Under the Hood at Sundance

From the Dec. 04 edition of the New York Times ...

"EVERY film is seen in its entirety by at least one person, often more. Sundance employs more than a dozen people to go through the features, and then to write a report that rates them on a scale from 1 to 5. (Mr. Gilmore says he tries to get these screeners to distinguish between "the weird and the bad.") In fact, programmers will even review a few of the films rated 1 or 2, just to make sure nothing has been overlooked.

And once the debate about the lineup begins in earnest, a complicated dynamic comes into play. Mr. Gilmore said he was not looking for a consensus but passion from his programmers. If a film gets somebody excited, it is worth considering, even if others disagree.

Discussions take place in Mr. Gilmore's office, where, amid a jumble of chairs, pizza and Diet Cokes, he moves film titles around Mr. Cooper's bulletin board like chess pieces. These meetings occur twice a week for the last month of the process, often lasting three or four hours each time, and increase in intensity and frequency as the hours - and options - dwindle. They are described by Mr. Gilmore as "spirited" and "cerebral," but not bitter. Sometimes these involve different combinations of programmers, although all sit down together when making a final decision. At the end there is no raising of hands. Mr. Gilmore makes the final decision.

Before that decision is made, Mr. Cooper said, his colleagues keep one another grounded when they become too enamored of a film: He will often give a movie about which he has misgivings to a colleague who he thinks will like it, just so they can argue about it."

Read the full article here.