The future of reviews and diversity at film festivals
Imagine you are at a film festival. You are going to a screening of a documentary about a subject you know little about. The event is full house. It is a world premiere. One of the festival programmers introduces the director and the producer of the film. The lights go out. The film touches you, elevates your mind. When the credits roll at the end, you feel strongly about supporting the subject of the documentary film, eager to tell about it to others. How do you see yourself telling someone about this incredible film you’ve just seen? Also, you have some questions. Would you ask the creators?
We, as global festival audiences, are still hardly visible during and between festivals. There is a lot of uncaptured value in shared intuitions and insights that could add a stunning difference to both festival experience and to the domestic distribution of world cinema.
Today, virtually all reviews are text-based. Text reviews are helpful but face multiple limitations: easy to fake by creating a bogus account, difficult to trust because they are impersonal, and usually provide no context about the reviewer, like their reputation and experience. Text is low intensity and low involvement information: has no tonic, mood or other characteristics compared to voice and visuals. It is time to develop new community tools for true audience engagement.
Imagine that, after the screening, you go online to check this doc film on the festival’s programme. You see some video reviews. You tap on them excitedly. The director introduces the film and asks your opinion. A Screen International journalist adds their own video review that is such a good piece of summary that you upvote it. Audience videos are also on this page and you can respond to them directly with the festival’s video review tool called Vialog.
Differently to current written comments, video reviews share the tone of the creator and follow the speed of creation. Furthermore, they have a number of human elements when it comes to winning the trust of the viewer. Video reviews can be truly troll-free because high contributions tend to scare trolls away. In 2018 we spent 47.4 minutes a day viewing video out of which 28.8 minutes (61%) a day were on mobile, globally. In 2019, mobile will account for 72% of all video viewing.
Now that you recorded your video, you share more than your thought, you are adding feelings, location, background context like the venue and the weather. Let’s take the example of the International Film Festival Amsterdam. IDFA programmers collectively keep up with 1000+ of films per year. We trust these gatekeepers of diversity and cinematic quality in the era of hyper-choices.
Hosting ‘All Inclusive — Diverse Documentary Festival programming’ at the European Film Market in Berlinale 2019, IDFA artistic director Orwa Nyrabia stated that “it is the right time to discuss formats. Including the right to fail and experiment further.” Documentary filmmakers are especially eager to open up the floor for the audience with stakes in the discussion as the story they’ve been chasing is still unfolding.
Diversity is a key challenge in reviews. The study ‘Critic’s Choice II’ by Dr. Stacy L. Smith and the USC Annenberg Inclusion Initiative shows that Rotten Tomatoes’ 300 top-grossing films (2015–2017) had 60K reviews, and only 21% were female critics, while underrepresented racial/ethnic backgrounds composed only 17% of these reviews. 66% were white male critics.
Yet there is a less discussed front of diversity: the inclusion of the festival audiences. “Diverse programming helps to grow the audiences by further diversification.” — adds Dorota Lech, Lead Programmer at Toronto International Film Festival and Industry Programmer at Hot Docs. But fostering social change is challenging. “The biggest mistake to make is to underestimate the audience” adds Leena Pasanen, DOK Leipzig’s Artistic Director.
Imagine the global film festival community enlarged and the sheer impact we can collectively make. Cinema is meant to shift people’s mind. Festival communities are high profile, bright minds and sparkling eyes, eager for new experiences and ready to share discussions and elevate topics.
Visibility of this diverse community is the key — during and after the festival. In the shift from ‘information age’ to ‘reputation age’ the information only has value if it is already filtered, evaluated, oriented by peer-trusted navigators, and commented upon by others. For festivals to make a difference, word of mouth should be on-demand accessible and searchable. Video Audiences are In Demand.
Video brings fresh voices into the mix and reaches new, primarily younger audiences. Video reviews mean more visibility to the film and their makers, and festivals are the ultimate touchpoint for marketers and distributors, and to all parties of the film business. It enables insight sharing, upgrades and eases traditional film trading activities. Empowering audiences with video dialog is a way to crowdsource social marketing content within existing communities. This provides unique personal content for pre- and post-festival marketing.
Vialog provides community consultancy services for film festivals and develops a unique set of audience engagement tools. Vialog team helps to maximise social value. We dig in to understand festival challenges and start experimenting with social video for shared learnings. Together with the festival teams, we upgrade the on-site festival experience, set the tone of the video discussion, and boost online social traffic and engagement time. Vialog is conducting social sciences research and innovation development as part of the Horizon 2020 ‘Future of Hyper-connected Society’ consortium ARTICONF during 2019–2021. Vialog’s objective is to create a unique, unparalleled tool for video reviewing films and add value and visibility to filmmakers and audiences to connect and expand the discussion beyond the screening.
Sponsors of the film festivals have been saturated on screen before each film yet most of them are not related to any Call to Action. Even the ‘Turn off your phone’ and ‘all recordings strictly forbidden’ promo reels are great spots of attention. Surely, getting associated with the festival buzz itself is the sweetest spot. This is about how all stakeholders meet at an acceptable place for everybody. Videos can have animated frames, watermarks, overlays, badges to showcase the festival, the film and the bright sponsor who empowers the festival with such a tool. Audiences could have a chance to win festival goodies and receive discounts on future ticket purchases simply by sharing their opinion. Festivals are full of beautifully designed posters, press-corners, great views and things to show. Vialog creates a new revenue stream. Sponsorship of audience generated videos are a new sponsor slot that festivals can offer.
Imagine the video dialogue of your film festival.
Imagine sharing your video review and getting video responses to your point of view. Imagine getting a response from the film’s director personally. Imagine someone sees the film because of you. Imagine discovering a film based on mentions of people not by summary in the programme. Imagine using a film festival app that is full of social videos. A festival that bridges the gap between the offline and the online experience. A festival where the discussion continues between the screenings.
Imagine a film festival where we as diverse audiences are just as much visible as the makers of the films.
Ready to discuss? www.vialog.app hello@vialog.app
