In Week 6, we looked at the budget for our media festival in more detail. The sponsership team made a presentation about the venues that they were in contact with, particularly the ACMI. They gave a comprehensive overview of the place, including the technicians, functions, securities, and timelines. As much as how I loved the place, I was also worried about our budget – we only have a thousand dollars sponsored by RMIT, and the place at ACMI requires at least three thousand dollars. This puts a lot of pressure on fund raising events, which we haven’t started planning yet. Considering these factors, I would personally perfer other venues that are cheeper – such as somewhere in RMIT. But as of now, I don’t think we have enough information to make a decision, as we only have two quotes from two different venues.

In my opinion, the process of venue searching could have started earlier, even before our name and mission statements are refined. I know our identity is important, but sometimes we forgot that we have already had a very central, fixed, and clear identity from the very beginning – we are all students from RMIT who are throwing up a media festival as the final assessment for a course. Perhaps this is already enough for us to get quotes from venues. Furthermore, although our identity would also affect the venue that we can choose, I don’t think we need to worry about that too much, considering that we are almost sending the same content to each venue organisor. It’s not like we have to get back to the venues right away. In this way, we could have quotes from more venues at this point, which would be extremely helpful in planning our budgets and fund raisings. It would also be helpful for the social media team, as we can now incorporate the addresses into our posters and advertisements.

Yet, speaking of that, I still think we are at an advanced stage. Although we haven’t decided on the venues, we have most of the other pieces. By the end of  Week 6, almost every team got into the specific hand-on tasks. Our production team has developed a comprehensive timeline for the rest of the semester, including what we need to provide to the social media team, when to film certain interviews, and even our interview questions. We began to have a vision about our final documentary, and we have faith for us that the festival is going to work out prefectly.

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