Wednesday. Ten days until Opening Night of The 2012 Art of Brooklyn Film Festival on August 4th.
We have been doing press for about two weeks now and it’s time to start following up. A Brooklyn-based art event has to contend with a crowded market, even in summer—so we have to simultaneously position ourselves in relation to the cultural landscape and communicate what makes us different. Luckily our mission—to engage the borough as a whole and not concentrate our efforts on a small handful of Manhattan-adjacent neighborhoods—has captured people’s attention.
Although I hate this terminology, “Brooklyn” has become a brand. But the people who give the borough its unique (and increasingly commercially valuable) character often derive no benefit from it. In fact, most Brooklynites are excluded from the art and culture Renaissance happening around them. With The Art of Brooklyn, we decided to up-end all of that. Like our motto, we are Brooklyn born and/or Brooklyn-based, and always Brooklyn-centric. But for us, it isn’t “Brooklyn” unless you count all of it, from Boerum Hill to Bergen Beach, Fort Greene to Flatlands. As anyone who lives here knows, inter-borough travel can be difficult. Given that public transit is oriented on the old paradigm, where Manhattan was the center, we chose to hold The Art of Brooklyn Film Festival in Brooklyn Heights because it is easily accessible from many other neighborhoods in the borough, as well as Manhattan.
… Which is what I would have told press if I’d been able to reach them today. But my plans to call editors this afternoon to follow up on the press kits we distributed to media large and small were derailed.
First I got an email from an editor at Brooklyn-Based, an online guide to events in the borough and a popular email newsletter. I’d reached out to them days ago, and they were confirming that they’d like to feature us… immediately, since we have a pre-festival free screening of the 1980s cult-classic film The Warriors tomorrow, July 26th. She asked for images and/or video to accompany the article. Luckily, Jason had just finished cutting together the festival trailer, made of bits of the trailers from all of the 2012 AoBFF entries, and set to The Beastie Boys So What’cha Want. Unfortunately I didn’t have it yet. I called him—he was spending the afternoon overseeing a street team who were placing posters—and asked him to get back to his computer and send me the link ASAP.
In the meantime I searched for a .jpg of the original poster for The Warriors online and found one I could pass along to illustrate her article. I also attached a high res version of our official poster. And on impulse, I also included the special poster, created by Program Manager Alfred Acceturra, for our August 4th Opening Night free screening of Steven Seagal’s Out For Justice, . She will probably just focus on The Warriors since it’s tomorrow, but I figured it couldn’t hurt. Jay sent me the link for the Festival Trailer, and I bundled everything together and sent it off. She confirmed that everything is good.
We also got a message from a fact-checker at Time Out NY, because The 2012 Art of Brooklyn Film Festival will be featured in their upcoming issue. It will be our first time in the magazine so we are excited and keen to make sure that they are representing us correctly. They sent a detailed list of facts about the event they wanted us to confirm. It’s a tedious task but I am grateful they are being so thorough. By the time I am able to return to the schedule I set for today, it is 5pm. I’ll keep working—we are all working far into the night this close to the Festival—but I missed my window to call anyone today. Better luck tomorrow.
Questions? Share your thoughts!