Week 13

Leading up to Visions, Taylor and I were finishing everything up for the video race. Tuesday we put together all of the goodie boxes and then Audra and Naomi helped us Wednesday night with the t-shirts. I am so grateful for their help, without it Taylor and I would have been up incredibly late.

The Visions weekend was amazing. Thursday I picked up Caroline, Leah and Kiva with Maddi and we took them to the hotel to relax. About an hour before our Thursday night dinner I picked up Caroline and Leah and took them to Wrightsville Beach. At the dinner I got to talk to them a bit and they were super cool girls. Friday morning I picked up people from the hotel and took them to campus. The day of the event I stayed as busy as I could. I moderated the keynote, set up video race, had the video race and screened the videos and then had a short break before helping set up dinner and the after party. The entire day was amazing. I think it went smoothly and everyone seemed to have a great time. It was great to see all of our hard work come together for a great event. 

Week 12

The final week before the event has been crazy, to be expected. Taylor nailed down the logistics and so we've been spending the final days leading up to Visions getting all of the materials set. Tuesday we spent two hours painting and filling the goodie boxes. Tonight we will get the t-shirts done with the help of Audra and hopefully a few other volunteers from the class. Then it's a matter of getting everything ready to bring to campus Friday.

Taylor and I met for about two and a half hours Monday night before our meeting with hospitality and development. We had our usual hospitality and development meeting Monday for about an hour and forty-five minutes. Zoe gave me the names of the students coming from VCU and UF so I sent them along with the other people that signed up (excluding the filmmakers and scholars) for the video race an email about the main details regarding the race. The last few days will be spent getting everything together for Friday.

Week 11

This week Taylor and I have been trying to get every aspect of the video race solidified before next week. Ms. Elliott was out of the office for a few days so hopefully we’ll get everything concretely set in the next few days. Once the location is taken care of we’ll be spending a lot of time decorating the video race t-shirts so that they’ll be all ready about a week before the event. On my own time this week I revised the mad lib to make sure it is as good as it can be and I types up an email to send to video race participants about the technical aspects of the race. Taylor and I met with Channing for about a half an hour on Monday to go over the tech and make sure it would work well for the event. Then later that night Taylor and I met before going to the weekly hospitality and development meeting. Overall we met for about 2 1/2 hours so that combined with the meeting with Channing, I had 3 hours worth of meetings Monday. Looking ahead, Taylor and I will be getting the t-shirts and goody bags ready and solidifying the logistics of the race. 

On Tuesday I also met with Dr. Richardson about my moderating duties and she was very informative. I have a few questions that I hope to have answered in the coming days so that I can be well prepared for Kiva and the keynote speech. 

Week 10

This week has been hectic. Taylor had a family emergency and that set us back a bit because she was dealing with something very difficult and important. I attended the weekly Hospitality and Development meeting, this week it was on Sunday, for a little over an hour and was told by Zoe all that we needed to have done. I’ve been trying to work on all of the things we need to do. Taylor came back earlier then she wanted to so that we could try and get back on track. We spent about three hours trying to get as much stuff prepared as we could on Tuesday. I also met up with Jill Monday night and spent an hour printing off posters for the video race and then spent about another hour going around campus and posting them on any bulletin board I could find Tuesday morning. Hopefully people will see them and sign up. We’re also trying to set up a meeting with Channing to talk about the tech for the video race but because art department is so swamped it probably won’t be until early next week. Hopefully all of the hard work and care that Taylor and I have put in this week, and throughout the semester, will pay off and we’ll get everything set for video race moving forward. 

Week 9

Opening the video race sign-up over spring break has caused things to feel a little weird. We only have 10 days until sign-up closes for good and so we’re really going to have to make a push to get all the people we want. Hopefully we’ll know about posters this week and can start putting them up around campus as soon as possible. We started a facebook event that hopefully a lot of people will see and then sign-up and I’ll be talking up the video race in the Movie Makers and Scholars class on Thursday in the hopes that it will do the same. It’s going to be a busy few weeks getting everything ready for the race but I look forward to having everything as it should be so that the event can be a success. I met with Zoe and Eliza on Sunday night to go over the Movie Makers and Scholar class and talked about what I planned on doing. I’m going to pull up the video race sign-up page on the website to show the class where to go and how easy it is to sign up. I also plan on showing the teaser that was posted on facebook last week and posibly a video from last year’s race. This week I met with Taylor as usual on Monday and we put up the facebook event and just went over the things that we need to accomplish in the coming days. At the weekly meeting for hospitality and development we asked Zoe about questions regarding the posters and account info on how we pay for the materials we need for the race. Overall I probably met regarding Visions a total of 3.5 hours. Time is running low and we’re really going to have to work hard to get everything done and perfect but I look forward to the challenge. 

Now that programming is over...

Now that programming is over I have been putting all of my focus on the video race. I sent the rules that I had types up to Steven to make revisions and have it ready to post to the website the day that we launch sign up for the race. I have some questions about the website that we need to set up to register for the video race and will ask in tomorrow’s class. I think that Taylor and I need to set up a meeting with Anna to discuss what exactly we need to do for registration before the launch next week. In our hospitality meeting this week, Zoe said she’s set up a meeting with the art department after class for us to go over everything. I’m excited about going ahead and starting registration so we can get people pumped up for the race. I had my weekly meeting with Taylor before our hospitality meeting and so we had meetings for a total of around two and a half hours. Zoe also put us on the schedule tomorrow to discuss the race budget, which Taylor has been working on, and we’ll get feedback from the class about the costs (particularly t-shirts). I hope to have all of the answers I need to get everything we need done for the launch of sign up next week and I’m ready to kick things off. 

Final Paper Notes/Picks

Here are my picks for best papers with a pro and con for each.

1 - "Going Around the World in The Lady from Shanghai: Transmedia Adaptation in the Work of Orson Welles"
        Pro - uses unpublished archival material, interesting look at adaptation
        Con - Orson Welles has been written about often

2 - "The Blues Brothers and Bollywood Masala Cinema"
        Pro - original
        Con - takes awhile to get into its point, connection to masala

3 - "Irreversible and Techniques of Looking"
       Pro - look beyond the obvious subjects of eroticism/pornography to focus on the technical aspects                    
      and how they presented difficult subject matter
      Con - there was a paper about rape at last years festival

4 - "The Unfilmable Lightness of Being..."
        Pro - interesting subject, well researched
        Con - not a particularly easy read, have to focus to really follow it, not as engrossing as others

5 - "A Radical Expedition of Cinema's Birthplace: Popular Cinema, the Avent-Garde...."
       Pro - topical, current
       Con - mostly uses a basic film source (Gunning)

6 - "Boys Will Be Girls: How Alice Guy Challenged a Male Dominated Industry...."
       Pro - not widely written about
       Con - read like more of a book report, transitions need work

7 - "Tradition of Modern: Cinematic Expression of Ghosts in Japanese Films"
       Pro - flows well, easy to read
       Con - more of a summary/comparison of films, doesn't make a clear point/conclusion

8 - "Murders Unavenged: A Brief Look Into the Realism of the Police Procedural"
       Pro - well written
       Con - defining a genre rather than having an argument

9 - ""Cinema Du Corps and Avant Garde Cinematography..."
       Pro - good to have a paper on the avant garde
       Con - relies too heavily on sources, not enough original thought

10 - "The Active Viewer : Use of Multi-Screen Projection...."
        Pro - interesting content, shows the variety of the medium of film
        Con - more informative and personal opinion than using research to make a point

11 - "13 Ways of Looking at Bill Murray"
         Pro - crowd pleaser
         Con - more website article than scholarly paper

12 - "Pied Piper vs Faun: Storybooks ...."
        Pro - considers a lot of sources
        Con - unoriginal