Last week we held an exciting fundraising event. Overall, this fundraising event was very successful. I am very pleased that we have successfully attracted many audiences. Maybe you can understand this feeling. At that moment, I am a mother. The child I have been bred for a long time is finally born, and very cute and charming. It’s really hard to imagine that a group of people who don’t know about the festival, even some people have never been to the film festival, but everything is going on smoothly.

We made the RMIT Media Portal as warm and cosy as we could, some warm lights surround the handles, and some cushions and blankets are placed on the stools. The sweet and delicious popcorn taste filled the audience. I think this is a wonderful night for everyone here.

It must be mentioned that Ben is definitely a very good leader. Holding a fundraising event is definitely a little difficult thing. But Ben showed his absolute enthusiasm and confidence. He influenced everyone in the media potral and the atmosphere at the scene was getting better and better.

We think this fundraiser event is totally successful, because all the work is properly allocated, everyone also performs their duties. We selected a reasonable theme, contacted the filmmakers and obtained permission from the other party – they were able to show their films and set the scene. But there is still room for improvement. For example, in the aspect of advertising, I learned that the ad group have encountered many failures, but fortunately the final result is still satisfactory.

In the production of trailers, we also encountered some difficulties. Our ten-second trailer was forced to give up because the actors were not invested enough. But we have not given up on us to have a new idea, and have already been shooted, I hope it can be accepted in the next class. This thing told us that we don’t despair and give up at the sight of difficulties, but learn from them and keep on moving.

After the holiday, everyone returned to the right track and started a new work plan. During this week, we discussed fundraiser and matters related to fundraising activities. With regard to the content of fundraising activities, we have had many different ideas through the discussion out of and in the class. But it is undeniable that the content of the event is mostly around the film. In order to attract more participants, the design team is also working on poster design so that we can sell more tickets. Until now we have sold six tickets. But the advertising team thinks this result is not ideal. Therefore the advertising team have suggested paying for social media advertising — on Facebook — in the hope of attracting wider interest from the local communities. They said that the great thing about Facebook ads is that it really lets you narrow down your target audience to a very specific range of people. Everyone is looking forward to the effectiveness of this advertisement delivery.

The Manager of Venues at RMIT asserted that he would do his best to organise any extra materials we may need including seating and a microphone so that we are prepared. In terms of wider production for the main event, the programming team are currently working on categorizing the films. So far, I think everyone is working on their own work and paying attention to it in an orderly manner.

Finally, we also showed our Chinese trailer to our team members. Ben made some suggestions for our trailer. The first one is that there is too much noise in our background sound. He suggested that we find ways to reduce the noise. The second one is the problem of fonts. He thinks that the color of our existing fonts is not clear enough. I hope that we can change colors of that. After listening to his comments, we made some changes after class. Ready to show up in class next week to get more reviews and suggestions.

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.

Holding a film festival is a new thing for me, but shooting clips is not. This is why I chose to participate in the trailer group. This week, we started for our mini Chinese Trailer. The reason for making Chinese trailers is to make our advertisements more diversified and attract more people to participate in our film festival.

Before we started working, we thought it was a simple job. Because this trailer is only 10 to 20 seconds long, and the language is the Chinese we are familiar with. But in the course of our work, we have encountered many problems. For example, when shooting a paper airplane segment, it is very helpless for the paper plane not to fall exactly where we need it. After many trials, this problem has not been solved. In the end we can’t help but give up on this idea. After giving up this idea, we discussed it again and developed a new plan. Finally we re-photographed two trailers. One is 10 seconds long and the other is 40 seconds.

The above is my summary of this week’s trailer filming. Through the discussion in class, I learned that we have confirmed that the fundraising event held on the evening of May 9 determined the venue and general concepts. We will have holding the event on campus, in building 14 in a large lecture space——media potral. I think this is a good place to hold our event, because I believe students who live nearby / in the city centre are our target market for this event and we will have better chance of securing numbers if we approach this as our ideal audience. At the same time, choosing film is keeping going on. “Programming for your festival should be purposeful, not random. It is important to nail down topics and themes before you begin looking for films” (Bartosova, Kulhankova & Rausova 2015, p 27). All in all there has been a lot to learn along the way from this particular job role, something which I am proud of when others ask what my responsibilities are in regards to the film festival.

Reference:

Kateřina Bartošová, Hana Kulhánková & Zuzana Raušová, “Knowing Yourself and Your Audience: Programming and a Humming Rights Film Festival”, in Setting Up a Human Rights Film Festival, vol. 2, Human Rights Film Network, Prague, 2015, pp. 27-46.