rant

The Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) has ended and, as expected, its idiocy continued right to the last event.

On the final night, the last celebrity event started about 30 minutes sooner than expected which caught a handful of photographers off-guard. These photographers arrived, perhaps, 10 – 15 minutes after the red carpet area was “locked down.” (Yes, it actually uses that term for its oh-so-high security efforts).

When this group of photographers arrived, the actors were about 150 to 200 feet away signing autographs for the fans. Possible film festival options:
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And the hits keep coming.

• Internet access was dead again today. Film festival people had no idea what to do about it.

• A TV videographer wanted to shoot B-roll of still photographers working a red carpet, (i.e. video of cameras clicking, flashes popping, photographers calling to celebrities). He wanted to shoot from an open area behind photographers. Sorry, not allowed.

• Another TV videographer wanted to shoot B-roll of celebrities arriving at a press conference with all the flashing cameras. He wanted to shoot from a far corner completely out of everyone’s way. Sorry, not allowed.

• I wanted to shoot an actor being interviewed by TV, (i.e. a photo of actor surrounded by cameras and microphones), by standing in an open area behind TV. Sorry, not allowed.
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It never ends.

• The Toronto Film Festival has large backgrounds covered in sponsor logos. Two days ago, film festival folks told photographers that they *must* get the logo-covered background in all their pictures.

• Film Festival said photographers cannot shoot from any public areas. Photographers must shoot only from designated film festival photo areas. If a photographer shoots from a public area, like the public sidewalk, that photographer will be kicked out of the festival.
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Entertainment reporter to photographer: “I wish I was a photographer. You don’t have to talk to [the actors].”

During the film festival:

• There were two near fist fights between photographers in the photo areas.

• As macho film star Josh Brolin arrived, a photographer yelled, “Give us a wave!” Brolin stopped and stared, “Are you crazy?”

• When a photographer called actress Eva Mendes “baby”, she stopped and yelled back, “Don’t ever call me ‘baby’!” :

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For those of you playing along at home, here are a few more missteps, mistakes and outright idiocy at this year’s Toronto Film Festival:

• Internet service still not reliable and many times, it’s just dead. The wifi at a nearby Starbucks today was about 45 times faster than the film festival set-up.

• For some unknown reason, the festival doesn’t do printed call sheets (a list of people attending each movie premiere). Instead, it does e-mail call sheets. But the festival doesn’t e-mail sheets to everyone and it forgets some movies entirely. Some call sheets are being sent to newspaper or agency editors, some of whom are located in other countries, rather than being sent to the photographer at the festival.

At one premiere, a publicist from a US movie distributor expressed her surprise at the lack of call sheets and then opened her bag to pull out her studio’s own call sheets complete with names, bios and even small photos to help with IDs. Perfect.
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Following the previous post about events leading up to the annual Toronto Film Festival, today was Day One of the 35th annual event. Opening night. Full media attendance. What could possibly go wrong?

• A TV guy shooting B-roll inside the *media* lounge got kicked out of the room. Apparently no one is allowed to shoot video or photograph any part of the film festival’s “inside” areas. Also not allowed to video, photograph or interview anyone who works for the festival. And, get this, you’re not allowed to photograph the *exterior* of any theatre where film festival events are taking place (?!?).

• The film festival’s WiFi system died immediately. It was already down when I tried at 2:30 PM.

Can they fix the WiFi? – “I don’t know.”

Can they call someone to fix it? – I’m not sure.”

Is there a backup plan? – “I don’t know.”

Why does the press office use wired Internet but the media has wireless? – “The WiFi is unreliable.”

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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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