Reinventing the Film Festival - Webinar

This Wednesday, September 15, 2010 from 1-2pm EDT, I am giving an online presentation, or Webinar, on how film festivals might use technology to better engage with audiences. The webinar is for the International Film Festival Summit (IFFS) a trade organization for international film festivals. We chose a somewhat provocative title - "Reinventing the Film Festival," but it's more about how film festivals can learn from filmmakers and other artists to improve their online communications with their audiences. You can register online free and join us from anywhere this Wednesday. Here's the description from the website:

We hear a lot today about how filmmakers can use new technology - things like crowdfunding, social media or even transmedia - to build and engage with their audience. But what about film festivals? How can festivals use these same tools to build their audience (for each film and for their organization), raise money and develop innovative, new models for the field? This workshop will detail some of the the key directions of online behavior and offer some suggestions as to how film festivals might think about adapting these to our business practices, and possibly invent new ones.

Why attend?:

• Learn the basics of the changes in audience behavior and expectations online.
• Go beyond thinking of Facebook and Twitter as just marketing tools.
• Learn how we might collaborate to build better tools for ourselves, filmmakers and audiences.
• Learn how crowd-funding can be used for your fundraising and possibly to help filmmakers do the same.
• Get thoughts on how your curatorial expertise can translate to online success.
• Confirm your belief that local festivals still matter in a DIY world.