With my first film festival under my belt in a no-pressure scenario, I now felt like I had some knowledge of what to expect and how to handle the next one. From there, it would just be a matter of applying that knowledge correctly.
The first – and possibly most important – thing was going to be having a game plan going into the event. I had really just bought an all access ticket for a weekend long film festival, but only ended up watching movies on one of the three days, and felt a little compelled to cram in as many movies as possible into what was essentially a twelve hour stretch.
A more realistic approach to the weekend would’ve served me much better. I was working Friday, the first day of the festival, so unless I was willing to take the day off, I should have looked at single all day passes for Saturday and Sunday. Even if I had left straight from work, that was still going to be about a three hour drive – at best – that would’ve hit heavy traffic from people looking to start their weekend, and would’ve had two stops added, the first to pick up the ticket, and the second to check into the hotel. Compounding this drawback was the decision I made in the interval between buying the festival pass and attending to begin training for a marathon, and I didn’t actually get on the road until after 6. While this helped me avoid the worst of traffic, I arrived in town too late to attend anything on Friday night.
I also learned to check the locations of the screenings. As I stated in a previous post, none of the other two festivals I attended were set up like this, but finding out that each of the four locations where films were being screened was at best a fifteen minute drive from the others really wore on me the later it got in the day. At least the other festivals I attended had the movies showing in the same general location, but I think part of that when it came to Tribeca was a conscious decision to not have to roam too far in the city.
Studying the program and schedule felt like another crucial hard lesson that was learned from my first festival-going experience. I think once I had bought the all access pass for the festival, I turned my brain off and figured I’d just work it out once I got there. While I did push off making decisions until I was in my hotel room late on that Friday night and early Saturday morning, and I did get a full day’s worth of movies, I can see that this wasn’t the wisest course to take.
I remember being annoyed that Tribeca and TIFF didn’t really offer this All-Access option when I was buying tickets, but this now looks like a blessing. Without the unlimited options to choose from, I was forced to look at what the film lineup was and make decisions while I was purchasing a pass online, rather than winging it last minute. With Tribeca, I ended up buying tickets to two movies playing back to back in the same theater, something that I appreciated so much more after attending the first film festival. And with TIFF, because I was there for the duration, it opened up options of which screening of a film I would attend, as several films had multiple showings throughout the week. If two movies conflicted over the same time slot, it helped my decision if I saw one of them had another showing that I could make.
Studying the program was also helpful because it usually gave information on networking opportunities. While I was barred from doing so for the Lighthouse Film Festival, if the strike was concluded by the time these later film festivals occurred, I’d be free to pitch myself and my work, and knowing who was attending and where allowed me time to prep.
I wasn’t going to have to wait long to put these learned lessons into practice. The Tribeca Film Festival was the following weekend.