It’s Only Up From Here

Festival Experience Studio blog post #8

We did it! The fundraiser was such a success and I am so proud of us for pulling it together!

This day was such an eventful day, beginning with presenting our film festival project to a panel of Rowan Spong, an RMIT studio leader and award-winning filmmaker, and Erin Rosenberg, the programming and distribution co-ordinator of the Jewish International Film Festival (JIFF). The two gave us such comprehensive and useful feedback to all departments and generally, it felt like we are all on the right track to making a successful film festival. For the design work in particular, here are the materials we presented and their feedback:

• Instagram posts have a nice aesthetic but could use a bit more color. I explained to them the reasoning for the black, white and red uniformed colors, to which they understand the layout better, but they also suggested to play with a little more wash of color.

• There was too much text here for a poster, and the design seemed a lot more appropriate as a pamphlet. The panel suggested that posters should be very visual with minimal text, and so I will be enlarging the picture to be a focal point, and keep only the important information, such as our name, and the time and location of the festival.

TRAILERS (unable to link yet, as they are not uploaded on YouTube or Vimeo)

• Chinese International Trailers – Some of our classmates worked on creating short trailers to target specifically international Chinese students who may be interested in attending our festival. They created two videos of young Chinese students talking about the festival and expressing their interest in going. The panel loved the videos and suggested very minor adjustments, but praised the trailers for being simple, and relatable, and also loved the idea of reaching out to the international demographic in Melbourne.
• English cinematic trailer – A couple of other classmates and I filmed some footage of a young adult walking around a park taking photos and filming. We aimed to create a short, cinematic trailer to appeal to the youth filmmakers to promote our festival. I helped filmed the footage, and then gave the materials to another classmate to edit. The final outcome was cute, cheesy and had a satirical feel to the “overly-cinematic” style, but unfortunately, the panel was not to keen on the idea and thought it best to pull away from the parody/satirical style, which may alienate our audience. I wholeheartedly agree with this comment, and I think the next step for our trailers (other than creating supercut trailers of the short films), is to pull away from the satire and make a more genuine, inspirational and encouraging trailer for youth filmmakers to relate to more.

Event photos I took at the Fundraiser event. It wasn’t my best work because I forgot to bring my external flash and the venue lighting was difficult to shoot in, but now I know to be extra prepared and promise to deliver better quality photos for the festival.

The fundraiser event, although small, was such a huge success in my eyes. Considering the little amount of time we had to prepare and promote the event online and around RMIT, I am really proud of how everything turned out. It was a bit disheartening to see a lack of help from some of our classmates, but trying to look at it optimistically; if only a few of us worked our butts off to make this event happen within this short amount of time, when all 22 of us pull our heads together and work towards the film festival, I reckon it’s going to be an absolute blast of a festival. It really is only up from here, and I am more excited than ever for the festival.