Toronto Film Festival 2014

(You may want to do yourself a favour and skip this absurdly long post.)

Each year I write about covering the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) hoping that it’ll be my last post on the subject. But each year, TIFF finds new ways to mess things up even more than the previous year.

The Good

First, the good things about the 2014 film festival:

• It’s over. :-)

• When picking up media accreditation, TIFF no longer gives photographers a shopping bag full of useless promotional material. Sadly though, photographers still don’t get the information they need to do their job – a full schedule with dates and times. More on this later.

• WiFi was added at one venue. Considering that the country’s largest ISP is the main sponsor of the event, it’s a wonder why it took so long. Sadly though, photographers still have to sit on the ground to work.

• The WiFi in the TIFF building was reliable most of the time.

• The mobile app to RSVP for red carpets worked most of the time. Sometimes it required a username and password and other times it didn’t.

• TIFF finally got rid of the silly cocktail tables in the “media lounge” and put in real tables and chairs. This immediately opened up more space to work. Unfortunately there’s only enough room for about 5% of the media and it was always full when I went. More on this later.

• Nearby parking lots didn’t double or triple their rates during the film festival as they’ve done in the past.

• It’s always enjoyable to talk shop with other photographers. Photographers came from the US, Scotland, France, Germany, England and maybe a couple other countries.

The Bad

And now, in no particular order, the bad things. You’ll notice that this list is much longer.

• TIFF again refused to give photographers the information they need to work. For example, I had to do a portrait of a Finnish director who was premiering his new film. The film festival wouldn’t give me the name of the director’s PR representative. Apparently, only “press” is allowed to get this information.

By the time my US editor contacted his editor in Europe, who contacted the requesting news agency in Finland, who found and contacted the film’s PR agency in Finland, who contacted the publicist in Toronto, who contacted me, the director had left town. Most festival guests are in town for only a couple of days.

The film festival still treats photographers as second-class journalists and maybe not even that. TIFF simply has no idea what a news photographer does.

• TIFF again failed to give photographers a full list of the red carpets. It gave out information only on a day-by-day basis. This made it impossible to preplan 10-days of coverage.

• The film festival e-mailed a copy of the press conference schedule ahead of time (Yay!). But this schedule had no names which made it almost useless since coverage depends on who attends. No idea why they refused to send out the complete schedule which was available at the time.

• At two venues, photographers weren’t allowed to use the washrooms even though the general public could.

• Near the end of the festival, TIFF stopped photographers from plugging their laptops into electrical outlets in the film festival building. No reason why.

• The “black hole” photo-call area was smaller than my livingroom and much darker. Yes, it’s literally a black hole – a narrow corridor with black-painted walls draped with black curtains. Why were the front lights placed 14 feet high? Doesn’t anyone know how to light or does no one at TIFF care?

• The press conference room was lit by folks who obviously have never been to a press conference. But then again, these aren’t really press conferences (more on this later). Not only was it dark on stage (88% less light than last year) but actors looking out from the stage saw nothing but high-contrast glare.

Of course, this could’ve been fixed with a flick of the room’s light switch but apparently that was too much to ask.

• There’s still no workspace for wire service photographers who need to transmit frequently and quickly. TIFF feels these photographers, who could be in the film festival building for five or six hours, should pack up their gear after each press conference, walk up three flights to the much-too-small media lounge, hopefully find a chair, unpack their laptop and edit for 20 minutes, pack up their gear, walk down three flights, unpack their cameras and shoot the next conference, and repeat all of this four or five times a day.

There was space available in the press conference room but TIFF refuses to let anyone other than Getty use it. By the way, Getty supplies free pictures to the film festival. Photographers weren’t even allowed to work in any of the empty seats in the empty room in between press conferences.

• Who still thinks it’s a good idea to literally wedge the main red carpet between two rows of trees and then have a black granite bench partially block the entrance to said red carpet?

At least during the day, one can see the black granite bench:

But during a night event, it’s always fun to watch people walk into it:

TIFF is a prime example of “this is the way we’ve always done it.” There’s 23,000 square feet of open space right next to the red carpet and yet, for some unknown reason, the film festival has always refused to use it:

• Who still thinks it’s a good idea to have the limos drive through the arrival and photo areas at Roy Thomson Hall?

Seriously, why do the cars drive into the photo area and then squeeze their way out through crowds of people? There’s a huge empty area, big enough for a large tractor-trailer to u-turn, at the south end of the square. There’s no reason for the current setup unless you’re waiting for someone to get hit by a car.

The bonus is that if cars stop driving through the arrival area, it will open up a good public viewing area at the north end.

• There’s a conflict of interest for the police who worked the film festival as a “pay duty.” Since the film festival pays their wage, a few of these officers ignored the law and did what the film festival told them to do. For example:

(i) TIFF told some photographers that they weren’t allowed to stand on ladders. The photographers ignored this. TIFF told police to remove these photographers. A police officer then threatened to arrest the photographers for “trespassing at a private event on private property.”

In reality, it’s a public event held on public property and there’s no law preventing someone from standing on a ladder or step stool. Trespass doesn’t even enter the equation. In fact, many members of the public were also on step stools and ladders and they weren’t threatened with arrest.

(ii) The film festival had police remove people from the public sidewalk in front of the Elgin Theatre. These curious folks were just watching the event being set up about two hours before it even started.

• The press conferences still used the old fashioned, big microphones from last century and they were placed even higher this year. For shorter people, the microphone was at their nose level.

If you’re stuck using these old-style microphones then here’s a secret: these microphones will still work when adjusted lower. Really.

If you watch a TIFF press conference video, you’ll see how often a microphone blocks someone’s mouth or lower face. Didn’t anyone in the TIFF video production department notice this? The mouth provides for one-third of human expression and expression is what makes for a good photo (and video).

For comparison, here’s a press conference photo from an unrelated business event held several days after the film festival:

When a young actress went on stage, no one at TIFF thought to lower her microphone:

• Press conferences had a lack of real reporters. At one press conference, with Jane Fonda, Tina Fey and others, only four questions were asked. Four questions in one hour. It got so bad that one actor (Dax Shepard) started posing questions to the reporters in the audience. He then asked questions of the other actors. After it was over, Jane Fonda, in a very surprised voice, asked the conference moderator, “Why didn’t they asked any questions?”

The answer to her question is that many of the people in the room weren’t real reporters. They seemed to be stenographers or perhaps just there for their own entertainment. There were perhaps only three or four real reporters at most of the press conferences.

In general, the popularity of the press conferences seems to be dying. From a photo point of view, pressers are still quite important.

Most press conferences this year were at least half empty. Even the amazing press conference with Al Pacino was mostly empty. The exception was the Denzel Washington presser. When there’s more people on stage than in the audience, there’s a problem.

Sometimes the film festival had its own people fill some of the empty press conference seats. Sometimes the movie studio’s own PR people filled the seats. Other times, the film festival simply removed empty chairs from the room.

Eight years ago and earlier, press conferences were packed to the walls. But today, there’s only a few TV cameras, one or two TV/radio reporters and a couple print reporters. Maybe it’s due to the overall cutbacks in the news media. Maybe reporters stay at the office and watch the presser stream online.

Or maybe it’s because TIFF has beaten the life out of the press conferences. In its drive to control press conferences and turn them into in-house videos for its web site, the film festival has pushed out reporters who are now used more for set decoration (to provide an audience for the TIFF video). At one presser, reporters were asked to move into front-row seats so it would look better in its video. TIFF moderators often ignored reporters’ questions and just kept talking away (more on this later).

Real reporters now seem to bypass the film festival and go directly to the movie studios or publicist for interview access. Some studios set up their own “roundtable” interviews where actors sit with a few reporters and do their own mini press conference (but no photographers allowed). Reporters get to ask real questions and followup questions without being cutoff or talked over by a press conference moderator.

• During one presser, the building’s fire alarm sounded. Even though the actors were willing to continue, TIFF declared that, due to safety concerns, the talent had to leave the building. Oddly enough, those “safety concerns” didn’t apply to anyone else and we all stayed put.

• The photo area at Roy Thomson Hall was made about 40% smaller than last year.

• They put a three-storey building right next to the photo area at Roy Thomson Hall. A three-storey building. The funny thing was that it was apparently put in the wrong spot. The building wasn’t supposed to stick out 14 feet into the arrival area and block the photographers. But it did.

• I felt sorry for the TIFF volunteers who had to stand on the street all day long, with a large donation box, begging for money on behalf of the film festival. I guess it wasn’t too successful because after a few days, the volunteers then had to hold signs asking for money. Always a classy touch. Just like the advertising on the red carpets.

TIFF is a multi-million-dollar organization with money annually coming from corporate sponsors ($13M), event revenue ($16.5M), government grants ($5.8M) and philanthropic donations ($4M). Yet volunteers stood on the sidewalk asking passersby for loose change. Really. How much could they have possibly raised this way? Several dollars? Maybe a hundred? Why chase pennies when big-money corporate sponsors are ignored?

One of the world’s largest camera manufacturers was very indirectly involved with the festival two years ago. It was apparently just getting a feel for the event. Then nothing. So it appears that the film festival let that opportunity slip through its fingers.

I know for a fact that another camera manufacturer was also considering getting involved (someone at its Canadian office told me because they knew that I had photographed the film festival many times). The camera company asked what the film festival looked like from a photographer’s point of view. I told them. They lost interest in the film festival.

• Put on your thinking cap for this one:

To RSVP [your attendance at a red carpet] indicate your outlet type for each event you would like to cover. Red carpets lock 15 minutes prior to talent arrival — this means media cannot access the carpet after that time. Media check-in starts one hour prior to carpet lock. Photographers must arrive 35 minutes prior to talent arrival, and will be ushered to the photography area at that time.

Let’s say an event starts at 6:30PM, with talent arrival at 5:15PM. What time should photographers check in? You’ve got 60 seconds and no calculators allowed.

Okay, time’s up.

Photographers check in at 4:40PM because photographers are not “media”. But if you said 5:10, 5:00, 4:50, 4:30, 4:15, 4:00, or even 3:45, you may also be right depending on the venue and day of the week because the film festival’s own people didn’t know what they were doing. Photographers who showed up “on time” were often late and even locked out.

The film festival tells photographers what time the red carpet ends which is actually the time the event starts (still with me?). It then lists the estimated time that arrivals will start and the time at which photographers will not be admitted. Still following along? But for some bizarre reason, TIFF won’t give photographers a specific time to check in. Instead it offers only a math problem to solve, the answer to which varies by venue and by day.

• Someone had the bright idea to shut down a main downtown city street (King Street) that runs in front of the film festival building. Not just closing it for a block or two but for eight city blocks. And not just closing it for the weekend but for the weekend and two weekdays (Thursday and Friday). This also meant that all the north-south streets that intersect with King Street in the area were also closed. It also affected the second busiest streetcar route in the city.

But surely motorists could use one of the other streets that run parallel to King Street, right? That might have been okay if not for the fact that the parallel streets (Richmond, Adelaide and Front Streets) are all under major construction. Not only do each of these parallel streets narrow from four lanes to one, they even narrow to zero lanes.

Suffice to say, that many kilometres of downtown roads were at a near standstill for much of Thursday and Friday. How bad was it you ask?

(i) It’s 25 km from my house to the film festival building. The first 23-1/2 km took 40 minutes. The last 1-1/2 km took 45 minutes.

(ii) The talent for the opening-day press conference could not get through traffic. They had to abandon their limo and walk. This forced the conference to start 40 minutes late.

• TIFF knew the first press conference was going to start late since they knew the talent was stuck in traffic. Instead of letting reporters into the empty press conference room so they could wait sitting down, it kept everyone standing in line for an extra 40 minutes.

To make it even worse, rather than extending this late-starting conference to the expected one-hour length, TIFF cut it short. Reporters in the audience were not amused and they started yelling at the moderator for talking too much and refusing to allow reporters’ questions. To their credit, the actress and director came back and offered to answer more questions. But there’s more . . .

The film festival cut off the microphones. So the reporters yelled their questions and the talent yelled back their answers. And there’s even more . . .

The film festival then started playing music through the speakers. So everyone had to yell even louder. A person at the side of the stage kept shouting at the actress, “We have to go!” But again to her credit, she ignored him and kept answering questions. Overall an unbelievable situation.

• So why were the streets closed for four days? For a street festival. But other than proximity to a couple of film festival venues, this street festival had nothing to do with the film festival. It had a few displays, a couple of street vendors, one or two performers, and a half dozen restaurants that expanded their sidewalk patios onto the roadway. For the first two days (Thursday, Friday), it was mostly empty. What was the point?

It’s okay to close two or three blocks directly in front of the film festival venues (more on this in a moment). But there was no reason to close eight blocks plus all the intersecting north-south streets. But having said that, the street closure was poorly planned and not thought out. It was nothing but lost opportunity for everyone.

With the streets closed, why wasn’t the red carpet run down the middle of the road so the public could actually see it? The MuchMusic Video Awards and Canada’s Walk of Fame have been doing this for over a dozen years.

Why was there nothing at this street festival about films or the movie industry? One would think a film festival’s street festival would have some sort of movie theme (more on this later).

• For most of the film festival, King Street was closed for each set of arrivals at the Princess of Wales Theatre. It was totally closed for the first four days, then temporarily and partially closed for the remaining week. This was necessary for both crowd and traffic control since the theatre wasn’t designed for events like this.

But for some bizarre reason, near the end of the film festival, they decided not to close the street anymore. Can you see where this is headed?

Arriving celebrities had to walk through moving traffic to cross the street and sign autographs. At one point, an English actress posing on the street for photographers kept backing up into live traffic. If that Co-op taxi didn’t see her and stop, she would’ve been struck by the cab.

• For the first four days at the Princess of Wales Theatre, TIFF placed the photo area on the street, rather than in the theatre’s entrance, which tripled the size of the photo area (thank you very much). But it neglected to cover the photo area and the red carpet.

On the second day of the film festival, it rained. A torrential downpour.

Everyone knew it was going to rain heavily. It was on all the weather newscasts throughout the day. Several photographers brought raincoats and many of the fans lining the street had umbrellas and raincoats. Everyone knew it was going to rain except TIFF which had no clue.

Using a cell phone app that displayed live weather radar images, a photographer repeatedly showed the incoming bad weather to several film festival folks who just laughed it off. Another photographer insisted that the film festival relocate the red carpet and photo area under the theatre’s overhang. But a TIFF person laughingly said they might consider it only if it starts to rain. The photographers again urged TIFF to act quickly because the storm was about 30 minutes away.

Finally the film festival set up another photo area under the theatre’s overhang, just in case. But photographers were told to stay in the open photo area.

The very moment the first actor showed up, it started to rain. The photographers ran to the covered photo area as the downpour started.

If it wasn’t for photographers telling TIFF about the imminent storm and then repeatedly insisting that they relocate both the red carpet and the photo area, it would have been a disaster. Cameras and laptops would’ve been soaked and the event, which included the film festival’s main attraction, would’ve been completely washed out.

TIFF didn’t have a clue about the weather nor what to do to save the event and initially they didn’t even care. Of course there’s more. . .

Five days later it poured again. And again, the film festival was not prepared. TIFF people had to run around borrowing umbrellas.

The only good news this time is that film festival people allowed photographers to wait under the covered area (at Roy Thomson Hall) before the event opened. Normally photographers are made to wait in the rain while the covered area sits empty.

Since only half of the photo pit at Roy Thomson was covered, the heavy rain meant that all photographers had to pile into the one covered spot. But the heavy winds blew the rain into much of the covered photo area. The available dry area for photographers became much smaller and smaller. There was plenty of empty, dry space at the end of the TV area but the film festival refused to let photographers use it.

After seeing how crowded this event was and how little dry area was left, the film festival folks decided to make the photo area a bit bigger for the second event. Instead of increasing the photo pit by 200% or 300%, and there was lots of available space, they increased it by about 30%.

The second event was, as expected by everyone except TIFF, even more popular than the first which meant almost twice as many photographers showed up. This meant the photo area was packed even more despite the modest 30% increase. Photographers were four rows deep in an area designed to hold only two. The empty space at the end of the TV area still sat empty.

As the rain continued, the high winds turned the tented red carpet area into a wind tunnel. A film director made fun of it by pretending that she was being swept away:

But when the star of the night lost control of her hair, (worse than the photo below shows), she turned and fled further down the carpet as the tent itself started to shake. After she recomposed herself, she came back. By this time, the photographers had formed a two-person-high human wall to block the wind around the actress.

How bad was it? When the male star of the movie arrived, (with no fancy hairstyle or expensive clothes), he immediately ran for cover.

• Whose idea was it to have security people wear neon yellow reflector vests? I thought the film festival was pretending to be a glamorous event not a Costco parking lot.

• Here’s a sign TIFF posted on the street during its street festival:

I’ll wait until you’ve stopped laughing.

Of course, this has no legal weight whatsoever. Too bad TIFF didn’t hire the good lawyer because this sign won’t help in case of a lawsuit. This shows TIFF’s lack of understanding of Canada’s privacy laws. Privacy laws do have exemptions for journalism, for private personal us, and for general crowd pictures.

Note that TIFF rarely uses pictures of celebrities in its marketing. There were numerous film festival promotional posters this year and all showed only the backs of celebrities. I wonder why. Was it because of really bad photo editing? Or maybe it’s because celebrities don’t read signs and they can afford better lawyers than the general public.

• There seemed to be fewer photographers in attendance. This might be because many photographers work on spec and pictures sales from the film festival are dismal. When one stock agency floods the market with cheap or free images, that pretty much kills the picture value of the event.

Entertainment photos have become a near worthless commodity. As such, there’s little incentive to cover the film festival.

The way TIFF is organized, all photo ops are bland, boring and poorly lit. There’s absolutely nothing exciting or unique about the Toronto Film Festival from a visual point of view. This means there’s little interest in photos from TIFF, especially when other film festivals don’t use logo-covered backgrounds or ad-covered red carpets. Other film festivals have better organized and better lit photo ops. The only thing going for TIFF is that more US celebrities and US movie industry types come to Toronto. TIFF needs to reinvent itself (more on this in a moment).

A few suggestions

When even the film festival’s own photographers are complaining about the festival then maybe there’s a problem or two.

1) Bring in new management to run the film festival or bring in outside help and listen to what they say.

2) Hire a weather forecaster.

3) Go to another film festival and take notes on how they run their event from both a news media point of view and the public’s point of view. For example, notice how the London Film Festival properly uses microphones at its press conferences.

4) It’s been painfully clear from day one that the film festival building was never designed to host a film festival. By the way, who designs a building with just one public washroom, especially a building that houses several small movie theatres and two restaurants?

When a movie lets out, folks need to use the washroom. It’s crazy to have a 30-person lineup to the one washroom. This line runs down the washroom hall, around the corner and down another hall back toward the theatres. This line blocks the hallways and the escalators. Since the film festival is so paranoid about fire hazards, I’m sure this is a fire hazard as well.

How paranoid you ask? Film festival people tell passersby outside on the public sidewalk to move along if they’re standing too close to the building’s fire exit. They tell people how to line up for a movie and then how to walk towards a theatre: walk only in small groups so as not to be a hazard. They prevent photographers from briefly shooting from open aisles in theatres because the photographers are a fire hazard.

Two blocks from the TIFF building is a gigantic building which has virtually unlimited space. It has more than enough space for a proper-sized press conference room AND a full-sized media workroom AND a big photo-call area AND a proper press office AND all trade and industry meetings AND for all the lovely teams of Getty people who apparently can’t work too close to anyone else AND a proper place for public ticket sales AND a volunteers’ lounge AND tons of parking spaces AND no need to repeatedly go up and down three flights of stairs AND talent coming to press conferences can use a big, drive-through, secure, indoor arrival area which doesn’t require shutting down a city street. Best of all, it has more than one washroom.

This building is called the Metro Toronto Convention Centre and it’s owned by a sponsor of the film festival.

5) Seriously consider making the film festival smaller. The way it is now, TIFF cannot properly run it. Reduce the number of films shown and the number of venues used. The festival is spread too wide and too thin. There are huge cracks. Make it smaller and everyone will win. Really.

6) Scrap the street-closing “street festival.” Waste of time. Instead, why not create something for movie fans, something that actually has a connection to the cinema, something that will draw tens of thousands of people (and not just hundreds), and something that will generate revenue.

Whoever thought that a good way to generate revenue was to put film festival volunteers on the street and have them beg for money should be fired.

Movies are about creativity and imagination. TIFF is not. No imagination means that you have look to the past to see where you’re going. This is the definition of: “that’s the way we’ve always done it.”

Think outside the (light)box. (“Lightbox” is the name of the TIFF building.) Turn up your imagination.

If you’ve got the Metro Toronto Convention Centre, then partner with, or create, a movie fan-fest type of convention. This unique combination of film festival plus fan festival would be great for the city, media, industry types, visiting talent and, yes, even for movie fans.

There would be lots of opportunity for cross promotions, lots of opportunity for sponsors, tons of photo possibilities. It would be renewed life for TIFF. And unlike a street festival, it wouldn’t block traffic or public transit and it wouldn’t matter if it rained.

7) Thirty-nine years and the red carpets are still wrong, wrong, wrong. They are set up wrong. They look cheap. They are dark, depressing, and dingy. But then again, that describes the Toronto Film Festival.

Perhaps we get the film festival we deserve. The city of Toronto suffers from delusions of grandeur and a sense of entitlement and self-importance. The film festival is the same way. The film festival exists today in spite of itself. It relies on the public’s ever-growing celebrity obsession.

Please look at how other film festivals and award shows run their events.

8) You may have noticed that pictures from “red carpet events” usually don’t actually have any visible red carpet. It’s either dirty grey concrete, dirty brown brick, or dirty speckled concrete tile. Perhaps they should be re-titled as being a “grey concrete event.”

Spot the red carpet:

The Toronto film festival is 39 years old and entering middle age. It’s probably a good time to buy some carpet, put up a light or two, and finally dress up the joint.

For comparison, can you spot the red carpet in this photo:

Lights are not just for photographers. It also makes for better TV. It also means the talent can see where they’re walking and they can better see the fans’ faces and the photographers. It means better nighttime security.

Light affects human behaviour. Watch how people, especially actors, respond when walking into a dark room versus a brightly-lit room. Lights add excitement and a bit of showbiz glamour. But then again, dark and dingy is cheaper.

9) The nearby Sony Centre, which TIFF doesn’t use, is the only theatre in town that was designed for red carpets and big events. Like the Metro Toronto Convention Centre, the Sony Centre is owned by a film festival sponsor.

10) Stop with the silly riddles and tell the media what time they should arrive for red carpet events. For example: TV arrive at 6:00PM. Photographers arrive at 6:20PM. Reporters arrive at 6:40PM. Isn’t that easy?

11) There’s no reason – none at all – to have photographers stand around for 30 minutes after an event. If it’s okay for PR people to leave, film festival people to leave, and security people to leave, then it’s okay for photographers to leave.

Once the talent has moved down the carpet, it’s done. The talent doesn’t care if photographers leave. They. do. not. care. In fact, because of all the publicists and film festival people standing around on the red carpet, the talent can’t even see the photographers who are forty or fifty feet behind them.

12) Install proper photo risers. No other major event requires photographers to carry ladders and step stools. Remember what happened in 2011 at Roy Thomson Hall with Madonna and that three-person-high wall of photographers which nearly fell on her. Remember what happened this year at the Princess of Wales Theatre when a row of photographers did fall during the premiere for The Imitation Game. Thankfully(?) the photographers fell backwards onto each other rather than forward onto Keira Knightley.

Here’s a secret everyone except TIFF knows: photo risers => better and safer organization of photographers => can put more photographers in the same space => better and safer arrangement for arriving talent => better pictures => better publicity.

13) Get rid of the Home Depot colour scheme. Orange is neither stylish nor glamorous. Orange is cartoonish. Use a monotone colour scheme for backgrounds and barricade covers. Dark grey (not black) or dark blue backgrounds with grey text. It will look elegant and will compliment anything that a celebrity might be wearing.