Reflection:
week 6:
This year is a very special year in the history of film. Because of the epidemic, the global film industry is closed and the film festival cannot be held as usual. But in the context of the continuous development of the epidemic, we still need to live, we need to work, eat, entertain, and watch movies. The change in life is that many things need to be done online, such as remote work, watching online movies, etc. Karel pointed out that the epidemic has also changed the lives of film industry workers and the way the film festival is held. The holding of this event must first seriously consider whether it is convenient for the audience. In the current situation, the online film festival does provide a way for people who cannot travel outside to participate in activities. Although the audience cannot gather together and lose the lively atmosphere, the online platform provides everyone with an opportunity to express their opinions, which is a task that cannot be completed by the offline film festival.
In fact, this epidemic is forcing the film festival to innovate and upgrade to provide a more perfect event experience for the audience. This is not a bad thing for the film industry. To hold an online film festival, we can use Zoom to gather a large number of audiences and discussants, and then guide them to participate in movie reviews. This model can greatly increase the audience’s participation and improve their voice in the film industry. The audience can more directly contact the filmmaker and give their opinions.
But I think that online film festivals naturally have their disadvantages, and the issue of copyright comes first. If this problem cannot be solved, then the filmmaker cannot be attracted to join the event; the second problem is that the original movie watching atmosphere cannot be guaranteed. The organizer should find ways to make the event more lively and let the audience feel the atmosphere of the festival.
In general, online film festivals have both advantages and disadvantages. How to continue to improve the online film festival procedures is a difficult task for us.
week 7:
In 2020, the sudden spread of the epidemic has severely affected the normal activities of the film industry, including events such as film festivals and music festivals that require crowd gathering. The operation of the cinema will also have considerable problems. Bujès ushered in a very big challenge because the offline activities she originally planned could not be allowed by the government. Therefore, she had to shift her activities online, which was very reasonable. Online activities cannot bring people together, so the producers and film winners each recorded a video and edited it to form a logical and innovative video. Playing the video on the online platform can get the attention of people who love movies. In my opinion, online film festivals are definitely not as lively as offline film festivals, but it also has its own advantages, such as low cost and more participation. In order to attract more people’s attention, the planner of this film festival needs to do marketing activities in advance. Participating in an online film festival is much simpler for the audience. Many ordinary people do not have to rush to the film festival site, only need a device equipped with Internet to participate. Bujès also believes that the significance of the film festival is to attract people’s attention and interest, and arouse people’s interest in the film in a wider range. Therefore, this online film festival also provides telephone services for older audiences, thus providing them with convenience. In the context of the film industry’s difficulties, online solutions are already very convincing plans.
Similar to film festivals, music festivals can only be performed online. Brigid planned a three-day music festival. Although this music festival is different from the traditional offline music festival, she enjoys this experience very much. In the Zoom group, they can be performers, as well as audiences, or listeners of other people, exchanging their ideas with each other. This activity makes them not bored during isolation, and is a very good way to exchange cultural views. Although some troubles occurred during the activity, it was also a very memorable experience.
Meanwhile, our group set up a Sina account to spread our film festival, the main purpose is let people who are in China know about the film festival, and let more people get interested in the NNIFF. Our target audience is focused on international community. Hopefully we can get some responds.
week 8:
The epidemic has affected the development of global film festivals, so in order to allow global audiences to enjoy movies about various cultures, Tribeca and Youtube have collaborated. They provide film lovers all around the world with the opportunity to watch 20 film festivals at the same online platform——Youtube. The slogan “We are one” makes the global film industry more united, allows different filmmakers to communicate and learn from each other, and provides a good platform for promoting the global film industry. The presidents of various famous film festivals also very much support this event.
Nashen is the director of this joint film festival. He planned this festival to connect filmmakers with film lovers. By adopting the suggestions of film lovers, filmmakers can improve the quality of the film; and for the audience, they can learn about the film culture and stories of various places through this festival. In fact, the form of art is constantly changing, and affected by the epidemic, the operation of the film festival must adapt to the social environment. Through this joint film festival, viewers can learn about film shooting, film stars and film culture in new ways.
Not only that, this film festival has more important practical significance. The epidemic has brought many difficulties to some people around the world, and this digital film festival provides a convenient platform for charity. Youtube uses this festival to provide viewers with free videos, so it also encourages viewers to donate to people in need. Youtube provides a channel for donations, allowing viewers to donate to non-profit organizations, thereby indirectly contributing to curbing the spread of the epidemic. Therefore, this is a public welfare online film festival that is innovative.
The epidemic has affected a large number of offline activities, and the online film festival has provided people with more abundant entertainment activities, which are very meaningful activities. The audience can enjoy the artistic creation in the film more patiently, and feel the efforts made by the actors and directors in detail. All in all, I think the audience can enjoy this event more unpretentiously than before.
Besides, all of the groups are doing there best to organise the new normal international film festival. Although we all doing the different part of work, we are all contributing to the film festival. With this , I think our festival will be great.
week 10:
During the epidemic, filmmakers are unable to shoot movies, and the closure of the cinema also prevent film practitioners from making profits. During this time, people’s isolation may cause a large number of film companies to go bankrupt or be acquired. This is a very painful stage for everyone in the film industry. In order to increase the vitality of the film industry, the Thessaloniki International Film Festival invited world-renowned directors to shoot short films, and then compile them into three short films collection. All these short films were shot during the epidemic, so most of the shooting was done at home.
Among them, the third collection is called Space 3, which contains 7 short films. One of the short films is a speechless film about the boring life isolated during the epidemic-repeated wake-up time, repeated meals, empty streets, etc. When I saw this, I thought that during the epidemic, the lives of these famous directors were no different from the lives of ordinary people, so the films they shot were also very easy to resonate with the audience. I think the ultimate goal of art is to let the audience find resonance, so that it is easier to understand the original intention of the creator. Of course, different directors have different shooting styles. Some directors simply record their lives, some directors use anime to show life during the epidemic, and some directors use many languages to describe the boring life; Some directors use humorous humor to realize daily life during the epidemic, while some short films show a sad scene. Audiences can find their favorite artistic styles from multiple short films, which is also of great significance to the film festival.
Films are very important to influence people’s thinking and are one of the important components of people’s daily entertainment. Therefore, the Thessaloniki International Film Festival also uses this simple way to activate the film market and add some vitality to the film industry. I think we can also learn from this and make the NNIFF become better.
week 11:
The epidemic in 2020 has hit the movie industry, tourism industry, hotel industry, etc. It can be said that the film festival is the bridge connecting the film and the audience. At this extremely difficult time for the film industry, we need to be more flexible and smart to interact with the audience and provide more interesting activities for the audience. Although some practitioners in the film industry are pessimistic about the situation in 2020, we still need to do our best to plan a perfect new film festival. Thom understands that the audience is constantly adapting to watching movies online, so the film festival needs to adapt to the habits of the audience.
In order to make the film festival more adaptable to the lifestyle of the audience, Thom proposed several major changes about the film festival. I think three of them are very important. First of all, initially, many film directors only agreed to launch movies in the cinema. However, with the development of the epidemic, they realized that online movies may need to last for a long period of time, so more and more directors approved this method and immediately joined the online film festival. The change of directors’ concepts is an indispensable key factor for launching an online film festival. Second, the film festival needs to be more democratic, reflecting the care for the disadvantaged groups, mainly to lift some restrictions on watching movies, so that more audiences can participate in watching activities. Third, the film festival also needs innovation to keep more audiences enthusiastic. I think the ideas that Thom put forward are very realistic, and they are also the difference between hosting online film festivals and offline film festivals. The organizers already have a lot of experience with offline film festivals, so the most important thing now is to understand the difference between online film festivals and offline film festivals, and then accumulate experience in hosting online film festivals. This is a short-term difficulty, but in the long run, online film festivals may not be a bad choice.
Making:
In the wake of Corona Virus pandemic, people have found themselves living in unprecedented times. Times in which there is vast social isolation. Situations have changed across the globe and the normal way of life has greatly been altered with people being forced to conform to a new normal. A new normal in which each person has to exercise absolute care for themselves and to others through physical isolation. The purpose of this self-reflection is to reflect on the contributions I made towards the realization of ‘The New Normal International Film Festival’ through the promotion of the festival on WeChat and Weibo. The main focus of the festival is keeping the spirit of cinema live, fostering a sense of community and celebrating filmmakers and lovers around the world.
I carefully deliberated and considered suggestions of other group members before participating in the task. Our group members pointed out that holding the festival is important because it would help to raise awareness to film lovers and makers that the challenges they are facing in isolation are experienced by everyone. The festival would bring together the film lovers and makers promoting an interaction in which they would be able to communicate with one another through questions and comments on posts. The event would make film lovers and makers realize that they can cope with the current situation and embrace it to keep up productivity.
Our group contributed the constituent parts of the online film festival by coming up with marketing strategies. Including helped to select the captivating parts of the film and in extracting trailers that were used to tease and draw the attention of participants in the festival. I also helped to create the Chinese social media to promote our film festival. Also, we created the hashtag that used to open a discussion between the audience and the members. The hashtag made it easier for our team to access posts participants made about the event. Besides , we also posted behind the scene clips on Instagram and Facebook accounts to engage audiences.
Acquisition of necessary skills was important before mounting the online film festival. The skills I acquired were in creating polls on Weibo and creation of hashtags. Creation of polls was important because it helped me to investigate the expectations of the audience about the film festival. Knowing their expectations helped me to connect with filmmakers and improve the quality of the festival promotion. Recently I’m thinking of by making hashtags attract more audiences.
Teamwork was embraced in creating the online festival. Each team member was allocated a specific task to perform towards the actualization of the festival. The main roles I performed were on promoting the NNIFF on Chinese social medias including Sina Weibo and Wechat official account. By talking with Jason, we developed strategies to market the event on Weibo and WeChat because they are among the leading social media platforms with a big audience. I’m thinking of the strategies including regular posting of the event in line with audience preference, enabling free and timely notifications, and a question and answer session to engage buyers and distributors of the film, which some of them has been pointed out by other members.
Participation in the task promoted interpersonal dynamics among team members. Everyone developed a good interpersonal relation while relating with other team members in the promotion of the event. During question and answer sessions, the contributions of everyone make posts more engaging.
From independent research and self-initiated activity, I found out that film festivals do not just simply survive online but they create a better future. I discovered that the festivals result in positive attitude change, they allow a better analysis of media, they promote a spirit of discovery, lead to industry connections, prompt innovation and they have enhanced patience and compassion among filmmakers and lovers especially during this isolation and social distancing period. I also found out that film festivals have the best chance to be held online at this time because most people are not working and can easily be engaged.