Interview with Cable Hardin

1. How many entries did they get this year? For films make sure to ask them to distinguish between features and shorts.
    - Around 170 entries; pretty much all shorts, except for three feature length films. 
   
   
2. How many films do they aim to screen each year? How many papers/presentations do they accept? Again, for films make sure to ask them to distinguish between features and shorts.
   - It's not really a number that they try to screen, it's enough to fill a specific time, given how varied in length animated films can be. They accept three or four papers/presentations.
   
   
3. What is their pre-screening process?
   - Cable goes through and watches all of the films, and he pretty much chooses which films get chosen for the jury to see. 
   
   
4. How many pre-screeners do they have each year?
   - Only Cable; however, he'll call in students to help him if he feels he's started to get lose focus. 
   
   
5. Who is typically chosen as a pre-screener?
   - It's just Cable.
   
   
6. How do they score entries? Do they use a scoring template/rubric? Are there scoring guidelines?
   - Entries are scored by the jury after the pre-screening process; there are multiple categories in the rubric, including entertainment value and quality of craft of animation. There's also a section for notes that they jurors can use to write down their extra thoughts; he said only one of the jurors actually used that to it's full extent. 
   
   
7. Do you have a jury after the pre-screening process has ended?
   - There's a jury of four people; a local SoDak artist, Cable, a filmmaker from NY, and an animating filmmaker from California. 
   
   
8. How far in advance do they send out their call for entries? How do entries typically roll in? 
   - Call for entries starts on June 15th for early entry. The entries usually roll in around the middle of the acceptance period, with very few early submissions and very few late submissions. 
   
   
9. How many paid employees do they have each year? How many volunteers?
   - Cable is the only paid employee, and they typically have about 20 volunteers to help put on the event. 
   
   
10. Do you use specific programming, trafficking, budgeting software? Do you like it?
    - They do not use any software, minus things like Excel to put together documents. They're still a growing festival. 
    
    
11. What community outreach do you do outside of your festival season to keep your event on the
    public's radar and/or to raise funds? (Workshops, mini-festivals, fundraiser dinners, etc.)
    - Not any fundraisers; just hoping that the school and sponsors can give enough cash. Again, it's still a small and growing festival. 
    
    
12. Do you give out swag bags to visiting filmmakers? Presenters? Guests? If so, what type of items
    do you include in those bags?
    - They give out really cool, locally-conscious swag bags that have coupons for local restaurants and things like that. They really work hard to make sure their guests have a good time in small town South Dakota, and it sounds awesome. 
    
    
13. Do presenter/filmmaker pay registration to attend?
    - No, they cover the costs for the presenters and filmmakers
    
    
14. Are you able to provide presenters/filmmakers with funds to cover travel or lodging?
    - They try to cover as many as they can
    
    
15. What "perks" do your filmmakers/scholars enjoy at your festival/conference? What else do you
    encourage them to do while they're in town? m(Free dinners, tours, exclusive activities...in Wilm,
    we'd try to take them to the beach, Screen Gems tour, etc.)
    - People are encouraged to explore Brookings; the way Cable described it, it sounded like a kickass little town, with fun places to explore. He also said that the very touristy sort of things were a couple hours away, so he'd suggest to the filmmakers to plan that into their travel if they want to. 
    
    
16. Do you have special donor perks during the event? Or how do you thank them?
    - He said they thank them with a very kind letter and free tickets to the festival. 
    
    
17. What do they wish they had done differently or better when they were first starting out? What do
    you wish you knew then that you know now?
    - He said he wished they had thought about the jurors more fully at the beginning; the first set of jurors were just other professors, so that makes it hard to get an accurate reading on an interesting set of films if there aren't all film people choosing films. 
    
    
18. Any other ideas or advice that we haven’t thought to ask about? 
    - He had a very passionate speech on the concept of who is really running a festival, and how some festivals seem to be more about promoting something rather than showcasing films. He liked it that we are a small festival like his, that gave full attention on showing off cool films that people have made and giving them some notoriety.