Category: Weekly Thoughts

So I’ve spent all weekend finishing up my timelines and interview pages. My “About” page is ready and so I now have a few pages of actual content to compile. Hopefully that will be done by the end of the week!

I’ve spent an an enormous amout of time struggling with the WordPress template and finally have given up on it, ha ha. I’m leaving it as is and focusing on making it as pretty and consistent as possible.

I’m still having issued with how to attribute pictures I find through Creative Commons. I’m hoping I got the format down correctly. If not, I will have to go back and re-do attribution tags.  I asked permission to all the respective festival heads about using content from the websites for research and citing purposes. I hope I’ve covered all the bases regarding those.

Researching three festivals (plus the local film culture) has been a challenge! However, since it’s so closely related to my interests, it’s a positive learning experience for me (although I must say … I’m exhausted!)

I’ve formatted as best as I can without tinkering too much with the CSS style. Thanks to the help of some plugins, the task was made easier to do so.

I’m looking forward to finishing up! I hope everyone else is having good luck with their site-building.

So I just spent all day trying to manipulate my current WordPress theme to no avail. It just won’t do what I want it to do! I want to get rid of the header from all the pages except for the Home page … but I’m just not adept enough to manually code it in …

So I installed at least 20 other themes, and none of them would do … so I basically wasted a day with that. I’ve decided to keep the one I have for now, although there are myriad problems with it. For one thing, it doesn’t translate well to mobile devices; for another, it looks terrible on a huge screen. I figure as long as people aren’t viewing it in a 27-inch screen, it’ll do for now.

I’ve decided on my sections and pages. I have three festivals under the festivals tab, with subheadings for each festival: a brief history, a timeline, and an article discussing the type of festival it is. For my articles, I’ve decided on three different subjects that focus on the audience, or participants. I’ve tentatively titled them as:

1. Fanboys and Scream Queens: The Cult Film Audience

2. Vérité Cinema: The Question of Spectatorship

3. Film Festivals as Public Spheres

I then have a tab that will focus on the local film scene and talk a little about its history and also its future.

There will be a movie gallery where I can insert select trailers from my featured film festivals.

There is an interview tab for my interviews.

There is a resources tab, where I will have a map of all the local film festivals, a timeline of the more well-known films that were shot in Sonoma County, and an event calendar for 2016 showing all the local film festivals in the area.

I hope this will be enough to satisfy the project! I feel like I don’t have enough meaty historical research here, but I also feel as if I’m running out of time to get it all together. I figure I’ll do my best and get it done on time!

Not much to report for Week 11. I’ve gotten three interviews done, with one more on the way. I’ve done a bit of research here and there, and am now looking at building a timeline of major movies made in Sonoma County. I’ve gotten some excellent answers back, as well as some pictures of the festivals. Since I’m doing three festivals, I’m a bit overwhelmed with gathering this much information! However, I’ve gotten my website sorted out with all the necessary pages. The next step will be to add the actual content.

I’ve learned that pursuing interviews via email is tricky. While many people seem happy to say “yes” when first solicited, actually getting the questions back is a struggle. I’ve had to send reminders, and some people still haven’t responded. Thankfully, I was able to find more people to interview to make up for the non responses! Setting up an appointment with people and interviewing them in person is probably a better method — however, not something I can really manage with my time and resources available. But … this will just have to do. It’s been an interesting experiment at least!

I’m looking forward to actually having time to sit down and really focus on the project. I’ve been keeping up with the readings somewhat, but feel like it’s time to shift from reading to working. I’ve got several other projects on my plate and a screenplay to finish before finals week in May. So I hope I can fit everything in this month! I’m just happy I have enough interviews to offer. Last week, I was freaking out because nothing was coming in!

And so concludes my weekly update

Week 9 is here and I finally solicited my interview requests (officially, that is …) to each of the respective festivals I’m focusing on, as well as to the Sonoma County Film Office.  I’m hoping to get some responses back soon. I have a festival-goer who I can interview if any of these solicitations don’t pan out. I have to admit that asking for interviews makes me nervous, because people are busy and I don’t really want to be a bother! But … hopefully people will see how their knowledge will benefit others (and their own festivals!) by sharing it in an educational setting.

I will be out of class this week due to spring break. I’m looking forward to a little R & R after a very busy beginning of a semester!

The Sonoma International Film Festival starts next weekend, and I’m hoping to get my media passes for the event so that I can gather some good footage, take pix and maybe even do an interview or two onsite. The event has after-parties every night of its five-day run, which would be a fun thing to experience. I’m wondering which local celebrities will be present?

I’m also wondering why there’s not a lot of interaction between class members via our blogs. I mean, I’ve been to your blogs, I read them all and respond … but it feels weird when no one else seems to be doing the same. I realize we are all busy … but really, that’s no excuse. We committed to the class, and at this point, it seems like we should be giving each other more support.  I’d love to hear from everybody (and this means YOU, haha). I try very hard to get involved with class conversations via the chat screen, but I’m not sure who is reading and who isn’t.  I really appreciate the ones who do respond! Thank you for that.

And now … my vacation begins. A soak at the hot springs, a David Gilmore concert … I think I’ve earned it Enjoy your week, and I’ll see you next Tuesday! ox