Publication and Artefact:

Venue Production Team

Final Festival Reflection:

After the festival weekend, overall, I am very happy with how Melbourne WebFest went. There were certainly many elements of the festival which didn’t go how I planned them to, but I learnt from these experiences, and often was able to correct them for later in the festival. One thing which really helped was the amount of planning I had done for the venues with regard to how the nights would run. On the actual day of the events, I ended up running around completing so many last-minute tasks that my attention was often taken off from the show. This meant that items like run sheets were very useful. 

A major issue we faced during the festival weekend was participation from the class. While everyone was present for opening night, by the Sunday day sessions, it was the same familiar faces who were all feeling very burnt out. I was present at every session of the festival, as were a couple of other people. Next time, I will probably take a few sessions off schedule, so that I will have more energy for the rest of the festival. As a class I thought we all worked really well together. We did a great job of identifying everyone’s skillsets and allocating them to that role. For example, some members of the class were very skilled in photography, and they were able to showcase that on opening night, while others were incredible at design, and worked on the branding for the whole festival. Each team also had a lot of trust in the other teams, which meant it made it easy to create a consistent image and look for the festival. 

As the venue coordinator, once I had a general idea of the venues I wanted to book, I gave a presentation to the class. This was to get a consensus on whether they would be suitable for the events. The class generally was quite happy with all the venues. We originally planned to use Treasury theatre on closing night and Kaleide theatre on the gala night, but when Storey Hall got back to us, their quote was cheaper than the other venues. In reflection, I’m very happy with all the venues that we chose. The staff were very accommodating of Melbourne WebFest, and they also gave us quite a large amount of flexibility in the running of the show. We were able to rearrange the seating into tables for the closing night to fill more space and make it feel more like an awards show. They also let us rearrange the foyer to create our own bar and merchandise stand. 

The main problem which occurred during the running of the festival was miscommunication between the production team and the programming team. The programming team gave the production team a list of the films that we planned to screen at each session, alongside a timestamp of how long each film was. The files on Film Freeway didn’t actually match up with the running times they gave us, as we hadn’t been told to cut anything. We only realised this when our gala night of screenings was running around an hour overtime and we couldn’t work out why. We actually had to ask the audience who had come to see their films screened because we no longer had time to screen them all. This made many audience members upset, as they had bought tickets to see a specific category such as drama, only to be told we were skipping most of them. The issues extended on this night to the venue sound. We couldn’t work out how to turn the speakers on which were facing the audience, so as a result, the only sound which was transmitted was from a small foldback speaker onstage, facing the performer. This meant the sound would bounce all around the auditorium, making it hard to catch words. 

The screening problems continued the next day with our legacy screenings. The two people who had been trained on how to operate the technology were not present on this day, which meant myself and a member of the programming team had to learn how to operate all the software in an incredibly short timeframe while the audience was waiting outside. We also discovered that the legacy screening sessions were only twenty minutes in length, despite being advertised as a one-hour session. Overall, the festival was a fantastic learning experience. I met so many great people with skills in areas which I knew nothing about. I think if I went to this festival again, I would put more time into preparation and testing the venues, to make sure we were all as prepared as possible for the nights. 

Making: Melbourne WebFest Reflection

Week 11: WebFest Studio Reflection

Week 10: WebFest Studio Reflection

Week 8: WebFest Studio Reflection

Week 7: WebFest Studio Reflection

Week 6: WebFest Studio Reflection

 In the lead up to Melbourne WebFest my role as venue coordinator shifted to involve other tasks which became more immediate. This included helping the production team with technical requirements and formatting of files, as well as working with the sponsorships team to ensure food and beverage items were able to be served by licensed vendors. As a production team, I feel like we worked a lot better in the final weeks than throughout the semester. In the two weeks leading up to the festival our priorities aligned in terms of what needs to be completed to get the festival up and running. Now that it is the week of the festival, we have improved as a group at delegating tasks and communicating. I think a large part of this involves people from all the teams being present during classes and at meetings, and if they’re not able to be, effectively communicating all the information. 

Communication is a large part of getting this festival up and running this weekend. A couple of recent hiccups which occurred were things like, the programming team decided not to include categories in the awards presented, but didn’t communicate this with the programming team, so we ordered awards for categories which no longer existed. If I had to go through this process again, I would make sure that communication channels were clear and being utilised. While we’ve been using a Notion page to keep track of all the main documents, we also have various Google Drives, spreadsheets, and Instagram group chats. While this is convenient for organisational purposes, it makes it very difficult to keep track of where things are, and key information can get lost. I’ve found myself having to message the group chat to ask where a document or file is, because I haven’t been able to locate it within all the files we have. 

The festival is this weekend! We are all feeling the pressure, and the feeling that we may have bitten off more than we could chew. One example of this is that our ticket sales really aren’t performing how we thought they would. We had an idea that we would sell a similar number of tickets that the Playback Festival sold last semester. Part of the reason this was because the festival was showcasing student films on campus, so the community rallied around it and bought tickets to see and present their work. I think we could have improved the community aspect of Melbourne WebFest and created more community building events in the lead up to the festival weekend. This would have generated more awareness and boosted sales for our sessions. At this stage in the week of the festival we sold thirty-nine tickets to the opening night, and no tickets to the other sessions. This has created stress, specifically for the social media and marketing team, as the opening night is in a 500-seat theatre. In hindsight, as the venue coordinator it may not have been a good idea to book our events in such large venues. The motivation behind this was that we were able to book all our venues for $900, with the cost of The Capitol being covered by RMIT Culture. It seemed like such a rare opportunity to be able to stage events in such prestigious venues, both for the tenth anniversary of Melbourne WebFest, and also for our class’s own professional experience. 

In conclusion, I am very excited about this weekend. I am hosting the opening night and have blocked the whole weekend off, with the goal to stage manage the remainder of the sessions. I think this weekend will be the most fun part of the studio, because for me, stress goes away when it happens. It will be great for our class to work together and see what we’ve created to come to life. I’m also looking forward to meeting the participants, and presenting awards, because so far, we have had no in-person contact with them. One thing we all want to highlight as the theme of the festival is that we are doing this for the creators, and this weekend is about them. It’s the tenth anniversary of Melbourne WebFest and we want it to be a celebration! 

In Week 11, we had special guest speakers Janeca and Andrew, who were a part of the last ‘festival experience’ studio where they put on Playback Festival. They highlighted some of the key differences, which mostly surrounded the constraints they faced. One benefit of their festival model was the screening of student work. The community rallied around Playback, because it was to their benefit. From this conversation I took the idea of community building and thought about how we could better incorporate this into Melbourne WebFest. I had a conversation with the programming team about this, and they said they already had some ideas for a Q and A at the end of the ‘Australian’ screening session. This was because it was expected that this session would have the most people attending out-of-the-day screenings, because a large portion of creators were Melbourne based. I worked with the programming team throughout the festival to make sure a large amount of the content we were screening was Australian, and that the session titles appealed to existing audiences here. 

 Examples of this included the ‘animation’ and ‘student’ screenings, which are a category which already have a large audience interest in the broader media landscape. After this class, I had a look at their ‘Publicity and Advertising’ reflection for the Playback Festival. It talked through social media strategy and the need for consistent branding. One thing I found interesting was that the media release was sent out quite late in the process. This gave me some relief, as we were also sending ours out in a similar timeframe. They also noted that there were no responses given from the recipients, and so from this information, we pushed us as a class to get things out sooner. I worked with the social media team on some strategies for ticket sales, such as limited two for one offer on opening and closing night to boost sales. Unlike past festival studios, we have a larger budget to work with, so we can afford to profit less from our flagship offerings if it means providing a better experience for the audience. We are also working in much larger venues, with an overall higher ticket capacity, so we want to make sure these spaces are as full as possible. 

From the perspective of the overall design, the marketing team did a fantastic job producing the program. As a class we discussed how it mirrored the theming and colour palette of the Melbourne Queer Film Festival program. One thing Courtney Powell, the festival director, was quite insistent on, was keeping the same aesthetic and branding across the board. This even extended to the themes used in the slideshows shown on screen between the films. Personally, as the venue coordinator for Melbourne WebFest, I took a lot of inspiration from how heavily programmed festivals such as RISING are planned out. Because every event in Melbourne WebFest is put on by us, I was able to have complete oversight of where these events would take place. I took inspiration from Melbourne Fringe by having RMIT as a festival hub, with all the events taking place on campus. This provides the event with a central feeling and makes it easier for people to see multiple sessions in a single day. I know from my own personal experience, it can be a difficult task to catch all the events I want to see at a festival, and this is mainly due to the vast distances in location. Melbourne International Comedy Festival takes place at Town Hall for festival run events, while Melbourne Fringe takes place at Trades Hall. This means there is always a place to find a representative, and to just drop in, have a chat, and see what’s happening. From looking at how other festivals operate, I think mirroring this model, with the thematic styling of Melbourne Queer Film Festival’s program, will make the festival more authentic and seem like a singular concept, rather than a whole lot of films screenings around the city. 

This week we planned and promoted a Trivia event to raise money for Melbourne WebFest. This event was overall a success, and we raised around $400 for the festival. The venue we decided to use was The Peacock Inn in Northcote. We chose this because it was used by other studios completing fundraisers in past years, and because we were bringing a large group of people, the venue was free of charge to us. We did run into some issues as a group when putting the event on, but most of this was due to a lack of communication between groups. One example of this was that I made a phone call to collect some details surrounding technical specifications within the venue, and the manager told me that no official booking had actually been made for trivia to be put on. At this stage, we had already begun selling tickets and publicising the event, when we found out that the venue wasn’t confirmed. 

In The Curator’s Handbook, the involvement of merchandise is framed as both providing ‘historical significance’ alongside ‘commercial viability’. As a class, we decided that having branded items for sale would be a great addition to each event. This week we also discussed ways to make sure as many people have a piece of merchandise as possible. One idea we came up with was to bundle drinks with stubby holders, and the design team produced a concept idea for a Melbourne WebFest stubby holder. With regard to producing a program, the reading stated the benefits as “Most authors and many exhibition project teams will consider an exhibition catalogue a useful PR resource – complimentary copies are usually given to artists and lenders’ (George, 2015). We decided that we would like our programs to be available for free, and to distribute them in locations across Melbourne in effort to push ticket sales. 

George A (2015) The curator’s Handbook : Museums, Commercial galleries, Independent Spaces, Thames and Hudson, London. 

One of the key readings for this week was Setting Up a Human Rights Film Festival. I found this reading incredibly helpful, because it outlined how to go about producing a festival step-by-step. An interesting aspect which we haven’t explored as a class is the concept of applying for funding for our festival. Luckily, our main funding avenue was the participants paying to submit their work. This takes the stress off the rest of the semester, because it means that we have enough money in our business account to pay for all of the venues and essential expenses. This means, if we budget correctly, we break even before the tickets even go on sale. This is a very lucky position to be in, and it means we allocate more funding to benefit the audiences’ experience. This includes things like providing complimentary catering for our evening screenings. Under the chapter How to Successfully Promote Your Festival, the statement “The media will not go looking for your festival. You must contact them and show them that you have something to offer” (Kulhankova, Jong et al. 2015). It is incredibly important to hear. We also have the benefit that an exisiting database of people are already familiar with Melbourne WebFest as it is the tenth anniversary. We now must make sure they’re all aware that the event is happening again, and that this is a particularly significant year. In talks with the programming team, we plan to include Legacy screening sessions, where we showcase prominent winners at Melbourne WebFest from the last decade. This should help boost alumni support and also provide newer creatives with networking opportunities. 

George A (2015) The curator’s Handbook : Museums, Commercial galleries, Independent Spaces, Thames and Hudson, London. 

Human Rights Film Network (2015) Setting Up a Human Rights Film Festival, vol. 2, People In Need, Prague. 

This week was the last one before we had a mid-semester break. Because of this, everyone was in a crunch to complete everything we needed to do together as a group, in this period. One of the most important tasks was programming what we were going to present at the festival. As the volume of material submitted was too high for the programming team to watch, we instead divided this out to other members of the class. Part of the issue with programming is that it must be completed for the other teams to be able to move on with their tasks. For example, the marketing team can’t promote sessions if they haven’t been decided yet, and the ticketing team can’t put anything on sale. 

My chosen category was Audio Fiction, and I listened to two pieces of content as a part of this. In reflection, I would have assessed more of the works submitted, as this would have provided more perspective on the scope of the prospective materials. This is why it was integral to have a dedicated group of people specifically for programming. It meant that, while the rest of the class could help the programming team by providing insights into the works we watched, they would have an overall view of the quality. The programming team created a spreadsheet which divided the content into different categories which were submitted. From here, everything was colour coded into whether it had been seen or not, and a description was added with a summary of the work, along with any additional information which could be good for the programming team to know. While as the venue coordinator, I was originally planning to screen selected audio content, we decided this would be too difficult to do, and not enough of it was locally submitted. This has also been the case in previous years of Melbourne WebFest, where audio submissions are eligible for prizes, but not screened over the weekend. 

Video Reflection: 

https://youtu.be/94r2xJ09skI 

Reflection 1: Key Insights on Readings 

In this class I have learnt how many roles and responsibilities there are to put a festival on, from guest coordinators to festival producers. Every role is essential, and we can collaborate with one another. The key concepts to put on a festival are often interchangeable festivals have things in common such as multiple venues and days guest panel and speakers and a large emphasis on curatorship. 

The reading setting up a human rights festival outlined the importance of defining your audience and targeting them. This doesn’t always mean through marketing. It also means the films that are shown and the places where they take place for example it referenced the freedom film festival in Malaysia which makes great use of local productions and locations. When discussing locally produced screenings it stated that “you can either include them in the thematic categories according to their topic, or you can stress the fact that they were made nationally or locally and include them in a separate category” (Kuh, et al. 2015). Because Web Fest is an international festival though it is based in Melbourne it is important that we do screen films from overseas that were submitted even if they perhaps may not generate the same ticket sales as the ones where the creators their friends and families are based in Melbourne. Regarding venues, this reading provided the insight that ‘venues should be chosen in order to provide audience easy access, also considering the economic resources available to people trying to reach the festival’ (Kuh, et al. 2015). 

Film Festival Form the manifesto by Mark Cousins discusses how the true purpose of a film festival has been taken away in recent years through flashy VIP shows, media walls and red carpets. These may enhance the experience for the celebrities but really take away from the films themselves. What Cousins is really discussing here is a trade-off. He states that “too many film festivals in the world are enthralled by their function as the alternative shop window for film industries” (Cousins, 2014). Audience members want to feel festive; they want an experience when they go out to a film festival rather than a normal cinema showing. They also attend to see the art and to see their film or someone else’s film on the big screen. Seeing the film should always be the audience’s primary purpose with the experience surrounding it being their secondary purpose. Sometimes these lines are blurred, for example at film premiere for blockbuster movies the primary purpose may be to generate advertisement and buzz rather than showcase the feature itself. In the case of Web Fest its purpose is to showcase the films and pieces of content that have been submitted by creators and makers as well as celebrate web fest in its 10th year. 

References: 

Kuhn, A. (2015). Who Is Organising It? Importance of Production and Team Members. In H. Kulhánková, M. de Jong, M. Carrión & R. B. Eagle (Eds.), Setting Up a Human Rights Film Festival, vol. 2. Human Rights Film Network. 

Cousins, M. (2014). Film Festival Form: A Manifesto (UK, 2012)Links to an external site.. In S. MacKenzie (Ed.), Film manifestos and global cinema cultures: A critical anthology (pp.615-617). University of California Press.  

Reflection 2:  

As a class we brainstormed all the different elements of what makes a festival great. These included staffing costs, venue costs and other expenses. Our budget came close to 40,000 dollars, and when I looked around the class we were all in shock. We had $4000 in the account that Web Fest Had given us. We went around the class and said ideas for fundraising and activities which could generate a profit that we could use for the festival. As a class we decided to do things like trivia nights which Playback Festival utilised last year. It will be a struggle to balance keeping to budget with providing a fantastic experience for audience members. The individuals who submitted work for the festival paid a registration fee; therefore, we have a small fund that we can draw upon immediately. While we would like to keep budgeting, we don’t want to let any of our audience members down as this is the festival’s 10th anniversary, which means they are expecting a special event. Thinking of realistic costs was a challenge because at first it can be quite daunting to budget for such large amounts of money. If we budget everything accordingly from the beginning, we can avoid future financial stress. 

Overall, we all feel very excited to mount this festival. It is going to be a massive undertaking, especially with the number of submissions, which keeps building up. By creating a comprehensive list of budgeting costs and things that need to be completed we can ensure we. are organised and prepared for scenarios to come our way. We also spent time setting up file sharing systems, group chats and other communication sources so that we can all stay on top of our tasks and help each other complete them. 

My role in the festival is venue coordinator. This means I select venues and put them to the class to see what they think. I also manage all the admin relating to these venues. I will also work very closely with the curators to put together timetables which work best with the selections that they make. I will also work with the ticketing team and the hospitality department to make sure that communications with the venues are efficient. During this process. I am realising that nobody in the class has one role because in a festival there is so much crossover and collaboration otherwise the end result would not be consistent. 

Written Reflection:

I have really enjoyed this studio so far and have learnt so much about festival culture. In the documentary ‘Film Spa’, the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival faced a lot of political interference and this influenced the programming. While Melbourne Webfest hopefully will never come under the same political scrutiny, I learnt how important it is to consider external influences, specifically involving direct stakeholders. In response to this topic, we discussed MIFF’s recent PR calamity with one of its major stakeholders. It showed that sometimes the backlash isn’t to do with any decisions the festival themselves directly makes. I found it really interesting how the Karlovy Vary International film festival focused on environment and aesthetics almost as equally as they did curate the films. They built a spa hotel with the sole intention of it being used as a venue for the festival. In class this also opened a discussion about class and gatekeeping, and whether it takes away from the community side of a film festival. 

The festival also had quite a resiliance in how it evolved. It overcame a lot of challenges, especially in its early days. While it is now one of the most respected film festivals in Europe, its initial supression in its selection due to overarching political control limited its self-expression. This contrasted what I learnt in the readings about the first film festival in Australia. It took place in Olinda, which is a small suburb up in the Dandenong Ranges. Although the town has quite an arts-based community, it initially seemed odd to me because of the small population and lack of accessibility, especially at the time when it took place. It made sense when I completed the readings for that week, and watched the documentary ‘Film Spa’, because it showed that film festivals are built to both create a community and a space for filmmakers and viewers, as well as to provide exposure to new films, or films which are underrepresented. 

The Karlovy Vary festival brings like-minded individuals together through a shared love of European film and Czech society.  ‘Melbourne Webfest’ is comprised of web related content, which already shrinks down the demographic. I think, based on what I’ve learnt about festivals fostering community, that we have an opportunity to further niche down the events that we put on within the festival. For example, we could have a screening of content created by young people, or we could have a documentary screening and a horror screening. Based on the number of submissions we receive from a specific category, we can decide what kind of screenings and events would best suit the media products. 

Video Reflection: