We had a screening at the University of New South Wales yesterday afternoon. Thanks to Professor Haiqing Yu who set up our first screening of Autumn Gem on international soil! We had mostly academics and professors at the screening, and this led to a very good discussion about how best to promote and distribute our film to educational markets. We’re beginning a big push to get Autumn Gem in 2011, namely because it’s the 100-year anniversary of the fall of the Qing Dynasty. We’re betting that many people will be wondering, “What was the role of women in the early 20th century?” We want the answer to be to watch Autumn Gem!

Before the trip, I was thinking about leaving the laptop at home and bringing just the iPad to run our Keynote presentation and present the movie. I’m glad that I didn’t, because I needed the MacBook Pro to interface with the projector in the Robert Webster Building. The resolution was locked to 1280 pixels wide, and I couldn’t find a way to change that from the projector control panel. The iPad’s VGA adapter outputs at 1024×768, so everything looked stretched on the screen. Switching to the laptop and setting the resolution to 1280×768 fixed things. The takeaway from all of this? Always bring a backup!

Due to the length of the flight and the fact that we crossed several time zones, we’re still getting our bearings straight on what day and time it is! There was a kid at the screening who was running around during the beginning portion of the film. When the lights came back on, the kid was knocked out cold on his grandmother’s lap. I felt like him on the way back home. One minute, I was looking at the Opera House while driving along the waterfront, and the next minute — in reality thirty minutes later — I was awakening outside out lodging for the evening!

Today, we have a screening at the University of Sydney. We’ll be taking a tour of the sights and sounds of Sydney in the hours before. We’re looking to go to the Opera House and Bondi Beach. Stay tuned for more!

Here are some photos from our University of New South Wales screening.