Going to the movies is one of my greatest vices. The feature, the previews and my favorite of all foods, buttered movie-theater popcorn — I can’t get enough of it. This weekend the Wisconsin Film Festival brings this glorious experience to Madison for four straight days. Running Thursday through Sunday, the festival includes more than 200 movies in 10 different theaters, an organizational feat that undoubtedly takes considerable time and effort. However, as Wisconsin Film Festival director Meg Hamel told The Badger Herald in an interview on Sunday, preparing for the festival is “not just the hassle of ticket sales.”
Arriving at Vilas Hall shortly after 6 p.m., it didn’t take me long to realize that my interview with Meg Hamel would be more than your average Q&A. After a few minutes of introduction, Hamel offered me the chance to see the film preparation process in action. I agreed without hesitation, and we began the journey into the depths of Vilas. Four floors later, we had reached an ominous door labeled Studio D. Slightly shaking with anticipation, I followed her into the Wisconsin Film Festival’s underground base of operations.
Here was a hidden temple of cinematic silver, as silver cases of film outlined the room, overflowing into the middle of the floor.
“What I really like is when the movies start arriving and you start to realize, this is real,” Hamel said as we crossed the room. And real it was. One of the main activities occurring in the room was the inspection and preparation of the films.
“You need people who are really skilled and know what they are doing,” commented Hamel regarding Brian Block, a UW communication arts graduate who was busy ensuring that each film was undamaged and in its right place. After performing these crucial checks, Brian then proceeded to splice each individual reel of film together, creating larger reels that would make projectionists’ jobs easier. Skilled indeed.
In the middle of the room, several men were at work assembling a giant screen. “This is a screen we are going to erect either in the Bartell Theater or the Chazen Museum of Art,” Hamel said. “We rent theses super high-quality projectors and special video decks to play super high-quality digital video formats.” This combination is reserved in part for restored films, to guarantee that these newly improved films are viewed in the highest available quality. In fact, the type of screen and type of format that the movies will be shown on plays a large role in which of the Wisconsin Film Festival’s 10 theaters the film will run.
Films are selected to play in certain theaters for certain reasons. The first factor that determines the film’s location is the type of format the movie is on — film or video. For instance, the Chazen Museum of Art does not have a film projector, so many of the video format films are played there. The type of projection system that the film uses is also a factor in the theater selection. Some theaters are equipped with projection systems that use single reels that switch between two different projectors. Still other theaters use large platter-like projection systems that play films that have been spliced together into a single reel. With the selection of different film formats and projection techniques that are spread across 10 different theaters, the progress that has been made since the first film festival in Madison 10 years ago is evident.
In 1998, the state Department of Tourism wanted to bring a film festival to Madison. In an attempt to do so they contacted both of the University of Wisconsin’s film groups, the Wisconsin Union Directorate Film Committee and the Cinematheque. The festival fell through, but two persistent students, Jim Kreul and Wendi Weger, continued to vie for a film festival in Madison. The next year their wishes were granted when the first film festival was held in two theaters, the Cinematheque at 4070 Vilas Hall and The Play Circle in the Memorial Union. With 10 theaters showing more than 200 films today, the Wisconsin Film Festival has shown significant growth in the decade since its inception.
Along with the manual work that goes into preparing the physical film for the festival, there is also a large amount of work to be done in the months leading up to the festival. Meg Hamel began choosing films back in September. “Some of the films being played here in this festival were still being made back in August,” she explained. So each September, Hamel visits Toronto for the International Film Festival, and for nine days she watches six to seven movies daily. “I probably considered about 700 films for the festival; 220 of them are in the festival.”
But the movie marathons don’t stop there for Hamel. “After I would finish a long day at the office, I would go home and watch three or four movies every night.” Days off? Not for Meg Hamel. When the normal workweek ends her work is just beginning. “On the weekend, I would get up Saturday morning at eight o’clock, start watching movies, and quit at midnight.”
So with this many movies floating around in her head, how does Meg Hamel choose the movies that will see our screens each year? The question, evidently, is rhetorical. “Why are you attracted to someone?” Hamel asks. “You might be attracted to redheads, but why? What does that mean? Is it relevant? It’s unidentifiable.”
Regardless of whether or not there is a specific formula that Hamel uses to pick the festival’s films, there are a number of things she looks for. She looks for a balance of different types of films, including experimental films, documentaries, international and local films, small and large production films as well as restorations. She also makes sure that she picks films that bring about different emotional feelings in the audience. Above all other requirements, Hamel wants the audience to be captivated. “I don’t want them to like it,” she tells me, “I want them to find it interesting. I want films that will be in people’s memory.”
The Wisconsin Film Festival isn’t just a weekend of features, previews and popcorn. It’s equipment, it’s miles and miles of film, and it’s a year of hard work. On Monday, after the film festival has reached its conclusion, staff will begin work shipping out all of the films. Whether it be to other film festivals or back to the filmmakers, the evidence of the Wisconsin Film Festival — which took a year’s worth of hard work to acquire — will be gone. But when Monday comes, the ones who have worked so hard will already be thinking of next year. “Even after 10 years this doesn’t feel like we’re done,” says Hamel. “We’re just beginning.”
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