SERIAC Festival 2019
Posted: Sun May 12, 2019 11:29 am
I enjoyed another SERIAC Festival yesterday afternoon at the Oast Theatre in Tonbridge, Kent. Like This year's BIAFF this is a proper theatre with raked seating (SERIAC has been ahead of BIAFF in this respect of for many years!). Keith Sayers and his team are to be congratulated on excellent projection and sound. The program of 42 (I think) films, spread across three sessions between 2pm and 8.45pm ran absolutely flawlessly.
For those unfamilar with how SERIAC presents films, all entries (there were 57 - up 15 from last year) are listed in the programme, seemingly in no particular order other than grouped by maker. No-one knows which films will be shown (or, consequently the order). We could argue for hours whether knowledge one's flm will be shown is more likely to encourage attendance or not, but that's the way SERIAC does it!
The films are then presented as one stream in each session. Before each film we had a title card with the film number (per programme), name, maker and a still. After each film the house lights go up for a few seconds, the same title card is shown again before being switched to the title card for the next film. I thoroughly approve. No excuses here for missing which film is which.
As each award was presented, a similar title card was displayed with name of award, name of film, maker and, significantly a 10-15 second clip of the film! I think this is a fantastic idea as occasionally a still is not enough to remind one of the film in question. This clearly takes a lot of co-ordination between judges, organisers and whoever is putting the presentation together. I thought this hard work really paid off.
Apparently because most postential judges were judging BIAFF, Brian Dunckley acted as sole judge for all 57 films. That's 57 films from which to decide some 16 awards and award additional commendations as he deemed necessary (and he awarded many) and on which to write comments. On top of that, Brian attended the event and said he'd be happy to discuss the films with any of the makers afterwards. There are few more experienced in judging (and running) competitions than Brian, but if his enthuisam, willingness to help and, indeed hard work, didn't leave an impression on anyone there - well they don't deserve to be part of our community. Thank you Brian.
As with all festivals, it seems there's a diminishing hard core of attendees and a chunk of people who will only attend if they have something in the festival. A surprising number of entrants did not attend. Brian alluded to this before the presentations - if we don't go, there will be no festivals. He made an appeal to all thse there to try to persuade others to attend rather than leave it to "them" to do something about it. Well said Brian!
(As I write this I'm feeling rather guilty that I'm doing so and looking forward to some family time in the sunshine rather than attending the NTRIAC knockout competition, but hey, we can't support everything)
[Edited a bit for typos]
For those unfamilar with how SERIAC presents films, all entries (there were 57 - up 15 from last year) are listed in the programme, seemingly in no particular order other than grouped by maker. No-one knows which films will be shown (or, consequently the order). We could argue for hours whether knowledge one's flm will be shown is more likely to encourage attendance or not, but that's the way SERIAC does it!
The films are then presented as one stream in each session. Before each film we had a title card with the film number (per programme), name, maker and a still. After each film the house lights go up for a few seconds, the same title card is shown again before being switched to the title card for the next film. I thoroughly approve. No excuses here for missing which film is which.
As each award was presented, a similar title card was displayed with name of award, name of film, maker and, significantly a 10-15 second clip of the film! I think this is a fantastic idea as occasionally a still is not enough to remind one of the film in question. This clearly takes a lot of co-ordination between judges, organisers and whoever is putting the presentation together. I thought this hard work really paid off.
Apparently because most postential judges were judging BIAFF, Brian Dunckley acted as sole judge for all 57 films. That's 57 films from which to decide some 16 awards and award additional commendations as he deemed necessary (and he awarded many) and on which to write comments. On top of that, Brian attended the event and said he'd be happy to discuss the films with any of the makers afterwards. There are few more experienced in judging (and running) competitions than Brian, but if his enthuisam, willingness to help and, indeed hard work, didn't leave an impression on anyone there - well they don't deserve to be part of our community. Thank you Brian.
As with all festivals, it seems there's a diminishing hard core of attendees and a chunk of people who will only attend if they have something in the festival. A surprising number of entrants did not attend. Brian alluded to this before the presentations - if we don't go, there will be no festivals. He made an appeal to all thse there to try to persuade others to attend rather than leave it to "them" to do something about it. Well said Brian!
(As I write this I'm feeling rather guilty that I'm doing so and looking forward to some family time in the sunshine rather than attending the NTRIAC knockout competition, but hey, we can't support everything)
[Edited a bit for typos]