11
Getting Seen
The Festival Circuit
Let’s face it—every filmmaker intends to show at film festivals. Unfortunately, there are no guarantees that a film will make it into a festival. And then, of course, there are entry fees that stack up if you apply to many of them. The average filmmaker spends between $2,000 and $3,000 on submissions. But festivals are the first go-to if you want your work to be seen and taken seriously.
It will take a lot of work and deep-thought strategy to negotiate the festival world, but you’ll need to do that if you want to make any headway in your career. And it’s a given that career will involve getting feature films made. Because your short is your calling card (as we’ve talked about before), you’ll want to use festivals to lay the groundwork for funding that feature and perhaps also getting other film work.
To get professional strategy advice tailor made for you, you may want to hire a film consultant to help you devise that strategy. For the big picture and important tips, I turned to film festival programmer and film consultant Thomas Ethan Harris, who has given a seminar on film festival strategy at Loyola Marymount University. Mr. Harris has 20 years of experience as a film consultant and former director of programming (Los Angeles Film Festival, Palm Springs International Short Film Festival). His client base includes numerous Academy Award winners. He knows what he’s talking about. Harris said:
[B]efore you submit to any film festival pause and say, if I get into this festival what good can come for my film or my career? Always ask yourself that. You need an incentive before you submit. Don’t just submit blindly. You’re going to spend so much money on entry fees that it isn’t worth it.
If you’re playing your cards right and your goal is to work in the U.S. and make films, your targets at first should be North American Film festivals, because at these festivals (Toronto, Telluride, Tribeca, Sundance) you have the opportunity to go there with your short and meet somebody like an emerging producer who can actually help you make a feature. That isn’t going to happen on the international festival circuit. Foreign countries want to help their own people. They are not interested in helping the American short film maker make a feature.
There are community festivals—Florida, Savannah and so on that are great servers of their communities but what are you expecting to find there? You need an incentive to apply to those. For instance you might be shooting your feature just outside of Savannah. That’s a reason to go so you can meet the Georgia film commission and maybe get funding. If your incentive is to have your family come and the festival is where they live that makes sense. If you want to go to Italy and travel, you might want to apply to foreign festivals just to do that but don’t apply to foreign or community festivals just because you want to be seen on the red carpet with no hope of getting a feature made.
Film festivals are more expensive than most people think. You should know that if you do get in to bigger festivals, you have to go. You just can’t send your film. Nobody is paying your way to these festivals so you should structure out how much money you can spend on submission fees and how you’re going to get there. If you plan on staying five days at a festival, that’s a good $5,000 from your own pocket. Often filmmakers don’t think about how much they’ll have to lay out to show up at their festival screens.
Thinking about your major incentive to get noticed and get a feature made, Harris advises people to apply to mainstream business festivals first. What are mainstream business festivals? They’re festivals that play all forms of content: documentaries, features, shorts, animation. They play a little of everything and are attended by the film business community. Producers, production companies, development people, and distributors go there to look for talent. Business people don’t usually go to genre festivals or shorts festivals. Harris says that short festivals do have business people from the shorts world, but the people that are going to help you fund your feature are not going to be at a shorts festival.
Here’s Harris’s list of mainstream business festivals in order of importance:
- Toronto International Film Festival
- Sundance Film Festival
- South by Southwest
- Telluride Film Festival
- New York Film Festival
- Tribeca Film Festival
- Chicago International Film Festival
- San Francisco International Film Festival
- LA Film Festival
- Cleveland Film Festival
It’s difficult to get into these festivals because they don’t take many shorts. Mr. Harris says:
[I]f you want to play the North American Business circuit and find yourself with your short not getting into Sundance, South by Southwest and Tribeca you know that you don’t have what the business festivals are looking for. It gives you a clue. It doesn’t mean that you can’t get into the LA film festival or the AFI Festival but you might then want to change your strategy a little and move away from the North American Business festivals and think about the community festivals.
Many of these are Academy Award qualifying and very prestigious. They just don’t have that business community draw.
Savannah for instance is a very wealthy festival and the only one in the world that pays for film maker travel and food. And you get to go to restaurants where all the famous journalists are eating so you can talk to them. Some of these community festivals are great places to be able to meet people. Sundance is a really hard place to meet people but for instance, the Sonoma Film Festival is usually attended by Francis Ford Coppola and he’s approachable. San Francisco is like that too. You can hang out with people at these community festivals and they are great for networking.
There are two primary film festival seasons: winter/spring (January through early May) followed by fall (August through the beginning of November). Know this and time your festival release when your picture is getting done. If you finish your film in April, for example, hold it a little bit and try for the fall festivals.
You should also know that very few festivals want premier status (that is, showing a film for the first time anywhere). For instance, Harris says that 80 percent of the shorts at Sundance have been seen in other festivals first, so most festivals don’t care when your film is played. Toronto International Film Festival and Tribeca Film Festival are both interested in premier status, and they will check to make sure, but that’s usually reserved for features. When you see a festival that you haven’t heard about tell you your short has to be a premier play, then that is a warning that festival isn’t really good. For features, premier status is everything. Not for shorts! Short filmmakers can start anywhere. Try to play mainstream festivals first, followed by genre and major metropolitan areas.
Timing and planning is important. Let’s say you play the great Austin Film Festival in October. Harris says you’re not going to get accepted into South by Southwest in March. When you play a major metropolitan community, and sometimes when you play a state itself (Texas is very rigid with the higher-end festivals this way), you’ll be limited. For example, if you play the Austin Film Festival you won’t be playing the Houston Film Festival too. You’ll probably be able to play major metro areas only once and lots of states too, so you’ve got to play the festivals that are most important for your emerging career first.
Harris cautions that even though some of the festivals will have these requirements online so you’ll know not to submit, many festivals won’t tell you. They’ll take your money and make you ineligible, so do your homework.
Harris points out one exception. He says that if you play Los Angeles, there are two primary mainstream festivals: the LA film festival in June and American Film Institute (AFI) in November. You are not going to be playing both, but what might be possible is that you can play the LA Film Festival in June and turn around and play a genre film festival later in the year like a Latino film festival, Asian American film festival, or a gay film festival, but you can’t do the reverse. For example, if you play an Asian American film festival in May, you’re not going to turn around and play a major festival in June.
What Festivals Are Looking For
Harris (2007) reminds us that not every short is a festival movie. He believes that
festivals are looking for auteur driven shorts. Festivals want to feel the presence of the director and a film that says something, has a point of view and a narrative design. Film makers have to be willing to get into the trenches with their own point of view. It’s about character and story and then how you visually interpret that and you have to figure out what expressive way you’re going to shoot that. The actual visualization of film comes from knowing who your character is.
He goes on to say that festivals want a film
that has a personal visual voice and not just performance and dialogue. Does the director know when to use a long take? Does the director understand not to reverse angle? Film festivals are looking for relatively high production value but not common stuff. Festivals are trying to find potential and the next great film maker.
Production value is hard core important, especially at Sundance. Making the choice to shoot in a low quality if it’s a choice—that’s one thing but if you put yourself out there in a rag tag way, people won’t have much tolerance for that. Shorts at bigger festivals are very professional[ly] made.
The Running Time Rule
I keep harping on this, but it can’t be said enough. No matter how many times I tell my students to keep it under 15 minutes, they chomp at the bit to stretch their film beyond that. Ultimately, if they do that, they sabotage any possibility of festival play.
Harris agrees:
The running time of your film does matter! The average running time on the mainstream business circuit is 12 and ½ minutes. At mainstream film festivals like Sundance there are six short programs and they want to have between 7–10 shorts per program. The minute you cross the 15 minute line you are not going to play many festivals just based on running time.
Rejection
Everyone gets rejection letters from film festivals. They’re part of the “game” and shouldn’t destroy you. Harris says that Sundance is among the most fairly programmed festivals because seven to eight shorts programmers boil down 1,000 films to 200, and all the programmers have to see those. Sundance plays only 60 to 70 shorts a year. Tribeca has two programmers, and they split all of their submissions. Most of the festivals work with unpaid interns, so don’t feel bad when you get rejected because your film might have been rejected by one of those!
Working the Room
When you arrive at a festival, Harris says that one of the most important things you can do is introduce yourself to someone on the publicity team. Go to the press office. People are very busy and under lots of pressure, so just introduce yourself quickly and tell them if something comes up and they need a short filmmaker to do an interview, you’re available no matter when or where. You could get a call at 4 a.m. so get ready.
He also suggests that you find the nearest FedEx office just in case you might meet someone who wants your film sent to them. Find a copy place and a quiet meeting place where you can talk to important people who show interest.
Make sure (as we’ve already pointed out in an earlier chapter) that you have your feature script written and with you. Harris agrees that there is no reason to get on the festival circuit unless you want to finance a feature. No one wants to finance another short! People will ask you what you are doing next. Telling them you’re working on a feature script that will be finished in six months won’t work. In six months they will have forgotten about you and your short and you will have missed the boat!
And remember that in mainstream festivals, feature filmmakers are kings. Not everyone there understands the value of shorts. That’s why you should consider entering shorts festivals (DC Shorts, LA Shortsfest, Palm Springs International Shortfest, etc.). If your short has played at good shorts festivals, people will be impressed and that will up your street cred.
The key in all of this is to stay determined and enthusiastic. Don’t be laid low by rejection, and make sure that you’ve budgeted for festival play in your fundraising efforts for your short.
Homework
Go online and make a list of all the community and genre festivals that apply to your projects. Be careful to consider the significance of these festivals and how you can use them to advance your career and your visibility. This will take time, but you need to carefully think about how you can take advantage of all aspects of the festival (location, population draw, public relations avenues) and apply these to your particular project.
The Ultimate: An Oscar
Admit it! Every one of us has at some time pictured ourselves holding that rare golden statue and stammering out an acceptance speech. Winning an Oscar for your short film is a surefire career launch. You can certainly apply to get into the running, but you’ve got to fulfill certain criteria.
First, the film can’t be more than 40 minutes long. Since we’ve already said that films more than 15 minutes long won’t get into festivals, that means shorts more than 15 minutes long that have won Oscars haven’t played at many festivals but might have qualified in other ways.
According to the Academy Awards website (www.oscars.org), to be eligible for award consideration, a short film must fulfill one of the following qualifying criteria within two years of the film’s completion date:
The picture must have been publicly exhibited for paid admission in [a] commercial motion picture theater in Los Angeles County for a run of at least seven consecutive days with at least one screening a day prior to public exhibition or distribution by any nontheatrical means. The picture must also appear in the theater listings along with the appropriate dates and screening time(s).
The site also includes technical requirements for these screenings (e.g., 35 mm or 70 mm film, or in a 24 or 48 frame progressive scan Digital Cinema format with a minimum projector resolution, etc.).
This means that you’ll have to rent time at a legitimate Los Angeles theater to show your short for a week. Usually your film will play at some ridiculous hour (7 a.m. or 3 a.m.) to an empty house, but it will have fulfilled the Academy exhibition requirements.
Unfortunately, the Academy says that student films cannot qualify with a theatrical release. But they can qualify if they win a qualifying award (best narrative short, etc.) at a competitive film festival. There is a Short Film Qualifying Festival list along with the prizes you’ll need to win to be eligible that you can find online at the website (www.oscars.org). It’s long and substantial and includes the LA Film Festival, The Palm Springs Festival, Sundance, and Santa Barbara Film Festival. The Academy warns that this list may change so make sure you get the most current information possible.
Another way that student films can qualify is to win a Gold, Silver, or Bronze Medal award in the Academy’s Student Academy Awards Animation, Narrative, Alternative, or Foreign Film category competition.
If your film does qualify, it can’t be exhibited publicly or distributed anywhere in any nontheatrical form until after its Los Angeles release. That means that it can’t be screened before that on broadcast and cable television, PPV/VOD (pay-per view, video-on-demand), DVD distribution, or on the Internet. That’s another reason you need to shun a YouTube release. You can show excerpts of the film totaling no more than 10 percent of its running time. That’s so that if you did show a clip of your project in order to get funding on one of the crowdfunding sites, you won’t be penalized.
You can get more details on the Academy website. These include technical data regarding sound and format, print requirements, dialogue or narration requirements (these must be substantially in English or the film must have English language subtitles), print markings, etc.
The site also cautions that only if your film receives a nomination can you refer to it in advertising and publicity materials. If your film is selected for the shortlist, you can’t identify yourself as an “Academy Award Finalist.”
If you’re up to that challenge, then why not go for it? Imagine the roar of the crowd, the glitz and glamor, your weeping parents, and your sorry-she/he-dumped-you ex! It’s a worthwhile dream and a just reward for all that hard work.
Other Venues
It’s true that film festivals are usually the first go-to choice for getting eyes on your project, but let’s say you applied to scads of festivals, blew your bankroll and still didn’t get anywhere. There is hope. You can always try your luck online. Things are looking up in that arena.
On July 31, Ryan Faughnder writing in the LA Times asked “What if Hollywood’s most profitable summer movie came not from a comic book, a best-selling novel or a video game, but from a viral video on YouTube?”
He went on to answer his own question giving as example “the tiny budget horror film Lights Out. The PG-13 movie was based on a three minute film from Sweden and made by a director no one had ever heard of. Yet the well-reviewed film grossed about $40 million in its first week of release, roughly eight times what it cost to produce.”
Faughnder says that “the eye-popping success of Lights Out represents a potential watershed moment for studios looking to YouTube as a source of inexpensive, untapped talent and ideas.”
He quotes Jeff Bock, box office analyst at Exhibitor Relations who says: “If you can get enough hits organically through YouTube, guess what, Hollywood will come calling. These online channels are the way that people are going to be discovered in the future.”
Faughnder says “to transition to more traditional modes of filmmaking. YouTube itself has evolved from an outlet for home-made videos to a much bigger player in the entertainment world. The San Bruno, California-based, Google-owned video platform opened a 41,000-square-foot production facility in Playa Vista in 2012, and in October launched the new subscription service YouTube Red.
“For their part, major studios have been under pressure to reach younger audiences who aren’t flocking to movie theaters like their parents did. They’ve attempted to leverage the popularity of YouTube’s ‘creator’ community, to reach a fervent, digitally savvy audience. DreamWorks Animation, Lionsgate and Paramount Pictures have all invested in the growing space.”
If you get enough hits (that means lots!), you’ll get noticed, and you can also enter video contests. There are scads of online competitions and you can put it out on Vimeo too. If you’re lucky enough to be one of the Vimeo staff picks you can really go far!
The key is to try all sorts of options. Get out there. Don’t limit yourself and be bold. You need to be your biggest advocate. You can’t be shy. Blow your film’s horn because you believe in it and in yourself. If you’ve got something wonderful, let the world know!
Reference
Harris, Thomas Ethan. “Navigating Film Festival Seminar Series” at Loyola Marymount University.