Never have I ever seen such a travesty in event organization, communication, technical short comings and faults, inability to maintain structure, film selection and even the lack in performance in the speakers to understand what is even suppose to happen and to lead the event.
I won't talk your ear off but I should mention I did enjoy my time here, really, and because of that I understand the necessity to speak about the utter incompetence that occurred during this entire film festival from it's structure, choices in films, scheduling and unfortunately the speaker who should not have had the mic to begin with.
Without getting into the details, there was a lot wrong to begin with when it came to understanding which I'll leave as bullets and conclude at the end.
-Firstly to attend, you weren't notified unless you went directly to the ANIMAZE website and specifically to buy a ticket to find the location. Even then it was not available until 2 weeks prior to the event which is not great for anyone that wants to fly in.
-From what the speaker plainly admitted to the crowd 'I just couldn't say no to the film submissions'. Now, from what I understood, the point of the film festival was to pick the best of the best you are given, not give out 'you did it' stickers to everyone that submitted their film. Because of this, there was plenty of redundancy and some films across different blocks would play at least once more if not 3 times for a small selection. In effect the festival dragged on for much longer than necessary and it was all padding. For every gem I saw, there was at least 5 others that made me wonder how it was ignored. Granted, I'm very happy all the films got a chance to be part of a festival but when literally all several hundred submissions were accepted, I think you should trim the fat on this incredibly obese hog. I honestly cannot imagine how horrible that alone made the judging process and is probably why no winners were announced during the event and still not updated on Film Freeway.
-I understand everyone has different tolerances for how loud an event should be, but this legitimately made me worry for my hearing. I actually downloaded a decibel reader on my phone and most of the time it was well over 80DB. In case you did not know, anything over 80DB is considered dangerous and akin to the volume of a blender running right next to your ear. Any other event would understand and be considerate of the volume, this also includes intermissions for everyone to mingle which was so loud, I had to yell just to make sure the person right next to me could hear. Additionally I was already partially deaf so thanks, a**.
-On top of this, this event asked too much of any person when attending. It was located in some back alley "industrial district" aka, a building was being constructed next door. While the building for the event was nice, truly, the real issue lied within. With the booming music, and what attempt to DJ from the speaker which, was cringe, I won't lie it was awful to listen to. While keeping that in mind and the fact this event is for animation exclusively, which is usually created by introverted people. So with a big room filled with introverts for their films, nothing is more of a turn off like some walmart-esque, off-brand rave music blasting my ears out and large studio room full of strangers. Granted, there was plenty of socializing but if you looked more closely, you would notice, everyone grouped up with people they came with or by some miracle other people they started a conversation with and they just stick around. It's too much! I can't hear anyone and it feels like I'm in a desert with an oasis every few miles away but I still can't hear!
-What was the deal with the high school kids cutting hair and doing make up? I attended the festival with my mother and she came out looking like a clown. No one was happy and coming out looking like drag queens.
-Catering was fine, but just hire an actual caterer or restaurant. Crummy $5 half sized quesadillas from Costco is criminal. Just have drinks or nothing at all. At LEAST more alcohol options.
-Unfortunately the staff was not really on top of their game if at all during the event. Many times while screening the films the sound would often be too loud, they would forget to full screen the VLC player and in an agonizing attempt to do so, would pass by the giant button that says 'fullscreen' an few times in the top menu and the UI icon a few before giving up, then 15 minutes later, come back and do it in an instant. Further more there were sound desyncs as well. You would think they would have tested this early and before the festival began but hey, I'm already asking too much to begin with.
-So no every film was able to be screened at the event. Wild, right? instead the entirety of all who-knows-how-many-hundreds of films through the Meta Verse! Oh, do you not know how to get in there? it's easy! Here, let me hold up my little smart phone in front of the crowd and loosely point at this screen on where you go and not carry a single coherent sentence and just like that you're in and it's free! Just make sure you have an Oculus Quest 2 or Quest Pro which range from $400-$1500 and a computer for the Oculus companion app to access the Metaverse and if you figured out the lobby the event takes place, you can watch all the films. Oh wait I forgot to mention it's not free for the hardware required to view these extra films and the links on the website were broken? whoopsies, I'm so silly.
-Speaking of, were trying to launch Crypto and NFT's for ANIMAZE! and in our wonderful speaker's words "I don't know what it is and I don't understand it, but it's gonna be so cool". Definitely confidence inspiring.
-While mentioning things no one understands. The staff really did not wanna be there. it was clear from being there they were also all very uncomfortable just to be there and clueless on what they needed to do to keep things rolling. I'd pin that all in the leader, the speaker of the event herself.
-Now, I say this with absolute love and respect for you, if you are reading this, no matter what you read beyond this, understand it's coming from a good place. DO NOT HOST THIS EVENT AGAIN. I get it, honestly I get it, hosting ANY event is hell and difficult to manage, especially if it's nonprofit but honey, I've seen girl scout camping trips with better planning and forethought than this. The fact you could not have the b**** to say no to bad films, stressing the judges on watching and ranking all of the literal hundreds of them, inability to understand the tech you are working with, and not hold anyone's attention is all the hallmarks of a bad host. Especially when you plainly admit all of this on stage in front of everyone. In addition to being a 'social person', you cannot get to the point of any announcement that occurred. A block of films would end and you would come out and start going on these weird and bizarre tangents and stream of conscious prattle only to end it with 'Anyway food out there and films start again in 15 minutes, after you have run your mouth for that time, extending the festival further than needed and constantly delaying everything and draining the crowd and forgetting things you just did like applauding someone nearly 3 times in the 10 minutes you blabbered about god knows what. Even in the very vain attempts of 'pumping up' the crowd when it's a mingle and networking event, and not a party and whatever you envisioned to be a charismatic host that everyone is left hanging on their every word, you were not. Please let someone else who actually understands event planning do this next time. That way, you can just be a social person with less worry. Also consider sponsorships. Reel FX gave ya'll chairs but you didn't charge them for placing their website as an ad on the back of them? Could have ripped them off after they gave the chairs to you and tell them to kick rocks or pay up along with the chairs. You can rent chairs for cheap too so I just really don't know what your deal is.
I really love the idea of an all animation film festival, really I do, and I want this to be amazing, but this is partially why no one can take it as seriously as normal film festivals. I set myself out to really criticize ANIMAZE not out of any hate or malice or any ill will, but because I have leagues of friends and collegues from both the industry, and up n' coming film makers. When I mentioned the trouble I went through to be at ANIMAZE every one of them responded with something to the tune of "I'm glad you told me, I would not want to have wasted my time at an event like that". It is an insult to anyone that worked their a** off on any film presented to be in such a coarsely constructed event. Animation is unforgivably hard, and that work should be rewarded with comfort, good company and screenings of the best the festival has to offer with the potential to meet people everyone can benefit from connecting for future projects or films. Not with blown out ears, not with poor planning, not with a poor location, not with clown make up, not with NFT's and Crypto, not with a bloody DJ or overpriced plastic wrapped quesadillas in the guise of "it's a non profit so we gotta make money somehow" while literally advertising multimillion dollar studios on chairs for free.
I wholeheartedly do no recommend this festival unless you are desperate to get a laurel on your poster. This was a waste of my time. I met some legitimately wonderful people I hope to keep in mind and stay connected with for a long time there while I could hear them and I am so grateful I could have such an opportunity, but I will never return to ANIMZE. Stay away from ANIMAZE until they fix their...everything.
