

It began with writing films reviews for the university newspaper at the University of Maryland. Reviews quickly—within a week—lead to interviews. My first interview was in Chicago with rapper/actor Ice Cube and comedian Mike Epps. Enjoying it, I went on to interview Viggo Mortensen, Ben Affleck, Billy Bob, Jim Carrey, Elijah Wood, Kate Winslet, Kirsten Dunst, Christian Slater, blah blah blah. I had so much fun doing it that I wanted to continue. Part of the fun probably came from how impressed my mom would get by the person I was interviewing that week. At the time, entertainment writing was a great way to write, connect with people, share stories. To a large extent, it still is all those things.

So when I left the U.S. in 2003, I discovered a wonderful world of art and history in Europe. A part of me, however, lamented the loss of connection to the thriving entertainment industry. Using my 1-hour daily allotment of internet time at the French university, I scoured the internet for a way to write, report, tell stories about movies and moviemaking. It was an epiphany when I remembered the Cannes Festival, a perfect way to keep traveling and stay involved in entertainment, to share the stories of one of the world's most prestigious and culture-filled movie festivals.

I applied in mistake-ridden French, which I rationalized would show my desire to use the French language and also maybe foster some much-needed pity on the part of the press accreditors. I don't know whether it was my misspelling of "aussi" (I opted for the australian-themed "aussie"), or my pathetic enthusiasm for entertainment events, but someone in that office in Cannes decided to take pity on my pour soul. I sent them handwritten "mal mots" and a couple interview clips with big names, and they sent along a press pass, schedule, and plentiful information. They clearly understood that I require as much information as possible to accomplish even the most rudimentary task.

The festival is conveniently located at the beginning of Summer, so when university classes ended I took the train East. I stayed for a night in Nice, with a friend who thought that sharing a studio would mean an intimate evening together. I suffered through the night, turning down every advance, and happily left him for Cannes. I had a friend in Aix whose girlfriend's friend's brother's parents owned a place just outside of Cannes. I'm not even making that genealogy up. This was a precarious arrangement at best.

I arrived at the Cannes station knowing that the son of the parents was meant to meet me there to take me to the house. Yes, I have in fact dodged death several times in my life, and arranging to meet a stranger in a French train station and getting in said stranger's car might be one of those times. But it worked out wonderfully. The parents were fabulous, I was able to attend the festival, and the parents had a daughter named Anne-Tiphaine. I have since absolutely adored that name.

The festival itself was a blast. Celebs everywhere, everyone with a general spirit of creativity, solidarity, and excitement to be exactly where they were at that exact moment in time. Celebs in the bathrooms, on the streets, in limos driving back and forth on the main drag. There were events, parties, and people having a great time. There was a lot of networking, and true connections being made.

Anyway, that's my story of getting to Cannes. Sundance was actually a lot easier, but in a way I miss that innocence and gumption that lambasted a road to the famous French festival.