Toronto Film Festival 2016

Another ridiculously long post. If you’re not somehow connected to, or involved with, the Toronto International Film Festival then it might be better to skip this post. I’m just trying to reach a certain audience.

tl;dr:
• It took 41 years but Roy Thomson Hall finally got lights; they weren’t set up right. Red carpet made narrower. More advertising added. Photo pit made smaller and still left open to the rain. Most fans stuck far away from event. Publicists in the way.

• Princess of Wales Theatre still without lights at night. Still overcrowded. Publicists in the way.

• Press conferences are okay. Publicists occasionally in the way.

• The four-day street festival still a waste of time.

• From a photographer’s point of view, the Toronto Film Festival has improved very slowly over the past 41 years. Although some years, it regresses.

• From an onlooker’s point of view, the film festival is an overly big, confusing mess of films. It has lost sight of its purpose. A major overhaul is needed.

Reduce the numbers of venues to a handful. Cut the number of films by at least 50%. Eliminate many of the film categories. Have red carpets only at Roy Thomson and the Princess of Wales. Be more fan-friendly. (This year’s festival was 397 films, in 16 categories, scattered across 28 screens).

The Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) has concluded for another year and I will admit that it was reasonably painless. This year, there were fewer press conferences than I can ever recall and I’ve been covering the film festival since 1988. Plus, all my movie premieres this year were only at the two larger venues which are almost across the street from each other.

Press conferences are a good place for getting unposed and spontaneous pictures of actors and directors. But having only a few press conferences means there’s time to edit, and even eat lunch, during the day.

Shooting at the two larger venues is good because they’re each very close to the press conference location and they’re only a couple hundred metres from each other. These two theatres are also surrounded by restaurants and take-out food. One of these venues is literally on top of a big underground parking lot.

First, a quick aside:

Why do people worship celebrities? Newspapers, magazines and other entertainment publications certainly encourage this behaviour. The media also take advantage of this by running lots of celebrity photos and “celebrity news”. Of course this is a cheap and easy way to get page views but it’s all so meaningless.

There are a couple dozen major film festivals each year. Five of these, including TIFF, happen in September. The Toronto festival, perhaps like many others, is seemingly just a publicity/marketing event. Although, movie fans get the chance to watch a lot of new movies at greatly inflated prices.

The point to most film festivals is for movie studios and producers to push their new movies and for the news media to get some celebrity photos and interviews. Movie studios will dangle a carrot (a celebrity) in front of the news media and the media will bite because it’s cheap and easy “news gathering.”

Since there are so many film festivals, often with the same films and same actors, the photos can be almost the same:

The only point to this entire “news gathering” exercise is to show the actors, especially the women, wearing different clothes and hairstyles. It’s all about who wore what, who looked good and who looked bad. There’s no news value whatsoever.

The red carpets are like a high school prom. It’s all about the pretty clothes. Actors and actresses are expected to pose like cute couples.

Did someone say, “high school prom”? TIFF’s own closing night party had a high school prom theme.

Red carpet photos rarely produce anything authentic, spontaneous or creative because the event and some publicists work against this. In fact, some publications actually don’t want anything creative. They want passport-like pictures where the celebrity faces the camera straight on and there are no facial shadows. For experienced actors who know this, it’s funny to watch them “assume the pose” without being asked.

Now back to the regularly scheduled blog post already in progress. . .

Press Conferences

• Last year, TIFF press conference lighting was quite good with many LED lights (1/250, f5.6, ISO 1600, 4600°K). This year they changed it to an odd mix of LED and tungsten lights which were 1-1/2 stops less and very blue-magenta. This was certainly manageable but one wonders why the lighting changes every year. Over the past 12 years, the lighting has varied by as much as five stops and has ranged from tungsten to fluorescent to cold daylight to a mix of all three.

• Fortunately the press conferences used the same small, black microphones from last year. These mics are small, discreet and did a great job of picking up the actors’ voices even when they sat a metre back. Keep using these microphones, please.

• At the press conference for “The Promise”, a publicist stood in one of the photo positions rather than sit in one of the seats provided for publicists. I tried but it was not possible to shoot around him.

“There are six photo positions in the room and you’re standing in one of them. Could you move somewhere else?” I asked.

He refused. “I’m watching my client,” he said. Actually he was playing on his cell phone.

“Do you want to watch your client or do you want me to take pictures of them?”

He moved.

• The way the conferences are staged, with a moderator sitting far stage right, many guests turned to their right when talking instead of facing the audience and cameras. Some TV camera guys and even the festival’s own video people complained about this.

Perhaps a gentle reminder to guests that they should talk to the audience would help. An easier way to encourage this is to simply turn up the room lights so the guests can see the audience.

• Thankfully the film festival people didn’t bother the photographers this year. Although for some reason they checked credentials as many as six times at a press conference.

The handful of photographers* allowed in the room know what they’re doing. We know not to stand in front of TV. We know not to stand on the TV platforms. We know not to stand in front of the reporters. We (almost) know not to stand too close to the boundary microphones. We know how to move around in a quiet room.

( * In theory, but not always in practice, only six photographers are allowed into press conferences. This is to prevent crowding and noise issues. Before this rule, press conferences were so overcrowded, noisy and chaotic because of the 30 to 40 photographers in the room that reporters, TV and even some actors complained about it. The noise and chaos was caused by photographers acting badly.

The six photographers represent the five major international wire services and Canada’s national wire service. Every publication and web site in the world either already subscribes to at least one of these news services or they can get photos from them, sometimes for free.)

• There’s still no work area in the press conference room for the handful of photographers. It wasn’t a problem this year because there were few conferences. But when there are back to back conferences, it is an issue. Getty no longer has a work area in this room so there is space available. All that’s needed is a couple of tables, some chairs and power.

• Photo calls are done in a curtained-off area right next to the press conference. Photographers who don’t shoot the conferences can shoot the same actors just before a presser.

Over the past few years, less and less photographers have been coming to these, at best, five-minute photo calls. Perhaps it’s the lack of “star power” or perhaps it’s the dismal setup of the photo calls: a small, narrow, dark place surrounded by black walls and black curtains. Imagine a dark place that has the same floor space as four elevators, then add a handful of actors and 20 or so photographers. Other film festivals have spectacular photo calls that produce wonderful pictures.

Roy Thomson Hall

• For the second time in 41 years, there was red carpet at the main venue. Red carpet made its first appearance last year during TIFF’s 40th anniversary. Thankfully it returned this year. It makes a huge difference because it covers the dirty, grey concrete slabs. They also got rid of the unsightly department store advertising on the carpet.

Unfortunately after it rained, they didn’t squeegee or dry the carpet (if that’s even possible). On the final rainy Saturday, one arriving guest stepped in a particular soggy area of the carpet and fell onto the wet carpet. Thankfully she wasn’t hurt.

• For the first time in 41 years, Roy Thomson got real lighting! In previous years, there was either no light at all or there was only one or two lights. The event used to looked very dingy and depressing, not to mention making it difficult to focus.

The three sets of overhead lighting made a big difference this year. The venue looked good at night and the arriving actors, audience and photographers could see what was going on.

The bad news was that best lit area was where the photographers weren’t and the darkest area was, you guessed it, right in front of the photographers. Also, a few lights were aimed directly at the photographers, (can you say, “lens flare?”).

The red carpet lighting varied by three stops across the photo area:

If a celebrity happened to stand in one of the better lit areas, you could pretty much shoot available light:

The uneven lighting mattered only to those shooting available light. For photographers who shot only flash – lots and lots of flash – the lighting didn’t matter at all. They just blasted every shadow away.

On the other hand, this uneven light sometimes came in handy at night. If a celebrity stood in the right place and you did use flash, the background dropped off quite nicely.

Next year, please use at least the same lighting as this year, just aim it better. There’s no need to point any lights at the photographers. Add CTB (blue) gels which has been done in the past and spread the lighting more evenly (i.e., more into the photo area and less into a sponsor’s patio). Feel free to add a smaller, fourth set of lights at the north end where it’s now just darkness.

• Last year at Roy Thomson, a sponsor, RBC, built a riser directly opposite the photo pit. This was used to hold several dozen pre-selected fans in a five-row riser along with some standing room in front. It also blocked many members of the public from viewing the event from what used to be the best spot:

This year, RBC came back and built a much taller structure. This one held fewer fans, some of whom were at least four metres above the event and others who stood down in front. This large structure again pushed the general public further away from the event. The sole purpose of this structure was to add more advertising. (Perhaps interesting to note that virtually all advertising and other sponsor logos are for photographers not TV. But then TV does mostly only talking-head shots).

Most fans, and in some cases this is a couple hundred people, are stuck behind the event in a dead area beyond the red carpet and they’re usually blocked by crowds of publicists. I saw only two celebrities, Woody Harrelson and Gerard Butler, who walked behind to greet these fans. The rest of the time, these fans were out of luck. They waited an hour or two for nothing.

Bell, another sponsor, has its patio-style riser which holds about four(?) dozen people. These folks stand a couple metres above the arriving actors so it’s impossible for fans to do any selfies with the celebrities.

Most of the viewing public is blocked from the event. The Bell and RBC structures take up two-thirds of the viewing space alongside the red carpet. I was also told by some fans that they weren’t allowed into the smaller public area, which holds maybe 80 people at the start of the red carpet, because they had a “big camera” (i.e., an SLR).

For a film festival that claims to be about the public, it does an awful lot to push fans away.

The simple solution is to add small stadium-style risers. There’s enough room along the red carpet to put several of these risers which could hold hundreds of people. Sponsors can still create their own areas but at least let fans see the event properly.

• Why don’t they let celebrities walk by themselves? Why can’t actors “arrive” on their own. Why do they need to be constantly surrounded by publicists and other people?

• The photo pit has never been fully covered against rain but TV has always been covered. Only about one-third of the photo space is covered. When it rained, and it did three times, there wasn’t enough room under the small covered area for all the photographers.

Furthermore, when it does rain, almost 20% of the covered photo area becomes unusable because water blows in.

When it rained on the first Saturday, 29 photographers were stuffed into a space made for about 10 photographers. So the result was three rows of photographers packed tightly together. One photographer sat on the ground and tried to shoot between the legs of the other photographers. Three other photographers didn’t bother at all.

• Why was the photo pit made smaller this year? Was it to let TV spread out even more? Why do photographers have to bring step stools and crowd three-rows deep? TV doesn’t have to do this, reporters don’t have to this. Only one photographer fell off his step stool this year and fortunately he fell onto another photographer.

• Some of the venues sort of had WiFi. Officially, film festival WiFi exists at Roy Thomson and Princess of Wales Theatre but many times it simply wasn’t available (not turned on?). A couple of nearby restaurants provided photographers with WiFi, electrical power, tables for editing and space to put their camera bags and step stools.

• The red carpet photo area was made narrower this year (see an earlier photo above). I suppose this was done to accommodate the big RBC structure across from the photo pit. The problem was that the background was much closer to the photographers. Perhaps not a big deal but many photos this year were unusable due to more noticeable background distractions:

• Why do photographers and TV crews have to wait in the rain before being let into an event when a big, covered tented area is right there? Shouldn’t it be automatic that if it rains, photographers and TV can wait under the tent? When it did rain and photographers and TV crews were standing in the rain, a TIFF person said they had to think about letting people wait under the tent.

• The red carpet security people dressed in all black this year rather than coloured t-shirts or neon yellow reflector vests. This made a big difference and it looked classier. The neon-yellow-reflector-vest people still stood along the outside of the red carpet which caused problems but not as bad as previous years.

Princess of Wales Theatre

• This venue has a large photo pit on the street and a smaller, half-sized pit underneath the building’s overhang in case of rain. This is a good thing. Except when they didn’t feel like using the bigger photo pit for no obvious reason. The small photo pit is still not set up correctly but maybe next year they’ll figure it out.

• At night, the street is dark and dingy with no real red carpet, just how Roy Thomson used to be. It may be difficult to install red carpeting on the street although other events have done it. But adding lights would help a lot. Why not let people see what’s going on?

This location is so dark at night that photos have frequent red eye since people’s pupils are so large.

• Photographers have to stay in a photo pit long after the arrivals have finished for no particular reason. On one occasion at the Princess of Wales, the arrivals had ended, the theatre doors were closed and the street was opened to traffic and pedestrians. Yet the photographers were still locked in the photo pit with no TIFF person around.

After a while, a TIFF person came out of the theatre and said, “Oh, we forgot about you.” Can we leave? “No, I have to check with someone else.” And we continued standing there for no reason.

• Why is the photo pit filled backwards? The second photographer has to walk around the first photographer, the third photographer has to walk around the first two, the fourth has to walk around the other three . . . the 35th photographer has to walk around the other 34 photographers. Makes no sense.

It’ll be faster and easier if you let photographers enter the photo pit from the back not the front.

• Since the photo pit is so crowded, (imagine 35 photographers plus 35 roller-cases and backpacks plus 20 step stools), a dozen or so photographers would place their roller-cases and backpacks out in front of the photo pit, between the steel barricade and the street curb. This area was totally out of the way and was already partially occupied by sand bags which secured the steel barricades around the photo pit. By doing this, it freed up some space in the photo pit.

Then one day, a passing publicist said they didn’t like seeing these camera bags in the background of *their* photos which were shot from a side area where no photographer is allowed. The film festival immediately stopped letting photographers put their equipment bags in an empty spot that no one except a publicist off to one side could see.

Photographers have been loudly complaining that they don’t like to see publicists in the background of their photos. Yet nothing has ever been done.

Let’s play “Spot the Mystery Arm”

Publicists not only get in the way but many love to wave their arms about and point at things. Who knows why, they just do.

Other Venues

• Thankfully I didn’t shoot at either the Elgin or Ryerson theatres this year but neither venue has changed. Ryerson is a dark, dirty, depressing concrete and brick hole. The Elgin is a wonderful theatre inside but outside, it’s much too small for any film festival event. My kitchen has more space than the Elgin Theatre entranceway but I still wouldn’t ask 25 or more photographers – plus camera backpacks, roller-cases and step stools – to squeeze in.

Both of these locations could be fixed and dressed up but don’t hold your breath that it will ever happen.

Other Observations

• This year upon picking up accreditation, each media person was given a can of Pepsi and some spray deodorant. Perhaps that’s better than a few years ago when they gave out breath mints and a condom. When I was your age, events used to give out pens but I guess no one writes anymore.

• TIFF apparently hired some amateurs to do stills and video(?) using cell phones (i.e. “social media coverage”). These folks wandered about and constantly got in the way of the “real” photographers and even got in the way of the event itself. There were frequent shouts of, “Guy with the iPhone! Get out of the way!”

When asked why he was running around with a cell phone, one such guy-with-the-iPhone said, “This is the way we do photography these days.” Without a zoom, long lens or any experience, he constantly kept running up to celebrities to get a closer shot or he just waved the phone over his head.

Please don’t do this again.

There are hundreds of cell phone-equipped fans snapping pictures at the film festival. Yet TIFF can’t figure out how to get social with these people. The lead sponsor of the festival is the country’s largest cell phone carrier. Surely one of you can figure this out.

• One wonders how much demand there is for leather couches and end tables in the media lounge/workroom. After watching people trying to work on their laptops while slouching on a leather couch, one might think that having more tables, chairs and power outlets would be a better idea.

• When a celebrity is standing directly in front of 40 photographers who are busy clicking away, why would someone walk over and stand directly between the them? Are some folks that oblivious to what’s going on?

• Three large films had premieres that were managed not by TIFF but by the studio behind each film. All of these were terrible:

1) All started 35 to 50 minutes late which meant some photo ops were cut short or didn’t happen. What’s the point of doing a movie promotion when the lead stars don’t have time for photos?

2) Two of them brought in the writers, producers and executive producers and expected all of them to be photographed. Yet they didn’t provide any names.

3) Two of them brought in dozens of executives? Other employees? Friends? Family members? All of whom flooded the photo area which prevented some actors and directors from being photographed.

4) One studio brought in a big, shiny, gold “7” on a four-step stage. The seven lead actors and the director were put on this stage for a group photo. Sadly no one at Sony Pictures thought this out. They placed the actors in three rows so that they partially blocked each other:

Two days later, this same movie opened at the Venice Film Festival where they used live horses as props.

You know, all they had to do was have the seven actors show up in their western costumes (but no guns). It would’ve been an instant hit and the pictures would’ve been widely used unlike the boring, gold “7” photo.

This proves, yet again, that most publicists have no idea what makes for an interesting and good photo.

5) Some studio publicists (*cough* Lionsgate Publicity *cough*) refused to wrangle their actors for photos because, as one of them said, they didn’t want to bother the the actors. So certain photos of the lead actors that had to be done, weren’t.

• Over the two weeks leading up to TIFF and during the festival, we were flooded with press releases, many of which screamed “MEDIA ALERT! MEDIA ALERT!” All of these came from a number of publicists promoting various films. Fair enough.

But some publicists sent press releases for their films and then resent them over and over again sometimes in the same day. If a foreign film also had a Canadian publicist then the Canadian person would send out more releases. Over and over again. Easily two hundred emails in two weeks. Some of these e-mails provided a way to opt out of these mailings but most did not.

While a dozen or so of these press releases had some useful information, most did not and were a waste of time.

Some publicists sent e-mails telling photographers what captions they should use for their photos. How thoughtful of them.

Some press releases included photos and “mandatory” captions. All of these photos were poorly shot and unusable. The supplied captions failed to meet even the basic requirements of journalism. These captions were just commercial plugs. Total waste of time.

At a few events, publicists failed to provide the names of their arriving guests. If someone is unknown then their picture can’t be used. Sometimes the supplied names were spelled wrong.

There were some excellent publicists who provided “cheatsheets” with headshots and names of their arriving talent. This allowed photographers to correctly identify everyone. These publicists also made sure their people got photographed properly.

• One publicist kept telling her actress to stop with the photographs and move inside the Princess of Wales Theatre. But the actress ignored her and continued to make sure every photographer got the pictures they wanted. The actress was happy to move over here, over there, back to here and pose this way and that way.

Finally the publicist ordered her inside the theatre. The actress turned to the photographers and said, “Don’t mind her, she’s [crazy gesture].” The actress continued doing photos.

• Some arriving guests were game enough to pose in the rain. Security people held umbrellas over their heads then, one, two, three, they pulled the umbrellas away and photographers took several quick photos before the umbrellas came back:

Suggestions for next year

• Why bother with the “street festival” that closes one of the city’s busiest roads and rush-hour routes for four days?

Certainly closing the street during arrivals at the Princess of Wales Theatre is extremely important. But the only street festival crowds I saw were those lining up for the free piece of chocolate and some other free food sample.

There’s just not enough going on at this street festival. Not enough fun or excitement. It’s just an oversized chessboard, a couple of food trucks, three companies giving out food/drink samples, a booth selling something, and a half dozen local restaurants that expanded their existing sidewalk patios onto the roadway.

Why was there nothing to do with, uh, movies or the cinema? Isn’t this a film festival?

Is it possible to set up some sort of fan area where smaller films might do public photo calls or meet-n-greets? Let the public do selfies with cardboard cutouts of actors or movie characters? Let fans do screen tests? Have fans try their hand at being a movie critic? Set up a mini red carpet where people can do selfies or take pictures of each other? Why doesn’t Cineplex, one of the major sponsors, hand out movie passes?

This year, there was some sort of concert held on a side street but it was completely fenced off. It wasn’t open to the public but only for select people? Whatever happened with that?

The only good thing about the street festival is that they didn’t use those odd, orange balloons from last year. Instead someone decided to place a huge, vinyl-poster-thing on the road. What happens when a big, vinyl-poster-thing on the ground gets wet on a rainy day? It turns into a giant slip-n-slide. I bet nobody thought that one out.

• You really, really need to set up risers for the fans at Roy Thomson Hall and even at Princess of Wales. Go to either venue and stand in the crowd – see what it’s like for the public.

• Go all out for Roy Thomson Hall since it’s the premiere venue for the film festival and probably the only venue that will be around for many more years to come. Create a real home for the film festival. The TIFF building is not a home for the festival, it’s a home for TIFF. Look at what they do at Cannes and Venice.

• The TIFF press office again didn’t bother to send out a press conference schedule or a red carpet schedule. Why tell the press what’s going on?

Thankfully some movie studios and studio publicists did TIFF’s job and sent out their own information with dates, times and names.

Why do we need this information ahead of time? To plan tens days of coverage *ahead of time*. When you’re working with editors in another country and/or trying to coordinate with other photographers, you have to have this information *ahead of time*.

The necessary information is available at least a week before the film festival starts yet the press office refuses to give it out. Why?

Please send out both the press conference schedule and the red carpet schedule *before* the film festival starts. The guest list doesn’t have to be 100% confirmed. We just need to know what, where and when.

• On the good side, the press office finally e-mailed a list of publicists. Only took a decade or so to figure this out. This list is important if you have to arrange an interview or photo shoot with an actor or director who doesn’t do press conferences or red carpets. In fact, most actors/directors don’t do press conferences or red carpets. They only do one-on-one interviews and photos.

Please continue to e-mail this full list of publicists *before* the start of the festival.

• The online red carpet RSVP system worked well again this year. Before this RSVP system, photographers had to line up hours ahead of time to get a spot. For a popular event, it was as much as seven hours of sitting on the sidewalk waiting. TV used to hire people to stand in line for them.

When the RSVP system started, photographers had to show up anywhere from 45 to 90 minutes ahead of time to get a spot. It was a seemingly random time depending on the venue person. But this year, it was a fairly consistent 30 to 40 minutes. This was the “advertised” time and it meant less uncertainty as to when to show up and less standing-around-waiting time.

Priority of photo positions was mostly reasonable. They were only a few oddities where someone shooting for themselves got priority over the major wire services.

• Roy Thomson could have a small, elevated(?) photo position at the north end. This would allow for more interesting pictures similar to what’s possible at other film festivals. This spot could also hold a small riser for fans.

• Other than Home Depot and Hooter’s, who uses orange for its corporate colour? In North America, orange is predominantly associated with Halloween. Orange is known for its childlike appeal. “Orange is probably the most rejected and under-used color of our time.” Why not use a more suitable, elegant colour for the barricade covers?

• The front face of the barricades that form the front of a photo pit should be all white, not orange, to eliminate orange reflections on the celebrity faces. This was a problem only during daylight hours.

• Stop demanding that wire service photographers and agency photographers have to send in tear sheets of their published work. *This is impossible* to do because wire services and agencies are not publishers. Really, they do not publish anything.

For myself, in order to send in tear sheets, I or someone else (and who would that be?) would have to collect newspapers and magazines from around the world, from September to December, in hopes that one of my photos has been published. I would then have to clip each page, which must show publication name, date and my full credit line, and then send them to the film festival. Why, why, why??

• To Lindt Chocolate: Always be sure that your chocolate person passes through the photographers’ area :-) but stop with the Lindor Coconut. As several people said, it tastes like sunscreen. Your other flavours are wonderful.