Having experienced Visions before from the point of view as a volunteer, I had an idea of what to expect; however, what ended up happening was way, way better. I remember that last year, we ran into some bugs with presentations and with power points not loading - this year, however, everything seemed to run completely smoothly. The only bog that we hit was starting a little bit late, but we ended up catching up and it wasn't a big deal at all. I guess a note for that is to make sure that visiting schools know exactly where they're going when it's time for the festival and conference to start. I was honestly shocked with how completely smoothly everything went - i felt like we never hit a true road bump during the actual event. Dinner was good, too. That was also surprising, given that it was campus food...nice.
I was surprised at how genuinely cool all of the filmmakers and scholars were. I got along well with all the ones that I was able to have full conversations with, and it was really nice to see them talking to each other and asking about how each of them made the things they made. I'm not sure why I expected some of them to be intimidating (i.e. Kiva), but everyone was really chill and really friendly. They were all also super grateful about everything that we did for them; even when I was running late getting people to the after party, they were all really polite and friendly, and kept thanking me and the staff for putting on such a great event. That, for me, was the best part; seeing how happy and how honored the filmmakers and scholars were upon being treated like adult, established filmmakers, as opposed to the undergrads that they were. They were all pretty funny, too. I can appreciate that.
I guess, if I had to change something, I would maybe simplify the video race slightly; while I thought the concept was cool (hunger games style prop grabbing and madlibs), I felt it allowed for a lot of confusion - i know my group had to keep changing the words we had picked to actually be able to make something.
Something that surprised me about the guests was how much more open to films and papers they were than i thought they would be. I remember a lot of my friends and family who visited, who aren't film majors, really enjoyed Formation, which is interesting given how bizarre of a narrative/experimental film it is.
