{"id":13329,"date":"2011-02-12T21:08:15","date_gmt":"2011-02-13T05:08:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/?p=13329"},"modified":"2011-02-12T22:00:14","modified_gmt":"2011-02-13T06:00:14","slug":"qa-with-roger-durling-santa-barbara-film-festival-2011","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/?p=13329","title":{"rendered":"Q&A with Roger Durling (Santa Barbara Film Festival, 2011)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Reviewed by Stacie Manifol<\/a>d.\u00a0 Interviewed at Hotel Santa Barbara 2011.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Our class was able to sit down with film festival director, Roger Durling, on February 2nd at Hotel Santa Barbara.\u00a0 Here’s a little of what Mr. Durling had to say…<\/p>\n

Q: What sets the Santa Barbara Film Festival apart from others?<\/p>\n

A: Each successful film festival around the world has a destination and a purpose.\u00a0 The location also has to have infrastructure to support the festival as well as venues to show the movies and house the guests.\u00a0 It doesn’t hurt when everything is within easy walking distance to make things accessible to out-of town visitors without a car.\u00a0 Our hook is that the festival opens 2 days after the Oscar Nominations are announced which is officially Phase 2 of Oscar marketing.\u00a0 Studios are ready to get their movies and stars into the public eye and media in whatever way possible.\u00a0 We benefit from that is a big way.<\/p>\n

Q: You choose your actors who will receive tribute awards back in September.\u00a0 How have you been so lucky in predicting the future and successfully year after year, choosing actors who are nominated and usually win the Academy Awards.<\/p>\n

A: Well, I watch tons of movies and have a good idea of what will be good office box draws.\u00a0 Ever since I was a young boy I was really accurate at picking who would win the Oscar out of the list of nominees.<\/p>\n

Q: What is the process of choosing what films are shown at the festival?<\/p>\n

A: There are a few routes.\u00a0 We get about 3000 entries.\u00a0 There is a team of about 12 reviewers who watch all the submitted films and assign them a grade.\u00a0 Any film that gets an average score above seven gets passed onto the festival’s programming team.\u00a0 Our programming team also attends other film festivals and finds movies that they think would make a great addition to our festival.\u00a0 The final line-up is made up of about 50% submitted films and 50% asked to attend films.<\/p>\n

Q: What makes a good movie?<\/p>\n

A: The ability of the director to tell a story.\u00a0 The quality of the screenplay doesn’t really matter.\u00a0 Great films have been made from crappy screenplays and crappy films have been made from great screenplays.<\/p>\n

Q: What kind of budget do you work with?<\/p>\n

A: Our budget is about $3 million.\u00a0 You wouldn’t believe the cost associated with putting on a festival.\u00a0 “Third weekend” itself costs about $50,000.\u00a0 Luckily the studios pay for most costs associated with the actors, directors, etc. that attend panels and tributes.<\/p>\n

Q: How would your staff describe you?<\/p>\n

A: Well, I hope they would say I’m a taskmaster.\u00a0 My staff know it’s kind of my way or the highway.\u00a0 But I’m a much different person that “Roger Durling” the director of the film festival.\u00a0 I’m incredibly introverted.\u00a0 I live kind of a hermit life way out in Winchester Canyon.\u00a0 I get really nervous talking in public.\u00a0 In fact can you see my palms sweating now?\u00a0 I’ve created this kind of character as my film festival persona with the spiky hair and dressing all in black.\u00a0 That way I can hide behind my character and feel more comfortable for the job I have to do.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Reviewed by Stacie Manifold.\u00a0 Interviewed at Hotel Santa Barbara 2011. Our class was able to sit down with film festival director, Roger Durling, on February 2nd at Hotel Santa Barbara.\u00a0 Here’s a little of what Mr. Durling had to say… Q: What sets the Santa Barbara Film Festival apart from others? A: Each successful film […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1299,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,146,82],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13329","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-films","category-santa-barbara-film-festival-2011","category-tributes-and-qas"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13329","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1299"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=13329"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13329\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=13329"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=13329"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=13329"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}