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The Oxford Film Festival took place over the weekend, and if you follow film blogs, chances are the only thing you know about the event is that Hollywood Elsewhere’s Jeffrey Wells had so much trouble with the wireless internet in his hotel room that he threw a fit, refused to attend a panel for which the festival had flown him out to appear on, threatened to leave town, then decided to stay when the festival put him up in a new hotel. This incident has made Wells the target of a ton of criticism — on Twitter, in the comments on his own site, on other blogs. And with good reason –– as Eric D. Snider put it, “This is ungentlemanly behavior of the worst order, Wells. You should be ashamed to have wasted the festival’s time and resources so childishly.” Fair enough.
But I also wonder if maybe there was a point buried within Wells’ tantrum that we’d be remiss to ignore.
Before I go any further, I should note that I have accepted free trips to film festivals. Regional and up-and-coming festivals will often invite a blogger/journalist to be on a panel or a jury and foot the bill, and when I accept such offers I always disclose within the coverage the fact that I’ve been hosted by the festival and/or am in town at their invitation (there are also festivals that will book you on a panel or jury and not pick up the tab; for instance, I’ve been on a panel at SXSW every year that I’ve attended that festival, but they’ve never assisted with my expenses). There will be those who will hate on this practice on principle, and that’s fine, but if you look at my CineVegas coverage, you’ll see that a comped trip does not a guarantee of 100% positive coverage make.
Now: In his first of three anti-Wells posts this weekend, Snider pumps the party line that Wells shouldn’t have missed the panel over concern that he wouldn’t be able to file coverage of the festival –– which is probably true –– but then proceeds with the fallacy that Wells’ coverage was less important to the festival than his appearance on the panel. “Festivals that merely want your press coverage don’t pay your expenses to get you there,” says Snider.
Sure, no reputable festival would tell a journalist that they’d pay for their trip chiefly because the festival wants the coverage, and no reputable journalist or blogger would take that deal. But anybody who pretends like festivals don’t extend panel and jury invitations to journalists in the interest of increasing their profile with the press is delusional. Ideally, a festival like Oxford hopes that if they get a journalist there, the journalist will like what they see and write about it. Maybe they’ll even like it enough to pay their own way the following year, or tell their peers that the festival is a must-attend. Is the pay for play direct or explicit? Not usually, but in the long run, the panel is the bait, not the endgame.
I can’t defend Wells’ behavior, but I’m intrigued by the ways in which he’s defended himself. In his first post about the wifi problems, in which he announced his intention to leave town early, Wells explained, “I’m not there to sip moonshine and read Faulkner — I’m here to work, and it’s just too much work, too frustrating and too inconvenient to accomplish this goal.” Days later, after the story exploded, Wells published a comment from an anonymous “journalist friend”, who once again made the argument that a festival guest demonstrates their value not just by showing up, but by spreading the word outside the festival. “…[A]ll these other critics? I haven’t seen them writing shit up all over the place, have you? They showed up for a panel, but have they been pimping that place large?”
The answer, as far as I can tell, is no. I found out on Facebook last night that scheduled SXSW premiere Make Out With Violence sneak screened in Oxford over the weekend, and as far as I know, no one has actually written about it. As of this writing, the only blog posts in my feed reader that have anything to do with the Oxford Film Festival were written by Wells. Cinematical had three critics on the ground, but hasn’t published a post since an announcement on Wednesday declaring their intent to go. Snider managed three posts about Wells on his blog over the weekend, but not a single post about films at the film festival.
There could be coverage that I’m missing, and if so, by all means, post links in the comments. But as of now, by creating a firestorm of bloggy press around a festival that none of the other invited journalists killed themselves to cover, isn’t Jeff Wells the Oxford Film Festival’s de facto best friend?
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We’ve had a bit of trouble getting this episode to go through the iTunes feed, so we hope this re-post will fix the problem. The original post, with episode description and embedded player, is here.
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I guess the old axiom ‘all press is good press’ is your thesis here, but I don’t buy it. OK, Wells made me aware of the Oxford Film Festival… and? I don’t know what movies played there. I don’t know what the vibe was like there. I don’t know if this is an up and coming fest that I should be adding to my calendar. All I know is that Oxford is near enough Memphis that if I went I’d be able to finally visit Graceland and that the wifi sucks there.
Is that the service Wells is doing OFF? I now know the name Oxford Film Festival, but I know absolutely nothing about it. And since I won’t be able to make the Oxford Film Festival until next year, who cares if I know the fest’s name while it’s going on? Won’t the coverage brought by the other journalists - the ones who see movies and will inform me what the experience was like beyond ‘wifi sucks’ - be more valuable to the fest than negative name recognition?
Immediacy is obviously the name of the game online, but what immediate negative coverage gain the Oxford Film Festival?
Devin wrote: “Won’t the coverage brought by the other journalists - the ones who see movies and will inform me what the experience was like beyond ‘wifi sucks’ - be more valuable to the fest than negative name recognition?”
I’m just wondering where that coverage is. I don’t see it. I went looking for it and can’t find it. Maybe it’s coming, but it’s now Monday, and the festival is over, and it just seems weird that Wells is able to hijack the entire conversation because nobody else has written about anything.
In defense of both Wells and the other critics:
1. Not having wi-fi is terrible but not something that has only occurred once in anyone’s life time. Recently I could not get my wi-fi to work when in a hotel next door to LAX. Of course we are working to make sure that the hotels we use accommodate all of our guests.
2. I have never heard of a mood pocket, but understand lack of sleep and frustration can often lead to poor choices, those of which Wells has now expressed regret. It was a lesson for everyone. It has made for interesting discussions, but the only losers in this situation are the great films and filmmakers that went ignored.
3. Of larger concern is the attack on the other critics. Cinematical and the others wrote that they were attending. They also attended the panel, which was what the invite was for and before Wells mentioned them not covering, several had already discussed with me their coverage. I want to make this clear when they post, that it is in no way due to online discussions on them not covering it.
4. Those critics have also spent their time in Oxford talking with the filmmakers and watching the films. Also in their defense, since most of them were jurors and here supporting the festival, they could not easily discuss the same films they judged before the awards ceremony.
5. I want to also particularly point that all of the other panelists jumped in and helped with Q&A’s and supported the festival in any way they could. We thank them for all they did and enjoyed having them here, coverage or no coverage.
Good points, Karina. (And apologies for once again typing “Sprout” when I meant “Spout” in one of the comments on HE.) Personally, I enjoy it when Wells goes nuts, and I’m sure his posts over the weekend were more entertaining than any of his coverage of the movies themselves might’ve been. Still, I would’ve liked to have seen him do a little of both, especially since so much of his fest coverage over the past year has been about bad accommodations.
Karina-
While I totally agree with the pot-calling-kettle-black finger pointing that went on in terms of who was actually “working” at the festival is appropriate, Jeff has fully earned this comeuppance due to his simply awful behavior at festivals over the years.
The guy displays some freakish, sociopathic behavior and treats most everyone working for festivals badly. It makes us writers ALL look bad when we’re at a fest he’s at and volunteers and PR people are busily avoiding him or spinning the latest yarn about whatever various issue he’s having that day.
Obviously, I can’t speak for Snider, Yamato or Weinberg (or the other “cool kidz” as Jeff described them) but I know that when I’m at a festival to do reviews and whatnot, I work my ass off. FT tries to cover EVERY movie at any festival we attend.
Meanwhile, Jeff posts hissy fits, reviews of the area, coverage of his lunch and various quibbles about the festival or people at said festival throughout his mostly comped trips to fests. He even took the time to insult the filmmakers AND programmers at Oxford by saying the movies weren’t worth his time.
It’s honestly quite annoying, shocking and frustrating that Jeff keeps getting invited places when for the life of me, I can’t see what he does at these events that would merit him being there. I do like Jeff’s site when he’s on topic, but he’s an embarrassment when you take him places.
Melanie: Woah, I didn’t mean to “attack” other critics at all. I’m just trying to figure out what’s going on here that one journalist is able to completely take over a conversation about a film festival without actually writing about the films.
I’m sure Snider is quite aware that there are certain unspoken expectations put upon a journalist when he/she is invited to a festival panel. And I’m sure that Snider doesn’t think that Welles’s coverage is or was less important than his appearance on the panel. Snider’s main complaint was that Welles didn’t meet his end of the bargain and that the expense of accommodating Welles, which really was fruitless, must have been costly for the Oxford Festival staff. Snider is just crying foul on bad etiquette.
Now whether or not this incident deserves this much exposure: that’s another question altogether. Snider might have gotten himself carried away by all of this. Personally, I don’t think this had any effect of my opinion of Welles’ work as a blogger which by what I’ve read is daft and far too self-serving.
Good points, Karina, and I can at least clarify my own situation.
Basically, I was invited to be on the panel, meet some people, see some films, and (of course) hang with some friends. In other words (and Melanie was actually the first one to recommend this), I was looking at this as a “non-work” festival. Unlike Sundance, SXSW, and other festivals, I wasn’t running from movie to movie to laptop to food, and it was one amazing change for me.
Of course I am (and always was) planning to do a re-cap of the weekend at Cinematical, but truth be told: I hadn’t watched enough films yet and I was catching up on flicks today.
But, again, I do think you make a good point. If press coverage for OFF is a factor in this whole discussion — and I’d agree that it is — then you’ve every right to look past Snider’s and Wells’ post and wonder “So … where’s the rest?”
Oh sorry Karina, I didn’t mean to imply that you were attacking at all. I just wanted to make sure people understood that the panelists were doing exactly what we asked which was enjoying participating in the festival. And they did a TREMENDOUS job in helping with anything we asked such as last minute Q&A’s. I just wanted to put that out there. Scott is right as is Kim - who wrote over at MCN. We asked them here as panelists and jurors and they completely went above and beyond in what we asked.
This story was hot for two days — last Friday and Saturday — and was over by yesterday. Some final thoughts: (a) There was no tantrum, as I’ve explained. I was angry, yes, but mostly depressed, mournful, beaten down, and quietly resolved to packing and flying home. If it was Snider who said I threw a fit, he is a reckless liar; (b) I’ve acknowledged that I should have played it differently and have thought better of the panel blow-off since; (c) I have told the Oxford folks that I’ll be refunding them their air fare, and I will do that; (d) The Oxford has expressed nothing but kind and gracious sentiments all along — they are very good and classy people; (e) And yet my decision to politely withdraw from the festival and fly home in lieu of decent wifi was fully justified as the festival had NO BUSINESS inviting fast-track journos down to their festival without rock-solid wifi at the hotel. Nonetheless if I had to do it over, I would have attended the panel. I made a mistake but it was a mistake born not of rage or avarice but a kind of deflation of the soul. Snider, I feel, is a kind of fuming pig for railing about this as much as he has. I have never been one to point fingers and get out the bullwhip when a fellow journalist makes a misstep. I side with my own unless they’ve beaten their children or have run down an old lady while drunk. This is a way of saying that I forgive Snider for his inability to contain the battery acid in his personality. Well, I guess that’s not fully true. But I’m trying to.
And just to clarify …
Snider and Weinberg (and James for that matter) were there representing themselves, as film critics who freelance for several different websites, and not Cinematical. But because we dig the fine folks over at OFF, like we did last year, we dished out a preview piece and will post a recap tomorrow. We do the same for a few other smaller festivals throughout the year. Cinematical was not “covering” this festival; I just wanted that to be made clear.
Jeff Wells, vulgar egomaniac and writer of questionable ability, wrote:
I made a mistake but it was a mistake born not of rage or avarice but a kind of deflation of the soul.
“Deflation of the soul,” over not having wi-fi in a hotel room?????
What a colossal idiot!
Good piece Karina.
Make Out with Violence premiered in Atlanta last year. Didn’t it win an award there???
Karina, while I appreciate the questions you raise here, it seems that you should have made efforts to talk to anyone involved before speculating on this matter. (Perhaps you did, but it’s not evident in your post.) What happened in Oxford was dramatic only because of the way in which it was handled by a single individual, though many of the panelists (fellow journalists, industry folk, acquaintances of the offending party and strangers alike) did get upset on behalf of the festival. When it became even more personal (and public) thanks to Wells’ one-sided rants, well, it seemed only fair that someone attempt to set the record straight. That person was Eric Snider, and his accounts were absolutely accurate.
Yes, Wells mentioned the festival numerous times on his site — but only peripherally, via Memphis sightseeing, or by talking about what he ate for lunch and how much more interesting that was then the movies playing at the festival he did NOT see. I suppose that is publicity, but it’s not the right kind of publicity - and certainly not “reporting” on the festival itself.
That said, I myself did not go to Oxford with the intention of covering it; like Scott, I was there to participate. Your post did seem highly critical of the critics who were in attendance, whether you meant to be so or not.
Lady, you are out of your mind.
[...] Karina Longworth has an interesting account of Jeff Wells’ meltdown last week at the Oxford Fi…. An excerpt: Jeffrey Wells had so much trouble with the wireless internet in his hotel room that he threw a fit, refused to attend a panel for which the festival had flown him out to appear on, threatened to leave town, then decided to stay when the festival put him up in a new hotel…. [...]
I’ll say one more thing here and then I’ll leave it to anyone still bothered one way or another to fight it out.
This post wasn’t intended as a mean-spirited critique of any individual and their choices (including Jeff, who started this whole thing out of a place of professional integrity, and even if it went too far, by his own admission, I respect that). I was hoping we could have an honest conversation about why film festivals fly out guests, what they want in return, and what our responsibilities are if we accept such invitations. If you take an invitation with the understanding that you’ll be taking a weekend off at the festival’s expense, is that different from taking a resort junket at a studio’s expense? What are they buying, and what are we selling?
I don’t know the answer to these questions, but my hope was that we could have some conversations around them in a detached, professional manner. The fact is, a newspaper probably wouldn’t allow their full time reporter to take the OFF offer as it was described in the comments here … but, we’re moving into a world where full time newspaper reporters are extinct, so I think it might be time to reevaluate those rules. In any case, I’m learning a lot about the sensitive spots of these issues from the comments and private emails I’ve received. And I love to learn.
Is Faraci equipped to talk to anyone about professional behavior? The man is 3 drinks away from an embarassing outburst or idiotic statement. Actually, that’s not fair. He does that sober as well.
This is the problem with most film entertainment websites is an entitlement complex. These guys believe they are part of the industry, rather than the sad little starfuckers they’ve become. Wells bailing on a festival due to no WiFi is like an musician cancelling a gig because he didn’t get a bowl of green m&m’s that was listed in his rider.
It’s a sad, megolomaniacal display, just like Faraci’s idiotic taped rant they posted and then mysteriously deleted over at Slashfilm.
These guys aren’t journalists, they are attention seekers. And like all spoilled children, when no one takes them seriously and gives them positive attention they act like assholes forcing people to take notice.
Such sad little men. Amusing, but only in the most morbid of ways.
The argument that this publicity is good for the festival brings to mind Mezzaluna, the Brentwood restaurant where Nicole Simpson ate and Ron Goldman worked on the last night of their lives. There was an uptick in ghoulish interest in the place for a year or two, then it went out of business. And, of course, the behavior associated with the place wasn’t remotely mitigated by that brief flurry of success. What happened in Oxford wasn’t anything like murder, of course, but there’s a lot of post-facto rationalization on the part of some parties that recalls a certain Heisman Trophy winner’s mindframe.
Actually a newspaper, the Commercial Appeal, did let their film critic John Beifuss take off for the festival as he was also on the panel. Since they are the Memphis newspaper and therefore cover the festival, he had someone else write about the festival since he was part of it. I don’t know if that gets closer to the question you presented, but it is an interesting thought.
To be fair, our other panelists are not film critics and received the same accommodations. For myself the answer is no, but do expectations change if a panelist also is a member of the media?
For our fest, we invite the panelists to be on the panel and to share their experiences. I personally helped create the film critic panel for two reasons: I wanted to hear from these people and learn from their experiences, and I wanted Univ of MS journalism students to have the opportunity to learn more about the field. Giancarlo Eposito was also on the panel and I highly doubt he will be reporting on the event. (smile)
But you have posed an interesting question Karina!
Karina: “I was hoping we could have an honest conversation about why film festivals fly out guests, what they want in return, and what our responsibilities are if we accept such invitations. If you take an invitation with the understanding that you’ll be taking a weekend off at the festival’s expense, is that different from taking a resort junket at a studio’s expense? What are they buying, and what are we selling?”
Those are valid questions, and ones I’ve been pondering of late too. I’ve always seen it as, if a festival brings you out as press, without any other responsibility such as being a panelist or juror, they may not expect you to say something nice, but they expect you to say something. I find it hard to fathom that any festival would have me or anyone else from the press out for a vacation opportunity, without some other responsibility. Then again, I’m not a big name in press (I can imagine someone like Ebert getting a couple vacation style invites, but he can give press just by being mentioned; no one would bat an eye if they saw “Mark Bell, formerly of Film Threat” so my perspective is going to be different).
When it’s been to speak on a panel, I know that my presence is helping a festival out with an event, and therefore my responsibility, and value, to the festival is to speak on that panel no matter what. At the same time, I’ve personally never been able to justify a trip solely for a panel, and would cover the festival as I would had I gone on my own dime, which is to say, I’d be seeing movies, reviewing them and then blogging about the events and adventures I’d enjoyed along the way. While I do not think a festival, upon inviting me out for a panel, expects me to go beyond the panel, I don’t think I’d be wrong to assume they HOPE I do, to bring that extra coverage out. In many ways, to cover the festival beyond the business arrangement of a panel invite is a way of saying “thank you for thinking of me in the first place.” It’s not required, but it is good manners.
At the same time, when I was with Film Threat, there was as much value to my own site in me seeing and reviewing films, and commenting on a festival, as there was for the festival itself. Very symbiotic that way: I need interesting content for the site, the festival needs to be seen as interesting content, so both sides benefit. As long as both sides realize that any coverage will be honest and possibly as negative as it could wind up being glowing, then it all seems to make sense to me.
When a festival has brought me out as a juror, however, it is extremely hard to cover it as press as well. Mainly because, as a juror, you just cannot offer your opinion on films you’re judging during the festival, and it even feels impolite to say what you thought after the fact. Then coverage becomes more about atmosphere, and while there is value in that, I know if I’m a juror than my responsibility, first and foremost, is to see all the films I’m judging and then come up, with the help of the other jurors, with a winner.
I can happily say, however, that my coverage of festivals has been the same whether I had a paid invite or covered on my own dime (save the juror situations), and I think that there’s a value in consistency. At the same time, that consistency almost creates an unspoken business agreement between a festival and the press they’re inviting; if you deliver a certain level of coverage, a festival that invites you, while they may not come out and state that they expect that same level of coverage, they’ve got to be thinking it. Again, the value for a non-juror / non-panelist press is their coverage. This is why we have to keep submitting proof of our coverage of a festival every time we try to get a press badge.
In the end, too, it is important to remember that the ones who benefit the most from all of this are the filmmakers. If a festival can load their event with press, filmmakers get a better shot at having their films covered by somebody. On top of that, if a festival gets enough press, they can justify existing to the people pulling the purse-strings, which feeds the filmmaking community by keeping one more theatrical / public-screening festival option around for another year. And if we follow that line of “who benefits” further, film press, at least on the level that I’ve known it, would not have a job if there weren’t films to see and festivals to cover. In that way, you’re doing for yourself while you’re doing for others, and maybe the business arrangement that you’re striking, on a grander scale, is with the overall ecology of the filmmaking community.
On that grander notion, maybe that’s why folks have been so incensed with Wells. In his way, he thumbed his nose at the entire community but not attending that panel. He let the filmmakers down, and he upset the balance a bit. Plus, disappointment is a powerful feeling, and there are many of us out there that feel that Wells is a brilliant writer and just get let down by his behavior, time and time again. To that notion, in the end, I can only say to them, and myself… focus on doing your job to the best of your ability. That’s all you can ever really control anyway.
Boy, this went on far longer then I had planned…
It is the culture of the moment that gossip reigns over news or reviews or anything else. The writers in Oxford could have written dozens of pieces and Wells would still have been the story of the weekend. It was the same at Toronto when that idiocy about nude photos requested from a director came up. It was all anyone talked about for days.
The question of how festivals interact with journalists is a legitimate one. Couching it around Wells is neither smart nor the way to initiate a real conversation. Wells’ issues are beyond the bigger issue and the list of places where he is quietly persona non grata is long.
The issue of legitimacy and accepting travel from festivals is going to become more significant as the economy continues to worsen. Major papers now accept free lunches when they never did before. Junket and festival expenses are not far behind.
In my opinion, if you are a guest, you should act like a guest. You don’t shit on the floor or chase housekeepers down the hallway. But you also have the freedom to review movies as you so wish, unless there is some other agreement on the table.
I am an advisor to the Bermuda Film Festival. I stopped covering it in any real way when I took on that role. But each year we invite both journalists and talent, looking forward to their participation, whatever press comes of it, and their personal word of mouth. The festival works very hard to make sure that people are well taken care of while on the island. Most are good about it, some are great, and there are always a few complainers. But we’ve never had a public attack over wi-fi, which is always iffy even in Bermuda’s best hotels, or anything else except one or two slaps at programming in the early years. In the end, the measure of the positive energy from any guest is the memory of that person and what they brought to the party. No one - except our publicist - is counting words.
This issue, for me, extends to other non-festival work. Do I interview someone if I don’t like their movie? Am I obliged to tell them? Do I lie? Where is that line? All hard and compelling questions that we all wrestle with.
What I don’t do is to slap them in the face and post a blog entry about how much I enjoyed it. That is not journalism. It is not even gossip. It is bad behavior, however you slice it.
This is the closest I have come to a “Jeff Wells issue” in years, but because you, Karina, made it about something bigger, I felt compelled to comment. In WebLand, piggybacking real ideas on controversial eye-catchers is a bad habit – which I have certainly indulged in – that is catching on in Traditional Media. And we should all cut it out.
“Sure, no reputable festival would tell a journalist that they’d pay for their trip chiefly because the festival wants the coverage, and no reputable journalist or blogger would take that deal.”
Just to clear up that point, festivals often invite writers solely for their coverage of the event. No juries or panels are needed and many papers, websites and blogs accept such invites. They don’t guarantee *positive* coverage, of course, but flights and hotel are often, regularly and routinely provided to and accepted by publications and some level of coverage is expected.
OK, so Jeff Wells probably should’ve attended the panel instead of ankling in a minute and a huff. And Jeff “The Dude” Dowd shouldn’t have violated John Anderson’s personal space, and Anderson shouldn’t have punched him. And I shouldn’t have showed Jeff Wells my shortcut to the Racquet Club at Sundance, because I wore snow boots and he wore street shoes soon soaked by snowmelt. But these events are part of the film fest drama, so it’s good to report them (and maybe encourage reliable wifi connections, which not even Sundance always does). And one should remember the extreme pressure Wells and others are under to file copy constantly. If fest bloggers behave snarkily or sharkily, maybe it’s because sharks that don’t keep moving fast soon die.
I’ve never met Jeffrey Wells but this whole episode has me thinking that if they ever did film A Confederacy of Dunces, they should just slap a flap-eared hat on him and there’s your Ignatius J. Reilly.