Oh yeah… before I forget…

Happy 4th Birthday Shadow And Act!!

It was on April 14th, 2009 when the very first entry on this site was posted; and then it went all down hill from there…

What was that very first S&A post? In celebration of that glorious day, here it is:

Hey New Yorkers! The Tribeca Film Festival, Apple, and indieWIRE present what they call their “Filmmaker Talks” series at the Apple Store SoHo (103 Prince Street), from April 22 to May 3.

In the series, talents from both in front and behind the camera take center-stage in front of anxious, appreciative audiences like yourselves, often when they have something to sell/market – like an upcoming film! 2 notable names will be present during the course of this particular series:

First, Spike Lee will take up an hour, from 7PM to 8PM on April 22, when he is schedule to speak about his documentaries Passing Strange and Kobe Doin’ Work. Both films are set to screen at the Tribeca Film Festival, by the way.

Second, Lee Daniels, whose Precious, a film adaptation of author Sapphire’s controversial opus, Push, won several coveted awards at this year’s Sundance film festival in January, will be present at the Apple store at 7:30PM on April 24th. He’ll discuss his career, ranging from producing Monster’s Ball to, of course, Precious. I’m not sure what motivated the name change from Push to Precious; I know the lead character’s name in the novel is Precious Jones, however, I’d prefer if Daniels had stayed with Push.

Did I mention that ALL series events are free and open to the public, and seating is on a first come, first served basis; so get there early! I’m going to make an effort to be at both sessions. For more, go HERE.

And I DID attend that event! I believe I reported on it too.

I also eventually learned why Push was changed to Precious.

Some months later, Precious would be released in theaters, and, oh boy, I’d say that was the first film we discussed that began a now famous S&A tradition – lengthy comment threads, with paragraph, after paragraph, after paragraph of impassioned responses, reactions to responses, reactions to responses of reactions, responses of responses to reactions of reactions to responses… and so on.

Hah!

But I love going back and reading old posts (as well as the comments that followed them); often we recycle them, because they are just too good to not do so. Besides, the site’s traffic back then wasn’t at all what it is today, so many of you probably missed a lot of our earlier material.

It’s also humorous to me that the name “indieWIRE” featured in the site’s very first post (at our old server location), because almost exactly 2 years later, May 7th, 2011, Shadow And Act would join the indieWIRE network of sites! A foretelling of things to come in that very first post perhaps…

But I’m not a big birthday person, so I won’t make anymore of a fuss. However, don’t let that stop YOU from celebrating the site’s 4th birthday in whatever way you like.

I’d like to thank every single person who has contributed to the site over the years, including YOU, our passionate, intelligent readers, who’ve made this job quite interesting in a myriad of ways over the years. I can’t speak for others, but I will say that I’ve learned a lot from you folks – not only about film, but, in your support as well as your challenges and criticisms of the site, there are often lessons to be learned there as well.

And I certainly hope the feelings are somewhat mutual.

It’s an involved job running this site, with very long hours, and very little sleep, but still very much rewarding in a variety of ways.

Where will we be by this time next year? I really don’t know. It’s a dynamic business space that we’re in, and a lot can happen in a year. I can tell you that I’m always looking for ways to add to what we’re already doing, to improve on the S&A experience, and expand the brand.

Ideas aren’t something that I’ll ever run out of; but having the resources to implement those ideas is the challenge. But a day at a time, as the saying goes…

I’m still a filmmaker at heart, and I do plan to get back behind the camera again this year, almost 10 years since I completed my last film. But more on that later…

In the meantime, from all of us to all of you… Happy 4th birthday Shadow And Act! You’re all part of the community, so happy birthday to YOU all as well!

Advance suckas!

Take it away Stevie…