As the major project of the semester, the first New Normal International Film Festival was successfully held by us from 4-6 June. From my perspective, it was a precious experience because it was operated by the whole class, which was something I have not tried before. In addition, the concept of making the film festival online refreshed my understanding towards film festival culture, NNIFF strived for delivering the positive attitude to the society that although people are isolated around the world, we can still engage with festival culture, and I was so glad to be a part of NNIFF in terms of sharing experiences with people who are also passionate about the film festival.
As a team member of Marketing & PR, my teammates and I mainly focus on managing social media accounts for NNIFF. We mapped out a basic structure for the content because we strived for creating different atmospheres through different platforms. For example, as an image-driven platform, Instagram is more effective for us to get involved with people casually. In contrast, Facebook allows people to discover the latest events which create an immersive environment for them. Therefore, we had different contents posted specifically to different platforms in terms of maximising the functionality of platforms. In addition, except the posts we made regularly (i.g. countdown), we also posted contents related to the concept of new normal, we engaged with news about the Covid-19 pandemic in order to unpack the core concept of NNIFF, so people were able to understand NNIFF more. Moreover, As Emilie states (cited in Croll 2020) states, efficient communications outreach also plays a vital role in promoting the festival. We reached out many radio stations and arranged interviews with the member from the production team due to the fact that “media will not look for your festival” (Bohdana 2015, p.98). Therefore, we had to be more active when we promoted the festival, this sort of communication outreach improved NNIFF’s influences, which strengthened the connection between people and NNIFF.
Screening nights were constructed by different elements, we had pre-recorded videos of conversations with filmmakers between films in order to unpack the inspirations of films for people, tried to deliver a sense of “behind the scene”. Besides, the casual atmosphere of conversation creates space for people to relieve themselves from the previous film, and get ready for the upcoming films. As Tomas (2015, p.85) states, film screening is not the only part of the film festival. The idea of holding NNIFF is to encourage people to get involved with festival culture rather than watching screenings passively, the virtual environment for film festival should be constructed by people, the more people engage, the more immersive experience they have. Even though the first NNIFF was presented successfully, there were still many takeaways which help us to elevate the quality of the film festival in the future. On the first screening night, it was quite a “disaster” when we tried to maintain the fluency of screening, films were stopped frequently due to unstable internet connection. As an audience, it was not an enjoyable experience for me because I was not able to fully engage with the films. Therefore, I contact Jaie who was in charge of streaming and suggest him to download the films before screening so that we can avoid unstable connectivity during screening. This refers to the importance of in-time communications between team members, we needed to get prepared for any unpredictable issues when NNIFF went live. After each screening night, we had debriefed meetings to analyse today’s performance. From my perspective, debrief meetings played vital roles in improving the festival experience, we can gain feedback from each team member as they all attended the screening as the audience, it is an effective method to elevate the quality of film festival in terms of having direct viewing experience (pros & cons).
Except for the NNIFF project, I also dived into another studio “Future Machina”. “Future Machina” is a studio mainly focus on futurology, it encourages students to discover the connection between technology and ordinary life in terms of unpacking the potential impact of technology in the future. I was interested in their final projects that students made docu-fictional films about how people engage with technology in the future, and it emphasizes the core idea of keeping proper attitudes to the use of technology in the future. In addition, this sort of concept reminds me of the TV series “Black Mirror” which strives for raising the awarenesses of current social issues by picturing a futuristic society among people. I was amazed by one of the films called “EYEDORA” produced by Leslie Wang, which describes a talented girl who is good at painting but she is suffering from colour blindness at the same time. “EYEDORA” cures her colour blindness and she finally succeeded in becoming a well-known painter. Leslie used augmented reality to elevate the visual quality of the film, which is related to futurology in terms of creates an immersive viewing experience, and this sort of positive story inspires people’s enthusiasm for the future.
Reference:
Ben Croll’s article in Variety, “Visions du Reel Artistic Director on Reimagining the Festival as a Virtual Event”.
Bohdana Rambouskova, “How to Successfully Promote Your Festival” in Setting Up a Human Rights Film Festival, vol. 2, Human Rights Film Network, Prague, 2015, pp. 97-114.
Tomas Johanovsky, “The Nuts and Bolts: Technical Production” in Setting Up a Human Rights Film Festival, vol. 2, Human Rights Film Network, Prague, 2015, pp.
