Behind the scenes: Putting together a festival

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In her corner office on the fourth floor of the Mount Baker Block Building, Port Townsend Film Festival Executive Director Janette Force has a paper proof for a poster, not of the approaching 29th annual festival, but of next year's.

For Force, as well as staff and volunteers, organizing the yearly festival is a continual process to bring together a small but intricately coordinated event for the enjoyment of locals and out-of-town guests.

As one of the smallest of the film festivals dotting the globe, Force and her staff are dedicated to ensuring quality, variety and a memorable experience for all who attend.

 

Advantageous Tech

As the festival nears, scheduled for Sept. 21 - 23 in its third decade running, PTFF has already shown signs of nostalgia as technology has streamlined several aspects of the organizing process. Force remembered when two screeners of each movie were provided to the festival, and only one was used by reviewers, who were tasked to give it a star rating to move it to Force to determine if it would have a place in the festival. Three different movies were put in paper bags and taken home to be viewed. Once reviewed, they would be reshuffled so more eyes on them would give a more diverse opinion.

“You can imagine the logistics with 500 films. Discs seemed like a big breakthrough,” Force remembered.

This was just five years ago, but it has since progressed. When a reviewer is assigned a movie to watch, they are provided a link to a Vimeo page and a code.

“It's a wonderful way to cull down hundreds of films to about 90 to 100 we show every year at our festival,” said Chris McFaul, program editor and software aficionado.

Force said when the festival began, staff would have to show each film in a 35mm, hauling them all around on wagons in downtown Port Townsend to each venue after they were rewound and replattered. From film, the festival went to HD and HD Cam, while European movies were in a completely different format, necessitating a different kind of projector, or running the the films at a different speed.

Reviewers rate on a three-star scale, with only the best going to the programmers, who are Force and Jane Julian, a Colorado local who visits Port Townsend twice a year to help with the festival. From there, the list is pared down to create variety in the program. Force explained when there are a few movies sharing the same subject matter, programmers pick the one that has has the most unique angle.

 

Cinema in Variety

Both Julian and Force travel to different festivals throughout the year to talk with as many festival directors to understand what is out there that would make their own festival the best and most varied event as possible.

“There are a lot of opportunities to find material, and then you have to choreograph it, so it's not all dark or political or all comedies,” Force said, adding comedy is not a genre they get in excess.

To get films, organizers put out a “call to entry” by using a myriad of avenues to get the word out, to filmmakers, film schools and other film festivals. This first step is taken between October and January.

“The amount we spent on postage is spent now on electronic media. It's a faster and more efficient way to reach people,” Force said, adding she never would have found Tedy Necula, a Romanian film producer who will make the trek to Port Townsend this year, if it had not been for the advanced technology.

Any interested filmmakers, directors or producers use submission engines. Two are employed by PTFF, including Filmfreeway and Withoutabox. Filmmakers can link their movie into the systems and push it to festival organizers around the world for review. Force said this places foreign directors on a more even playing field, something not afforded before internet speed and reliability took hold.

Once movies stream in, a team of reviewers, captained by Pam Kolacy, watches each entry. Kolacy ensures each film has at least three viewers, who are mainly local, but also live out of the area, with ties to the festival in some fashion.

Kolacy remembered, before online became the means of watching each film, they would have to exchange VHS and DVDs. Reviews were also written out, which would be needed to be translated to an electronic format.

Today, all the films are available to reviewers online through a web-based portal with the appropriate link. As films are loaded, each member is assigned whether to watch a narrative or documentary, and tag which movie they are watching.

Afterward, they can leave a review, a yes or no on whether the festival should accept it, and leave comments, which is required of them.

“Every film that comes in is watched by three different people,” Kolacy explained. “If it gets a positive review, with two yeses, they get forwarded to staff.”

Keeping in touch with the administration is essential for Kolacy, to keep them current about how the review teams are doing, and if they need to play catch-up. She also keeps track of the movies in the queue, to ensure they are being watched and not in any limbo, as well as reading each review as they comes in.

“Our reviewers are insightful and funny, and of course from film lovers. It's a real crapshoot of what comes in,” Kolacy said, adding entries can range from first efforts to the most polished of works.

 

Moving Parts

After films are received, reviewed and accepted, the invitation goes out to filmmakers to attend the festival, where it will be screened to an audience. When the time comes, there is an influx of people who travel to Port Townsend for the event. Not counting general attendance, filmmakers could make up 95 of the total, but could double or triple, depending how many guests accompany them. Any given year, staff could be planning to have about 300 people to accommodate.

“They are artists first and foremost, so they make no plans,” Force joked about the amount of work staff puts in to ensure the guests are as comfortable as possible.

Along with a filmmakers lounge, where they are fed and can take a break, generous patrons donate their guest houses or rooms throughout the festival.

“It makes them nervous at first, but when they get here, they're happy,” Force said about housing those who represent the films. “It turns the whole feeling of the festival.”

Year to year, 200 to 300 volunteers chip in during those three days. Though they are compensated with festival passes, they give their time in driving guests, as ushers, setting up equipment, cleaning up, painting signs and much more.

 

Quality Assurance

One of the most alluring aspects PTFF provides is it is all walkable, which is not common for many similar festivals. The Rose Theatre, Rosebud and Starlight Room are the only standing theaters used, but are supplemented by converted theaters from community venues, including the Cotton Building, the American Legion Hall, the Northwest Maritime Center, Key City Public Theatre and the outdoor theater on Taylor Street.

With eight theaters strictly scheduled for specific times throughout the three days, volunteers help Production Manager Gary Engbrecht with all the setup. Engbrecht, who also works for the Rose Theatre and has helped the festival since its inception, sees to the quality of the content, which makes up more than 100 films.

These sites are retrofitted with seating, screens and sound equipment to make for the most theater-like experience as possible. Engbrecht said the Cotton Building theater, which recently had a projector screen installed, can be used by the community throughout the year. Volunteers also block out any light that could disrupt the screen and viewing experience.

“They are as polished as they can be for the rooms they're in,” Engbrecht said about the screenings he and other volunteers set up in a hall, public playhouse or municipal building. “We make them as theater-like as we possibly can, in the short time allotted to us, and the equipment, technology and volunteers we have at our disposal. I think we do a pretty good job.”

Selected films are sent to the festival in a variety of formats, from Dropbox links to downloads, Bluray Discs discs to DVDs, to be transferred into Digitally Compressed Packages, which later are programmed and projected.

But once a movie is chosen, it is not the end of the journey for filmmakers. Force recalled an instance about seven years ago when Bill Putney, the festival's el jefe de contenido, or exhibition content creator, noticed when a foreign language film had scenes with dialogue but no subtitles and vice-versa. Getting a Turkish speaker to the office on a whim helped get all the subtitles were shifted.

She also pointed to volunteer Barbara Miles, who would look for anomalies, such as extremes in sounds and lighting issues, and who can pinpoint anything that needs attention from the filmmakers. Force said the film does not move forward until the Miles stamp of approval.

Once every film is chosen, Force and Julian take more than a week to figure out which films will play in which venue, if a guest will speak, and what short film will show before each feature, which Force likened to pairing wine and cheese.

For instance, this year, Force noticed there is a Middle Eastern or Muslim thread, which ties into a series of shorts called “The Secret Life of Muslims” that will show before a of the movies with similar interests.

To get everyone on the same page, in a literal sense, McFaul puts together all the information for a program. This is a chore in itself to ensure quality, as she has to get the spellings of the names of the film, director, producer and country of origin and synopsis all correct.

 

Reflection

One of Force's favorite parts of the festival is when a movie is being shown in the outside theater, on Taylor Street looking toward Townsend Bay, and the light of the screen illuminates the faces of all the viewers. When she looks back at the audience from a Water Street vantage point, she can see the magic of cinema firsthand, when everyone's faces change expressions at the same instant.

“It's a perspective you would never have,” Force said. “What's wonderful about where we are, having a 19 year history, is that we are pretty grounded. We can't get a lot bigger. I'm really grateful for that.”