Towards the end of our conversation at Filmmaker’s Lodge, editor Jason Stewart happened to mention that he was hyper-organized. I’d already figured that out.

Stewart cut the Robin Williams’ picture World’s Greatest Dad for Bobcat Goldthwait premiering today at the Library. Look at this photo on the right: it’s the meticulous storyboard that earned Stewart an initial look of bewildered suspicion from Goldthwait (“who wastes this kind of time?�). But Stewart says Goldthwait caught on after about five minutes and was soon converted to the Way of The Wall.

The idea is directly stolen from Walter Murch’s book “Blink of an Eye� (which Stewart read last summer), and other people do it. But as a 10-year-veteran editor it was Stewart’s first time and that’s what matters. He describes a modern twist on Murch’s process: he assembled about 350 still frames in the Avid to represent all the scenes and printed them out at Kinko’s; he built a wood and canvas frame to hold them and bought a jumbo box of bullnose clips to hang them up. When he gets to the part about using the Avid titling tool to label each still, I flash on those people who label all the stuff in their garage with P-touch machines (me). more

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

Park City’s been overcast and gray since Day 1, but this morning a brilliant platinum light tore a hole in the endless cloud cover and ignited the overlooking Wasatch peaks, back-lighting a sparkly veil of glassy no-see-ums, tiny ice crystals too delicate to form flakes, that danced on wafts of air until they melted in my face.

Yes, I admit the night before I’d seen Academy-award nominee (Taxi to the Dark Side) Alex Gibney’s latest masterwork, Gonzo, the Life and Work of Dr. Hunter S. Thompson, but I deny any pharmaceutical inspiration, at least this early in the morning, as I stop before the Yarrow Hotel to marvel at this floaty, twinkly, sun-lit scrim. Inside the Yarrow a press screening of Morgan Spurlock’s latest saga-in-cheek, Where in the World is Osama Bin Laden?, is almost underway, and I race into the theater to find a seat just as the lights fall.

Both docus, I’m happy to report, are polished to high theatrical sheen with eye-catching graphics, animated illustrations (the great Ralph Steadman in Gonzo), and well-crafted high-definition cinematography (D.P. Maryse Alberti in Gonzo). Both acquaint audiences with past and present avatars of U.S. politics: the tragic George McGovern, smarmy Richard Nixon, idealistic Jimmy Carter (Gonzo); the hubristic tag team of W. and Osama (Where in the World…). Both deserve and will likely obtain limited theatrical runs (though Sundance 2008 has been notably short of acquisitions so far). more

The Creative Coalition is holed up in Park City shooting various types of celebrity-delivered messages to fuel the Hallmark Channel’s “Watch With Me” campaign that supports television programming events which provide family viewing opportunities. (See examples on the Hallmark Channel website) The Coalition is getting footage at two locations in town from 11:00am to 4:00pm on Jan 19th and 20th.

On the second floor of the Treasure Mountain Inn Marvin Dorson, senior vice president of creative services at the Hallmark Channel is supervising the promotional video shoots for the “Watch With Me” campaign–acquiring footage with a Panasonic Varicam fitted with a Fujinon 22×7.8 BERM lens all supported on Sachtler sticks. The head-on footage is captured at 30fps and will be edited post-Park City on an Avid with certain cut-in graphic elements, then outputted for various online, DVD, and possibly television uses. more

Independent filmmaker Jacob Rosenberg is sharing his wealth of experience with Premiere Pro in the Adobe/HP hands on session at New Frontier on Main. Under Rosenberg’s tutalage, participants are getting a chance to test drive Adobe Creative Suite 2/Production Studio on HP xw4400 Workstations. He’ll no doubt cover new Production Suite features you might have heard of such as Cliff Notes and Dynamic Link–and if he doesn’t you can ask him about it after. more

Right after the opening press conference, the crowd crossed the street to the New Frontier on Main venue for the opening reception. Over the past several years, this venue became the place to see demos of digital production tools, panel discussions on technical topics, various filmmaking workshops, and the online shorts festival.

Last year, the venue got classy lighting and décor. This year it has changed even more dramatically, with a DJ, a Krups coffee bar and video art installations mixed among the technology demos, panels and workshops. It also has a mission: Sundance describes it as a place that “celebrates the convergence of film and art as an emerging hotbed for new ideas and experimentation.” At the reception, Redford talked about artists who were using new technology and the moving image to explore new concepts of narrative structure. more