Angela Tucker at IFP's Resources Blog:
In this new era of digital downloads, film festivals are one of the few ways that you can see your film with an audience. Film festivals are like colleges – you need to apply to a wide range. And if you find that you need to have that icky conversation where you have to turn a festival down because another one offers you a premiere that is more ideal for you film, there are worse problems to have.
Sugar rush hour from Bianca Consunji on Vimeo.
This is admirable filmmaking: a documentary exactly as long as it needs to be, and not a second more. There are filmmakers out there who would try to make a feature-length doc out of this but documentarian Bianca Consunji sums up a man's life in two exquisite minutes. I don't know if this was submitted to film festivals but it could play a ton of them.
Peter Kafka at AllThingsD covers the recent release of Louis C.K.'s standup concert directly from the comedian's web site.
The new twist here is the way his experiment changes video “windows” — which determine when shows and movies show up on different outlets. By going direct-to-fanfirst, C.K. doesn’t shut off his chance to end up working the Big Media Companies he says he doesn’t want to work with. He’s just making them wait. So the people who really love him can get it right away, and he can capture almost all of that value in the transaction.
Kafka points out that there's plenty of room for traditional distributors to get in on the action after the first "fan-only" release:
Let’s say, for argument’s sake, that a million people pony up for the concert — basically, that is, everyone who watches his (great) show on News Corp.’s FX channel. (News Corp. owns this site, too.)
That’s a wildly optimistic estimate, and it will still be a fraction of the people that HBO, which has some 28 million subscribers, can reach. You can fault Big Media for a lot of things, but it remains pretty good at rounding up Big Audiences.
Filmmakers looking for validation in the DIY distribution model need look no further – the more experiments like this that we see, the more likely it is that distributors will look seriously at filmmakers who prove their worth by finding their own audience first and building a platform for bigger things later. While distributors have traditionally viewed DIY distributed films as damaged goods (perceiving the sales already out the door as missed opportunities for them), the model of building on previous success may become more common. Let's hope so.
At some point in the near future I may write up a semi-serious response to this video, but for now – just watch.
The feedback I got from the previous seminar date was that there needed to be evening and weekend options. Ask and ye shall receive: now you can attend the "Top Ten Tips for the Film Festival Circuit" seminar on Wednesday December 14th at 9pm and on Saturday December 17th at 3pm.
Check out the full description of this 90 minute seminar with live Q&A on the seminars page.
A rare glance behind the scenes at the Sundance Film Festival from Roger Tinch. If this wall works anything like the scheduling walls I've seen at other festivals, each sticky note represents a film in a particular venue at a particular time. Unsurprisingly, this one is a bit more complicated than most of the others I've seen.
Charles Judson of the Atlanta Film Festival, writing for CinemATL.
Programmers are no different than anyone else. Just as it is with audiences going to a local multiplex, we look at trailers and we instantly decide if films are ones we think we want to see, as programmers and as film lovers, if we think will enjoy them.
. . .
Unfortunately, too many films submitted to festivals either have misleading trailers–stop playing by the Hollywood big budget marketing playbook and you would be much better off. Or they do not have strong trailers at all.
So far this season I’ve seen at least three films that a filmmaker sent me a trailer for that had me pumped, and I walked away a little disappointed that the film was nothing like the trailer.
I'm in favor of cutting a trailer for your film and as a screener for festivals I rarely watch the trailer first.
Read How Your Trailer May Kill Your Chances of Being Accepted.
Science documentarians take note: this touring science film festival may be the place for your film, particularly if it caters to children.
From the Jakarta Post:
The Science Film Festival is a roadshow of 16 science-themed documentaries geared to children and youth. This year, the Goethe Institute, as the organizers of the event, has settled on 20 venues across 12 cities stretching from Jakarta to Gowa and Jayapura in which to screen the free movies.
Agus added that the movies highlighted not only matters of the environment, but also spoke of poverty and justice in a softer light.
“There were not many special cinematographic techniques used but the method of storytelling was adapted to children,” he said.
The movies were indeed geared to a more boisterous audience. One of the documentaries, a nearly 10-minute German film called Nine and a Half: Bees in Danger featured high school students speaking on the importance of bees and a comical woman dressed in a bee costume, complete with a detachable stinger.
The festival is held by the Goethe-Institut in Germany and select films tour Cambodia, Indonesia, and Thailand. The next call for entries opens in January.
Ashkan Karbasfrooshan at mediapost.com, writing about online video distributors like Hulu and Netflix:
Now don’t get me wrong, while content is king, monarchies are no longer in vogue; indeed the distributors have the power. Any producer that doesn’t “get this” is living in the past. But to ensure that advertisers keep the system running, distributors need to please viewers. To do that, you have to give viewers the content that they want when they want it.
The lesson is that producers are still paying the price for giving away too much, too easily, too fast. That kind of reputation is hard to shake. But once they realize they can have the upper hand if they play the game right -- then maybe, just maybe, they can get the diamond they deserve.
Read Does Exclusive Content Matter?.
(Via Amy Letourneau.)
Normally I'm not crazy about advertising gimmicks masquerading as corporate sponsored "film festivals," but this one is creative and compelling. The video above is a compilation of some of their best entries. The competition is open until December 13th.
From the official website:
190 years ago Nicolas Rieussec recorded time to an accuracy of a fifth of a second. The chronograph was born.
To celebrate his invention we challenge you to "seize the moment" and capture the beauty of a second.
The subject? It can be anything as long as it celebrates the fragile beauty of this short-lived unit of time.
Long, scrolling infographics like the one linked here have become a bit of a fad – the best ones tell an engaging story by visualizing related information in ways that make that information easier to understand. This one doesn't quite reach the heights that I've seen in really great infographics – it's too monochromatic, and some of the information isn't helped by its graphical presentation. Still, there are some good tidbits here. Raising funds through sites like Kickstarter is now an essential part of independent filmmaking so it's good to know all you can about the phenomenon of "crowdfunding."
It's the day after Thanksgiving – let the shopping begin! And don't forget the filmmaker in your life while you're at it. Here are some things that are essential to any filmmaker entering the film festival circuit.
5. A good travel bag like the ones made by Crumpler. At a festival a filmmaker needs to carry all sorts of things with her – promotional postcards, screener DVDs, cell phone charger – the list goes on. Crumpler makes some of the best bags I've seen. They're durable, attractive, and well-designed. For a festival day bag I recommend the Western Lawn messenger bag (pictured), but for more room consider The Complete Seed, a mammoth bag that can handle all your laptop/carry-on needs.
4. Submissions fees. Filmmakers spend a lot of money submitting to festivals and they rarely budget for this expense. You can help quite a bit by pledging to cover a submission or two. Fees run anywhere from $20 - $100 depending on the festival and timing (later deadlines are more expensive).
3. Lloyd Kaufman's book, Make Your Own Damn Movie! It's difficult to think of someone more qualified than Lloyd Kaufman to write a book like this – Kaufman held his own studio, Troma, together with his bare hands for decades. The book covers practically every aspect of filmmaking, including a short section on film festivals. If you're already a fan of MYODM, you should know that Kaufman wrote three follow-up books, Direct Your Own Damn Movie, Produce Your Own Damn Movie, and Sell Your Own Damn Movie.
2. The iPad 2 or Kindle Fire tablets. I'm seeing tablet computers like these more and more on the ground at festivals – they're a great way to show off a short film or film trailer to someone who wants to know more about you as a filmmaker. They're also lightweight and offer the ability to check your email and web site on the go. The iPad 2 ($499 and up) is the gold standard of course, but I'm hearing good things about the Kindle Fire ($199) as a portable video player for budget-conscious filmmakers.
1. The print edition of Film Festival Secrets. (Also available in Kindleand iBooks editions.) What kind of author would I be if I didn't include my own book in this list? If there's a better stocking stuffer for your festival-bound filmmaker friend or relative than this book, I don't know of it. Amazon currently offers a 15% discount on the book so you'll save a few bucks in the process.
One of the more popular talks I give at festivals and related events is a workshop on "The Top 10 Tips for the Film Festival Circuit." This workshop introduces new filmmakers to some basic festival concepts and helps experienced filmmakers get more from their festival run. For the first time ever I'm holding this talk as an online seminar on Thursday, December 1st 2011 at 3pm EST. Included in this workshop is a live Q&A session with yours truly, during which I'll answer as many questions as I can. I'm allowing 90 minutes for the full session so odds are good we'll get everyone's questions answered.
Some of the topics I'll be covering in the seminar:
Spots in the webinar are limited so if you're interested, please register now using the form below.