Time flies and we are already a month into the semester. Scary stuff. On the bright side, however, the festival is coming along nicely and there are quite a few things to discuss. Being aware of the word limit, I will focus on discussing our progress so far in relation to labour division and team-work, which I’m learning a lot about this semester.

It’s the second studio I take where the entire class is working on one big project. My first experience took place in semester 1 2018 when we were making our very own live talk show. It had 2 episodes both of which we successfully broadcasted over a 2 week period. It was one of my favourite uni courses and I enjoyed working in such a large team a lot. The difference, however, was that prior to the beginning of any practical assignment each student was assigned a specific role like floor manager or cameraman or producer. The studio has been running for a while, it was all planned out and polished and we just had to take on pre-determined roles.

This semester the situation isn’t quite the same.

When a bunch of students with little to no experience get together to organise such a massive event as a film festival from a scratch, one would expect it to be a mess. Even under the guidance of a professional, it’s difficult to establish an efficient team and get everyone together, leave alone pull off a festival in less than 3 months. Nonetheless, we seem to be doing just that.

From the very beginning, I watched people quickly identify their skills and interests and find an appropriate job they can do towards the festival. Even though we didn’t have specifically identified job titles, everyone seemed to know what they are doing and what field they are operating in. I found it particularly interesting that we divided ourselves in more or less the same groups as it was advised in this week’s reading by Andrea Kuhn. Production, planning, venues, event planning… You could trace all of these ‘departments’ at different tables in class, which, for me, confirms that we are on the right page. Though, some of the aspects we should focus more on are ticketing and awards. I’m sure these will come up later in the planning, but it’s something to keep in mind for sure.

Another take away from the reading was the final paragraph about maintaining a healthy environment in such a stressful process as film festival setup.

Working for a low-budget film festival demands a lot from everyone involved. Things will get hectic and things will go wrong both before and during the festival, so you should be prepared to deal with high stress levels. Don’t take your stress out on volunteers or on other people further “down the food chain” from you. To help keep your team motivated, it’s important not to take people for granted; make everyone feel important and part of the festival. Their additional motivation will help reduce errors and create an atmosphere where everyone can deal with problems more easily. Sometimes something extra like a shared dinner for everyone right before the festival can work wonders at bringing everyone closer and motivating everyone that extra bit. Never forget to thank your team—they deserve it!

Once again, I feel like our team is excellent at supporting each other and remaining positive and motivated. It was one of my concerns that the stress of it will cause problems between people, but it seems that the pressure only brings us closer. Let’s hope that it will stay this way.

Word count: 473

Cited:

Andrea Kuhn, “Who Is Organising It? Importance of Production and Team Members (Links to an external site.)Links to an external site.” in Setting Up a Human Rights Film Festival, vol. 2, Human Rights Film Network, Prague, 2015, pp. 71-83.