Evaluation

Dirigo was a very interesting project and a great experience. It was the first time we started working as a whole team in class without any drama and probably the last. My role for Dirigo was a producer along with Cerys and occasionally josh but Josh had other roles as well.  The main thing I did was support people where I could and took notes during meetings, I also wrote down what was needed to be done.
At the start the whole project it was exciting but quite daunting as none of us had really done anything like this before and we wanted to do it better than previous years. The first thing to do was get the word out about Dirigo, this was to get people to send in their films into us. We also needed to start working on a logo and poster.  Mel created an email to send to schools and I helped her find contacts for them when she was struggling to find more places to reach out too. 
Throughout the weeks I took notes and just helped where I could, I was a supportive role and just tried to helped people out where I could. I tried to keep lists of what needed to be done (refer to folder of examples). I also tried to make sure a few things that happened last year didn’t happen this time around, for example awards got missed for being sent to winners which is a really big thing and that cannot happen again this year.
In my notebook we had a rough design on what the logo could be, it got changed completely but a few of us worked on it together. When the actual design got decided most if us gave out views and together, we voted on a colour and voted for designed. At first I thought I didn’t do a lot for Dirigo and I still thing I could of done more or had a more active role instead of a supportive one but I do feel like I helped people as much as I could.
Once we got Dirigo going and people started sending in their films there wasn’t a lot to do for a while other than the social media team putting out post to keep Dirigo in people’s minds. Eventually most of us went and looked around the venue in Bristol to see the space the film festival would be taking place (Arnolfini). After we looked around, we sat down together and talked through the shortlist for the event. A few of the films I suggested did end up in the shortlist. My favourite film Washout ended up in the shortlist and was well received at the event. I loved it because it was very different and strange, I had not seen a film submitted like it and it was incredibly well done. The quality of some of the films submitted were of surprisingly high quality, they were student films but some of them didn’t seem like they were at all.
After we had the shortlist me and the directors sat in class and decided the order, they were going to be put into I wrote them up on the white board and we rearranged them a few times to get the intermissions right. We then had to decide winners so we went around and got everyone’s choice of who they thought should win and for a few of them the directors overruled one or two, but everyone was happy with who was picked as the winners.
Then came the actual night, I picked up the directors and we drove to Bristol. When we arrived, we met up with everyone and headed to the venue. At the venue I helped set up the drink and popcorn stand and helped when we noticed the certificates had the wrong names on them. I was also a communication runner, when people needed messages relaying to each other.
I think the event went really well, it would have been nice if more people had come but it was on a week night which makes things difficult and I think we could of put a bit more effort into getting the message of the festival out there more. Via posters, social media and private invites.