Cucalorus Response

I thought Cucalorus this year was amazing! I was extremely impressed not only with the variety of attendees, and with the film selection, but also with the pure sense of community that has developed around the event. The first thing that I noticed about this year was how normal the area has seems to view a film festival. It is a wonderful thing to know that my school town supports Cucalorus so much. I mean, I never thought I was going to see ‘regular’ people at a festival like that. There were older women with their grandchildren at one showing, and business executive looking men at another. I guess it is easy to assume that the only people who go are the ones that are film buffs.

That said, I will get on to the screenings I attended. I first went to a documentary called Viva la Coopertiva! It was about the start of the Hispanic Credit Union in North Carolina. I learned about the struggles of a minority group to start an organization owned within the peoples’ community. The second film I saw was called 24 Days. It was a narrative based on actual events in which a son is kidnapped and put up for ransom. Eventually he is tortured to death. The shots were beautiful and the story was moving. I thought it was a wonderful combination of complex character development, and a solid, fast-paced story style. Next I attended a series of dance shorts. Some were certainly better than others. I saw quite a few problems in the production line of some of them. I realized that they were experimental in some aspects, but I was still disappointed in the lack of commitment to fully incorporating a theme or motif into the final message of the film; some of the styles or effects just didn’t come across very well in the final products. My fourth screening was VERY different as far as tone because it was a kid’s movie called Labarynthus. It was a German fiction narrative based on a story about a boy who finds a strange video game. The effects were AMAZING!!! I was captivated by the amount of time it must have taken to make the effects look as good as they did. Beyond that, the film was just mediocre. The story reminded me a little of others I have seen, and some of the humor was a little foreign to the audience, although that could literally be a foreign issue if the jokes were encountering cultural barriers. Finally, I went to the Love Shorts at Level 5. I loved almost all of them. They were simple concepts for the most part, but were sold well in their design, visuals, and portrayal. I would say that this was a great programming decision on the festivals part because it was a nice block on which to end the festival experience.

In the end all I can say is that I loved the experience of this festival! I learned things that I never expected or meant. I left every screening wishing my schedule would have allowed me to just stay there all day and hop from place to place. Maybe next year that is exactly what I will do. I would love to have a Pegasaurus Pass next year and get into all the extra events, and meet all the film makers… who knows… maybe next year I will even BE a filmmaker there to enjoy the festival into which my film was accepted.

Week 10 Post

This past week I have been doing tutorials for effects that will be used in the Indigogo Video. I have been using videocopilot.net tutorials so far. Most of the tutorials are heavily sic-fi based, and will adapt really well for what we are doing.

Total amount of hours I have spent this week on the tutorials alone is around 6. Then we also have had two 1-hour meetings about the video. And I have spent about 2 hours working with Luqi and the website on HTML and CSS stuff.

Findings After Reading Festival Interviews

Perhaps the most impressive thing that I learned while reading these blog posts was just how many large festivals there are in the nation, and how differently each one handles their programming process. Staffs ranged from 2 people, and all the way up to over 400 if you count volunteers. That is insane. I couldn't believe that some festivals gathered thousands of entries for a single year. We get quite a few, but I can't even begin to imagine the time required to sort through all those movies, papers, and screenplays.

Sidewalk Film Festival Festival Research

Festival

1. What time is your interview scheduled and who will you be talking with when you call/skype?
1. My contact has yet to email me back about an interview time, despite my multiple attempts to make contact via email.
2. Who started it and who runs it?
1. It was started and is currently produced by the Alabama Moving Image Association in 1999. A board of directors and staff members that are appointed each year to run Sidewalk FF. The current President is Webb Robertson, and the Executive Festival is Chloe Collins.
3. What is the mission of the festival/conference? (copy and paste the first paragraph)
1. Surprisingly, I could not find this on their website… There is a side branch of Sidewalk, called Sidewrite, and their mission reads: “A division of the Sidewalk Film Festival started in 2004, Sidewrite’s mission is to discover and reward talented screenwriters in Alabama and around the world. The short screenplay competition aims to foster community amongst emerging writers and reinforce cinematic artistry locally. Sidewrite allows passionate writers to enhance their craft and receive recognition for their work and creativity.”
4. How does this compare with their actual programming choices from the past two years? Be specific in describing what they program (mode, categories within mode, niche, Political? Global? Local? Gender? Sexuality? Race? Any themes that you see? etc…)
1. It is hard to compare their choices to their mission as I have no reference to their mission statement yet, but there what I did find for this question I gathered from their sponsors page, and their “Sidewalk A to Z” page. They are very large supporters of the LGBTQIA community. Many of their sponsors are allied businesses, or are specifically targeted towards the LGBTQIA filmmakers. Sidewalk Film Festival, every year, holds a Meta-Festival called SHOUT: Alabama’s first and only film festival celebrating the best, new, LGBTQ indie films. SHOUT is held during the Sidewalk Film Festival. Find more information at bhamshout.com.
2. Another interesting this that this festival holds is called the E-Series. The E-Series is a yearlong film and discussion initiative designed to stimulate conversations about four issues that are particularly relevant to the Birmingham metro area today: economics, environment, equality, and education. It seems to be an online discussion panel, accessible to anyone involved with/interested in the festival.
5. Where is the event?
1. The 16th Annual Sidewalk Film Festival, will take place August 22-24, 2014 at various locations in Downtown Birmingham, including:
2. Screening Venues
1. Alabama Theatre, 1817 3rd Ave. N.
2. Carver Theatre, 1631 4th Ave. N.
3. Red Mountain Theatre Company, 301 19th St. N.
4. Alabama School of Fine Arts, 1800 Reverend Abraham Woods Jr. Blvd.
5. Rushton Theatre at McWane Center, 200 19th St. N.
3. Party Venues
1. Filmmaker Welcome Reception, Historic Rucker Place, 1804 12th Ave. S.
2. Opening Night Red Hot and Hot Carpet Reception, Kress Building, 301 19th St. N.
3. Down Home Downtown Opening Night After Party, 1817 3rd Ave. N.
4. My Super Sweet 16 Bash, Vulcan Park, 1701 Valley View Dr.
5. Sidewalk/SHOUT Awards Show, Alabama Theatre, 1817 3rd Ave. N.
4. Other Venues
1. Central Ticketing – Pass Pick Up, 1807 3rd Ave. N.
2. Sidetalks Panels and Workshops, Legends Bar, 230 18th St. N.
3. VIP Lounge, Continental Bakery Downtown, 1820 4th Ave. N.
6. When is the event? (Give dates from last year if not current)
1. Sidewalk 2014 will be held August 22-24. Mark your calendars!
7. How do you submit? Snail mail, online, withoutabox, through their site, etc…
1. They do not have much info up right now, and will add it in December, but I did find a Sidewalk Withoutabox, so that is certainly a possibility for their submission methods.
8. When are the deadlines to enter? Early? Reg? Late?
1. All I know right now is that registration opens on December 1, 2014.
9. How much does it cost to enter?
1. Again, I have no clue. All their website says is, “The 16th Annual Sidewalk Film Festival, will take place August 22-24, 2014 in downtown Birmingham, Alabama, welcoming some 10,000 filmgoers to the city’s coolest venues for more than 200 films in just three short days. Submit your film today and be a part of one of Sidewalk 2014, listed by USA Today (Feb. 2013) as ‘One of the Top Ten Places for a Fabulous Film Festival’!”
10. Who’s eligible, what are the guidelines to enter?
1. It seems that anyone may enter, and all I can see from their schedule allows me to believe that any film may be entered. I did however notice that they have specifically made sure to hold both Documentaries short blocks, as well as blocks aimed at films for children. This might be a pointer as to the types of films they enjoy screening.
11. Is there a Student category?
1. There is no indication that there is a student submission category, and I did not see any blocks that were aimed at student work specifically, so I would not believe so.
12. What formats do they except for jurying? DVD, Vimeo, Flash drives?
1. They do not currently have this info on their website. They are planning on adding it back to the site on December 1, 2014.
13. What formats do they except for exhibition/screening?
1. They do not currently have this info on their website. They are planning on adding it back to the site on December 1, 2014.
14. How many films screened at the festival last year?
1. In their schedule for last year they have 170 shorts of all genres listed, and 44 feature films.
15. How long is a typical shorts block or paper presentation block at their event?
1. Between an hour to two hours depending on the subject.
16. How many films or papers do they program per block?
1. It’s about 10 films per block.
17. How do people register to attend? Is there a cost to attend as a guest?
1. There is a tickets page on the site. You can buy a VIP Pass, a Weekend Pass, a single Day Pass, a Saturday Night Party Pass, or Premium Single Tickets to specific events.
18. Look at sponsorship page and see what businesses. Grants and private entities give money to the event. Figure out how many of each kind and note any leads that might be useful to us.
1. The couple that I noticed that might be interesting to us are as follows… They were supported by local news networks, and radio stations which could be an interesting way for us to get both money and news time. The also were supported in some way by Whole Foods, and if that is a company that looks to support events like this then maybe we could reach out to them and ask for either food donations, or monetary assistance.
19. What are their sponsorship levels and incentives for each level?
1. To be honest I was pretty confused by their website when trying to find this info. What I could find allowed be to gather a very minimal amount of concrete info.
2. They have both sponsors and donors.
3. Donors can give money once, or can be billed monthly. If you give $300 or more in one year then you are added to the Producers Circle, and are recognized on the website, in the event program, and are allowed to attend the Festival Sneak Peek in July.
4. A sponsor seems to be the more substantial way to go, but I cannot find specific “levels” of sponsors. I did find an “Outline of Sponsor Benefits”, but they seem to just be possibilities of sponsor outcomes. This document includes things like having your logo on-site during the event, being featured on the “Save the date” media, inclusion in press releases, and quite a bit more.
5. A full list of incentives can be found here: http://sidewalkfest.com/become-a-sponsor/sponsor-benefits/
6. Interestingly, you can also sponsor a specific film. If you give either $1,000 (Individual Film Sponsorship) or $2,000 (Premiere Individual Film Sponsorship) you can receive things like VIP Passes, be recognized on the website and FB Page, and your name/company will also be thanked and mentioned before the screening of the film.
20. Did they have a kickstarter or indiegogo? What incentives did they have for each level of donor?
1. I found an Indiegogo that seemed a little outdated as far as some of the info, but they also have set up all their donations through a PayPal account.
21. What kind of non-traditional film/video events have they had before? Things like Installations, 'Visual Soundwalls,' VJing etc.
1. One interesting thing I found is that they work with their sponsors and donors to have education workshops each month. This month, as opposed to their discussion based “Sidewalk Salon”, which focuses on event planning and production, they will be holding a workshop entirely focused on teaching techniques in the implementation of Zombie Make-Up. It actually sounded pretty cool! I thought it was an interesting way of showing people the process that may be taking place behind the scenes of their favorite show/movie.
2. FYI: “Sidewalk Salon is a free monthly networking and educational event aimed at filmmakers and film fans alike.”
22. Are there ways in which they have expanded the typical film screening event? How have they branched out from sitting in a dark room in front of a screen?
1. I did not see anything that specifically had to do with the screenings, but I did notice two things that were interesting.
2. The first is called SideTalk: SideTalk panel discussions and workshops offer unique opportunities for Sidewalk attendees to listen, learn and ask questions about a range of film and industry topics. Sidewalk 2014 Sidetalk Panels and Workshops will be held at Legends on the corner of 3rd Ave. N. and 18th St. All Sidetalks are FREE and open to the public. Seating is provided on a first come, first serve basis. You can view the Sidetalks 2014 Schedule here: http://sidewalkfest.com/panel-discussions/
3. The second is called Youth Board: Local teens learn about filmmaking and get involved with the 2015 Sidewalk Film Festival. Learn more about Youth Board and apply here: http://sidewalkfest.com/youth-board/

Website

1. Is the layout easy to navigate? What makes it easy?
1. NO…. I’m sorry, the next few questions will not speak very highly of this website. The one thing that I will say about this website is that it is a very simple layout aesthetically and organizationally. The menus only have sub-menus, not sub-sub-menus, which is straight forward, but this also means that they have had to place over 10 menu possibilities, and these are not even all in the same menu. Some options are at the top of the page, some at the bottom, and then most are under the logo at the top of each page.
2. Is the layout difficult to navigate? What makes it difficult?
1. First of all the inability to access all info from the main menu below the logo is a major flaw here. This only adds to the fact that it was almost impossible to find the information that I needed. When I go to the about Festival menu I would assume that I would be greeted with a history tab. All I would was the A to Z page. However, once I was on the site for 20 minutes I saw that there was a menu at the top with an about section. Almost none of the options in the top menu are accessible from anywhere else in the main menu. This just didn’t make sense to me.
3. Can you find the information you are looking for on the homepage or via a link on the homepage?
1. No, even after I had finally found all the menus, I was still shorthanded with information, and accessibility. More than once I had to go to Google, type the name of the festival, and then add what I wanted to find just to get to the correct page. I should never have to find info through Google keywords. It just wasn’t a user friendly site.
4. Aesthetically, what catches your eye? What's cool about it?
1. I do rather enjoy the simple color scheme of the site. It is all white with some simple Grey and Yellow accents. But these accents are rather sparse and usually at the top of the page; this can make most of the pages rather boring to view after you have scold past the first few inches of the top sections.
5. Aesthetically, what doesn't fit in? What makes it look bad?
1. I really do not like the “Follow Us” section. They have used the raw social media logos, and also have seemed to slap a twitter feed on the side of the site. To be honest it looks as it they chose a Word Press layout, grabbed the social media widget, added their logo at the top, and called it a day. It just looks very impersonal, which is something many people, including myself, commented on last year and enjoyed about our website.
6. Should there be more information? Is the page too bare?
1. The pages don’t necessarily have too much info, but they lack any sort of organization. They are simply cut and dry alterations between bold, italics, and normal font. There is no use of Aesthetically pleasing separation to lead the viewer down what they are reading. Also, one thing that can make you feel that there is an overload of info on the page is the fact that everything is so spread out. There is three lines of space left before each title section. This is quite overwhelming, and requires a lot of user scrolling.
7. Should there be less information? Is the page too busy?
1. Again, not too much info, just way too spaced out.
8. What would you do differently if you were to redesign this website?
1. A lot. I think the first thing would be to add more color. It can still be simple and have color Even adding that grey and yellow to more areas of the pages would be a huge start. I would also want to try and condense some of the menu options, or at least try and clarify them somehow on the site. I also think that they should have the info I couldn’t find accessible all year long so that filmmakers can gather the info whenever they want and begin preparing for submission. (This excludes the formatting info as I know format expectations change with technology and could change drastically within a year.)
9. What would you keep the same if you were to redesign this website?
1. I do like the spacing of the top section. Everything, especially the logo is nicely sized. I also like the search function that they have included at the top… even though it came in handy more than it should have been needed.

Week 2 Post

This past week has been pretty relaxed and fun as far as my job for Visions5. Last Thursday the web and PR groups came together and discussed three possible campaign themes. They ended up being pretty awesome, and there is a lot of potential in all of them. I am particularly excited about one of them. I’m pretty sure that we are presenting those next week to the class, so stay tuned for that reveal!

As web designer, I have been working on a mockup for my website theme, and have been designing that in Photoshop. This will aid in my presentation next week. I have been completing two courses in Digital Tutors (DT) to enhance my knowledge of Photoshop as it pertains to Web Design. The first DT course is simply how to create mockups of websites in Photoshop correctly so that you can export design assets directly from that mockup and into a Dreamweaver file. This goes over formatting, and aspect ratios for most screens to insure your mockup is compatible with the max number of computers it will eventually reach. The second DT course is simply meant to teach viewers the proper way to export images for the web. I am thinking of having the entire web team and possibly the PR team watch this hour long course. Last year it was a major problem when people exported incorrect dimensions, file sizes, or pixel densities. More than once I have to re-export an image due to blurriness, compatibility, or another similar issue.  Avoiding this could really increase workflow and productivity.

Also, I have continued to enhance my knowledge of coding. I learned the basics and some intermediate skills about HTML and CSS last year. This year I am switching the entire website over to HTML5 with a focus on accessibility. This means that it will hopefully look good no matter what screen size people have… A.K.A. MOBILE DEVICES WILL BE ABLE TO HAVE FULL FUNCTIONALITY OF THE SITE, which was a complaint from last year. LASTLY! And I am excited about this one, I have been working to learn interactivity coding using jQuery and JavaScript. What the heck does that mean? It means that we are going to have really awesome looking transitions, animations, and possibly even a cool twist to our website if we choose my theme next week. Again, you’ll have to wait for the presentation, but get excited because the website is about to get the biggest upgrade in looks and professionalism it has ever seen!

So basically I am making sure right now that I am as knowledgeable as possible to set this team up with proper practices, good workflow and pipeline productivity, and a killer website to showcase all that hard work.

P.S. I will be giving Shawn his first assignment today, 9 September 2014, which will start him off simply and gear him up for taking over my position in the fall. (more details to come)

Week 1 Post

Bio:

Hello, my name is J’aime. I am student at UNCW, and returner to the Visions Staff. I am currently a senior film studies major, and digital arts minor. I am extremely interested in character computer animation and hope to develop this passion into a career. I aspire to one-day work for a company like Pixar, ILM, or DreamWorks, but also adore the work put out by Blur Studios. This is my second year working as the web manager for Visions, and I look forward to being a digital link from our awesome staff to the many young filmmakers around the world.

What I Hope to Learn This Year:

First and foremost, this year I will learn how to lead and mentor effectively. My assistant, Shawn, has not had a lot of experience building and managing websites, so I must make sure to keep organized and clear with expectations in order to prepare him for my December departure. Beyond that I would simply like to enhance my knowledge on website interactivity and design. Last year I learned all the basics for web design, implementing only HTML and CSS. This year I plan to incorporate coded transitions and actions with JavaScript and jQuery.

Response to Week 1 Readings:

I found the reading about the history of festivals to b extremely interesting. I thought it was also very relevant to our situation. One of the most relatable things I read in the article was about the wide range of quality that festivals see in their submissions. When speaking about the traveling film festival, Antero Alli described this as ranging “from cutting edge to utter dredge.” I can definitely see this as a trend in all festivals after only having worked Visions for a year; we definitely got some submissions last year that were not quite festival ready.

A second point I enjoyed from this reading was the eventual rise to fame that each festival saw. Though many experienced hardship during foundation and development, if they portrayed persistence and passion many went on to become internationally renowned. This gives me hope that one day Visions may evolve into a festival that was never intended from the beginning. I would love to graduate from here and receive word that Visions has become the top submission for aspiring undergraduates.

Let’s now move past the first reading, and on to the second about Microcinema. The entire time I read this article I thought only of three people, Andre, Shannon, and Dr. Carlos Case. This way of starting with experimental, and independent art houses sounded so much like the screenings at Jengo’s, and in the Silva backyard. I know how much this homely, and improvised screening method really strikes home with all three of these people. It allows for a certain aesthetic that would be lost in a more professional setting. However, I thought it was also amazing to read about the evolution of these behind the scenes art houses from almost hidden into more semi-professional theatres. What this evolution spoke to me was hope; I realize more and more that people in the world and film industry do care about those first works by a new filmmaker. Many times it is easy to forget this and expect that you will be making Spielberg films instantly. There will always be people out there eager to screen and view your work. Sometimes you just have to know where to look… perhaps a festival entirely aimed at screening undergraduate work…