Diving in Head First!

This year I am excited to experience Visions in a new way. In previous years I have attended screenings and conference blocks at Visions Film Festival & Conference but never thought about how much effort it took to pull off such a dynamic event. Accepting the position of Marketing Director for Visions was truly a leap of faith and in all honesty, Visions 5 is still a bit of an enigma to me. With that being said, Visions seems to be a well oiled machine and I am sure that I will quickly become acclimated to the work environment, expectations, and AMAZING team. One of the things I am looking forward to the most this year is the collaborative structure and creative environment of the class. The format of the class is a refreshing alternative to the majority of the classes I have had and is more representative of a workplace than a classroom. Even though I know that things will get chaotic and stressful at times, I genuinely believe that Visions is something that I am going to look forward to every week because of the people and the goal that we all share of making Visions 5 the best one yet. Being a part of Visions 5 is going to challenge me and reward me in ways that are not typical of most university courses and while I'm not sure if joining Visions is opening up a Pandora's box or treasure chest, something tells me that its going to be a unique combination of both.

After reading Festivals of Their Own, I realized how important it is to build a sense of community around a film festival. A sense of community is important because filmmakers are putting out an intimate part of themselves when screening their films and they should feel safe enough to accept encouragement, praise, and criticism from the audience. Another thing I took away from the reading is that festivals that stand out the most are ones that have a clear mission and a unique personality that impacts every decision made regarding the festival. The easiest way for a festival to build a community of loyal festival goers is to be identifiable and consistent. The list of festivals that the reading provided was very diverse and relevant to filmmakers that are still rather new to filmmaking and the interview made creating a film festival seem more attainable.

Microcinema was an interesting read and introduced me to a movement that I was not aware of. It was nice to learn that the concept of microcinema is still alive to day and may even be experiencing a revival around the country. After learning about the history of microcinema I realized that I unknowingly have been exposed to it while I was in Paris this summer. In the Latin Quarter there are a few small venues that screen French shorts and also double as a community theater (there are also some pretty cool street artists and an awesome crepe stand nearby). For seven euros I got to see a block of shorts (that I did not understand because they did not have subtitles but I appreciated none the less) and some type of Mime variety show!  Many of the Museums also had film installations in the evening as well. I think that Microcinema is a cool concept and something I might try to seek out in whatever community I am living in.