Festival Advice

Shawn

Shawn

Hey everybody!

I've finally finished my movie, and I'm sort of wondering what to do with it. I'd love to show it in a film festival, but I don't really know where to begin, and I'm just curious if anyone has any advice. The movie is maybe a bit of an oddball because it's too long to be a short, but possibly too short to be a feature (it's about 65 minutes). It was done on a very low budget and shot on Mini DV with a GL-2. I put in a lot of time to try to make it look as polished as possible, and I think I did a pretty good job, but I don't think it would stack up too well against professionals with any kind of a budget. What do you think? I don't wanna piss away a bunch of money on admission fees if there's no chance of my movie being selected. 50 buck here, 60 bucks there, it starts to add up. I havent had time to post it online yet, and I know it's hard for you to judge without having seen it, but does anyone know of any good festivals that might be a good fit for a movie like mine? Thanks!

Shawn

PS- It's a silly sorta action comedy, so that leaves out all of the horror-fests.
 
Hey man, how are you?

Listen, I have not yet entered to any film festival myself. But I will tell you this. Don't be afraid, dont you ever feel intimidated by anyone. Big directors like Spielberg explore these film festivals and he doesnt look for professionalism, he looks for talent and creativity. You invested alot of time and effort into this 65 min project, now go out there and submit it! You really have nothing to lose man. Always be confident.
 
I think the hard part of having it accepted somewhere will be due to the length. As it isn't feature length, but is far too long to be a short unless it REALLY piques a programmers interest you may find yourself left out in the cold.

On the other hand, being longer than a short but shorter than a feature may play to your favor if someone winds up with a gap in their scheduling that isn't long enough for a feature. The only way to know for sure is to get it out there and see what happens.

You might want to register on without a box to make you life a bit easier submitting to festivals and such, additionally I think you get discounts at many fests by using the service. If you're lucky, you'll get into a few, start winning some awards, someone from one of the bigger festivals will like it and invite you to show it at theirs -- which means no entry fee. ;)
 
Hey guys,
Thanks for the replies and the link. I did register on without a box, and it seems like there's a lot of good stuff there. Almost too much. There's about a billion festivals, and it's hard for me to tell them apart. Just wondering what are some good, fun, small to medium-size festivals if anybody has any recommendations. Was thinkin maybe FirstGlance, SlamDance or Asheville, (but not sure if I'm aiming too high or not). Are there any that are specifically for first-time filmmakers? Anybody got any good personal experiences with a festival that they could share? Thanks a bunch!
Shawn
 
On withoutabox they have two categories you can browse - "Emerging"
and "Startups & Visionaries". Fests in their first couple of years can be a
great place to get the feel of the process. The three you mention are pretty
big. SlamDance is one of the toughest to get into, often harder than Sundance.

I agree with Will. You're going to have a really hard time simply because of
the length.

My feature "dark crimes" has played in seven festivals - I entered 30. The festival
circuit isn't for the poor and you really have a tough sell at 65 minutes. So my
advice is to decide how much you can spend over the next year, stay away from the
top 20 fests and enter as many of the emerging ones as you can afford.

Try "Southern Winds". My movie played there in September and it was a great
experience
 
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hey guys, do you have to attend the festivals to speak in behalf of your film? or can you just mass them out and wait for a letter saying if you won a award?
 
It's good to attend but rarely required.
 
I have regretted the few fests I didn't attend. Mostly because
I had such great experiences by going. But no; you don't have
to go.
 
Try the free festival route first!

Hi,

As to a way to "test" your short feature try submitting to foreign film festivals first. They have, in most cases, no entry fees and shipping cost are relatively low if you ship first class International via USPS.

These foreign fest are just as hard to get accepted into as the major indie fest in the USA.

For English speaking fest try; London Int. FF, Cork FF in Ireland, New Zealand FF, etc. Without a Box should help. Do a Google search for international ff and the ff websites will give you the lowdown on whether or not they accept English only films.

If you get accepted into any of the top tier fest overseas then rest assured you are doing something right, and you also don't screw yourself in the coveted "North American Premiere" that fest like Sundance, Slamdance, Telluride, etc. demand. Also if you win awards overseas it goes a long way to getting accepted into the North Amer. A-list fest.

Hope this helps,

Steven Kahler
 
Festival lobbying?

Hi everyone,

Great site, I just found it and registered.

I finished my first film in the last few months (a documentary called Including Samuel) and have been submitting it to festivals through Withoutabox. I've gotten into a few smaller ones, been rejected by a few medium/larger ones. I'm waiting to hear about a bunch of others.

I've read Chris Gore's book on festivals, and there is one thing that is alluded to but never fully explored: do people lobby festivals somehow to get their film accepted, even going so far as to contact screeners directly or try to get the 'right' screeners to see your film? I don't know whether to just let my film sink or swim on its merits, or whether I should be doing something else to give my film the best chance of being accepted. I wonder particularly about the inner workings for programming at the bigger documentary festivals like Full Frame or Hot Docs.

Any thought/advice?

Dan H.
 
Shawn said:
I put in a lot of time to try to make it look as polished as possible, and I think I did a pretty good job, but I don't think it would stack up too well against professionals with any kind of a budget. What do you think? I don't wanna piss away a bunch of money on admission fees if there's no chance of my movie being selected. 50 buck here, 60 bucks there, it starts to add up.
Click to expand...

First:
Budget Schmudget! We don't need no stinkin' budgets!:D ...well, it would be nice to have one.

If you have a good film, I don't suppose it would matter if you had no budget. I have no budget for the mini docs that I do and I think they are nice docs. I don't think anyone will care what they cost to make.

Second:
Yes it adds up, so try to get into the early registration which can sometimes be much more inexpensive. Like early might be $30, but the regular registration could be $50.

-- spinner :D
 
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