The 34th annual Toronto Film Festival has come to an end.
A few things got better, some things got worse and most stayed the same (i.e. bad). One might think that after 34 years, the event could get it right.
What got better:
• The main red carpet area was greatly enhanced:
No more TV crews in the background and, finally, a washroom nearby.
The arrival area was lit with just enough light to shoot late-night arrivals without having a jet-black background. Plus, the light was even daylight balanced. In previous years, night events were very dark, lit only by the existing one or two orange street lights. I suspect the new lighting was meant for the event’s own TV needs and not for photographers.
Look how nice and bright the background is, at about 9:00 pm :
The cool thing was that one light was floating in a large, helium-filled, round “softbox”, high above the arriving celebrities. They also had a few spotlights on a tower which lit the fans in the background. Apparently, the lighting company had only three days notice, and didn’t have enough time to properly assess the location’s needs or to bring in enough big gear. I’ve already suggested that, for next year, the number of lights be at least tripled.
• The red carpet tent had a clear roof to let in some light. Not only did it make the tent look bigger and more open, but it also let in some light during afternoon events. Imagine that.
What got worse:
• The main red carpet area was greatly enhanced:
Compared to last year, the new TV area was tripled in size and the area for stills was cut in half.
On opening night, for example, there were 20 video cameras, one row deep, in the 10-section-long video pit, and 42 still photographers, three rows deep, in the 2-section-long photo pit.
Do the math: that’s 42 still photographers in the same space as 4 video crews. (The large tent was assembled in “sections” and that’s how I measured). When “Oprah-TV” showed up on another night, the photo pit was reduced another 25% to accommodate them.
Thankfully, the weather for the entire 10-day entertainment event was perfect. The video area was fully-covered in case of rain but only half of the stills area was covered.
The entire red carpet area should have been rotated 180º and doubled in width (and of course, the stills area should’ve been more than doubled in length). Apparently, the event was told this five months ago by someone who helps run movie red carpet events around the world, and yet, the Toronto event chose to ignore her advice.
• Press conferences were done with the talent sitting behind a big table with big microphones, glasses of water, and big placecards in the way. Last year, the talent sat in chairs, used wireless mics, and had water placed on small tables slightly behind the chairs. This year’s press conferences were set up by a different company than last year.
However, the press conference lighting was nice: front-lit with four softboxes and a small amount of hairlight. Thankfully, they kept direct light off the shiny, white background.
What stayed the same:
• The press conference room was much too small. I suspect a number of fire regulations may have been violated with all those people stuffed into that room with only one exit. More space has always been available, but the event won’t use it.
• No media work facilities. Yes, there was an Internet lounge for everyone and anyone at the event to use, but there was no power (!) and they blocked FTP access.
There was an outdoor media lounge, (good thing it didn’t rain), which had two electrical outlets and totally useless Internet access. But it was too bright to edit, especially with the sun bouncing off the hotel windows.
Remember the old wire service saying: there’s a deadline every minute. This is especially true in today’s World Wide Web. News photographers need to transmit images asap. For press conferences that run back-to-back over many hours at a time, photographers need power and Internet access to transmit during the conferences. A chair to sit on would be nice, too.
• Big flash brackets. There’s a reason why most photographers don’t use these and that reason is:
Of course, those “Tupperware bowls” that some photographers use also extend up just as much.
• Publicity people in the way. In the photo below, the people circled are local publicists. Even more showed up after this photo was taken. These folks do nothing, nothing, except get in the way. No exaggeration. Once the talent arrives, they swarm around the celebrity like the proverbial moths to a flame. Why do publicists outnumber the arriving talent by at least 6 to 1? Remember: if you’re not in focus, you’re in the way.
• When Mariah Carey and Oprah Winfrey showed up, the dozens (note the plural) of people who flooded the arrival area and red carpet area were all publicity, handlers and even more security. They were the ones solely responsible for the crowding and chaos, not the fans behind the steel barricades and not the media also behind steel barricades. The chaos and confusion was totally self-inflicted.
• During the film festival, a bit of a kerfuffle occurred between a photographer and actor Colin Farrell. (That marks the first time I’ve used “kerfuffle” in a sentence). Although, every paper in the world reported that the photographer was yelling at Farrell’s sister to get out of the way, to which Farrell took offense, the truth to the matter is that the photographer was yelling at a publicist (see photo). Said publicist was walking alongside Farrell on the carpet and doing nothing but being in the way. Farrell’s sister was walking ahead of him and had already passed by before the yelling began.
The following day, a publicist for the Farrell film (not the publicist yelled at) approached the photographer in question and, with a big smile, thanked him for all the extra publicity the film got because of this kerfuffle. (Hey, I used that word again).
• Security people in the way.
Spot quiz: If a celebrity starts signing autographs, which is the bigger threat to security: the hundreds of screaming fans standing an arm’s length away from the celebrity, or, the photographers (whose names, addresses and phone numbers are known) contained within a steel-barricaded area 58 feet away? Why do security people completely and continually swarm behind the celebrity, totally blocking the photographers?
• The lovely, old Elgin Theatre in Toronto has an entrance large enough for about 11 photographers. Yet the film festival packs triple that number into the tiny space. (Yes, video got four times the amount of space for less people). One might wonder if it would be possible to use the huge Sony Centre, which is only 1,817 feet away. Although the Sony Centre is currently closed for huge renovations, it has the perfect, large entrance for celebrity arrivals.
• Why do “reporters” applaud during a press conference? Why do “reporters” ask exactly the same question at each and every interview? Why do “reporters” have to congratulate the actors and directors on their film?
• Why do some “photographers” need an infinite number of point-and-shoot flash pictures of the celebrities? Whatever happened to quality, candid portraits?
––
The media office did a nice job of handing out many hundreds of pages of paper to each media registrant. At least 97% of my paper was thrown in the recycle bin without anything more than a brief glance. Ironically, the e-mails from the media office always contained a footnote saying how important it was to save the environment by not printing out the e-mail.
The person (Bruno?) who ran the press conferences did a good job of accommodating the photographers and video guys. He was quite flexible in changing the various rules on an interview-by-interview basis to suit the media’s needs. Of course, he was limited by the small size of the room.
Cheryl, who ran the main arrivals area, was perfect. She’s been doing this for years and she knows what photographers need. I can’t count the number of times she pulled publicity and security people out of the way of photographers. If photographers needed someone moved or a celebrity to come back, they’d yell, “Hey Cheryl, can you …”.
Any other film festival goods and bads?
Tags: event coverage, rant, stupidity
