In South by Southwest this year (1997), I had the honor of sitting on a panel with some fairly distinguished gentlemen. Moderated by Entertainment lawyer Sue Bodine (who seemed a bit out of her depth - indie legal icon John Sloss would've been a more appropriate choice, but there were too many guys up there to begin with), the speakers included (from left to right) - Robert Rodriguez, Quentin Tarantino, Richard Linklater, myself, Mike Judge, Steve Soderbergh, and George Huang (who - like Sue - seemed like he belonged in the audience instead).

We touched on a lot of stuff, and thankfully it never fell into a dick-swinging match of one-upmanship. But - like with most panels - not very much sage-like information was imparted. The best thing panels like this one do for the audience is fill them with the drive to be sitting on the other side of the table the following year (but that's just my opinion).

Afterwards, me, Rick, Q and Robert were coralled into another room for a round table discussion that was filmed for the Sundance Channel (which means, sadly, no one will ever see it).