Final Reflection

When I first attended this studio, I honestly had no idea what to do. A part of me was excited but the other part of me was scared because it’s something new. I choose this course because I love watching movies, for me personally, film is the easiest way I can know the world without going anywhere. However, I had never about to know film festival before I choose this course, all I knew was that Film Festival Experience is different from everything that I had done before, when I browsing the studio list, film festival experience suddenly in my eyes and I had a strong urge to know and learn this course. I knew that there was a lot I could learn in this class, and I was right.

At the beginning I said I wanted to learn what is film festival, know the history about film festival, and I want to know how to organize a success film festival, I am now realized that I know the substantial progress that how to organize a film festival, and understand the basic knowledge of film festival. When I look back to this semester, the time was so fast, I can even remember the feeling in the first class, that I knew nothing about this course, but now, our successful film festival has done! I’m not the one who give the most to this course, but I was get involved and as a part of this group, I learned more than just marks, but valuable experience that I will never forget.

I know this studio seems very cushy, that we don’t have much report and research, but only the people who attend this studio know it was not an easy job. The precious we have is not research or something academic stuffs, the most tough thing is we are organizing a real film festival, that need many preparations like the logo design, the trailers, the advertising, and the most important thing —- Financial precious. Everything we do need financial support, the logo T-shirts, site use fee, and decoration fees and so on. So, everyone in this studio are saving the expenditure as possible as they can. Although we are saving the expenditure, we still spend much money and need to find more way to get the money back, like put up the ticket price, sell some snacks during festival. What I want to say is it was not easy as it looks like.

The first Melbourne International Youth Film Festival was really successful, there are spaces for improvement but we can’t deny that we have a great start. The place of Opening night in the Backlot was a great choice, the DJ was a nice touch and help to make our festival be more professional and celebratory, the lights was also helped to give a lively and youth atmosphere. The opening night ticket was sold out which was a surprise, however, there are still some empty seats and some ticket buyers were not coming, which is weird. I was a bit upset that none of my friends had come to opening night, maybe it’s final period so no one have time to enjoy this, speaking of this, the date of this event was not a perfect choice, I know we don’t have much option but many young people won’t come during final period. As for my contribution to opening night, my Chinese trailer group and I ask our friend to made a cake for the Melbourne International Youth Film Festival, the decoration of the cake was quite simple but clear, we had the ‘MIYFF’ on the cake and a ‘1’ candle to celebrate the first the MIYFF, I’m happy that the cake was popular and made the event be official. Overall, the opening night was a good start, we organized orderly and been thoughtful. There are also some place we can improve, the division of job were not very clear, some people like me doesn’t have things to do and stand there hanging around, to be honestly, I don’t know what else can do when the guests there because none of my friends come and I do’t have someone to chat, after the guests were getting into their seats, I thought if I sit in the cinema maybe impolite but now I know I was wrong, I should sit in cinema and watch films with them!

At closing night, I was there to get some preparation help and leave early due to my other course’s meeting, which is a regrettable thing. When I get in the theatre in building 80, the familiar place makes me feel relieved. There was no one there except me, so I have time to see the decorations and settings they did in the afternoon, when I see the drinks and napkins for closing night, I suddenly realized that our team were did a great job, all of us made contribution to this event, some of them take a lot roles, I’m not saying I didn’t do anything, I made trailers and participated all preparation activities, but I didn’t try my best to consider what I can do for this. I’m really admire them and appreciate I am one of this team. So, when people getting back and preparing for the closing night, I tried to do more like them, to get the ice, buying flowers, and set the drinks and popcorns. Just that moment I realized that how they put themselves into this event and I was just like a spectator, sometimes give a hand and that’s all.

The most helpful reading for me in this semester is —- Who Is Organizing It? Importance of Production and Team Members – Andrea Kuhn. Kuhn had mentioned that production stage is an important element to organize a film festival, also, delegation, pre-production and planning surrounding budgeting, materials and manpower are need to be considered. To be honestly, our team had considered all of these requirements, but when we doing the actual operations, some of the elements had been ignored, speaking of this, I think there is a problem that our team doesn’t get a good contact with each small section, we may need a leader role to in charge of all section and get all section be connected. If we have next time to do this, I believe we can make this part perfect.

There’s a sentence in reading I really like, “Like music festivals, film festivals should realize that, especially in the age of online, it’s the offline communality of film festivals, the fact that we are all getting together to do the same thing, that is part of the source of their joy” (M. Cousins, 2012) This sentence shows perfectly how I understand film festival, it has magic to make people who have same movie taste and same vision of the world to getting together, and enjoy the films.

Another reading I had stated in weekly reflection, How to Successfully Promote Your Festival (Bohdana Rambousková), which is very helpful for advertising.

“This rule especially applies when it comes to the media, who will only publish or broadcast news about your festival if they can easily understand what the event is about and are able to get directly to the point. Prepare a clear set of information to present to the media:

• An exact title of the festival
• Dates and locations
• The aim of the festival (or an aim of the current edition)
• Content (theme, programme categories, accompanying events, guests)
• Who stands behind the festival (organisers, sponsors and partners)”

Bohdana Rambousková gives an accurate information for promote a film festival, however, I think we have a lot space to improve in advertising part, we didn’t have a good advertisement of our film festival, such as the trailers was released too late, and the posters can be more attractive I guess, there is a problem that we don’t have enough funds to do advertisement.

There is a Children’s International Film Festival between May 24 – June 10, I will go and see that before it close, actually I’m interested in this film festival, and I want to see and compare that with Our MIYFF, maybe I can learn how to running a youth film festival, and what’s the highlight element of a film festival for young people, also, I can see if there’s anything not good we can avoid, by the way, the idea that a film festival for children is really nice and sweet, I’d like to see something different films and ideas in that event!

In conclusion, The First Melbourne International Film Festival was very successful for a young/ have few experiences of film festival student team! I’m appreciate that I’m in this group and be a part of this team. I believe if we have another chance, we are going to have a better MIYFF.

Word count: 1537

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.

Mark Cousins 2012,  “Film Festival Form: A Manifesto” on ‘The Film Festival Academy” website, accessed 3 May 2019 http://www.scifilondontv.com/FFA/Manifesto/FFF-manifesto.pdf

Mark Cousins, “Film Festival Form: A Manifesto.” on “The Film Festival Academy.” website, accessed 12 April, 2019.

Reflection (week 10 – week 12)

Finally, the final week is coming, we finished preparation of our film festival and going to have our first film festival, I’m so exciting when I just type this down. It was not easy to organizing this event, but it definitely an incredible memory and experience for me and all people who contributed to this festival preparation.

Until now, design section made a great booklet and we printed them out, several trailers have also uploaded on YouTube, the tickets are on sale, everything seems going properly and certainly, but only we know how hard and how much effort we made behind these ‘certain’. In these final weeks, I strongly feel the strength of a team, we all have our own things in charge of, but all of us work hard and made our own work perfect, which is a extradentary collaboration.

Since this is the first film festival, and we all are no-experienced, there is a cruel but real trouble, that there are just few tickets been sold. So, I tried to post some of our progress and the film list on Chinese social apps and my own Instagram account. Also, I tried to send out the festival booklet on street, but the result was not good, probably because people instinctively reject the leaflet on street. The reaction of social apps advertising was good, many of my friends shows their interests of the indie films and how we organize a film festival.

This is definitely a special and unforgettable experience, now I know how to organize a film festival, how important of teamwork, this course give me more than I can imagine.

In the class of week 9, we gave a pitch for our special guest panelists Rohan Spong and Erin Rosenberg and the whole class, also I receive many effective advice from Rohan and Erin.

I was nervous about this pitch, because that’s the first time we show our trailers to the whole class, I’m not sure about whether they can understand, so the nervous feeling had sustained until the trailer has been played. The short trailer which acted by two male figures did not show their interests about the film festival, actually when I watch that on the big screen, I didn’t think that will be a persuasive promotional video. The second video got the teacher’s approval, which is attractive and shows their interests of film festival. The trailer from the local group has also got some valuable advice, that Erin mentioned the music and scene is too slow to make them like an advertisement of Nikon, and also that’s not like a promotional video for a film festival, that suggestion was also useful for me, because we decided to make a new trailer that more interesting and attractive, so we will get rid of the slow music and focus on promote the film festival.

Form this criticism cession, I had a direct viewing that how’s going on each section and what we completed, I also realized that when we getting together, and allocate the work orderly, make a film festival is not that impossible. It was a valuable session that we receive many professional advice and also showed and saw the progress of each section.

Week 10 (Final reflection)

It’s getting to the end of preparation of MIYFF. Last week we gave a pitch to Rohan and Erin, to show the progress and got some professional advice from them, through this pitch, we showed our trailers to the whole class, and get some very useful advice, also, when others showing their progress, it was the first time I see a rudiment of our film festival intuitively, I was realized how strong when we work as a team, we did what we can and share our idea, but together we organized a film festival! As a fundraiser for our film festival, we had a small size event named ‘The Canned Film Festival’. When I was getting there, many people has already set up the preparation, some were making the unique T-shirt for MIYFF, some were arranging the table and desks. Actually, I was really want to help them, but seems all things were arranged properly, Ben and Tessa made an effort for our first event, they plan so well and give everyone a section to in charge with, I printed the poster and put them up outside of our building for the final promotion. In the end, I believe this event is a successful small film festival, although there aren’t many people here, but it’s the first time we organize a film festival by a new team that has no experience before, that made me realize again when we getting together, nothing is going to be impossible.

The next I need to do is redo a new trailer as soon as possible, now I’m really excited about the start of MIYFF, I want to see what new things we can make in the future!

Week 8

After a long break, people seems bring lots of new things to our class, all trailers had finished shooting, Chinese trailers had finished the initial version, and our group members gave us some advice, like a background noise can be fix, and may change the subtitle font to make them clearer. Actually I’m not really satisfied about the mini trailer we made, So, me and my Chinese group member decided to make a new trailer that more attractive and more interesting.

During the class, we are focusing on the production fundraiser, and we got an extra week and move the fundraiser to next week. Then, we have more time to get on our own work. Unfortunately, I didn’t attend the risk assessment meeting during the break, because we when out to redo our trailers.

Overall, at this week, when I see my classmates are so active about the fundraiser, I realize that I didn’t and even don’t know how to help at fundraiser, I see the lack of my ability to organize a festival, which is a necessary ability when we have a job.

From the readings of this week, I learned the classification and rating of films, which is an important point for a new film festival team. It is interesting to see each rate has a clear rule of themes, sex violence and coarse language. (Guidelines for the Classification of Films 2012)

Reading:

“Guidelines for the Classification of Films 2012: Classification (Publications, Films and Computer Games) Act 1995 (Links to an external site.)Links to an external site.” on Federal Register of Legislation website, accessed 28 April, 2019.

Week 7

This week we had started to do some shooting for the trailer, what we in charge of is to produce some Chinese trailers to attract some Chinese students and make the advertising video be diversified.

When we plan to do that I thought that will be a simple work, 10 to 20 seconds, in Chinese. We made several ideas to our group, and then we decided to start. However, when we start to get down to that, there are many troubles we face. At the first, we got many novel ideas. For instance, we plan to make a short story that a mystery man flies a paper plane which made with MIYFF poster, and in the other side, there are some students sitting on the grass and hit by the paper plane and they are interested to that film festival. During the shooting, we found it was difficult to shoot how the paper plane flying and it’s hard to control the direction because of the wind.

After the failure of the first time, we had a discussion and made a new plan, we decided to do two trailers, one is about 40 seconds and the other one is about 10 seconds, that will be a normal trailer that include some details about our film festival, and the other will be a mini trailer. After we finish the shooting and editing, and we discussed with our group mate, then I found I’m not really professional with editing, although when I choose this to get in charge I thought I would create an interesting work for my group, there are many things I can learn.

Over all, this week I finally finished the trailer, and I realized I need to get into the discussion with my group and talk more to get more idea.

Reflection 3

Before this week’s class me and my group had a meeting to show what we done now and what we can do better, and plan the filming and editing time of mini trailers. We exchanged our opinions and decided to finish some of mini trailers before next weekend. To compare with last week, we have a big progress in filming and the script.

The guest lecture of Mia Falstein-Rush let me get know film festival deeper and made me have more thoughts about film culture, she mentioned film festivals is a catalyst to changing the landscape on and off the screens, and adds value beyond other types of film screenings to meet a demand not otherwise fulfilled. Those viewpoints made me realize how superficial I know about film festival culture. However, these also made me feel excited about what we doing now ( a film festival!).

At the weekend, we are going to filming the mini trailers as Chinese trailer group, we also join the film submission group to watch the Chinese films and may give them some our opinion when they screen out final films. Those works are make me feel involved and exciting.

For films submission viewing, if I want to give some help to them, I think I have to focus on the purpose of our film festival but not random, and what I learn from the reading is, focus on the meaning of the film, not the film. ‘The film is a piece of art that reveals its meaning in the context into which it is placed. If your festival is comprised only of non-confrontational, glossy films, it will be boring and less thought provoking than a varied selection that surprises and disturbs the audience with unexpected types of films.’ (Bartosova, Kulhankova & Rausova 2015, pg 27)

Reference:

Kateřina Bartošová, Hana Kulhánková & Zuzana Raušová, “Knowing Yourself and Your Audience: Programming a Human Rights Film Festival (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. 27-46.

Refection 2 – Week 5

For week 5’s class, we discussed the budgeting stuff together and our group made some progress about shooting and editing. I noticed that many people in our class have leadership, they would inspire others and lead us to promote the progress. However, I think I’m too shy to share my opinion, or I even didn’t have my own opinion in some aspects, when they think out an idea and talk together, I’m just agree with that idea, not to think about the better one or add some new thoughts.

Cerise as an experienced leader, gave us many help and inspiration to us. When Tessa got a great idea that me and other Chinese students can think about some short promotion videos of Chinese, so that may attract some Chinese audience to come, which is an excellent idea. I appreciate that I’m in that group, they are so nice to explain what’s going on at that moment, and always give me a sense of participation.

‘As a new festival, you should aim to have coverage in print media, radio and on the Internet. There is one more very important communication channel called “word-of-mouth”; this refers to the free advertising that comes from people talking to their friends, family, and colleagues about your festival. If you can build excitement about your festival enough so that people will spread the word for you, it will be a huge asset to your promotion. This is simply because a personal recommendation is always much more persuasive than a corporate-sponsored message.’ (Rambousková 2015)

As Rambousková mentioned, a new film festival need ‘word of mouth’, need to be recommended by friends or families, what I need to do is to make the short promotional video be in this mode.

Overall, what I learned in this week is more than I thought, as a group member, I need to be more active to share my idea, and to help the leaders to have a better project.

Reference:

Bohdana Rambousková, “How to Successfully Promote Your Festival (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. 97-114.

Reflection1

In week 4, we started to organize our film festival, which made me feel so excited that we are going to have our own film festival!

‘And that’s exactly what the production department is for. Production gives a “face” to your festival by integrating all the work that everyone is doing in the background into a smoothly running whole for the public to see. Production creates the look of your event and makes sure that everything is where it should be, when it should be there. It is the link between your festival and its audience.’ (Kuhn, 2015)

A Kuhn describe, everyone had chosen what they want to do, and some people took several charges. At beginning I thought that would be very difficult for us because we never done this large festival before. However, when I see people and the teacher were so excited and have a clear idea and method to prepare, I start to join in and have the confidence in my own position.

In the end, I see the production forming, that’s very surprise to see a promote in few hours, which are inseparable with all people in this class. I’m so appreciate I have this chance to be a part of this festival, and I’m looking forward to see future challenge and creative promote.

Reference:

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.

1. what were the key insights about staging film festivals in Australia you took away from Richard Sowada’s guest lecture, and from attending a film festival screening in Melbourne?

Film festival, an event that provides films for people, includes red carpets, open-air screenings, paparazzi. From the guest lecture by Richard Sowada, I had a primary understanding of Film Festival, such as how film festival running, and how much film festivals in contemporary century. Every day in the world, there are more than one film festivals take place, small size or large scale. Richard mentioned that he doesn’t agree that the size is a key point to judge a film festival is good or not, because the best film festival he attended were in the small pubs. Richard also talked about the history of film, after the second world war, film festivals appeared. At that time, the theme, form and the aim of the festivals are not the same with film festivals nowadays. The most obvious difference was the screening method, at that time, people use film roll to present films, which was the original method of filming, but complicated and hard to preserve, however, the quality of film roll has its own unique color, that modern technology cannot compare with.

In our weekly reading (Film Festivals: History, Theory, Method, Practice), the author stated that size is important to an international film festival, which is opposite to Richard’s opinion, the author mentioned, all international film festivals are large scales. In my opinion, the meaning of small size film festivals and international film festivals are different, but they both got their advantages and disadvantages, it depends on what kinds of audience they focus on.

All film festivals got a common point, all of the organizers aim to present and spread their opinions, like political directions, environmental protection, LGBT culture and so on. Similarly, each region, each country also got its own theme, although the exact theme won’t be the same, but the large position, and the problem they focus are exactly the same. For example, the reading <Film Festivals: History, Theory, Method, Practice> stated that South Korea targets the local fan communities of fantasy film, broadly defined as ‘all that we can not experience in the real world’. This definition can be divided to a bunch of themes, like the horror film, action film. In addition, the reading also mentioned that the films in Ireland, the target audience are also including the local ethnic communities, so the film festivals in Ireland are also playing Africans films to get relations.

After the second world war, the Australian film festival culture was growing gradually. However, to compare with the European film festivals, Australian film festival culture were developed their own structure and ideologies. The most famous film festivals are almost from Europe, when the size of the event getting large, the organizer should consider more about sponsors and the taste of the public. In Australia, the key point of their film festivals is how to meet their own opinion and the target audience would be the true fan of what they film. The most famous film festivals are MFF and SFF, and both of the organizers are truly the enthusiasts, they all work for the people like them, that are also have high enthusiasm of films. Australian film festivals form would be independent and unique in the world, and they will also follow in their footsteps, with their grass-roots community orientation, rather than the international spectacles.

1. And what were your key takeaways about international film festival culture, present and past, from viewing Film Spa?

After I coming into this course, also listened to Richard’s lecture and watched <Film Spa>, I had a comprehensive understand of film festival, like how a film festival running, how they organize. I never attend a huge scale film festival before until last week, I went to a small film festival in RMIT, it was a Chinese film festival, but I realized that film festival has more meaning, not just show movies to the audiences, for instance, that Chinese film festival was target to the Chinese international students, and when we get together to watch a Chinese movie at RMIT, in Australia, for me I had some new thoughts, not just sitting in the cinema and watch movie, I will think more about the meaning of the movie, and why they choose this movie to show us.

Through <Film Spa>, I knew that almost international film festival was started after the second world war. The Karlovy Vary International Film Festival dates to the mid-1940s, which is one of the most famous international film festivals in the world nowadays, <Film Spa> recorded the history, change point and growth of KVIFF. The first KVIFF film festival was organized by some film lovers, and that was a non-competition festival. Since the Czechoslovak Communist Party gained power in Czechoslovakia, the film festival was started by the Czechoslovak National Film Ministry. In the next 10 years, the festival needs to largely serve the propaganda of communism. So, this condition has limited lots of movies to be shown at the festival. In 1989, the velvet revolution completely changed this situation. At the Karlovy Vary Film Festival in 1990, a number of Czech local films that were previously banned were allowed to be shown at the festival. In the following sessions, many international famous filmmakers, especially the former Czech director Miloš Forman who was forced into exile because of the movie <Prague Spring> also attended the festival. That was greatly improved the popularity of a film festival. In the following years, the quality of the participating films is increasing and the style is becoming more diversified. There are lots of black and white archival footage, and some interview of the director, that made me feel I really back to the time and see the early film festival.

In the last two weeks, I learned a lot of film festival cultures and history from this course, Richard’s lecture and <film Spa>. I changed my superficial thought about film festival, and realized I got a lot to learn and explore in this course.

Reference:

“Enthusiastic Amateurs: Origins of Australia’s Film Festival Movement” in Kirsten Stevens, Australian Film Festivals: Audience, Place, and Exhibition Culture (Links to an external site.)Links to an external site., Palgrave Macmillan US, New York, 2016, pp. 17-46.

Marijke de Valck, “Introduction: What is a film festival? How to study festivals and why you should (Links to an external site.)Links to an external site.” in Marijke de Valck, Brendan Kredell and Skadi Loist (eds), Film Festivals: History, Theory, Method, Practice, Routledge, New York, 2016, pp. 1-11.

Cerise Howard, “Local and/or General… Of Time and Place at the 50th Karlovy Vary and 6th Odessa International Film Festival (Links to an external site.)Links to an external site.”, Senses of Cinema, no. 76 (Sep. 2015)

Cerise Howard, “A Time of Reckoning? The 53rd Karlovy Vary International Film Festival (Links to an external site.)Links to an external site.”, Senses of Cinema, no. 88 (Oct. 2018)