Cucalorus

So originally I thought Cucalorus was going to be fun. I even thought it might be awesome, but I was not prepared for how much I would love it. I already enjoy watching movies to the extent that I will watch them until my eyes bleed, even if I dislike them. This is not a new development, it is something that I gained from film school while being forced to watch things I did not want to watch, sometimes more than once. As a filmmaker, and more importantly a storyteller, I have learned that there is something I can gain from watching almost any film. (and the ones I can't learn from are generally youtube exclusives my friends con me into watching like "cat on a vacuum") So naturally film festivals are something I want to participate in. 

I grew up in Oklahoma, the land without trees and film festivals (although some are springing up/developing atm) so the only one I'd really been to was a festival put on by the school district where I went to high school, and it functioned more like an awards ceremony (well and of course I'd been to Visions). I was unsure of what to expect. What Cucalorus brought to the table was so much more than just exhibition, but a chance to interact. One film I went to see, "How to Lose your Virginity" featured an uncomfortably entertaining quiz at the beginning, and a fascinating Q&A with the director at the end about her topic. I loved that you got to feel like you were taking part in a film. It wasn't distant, like some giant living in the Hollywood hills..and at the end of the presentations, people clapped. (What?) 

Overall, it was an incredibly real, personal experience and I kind of wished it would last forever. I have to constantly remind myself that making a good film is attainable. Having the normal but sometimes slightly crazy people in front of me, telling me how they struggled, how they found their passion, and how they channeled that to make something great was a fantastic "YOU CAN DO IT" just when I needed it. 

What I loved about Cucalorus, and what I really hope we can achieve with Visions, is that feeling like when you graduate high school. You stand next to (in my case) 2,000 other people and for once in the whole four years you've been inhabiting the same space you connect. People you don't know are your friends, and conversations happen that never normally would. Because passion and storytelling connect people who would normally have nothing in common. It's the most awesome feeling in the world, and I'm sure you agree. :D

Starting Over

I think that pre-Virginia tour our class had gotten a little off kilter. Definitely there was an imbalance between getting stuff done, and taking responsibility for our roles. At this point I think it had become a class more than a film festival.

This is something that seems to happen mid-semester a lot of times as people become burnt out. It's important to realize when this is happening so that you can correct it in it's beginning stages. I think it was in our readings on procrastination and time management that it said guilt from not getting stuff done often times prevents us from moving forward. I agree with that statement. Accomplishing goals is motivation in itself to continue on because if you can do the one thing, why not another?

Sometimes it's a good idea to go back and list out the reasons why this festival & con is exciting and use that momentum to get going again. It's also a good idea to think about the ways in which I as an individual can contribute to the class. If I feel my talents aren't being fully utilized then it's up to me to find a way to use them.

Procrastination, Oh the Irony!

So I am 100% an avoider, and probably a good percentage over loaded as well at the moment. Blogs, for example I generally am not motivated to do. This is because I am extremely introspective, to the point that by the time I get to writing it down I've moved on. I'm not a feel-y person, I don't enjoy talking about things like that, what I've learned..etc. If it comes up in conversation I'll definitely mention it, but there is something about writing to a mysterious online community that I'd rather avoid. That being said, we don't have enough time in class to have these discussions and I'm assuming blogs are in place of a paper, and I'm okay with that.

I liked what the article said about doing the stuff you don't like first, while you still have energy. Wow, is that a good point. Because of my tendency to avoid things I dislike doing, I often find myself doing it late at night, last minute, with no energy. NOT the recipe for quality work. It seems to me that the people who adopt the strategy of "I don't do anything unless the house work is done" all have a really clean house. I on the other hand, have a moderately disheveled home because at the end of the day, who wants to vacuum?

Time Management Tips

I found that the time management tips were really just a good reminder. I already know them, but wasn't applying them to my daily life. One thing I learned from working retail is that things seem less daunting if you break them down in to smaller groups. I would mainly do this when thinking about having to work eight hours, but it works with other things like writing papers and planning events. I'm not generally a one-step-at-a-time type of person. My brain hates me, because it will switch rapidly from big picture to minute details constantly. It's good to have some sort of outline or list to add a method to the madness. (I get things done, I do!) If you make a clear list of all the tasks you have to do in order to accomplish the bigger objective, you normally get a better sense of the time and energy that it will require for you to do it, and you can plan accordingly.

I am really opposed to scheduling, because I just don't work that way. Almost everything I do is on the fly. I'm the antithesis of a planner, but I realize that I'm getting to the point where I have too much on my plate to not plan it out, so I'm making the adjustment.

Me at work:

IndiGoGo video

This was my first time creating a video for IndieGoGo. I participated in most aspects of it, from writing to shooting, and then editing. I feel as though I have a decent understanding of the process from start to finish. It was interesting to consider all the different approaches. Some people choose to go with the staff/crew interview approach, others a trailer, some serious, some funny, etc. We decided to go the route of humor and staff interviews. Our intention was to get across the point of why we needed the funding, but not with a serious tone in order to avoid looking desperate or whiny. There is an aspect of humor that includes a sense of confidence that needed to be conveyed in order to make it seem like we had a worthy cause that we believed to be important. For some reason during the production of it I assumed it required far less planning than it actually did. Luckily I was working part of a team and we worked together to plan and shoot. It was a good lesson on planning and the art of good humor. Jokes are really hit-or-miss and we worked hard to find that balance. As an editor it also posed a challenge to correctly represent the humor.

Overall it was a great learning experience that I hope to use for my projects in the future.

Mini-Restaurants

Mini-restaurant fundraisers are a popular choice for fundraising among many different organizations. The reason is that they are low-maintenance. You rely on the restaurant itself to provide the attraction, there is no front-money involved, and in most cases they even provide you with the flyers. However, as easy as they sound to set up, they also come with some complications. For one, each restaurant comes with different rules and stipulations. In our case, this became and issue because we were functioning as a campaign, doing weekly fundraisers. It would have been much easier if the restaurants had the same rules and stipulations for streamlining purposes. It also limits the amount of money you can make off the event. The other unforeseen complication is that most of the checks have to go through corporate so it takes forever to get them. As it stands we are still waiting for 2 checks that we earned back in November.. So the convenience is robbed by having to go through another organization.

For this reason I have come up with the idea of a 50/50 or other kind of raffle. By setting up the event on our own we can maintain full control of the earnings.

New Ideas for Fundraising

So I wanted to come up with a new idea for fundraising that would be quick, impossibly easy, and yield high results. I stumbled upon a popular fundraising method known as a 50/50 raffle. It is simply a raffle, and the winner receives half of the money earned. So if we sell 200 tickets for a dollar, then the winner gets $100, and we get $100. The restaurant fundraisers hope to get $30 - $50. If we sold 120 tickets at a one dollar we'd already exceed the amount of money we make through the restaurants and there are no rules we have to follow except our own.

I like the 50/50 raffle because it is easy, versatile, and can easily be repeated. There is low risk for the people who are involved, because they are only giving up $1, which will make selling tickets super easy.

I also did the Small Project Management questions to give more specifics on how it will work.

50/50 Raffle

Identify the "what".

1.  What is the project supposed to achieve?

- The point of the 50/50 raffle is to raise money quickly and without much effort.

2.  Who is the customer?

- The customer could be anyone potentially, but I would like to focus it on college students and those who support the film program at UNCW

3.  What are the deliverables of the project?

- The deliverable is cash, which we will have on hand.

Identify the "how".

4.  What is the budget?

- This is the best part! All we have to buy is tickets, maximum $10.

5.  How long will it take?

- It depends on where/how we decide to hold it. If we do it as part of a campus event, like a baseball or basketball game it only takes the time of the game (1-2 hours). If we decide to do a 3-day campaign for example, it would take the length of 3 days, plus a few more hours spent on campaigning.

6.  What specific skills are needed?

- Excitement!

- Marketing

- Planning

7.  What special resources are needed?

- Permissions from event holders and campus.

8.  Who is working the project?  What is each person's job?

- I will be doing most of it, likely with a partener. If we decide to do a campaign it might involve the class, but only on a small scale. They might spend 1 - 2 hours on it, probably less.

9.  What is the schedule?

- Get approval to set up a booth at an event or on campus

- Buy tickets

- Work with PR on marketing strategy

- Market!

- Day of event:

+ Set up

+ Sell Tickets and Promote

+ Draw Winning number and Announce Winner

+ Award Prize

+ Tear Down

Other considerations.

10.  What are the risks?  (Small vs. large impact, likely vs. unlikely)

- The only risks are small, and that is that no one participates. If that happens we still don’t lose any money, because the tickets can be recycled for another date.

11.  How will you communicate with your team?

- I will communicate through class meetings and text/facebook

12.  How will you determine if the project is successful?

- The project is successful if we make money! I would like to set the goal at $50, but I’m sure we can make more than that.

Kickstarter

I've been paired up with Jillian to work on the Kickstarter fundraiser and that is what I mainly focused on for the first week of October. I did some research on Kickstarter that analyzed the most successful campaigns and how they succeeded. I learned a lot. Here are some of the most helpful articles if you're interested:

http://garrettgibbons.com/successful-kickstarter-campaigns/

http://www.kickstarter.com/blog/trends-in-pricing-and-duration

http://trulyfreefilm.hopeforfilm.com/2010/02/miao-wang-on-the-secrets-of-her-kickstarter-success.html

I found out that there are "sweet spots" for incentives, meaning donation amounts that are the most popular among supporters. The sweet spots for our goal level are $10, $25, and $50. In our Skype interview about incentives Jillian and I made sure to pay special attention to these sweet spots.

I'm ready to get started with Kickstarter and start getting funding!

Project Managements

Defining the Project:

- I have yet to be assigned anything very specific, but I am on the fundraising team, so I will answer the following questions accordingly.

What is the project supposed to achieve?

- We want to raise enough money to put on a successful film festival and conference, bringing in as many people as we can showcasing ourselves in accordance with our mission statement (to come).

Are the results straight forward?

- I'd say that the results are pretty straight forward. We either make money, or we don't.

Are the deliverables easily measured?

- For the most part yes. Using the example of our Halloween party; they give us their support, and we give them a rockin' good time.

How much effort is required?

- The amount of effort greatly depends on the caliber of the event. It will take considerably more man-power to put on the Halloween party than the Orange Leaf event. The Halloween party has several different elements involved (the drinks, the music, the venue, the BYOFilm..), whereas Orange Leaf has the elements in one convenient package. All it needed was the handiwork of Jillian and some good PR.

How many people or skills are needed? 

- This, once again depends on the size and complexity of the event. Some events will take a hand full of people, and some may take the whole class.

How complex is this project? 

- Ditto the last two questions. I think that finding the balance of all of these things is an important topic for discussion in the next week or so while we decided the events we're going to put on. We only need to be putting out big effort for big bucks, but too many small fundraisers might exhaust our supporters.


One thing that I got from the readings this week was to have a clear idea of what the goal is. I think this step gets taken too lightly because of the fact that it's a no-brainer. The important part of that statement is not just that we HAVE the goal but that we don't lose sight of it. Over the next few months it's going to be really easy to focus on these small projects to the point that we lose sight of what we're doing and why. If we always have the goal at the front of our minds then all the little things will fall into place, because if it doesn't make sense for what we're aiming to achieve then it has no place in what we do. I guess it's sort of like a Prezi. There are a ton of opportunities to zoom in on subtopics, which is a really cool part of the presentation software, but eventually we'll have to zoom back out to see how it all makes sense.

Humboldt Film Festival Part II

1. How many entries did they get this year? For films make sure to ask them to distinguish between features and shorts.
   - Their most recent festival got 99 entries. The year before they received 130. When they had more funding (aka before budget cuts) they were getting over 200.
   
2. How many films do they aim to screen each year? How many papers/presentations do they accept? Again, for films make sure to ask them to distinguish between features and shorts.
   - They said it depends on how long the films are, but usually about 5 each block, so 5-20 total.
   
3. What is their pre-screening process?
   - The class members do the pre-screening. They will watch 3 minutes of a piece and then take a vote to see if they want to continue watching it. The films they decide not to watch will be further reviewed by the ADs so they don't end up tossing what they intend to keep.
   
4. How many pre-screeners do they have each year?
   - There are 20 students in the class, and they all screen the films together.
   
5. Who is typically chosen as a pre-screener?
   - The students in the class
   
6. How do they score entries? Do they use a scoring template/rubric? Are there scoring guidelines?
   - They use a rubric to grade the films. As far as guidelines, they just said that there is a "quality of excellence" they like to see in the film before they will screen it. I asked them what that meant, and they said that "You know a good film when you see one". Hard to argue that. I emailed to see if I could get a copy of the rubric and will post when I hear back.
   
7. Do you have a jury after the pre-screening process has ended?
   - This part was really cool. Each year they get industry professionals to come and judge the festival. There are 2 judges and they pay them a combined $3,000 to come. BUT, they also have the judges do a Q&A with the students in the class when they come. (And I'm sure it adds to the appeal of submitting to their festival) One year they had John Coda, a film composer come to judge. The final night is the "Best of Fest" night, where they play what the judges have decided are the top films.
   
8. How far in advance do they send out their call for entries? How do entries typically roll in? Early?Late? In waves?
   - They normally send out the call for entries in October. They mostly come in late, and in waves.
   
9. How many paid employees do they have each year? How many volunteers?
    - The only people staffing the festival are the students in the class. There are 20 students for both semesters.
   
10. Do you use specific programming, trafficking, budgeting software? Do you like it?
    - The only softwares they mentioned using were Excel and Word. Also Photoshop for posters and advertisements.
    
11. What community outreach do you do outside of your festival season to keep your event on the public's radar and/or to raise funds? (Workshops, mini-festivals, fundraiser dinners, etc.)
    - They have a bunch of different fundraising events including projecting films onto old buildings, a raffle, screen films on campus, have a music/art night event, put on the Rocky Horror Picture Show, brand their own coffee..etc. 
    
12. Do you give out swag bags to visiting filmmakers? Presenters? Guests? If so, what type of items do you include in those bags?
    - They give out coupons and free passes to local restaurants and things to the filmmakers. For the guests, they have a raffle, but it is not free. 
    
13. Do presenter/filmmaker pay registration to attend?
    - No.
    
14. Are you able to provide presenters/filmmakers with funds to cover travel or lodging?
    - They do not provide funds to the filmmakers to travel, but they do get in free.
    
15. What "perks" do your filmmakers/scholars enjoy at your festival/conference? What else do you encourage them to do while they're in town? m(Free dinners, tours, exclusive activities...in Wilm, we'd try to take them to the beach, Screen Gems tour, etc.)
    - They ask around town for free passes/coupons to restaurants and different businesses in town to hand out to their filmmakers. 
    
16. Do you have special donor perks during the event? Or how do you thank them?
    - They thank their donors by displaying each one as a scrolling "billboard" on the big screen every night before and after the festival as people come and go. 
    
17. What do they wish they had done differently or better when they were first starting out? What do you wish you knew then that you know now?
    - Their advice to us was to be very thrifty in the way we use our resources and spend money!
    
18. If it’s a festival or conference that no longer is in existence...why did it end?
    - N/A
    
19. Any other ideas or advice that we haven’t thought to ask about? 
    - They get most of their money from grants, but usually bring in another $3,000 from their own fundraising.
    

Here is a copy of their scoring rubric: 

Festival Research Quiz

1. What I found most interesting while comparing the research of the different film festivals was the ways in which the different festivals did fundraising. One idea in particular was a family night. Which leads to question 2:

2. Ally was saying that her film festival had a family night fundraiser where they did activities for the whole family. It occurred to me that we might be wasting our time focusing our fundraisers on students, who generally do not have a lot of money to give. If we focused our attention on families and an older generation, we would most likely bring in more money, and provide a way for the community to become more involved in our festival. If we have a big community presence it will be easier to get support from local corporate sponsors.

Humboldt Film Fest Pt. 1

Festival/Conference basics (from withoutabox, event website and news articles):

- http://www.hsufilmfestival.com

What time is your interview scheduled and who will you be talking with when you call/skype?

- I am skyping with Susan Abbey and one of her ADs Danielle on Monday, September 16th at 3pm.

Who started it and who runs it? 

- Humboldt Film Festival was started in 1967 by a group of student cinephiles and has been running for 46 years! It is still student led, but Susan Abbey is the faculty director.

What is the mission of the festival/conference? (copy and paste the first paragraph)

- "Our mission at the Humboldt Film Festival is to expose independent filmmaking to a diverse range of viewers, and to break away from mainstream filmmaking; thus coming forth with a deeper appreciation for this medium of cinema as a whole. That being said, we also want to enrich educational experiences and learning opportunities for HSU students by allowing them to focus their creative and productive energies on the development and presentation of the world’s oldest student-run film festival. The integrity of the festival is built on the unique blend of academic interests, cultural backgrounds, and the creative talents of the students. Therefore, it is of the utmost importance that the festival maintains its longstanding tradition as a student-run event - a designation that helps it stand out among a sea of similar festivals."

How does this compare with their actual programming choices from the past two years? Be specific in describing what they program (mode, categories within mode, niche, Political? Global? Local? Gender? Sexuality? Race? Any themes that you see? etc...) 

- They have an international call and they screen 4 categories of short film:

  + Animation

  + Documentary

  + Experimental

  + Narrative

- The festival is 6 days long with different categories on each night"
  + Local Filmmakers Night
  + Young Media Makers Night
  + Animation & Experiamental
  + Documentary
  + Narrative
  +Best of Fest

- Last years winners are as listed:
Austrian Peter Bruenner’s film “In Our Hands” was named “Best of Fest” at the 45th Humboldt Film Festival, sponsored by Humboldt State University’s Department of Theatre, Film and Dance and billed as the oldest student-run international independent short film festival worldwide.
 
Best in Animation—“Another Dress, Another Button” by Lyn Elliot of the U.S.,“a stop-motion animation exploring the plight of spare buttons—carefully saved, but never used.” Honorable mention went to “The Quiet Life” by Timothy Hittle of the U.S., a clay-mation film 10 years in the making.

Best in Experimental—“The Olympian” by Gerald Pesta of the U.S., which inter-cuts an 1894 Edison film of Eugene Sandow with a 1996 video of Dorian Yates, offering insight spanning 102 years into the evolution of body-building and the motion picture art form.

Best in Documentary— “Mijo” by Chithra Jeyaram of the U.S., the portrayal of a mother and child’s intimate relationship in the midst of life-altering medical events. Honorable mention was awarded to local filmmaker Owen Roth for his documentary “Humboldt Slackers” about the growing slack line community in Humboldt County. The sport became a YouTube sensation when Madonna featured professional slackliner and HSU alum Andy Lewis at her Super Bowl half-time performance.

Best in Narrative—“Queen” directed by Adam Rose of the U.S. is the story of Nikki Holiday acted by Ryan Eggold, who also wrote, directed, and produced another finalist in the narrative category, a drag queen cabaret star who looks to fill the void in her life “after her plans to start a family fall apart.” Honorable mention went to German entry “Ab Morgen” by Raphael Wallner and Stefan Elsenbruch about a critically ill man who receives the kidney of a living donor and “fights the circumstances of being responsible for the donor’s death.”

  

Where is the event? 

- The event is held at Humboldt University in their Van Duzer Theater in Arcata, Ca.

When is the event? (Give dates from last year if not current) 

- The event is April 16 - 19, 2014.

How do you submit? Snail mail, online, withoutabox, through their site, etc... 

- You can submit by snail mail or withoutabox.

When are the deadlines to enter? Early? Reg? Late? 

- The deadlines to enter are:

+ Early: November 1, 2013

+ Regular: January 3, 2014

+ Late: February 7, 2014

How much does it cost to enter? 

- The entry fees are as follows:

+ Early Entry: $20

+ Regular Entry: $30

+ Late Entry: $40

+ HSU Student: Free, any deadline

+ HSU Alumni/HFF Alumni: $10, any deadline

+ Humboldt County Local: $10, any deadline

Who’s eligible, what are the guidelines to enter? 

- The guidelines for entry are as follows:

+ Must be less than 30 minutes

+ But be submitted on blu-ray or DVD

+ Must have English subtitles if in a language other than English

+ Must have been completed prior to 2007 

Is there a Student category? 

- Tuesday night is Young Media Makers Night

What formats do they except for jurying? DVD, Vimeo, Flash drives? 

- They accept Blu-ray and DVD

What formats do they except for exhibition/screening?

- They accept Blu-ray and DVD

How many films screened at the festival last year?

- Not listed 

How long is a typical shorts block or paper presentation block at their event?

- Not listed 

How many films or papers do they program per block?

- Not listed 

How do people register to attend? Is there a cost to attend as a guest?

- No registration required.

  + HSU Students get in free with ID

  + Other students $3

  + General Admission $5 

Look at sponsorship page and see what businesses. Grants and private entities give money to the
event. Figure out how many of each kind and note any leads that might be useful to us.

- The only sponsor listed is Associated Students, a Humboldt campus organization. 

What are their sponsorship levels and incentives for each level?

- Sponsors can:

  + make a tax deductible donation

  + place an ad in the festival program

  + sponsor a night of the event

Did they have a kickstarter or indiegogo? What incentives did they have for each level of donor?

- No

What kind of non-traditional film/video events have they had before? Things like Installations,
'Visual Soundwalls,' VJing etc.

- They put on a Rocky Horror Picture Show Live! event with a costume contest. They sold prop bags and concessions at the door. This was a fundraiser, it was $10 general admission.

- One year they did a fundraiser that featured an "Art Battle" and live music for $5 general admission.

- Eureka! Art's Alive! was an event that the co-hosted with another local film festival, in which they projected films onto old buildings.

- The festival hosts screenings of different movies for free, but has a concession booth set up.

- The Dark Side of Oz was a screening put on by the festival in which they played The Wizard of Oz with Pink Floyd music over it.

- There is a raffle that goes on during the festival.

Are there ways in which they have expanded the typical film screening event? How have they
branched out from sitting in a dark room in front of a screen? 

- No

Is the layout easy to navigate? What makes it easy?

- Yes. There were only 4 buttons/pages.

Is the layout difficult to navigate? What makes it difficult?

- The thing that makes it difficult is not the design of the website, but that there are currently TWO websites, as the old one is still up. There is relevant information that is on the old site that was not brought over to the new one, such as sponsor opportunities.

Can you find the information you are looking for on the homepage or via a link on the homepage?  

- No. The website has very limited information. There is no information on sponsorship, attendance, or programming.

Aesthetically, what catches your eye? What's cool about it?

- There really isn't a lot that catches the eye. The page is simplistic, but not in a minimalistic way. It seems very unorganized.

Aesthetically, what doesn't fit in? What makes it look bad?

- There is no alignment. The content seems very jumbled.

Should there be more information? Is the page too bare?

- This website lacks a lot of information.

Should there be less information? Is the page too busy?

- No

What would you do differently if you were to redesign this website?

- If I were to redesign the website I would spend time aligning the elements so that they are aesthetically  pleasing. I would make sure that the text was uniform in size and structure. I would also provide much more information.

What would you keep the same if you were to redesign this website? 

- The title

Time Management & Public Speaking.

One thing about time management that is so important is prioritizing. There are always things that seem to be the most pressing at the time, but really undermine the big picture. It is important to keep your eye on the big picture, and schedule your time accordingly. This means that you really have to decide what is more important, that you get the project done perfectly, or just that you get it done. Sometimes you don't have time for both. In the instances where you don't have time to make it perfect, its a good idea to ask another to help you. That's always hard for me, because I love to do everything myself. I have to realize that trusting the members on my team is important and that by doing so, we are accomplishing a lot more.

In public speaking the best way to go is to know very well the information that you are presenting. The point at which you start sliding downhill as a public speaker is when you lose confidence in what you are saying. I think that the confidence necessary comes from really having an understanding of what it is you are presenting. Spending a little extra time to organize your thoughts helps immensely if you want to stay on track. I find that writing out a bulleted list of speaking points makes a huge difference. I have a huge problem with tangents, so the list helps me a lot. I just have to remember to not say anything not on the list!

We're All in This Together?

Hey everyone!

           I was really excited to get to meet you all these past few weeks. I think we have a really exciting, diverse group of people on the team and I could not be more pleased. I don't have one of those fascinating stories where I watched all the films of this famous director who had an intimate relationship with my beloved grandfather and was thus inspired to be the first female Scorsese. I got my start in film by stumbling blindly into it. I took a film class in high school because I thought it would be easy, hated it, and then somehow found myself in another film class the following semester. It was really through the coaxing of a passionate, determined teacher that I found my niche in film.
         Here's where it does get a bit sappy though. I can honestly say that film is what allowed me to discover myself. I have always had a passion for storytelling, it just took having a camera and an editing lab to realize it. I love stories because through them we can uncover the truths about life, and in a way that isn't some old set-in-his-ways man telling us how it is. People never learn that way. You can't just slap a person upside the head with "truth", it's something that comes with time and experience and mistakes. It's a very personal experience and it most definitely cannot be forced. I'd say 90% of people learn that a stove is hot by touching it, and the other 10% heard a story from a ninety-percenter.
         What I appreciate most about stories is how they are for everyone. It doesn't matter if you are wealthy, poor, first-world, third-world, male, female, what have you.. Everyone can enjoy and relate to a good story. They allow for the crossing of a lot of borders not easily crossed in normal interaction.
        In the old days there were storytellers. They would travel from town to town and everyone would gather around to hear what they had to say. It was a community event, people gathering around campfires or perhaps in the court of some great king. In our day and age we have films. I believe that a good film functions in the same way. It is a story, and people everywhere gather around to see what it has to say.
        Before last semester I barely gave any thought to the idea of a film festival or conference. Once I discovered them, however, I knew I had to get involved. The readings this week confirmed that. What I love most about film is the sense of community created around it. I think it has been exploited and perhaps we have lost sight of the main purpose of film, but there are a lot of people going in the right direction. I like the idea of film festivals because they draw attention to this very important art, and reward those who do it well. I like the idea of micro cinemas because it draws us back to the campfire days, where it was intimate and there was room for discussion and learning together.
       To me, that is what film is all about. Bringing people together so that we can learn from one another and grow as a community.

If it sounds sappy, happy, and unrealistic it's because it's meant to. However, I believe it can happen.

I'm excited to get started, I hope you are as well. :)

Audra