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My POV
Brian A. Wilson
REVIEW
The Austin Film Festival: Good, yet Eh.
I've just returned from the Ninth Annual Austin Film Festival. One of my scripts make the top 10%; a different script had done the same last year, but I didn't go and spent a year wishing I had.
I'm glad I went this year. I got a lot out of the event. Many of the speakers-Bill Broyles, John Lee Hancock, Scott Alexander among them--were outstanding, interesting, impressive and inspirational.
That said, I still can't quite shake the feeling that the event organizers were somehow distracted, perhaps looking ahead to their "Tenth Annual" event, and neglected to take the best care of this one.
More than one of the AFF events suffered from no-shows. For instance, I signed up for an "agents round table." The idea was to have five agents in the room, one agent per table, 8-10 participants at each table. Unfortunately, two agents were no-shows, so it significantly over-burdened the remaining tables.
At other seminars, scheduled speakers failed to appear. Sometimes another name writer would jump in to help out, but other times, the panels continued short-handed. Some writers were no-shows at the entire fest, meaning attendees saw the same speakers at multiple events.
This is one of those festivals that schedules as many as six events at the same time in different locations. This calls for careful planning and choosing beforehand. That makes it particularly disappointing to traipse to one venue, only to find out that the speaker you wanted to hear isn't attending, and then realize you're missing another event you could have chosen.
Insights into the industry and the writing process by heavy hitters like Broyles, Shane Black, Scott Rosenberg and many more made me glad I went. It got the creative juices going. It made me feel part of a community of writers. It made me realize that my goals are closer than I realized.
Austin is a great town, packed with good restaurants, fun clubs and relatively cheap places to stay. All those features and more make it a great place for a film and screenwriting festival.
I just wished this year's fest had maxed out its potential, instead of settling for "not bad."
So, here are my final ratings on the event:
Speakers who showed: A+
Speakers who didn't:: F
Event organization: C-
Venue: A
Value: C
Overall: C+
If your script makes the semis or better, go next year. If not, maybe go next year anyway. My guess is, that's when the organizers will put on the dog.
Keep writing.
BW
LA
transtexan@hotmail.com
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