As soon as one festival is over, work on the next one begins.
So when three-year East Lansing Film Festival founder and director Susan Woods announced she would be spending a year in the Netherlands, she needed a replacement.
“She had asked me to take over while she was gone and I didn’t say ‘yes’ for a long time - for months and months and months,” said Jennifer White, director of this year’s festival, which begins today.
“I finally did, so once I started knowing I was going to be the director, I just paid attention and took over a lot of work last year. I picked up more things that I wasn’t doing the year before.”
White began as a volunteer when she was an MSU student. She helped choose the films to be shown and arranged guests’ visits, among other things.
Now in her third year with the festival, White lays out the festival, plans parties, events and seminars, and generally makes sure everything is running smoothly.
“I don’t really have a normal day, I don’t think,” she said. “It’s just planning - constant planning. There’s this big, four-day festival comprised of a thousand different events. Every film screening is an event.”
For the two years White worked for Woods, the festival had been born and organized from Woods’ home. But because the house was no longer available, White had to relocate the office to a cramped suite on Evergreen Street.
And in the strange new location, packed with videocassettes and movie posters, White still keeps in contact with Woods via e-mail for advice and support.
“Last year it was just her and I in the office,” she said. “When you share so much time with someone about a certain thing and they’re not there, it’s kind of hard. You’re like ‘Oh, I know she’ll understand when I tell her this story.’”
Pickin’ flicks
The East Lansing Film Festival began in 1998 with a $15,000 grant from the city.
Since then, it has undergone a number of changes, such as the separation of the Children’s Film Festival to a different weekend.
In addition to the support from the city’s Arts Commission and a long list of sponsors, the festival has also grown large enough to receive a grant from the Michigan Council for Arts and Cultural Affairs, which gives funds to art events throughout the state.
Work on this year’s festival began in the summer, when White and other festival volunteers started advertising, getting listed in different publications and going to other film festivals to find possible films.
“Beginning in September, we seek out film schools to send info about the film festival so that we can get their submissions,” White said. “Basically getting the word out that we’re taking submissions.”
Between the Michigan’s Own Competition - which features short and feature-length films from artists in Michigan - and the festival’s main program, there have been more than 300 submissions.
And that doesn’t include the submitted short films.
“We solicit less than we actually receive,” White said.
“We have tons of films that just come, and we have films we ask for, like films I’ve seen at different festivals.”
The beginning of January is the deadline for submissions, and White said that’s when the watching and selecting begins.
Films are selected for the festival from panels of viewers of varied ages - students, professors and middle-aged people.
The films are selected from consensus about overall quality, said Bill Vincent, an MSU English professor who also teaches film. He served this year on the Michigan’s Own Film Competition selection committee.
“What we’re looking for is quality in both production and story,” he said.
Budget, Vincent said, doesn’t matter as much as how well things are done. This year, a film by a high school student was selected to be shown in the competition.
“We make a certain amount of allowances for a low-budget film,” he said.
All said and done
Shaun McNally is no stranger to the film festival.
An MSU alumnus, McNally worked as an intern during the festival’s first year, and was its coordinator the second while also being a member of the MSU Telecasters.
“I graduated and moved to Florida and started working at Nickelodeon in Orlando at Universal Studios Theme Park,” he said. “So I worked a season of ‘Slime Time Live’ and I worked a season of ‘Double Dare 2000.’”
When he heard about Woods’ yearlong sabbatical, McNally dropped freelance work he was doing in Florida and came back to East Lansing to co-direct the festival.
“I had a good thing going in Florida, but this was such a great opportunity,” McNally said. “You always want to come back and kind of do it your way.”
McNally’s the leg man: He’s always out, picking up deliveries, taking care of the mailings and making the flyers and television commercials.
It’s busywork, but at least he’s been able to come back and see East Lansing from a different perspective.
“Coming back here as an alumni of MSU versus a student was a completely different experience,” McNally said. “East Lansing is a totally different experience on this side of the street, on this side of Grand River.
“It’s just insane how much more there is to East Lansing than campus and what life as a student exposes you to.”
And that’s the whole point.
White said what sets the East Lansing festival apart from those in Saugatuck and Ann Arbor is the exposure to different films - all genres, all formats and a day dedicated to Michigan films.
“A lot of people have ideas about film festivals that they are maybe not so accessible if you don’t know anything about film or they’re these strange, odd films that the general population isn’t going to understand,” she said.
“That’s not how the East Lansing Film Festival is. We know our audience, and we know people want to see good stories and they want to see things they can relate to.”
And when this year’s film festival wraps up, there’s a good four months of more work - cleaning up, sending back tapes and lining up funds for next year.
That’s when Woods will take over again. And White will get on a plane and see where it takes her.
“I’m moving somewhere in June and I don’t know where,” she said.
