The Big Day

My only context for this year's Visions Film Festival and Conference was the Fest and Conference of last year. Last year, every event throughout the day functioned somewhat like a cog, building power and torque until pushing forward the overall mechanism of "Visions." So, to put it bluntly, last year felt as if at least one thing was going noticeably wrong with each cog. To begin, registration had a snafu, then projection had a crisis. To top it off, this immeasurably complicated machine seemed to be fueling itself with anxiety and lubricating itself with chaos.

I hadn't realized, but, for the past 9 months, I'd been operating under the assumption that our Visions was going to be host to the same awkward entropy. I could not have been more wrong. To my knowledge, there were only a few hiccups, and all were dealt with swiftly and efficiently. There was no slack. There wasn't a moment when a staff member just sat down at the completion of their delegated tasks.

Finally, I don't know if I'd change anything about this year's Visions. If I could say one thing to everyone going into Visions5, it'd sound something like this: Visions will return to you all of your time, all your energy, all our anxiety. In order for Visions to be a successful endeavor, you have to believe that this is something worth investing in.

This is an Update

Completed

• Explain and walkthrough the day of the event.
• Selected moderators and co-moderators
• Create instructions for filmmakers to send us download links for their uncompressed film files
• necessary for creating DVD's for the day of the event as well as for V4 DVD's
• Create spreadsheets with contact info for the rejected filmmakers and scholars
• unnecessary, but it made life easier

Awaiting Completion

• Review setup notes and assemble final schedule for day of the event - Mar. 16 @ 17:00
• We'd like to assemble a schedule complete with some blocking to give the class an idea of where certain people will be moving and when.
• get info from Volunteering - TD
• get info from Hospitality - ZV
• get info from Tech - CD
• Acquire stills, head shots
• Acquire presentation powerpoints

Those Who Matter...

Before I begin updating on my recent activity regarding Visions, I'd like to articulate a budding revelation.

I'm split 50/50. Half of the time I'm really into Visions4, and I take pride in my work, because other departments rely on my setting things up for them to accomplish their goals. The rest of the time, the work feels unfulfilling, unmotivated, and, so, unproductive. Now I'm beginning to understand why I feel this way.

See, the work I've done, and still do, for Visions is challenging and rewarding. On the surface, it may look like I've just said, again, what I said on the previous paragraph. Here's what I've realized - the work I'm assigned to complete for our Professor/Festival Director almost never feels satisfying.

Here's how I came to draw this distinction:

1. I received an email from the director asking me to complete a task. To compile a list of the festival workers who did not complete assigned work. It's a fair enough request. Some suggestion or a firm talking to might correct any lack of enthusiasm for completing work, vital to putting on a good festival.
2. Weeks after completing the list, I receive another email asking for the same information, but separated into the specific time frames of missed work. Odd, but I know this is a class, and this info might help fill in some grades for my fellow festival workers. As I'm compiling the second list, I receive a text: "What's up?"
3. My response: "I'm working on something for a professor."

What I was doing had nothing to do with the festival and conference.

In all likelihood, my perception of these events and the perception of my work simply need adjustment, but, for now, I'm concerned by the possibility that I can do everything within my power to ensure that this years Visions is the best it could possibly be, and I may still be graded poorly. Or worse, that I may be graded below someone whose work ethic is less than mine, or that I'd be graded higher than someone who hasn't adhered to the principles set forth in the syllabus such as professionalism during class especially in discussion - these people know who they are, and should be warned properly that their unwillingness to adhere to the guidelines in the syllabus has lowered their grades in the same way that not completing assignments set forth in the syllabus might lower mine or other's.

My struggle with the grading system may also stem from the fact that it selfishly presses on, apathetic the to time we put in during class. I don't see why the extra hours we spend in class every week, or on one occasion when we chose to meet as a class on the weekend, cannot also be recorded and attributed as "extra credit." Seems to be at least one solution to solve the disproportionate relationship between investment in the event and the grade in the class.

It wouldn't make sense to attempt a transition into an update on my individual work...
Cheers,
-Nico

A Tale of Tribulation and Triumph

This past week I was tasked with reading and responding to those papers belonging to the abstracts that we at Visions4 thought should be further considered to represent this years conference blocks.

In no particular order, these are my observations.

The paper on multi-screen projection seemed more of an articulation of one person's view. On the surface, I realize that statement seems unwarranted - scholarly work must articulate some point of view apparently unique to the auteur. However, this paper makes no claim with significant investment. There's no mention of counter argument, instead the paper preoccupies itself with the explanation of it's view's possibility - as opposed to stating the view before supporting it with data.

Of all of the papers, Boys Will be Girls was one of two papers that most caught my attention. I was quickly invested in the story of Guy-Blanche, and I found myself motivated to learn her history. Unfortunately, the paper read, for the most part, as just that, a history. In the first half of the paper, was one source cited with motif-like recurrence.

Another favourite of mine is Cinema du corp and Avant-Garde Cinematography. My only concern with this paper is that its presentation may proceed as a session in defining "avant-garde" and the further justification of 3 cases there of - to me, this would make for a very dry presentation, but I look forward to seeing what rhetorical implications the author can tease, not contrive, from his assertions.

Bill Murray... no doubt a great actor whose life and work would be worthy of scholarly scrutiny. Unfortunately, I find it hard to label this author's work as a scholarly paper. Though interesting in its diction and structure, this work seems more fit to be an article for mass consumption rather than a paper that warrants academic rigor.

A Radical Expedition of Cinema's Birthplace is a wonderfully-written and well-articulated romp through the Webster's Dictionary: Thesaurus. My, I've never seen an author who's specific choice in words could be at one moment so inwardly perspicacious and at once so... unwarranted or otherwise wrong. This paper does assert that current films made for commercial success can and do borrow from modes of filmmaking dating back several years, but I believe any writer would be hard pressed to find a commercial film that in some way borrows nothing from early films, especially those first films categorized by the term "cinema of attraction."

Japanese Ghosts, is written by someone who clearly has, quite literally, a firm grasp on two films. This author makes a very good case for his own understanding of how one majour tenet of Shinto culture affects the narratives of Japanese cinema. Most apparent, at least to me, is a lack of cited sources. The paper reads like one scrawling correlation's between two objects whose relationships have already been discussed to exhaustion. This would make a very good paper, however, in high school.

Gaspar Noe. Intriguing, to say nothing of the author's proficient wordsmithery. To analyze a man's sortie into the topic of rape, then to conclude that rhetorically the films imply that a man cannot sympathize with its content, and then to support that correlation... reinforcing a correlation to create a theory sturdy enough to withstand the weight of implications drawn, upward, therefrom... Honestly, I must reluctantly admit that this paper is not as honed as I'd like for the conference this year, perhaps because there are other papers this year that would better serve the conference in its content as well as its image.

Murders Unavenged, not badly written, rhetorically sound, interesting in its content and involved in its structure. This is what a ludomaniac would call a safe bet. This paper sits well with me. I believe the subject may still remain unexamined... though that notion may be romantic, this paper topic pulls a specific audience.

Female empowerment... A novel subject! One that would most definitely gel well with Kiva Reardon's keynote presentation at this year's Visions Film Festival and Conference! HUZZAH!.. wait... Oh, the title actually does most of the heavy-lifting in this paper. Unfortunately, the author's skill lies apparently in the realm of summarization, and the contrivance of meaning from personal bias rather than scholarly research... Sad, fortunately I've already outlined one paper that I believe would be most beneficial to the overall "feel" of Visions4.

Imagining Implications of the impossible Imagery inherent in an Idiom

Idioms exist as verbal shorthand. Phrases forged, pregnant with meaning, to facilitate the communication of large amounts of information. Some of these phrases osmose into our vocabularies, and some, upon inspection, beg questions - "Thank God."

While I was away, people would ask me what my plan was for Visions. My knee jerk reaction was to respond with some worry-abating rhetoric, and without thought the answer to this question became a banal phrase whose ease outweighed the effort involved in communicating a fuller and more detailed plan. Unfortunately, it became so easy to respond in this way that I was never forced to contemplate an actual approach to beginning my work in the Spring semester. It is mechanically impossible to "hit the ground running."

I know now that the best strategy, for me, will be to tackle the small projects to completion as they present themselves. Currently, the Visions staff, myself included, is reviewing abstracts. Additionally, I am in charge of logging submissions and preparing reports for our festival director. My instinct was to complete each small project incrementally, switching projects between increments. This approach may, on its surface, appear the most efficient, but I've discovered the consequences of this workflow tactic.

I've chosen now to resolve my abstract grading. My hope is that, completing these projects one at a time, rather than attempting to complete them all at once, will alleviate any excess stress.