Monday, September 14, 2015

Dirty Dozen - 12 Project Management Questions to Ask Yourself ASAP

Dirty Dozen Case Study: Swag Bags

1. What is the project supposed to achieve?
Promote our professionalism, give Visions a bit of BIG FEST umph, make the guest feel special, welcomed and appreciated.  Also, festival guests will have a memento of Visions, UNCW, and Wilmington.  

2. Who is the customer?
Our guest Filmmakers and Scholars. A select few bags might go out as thank you's to sponsors, faculty, etc.

3. What are the deliverables of the project?
Literally, it will be the bags, filled with t-shirts, film related goodies, etc. that we buy, get donated, or make.  Everything that must be purchased, donated, designed, printed...etc...is ultimately the Hospitality Departments responsibility.

4. What is the budget?
$200 for the Swag Bags + $540 (right now) for t-shirts.

5. How long will it take?
I want to have the bags ready two weeks before the event so that they can be stuffed and ready for placement at the hotel before the guests arrival.

6. What specific skills are needed?
Organizational skills, thriftiness, timeliness, creativity, being willing to contact businesses (perhaps multiple times) to ask for donations or discounts. Being persuasive, so I can get the discounts/donations I want. Also artistic and presentation abilities to make the bags look good. Ability to budget and keep track of shipping or picking items up, etc.

7. What special resources are needed?

Class contacts for businesses will be quite helpful. I will also need to know sponsorship level information to properly acknowledge donating business.

8. Who is working the project? What is each person's job?
Me! I am in charge of getting all the items and putting everything together.  I will have to work with the V6 Director (Shannon S.) to deal with the financial aspect of the project.  Also, I will have to work closely with the Art Director to ensure that everything is designed and printed on time.

9. What is the schedule?
Jan 29 - Swag Bag brainstorming
Feb 5 - Swag Bag pitch and budget
Feb 6 - Feb 28 - contact businesses and make orders, order t-shirts and stickers ASAP
Mar 1 - start assembling swag bags, screen printing totes
Mar 16ish - Swag Bags filled and name tags placed
Day Before - Insert program and badge
Morning of Arrival - Take Bags to Hotel for Darlene to put out for guests

10. What are the risks? (Small vs. large impact, likely vs. unlikely)
  • Large impact, likely: A donor we really want does not come through
  • Large impact, somewhat likely: The t-shirt printing or screen printing has a mistake, costs more than predicted, shipments come in late, etc.
  • Large impact, unlikely: Swag Bag materials get stolen from my car.
  • Small impact, likely: Will have to sacrifice some cool item because it costs too much or we can't get it, Swag Bags are ready only a week before festival instead of two weeks.
  • Small impact, unlikely: Swag Bags are forgotten at home day of the festival - I can just swing back and get them, or get my roommates to bring them.
11. How will you communicate with your team?
It's just me heading this project, but I am working with Art on some of the designs and also Development just to make sure that we aren't asking the same donors multiple times. With Art, I can message directly on Facebook, request a meeting, or see them in class. With Development, I can message them on our Hops & Dev Facebook page, see them at our weekly meetings or in class, or set up a separate meeting if needed.

12. How will you determine if the project is successful?
We want to see our guest be impressed.  Typically small festivals/conferences do not have swag to give out, especially to shorts filmmakers and students.  When I see/hear them express happiness at being given this organized, fun, welcoming gift...that is success.

Monday, August 31, 2015

Staff Bio and Pic


Welcome to the Visions6 class.  As you've figured out already, I'm the professor for this course.  My BFA is in Art - Photography, but sine the late 90s my work has focused on festival management and documentary/experimental filmmaking.  I received my MFA in Film Production from the University of Iowa, but my hometown is Austin, TX.  "Keep Austin Weird" is the actual city motto and I embrace it fully.

To give you a bit more about me as a person, not just your teacher, here are few things about me:

1) I LOVE FILM...like real FILM...like Super 8mm, 16mm, and 35mm.  Shooting it, editing it, watching it.  Love, Love, Love.

2) I have the super coolest kid in the world...Kai.  You'll hear about him sometimes.  Learn to humor me with smiles and nods about his greatness.

3) I love living near the beach.  How I managed to live landlocked for 20 years I do not know.  :)

4) I'm a non-zealous Whedonite...though I could really have done without Angel.

5) My humor is dark and dry...deal with it.

To give you a bit more information about my professional work, I've included my official bio below.

~Shannon

**********

Shannon Silva is an Associate Professor of Film Studies at the University of North Carolina Wilmington. An experimental and documentary filmmaker, her principal areas of interest include issues of gender, celebrity culture, fandom, and community building creative initiatives.

In addition to directing/producing over 30 short films and videos, she has worked as Screenplay Competition Director for the Austin Film Festival, Marketing Director for Austin Cinemaker Coop, and was a founding member of the Iowa City Microcinema. Her films have screened at the Dallas Video Festival, Atlanta Underground, Athens International, Humboldt Film Festival, FLEX, Docutah, LA Femme, Central Florida Film Festival, St. John's International Women's Film Festival and more.

She is the Faculty Supervisor for the Visions Film Festival and Conference (hosted on the UNCW campus by the Film Studies Department each spring), and, as a lover of all things related to film festivals, she has participated in screening committees for the Ann Arbor Film Festival, SXSW, Iowa City Documentary Festival, Cinematexas, and the Cucalorus Film Festival.

In 2013, her feature length documentary, It’s A Girl Thing: Tween Queens and The Commodification of Girlhood, completed its festival run and was awarded Best Social Documentary at the Philadelphia Independent Film Festival. Freestyle, a short narrative film that she produced in Fall 2013, just finished up its festival run at Mill Valley International.

Her next film, Red, is in pre-production and was recently awarded a $3000 Summer Research Grant. The experimental, narrative is set in late 1930's, Lumberton, NC and focuses on two sisters growing up in a share-cropping family.

Welcome to Visions 6!!!!


Festival Research Assignment Cometh

So for most of the week I have spent my free time getting as many festival directors as I could to agree to let our lovely class members interview them on their management and jurying practices.  Not only will this be a great way to figure out who we want to be (and what we ought to be) as Visions6, but it's also going to provide us with an amazing amount of data that might later be useful in writing up an article about festival and conference practices.

To make it even more fantabulous, the assignment allows everyone in the class to reach out as 1) an advocate from UNCW/FST/Visions, 2) young, up-and-coming filmmakers/scholars who may present at their fests/conf someday and 3) individuals who might someday work at one of these events.

These foundational elements always make us just that much better each year...so do your research and seize this opportunity.

I realize this post is a little on the peppy side...but whatever...Go team!

Sunday, October 20, 2013

Time Management for Students

Here's a great article to look at as a reminder for daily organization, task prioritization and balance.

http://www.cob.sjsu.edu/nellen_a/time_management.htm