Growing Pains

Our weekly Cinedulce meetings are the bomb... uh, excuse me, da bomb. ;) I love them. Yes, I realize how tremendously dorky that sounds, but lo que sea. No matter how efficient we try to be, though, they always seem to last for 2+ hours. Never fails. In today's meeting, we had a conference call with our creative agency, Spoon and Fork, to do a full walk-through of the site, including all of our recent edits and changes, new architectural elements and back-end configurations, new capabilities (you can search now!!), etc. I'm really so proud of us. I can't even believe this is our site and our company. I think I mentioned this, but Spoon and Fork won a design award for the site. Check this out: http://www.gdusa.com/contests/agda/08/winners/types/se.php?x=int2288-edi2287

We discussed a load of other stuff, which is largely irrelevant here, but we did discuss one thing that's super important: filmmakers - we need your help! It's time to start spreading the word about Cinedulce. Post your video/film on your personal profiles, share links and promote. Your our most effective marketing arms and legs, so hop to it. It's all about word of mouth and viral buzz. If this site is to realize success, drive advertising and sponsors and help bolster the entire Latino/Urban filmmaking community, then we all have to support it now by telling friends and family to check it out. Be proud... this is your art!

That aside, right now I'm all about trying to balance operational/organizational stuff with selling both the festival and Cinedulce. It's far more challenging than one might expect. You know, things are always so simple when you first consider them. Then you wake up one day and realize, seemingly overnight, it's evolved into something far more complicated. That's true of life, right? Time is that most precious commodity, which sometimes seems to slip through my fingers. How many calls can I make in one day? How many proposals can I customize in one week? How many meeting recaps, follow-ups, reminders, charts, budgets, checks/bills, interviews, etc. can I realize in any given period? It's ridonculous. You can only do your best. Pressure from the NY Latino Film Festival is always the heaviest because there's a finite window to close deals and a basic cost to cover. Calixto and I have been working hard on cutting that budget because it's starting to skyrocket and, although never a desired trajectory, it's certainly more so in a near-depression economy. The festival has grown by approximately 30% annually, a statistic about which we're super proud. But, that growth has a price: mushrooming budgets, increasing sponsor and consumer expectations, escalating talent demands, swelling vendor fees, expanding staffing needs... The flip side, of course, is there are far worse problems to have than growing pains. So, I welcome this pain... sort of. ;)

Liz.
(P.L.H.H.)
www.Cinedulce.com