Tuesday, January 23, 2007

Jason elaborates on the process of mapping out how to see everything at Indiefest.

So as you can see from my previous post, I came up with a couple of different options for seeing everything at Indiefest. For anyone who cares, click on the links below for the gory google spreadsheet steps of how I mapped out option A and option B. Each workbook contains several sheets, each sheet is more or less one step in mapping out a schedule. Note that it isn't until step 8 that I realize I have 2 major options, so up until then both spreadsheets look the same.

From a high level, it starts with entering every show into a spreadsheet and figuring out which ones I have to see (the ones playing only once, then the ones I can't see any other time because they're playing opposite something playing only once). If you want to start there, go to sheet 4 or either workbook. At that point I look at my personal preferences, mainly that I'd like to minimize the number of early weekday shows so that I can keep my job while still seeing everything. If that doesn't apply to you, feel free to copy sheet 4 and use it as the start of your own schedule.

I then take into account whether I'll have time to get between venues (this, incidentally, precluded me from seeing any movies in Berkeley, I'll be in SF the whole festival). Then I look at any remaining showtimes which have only one movie to see. Eventually everything falls into place.

Incidentally, the festival has expanded significantly this year, returning to the East Bay and having multiple venues during the weekday shows. That made my job a little tougher (in terms of determining a schedule, seeing everything is as easy or hard as it ever was), but I'm still up to the task.

Update: Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that my final step was going back to the schedule on the indiefest website to make sure I got everything, and seeing that they added the Tuesday, Feb 20 showing of "Forgiving the Franklins". That was trivial to add to my final schedule.

--Jason

No comments: