Linklater's shooting style — he favors long takes, including, this time around, an unbroken 14-minute family squabble in a moving car — only adds to the challenge, but it's essential to what they're out to create.
It included Scream, This Time Around and Tabloid Junkie – all songs centring on Jackson's treatment at the hands of the media – as well as a furious track called DS, aimed at the district attorney who had led the first abuse case.
It's not clear if they'll be able to include those perks this time around, and the slapdash, piecemeal approach to helping everyone outside the capital class makes their priorities perfectly clear.
The schedule is still a work in progress, but the Rising Stars program, which brings six emerging actors to the festival to network with the filmmakers and executives in attendance, includes several non-Americans this time around; formerly there were none.
If you are after something a little more creative and crafty, scrutinise the keg beers which, this time around included Redwell's white IPA, Black Isle's organic porter, Lagunitas IPA and rare appearances (if you come from Manchester, at least) for both Signature Brew's 8.3% Black Tongue (its collaboration with bone-crunching metal band Mastodon) and Yeastie Boys Minimattaa from New Zealand.
Sponsors this time around included Box, ChallengePost, CrunchBase, T-Mobile, Foursquare, Lufthansa, Mashery, Paymill, Xing, Yammer, Interoute, Nexmo, Watchmi and Weather Underground.
The situations presented this time around included Mercy saving the life of a popular country music singer (Dick Gautier) and setting up a surveillance system so that the staff will be kept on their toes.
The novel elements that figured in the programming this time around included, for one, a new perspective on the price tag -- the opportunity to save, or spend, over a half-trillion dollars on obesity between now and 2030.
