I’m not much of a Sundance person. I usually see many of the films, but not until they’ve found their way onto HBO, Netflix, etc. Yet, I always watch the opening day interviews with Robert Redford. Why? Because he calls it like he sees it. He not only provides a view into the “State of the Film Industry” but a view into the state of the world. He’s usually a few steps ahead of the rest. My favorite theme of his is that despite everything, be it virtual reality, big budget, or no budget, a movie is about telling a story. His words and vision just make sense to me personally.

So when a Friend of the Park Rag pointed me toward an AP story entitled, “Robert Redford knows Sundance has gotten too big,” I took notice. It’s not that Redford thinks that Sundance should abandon Park City. It’s that he senses a change is coming. A few quotes from the story include:

• “I’m starting to hear some negative comments about how crowded it is and how difficult it is to get from venue to venue when there’s traffic and people in the streets and so forth,” Redford said. “We’re going to have to look at that.”
• “When actors came who were well known, then the paparazzi came. Then once the paparazzi came, the fashion houses came. Suddenly this thing was going haywire,” he said, laughing that the recession actually helped temper the frivolousness a bit.
• “As it grew, so did the crowds, so did the development in Park City. Well, at some point, if both those things continue to grow, they’re going to begin to choke each other,” Redford said. “So then I have to think about, oh, do we now risk being who we are in the first place? Do we risk (losing) the heart and soul of what we were when we started against the odds. … Do we have to now rethink things?”
• “You have a couple of choices. You can go hard and say we’re going to stop it. Say ‘that’s the end.’ Let it go. Let someone else do it,” he said. “Or, you say well, if you want to keep it going, we can’t keep it going the way things are.”
• “One thought Redford had was to break up the festival into sections, instead of cramming narrative, documentaries, shorts and everything else into a tight 10 days in January. So, in this scenario, narrative features could play in January, and February would be for documentaries.”

It’d be hard to argue with Redford based upon this year’s festival. It’s likely the appearance of UberCopters said enough by themselves. Yet, it will be interesting to see how the festival changes in the next few years. I’m sure Mr. Redford doesn’t even know himself. He’s not the only component in the massive machine that Sundance has become. Yet, I can envision Mr. Redford standing on Bald Mountain looking out over the landscape … having watched a storm roll in. He knew it was coming, but now he’s in the middle of it (It’s always harder when you are in the middle of a storm to take action). What do you do?

Do you stare into it straight on, like an action hero, and hope to ride it out? Do you take cover and hope for the best? Do you flee the mountain while you still have a chance? Do you send your group off in different directions, hoping some will survive?

It has all the trappings of a great movie, and better yet, the protagonist and antagonist, are the same being. You just can’t make this stuff up.

That’s why the changes over the next few years of Sundance will likely end up making a great story.

h/t to the Friend of the Park Rag who let us know about this story.

I’ll chalk this one up to something I never considered…

According to KSL, the Utah Attorney General’s Office went undercover at parties and red carpet events at this year’s Sundance Film Festival. What were they looking for? Human Trafficking. The Attorney General’s office defines human trafficking as “a modern-day form of slavery involving the illegal trade of people for exploitation or commercial gain. Traffickers use force, fraud, or coercion to lure their victims and force them into labor or commercial sexual exploitation.”

KSL says that the investigators didn’t find anything specific but “when it comes to the human trafficking element, we gained a lot of intelligence this year. We’re going to build a better game plan for next year. We do know there are some signs of human trafficking during Sundance,” said Nate Mutter, section chief for the attorney general’s public corruption unit. Next year they say they are going to try to attend more high end parties where it may take more cash to receive an invite.

Attorney General Sean Reyes did make it clear that human trafficking isn’t something specific to Sundance but that the activity often accompanies large scale events around the country.

To me, it all seems like something out of HBO’s True Detective, where high rollers are willing to pay to get WHATEVER they want. I suppose it shouldn’t be surprising that those types of people come to Park City for one of the biggest film festivals in the world. It’s unfortunate that it happens anywhere. It’s especially unfortunate that something that Park City depends upon seems to have such a seedy underbelly.

If you’ve hiked Round Valley on a Saturday morning, it’s likely you’ve seen a white helicopter fly into town and set down in one of the housing areas to the northwest of Round Valley. In the last 3 years, I’ve seen the private helicopter (not to be confused with the medical choppers that land at the hospital) descend behind the mountains between Round Valley and Old Ranch Road 20 times. Yet, now Uber publicizes that they will make $200 per person flights from Salt Lake to Park City and the topic of restraining orders gets brought up. The Park Record has told us that Summit County is considering issuing a restraining order against anyone landing helicopters without a permit.

So, why now? Why this?

Don’t get me wrong, when I first heard of Uber helicopter flights for Sundance, I thought about safety. I’ve heard how hard it can be to fly around here, especially at night. However, that’s really an FAA issue. They control everything above 400 feet in our skies.

Yet, our government wants a permit for landing a few helicopters in what is likely a person’s permanent landing pad (that has existed for years) or is maybe even just a field. I also assume that all balloon companies (that we see flying every weekend in Summit County) also require a permit for each landing. Hopefully they all have whatever permit is required for landing in Summit County every weekend. If not, I would expect that to be enforced. Over the course of the year, I would expect balloon revenue to exceed Uber’s Helicopter-related revenue for this one weekend.

I understand residents’ concern over noise. It could be a nuisance, especially if you lived on the flight path. However, if this law is enforced, I would expect it to be enforced universally and all the time. If not, an action like a restraining order could be viewed as arbitrary and capricious just because Uber may interfere with local taxi cab business.

Overall, it highlights one of the problems with Summit County. We have lots of laws on our books that never are enforced (the best example is our sign ordinances). A law without universal enforcement at best goes unnoticed and perhaps confuses the populace. At worst, it can be used to stymie specific business interests.