On this particular night, as John Sloss and his team entertained offers for Cinetic-repped pics "Dedication" and "The Same Moon" ("La Misma Luna"), Harvey Weinstein sat on the main floor of the condo.

First Look's Ruth Vitale was in the basement.

And Sony Pictures Classics' Tom Bernard was circling the condo in his car, waiting for his appointed time to come inside (or perhaps just scouting who was exiting and entering).

Meanwhile, execs including Miramax's Daniel Battsek were shuttling between the Cinetic condo and the condo of international-sales company Celluloid Dreams just up the street.

And at Celluloid, companies including Paramount Vantage were trying to conduct two separate negotiations, for "Rambow" and for "How She Move," which Celluloid repped with UTA.

There were multiple buyers going for one film, and one buyer going for multiple films -- and that's without considering the co-acquisitions.

Execs were told when to come, when to go and where to stay. It worked ... sort of.

The goal of all the movement is to keep buyers on their toes; if you don't know who you're bidding against, after all, it's easier for a seller to play one bidder off the other and raise the price.

But the events in Park City in the pre-dawn hours of Tuesday illustrate just how hard it is to keep anyone in the dark at a film festival.

Nearly every bidder knew who every other bidder was, and insiders said attempts at keeping them in the dark were futile, if not downright farcical.

"It was probably the craziest night of bidding I'd ever seen," said one buyer who has attended more than a dozen editions of Sundance, as Monday night marked the third consecutive evening of unusually intense negotiations.

Buyers would be given set times and rooms, but execs would pass each other in the hallways, wave and sometimes laugh at all the cloak-and-dagger activity.

Part of the chaos was by design, with buyer's willingness to put up with all the coming-and-going seen as a sign of their interest in the films. More than ever, execs said, buyers at Sundance who chose to negotiate by phone were left out in the cold.

The manic events also rep an evolution in the way rights are negotiated at festivals. In Sundance's earlier years, buyers and sellers would often meet very informally, at a hotel room or even a street corner, make a handshake agreement and seal a deal.

With the increasing influence of sales agents, however, the system has become more formal, if at times no less confusing.

A few hours before all the craziness, Cinetic threw its annual Sundance fete at the Main St. restaurant Zoom between 9 p.m. and 1 a.m. Amid the crowds and the drinks, execs sought out John Sloss to express their interest in his two pics.

But to hear one buyer tell it, it didn't really matter what they did at the bar. "John was taking his time because he knew everyone who really wanted the movies was coming to the condo later on," the buyer said.

At the condo, Weinstein was in the most pivotal position, negotiating with Cinetic and UTA's Richard Klubeck and Jeremy Barber for the romantic comedy "Dedication" and with Cinetic for immigrant drama "The Same Moon."

Eventually, Weinstein agreed on a price of about $3 million for "Dedication" in concert with First Look's Vitale. For "The Same Moon," he struck a deal to team with Searchlight, execs from which had come to the condo to make their own deal but who decided to partner with Weinstein to reduce costs. The duo agreed to pay $5 million and share releasing duties.At Celluloid's condo just down the street, a more controlled but no less striking drama was taking place over worldwide rights to the British coming-of-ager "Son of Rambow."

After the pic screened to a house packed with execs beginning at 6:15 -- indeed, a glance around the early-evening parties in Park City revealed a curious lack of anyone with acquisition power -- the seller had set a high asking price of $8 million.

Three players were immediately in the fray -- Vantage, Focus and Miramax. Other divisions, while interested, either didn't like the price or didn't like the deal, which the seller had said would be for world rights.

According to insiders, Focus and Miramax were unwilling to go up to the $8 million. But it soon became clear that John Lesher, Amy Israel and the rest of the Vantage team were willing, and just a little while later. The sides agreed on a sale price of about $7.75 million.

When it was all done, a whopping $16 million had been spent by four distributors. Those execs who didn't come away with movies were left to figure out if it was frustration or relief that they should be feeling, while those who did congratulated each other and readied themselves for the task of defending, and earning back, their costly investments.

And all went back to their condos for about an hour or two of sleep before the screenings began again.