Week 14 Check-In

I cannot believe it’s all over. And….now I’m incredibly sad! We had some truly awesome filmmakers, and though I’m sure that is said every year, it was an absolute joy getting to meet everyone. On Monday Programming and Operations held their weekly meeting at 8 instead of 6 due to a few other events going on that some of us needed to attend. We all checked in and tweaked some video race stuff while Kevin informed us of the installation progress. Monday night I also worked on getting a couple of t-shirts ready to present to the class with the team names on the back. Tuesday of course we had class again to discuss the finality of everything for the festival. Wednesday night Devon and I got together to try and finish the shirts and prop bags, but unfortunately we had to call it quits around 12:30am because we had both run out of steam. The dinner at Dig and Dive Thursday night was a ridiculous amount of fun, and everyone was just so nice! I had a blast playing volleyball (even though I wasn’t too good at it and hit innocent bystanders with the ball) and enjoyed the conversations I got to have. Devon and I had to leave a little early to finish t-shirts. She left around 3am because her sinus infection was giving her a really hard time, and I took an hour long nap after getting the bags finished with all of the necessary forms and props at 5am. Thursday night I was also incredibly angered by the change in rules regarding the drive for video race considering it was almost midnight and everything had already been finalized for weeks and printed off. I’m not sure why I was ever given a title of video race anything honestly, because this whole time I’ve never been able to have my own opinion and have been nothing but criticized for doing exactly what I was told. I committed myself 110% and was never thanked or appreciated by any of the other staff when I was more than willing to help out anyone else who needed it. I’ll save more of my negativity for another blog since I want to go ahead and get to the day of the event. Friday morning I was super excited to go pick up the Dew Drop crew. I was absolutely amazed at the things they told me regarding the filming process. All of them drove to New Orleans from New York (that’s a 25-hour drive) while they were still in school. THAT IS BEYOND INCREDIBLE! It was also totally worth it because in the end, they had an awesome documentary that was well received by the crowd. After I dropped them off at King, I headed to registration and handed out a few badges to people, but Hayley had it under control the whole time and the tables all looked great! Devon and I realized we forgot to bag the extra t-shirts, so I made a quick trip back to my apartment before the video race to bag them before we got started. Because I was up until 5am on Friday ensuring all of the bags were ready to go for the teams, I accidentally left the master team list at home, but had access to it from my laptop and my phone. I am extremely proud of how the video race turned out despite all of the criticism I have received these past few weeks. All of the filmmakers and guests had an awesome time, and that’s what matters. Their films were hilarious and it was tough to announce the winner since I enjoyed all of them. After the video race we had the conference block, dinner, dessert, then the second film block before the after party. I got to drive Vicky, Dean, and Charlotte to the hotel before the after party, and they were all so incredibly nice and couldn’t stop raving about how much fun they were having. That was pretty awesome, and then I got to drive Ariel, Isabelle, and Jack T. to the after party where they all also told me how much fun they had been having. The after party was epic thanks to Kebba and everyone seemed to be truly enjoying themselves. My group and I, including Matt D. who joined us for the ride back to Baymont, all left downtown after 1:50am. Today Carson and I picked up Aileen at 11:30 and met everyone at Neptune’s for brunch. Afterwards we took her by Mission BBQ so she could finally try barbecue and take it back home with her before her flight. We dropped her off at the airport at 2:30 before her 3:30 flight, and once I turned out of the airport I could not believe it was all over. Holy crap that flew by.