1. What time is your interview scheduled and who will you be talking with when you call/skype?
Martin Anaya is not responding.
2. Who started it and who runs it?
Kenneth Knoll started the Sacramento’s Festival of Cinema in 1995. He then gave control to Executive Director, Ron Cooper, and Managing Festival Director, Martin Anaya. Martin Anaya gained full control of the Sacramento International Film Festival in 2004.
3. What is the mission of the festival/conference? (copy and paste the first paragraph)
The Sacramento Film Society affirms the visionary spirit of the world’s cinematic geniuses who use the film arts to enlighten, educate, entertain and enrich the audiences of the world.
4. 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...)
This past year they programmed films that dealt with local issues and talent, sports documentaries, and global documentaries. The overarching themes that this festival tends to lean towards are universal emotions or subjects, films that everyone is able to relate to. This works with their mission, because they want to focus on educating the world. It also works with their history, however, because the festival started out being a local festival concerned with local issues.
5. Where is the event?
The events are held at Tower Theater, Crest Theater, The Delta King, and the Esquire Theater.
6. When is the event? (Give dates from last year if not current)
This year was April 25 – May 3, 2015.
7. How do you submit? Snail mail, online, withoutabox, through their site, etc...
You can submit on FilmFreeway or Withoutabox. Links to both websites are included on their home page.
8. When are the deadlines to enter? Early? Reg? Late?
Early deadline is July 15, 2015. Regular Deadline is September 15, 2015. Late deadline is October 15, 2015.
9. How much does it cost to enter?
Each category an early, regular, late deadline fee, final deadline fee, and extended deadline fee. ($25, $30, $35, $50, $65),
10. Who’s eligible, what are the guidelines to enter?
There are three main categories: short form (under 20 minutes total running time), long form (20 minutes to an hour total running time), and features (over an hour total running time). There are also special Showcases, which include: Latino Filmmaker’s Showcase, Environmental Visions, Urban Films Showcase, Animated Film Showcase, Future Visionaries: Youth Showcase, Nor Cal All Stars, American Screenplay Challenge (Comedy, Dramatic, Short), Cine Asia, Fashion on Film. Everyone is eligible to enter unless they are employees, volunteers, interns, or board members.
11. Is there a Student category?
There’s a student category for filmmakers 7th to 12th grade.
12. What formats do they except for jurying? DVD, Vimeo, Flash drives?
You can submit a preview copy on Film Freeway online or you can submit a DVD with the completed application. DVDs must be NTSC standard (no PAL tapes or other formats).
13. What formats do they except for exhibition/screening?
Exhibition and screening formats must be on an HD online copy (vimeo/youtube), a 35mm, DVD or Blu Ray.
14. How many films screened at the festival last year?
56 films screened last year.
15. How long is a typical shorts block or paper presentation block at their event?
A typical shorts block is two hours long.
16. How many films or papers do they program per block?
They program around 6-9 films per block.
17. How do people register to attend? Is there a cost to attend as a guest?
It costs $150 for an all access general pass and $120 for students. You can call and get tickets or you can order tickets from Brown Paper Tickets located on the schedule on the website.
18. 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.
There is no page dedicated to sponsorship, but the sponsors for the California Film Foundation are listed at the bottom of every page: The Studio Center, CalMediaSolutions.com, Withoutabox, The Delta King, SAG-AFTRA, Sacremento365 Event page, SacLatino Magazine, The Crest Theater, Brown Paper Tickets, Reading Theaters, IP Narrow Cast Digital Signage.
19. What are their sponsorship levels and incentives for each level?
Not applicable to this Festival.
20. Did they have a kickstarter or indiegogo? What incentives did they have for each level of donor?
I could not find a Kickstarter or Indiegogo campaign.
21. What kind of nontraditional film/video events have they had before? Things like Installations, 'Visual Soundwalls,' VJing etc.
-They have incorporated a 48 hour film event called “48 Hours Sacramento.” Each year has a different theme. This year the theme was “SUPER-MODELS” (Super-sexy heroines). They also have an after party equipped with DJs and stars.
22. 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?
They hold one of their film blocks on The Delta King, a boat much like the Henrietta in Wilmington. They held a workshop called the Digital Odyssey Conference in which you meet creators of film, games, music and online distribution and then you are able to build your own transmedia project at the festival.
Our website is our virtual face. Every day our site has incoming traffic, nationally and internationally. It's important that visitors are able to find the information that they need without being sent on a wild goose chase through our pages. We want visiting our site to be easy and painless, and for our visitors to have as good of an experience virtually as they would actually attending the event. Our goal is for the Visions site to be easy to navigate, to be aesthetically pleasing, and to easily deliver the information our audience is looking for without overwhelming them. The following exercise will help you see how important all of these things are to a first time (and hopefully a future repeat) visiting our site.
Answer the following questions about your experience with your assigned festival’s/conference’s website:
23. Is the layout easy to navigate? What makes it easy?
No. The layout is very difficult to navigate. The only things that were easy were the submitting links to Withoutabox and FilmFreeway.
24. Is the layout difficult to navigate? What makes it difficult?
Yes. It’s very difficult. It’s confusing and I’m not sure what is what or where I can find the festival page. The buttons at the top that link to parts of the page don’t even link to information about the festival and the link at the top of the page to the “festival’s page” takes you to the same exact site you were on.
25. Can you find the information you are looking for on the homepage or via a link on the homepage?
No. I had to look on Google, Facebook, and dig into their website, and even then I couldn’t find some of the information about the festival.
26. Aesthetically, what catches your eye? What's cool about it?
I do like that they have a community of filmmakers on their website that can have their resumes and connect. I also like d that they had the upcoming events so readily available on the homepage.
27. Aesthetically, what doesn't fit in? What makes it look bad?
It’s very messy, and the cover photo for the homepage looks like it was from smart art on Word. None of the fonts match and the links to important information on the side look like their sponsor links, so they are confusing and camouflaged to people who aren’t looking carefully. None of it seems very cohesive and I have to work to find some sort of theme for this festival.
28. Should there be more information? Is the page too bare?
No. Putting more information on the page would be overwhelming.
29. Should there be less information? Is the page too busy?
There needs to be less information on each page and more tabs on the top of the site full of organized, thorough information.
30. What would you do differently if you were to redesign this website?
I would give the website a cohesive theme and make all of the colors and fonts match. I would also reorganize everything and perhaps make two separate pages that link together: one for the California Film Foundation specifically and one for the Sacramento International Film Festival.
31. What would you keep the same if you were to redesign this website?
I would keep the added element of the community of filmmakers on the website connected in a Facebook-like atmosphere.
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