Dallas VideoFest Interview

This afternoon, I had the pleasure of interviewing Bart Weiss, Artistic Director and one of the original creators of Dallas VideoFest.

Their festival is coming up just in a couple of weeks, yet Bart was able to give me an hour of his time even though I know he was super busy.  I loved what he had to say - and he certainly had a lot to tell me!  I will definitely be sending him a thank-you note soon.

Interview with Bart Weiss, Artistic Director of Dallas VideoFest

9/20 /13, 12 pm Eastern / 11 am Central time

1. How many entries did they get this year? For films make sure to ask them to distinguish between features and shorts.

Bart had no clue.  He said he doesn't really keep track of that stuff, so he couldn't give me an estimation.  However, he said that a lot of their features that are programmed are more from things Bart looks for or hears about than just random entries from Withoutabox.  He says that most of the entries are for shorts, especially experimental (but most of those are actually what he called "failed narratives" that people still want to submit).

2. How many films do they aim to screen each year? Again, for films make sure to ask them to distinguish between features and shorts.

No amount they “aim” to screen, no target numbers.  This year it ended up being around 150+, last year was around 130.  What Bart is really concerned about is how everything fits in with each other.

He says when he sees a submission, he generally has three reactions: 10 seconds in, "I want to show this"; 10 seconds in, "I know I don't want to show this", but he will finish watching it anyway so he can give the filmmaker feedback if they ever ask for it; and the vast majority ends up somewhere in the middle of this spectrum.

3. What is their pre-screening process?
NO PRE-SCREENERS!  Bart was adamant about this.  He has been a pre-screener for other festivals, and he'd look in some of the other pre-screeners' rejection piles and think, 'Why are they throwing that out?!  It's good!'
He said he doesn't trust pre-screeners.  He would end up going back and looking at everything anyway because he doesn't want to miss anything he should see.
The only exception to this is the choosing of experimental shorts - VideoFest get so many submissions that Bart enlists two other trusted colleagues who understand his preferences to help with the selection process.
This adds a personal, hand-spun element to the festival because there is nothing in the festival that Bart hasn't seen and chosen, and the filmmakers know this.  (On the flip side, Bart recounts multiple times when he has met someone who submitted a film that was rejected 10 years ago, and they know it's his fault and immediately ask why he didn't choose it.  So there is a level of accountability that goes with this policy.)

As an aside, Bart mentions something everyone should know about viewing: as a filmmaker, never send DVDs to festivals if you can help it.  "No more DVDs, please!  I have thousands!  I don't want this!"  He said that first of all, optical media has a tendency to fail - it may skip or not work at all.  Secondly, if you make your work in HD, like everyone does these days, why send it in SD?  Just upload it online.
(Through my research, I found that although VideoFest still accepts DVDs, it adds an extra $10 to the registration fee.  When I asked Bart about this, he said, "If they wanna pay us $10 extra, we'll deal with it.")

4. How many pre-screeners do they have each year?
N/A

5. Who is typically chosen as a pre-screener?

N/A

6. How do they score entries? Do they use a scoring template/rubric? Are there scoring guidelines?
"I saw this one as I was looking of the list of questions and I thought, 'Really?  What are we in, junior high?'"
He says having a rubric to score films doesn't make sense, because there is no concrete weight that can be assigned to different elements.  You either feel you want to show it or you don't - there is no rubric that can measure that, it doesn't work.  "When I see judging with numbers, I really tell people to stop."  Films are so different, they cannot be compared by the same rubric.

I asked him what suggestions he had for us, since there will be twenty of us viewing and choosing films.  How can we do this without some sort of organization?  Bart suggested us to all keep in mind the questions, "Did this move me and why?  What are the points of value?"  Then determine if the film is something you strongly believe should move forward, if you feel ambiguous, or if you say no way.  Gauge the way everyone reacts and then have a conversation.
I really like his approach to this.  It gives that "human touch" to the process that I think is very important for us to keep ahold of, as a small student-run festival and conference.  If it will take too long for us to talk about every film or paper, perhaps we could do some sort of subjective grading thing where we order them in list of our personal preference.  Then we can automatically program the ones everyone lists high, cut the ones at the bottom, and talk about the controversial ones in the middle.

7. Do you have a jury after the pre-screening process has ended?
There is only one section of the festival that is juried, and that is the Texas Show.  (More about this later.)  The jury is selected on the principle of diversity - geographic, genre-based, gender, ethnic, etc., although they are all people from the Texas film community.
Bart says that even if something isn't picked by the jury for the Texas Show, he still might program it elsewhere.

8. How far in advance do they send out their call for entries? How do entries typically roll in? Early? Late? In waves?

Bart says the answer to this question belongs to the list of things "I blissfully choose not to know".  :)
I found a Front Row news article online from March 2012 announcing the dates of last year's festival and a call for entries.  The fest last year was in September, so that is about a six month gap.  They do a lot of their programming near to the festival date, so I'd assume there's a lot of late entries - the schedule for this year's festival wasn't up until this week, and the fest is only about three weeks away.

9. How many paid employees do they have each year? How many volunteers?

The Managing Director paid nine months out of the year, and she is the only “full time” employee.  Bart doesn't get paid.  They have a PR person who works for 3 months, Development and Outreach work for a month and a half each, and the Technical Coordinator works for a month.  Five total paid employees.
There are five unpaid interns, some designers, and about 50 or so general volunteers during the actual week of the festival.
Bart said one thing they need every year to make things run more smoothly (but don't always have) is someone with a car to volunteer about two weeks before the festival to be "on call" to make deliveries and shuttle miscellaneous things around.

10. Do you use specific programming, trafficking, budgeting software? Do you like it?

"If there is software, I haven’t used it."  But he'd be curious to know everyone else says.  To make the schedule, he uses an old school Excel spreadsheet, which he says can create some problems because since there is no Google Calendar-like interface that shows exactly how long everything takes, he'll be trying to squeeze 65 minutes of films in a one-hour block and things like that.
To actually show films, they used to use iTunes but now they use Playback Pro.

Another aside from Bart - Filmmakers lie.  "Can’t tell you how many times I have a collection of shorts and can't figure out why the block is over time...It's because they lied!"  Filmmaker will say film is 8:32 and Bart gets a 12:00 film, but they neglect to mention the extra length.  Happens every year.

11. What community outreach do you do outside of your festival season to keep your event on the public's radar and/or to raise funds?

"Whatever we do, it’s not enough, but we try to do as much as we can."  Bart says his main goal with community outreach is to reach different communities and subcultures that otherwise might not participate, know about it, or have a voice.  (Bart gave the example of a film they are programming this year called "The Vessel" about a woman who has a boat and travels around performing abortions in places where it is illegal.  They are involving Planned Parenthood and other abortion organizations, especially since recent laws Texas has passed restricting abortion has made it such a contentious, visible topic.)
This is why Outreach is a paid position - it is so important to him.  Sometimes to generate interested they'll go into different communities, show a little intro piece, send newsletters, or give tickets away.

"Fundraising is really hard for us."  Bart says he doesn't care about celebrities and doesn't want to have to worry about pampering them when he brings them in, so he doesn't deal with it. "That means I can’t get same big sponsors as other festivals.  So we will always struggle financially – it’s in our nature."

A major fundraiser is 24 hour video race.  Eighty to ninety teams will enter to compete, so they raise a good bit of money doing that.  Last year's kickstarter for the 25th Anniversary of VideoFest did pretty well.  They had an event this week where they showed last year's Expanded Cinema, one of their video installations, and it raised about $3,000.

Bart says he isn’t that great at fundraising, but he is good at getting people to give him things.  Even if he can’t pay for good technology, he can get someone to give him whatever he needs to get things done.  Where cash is a problem, in-kind is not a problem.  (However, a lot of times the call has to be from Bart specifically, not anyone else.)

12. Do you give out swag bags to visiting filmmakers? Presenters? Guests? If so, what type of items do you include in those bags?

"We have a bag, stuff varies from year to year depending on what we can get.  There are other people that get way more glamorous things than we do…I went to the Houston Cinema Arts festival that had this most amazing thing..."  He actually still had it on his desk, and held it up on camera to show me - it's this handcrafted little knicknack which was personalized for every guest with their name and festival.  “When you have anything that connects personally, they’re your friend for life.”  (We could totally do something like this - there's only going to be like 15 guests!)

Another piece of Bart advice - Whoever picks up the guests up at the airport, make sure they’ve seen their film/read their paper.  It’s great when you can say you really loved someone's work.  Ride back is always an interesting thing – it's important to start the whole experience with someone who sincerely cares about the guest. 

13. Do filmmakers pay registration to attend?

No!

14. Are you able to provide filmmakers with funds to cover travel or lodging?

Bart says they get some hotel rooms for free, and some are discounted, so they can help some of the guests.  They make sure they have drivers and such for everyone.  The problem this year is that the festival is during Texas OU weekend, so hotels are hard to get, but they still found some deals to at least help with the cost of coming.

15. What "perks" do your filmmakers enjoy at your festival/conference? What else do you encourage them to do while they're in town?

They have a filmmakers’ breakfast and also parties every night, "but those aren’t that great."  The problem is that films show until about 11:30, and people that have been there all day are really tired.  The films get out too late for everyone to have the energy to go to another event.

If filmmakers want to do stuff, they find drivers for them but don't organize anything official.  Occasionally, guests will want to go see the museums and galleries or go in town to look at the record store, stuff like that.

16. Do you have special donor perks during the event? Or how do you thank them?

Obviously t-shirts, thank you’s, full festival passes, and introductions.  There is one important donor to whom Bart will hand deliver his tickets and t-shirts. 

Bart does this for everyone, but particularly donors…if someone can only be there a certain amount of time, Bart will go through schedule and create custom suggestions for them based on his personal knowledge of them and what he knows they'll like.  He says this gives them a special connection to the festival, and the person feels like, "Hey, the main guy talked to me and told me what to see!"

17. What do they wish they had done differently or better when they were first starting out? What do you wish you knew then that you know now?

[This is a bit paraphrased, but as close to what he said as I could get]
"Early on, when I thought of my board, I wanted people who would totally support what I did and totally bought into my vision.  That was great, but nobody had money.  So there was no one who could write me a check when I needed money.  If I had gotten a board that could give more, perhaps I’d be in a position where I wouldn’t worry about finances so much, and we’d have a paid staff that could do things differently."

"In those days, I was afraid that I would have to do things I wasn’t interested in.  But by having a board that totally buys into what I do, I can never have the money to do things beyond what I already know how to do, and that’s been a great limitation.  But a choice.  And I have had wonderful board members.  Even past members will do great things for me.  I can do so much with their support, but I’ve never had 'heavy hitters' even though there's a lot of wealth of Dallas."

"We are aggressively political in a way that is different from most politics in Dallas.  We can show more progressive things we don’t have to worry about upsetting donors.  That is our niche."  He talked about another film festival in Dallas that couldn't show programming on abortions, like their film "The Vessel", because they were afraid it would cause rifts in the board.

"What have I learned?  It is so much about building relationships in every kind of way possible.  I do favors for other people, and all of that comes back to help in some other way.  Things we do make a big difference.  We have a free office at public TV because I did some programming for them.

Relationships are what helps you survive.

Another example from a different festival of his: "I used to be on the board of CinemaTexas, student run festival, but they would show internationally.  Got really big.  And then board mistakenly thought we needed to hire a programmer, but we hired the wrong person.  He made it into this top-down thing and he pissed off everybody who was working on it, and a year later the festival died."  It's important to have this vibe of everyone working together, and not impose this top-down organization.  In Dallas, most festivals will help each other out and work with each other.

18. If it’s a festival or conference that no longer is in existence…why did it end?

It is still alive and kicking!  This is Dallas VideoFest’s 26^th year.

19. Any other ideas or advice that we haven’t thought to ask about?

Loved what Bart said when I asked him this [again, a bit of paraphrasing, but most of this is quote]:
"It's good to take a moment and talk about why you do it and why festivals are important.  I have this sort of very deep feeling that when you see independent films, you can change your vision of the world.  You can feel empathy for other groups of people.  When you see only mainstream work, you have a very strange vision of the world."  Internet makes things more available, but too much choice is problem.  "If you don’t know what to look for, how do you know what to see?"

"Festival gives an opportunity to condense these things and say, these are things you should pay attention to.  We hope you consume media in a new way."  When you see media at a festival, you are more responsive – you follow the biography filmmakers, interact with them.  "We look at media all day long, and so many times you feel it is wasted time.  But there is so much media that is not that, and can make your life better.  Seeing everything presented together, it gives you hope that you can make your life and other peoples’ lives better.  You can help them enrich their lives."

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Other stuff

Bart also gave a lot of other advice and observations that we talked about in between specific questions.  I've tried to arrange it all here, if anyone wants to read it:

• The importance of archiving.  "Are you archiving?  People need to archive!"  He said VideoFest has the best archive of old films, better even than the filmmakers themselves.  From the second year onward, they have everything they've ever shown filed and saved in a temperature-controlled environment.  He was pleased to here this was something Shannon was really big on doing.
• On being the brains and driving force behind VideoFest for twenty-six years and counting: "I wish I could find someone I want to pass the festival on to.  As years go on, I have less and less energy.  It gets harder every year.  On the other hand, I couldn’t see not doing it.  What would I do?  You wake up and think about things through this filter of the festival.  There is the world, and then there is my corner of it that I so obsess about.  How would I deal with it if it was removed from my life?  I wish I could transition the things I like about it into something else where I don’t have to deal with mundane things every day.  As long as there is something new, it’s fun...I always have to have something I can completey fail in."
• The importance of design.  "We obsess about the way we present ourselves to the world.  From year one, design has been critical."  Although he has never paid a designer, Bart says they have one of the best designs of the film festivals in the region.  He'll bring in designers for interviews and tell them, "I want you to do something you can't do for any other client", and he'll talk for about twenty minutes about why he does what he does.  He says the best moment is when he goes back to the designer and then show him five different treatments.  "It's so wonderful to see someone who didn't know me two months ago graphically represent ideas I hold so dear in a way I never thought about."  Design is a manifestation of what you are thinking but couldn't say, and it helps people know who you are.  Pay attention to the little details.
• He says that there are four or five people who submit films labeled as "preview screenings" because they still want to get into Sundance or whatnot.  Bart actually likes these.  His reasoning:  "We could say hey, we’re not SXSW, we’re small, and we’re never gonna get these world premieres.  But by giving you a preview screening, you’re gonna see a new film that someone elsewhere will be talking about in three months."
  Next year Bart want to include more preview screenings, because it helps VideoFest stay relevant and even ahead of the curve.  VideoFest is big on innovation.  "We try to get things ahead of the cultural sight lines."  They did Virtual Reality in 1988 when nobody had ever heard of it, and when it started being introduced a few years later, Bart could say, "Oh yeah, we did that."
• Continuing with this theme of innovation and staying ahead of trends, VideoFest is all about incorporating new technology every year.  As far as Bart knows, they were the first festival to have a website, to allow submissions totally online, to have an iPhone app, etc.
  Last year they published their program in five different media formats: in paper, by app, on website, by e-book, and by iBook (for the iPad, allowing trailers instead of stills, and allowing sponsors to put in video ads, something else no other festival can offer for advertising).
  This year, Bart is working on setting up Google Hangouts with directors who can't attend the festival.  They can record the Q&A beforehand and easily upload it to YouTube, making it available to everyone at the festival to view quickly and easily.
• On shorts vs. feature films: "With the exception of animation, it's hard to show short films.  If you need to build an audience, always do more animation."
• We talked a bit about the Texas Show in class last week as something we could maybe draw inspiration from to create a more regionally-centered part of Visions.  The Texas Show is a special shorts block in VideoFest that shows only movies made in Texas by Texan filmmakers, and it is the only submissions category where the selections are juried instead of curated.  I asked Bart to give me a bit more detail on it.  For the first two years, it was the Dallas Show.  The initial idea was to give attention to the best local work.  It is the only part of the festival where nothing else is happening and it is placed at the very end of the festival.  By contextualizing it differently, it motivates a large audience to come see a shorts block they may otherwise skip.  The jurying process is used to make sure that someone will always feel they have a fair shot, regardless of their relationship with Bart (especially at the beginning, because everyone knows each other in the Dallas film community).
  They make a tape/DVD of all of the selections, which they sell not for profit but for posterity.  It allows people to have something in their collection that is not easily available for everybody.  Bart used to get grants from the state allowing him to travel around Texas showing the Texas Show in large cities and small towns.  It is a way to encourage people to apply for the show next year, seek work from communities that don't have much representation at festivals, and also get the word out about VideoFest.