I get in on the Friday evening. My friend producer-director Matthew Vaughn is having a party on Main Street for his film Layer Cake, and I head down to Main Street. The street is a mad crush, thronged with people celebrity spotting, which makes me feel sort of useless, mostly because even if I was issued with a Handy Guide to Celebrities and a pair of binoculars, I’d still be celebrity-blind. It seems like there’s a party behind every door—I get into three lines before I wind up in the Layer Cake party. I find myself part of a tiny entourage, and soon Matthew and I and a few managers and assistants are the only people in the VIP area of a party bar. “What’s this party for?” asks Matthew of a publicist, but nobody seems to know. His film premiered that afternoon. It’s a party. I’m introduced to studio VIPs.

I decide that if this is Sundance, I don’t like it.

I meet my director the following day on Main Street. I’m a bit worried. A few days before leaving, Dave showed the completed film to the cast and crew, and is now convinced that it’s the worst film that anyone has ever made. If he had the money, he’d buy the film back, bury it, and make a different film. One that he was happier with. Still, he seems pleased to see me. We’re about to chat when a video crew calls my name, and in moments I find I’m being interviewed on the street about MirrorMask.

Sunday begins with a brunch from Adobe (I don’t know why) and then a choice: I can go and see The Dresden Dolls play at the Music Café, or offer moral support to Dave McKean and MirrorMask producer Lisa Henson, on a panel on animation. They all tell me to go and see The Dresden Dolls, but duty (and a desire to see our trailer on a big screen) wins out. All the people on the panel except for us are from Big Movies—The Lord of the Rings, A Series of Unfortunate Events, Shrek 2, The Polar Express, and so on, and I’m not quite sure how this relates to Sundance until Yair Landau from Sony points out that the software that makes hundred-million-dollar movies is the software that, a couple of years later, will be making low-budget movies, and I reflect that that’s certainly true in our case.

People in red with clipboards stop me every few feet on Main Street, ask what movies I’ve seen that I liked. They are finding out what has buzz.

That evening we go and see the premiere of The Jacket. A man immediately behind us, narrating the events of the day into his cell phone, helpfully starts telling the friend what he can see: “There’s Adrien Brody . . . nice suit . . . and I can see Keira Knightley . . .” This is very useful, and makes me wish we’d brought some of our stars over with us. It’s all very glam, and The Jacket is a very slick film, with proper stars and a Twilight Zone plot.