Reflecting on WeChat for New Normal International Film Festival

Film festivals are essential events that take place in major film industries in Australia for various purposes.  According to Kirsten Stevens’s book Australian Film Festivals: Audience, Place, and Exhibition Culture, film festivals majorly purpose to showcase creativity and to celebrate the culture of art (171). It is a platform for doing business as agents may be utilized to commercials the event for monetary gain (Peranson 37). The New Normal International Film Festival, however, is a unique event in the age of social distancing. The audience of the films is intended to participate virtually in synchronized streaming due to the isolation of the individual participants. The main agenda is to enjoy the events even as the audience is observing the guidelines of staying safe at home to avoid contracting the Coronavirus. However, the success of the festival depends on how well it is publicized through ads and other avenues.  A WeChat picture summarizes the event and expectation of the festival where the image is successful but with room to be better in its function. I take the part of promoting our film festival on Wechat, and it works well.

Just like all film festival requires promotion in various ways, the New Normal International Film Festival, in this context is promoted via a public WeChat account using a comprehensive image that elaborate the nature and what to expect from the event, that’s what I can do for the NNIFF. According to a presentation by Kirsten Stevens’s article “Enthusiastic amateurs: Australia’s film societies and the birth of audience-driven film festivals in post-war Melbourne,” where film festivals are a major commercial enterprise. I put one of our poster on the Wechat official account for the first content,an audience whose gender is not depicted is presented as located in their bed in front of a TV screen. They are alone and seemingly isolated, as illustrated by their location at the corner of a room. A remote controller and a pack of popcorns are located near the audience’s reach while the film is showing before them. The TV screen displays a film house projecting the Initials of the name of the festival. The title of the festival itself, “New Normal International Film Festival,” is printed in large quick-to-read fonts on the wall above the television screen. All elements of the image observe an effective arrangement through distancing, sizing, coloration, and word choices to ensure that the festival is promoted with efficiency. Its visibility and legibility serve a one glance reference point for the consumption of as much information about the festival as possible. The use of this image in the WeChat platform was an intentional engagement with a potential audience of the festival where users of the account can share the model to other people in other forums and social media outlets. Increased visibility of the advertising image increases the possibility of attracting more audience to the festival.

 

The application of this image in promoting the festival through the WeChat public account is faced with advantages and shortcomings in populating the event. The use of silent pictures that are telling helps in presenting the announcement in a language that can be understood across all cultures that can read the English language. Although the wording may be confusing to non-English readers, it is easy to know that a film or a related event is being promoted as the audience lying in bed or their living room are connected to their TV screen for the long term due to the presence of the popcorns. The number of words are relatively few and are brief for quick-reading by the targeted audience. The name of the event and the date of the anticipated performance is also vividly indicated on the walls. The audience is isolated by they can connect with other followers of the event through the television. This provides the event as serving the purpose of promoting the culture of film and its related art despite the challenging times of Coronavirus. However, this promotion image is challenged by its lack of some crucial detail about the event, such as what to expect, nature, and its social connection, such as the kind, genre, and language background of the films to expect.  This image also lacks attractive features that may lure more audience to long for the event (Peranson 39). For instance, the benefit associated with the event is not portrayed or shared out in the post. Film festivals are a common culture that may be commercialized to attract valuable sponsorship, and it is expected that the image would indicate some of the associated companies and individuals (Stevens 173). Also, the mechanism employed to join the live stream, and the cost of joining the festival is not indicated. This leaves the audience with many questions but with only a few answers in their trying to understand the full scope of the message and its intension.
In this case, I keep updating the related content about NNIFF to make a useful presentation of the intended message. Including our trailer which can make the audience capture a lot of information and also it would carry a summary of what is expected in the festival and promote the event, and a sample of the genre of films expected in this event and how to connect synchronously with other people. However, this image that promotes the event may also be enhanced to present the message more with more details by inserting a link that directs to a page that carries more information about the event. This may include linking the audience to the main page of the event where potential attendants may get more information concerning the event.

Generally, the promotion image for the international film festival is effective but limited in the presentation of information to satisfying levels. The audience of the ad needs to know more details concerning the event to prepare well. Since the event is taking place during the coronavirus scourge, it is peculiar, and it is expected that it will exhibit characteristics other than ordinary gathering hat are evident in normal film events that are not bounded by social distancing. Presentation of information in this context calls for creativity in promoting this extraordinary international film event that purposes to celebrate the film industry within the new reality of social distancing and isolated audience. Now the film festival has been completed, everyone tried their best to pay a lot for the festival, I’m so thankful and proud that I can attend. This experience is unparalleled in my whole life.

 

 

Works Cited

Peranson, Mark. “First You Get the Power, Then You Get the Money: Two Models of Film Festivals.” Cineaste, vol. 33, no. 3, 2008, pp. 37-43, ProQuest.

Stevens, Kirsten. “7: A Festival for Every Occasion: Niche Programming, Event Culture, and Vertically Integrated Film Festivals.” Australian Film Festivals: Audience, Place, and Exhibition Culture, Palgrave Macmillan, 2017, pp. 171-199.

—. “Enthusiastic amateurs: Australia’s film societies and the birth of audience-driven film festivals in post-war Melbourne.” New Review of Film and Television Studies, vol. 14, no. 1, 2016, pp. 22-39.