S3656563
Armin Bilcevic
Week 4 – reflection
I always found it hard to start writing a reflection, never could figure out the right words to lead into what I want to say. So, I’ll just jump straight into it. We are about 1 month into the semester, which is pretty mind blowing how fast time flies. However, the festival is nearing by and there are a lot of things which need to be discussed. And since there is a world limit and these will get annoying to read after a while, I will try keep it short and concise.
A bunch of students who most have none too little experience of creating a massive event are given the task to organise a large scaled film festival from zero. Hearing this you would think we bit off more than we could chew, and to pull this off only in roughly 3 months. Even so, we seem to be heading into the right directions with teamwork, communication and the guidance of an experienced professional on our sides. So, there is hope…
We all sat at our tables and were told to identify our individual skills and interests with one another, at the start people were hesitant to speak about it but once we loosened up and found out a lot more about each other’s capabilities and experiences that are appropriate to have towards the festival. With this in mind we were able to have a labour division of work as a collective and split up into little groups who were likeminded. And this made it easier to figure out what needs to be done and their milestones in order to make progress and make a successful festival. And after each group would figure something out or finish something, they would notify the class or present and we would have a class discussion for active feedback.
So, what I learnt this week was that teamwork is very important and communication is key to progress.
Week 5 – reflection
Going back to last weeks class and how we successfully divided each other into roles and tasks we saw best fitting from the skills and experiences we all talked about. We all sat on the tables according to the roles and that way and so we can all get used to the people we are collaborating and working with. I was with the technical production side of things which including editing trailers, acting and scripts and filming.
This is where brainstorming and communication was key, in small groups trying to make something as one might be a bit difficult with clashing ideas and no actual teamwork. However, with my group we didn’t come across any major issues everyone inputted something useful and communication was fluid, and no one hesitated to give critical feedback on an idea. I was afraid we were going to have too many individuals who would just want it their way and refuse anything else. So, after the first half of the class our team figured out some good trailer ideas and who could do what, which ended up in me editing and acting the final product. Furthermore, in the 2nd half of the class every sector and group of the class came together and nominated one or two people from each group to give live updates on progress and thoughts which I found to be effective as it helped us all track progress and where we are with the film festival.
The lesson and thing I learnt from this class, was just how tall this task of holding a big event like this will be and I sort of feel a bit intimidated with everything and whether or not this will actually be possible. But with collaboration you need to be constantly keeping everyone updated because if one person is lacking or not working to standard, they will be letting the whole team down. But with that being said I can feel the hopeful and ambitious energy around the room keeping people alive and motivated which is a good feeling to have.
Week 6 – reflection
In this week’s class the main thing I want to talk about is the guest lecture by Mia Falstein-Rush, and just how insightful and useful it was. And I want to discuss some of her key points which she raises and how they are appropriate and can relate with us and what aspects we can draw from and use to our advantage to figure out where we went wrong and can improve and also where we are on the right track.
At first, I thought this was going to be just another one of those corny motivational lectures where she would tell us how we can do what she is doing if we keep working hard and blah blah blah. However, that was not the case and she was very relatable and answered and raised questions which are appropriate to programming a film festival.
So, one of the main things that stood out to me that she mentioned, was how you conduct your business and present your festival so you can create a specific image for your festival that suits you best. And just how important professional communication is making sure the messages and advertisements and all writings are not messy and disrespectful and are concise and easy to read. The reason behind this is so you don’t damage yours and the festivals reputation.
As said in one of the readings, “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). Which really hit home with what Mia mentioned with her programming experiences and how she had to watch an endless amount of movies and would take forever to figure out the program for the festival because they have to make sure they are choosing the best of the best, which also in turn raises the festival reputation.
Week 7 – reflection
Alright so the date of the fundraiser is nearing and so is the actual Film festival meaning stress levels and tensions are rising with in the class due to a lot of miscommunication and tasks needing to be finished or even started for everything to run smoothly. So, the pressure is on.
For this week, me and the trailer team met up out of class at Jells park which is just off Waverly road to film the trailers which were written. On the day of shooting, concerns were raising of the weather not being a good suit for the specific effect we were going for because it was very cloudy and possible chance of it starting to rain. We took a group vote on whether or not shooting should still take place or a reschedule however after a discussion we decided to still go to shoot and make do with the conditions we were given. The reason being we didn’t want to stack on tasks and be time constraint as the trailers needed to be done and given to the marketing team to be posted so we could get the ball rolling. The actual filming went smoothly and was also fun in the same process, everyone had a chance to be behind the camera and in front of the camera. And the reason it was easy and quick was because of the communication and team work between us all, and we were all on the same page with the image of the final product that we wanted to create and the main message we are tying to depict.
After the day of shooting I was able to reflect of what was difficult and what went well and why that was and what we could do to improve for next time in terms of efficiency and effectiveness. Which is just being more organised and actively communicating and making sure everyone understands the vision and understand what needs to be done by each member to achieve this.
Week 8 – reflection
We are finally back to work mode after our short lived break and are on the last leg of the race with both the fundraiser coming up next week and also the actual film festival in a month, but our main focus this week is regrouping showing progress from each of the groups so we know where everyone is and catch us up all as a collective and last but not least organising in depth the fundraiser.
Our trailers weren’t done and were waiting to be edited by me and Philip before we could show the class anything, so we took the first half of the class and the break to go to one of the editing suites and finished one of the trailers which can be used. This was straight forward as both of us were very competent in the editing compartment and are very familiar with the software used to edit, and with the two of us bouncing ideas and actively giving each other feedback of what we think looks good and what doesn’t and what footage might be better or maybe should be edited differently in some parts.
After the trailer was edited and transferred into the hard drive for everyone to access, I was able to give more of my attention to helping organise the fundraiser and preparing for that with wherever I could. Which led me to suspecting the place we were going to use and borrowing the screen and projector to visualise how it would be from a viewers perspective as the viewers experience is significant and also the professionality of us as an organisation we have a standard to up hold and to make sure to provide a good working screen, movie and experience for the people attending. However we came across the problem of the screen not being big enough for the space we want to use which was a problem at first however quickly solved with the idea of a make shift screen using a white sheet instead, which is ambitious but we do plan to meet in of the days before the actual event to do some testing and to make sure it holds and appropriate for the fundraiser.
Week 9 – reflection
Finally, the day for the fundraiser has come and everything we worked/prepared for will be boiled down to just this one night. The reason I think this is so important is because it will show us how whether or not we are on the right track to staging the actual film festival.
This was also the day we had the industry panel come. It was very significant to get detailed live feedback from experts of the industry as students trying to jump into this field, so that was also intimidating but insightful. Overall the feedback was mostly positive which is crazy to think about from where we started, a bunch of students who most of had never even been to a film festival to organising a large scale festival and to be validated we are on the right track and to be getting sponsorships and job offers from doing this is just surreal almost mind blowing to even think about. So, all in all I am happy with everything we achieved and proud of us.
The actual Fundraiser turned out successful and ended up being an amazing night with everything operating smoothly and no issues technically or in general, which made things easier. And to set this all up just in a matter of hours and cooperate as a team just shows how incredible we all are. And what’s even more incredible is how attracted and got an audience and filled most of the seats and actually sold tickets, which was a big concern during the build up of the fundraiser. But this shows us we can get an audience and pull of an event in such a short period of time… making me feel optimistic about staging the actual film festival.
Overall this has got me very keen for the weeks to come and to work towards making the festival even more successful and better because we had a glimpse of our potential when working as a cooperative team can do.