Visions! Visions! Visions! I have still not caught up on sleep. I have slept between 1 and 5 hours each nigh, beginning the Wednesday before Visions. I injured my knee and it was so swollen that my knee cap was not even visible come Friday evening. THE LACK OF SLEEP AND PAIN WAS WORTH IT.
After working tirelessly for an entire year, the payoff from Visions in just two days was incredible. Thursday (the entire day) was dedicated to shepherding filmmakers and scholars, which was an amazing experience. We got to know them as people, rather than by their work. After the Thursday night dinner, we prepped until 4am and were back in Fisher for the event at 6:30am. It was fantastic (a little sarcasm).
My role for this year was social media, but when I say that was my role, it was not exclusively. I was all over the place, which when you have a small staff, is great! I did a lot of promotion for events, including the big one. I was managing a live feed of photos throughout the event, and in between, running errands where I was needed.
Re-watching the films that we had chosen was amazing. I gained a new appreciation for the films and papers that I voted against when I was able to hear from filmmakers and scholars. I liked a lot of filmmakers, but didn't like their films. Everyone has different opinions and creative abilities and side, and it was amazing seeing everyone come together. Plus, I grew incredibly close with the staff, its a little festival filmily :)
I am completely glad that it is over, still not caught up on sleep, but I would do it again in a heartbeat if I had the chance! Hopefully, I'll come back and be able to attend in the future as alumni!
Edit: The above post was written the day after the event; after having time to sit down, reflect and think about my role, this is what I have to add.
SOCIAL MEDIA IS HARD. Enough said. Dear Future Me, remember that. Part of it was just because my phone is not very good at posting things and I had to use my computer for everything, part of it was thinking that posting on social media is something that I do on my own frequently and that it would be no problem to do it as a job. I was wrong.
Schedules are your best friends, and pre-scheduling posts on Facebook and Twitter are your better friends. I would suggest that every Sunday you sit down and plan what exactly is going up for the next week, and if you can schedule it to post itself, go ahead and do it.
First semester isn't too bad, there are a few fundraisers and parties that you need to push for. There are submission deadlines that you need to push for. But really, most of what you need to be doing is finding filmy things to keep posting to keep the crowd on the outlets involved. I tried to do this all by myself, it doesn't work so well. I think I did a decent job, but I know that I did better second semester. Give the class assignments (first semester) so that you can get ideas at least once or twice a week from every person to post things.
Second semester is a lot more posting about Visions, which will come to you naturally and will be given to you by other team members.
In the hierarchy of posts: Links to other pages are your friends. Pictures are your best friends. Videos are your family.
On the day of the event: you have to have at least one person that will be assisting you AT ALL TIMES. You think you can handle posting to three social media outlets by yourself ALL DAY? You're wrong. Evenstagram it too!
Overall, this was an incredible experience, and I will definitely look forward to seeing how you do next!
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