The Debut International Film Festival. What a journey. Before taking this studio, i had no ideas about the studio, i thought we were just going to draft a film festival, i thought we would just present to the class but i was wrong, very wrong and im glad i was. The Festival Experience studio has been my favourite studio of my course and our progress from where we just began is extraordinary to say the least. From the first weeks and ongoing weeks i did not even realise we were actually putting on a film festival, but this opportunity gave me the ideas of creativity and excitement to keep me forward and focused. Speaking about the festival’s conception, ideas were flowing all over us, did we want to focus on a singular genre like action? An action festival celebrating the global side of things like classic Jackie Chan movies and then we asked ourselves, what was his first movies and then BANG! The Debut International Film Festival before it was called that had a number of names, FIFF (first), DIFF (Different) and finally my favourite DIFF meaning Debut meaning firsts. Our aim was to celebrate directorial debuts from our favourite directors of all time in cinematic history and io think in the end we did a great job. By influences of uniqueness and inclusivity, our aim was to globally challenge our festival, we didn’t want to just have a white, American and male list, we wanted females and global attributes to provide the real image of cinema in our eyes. The parts of the festivals operations were very balanced and easy to find out, my job was very fun  and also important at the same time, unlike marketing, production and social media teams, my job was very intimate, by this i mean it was very close and hidden from the festival, i was emailing so many companies it was incredible, i went into lengths i did not even know i could get to and this experience has given me many things; confidence, email wording skills, negotiating, patience(key) and the famous saying our lecturer constantly told us “maybe you do know someone” when we were wondering how to have contacts in these big film distribution companies which kept our hopes up. In all seriousness,  confidence in my eyes alongside with being comfortable will get you success in this field and can lead to a bright future for you in this big industry, i can already say that before this studio i would not have the guts to be involved with anything but this festival made me realise what is the point and just do anything to help the team. Speaking of skills i had before the festival would include improvisation, this worked in the festival as we were thinking of slogans for the festival at our starting point brainstorming and i just shouted ‘Something DIFFerent’ and the class agreed then our lecturer asked “what do i call you guys” and i screamed ‘DIFFLOMATS!’ which i was surprised made sense and stuck with it. The division of labour across each team and area i think for our festival could definitely have been better, i felt that in some times i was doing too much then i was doing too less and didn’t flow through the same energy whilst trying to balance other classes but as soon as the dates got closer and closer this class became a high priority in organisation and dedication. Speaking of interpersonal dynamics and workflows and even things that i did to operate the festival, Film Freeway is my answer. I took the responsibility to be in charge of the creating, posting to the public and communicating with the global world of film freeway for our short films. With the help of the editorial team and my fellow programmers we created the rules, rewards, prices and mission statement for the festival in order for the short films to be accepted and our festival on the map. This process felt short but it was very long and learning how to operate a new system under a short time was a challenge and i am glad i proved myself and did the best work i could in that category. Speaking of successful relationships, with the help of my new and improved emailing skills, i had strong contacts with big companies like Village Roadshow with Dominic and Park Circus with Chris in which both of these were outer state, they contacted me immediately and even went out of their company to ensure i got the films i enquired about after hours too. Discussing my independent research and self-initiated activities alongside the great readings we were resourced, i felt that with this class i now understand what Cannes is and other big festivals and have been researching what is premiering and how its celebrated and how i can get tickets to more Melbournian film festivals in the future. Speaking of helping the festival research and activities, in the last week of classes, i went all around RMIT campus with buildings 13, 10, 80, 9 and many more, i planted our festival posters and then also in the city but mostly in my suburb of Fitzroy on popular streets that may attract attention, also with my own presence I continue to shoutout my film festival to all my community on social media. This experience was unreal, stressful but a rollercoaster of excitement.