rant

Film Festival Madness

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If nothing else, the Toronto Film festival serves as an example of how not to run an event. You might think that going into its 35th year, the film festival would know how to properly run a media event. But you’d be wrong.

Make no mistake, the primary function of the festival is for movie producers, actors and directors to get publicity for their projects, and for distributors to find buyers for their movies. To help do this, they need media exposure. The reason they come to Toronto is the huge media coverage. The film festival itself acknowledges the importance of this media coverage when it says the festival wouldn’t happen without media attendance.

Where to start?
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Hiring For Dummies

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There are many staff jobs available for editors and writers but none for photographers. 

Well, almost none.

The only photo jobs are those for department store portrait studios, baby photographers and school photographers. These three are always looking for photographers which tends to indicate the quality of these jobs.

• There’s a new business magazine about to start up in Toronto. It has full-time paid job opportunities for editors, writers, designers and web people. What’s missing? Photographers.
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Photo Op or Photo Flop

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It’s now three days into Queen Elizabeth’s tour of Canada and (as expected) the photos are quite boring and even non-existent. Political conventions and campaigns usually have better photo planning. I don’t know why the same effort isn’t put into a royal tour. I suspect it’s because a royal tour is basically run by the police rather than a creative director or a public relations agency.

The purpose of a photo op can be completely lost due to poor planning. For example, what’s the point of doing a statue unveiling when the statue isn’t in the photo? Why have the talent stroll through a garden when the garden isn’t visible?
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Reality Check

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The following quotes are from a web forum used by art directors, marketing and public relations people, web designers, and other marketing “experts”. The topic was: how much to pay a professional photographer for business portraits to be used on a business web site.
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Becoming a photographer

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There’s an old story that’s been attributed to author Margaret Atwood although there’s no proof or source to this story:

While at a dinner party, Margaret Atwood is asked by the man seated next to her, “What do you do?”

Atwood replies, “I’m a writer.”

“Really?” says the man. “When I retire, I’m going to become a writer.”

Atwood then asks, “What do you do?”

“I’m a neurosurgeon.”

She replies, “How interesting. I always thought that when I retire, I’d take up brain surgery.”

You could easily replace “writer” with “photographer”. It’s funny how many people confuse “photographer” with “camera owner.”

 

Just Saying

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Nothing to do with photography or business practices, and way off-topic but:

1) For the upcoming G8 and G20 Summits in Canada this June, the federal government states that security screening will be performed by “competent authorities”.  What? As opposed to the usual incompetent authorities?

2) Canadian phone company Bell has increased its interest rate to 42.58%. This not only proves that Bell is in the business of gouging consumers but also that it leads the Canadian corporate race to becoming a loan shark. (The Canadian legal definition of loan sharking is 60% interest.) Credit card companies and banks are probably wondering how Bell gets away with this.
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