Festival/Conference
basics (from Withoutabox, event website and news articles):
1. What time is your interview
scheduled and who will you be talking with when you call/Skype?
I will be speaking with the
executive director of the Ann Arbor Film Festival at 3:00PM on Wednesday,
September 9th via Skype.
2. Who started it and who runs
it?
The festival was started by a professor of the University of
Michigan, George Manupelli, in 1963. It is currently run by Leslie Raymond and
David Dinnell.
3. What is the mission of the
festival/conference? (copy and paste the first paragraph)
To support bold, visionary filmmakers, advance the art
form of film and new media, and engage communities with remarkable cinematic
experiences.
4. How does this compare with
their actual programming choices from the past two years? Be specific in
describing what they program (mode, categories within mode, niche, Political?
Global? Local? Gender? Sexuality? Race? Any themes that you see? etc…)
The choices featured during their festival very much follow
the mission statement. There are a wide
variety of films to watch ranging from features to shorts, music videos,
student films, multicultural, as well as short discussion and
paper/presentation blocks. I don’t see
any themes; they show many different things.
5. Where is the event?
The event is held in Ann Arbor, Michigan.
6. When is the event? (Give
dates from last year if not current)
The event will take place from March 24th thru
March 29th.
7. How do you submit? Snail
mail, online, withoutabox, through their site, etc…
You can submit through a link and extensive form on their
website, or through Withoutabox.
8. When are the deadlines to
enter? Early? Reg? Late?
The early deadline was August 15th, the official
deadline in October 1st, and the late deadline is November 1st.
9. How much does it cost to
enter?
The cost for the early deadline is $30 for shorts and $40
features; for each subsequent deadline the fee increases by $10.
10. Who’s eligible, what are the
guidelines to enter?
There are no explicit guidelines for entry.
11. Is there a Student category?
Yes.
12. What formats do they except
for jurying? DVD, Vimeo, Flash drives?
They accept DVD, Blu-Ray, Internet Links and 16mm copies for
submissions.
13. What formats do they except
for exhibition/screening?
The exhibition copy must be 16mm, 35mm, s8mm, Digital File,
digibeta or BetaSP.
14. How many films screened at
the festival last year?
There were 222 films (that I can count on the website)
screened last year.
15. How long is a typical shorts
block or paper presentation block at their event?
Typical blocks seem to be 2 to 2.5 hours long.
16. How many films or papers do
they program per block?
There are about 10-15 films per block. A presentation is normally in it’s own block.
17. How do people register to
attend? Is there a cost to attend as a guest?
Tickets for individual screenings for the public and for
AAFF members or students are $9 and $7 respectively. The opening night reception is $35 and $25.
The full festival pass is $95 and $80. The weekend pass is $55 and $45.
18. Look at sponsorship page and
see what businesses. Grants and private entities give money to the event.
Figure out how many of each kind and note any leads that might be useful to us.
There are a various number of sponsors listed on the
website, many of them are local; few of them are well known such as The Academy
of Motion Picture and Arts, Google, and Yelp.
19. What are their sponsorship
levels and incentives for each level?
There was no information regarding this matter.
20. Did they have a kickstarter
or indiegogo? What incentives did they have for each level of donor?
$50 – Name recognition on the AAFF
website
$150 – Plus, name printed in AAFF Program
Guide
$500 – Plus, 10 tickets for AAFF Main
Theater screenings
$1,000 – Plus, a special AAFF swag bag
full of memorabilia and surprise gifts
$3,000 – Plus, Sponsorship of one
festival program with on stage accknowledgement
$5,000
– Plus, a private AAFF hosted event of your choosing
21. What kind of non-traditional
film/video events have they had before? Things like Installations,'Visual
Soundwalls,' VJing etc.
There are filmmaker retrospectives, gallery intalations,
panel discussions, historic and thematic surveys and contemporary artist
programs along with their screenings during the festival.
22. Are there ways in which they
have expanded the typical film screening event? How have they branched out from
sitting in a dark room in front of a screen?
The festival has been around for over 50 years; there is a
tour that happens every year that travels nationally to bring more attention
and create a following base for the festival.
Answer
the following questions about your experience with your assigned
festival’s/conference’s website:
23. Is the layout easy to
navigate? What makes it easy?
The website is fairly simple to
navigate; the layout is simple (tabs for about, festival, tour, contribute, and
archive). When each is clicked, new
categories in each subcategory appear on that page.
24. Is the layout difficult to
navigate? What makes it difficult?
It is not difficult to navigate.
25. Can you find the information
you are looking for on the homepage or via a link on the homepage?
Yes; it is very easy to find
information.
26. Aesthetically, what catches
your eye? What's cool about it?
It isn’t very aesthetically pleasing
(not too many colors). There are no
complicated designs, it is very simple.
27. Aesthetically, what doesn't
fit in? What makes it look bad?
Nothing looks bad; the theme of the
website is very simple, so it looks like everything fits well.
28. Should there be more
information? Is the page too bare?
Though it is simple, all of the
information you need is there, or there is a link to it on the home page.
29. Should there be less
information? Is the page too busy?
There is a sufficient amount of
information on the page.
30. What would you do
differently if you were to redesign this website?
I would add more color to it, just
to make it pleasing to the eye. There
are many dark blues, hues of gray/black and brown.
31. What would you
keep the same if you were to redesign this website?
I would
keep the simplicity of the website; links, layout, etc.
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