Here are some things I’ve jotted down over the last few days about the Interactive and Film portions of SXSW.

Music has started. I’ve only seen a few bands that blew me away, the rest is just really crowded and full of attitude. It’s such a jarring difference between the crowds during Film and Interactive and the ones now. The streets are full of waifish people dressed in all black, glaring their way up 6th street in an air of self loathing. Yes. You are bad ass. Now get out of my way and stop littering.

Day 1 (Saturday)

‘TV: The Next Generation’ panel with Patrick Norton (formerly of the ScreenSavers) and Jay Adelson from Revision3. They seemed a little all over the place (I thought the ‘What Does the Future Hold for Video on the Internet’ on Monday was much better), but they had some interesting points. There was also a rep from AOL on the panel and she got pretty well labeled as the “big business bad guy.” I thought she held her own and they’re slightly less evil in my perception because of it.

Day 2 (Sunday)

RSS for Marketing (woohoo!). I already talked about this, but again, it was awesome.

A Conversation With: Morgan Spurlock - Part of the film festival, I’m glad I was able to jump over and see it. He is sporting a full beard for a project he did in the Middle East - he wasn’t able to talk about it yet, but rumor is he’s sold it for a large bit of money. 30-Days on FX is coming back for a 3rd season (yay!). He spent a lot of years broke, but still dedicated to film, so I’m very happy for his success. He seemed happy and very humbled.

Film - ‘What Would Jesus Buy‘. This was produced by Morgan Spurlock and will probably be a huge success. I liked it, but it wasn’t my favorite. It followed a fascinating group of people (Reverend Billy and the Stop Shopping Choir), but rather than focus on one or two things in depth, they jammed a lot in and never really got to the heart of the story.

Day 3 (Monday)

Dan Rather - I’m not entirely sure why he was a keynote for Interactive, but he was amazing nonetheless. He is uncompromising in his belief of the people’s right to know (barring matters of intense national security). He drove home over and over that journalists should not be a lapdog or an attack dog, but a watchdog, barking at anything suspicious.

‘What Does the Future Hold for Video on the Internet’ with Kevin Rose, Miki, one of the Ask a Ninja guys and a rep from Disney. I’m boggled why this wasn’t held in one of the larger ballrooms. The Interactive portion of the festival is growing by leaps and bounds, but it’s still seems slightly misunderstood. Regardless, I got a great seat and enjoyed the “paradigm shift” drinking game they played throughout the hour.

Knocked Up - By the guy who directed ‘40-Year Old Virgin”, you must all see this film when it comes out.

Day 4 (Tuesday)

My first day of volunteer work, so I did a lot less festival stuff. The only notable thing was seeing the documentary “Confessions of a Superhero“. Jef says it was one of the best things he’s seen so far this year (as did a LOT of people on his videographer crew), and while I thought it was very good, I think I liked it a little less than they all did. It wasn’t until after talking to everyone about WHY they loved it so much that I could appreciate it a little more. From a filmmakers perspective, all the different techniques (still photos, different cameras, interview settings, etc.), it was nearly perfect. Also, Batman is crazy.