Alone we can do so little, together we can do so much

Festival Experience Studio blog post #3

So far one month into planning and to be perfectly candid, it is very overwhelming. Looking around the classroom, I reckon the general vibe is the discomfort of paddling in deep unknown waters, especially since most of us have never organized a public event, let alone to this extent.

But…

With our first assignment done and dusted, we are all now shifting our attention to the fundraiser, and of course, the final film festival; the organization, marketing, and for me in particular, the design and marketing materials. My strengths lie in the production side of event organization, and so with these film festival events, I will be focusing my energy on directing and filming the trailers, creating posters, and designing posts for our social media accounts, especially Facebook and Instagram. Our class seems to have split into two general groups; one for programming and public relations, and the other for anything production related. In this group, I hesitate to take the lead, but with classes feeling directionless at times, I want to achieve a balanced, collaborative atmosphere with my team whilst also making sure we remain productive and churn out materials for our public relations team.

“Production is like design— ideally it combines form and function. Some of its tasks intersect with other departments, such as the technical coordinator or the PR and graphic design people.”

 

Taken from 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

From this week’s reading, I really resonated with the discussion regarding design work and the necessity of integrating departments. Work within the creative media industry cannot function without group work, and as my classmates and I endeavor to run a live film festival, it is paramount that we work together in a fluid environment. By “fluid”, I mean that whilst we may have departments with specific roles, tasks should bleed between departments just as described in the quote above. I know from experience that creative media projects like this cannot work with segregated departments, but also cannot function if everyone doesn’t have a role. So, now with roles finally established, my game plan for the upcoming weeks is to keep open communications between my design team with the marketing and coordination team to make sure we’re all on the same page to produce quality content.