Onward to Day 2

So we assembled on Thursday, the day before the festival began. The group of people doing the course was actually rather large, I didn’t actually expect there to be as many people doing the course as ended up being the case. So we all assembled to go through the preparations for the festival, most of us complete strangers to one and other. What I expected from the course was something I still wasn’t sure of, as I hadn’t done a course like this one before.

 I also hadn’t been to a writer’s festival before in my life, so just going to the festival in general was a completely new experience for me. We were told what was to be done over the festival and what was going to be shown at the festival. This was a nice way to get ourselves ready for what was to come as I certainly was a bit clueless as to what to expect from the experience I would have at the Bendigo Writers Festival.

 This is also where I got confirm and finalise what my festival would be centred around, filming for the program that is planned to air on channel 31. We meet up on the Thursday between sessions of planning for the festival, confirming what each person would do and what sort of theme the program would take. So filming was what I would do and that is something I was happy with, as having done a bit of camera work before I found it quite enjoyable. This gives me a perspective of the festival that I feel is quite unique from others. Having to get positioning of the camera correct allows you a view which is something a bit different.

So what did I learn from the festival? Well quite a bit actually. I learnt some techniques for writing which could certainly be helpful in the future, as well as saw some very successful and well known authors talking about a variety of topics.

The first day of the festival on the Friday was quite interesting, as my very first filming project was to film the ABC radio national broadcast, which was quite intriguing to watch. Some of the experiences of the people that they had on the show were quite interesting, as well as their ways of writing and what they wrote about. On a side note, the two guys they had doing the musical tunes during points of the show were actually really good I felt, something a bit different which was also nice to listen to.

I also got to see Jackie French speak which was rather inspiring, as she seems to be a very powerful public speaker.  All in all, the first day went very well and was quite busy, as I was running around filming different sessions for most of it. But it was certainly still very enjoyable and got me looking forward to the next two days of the festival.