Park City’s weather continues its upswing, with optimistic blue skies, blinding daylight that makes snow banks dazzle like Hollywood teeth, and thin, icy mountain air that invigorates exposed skin and reveals your every breath.

No matter how good the films—and they are good this year–after being cooped up in the gloom of flickering shadows all day, a shot of cold air to the face is as bracing as a shot of strong spirits would be. Good thing, because the latter is a delicacy in Mondo Utah, where buying a round requires temporarily joining a club, usually for the duration of the imbibing.

Sundance is the ultimate temporary club membership, ten days of pretending that the world revolves around a resort festival of small films with limited commercial appeal. Where, absurdly, festival volunteers must shout, “Please turn off your Blackberries!” as the lights dim.

Not your Treos, your Motorolas, your iPhones… tellingly Blackberries are the official mobile communication tool of Hollywood, whose flying monkeys monitor Sundance premieres while compulsively stealing glances at their email in the dark—or is it the other way around? Do they really expect to find box office champions here? more

The panel put on by Slamdance actually featured mostly Sundance filmakers, seating American Son director Neil Abramson, The Wackness and Wind and the Water DP Petra Korner, The Wackness co-producer Brian Udovich, Real Time director Randall Cole (the only Slamdance film represented), and Sundance short Adventures of Baxter & McGuire: The Boss director Mike Blum.

The panel mostly focused on distribution and how the individuals came to be filmmakers–most participants stating Sundance is the biggest boom on the path towards distribution. No surprise there.

The most interesting story of how a filmmaker came to be was the evolution of Neil Abramson, a South African native who found his love for the art by sneakily snapping photos of police brutality during Apartheid.

However, as expected with Kodak being the presenting sponsor, the discussion did turn toward film versus HD/video acquisition. Below are some notes on each panelist’s take on the issue: more

I find Post Logic colorist Doug Delaney at 5pm, almost exactly 12 hours after he put the last flourish on Adventures of Power and pushed send on the print. He’s multi-tasking coffee and laundry; he’s had plenty of the one and run out of the other. Most of the people who work on the films here spend months if not years (even decades) of their lives on the projects. The DI colorist gets a few intense weeks in that special antechamber to reality where everyone shares the stressful truth: the movie will be finished, and soon. more