Wow, what a crazybusy weekend we had here!

For those who may not know, we had a documentary film crew in town filming lots-n-lots of Ookla for the Filk Film Project. Three of the four crew members–Jim Hanks, and Erin and Darrin Kean–were here. Jim’s wife Karen wasn’t able to make the trip.

They arrived in Buffalo Thursday afternoon, and filmed Rand’s poetry class Thursday evening. On Friday, they went with Adam to one of his Amazing Me school presentations and then followed Wolfram to his job.

On Friday night, the guys had a short rehearsal. I came out and snapped a few photos with my phone.

We ate an absolutely insane amount of food over the weekend. Saturday morning, Rand and I took Jim out to the Original Pancake House for breakfast before bringing him to Squeaky Wheel, where the crew graciously did a Q&A session with a documentary filmmaking class of high school students. The kids were interested and inquisitive, and it was a lot of fun to watch.

After Squeaky Wheel, more food! We tried Pano’s, but it was pretty busy, so we went to Gabriel’s Gate instead.

Later that afternoon, we headed out to Duff’s in Orchard Park, where Adam has a regular gig drawing caricatures. A cameraman from channel 7 met them there to do a quick interview.

And then we ate again. Some more. I just had a snack…many wings were consumed. I didn’t take any photos at Duff’s.

Following Duff’s, we had an open evening. Erin had said that she wanted to see Children of Men. A quick peek in Artvoice let us know that it was playing at the Dollar Fifty Movies. (That’d be the Movieland at Walden and Harlem. Side note–the dollar fifty movies now cost $3. But still, pretty cheap.) So Erin, Darrin, Wolfram, Rai-an, Rand, Jim and I went to see the movie, which was utterly amazing. It deserves its own post, so I’m going to save further thoughts on the movie for that post.

Sunday, breakfast at the Pancake House again, then out to Lockport to Watchmen Studios. The crew wanted some visuals of the guys recording and ended up with some fun stuff.

Then, lunch. Rand and I took the crew to Towne, which was a mostly pleasant experience but for our, um, slightly-less-than-smart waitress. Luckily, we weren’t in much of a hurry. 😉

The guys had a sound check at around five, which gave me a great opportunity to get some photos. I experimented with the different flash settings on the camera. Here’s a blurry Rand.

The concert was fantastic. Mohawk Place was literally packed with friends, family and fans who came out to support the guys. jennimi wrote a great post about the concert, which did indeed rock. Thomas posted some photos at his cameraphone blog, and Lady Turpentine bravely put off her homework to come out. 😉 Celia has some photos up here. I don’t think I could possibly begin to name everyone else I saw/talked to at the show.

At the end of the evening, one of Rand’s coworkers and one of her friends were excited to meet Jim Hanks, not because of his famous brother, but because of his work as Geoffrey the Giraffe. Who knew there were Geoffrey fans out there? 😉 That was fun to watch, and Jim was incredibly good-natured about it. (Jim Hanks could not be a nicer guy. Really.)

The weekend was long and exhausting, but I had such a great time. Jim, Erin and Darrin are all just the most wonderful, sweetest people you’d ever want to meet. It was too bad Karen couldn’t make it, because I’d have liked to spend more time with her as well. 🙂

Whew! Now I recover and try to grade papers…

More documentary weekend photos here.