Dear Film/Video Students, I just got back from the annual SXSW Festival (sxsw), which encompasses Interactive Media, Film and Music. The festival is held every year in Austin, TX, in March. It’s one of the major festivals in the United States, and growing in importance every year. I plan on setting up a Special Topics course for the Spring 2015 semester - for Juniors and Seniors - called “Emerging Trends in Digital Filmmaking & Interactive Media,” that will have, as its centerpiece, a trip to the SXSW Festival, from March 14-21, 2015. Start planning now. Talk to your parents about funding. Email me back now so I know you’re interested. There will be limited spots on the trip (maybe only 10), so the sooner you book, the better. The approximate cost of the trip will be: $500 for roundtrip airfare + $700 for hotel accommodations (if you share a double room with a fellow student). The passes to the festival range from $500 (if you buy FILM only by the start of September) to $1700 (if you buy PLATINUM - which grants access to Film, Music and Interactive - and wait until the last minute to do so). For your food, it’s whatever you want to pay while you’re there. What I am going to do is work with a travel agent to pre-book the flight and the hotel, and then give you a deadline by which you need to pay that travel agent to book your trip (and maybe there will be different deadlines for different prices). We’ll really need to start reserving spaces by mid-Fall, at the latest, as everything sells out quickly. I’d like to avoid having us at a hotel that requires a shuttle to get to the festival, as that is an additional cost. It’s too early to book the package now, but stay tuned for more info from me. For passes, know that it will be up to you to buy your passes whenever you can. Once you have booked the trip and bought your pass - you will then be able to register for the FIVTH402 (“Special Topics”) course. For those of you who need to take a Special Topics course next Spring and are either not interested in this course or don’t want to spend the money, don’t worry: the Department will offer an additional FIVTH402 section, G.T. Keplinger’s Hitchcock course. I am happy to report that almost every film screening I attended (I saw 21 films in 7 days, which sounds like a lot, but I could have done so much more …) had the director and/or crew and/or cast at the Q&A: folks like Wes Anderson, Diego Luna, America Ferrera, Rosario Dawson, Josh Hartnett, Patrick Wilson, Jeremy Sisto, Kate Lyn Sheil, John Gallagher, Jr. (and those are just the ones whose names I thought you would recognize). There were many keynote speakers, including Lena Dunham and Nicolas Cage, for film, and Edward Snowden and Glenn Greenwald, for Media. There was also an extensive trade-show floor in the expo hall where many vendors - including Adobe, Sony, Black Magic, Sennheiser, LaCie, and many more, hawked their wares, offered discounts and free t-shirts and free workshops. There were panels galore, only a few of which I attended, since I wanted to see films. I didn’t even try to attend music events . . . I look forward to hearing, soon, from those who are interested.
Posted on: Mon, 17 Mar 2014 18:02:18 +0000
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