Tag: film festivals

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Truly Free Film

Hope For The Future pt. 2: Building The List

We started the list here (click to link).  Now we continue onwards.  We will only get to 52 with your help.  What else gives you reasons to be hopeful for film culture?

5. Giving it away for free is good business.  Anderson’s essay is required reading.  Look at Google who gives away 90% (est.) of what they create (the search engine) and drives a good advertising business in the process.  For years The Greatful Dead were one of the top grossing concert acts, driven in a good part by their willingness to allow their fans to “bootleg” their concerts and “distribute” them themselves.  The question is what do you give away and what do you use to produce revenue.

6. Film Festivals are evolving.  Local film fests have already identified the core film lovers in every region.  For decades these festivals have been content to live in a single period each year, overloading their audiences with too many choices come festival time.  Now festivals are giving theatrical bookings as awards (help us build a list of these).  Some are moving to a seasonal subscription model.  Some are even paying significant screening fees.  And then there are the cash awards (those are still around somewhere, aren’t they?).

7. Internet Streaming is being used by filmmakers to build A WORLD of Word Of Mouth.  Slamdance has announced that they will stream films right after the festival.  For years we have know that word of mouth is the primary way that a specialized film succeeds.  But it is costly, but now that has changed.

8. 2008 is the strongest year for under $1M EVER.  I have seen almost 20 films this year by filmmakers who clearly will develop a great body of work.  Only a few were at Sundance. They keep on coming.  They may still be hard to find, but the films are out there and at a quality and quantity  as never before.  Check out Hammer To Nail’s list of top 13 films of the year and get watching.

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Truly Free Film

A Filmmaker Friendly Fest

What makes a film festival truly “filmmaker friendly”?  I want to explore this.  To kick it off, a filmmaker sent me this which he received from Joe Cultrera of the Salem Film Festival in Salem, Massachusetts:

FILMMAKERS FIRST:
I pushed to make this a filmmaker-friendly event. Here’s what we did last year and are sticking to:
#1) No entry fees (we are not looking to make money from our filmmakers).

#2) Each feature-length film will be sponsored by a Salem business and the filmmaker will receive those sponsorship dollars as a screening fee (last year this was $250). This created a real community feel to our 2008 event – allowing small businesses to be active and visible sponsors and giving filmmakers the rewards of that participation.

#3) Attending feature filmmakers will receive free accommodations in our attractive and historic downtown (we want as many filmmakers as possible to participate).

#4) The Audience Award Winner receives a run at CinemaSalem – including a share of the gate.

#5) Attending filmmakers will have a great time (free food and drink, passes to Salem museums and parties, good attendance, intelligent dialogue, great swag; new friends).

I think this is an excellent start and hopefully other festivals will follow  Joe’s lead.
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Truly Free Film

Film Festival Plan A: Having Film Festivals Help You

Another post courtesy of Jon Reiss:

Besides launching your film and helping to put it on the map there are a number of other known reasons for being in film festivals: potential for reviews and awards (which are still good ways to create notice for your film – especially if you blog about them on your website!); meeting other filmmakers from around the world, boosting your confidence in your filmmaking abilities, getting to travel to fun locales (hopefully at the festivals expense).

However as there are ways to actually monetize your film festival experience. Here are a few ways that we did it for Bomb It – after we got tired of showing our film for free at festivals. (Remember servicing all those fests can take time and money)

1. Some festivals – especially foreign festivals will pay. You just need to ask. These are not the top 10 or 20 fests. It is the next level of festivals. We have been paid from $300 – $1000 to screen the film in some festivals. (Few fests will fly you and pay you though)

2. If a festival can’t pay, perhaps they can provide something else. This is particularly true of foreign festivals again. If you don’t have a PAL copy and they require it. Often times they will do the dub. You can insist on having that dub given to you (they don’t need it after the festival right!). We obtained our first PAL version of Bomb It from a documentary festival in Lisbon that then went around on the circuit.

3. Think of other things that you might need for your distribution. Again – foreign festivals need to translate your film. Although we had already created a transcription for Bomb It – you can ask a foreign fest to do it – and also provide the translation. We have received Spanish, Portuguese and Russian translations of Bomb It that we will be using on our self produced multi-language, PAL, region free DVD. (more on this in another post in the future)

4. Some festivals are actually connected to theaters in their community – and sometimes the people running the festivals actually program those theaters. One of my first theatrical bookings came from Wilmington, N.C. when I told Dan Brawley of the Cucoloris that I would rather have a theatrical engagement in his theater as an alternative to being in the festival, and he wonderfully obliged.

Further – although it would have been better for me to go to the wonderfull True/False festival in Columbia, MO (I had teaching obligations), I asked Paul Sturz if he would book me into the Rag Tag as part of our theatrical run and he agreed.

For more about my self distribution experience with Bomb It – check out my article in Filmmaker Magazine this month. 

Jon Reiss
www.jonreiss.com
www.bombit-themovie.com
www.bombit-themovie.com/blog
Categories
Truly Free Film

Post-Fest Era: Further Festival Initiatives

In a post on Variety’s Festival Blog, The Circuit, Steve Ramos writes about the unique launch and partnership Miramax is doing with the Heartland Film Festival and their film “The Boy In The Striped Pajamas”.

Battsek approved the call to partner with the 16-year-old festival on a single-night, 31-city screening program to promote “Boy in the Striped Pajamas” to Heartland partner organizations like the Boy Scouts of America in an attempt to build national awareness for the film.

This type of re-imagining of the film festival is critical these days.  Hopefully other festivals will follow suit and find new ways to increase a film’s exposure when they commit to play at a festival.  A 31 city simultaneous single day screening is possible even for the Truly Free Filmmaker in these days of digital projection.  How many festivals can extend beyond their home base?  Festivals have to think beyond their immediate community and increase their reach if they are going to offer filmmakers something truly meaningful.

I would be curious to hear what other festivals are doing to further their impact and partner with filmmakers.