Shona Thompson Presentation Response

I really liked the portion about the silent cinema festival.  Honestly, I am not a huge fan of Silent Cinema but the way she presented how the festival works was very interesting.  I think that it is amazing to have a live band play with the film; I would definitely want to go see something like that. I think bringing back all of the traditions from that time and focusing on the history is also very important and really interesting.

            Shona said her main goal was building a community; that is really something that I hope happens with Visions, but specifically on my area of social media.  I think that having discussions about the films that we are watching and the relevant subjects in film.  She also gave really good advice for what you need to do when working with a film festival while she presented her Feasibility study.  She talked about all of the ins and outs of what you need to know before, what you need to plan and what you need to do after.  One thing that she stated was most important is knowing what film festivals are around you and what they are doing as well. I think it is important to know how other festivals work in order to gather ideas for what we want in our festival and how we want to improve. 

            Due to a meeting and time conflicts, I was unable to attend Shona’s presentation, though I wish that I could have! The film that we watched in class was very interesting.  I thought it was really cool to see how Wilmington had progressed over the years and to hear how the people around here had perceived those changes. And, of course, because it was more about film, it was interesting to hear the different venues that existed and how the traditions for movie-going has changed, as well.