Week 15

Work Done 

This week I've been working on my manual to make it easier for Matt to transition into V7. I remember how hard it was for me to transition, and I hope to do what I can to make his life a littler easier and make Visions a little better! I hope to give him something to build on! If he's not worried about struggling to make it, and figuring out the basics, then he can go beyond what I did! Hopefully my writing comes across clear and concise. 

I have also been working on the vimeo videos with Anthony for the interviews we did with the Visionary panelists and the award winners! They are taking a lot longer than I expected them to. Next year, they should use the cameras with sound on them, then they could sync the sound easier in editing. It also helped to use the clapper for each of them. The interviews at the after party look good, but crowded. I think having them done at the after party is good, and makes the filmmakers/scholars feel good, but I also think that it's hard to do and takes up all of the after party time. I would really consider if it's worth it or not before deciding on this next year. I hope they use the footage we edit together, but it may be unhelpful, in which case this should be avoided next year! 

Vimeo is also only able to take 500 MB of storage each week, so we will have to come out with a roll out plan for disseminating the footage. This is something we didn't know beforehand, because it's the first time we have used vimeo. A subscription might be a good thing to consider if these videos start to become more helpful. 

Week 14 - VISIONS WEEK

Monday

This week we had the bake sale. I made lemon bars, and decorated them with little spring themed cups, put them in plastic bags, and tied them with ribbons. I stayed at the bake sale all day - and got really sunburnt. Next year, Visions should keep sunscreen at both tables. Visions should also keep ice in both coolers, because even though treats were in the cooler, they were still melting. My table was set up next to free ice cream - we cannot compete with that. There should be people checking to make sure that there are no other competition tables. 

Wednesday

On Wednesday, I met Matt Delman at Goody Goody Omelet with Adrienne and Simone - they ONLY TAKE CASH! So make sure you bring cash there! It was a great experience. From Shannon's DIS I was researching female directed films, and it was amazing talking with him about some of those directors. 

After eating with them, I went over to the Lumina Walkthrough. During the walkthrough, I made sure that each of the films was playing correctly sound wise and visually. I was acting as the filmmakers advocate. I thought about what if this was my film - would I be pissed if these things weren't fixed? And then I made sure that they were. 

That night, I chalked with: Michelle, Adrienne, Beth, Grace, Samantha, and the ACE staff. The ACE Staff provided chalk for us, and we tried to re-create the poster as best we could. Tips for chalking - rub it in after drawing the line and it will help it stay longer. The ACE Staff has a chalking coordinator who makes sure to check the weather before hand - but you should too! There's no sense in chalking if rain will just wash it off. 

Thursday

The Thursday night dinner was amazing! It was so awesome to see all of the filmmakers and scholars that I had been writing about, stalking, researching, and talking about all in the same room. It was an amazing experience to walk in and see them all and think "Wow! I did this. I was a part of making all of these people come here." Then I got to mingle with them, and play matchmaker when introducing them to the filmmakers that I thought they would enjoy talking to. I loved the festival, but Thursday night was probably the best night for me. It was really the only time I got to mingle the most with everyone - and I loved it!! Dig and Dive was such a great spot to host the event too, and name tags were such a great idea! 

FRIDAY - THE DAY OF ALL DAYS

First off, I LOVE walkie talkies. I've never felt more empowered. It was so easy too to get in touch with people, and it really helped at the beginning of the day and the end when everyone was really spread out and tired. Everything seemed to go really smoothly, mainly because of the schedule we did. I also printed out all of the materials that I needed for that day, and put it all into a binder. This was really helpful. I also had a clipboard, which helped me keep track of the schedule, and where I was supposed to be, as well as where everyone else was supposed to be and if we were on time or not. 

The Visionary Panel interviews went smoothly and quickly, but I missed the dinner. We also got behind during lunch because of the Video Race. Most people took more time shooting their videos which gave us less time to interview them. 

The Visionary Panel Moderation also went well. Our moderator guide - Dr. Johnson - came, and just having her there in the room knowing that she had my back was helpful. Having staff members there that I knew would ask questions if no one on the panel talked was helpful. There was one woman who advertised her own business during the panel - which was strange, but it was ok. I think the beginning was awkward, but once people became acclimated to the panel, it got a lot better. I wish we had an extra thirty minutes or less panelists. I think it would have been a lot more in depth if we had done one of those. 

The Award Winner Interviews were really messy - we forgot the consent forms, couldn't find the equipment, were working with a small and loud space, but we did it, and it turned out fine! I would say to keep the questions short though, because by the time we got to the last interview it was 1:30, and people began to get very sleepy (and intoxicated) and the interviews became not as great. 

I noticed during interviews that if you mimic the other persons body language if they seem nervous, then they start to loosen up. I also learned to keep each question short and to the point. 

All in all, it was a great experience. I felt like I do on set. Ready for anything - it's a zen like calm that comes over me when I know that I will figure out what must be figured out, and no matter what - the show will go on!! 

Saturday(Today)

We went to King Neptunes to say goodbye to all of the filmmakers/panelists/scholars still here. It's a really small space with not a lot of parking, and I would recommend not going there next year. 

Week 13

Work Done 

This week, my main focus was preparing for the tabling event at ACE for The Revenant. I had help from: Rob, Adrienne, Kevin, Anthony, and Jack. I gathered stuff from the archive and made it look appealing and eye catching. I used the gibson holders we had left to display our DVDs and old programs - since we don't have our new ones yet. I also used an example of the swag bag just to draw people in. I also set up the step and repeat - which I don't think should be included anymore at co-sponsoring events. It's a lot of work to set up and no one used it at all. Once we went in and presented we took two t-shirts to throw out into the crowd. This was a great crowd pleaser! People loved it! I highly recommend it!! 

I think in the future Visions should sponsor more events with ACE. In fact, I think that we should try and sponsor more events with a lot of the groups on campus. I think it's an opportunity that Visions has missed for a while. Interacting with other groups could really help our reach and Visions awareness. I think involving ourselves in clubs, events, and places that our audience members love to go would be very beneficial to keeping Visions active in the minds of our audience. 

As a grassroots company, it's important to connect personally with the people we try to reach. As a small staff and a relatively small school, it would be good for us to utilize our personable staff members to send at least two staff members to events that correlate with our mission. I think in the future it would be a good idea to send ambassadors to all art events in the wilmington area - it might be even a good idea to create a position within the marketing department to create and follow up with a schedule of the events that correlate with our mission and have a staff sign up sheet where people must go to events and take pictures. 

 

week 12

Work Done

I've been focusing on the program content non stop with Michelle. It has been a nightmare solidifying everything, but I think it's all coming together very nicely. I think in the future when I proof things, I will pull up the original document and make all of the changes there instead of on paper, trying to transfer edits takes longer than jotting them down on the original document itself. I met with both Anthony and Jack on Wednesday and we talked about the posts, shot lists, interview schedule for the day of, display case design, and how we were incorporating snapchat and Instagram in with Facebook posts. 

The day of interview schedule was cut down to just the visionary panel including Jaclyn and the winners of the festival. I think this will be better overall, give Anthony and I more time to breathe, and will be helpful in promoting for V7 - hopefully they use it!! 

I am going to have a binder the day of where we put all important documents that we will need. I think this will keep departments on track, and be a helpful resource not only for V6 but for V7 as well. The marketing department will need to keep these things inside: shot lists (15), interview consent form, interview schedules, day of schedule, list of people at the fest, blank paper for notes, surveys. 

I have been in contact with ACE all week. Apparently we ordered the wrong size poster and we had to send them a jpeg to get it reprinted! Yikes! That's definitely going in the manual!! They said they would fix it by putting our nice poster on an easel, which I think will work well - if not better!! Now we have two posters! 

At the director's meeting, we went over the program one page at a time, and worked out the driving schedule. Everything seems to be falling into place and it's very exciting! 

I'm concerned about forgetting something the day of, but I feel like it will all work out somehow!! 

I'm concerned about moderating a panel with a lot of people on it, as well as interviewing people at a festival, so I looked at other festivals' interviews: 

https://tribecafilm.com/stories/tribeca-film-festival-directors-advice-justin-tipping-jenny-gage-rod-blackhurst

https://www.nycindieff.com/interview/suriname-gold-by-paulo-henrique-testolini

I've been going through these and their really helpful with brainstorming interview questions: 

http://www.noglossfilmfestival.co.uk/category/interviews/

Week 11

Work Done 

Adrienne and I met with Dr. Johnson for our moderator meeting on Wednesday. I took minutes and put them in my staff folder. She basically said that we are going to have to move the panel quickly and not let anyone talk for very long since we only have an hour. She also said to make sure that you give everyone a chance to talk. After we get the questions nailed down, we will send them to her. 

I've been working on getting all of the panelists onto the Visionary Press Release. I got the staff to give me comments. A lot of them were very helpful, and I feel like my press release writing skills have gotten a lot better! There weren't many comments other than for continuity. We handled class presentations a bit differently this year since we were behind. I got myself and four directors to email professors. I kept all of this listed and as organized as I could in Excel. 

Over break, I assigned both Jack and Anthony the shot list and DOE Interview Schedule, which let me work on the bios and loglines that we were receiving from the filmmakers and scholars. Getting those ready for the program and the website was my number one this week. I didn't change many of the bios except for grammar purposes or for continuity (commas, spelling). I also had to cut some of the loglines due to the program space that we had. Hint: Cutting small helps a lot! try to get rid of the throw away words like "is, are" and rework them so that action verbs are used, usually you can get the sentence way smaller! 

Research: 

 Here's some research for both your writing and others: 

http://thewritelife.com/edit-your-copy/

Here are 43 words you can cut, cut, cut:

http://dianaurban.com/words-you-should-cut-from-your-writing-immediately

Moderating Research: 

This is interesting, because it's not what I expected it to say. It talks about the intro, slides, where you should sit, when you should open to the audience, and inviting panelists to talk with each other: 

https://hbr.org/2013/05/how-to-moderate-a-panel-like-a 

Be careful about running a biased panel. We can't get so close with one panel member that we value him/her over the others. We chose them all, they are all equally knowledgable. 

http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/239870

week 10

Work Done

I worked on a new roll out plan for Visions. I met with both Adrienne and Grace to look over it before the director's meeting on Friday. I met with Adrienne on Thursday and Grace on Friday at noon. My process was to list all of the events that we had to launch and put them on a google calendar, arranging them the best I could in a way that wasn't too overwhelming for everyone. I think that twice a week is ok for launching, but you must be careful because you don't want to overwhelm your audience! I also wanted to spread apart the video race registration and regular registration, so that there wouldn't be any confusion. 

Shea Carver and Jeff Hunter still have not responded. Bookmarks have arrived. I went around and placed them and the posters around downtown. I also went around with Anthony downtown to Cape Fear and we hung up the event posters in their art building and the theater. You have to get permission at the Union Station with stamps, but it's really simple and easy to do! They are all very nice! 

Anthony and I ordered everything he needs for the display case besides what we want to get from Joann's. Now we wait! 

The banner that I did over the break won't stay up well, I think maybe because of the glitter and the fabric. I think that next year paper would be better! Shannon also wanted to tag it to say "Visions6 April 15" so Jack, Tyler, Mariah and I did that and hung it back up. We put newspaper behind it so it would not ruin the wall. 

Research: 

Big Picture Roll Out Research: 

http://www.sjhemleymarketing.com/blog/how-to-roll-out-your-marketing-strategy/

Old vs New Rules for PR: 

http://managementhelp.org/marketing/planning.htm

week 8

Meeting with Dave

I had a meeting with Dave and Michelle on Friday and we talked about the Cinematique slide. We also talked about Michelle redesigning the page for film studies in the program. I took minutes and posted it in my staff folder so that Michelle would have notes, as well as next year. 

Work Week

Everything keeps getting pushed back due to Vendini. I've had issues with encore and WHQR not responding to me about the issues we want to secure. I've also been worried because none of my press releases before have gotten published. I've also been concerned about how I CC Lauren appropriately into the email. I've started looking back at the day of interviews from last year and copying them over. I'm also getting all of the press releases ready for when we have all the information. It'll be ready to go! 

Research: 

This link is helpful for press releases: 

http://writersweekly.com/ask-the-expert/how-do-i-get-magazine-editors-to-respond-to-me

http://www.makealivingwriting.com/editors-dont-respond-query/

A good article about not becoming negative to the non-responders: 

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/20/your-money/the-anxiety-of-the-unanswered-e-mail.html?_r=0

CC email: 

http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/241470