What happenned to day 1? Well, we spent it settling in, getting food, picking up our badges, a little bit of exploring, and of course bar hopping! The shuttle trip back to our hotel was longer than expected so we ended up going to bed pretty late. Unfortuntely, it's been raining here in Austin, and it is pretty gloomy to wake up to a gray sky. Nevertheless, the festival spirit is high. There are a ton of people here from all over the country. Filmmakers, designers, social media people, engineers, actors fill the streets, the movie theaters, hotels, etc. Everyone is glued to some type of tech gadget, whether it is their smart phones, iPads, or some device I have never seen before. That's the beauty of SXSW; it's filled with innovators and people using the latest innovations. In fact, some people here may be from the future. I may or may not have spotted some aliens earlier today. More on that later...

Our day began awesomely with interviewing inspirational people. Our first interview was with the independent filmmaker, Patrick Forbes, who is here with his documentary, Wikileaks: Secrets & Lies, in which Julian Assange gives his first ever interview. We talked to Patrick about many things, including how he got into documentary filmmaking, how he got Assange on the film, his favorite wiki leak, and what he thinks about the whole scandal. A journalist, Patrick was arrested in England years ago and made his first documentary following his arrest. So, he and Assange surely have surely some things in common. I don't want to give away the whole story just yet, so please stay tuned for our interview video!

After we said goodbye to Patrick, we met up with Matthew Lillard, the director of Fat Kid Rules the World, and his genuinely funny and dynamic, young cast for interviews. The best thing about this film, at least for me, is that the score was composed by Pearl Jam's legendary kick-ass guitarist Mike McCready. Considering that Eddie Vedder was my first crush and Pearl Jam my favorite band growing up, you can perhaps imagine my excitement. Unfortunately, McCready wasn't there, but we had some great conversations with the cast and the director about the film, social media, and distribution. Unable to help our geekiness, we asked everyone to describe themselves in keywords, and they did! So wait to see our round table interview video to find more about the movie, Fat Kid Rules the World, and the keywords the cast chose to describe themselves.

Well, the day is still young. We are seeing two movies tonight, Safety Not Guaranteed and Small Apartments. It's still grey outside, but this lounge is full of bright people. So, that's it for now, more later... Happy Saturday!