week 13

This week has been a tough one for me. Monday my Grandfather was moved to the ICU with pneumonia and he ended up passing early wednesday morning. On top of that I had exams in other classes but I got all of those squared away. To be honest if I wasn not taking Visions I think it may have been worse because I would not have the time management skills I learned. I also would not have the awesome support system that has rallied behind me in this time. this week I had Jack post about paper submissions to our facebook page. We did this in hopes of drawing in some of our students and past presenters or their friends into submitting their own papers. We also set definitive goals in the programming department. Chris and I are going to try and wrangle 7 papers each I know it may be hard but I think it is possible. Especially once everyone goes over the draft for the second push e-mail and I can send it out. As of my video submissions I am at 17/20 which is great! Im well on my way. I am still waiting on those that submitted illegally to resubmit. If they all do it will put me at 28 total not including the invitationals. With my Grandfather passing I was not able to attend the video shot but I have decided to take over as head editor for it so that I did my part. I would have loved to be in it but I had to take care of my Grandmother and help get the arrangements squared away. But this upcoming week looks to be a good week. Zoe is currently drafting up an e-mail for our professors that teach scholarly classes to have them encourage their students to submit. So yayyyyy for papers.

Cucalorus Blog

Man oh man what can I say about cucalorus this year other than it was freaking awesome. Since working in Visions I have began attending festivals as a director. The first thing I noticed about this year was the marketing techniques they used. This being Cucalorus's 21st year they played a lot with the we are legal. They had the reusable solo look-a-like cups that you see at a lot of 21 year olds college party. Even the bumper seemed to go along with the idea of the monsters turning 21 and waking up kinda drunk. When it comes to programming I greatly enjoyed Cucalorus way more than I enjoyed Virginia. I did not realize how many Shorts blocks Cucalorus programmed until this year. I love the respect they pay to shorts from all different genres. From animation to doc to narrative every form is represented. The first shorts block I attended was the Trinidad Scorpion Shorts which was a part of convulsions this year so it was a later screening 9:45-11:45. Here they showcased the grittier more young adult oriented films from horror and gore, to comedy and even post apocalyptic life this block reached out to touch the hearts of millennials deeply. I also enjoyed a works in progress that same evening and I love the idea of at some point us being able to do that type of thing if not this year maybe at a later time. The next shorts block I went to was friday morning The Scotch Bonnet shorts. Here I saw a block that was pg to pg-13 that most moms could bring their children to with no regrets. Here they showcased docs, narratives, and experimental film all of which were very youth friendly so much so Hoggard High School attended the block. I went to many more screenings but I think I have laid enough framework. The biggest thing I noticed about Cucalorus's programming this year was how well they organized the blocks and the types of films they programmed. The selection was so diverse and really made it impossible not to come across a film from every genre and I love it. They had directors of all shades and types and sizes and I would love to see the same thing with Visions. Cucalorus is not just a "film person" thing. It is truly a community, regional, and international festival all in one. I love the welcoming environment and how the filmmakers and actors are so easy to network with it seems everyone is so open. That also could be due to all the comped alcohol but hey whatever greases those gears right. But the biggest thing I found out actually Big Rob and I found out is that you may end up making a contact that seems to good to be true and most of the time that is the case. But I will give that story in person.

Blog 12

This week started off kind of bad. Monday was my birthday but it being a Monday and me also being sick kind of made it hard to celebrate. On top of the fact that I had a couple of exams. However the good thing about this week was it was time for cucalorus!!!! So that was a big motivator for me to get better. One thing we made sure to get done early this week was the addressing of the envelopes for the Visions6 Call for Entries posters. I am excited to get them out to schools. I believe they will lead to a lot more submissions. When they see that awesome logo and poster composition they won't be able to help themselves. I also started drafting my second push e-mail to send out to schools as well. I am hoping that this leads to more paper submissions. For some reason we have received a lot of films and somehow not as many papers.  I am wondering if the submission change is part of the reason. I do not know why that would be the case because its is definitely easier than the old method. I have started talking to Zoe about other ways to market to bring in more papers. We will be meeting to talk about it more in depth. Another great thing about this week is that I am creeping closer and closer to my goal of 20 submissions I am currently 14/20. Only 6 more and I will be there. I also would not mind if I went over. You can never have too many submissions. But the big goals are to get a larger push on those papers so we can actually jury them rather than have to program what we get. We wont a diverse array of topics this year.

Week 11

This past week was pretty hectic. We established that we need to be sure we remove the papers option off of Filmfreeway because it is still causing problems. One a positive note we have gained some new submissions I am excited about. Chris has started to make the spreadsheet for the entries and that is going well. I e-mailed Ms.Chesler from GMU and established a time to meet with her at the Virginia Film Festival as well. I made sure to check and see how many paper submissions we had received. They are definitely coming in a little slower  than the films but hopefully it will pick up. I thoroughly enjoyed going to the Virginia Film Festival I learned so much. The first thing I learned was that it is important to know your way around town before you go. We had trouble when it came to getting to campus for screenings. The trolley system is not one which you want to be a victim of. While there I met with Ms. Chesler and some of her students and talked to the about Visions. They all seemed very interested and a few of them have already submitted to the festival. We went to their Best of FAVS block and there were some great short films all of which could be great to show at the festival. I also got to network with Kevin Everston an experimental documentarian and talk about his process and his interest. We exchanged information and I might be helping him when he comes down to shoot in Salisbury. I also met a few actors while I was out and about. I did not realize that the VFF was such a mainstream hollywood festival. There were barely any shorts blocks which kind of bummed me out but hey we got industry passes so I can't complain that much. The venues had really good food and the comped drinks were a plus. I was amazed at the demographic they managed to reach both old people and college students. Whatever means they use to market are very efficient. All in all it was a great experience. The best part was bonding with the team. We all really had a blast and would love to do it again. (cough cough SXSW)

Week 10

Where to start man this past week was so crazy. I am glad to say that the party went wonderfully and we had a great time. We had a ton of people come out to show their support. From the visions newbies that came to the fst students and even the random people from the street I think I can honestly say everyone had a great time. As a team everyone did great lending a hand in setting up and breaking down. We did not have any trouble with people fighting or arguing and everyone participated in making sure the launch party went well. We did great on the raffle this year there were alot of great prizes that influenced everyone to participate. The bake sale also went well even though it was the next day. I know many of our teammates were exhausted but they still pulled together to work hard and sell those baked goods. I was amazed with all the awesome treats we had. We did have someone who did not show up and that was frustrating but there is not much that can be done about that. Other than that the bake sale was a dream. I wish my stomach was feeling better so i could have ate some treats but I could not. I am excited to see we are already getting entries from not only invitationals but also paid entries. I also sent out the finalized version of the CFE e-mail. Im excited to see all the entries. Some of the e-mails auto responded saying they are out of the office but I will resend them e-mails in correspondences to the dates of return. We have also got some weird emails from Iranian students trying to get around paying that I will have to go over with Shannon. This is also the week of the Virginia Film Festival. Its going to be a great time.