How to create a Sundance binder of epic epicness.

At Sundance last year, I came upon a woman at the Marriot bus stop who didn’t know which bus to take. So I whipped out the binder I had prepared for the event, found the appropriate map, and we figured it out—but not before the woman asked, “Are you some celebrity’s personal assistant? That’s an amazing amount of information you have there!”

You can chalk it up to the brief period of time when I actually was someone’s assistant, or my years as a secretary at a real estate appraisal firm, but being prepared isn’t just an awesome song from The Lion King—it’s a way of life for me. There’s nothing I fear more than being underprepared (except maybe for spiders and tsunamis, but that’s another blog post). Hence, the insane and super-organized binders I put together for the film festivals and cons I attend. I have a very specific but simple method I follow and it hasn’t failed me yet. I thought I would share it with you.

First, I take a 1/2-in. three-ring binder and insert dividing tabs, then label them: Itinerary, travel info, maps, film info, event info, contacts and misc. The tabs are fairly self-explanatory. Under travel info, I place all the confirmation documents for my travel, including flight, shuttle and hotel. Film info has the P&I screening schedule, synopses of the movies I’ve decided to cover, information on when I emailed publicists/whether I heard back, and press notes. Event info contains all the invites for parties I’ve RSVP’d to. Contacts has emails and phone numbers for publicists.

The maps tab is a little more fun (if you’re an organizational weirdo like me). I print out the Sundance bus routes in color on an 11” x 17” sheet of paper, punch some holes, and then insert it in the binder:

After that, I fold the outer edge into the binder rings, then fold it outward again so I end up with this:

It’s super easy to pull out and examine; you don’t have to strain your eyes at all, and it fits perfectly in your binder! Last year I included shuttle, bus, walking, county, intown and canyon maps, but that’s overkill. Here’s the only map you’ll need (a non-interactive PDF is in the lower right). This year I printed out the shuttle time schedule and put it in my binder under maps as well. (PS: Isn’t my hole puncher awesome? He looks so hungry!)

Now here’s where things get kind of nuts.

I use post-it flags to label EVERYTHING, from the different maps I’ve included to the individual press notes under “film info” to the separate events I’ll be attending. Obviously I haven’t gotten that far this year yet, as I’m just in the beginning stages of binder prep, but here’s a look at last year’s binder contents:

Flags upon flags upon flags. With this system, I can use the dividers to flip to a certain category, then use the flags to find what I’m looking for easily and quickly.

I’ve saved the itinerary for last because this element is in flux the longest. Everything goes into the itinerary—travel information; confirmation numbers; interview dates, times, locations, and publicist contact info; events; important phone numbers; etc. My itinerary for this year’s fest only has my flight info on it, so it’s not even worth showing. But you can get a feel for a nearly-complete itinerary here (for some reason I lost the first few pages, but you get the idea; phone numbers and email addresses have been blurred for obvious reasons):

Because changes are made on the fly while you’re at the fest, an itinerary is never really finished. But this is a good template that puts all the information you need in one easy-to-access place. And you have all the other raw information at the tips of your fingers, too, if you need it. Some people might think this is overkill, but I know from experience that it works. —Erin