Month: October 2008

Categories
Truly Free Film

Navigating Film Festivals

Scott Macauley linked to yesterday’s post on the Filmmaker Magazine Blog and included a link to Chris Holland’s book “Film Festival Secrets”.  Seems like a good thing to read up on as you dream about being selected for Sundance.  I am going to give it a look.  You have to sign up, at least temporarily for Chris’ newsletter and then they send you the book — so I haven’t gotten to look at it yet.

I am going to be posting some basic advice over the next few days on how I personally recommend viewing the festival circuit, and in particular Sundance, — once you are in.  Chris’ book is a very comprehensive overview on selecting your festivals,  how to get in (and manage when you don’t), marketing, building your team, preparation, troubleshooting, and followup.  It’s a quick read and an incredible resource.  It compiles what took me years to learn.  It does though take festivals a bit as an end into themselves, whereas Truly Free Filmmakers must see them as just the first step in building awareness about their films.  
Festivals have to be used very judiciously these days.  Festivals are going to change from many diverse and singular events to much more of a unified community focused on year round programming.  They are the keepers and maintainers of aggregated film lovers and cinephiles nationwide.  They will be able to leverage that community into a truly valuable resource for TFFilmakers, but a new model needs to be found.
Categories
Bowl Of Noses

Rinpa Eshidan Bird’s Eye View

Okay, we admit: we’ve been BOWLED over by this Japanese doodling crew.  Here they are watched from above.  They give new meaning to “action painting”.

Categories
These Are Those Things

More Godard Trailers

You have to love the music in the MASCULINE FEMININE trailer:

I know that this film is to blame for my film school laundromat shoots, and those of many others.  And many young women’s hair style and fashions to this day live comfortably in this forty year old footage.
BREATHLESS is responsible for so much, a day doesn’t go by without being chock full of references:

Categories
The Next Good Idea

Got A Roof? Wonder How Good It Is For Solar Power?

Roofray is a clever website.  I first read about here at Freshome.  It has all the tools to determine the potential of any roof to generate solar power.  It allows you to compare options, calculate the financials, essentially make the right decision of what system to buy.

Categories
Bowl Of Noses

Rube Goldberg’s Spawns!

Why is watching something do lots of stuff for no reason other than to keep moving so entertaining? Is there a section of the brain that loves useless complexity?  Was it really Rube Goldberg that really got this glorious contraption ball rolling.

We’ve sniffed out a bowlful of such wonderfully organized chaos to place in The Bowl today.
It’s hard to find a well shot video of the Goldbergian devices that call themselves art.  But this one qualifies:

George Rhoads seems to be the most recognized complicated-marble-run-as-art maker out there but unfortunately I have not been able to locate any quality videos of his machines in action.  You can see a lot of what he’s made right here though.
Categories
These Are Those Things

His Old Is Always New

For awhile Jean Luc Godard made films so fresh that, now –40+ years later — they still seem fresher than virtually anything anyone else is making.

Here’s the ALPHAVILLE trailer:

And here’s BAND OF OUTSIDERS trailer:

Categories
Truly Free Film

The Post-Fest Era

In September, Christian Gaines wrote a provocative two-part article for Variety speculating on a new business models for film rights holders in terms of how they use film festivals.  It’s required reading, and certainly got me thinking.

In this month’s Independent, Paul Devlin has a piece on lessons he learned on the film fest circuit with his film BLAST.  He definitely has some good information for all, but again it was  ‘s last paragraph that got me thinking again:

Of course, the film festival model will always serve some film very well. But diverging interests may mean that film festivals necessarily become a much less essential element of a filmmaker’s strategy for promotion and distribution. Just as we seem to be entering a “post-distributor” environment in which filmmakers eschew rotten deals and embrace DIY, we may be witnessing the emergence of a “post-film festival” environment as well.

A new model needs to be found for filmmakers choosing (or having no other option than) to hold onto their rights.
Festivals can be a great way to heighten awareness for your film, but generally only in the local community where the film is playing.  To make matters worse, many festivals these days are over-programed and as a result the films simply get lost and overlooked.  The festivals and the communities make money on the sold out shows but not the filmmakers.  With only a few sales happening and then only at the highest festival level, filmmakers can’t be attending with the hopes of a deal?  So how can festivals be utilized by the Truly Free Filmmaker?
It would be ideal for local festivals to initiate deals with local theaters so that prize winning films would get an automatic one or two week booking three or four months after the festival.  I have to imagine this is done somewhere already but frankly I am clueless as to where.
It would be ideal for colleges and community centers in and around the local festivals to agree to bring filmmakers and their films out to lecture one or two months after winning at the festival.  This would allow for some local publicity to be done in advance of a future booking.
The most natural fit for regional festivals and TFFilmakers is for the filmmakers to use the festival to launch a specific DVD sale directly at the festival.  At the very least they could take pre-orders.
I found it very exciting when Slamdance announced this year that certain films would be available for streaming directly after their festival premiere.  When I have heard of a film playing a major festival, that is when my “want-to-see” is at its highest.  Six months later another 50 films have moved ahead of it on my queue.  TFFilmakers have to strike when audience desire is highest.