End of Year Exhibitions

Endslate is the annual end-of-year showcase featuring the graduating student works from the Bachelor of Fine Arts (soon to be Bachelor of Creative Arts) in Film, Screen & New Media and Animation at Queensland University of Technology (QUT). Held in late November or early December, this event highlights documentaries, narratives, music clips, and animations created by the graduating class. Originally a smaller event, Endslate has grown significantly over the years. The event now attracts hundreds of attendees and requires a significant collaborative effort from both students and staff to run.

Attendees gather for the 2021 Endslate event in Brisbane. Photo credit: Frances Wilson.

Summary of Key Activities:

To ensure the success of Endslate, a variety of tasks need to be coordinated, such as liaising with venues, managing prizes, sponsors, and polls, booking venues if necessary, proofreading booklets, distributing materials, checking technical aspects, creating the event schedule, managing guest lists, taking headshots, designing booklets, producing promotional materials, organising fundraising activities and entertainment, inviting industry representatives, and determining the date, dress code, theme, and tone of the event.

Students play a crucial role in finding a suitable venue in Brisbane, considering factors such as capacity, accessibility, parking, amenities, and technical support. Booking a venue involves negotiating terms, ensuring necessary equipment is available, and coordinating equitable ticketing and booking systems.

Pre-show introductions at Endslate in Brisbane. Photo credit: Phoebe Hart.

Challenges:

What tends to be ineffective for the Endslate event is offering free admission. It is important to establish a set ticket price to encourage attendance and commitment from potential attendees. When the venue is provided at no cost and no fee is imposed on attendees, the turnout is often only at half capacity, even if tickets have been fully distributed.

Although alcohol service is typically not a concern, issues may arise if students become intoxicated at the event, leading to unexpected behaviour. We typically recommend that students create an unofficial post-event plan, such as going to a nearby bar for additional celebrations for those wanting to “kick on” after the screening event has concluded.

Outcomes / Impacts:

Some students utilise the Endslate event as an opportunity post-graduation to refine and enhance their projects during the summer in preparation for entry into local and international film festivals. Notably, successful student works, particularly documentaries, have garnered Official Selections and accolades at a variety of film festivals, leading to the students enjoying increased exposure and more opportunities for future work.

One example is "Uncovered Lives – Australia’s fight for TRANS Healthcare'' directed by Kai Wharton and produced by Kitty Moroney and Nhu Ngoc Michelle Nguyen. The short documentary found success at various LGBTQ+ film festivals worldwide. The film chronicles filmmaker Kai Wharton's exploration of the challenges faced by transgender individuals in Australia who are seeking gender-affirming healthcare.

Uncovered Lives director Kai Wharton attends Endslate. Photo credit: Frances Wilson.

Once in a while, the Film Screen Animation discipline at QUT organises retrospective film screenings of student films from the past, such as the “Flashback” screening held as part of a festival of creativity held on campus in November of 2018. These types of events tend to attract alumni back onto campus to connect with staff and current students.

A printed Endslate event booklet is produced each year, which is a meaningful keepsake for students and their supporters. These booklets are also digitised and archived with QUT Library’s Digital Collections where they garner thousands of unique views online and serve as a valuable marketing tool for the course and its graduates.

Graduating students show off their Endslate booklets. Photo credit: Jo San Martin.

Final Reflections:

Endslate provides students with a unique opportunity to showcase their work in a professional setting and receive feedback from a large audience. The experience gained from event management at Endslate is invaluable for students preparing to enter the industry. It serves as a celebration of their accomplishments and a valuable learning experience in film distribution and viewer engagement. Despite its importance, the event can sometimes be overlooked as a costly or risky endeavour, and educators struggle to find adequate resources to run the event, which was in danger of collapsing completely during the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic. We anticipate that the event will persist for the duration of the course.

A rapt audience watches short films at Endslate in Brisbane. Photo credit: Phoebe Hart.