Cucalorus Write Up

Cucalorus gave me a lot of insight about what the Art Department could do for this years festival. While there, I spoke with one of the staff members involved with the graphics for this years festival. He told me that they didn't have an Art Director and that they outsourced the bumpers and designs such as the monsters. This surprised me that they at least did not have someone focused on the art and making sure that it was consistent and together. I'm sure they had a department head doing this, but, in some aspects, it shows a lack of emphasis on Art.  I noticed how the different badges used size to help differentiate the types of passes. Personally, I found the design to be minimalistic, which is fine but it makes it more difficult to clear distinguish between them. I think they used size to fix this, but the drastic changes in size (the pegasaurus pass was significantly bigger) makes for inconsistency in printing (which just makes things unnecessarily harder). The difference should be graphic and stylized to make the badges feel more thought out and professional. While at Cucalorus, I attended several screenings and parties. No matter what you were doing, there was always some downtime integrated into the schedule, allowing ample time to network and socialize. The films I watched became the gateway for starting a conversation with attendees. This was especially true at the parties. There is a system at festivals and at times it feels like the idea that you go to festivals for the film portion is just one big pretense. This is not necessarily bad, but it's definently something to consider. What films will be good for sparking conversation? What type of people will this film bring to our festival? Is that our audience? These are questions better suited for Kevin and Zoë, but they are still something everyone in our class should consider.