Exec Meeting @ 2023-10-23 14:00:00
WSC Exec Meeting, 21/10/23, 2pm, H0.03
Present: Liv Lancastle (chair), Daniel Kallin (minutes), Tomas Caldon, Jay Patel, Josh Heng, James Patt, Ethan Dougall (late), Adam Skrzymowski (late), Eric Liu (late), Alex Pointon (late, on Teams)
In attendance: Marnie McCrudden, Kieran Hall, big flying spider
Apologies: Zain Mothupi, Dillan Patel, Sophie Cooper
Welcome and Apologies
Exec updates
JPT: FOH: lots of emails, took a while to reply to, finally got round to them all, stupid emails about their accounts not working, “I’m not a member and I can’t sign up!”, lot of stewards joining up, Hashir is now QDM from NDM, shadow show next week, new TDM, lots of people signing up to shows
(Eric Liu thumps the door, walks in late, with croissants and two phones, starts distributing cucumbers and jars of honey)
EL: Proj: shows being filled, agreed to bring on 5 trainees today, will review today/tomorrow which ones we are taking on, all good besides
JPL: Mark: marketing workshop tomorrow, powerpoint to show them, TikTok been revised, see if any freshers are interested in doing anything for that, some emails for marketing went to junk, we have 1938 follows, up 300 in last two months, could make 2k followers in next month or two!
TC: Socials: pub quiz is almost entirely written, hounding Jacob to pull his weight too, he’s going to be doing the drawings, I’m doing photoshop and powerpoints, will run by SC because terrified of getting this wrong, is this being advertised?
JH: IT: meeting last week with interested people, sent them email so should be getting on-board now, might start with them getting involved next week
Schedule progress
LL: not sure we are equipped to cover, will send message in Exec to FOs
Digi signage
AS: could get more signage across campus, one year we had them on accom screens like in Cryfield Townhouse, we also have email saying they could do better signage on big screen than the current what’s on tonight slides, could email Big Screen people saying we could code things but what were you thinking - if we could get some automatic thing with some pics up and slides, if it could look like other digital signage which would be good
KH: feels like a good time, Comms time have decided they like us
AS: is rest of digital signage same people as big screen?
KH: think no, but think there is a digitalsignage@warwick.ac.uk but might have changed
AS: could just manually send them a slide for every week, but Big Screen seem keen on automating something
LL: sounds like a plan, anything to add on that?
AS: they’re all on digitalscreens@warwick.ac.uk now
Another Getting Involved meeting
LL: not today as some freshers seem to think it is, any thoughts on the date, possible W4 weekend, any opinions?
JPT: good day, might be best to do at date when people who joined at last GI meeting have already got involved
EL: W5 as it is quite short notice
LL: reason for W4 is that SC’s Pub meeting being that Sun so we can shuttle them into them
EL: can’t make weekend 1pm GI meetings, anyone to cover?
JPT: can only do the Sunday
LL: suggestion is Sun 29th at 1pm, two hours and then it’s SC’s Pub
EL: can I get pizza this time?
LL: you won’t be there!
ED: will struggle to make it on Sun at any time
JH: can make it
JPL: should be able to make it
LL: SC can be assumed to be around
TC: *sadly* I can come too!
EL: can we actually have a films officer there this time
LL: we can email out about that this weekend, hopefully people will come, but fewer people so we can less pizza - last year we didn’t have a second time but it would have been gone to, no benchmark for how many people will come but will be more than 0
KH: at the end of the day, this wasn’t Another Getting Involved Meeting and people still turned up
JPL: will do another post to get people interested
LL: we have 600 members, oh yeah we have 600 members! Realise that it couldn’t have been this weekend as there was an Open Day - that’s that cool
Reliance on old people
LL: KH had an agenda point
KH: hello, old person here, atm quite a lot of things filmsoc does - things we like to boast about - if the older people around were hit by a bus (14) then they would just stop, this frustrates a lot of people. There are also thing we do where we’re not irreplaceable but the alternative would be lots of bills calling people in to fix things, but things like 70mm would just stop, as implicitly would things like Goodfellas, the reason we can borrow from WB media archive, first time we tried to do it they asked for copy of AP and Andy’s CVs, not just anyone can do. Things like setting screen files on the projector, not impossible but we would need to call people in
(I made notes!) Particularly with nd 70mm, I know there was lot of frustration around Oppenheimer with the lamp house focusing, the reason not everyone can do those things is not because its a secret cabal it’s because they’re hard - content to go on about how we are one of 10 places in UK to do 70mm but never think about the fact that it’s hard, should follow but it doesn’t -The Irish Film Institute flew over the guy who runs Parkway Barnsley for the Irish premiere of Oppenheimer to set up their 70mm, like Alex here did in Welcome Week, because they couldn't find anyone in the country and at the same time people are annoyed that first years here aren’t given it as a job to do and the two aren't compatible, AP and I can do some of the digital screen file things but these aren’t things end users are allowed to do and never will officially be a part of what Filmsoc can do. We’re sort of at the point where collectively and individually we have different ideas about what filmsoc is, we can’t continue without addressing it, I made myself ill in WW, had the worst migraine I had ever had, it’s awful, I couldn’t even have a little bit of water, AP did 1200 miles during WW at his expense, he drives a 2008 Audi, it’s not cheap - we are willing to do that but it’s not nice if you’ve done all that and then you come in the next day and hear whisperings that people aren’t happy, doesn’t mean it’s not a fair, reasonable grumble for filmsoc to have, it can’t go on though and needs addressing. Loads of reasonable options for WSC – e.g. it could say, we have no problem with anyone individually but don’t feel comfortable relying on a small set of people, happy to have them do the things we could call someone to fix - it could say instead that the way things are makes an awkward pedestalising of some people so WSC will pay to get someone in for all tech things - or wsc could say we don’t care about being professional, could just get a data projector and a bluray, might not as good technically but everything done by students so we’re happy. Essentially, wsc can’t keep being excited about the amazing things we can do - 70mm, lasers, etc. - and they complain it’s reliant on only a few older people can do them - raising it now in terms of 70mm programming next year, realistically nobody in this room is ever going to do 70mm on their own unless they end up doing a phd suddenly, it’s not secret knowledge just because it’s hard
AS: I have thoughts but don’t know where to begin… historically there was always Tech officers and things which implies that stuff happened and knowledge was passed on, yeah some of this stuff is very hard but there doesn’t seem to be any knowledge being passed on, is there realistically a way somebody could become Tech officer that isn’t AP, maybe LL could but do we want someone who has to stay at wsc five years just to do it
KH: recently wsc have taken on a lot more of the things that are difficult to do, like lamp housing, I can’t do it, AP can and Drew hesitantly can and so you can see how long it takes to get good at these things, knowledge transfer used to be the proj team, role of tech officer was someone who knew the noises of an unhappy projector and knew where to poke, this is why when wsc started going digital then the tech officer still needed to be 35mm qualified, tech officer misleading title as it’s the role most of the world calls chief proj not an inhouse technician, it’s just our chief proj role is a lot more admin focused than other cinemas - when I joined wsc we couldn’t have our own screen files, look back through tech list when they blew up subwoofer for Inception, discussions about reconing speaker, decided no because maybe cone isn’t faulty, these conversations don’t make sense because that’s not how recones work - wsc hasn’t always done these things that are happening
AS: things in the past happened which now don’t happen because it’s just a couple of people, concept of Tech Team used to exist but what is it, “any qualified proj who wants to get involved with tech can talk to tech officer and get involved”, where is that
KH: 15 years ago, would be a lot easier to just give people jobs, had whole team of 35mm, now we are excited about having trained three in three years, no way around it - with tech team, I self-actualise as someone who likes preaching and involving people in it but it’s fair to say that maybe I’ve not realised that that’s not been as true recently as it was, so P1 aperture plates on Barry Lyndon, a member of the proj team did that, they were very good, we decided to put film on platter but they went and put it on platter themself unsupervised, did all the splices upside-down, designated himself platter qualified and then later broke the platter - past year the vibes like that hadn’t made just anyone getting involved with tech possible - reason I post everything I do on slack is so people who are interested can get involved, during late 70mm Oppenheimer, JPT asked to see how it worked and I showed him, Hashir asked too didn’t do it but intent was there - we inherently like being preachy and showing people things, just not been possible recently
AS: spoke to AP about this directly in the past, he said he doesn’t bother because people aren’t interested
KH: yes, tbf it’s due to past experience he has had, he won’t post about things he’s doing on slack because people have accused him of boasting
AP: I just wanted to say too, I think that way AS says that knowledge wasn’t passed down, got to go back to before I was tech officer, they used to be the person who picked up the film to ring Bell or Sound Associated and got quotes together - confusion about information not being passed down, don’t forget that there was no digital, whole team was 35mm and so was a tech team - never did things though, pretty much only when there was an outdoor screening, had them for tech team to fiddle about with speakers - tech officers before me had to ring at right time of year to get warranties sorted - my fault for changing what role did, but had to because we couldn’t afford to do things wsc achieved without just doing them ourselves, all the other film societies would have just ended up with a 2nd hand Xenon projector but we didn’t because we did it ourselves - when I started people were annoyed that they weren’t digital trained but now the opposite of the case, things have changed but if it went back to how it was nothing would change, if tech officer before me was in charge now, all they would be in charge of is picking up phone and saying how much things have cost, only the tech itself and the society have changed
KH: a number of people assume that if AP, KH and Andy weren’t around then everybody would be the tech team BUT if that were true then nobody would be the tech team
LL: question is do we want to keep having people who know way more about tech than all of us and save us lots of money?
AP: can I say it more succinctly? Interesting speaking to Clive at reunion, before he came to Uni he had been formally trained as a projectionist, only reason he managed to set up FilmSoc as he could work closely with AV, sort of how it works, yeah you get people who come along who have the experience to set everything up for other people to get on with, if I hadn’t been here we wouldn’t have lasers, not gatekeeping just the way things are, some of the people who moan wouldn’t be the people putting in say 11 years on the job, Clive spent 5 years just setting up the society
KH: and clive was tech officer for ten years not even as a student
AS: still doesn’t justify low number of 35mm qualifiers
KH: but what is your suggestion for fixing this? Everyone involved is doing their best, me, the trainees, people are learning and qualifying at the rate they are, unfair to ask could it be quicker
LL: qualifying people at rate we’d expect, 12-15 shows, I can’t physically do anymore 35mm, every film is three/four hours of projecting and at least three hours making up, more if you are training, there’s a show a week for me and Kieran, can’t do more than eight hours a week of 35mm, scheduled to the absolute limit of what we can so we can train three trainees, one can qualify this time and then there will be more spaces, don’t have any time
EL: don’t want more, we want to train freshers
KH: like what I’m saying with all the tech stuff, 35mm training only happens because people are willing to give more of their time than is reasonable, wsc only does 35mm now because I put in more time than was reasonable, unkind to say why can’t you do better, with the people you’ve got, time they’ve got, skills they’ve got, willingness to go to bed at 1am they’ve got, that’s the offer that there is
AP: point was to agree with what you are saying, 35mm people often in there until 2/3am and we have degrees too
KH: coming back to what point was about, before filmsoc does its programming for next term, can filmsoc have a think about what exec sees filmsoc as, what filmsoc is/isn’t happy with other people doing, and relying on people for - not sustainable for people to be willing to make themselves tired and ill and then have people complaining “why wasn’t it like this instead” - this can be a now thing or if people want to have thoughts when I’m not here that’s fine, just not fair if 70mm is planner for next term and then there is infighting about who is allowed to touch it because I don’t have much fight left
JPT: previously lot of talk about transparency and about people joining 35mm team, fair as it could be, especially 35mm is severely based on people doing far more work than reasonably could be asked of them, not fair from us to put expectations on these people doing loads of work to put goals on them beyond what they are doing, give them a break
LL: have been trying to create opportunities for people to learn about tech, aware MM and JH haven’t had 35mm shadow thing yet, just losing my mind atm, best idea at the time, difficult to think about ideas on how people can get involved with tech, hard for me as someone who runs 35mm shows, beneficial to suggest ideas, nobody came up with any other ideas, offer always open to show people 35mm and tech (beyond unfeasible suggestions), nice to hear about how people not involved would like to see it work
LL: anyone have anything pressing to say on the topic, or shall we go away and think about things?
KH: my ask is nothing gets planned for T2 before that conversation happens, want all of filmsoc to be behind it as much as possible, it ain’t working at the moment, stands for 70mm and 35mm and everything broadly
JPT: worth having this as agenda point in next meeting with big discussion on it
LL: will probs be in two weeks, just after first schedule draft should be out, need to think about it do we want to keep doing stuff we’re doing with understanding that communism isn’t going to work under these circumstances, or say we want to scrap the Vic8s and only do 100% student-maintained stuff
KH: Please consider who you think ‘we’ is when talking about what ‘we’ do. in 2017, when we started doing 70mm again, only Andy allowed to touch it at the time, AP not comfortable running show on our own, we were all talking about “we” were doing 70mm even if only Andy could touch it, I and broadly Filmsoc felt proud of it and a sense of ownership but didn’t feel sense of – for want of a better word – entitlement over it, is filmsoc happy about what we are doing, if exec are feeling resentment about it then it isn’t fair there too
LL: will put on agenda for next meeting, everyone can go and do some introspection on what “we” means, happy to move on?
No more thoughts.
TADONM
LL: GI on W4 Weekend, on Lettucemeet there is no regular time that isn’t a weekend, I know weekend availability is hit-and-miss, so will just check between Sat/Sun each time
ED: can we not do alternating between two separate weekdays
LL: problem is no weekdays I can day that anyone else can do, nearly everyone but JH can do Sat but you are here now
JH: lots of society stuff so dependent on that
LL: weekends usually fine, will just check between Sat and Sun in slack, next meeting in W5 weekend as can’t do W6 and then should be three week gap
AOBS
LL: got email from Warwick Presents saying now doing their WW timetable for all of term time so we can submit events on it
AS: concept cursed, free for all anyone doing anything on campus can submit their events to them, no distinction between Warwick Presents and just stuff happening, tenth calendar with events on
LL: they made some bad branding decisions but we could put stuff on there
AS: if stuff on there, then why not Student Events calendar
LL: didn’t know that existed
EL: who’s doing it?
LL: can do it
JPT: can help
EL: can we get ourselves on the Pearl&Dean app, getting their ads, we are on app but our films aren’t
LL: you can do it
KH: case of finding who P&D use and giving them our schedule
EL: please take the cucumbers - tuck shop out of stock, am aware of this problem
JH: since KH is here, said something about wanting website discussion to be in an Exec meeting, whether we want it in the exec meeting, maybe just some members if not everyone wants to hear it
LL: we do have time to discuss that today if you do want to
ED: happy for it to be voluntary to attend
LL: depends what kinds of decisions it is making - programming or society plans?
KH: don’t think that much decision to be had on programming, happy if anyone had any questions, don’t want to turn this into 45min fight with IT officers, wrote that message because didn’t want to have this argument in person, think I’ve said most of things I had to say so up to Exec to decide what they want to do do with them
ED: doing another polo order soon, if anyone has any other names let me know - hoodie colour votes means black has one but not a majority, could narrow down between red and black
ED: could let people just pick black or red
JPT: think it should all be one colour
ED: it’s a hoodie
KH: walking billboard
Vote: 3 Black 7 Red
Meeting ended at 16.37.