Tag: Sundance

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Truly Free Film

Film Festival Plan A: Beyond Bonding

For years, I have recommended filmmakers do all they could to bond with the other filmmakers they met at festivals, for as the films travelled festival to festival, these other filmmakers would become their support group, their friends, perhaps even more. 

As we enter the Post-Festival Era, this support group needs to be transformed into a far more important alliance. It remains a top priority to find like-minded filmmakers, but now these fellow conspirators should be sought out as fellow distributors. With five united filmmakers you have a booking block, a touring film festival of your own making. 
If there was a way to locate all the other festival programmers, community center programmers, or independent theater bookers that attend the festival, this alliance would be in business.  Hopefully this type of independent booker will recognize that this is a new era and they can go to the filmmakers directly for an engagement.  Somehow I don’t think that’s going to happen this year, and these people remain hard to find.  Filmmakers need to share this information where ever they can find it.
I recognize that some may be hesitant to pursue this approach immediately after the festival.  The dreams of acquisition will still be strong.  Yet this sort of booking engagement is not a theatrical release in the traditional sense.  It is closer to a publicity tour — a publicity tour on someone else’s dime.  Field publicity is direct communication with the audience and that is the most successful way to build word-of-mouth on your film.
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Truly Free Film

Film Festival Plan A: Basic Web Stuff

It seems ludicrous to head into a festival these days and not have a website or blog for your film in advance. It seems silly not to have that web address built into you film end credits. It doesn’t have to be a final or even a polished site, but there should be something. How else will you tell your audience how they can participate in the experience or even see your film?

Beyond a website or a blog, filmmakers should do the simple outreach chores. Build a Wiki page for your film. Create a MySpace and/or Facebook profile for your film. Make sure all the info is in IMDB. 

And don’t forget images. Post some stills. Hell, post some clips up on YouTube. For years, filmmakers have been told to make presskits, but why not do the things that let the audience find them directly?  Why wait for the journalists; they have all been fired!
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Truly Free Film

Preparing For The Film Festivals

Its that time of the year when filmmakers nationwide get all antsy.  Sundance generally starts to let filmmakers know whether their work has been selected for the festival around the end of October.  This ritual extends for about four weeks until Thanksgiving gives everyone a break.

Generally speaking, for fifteen years now, filmmakers approach Sundance with a single plan: to sell their film for a big profit.  The logic of this singleminded pursuit is non-existent.  For several years now, great films with clear audiences screen without getting picked up.  The amount the lucky few achieve has been dropping consistently with a few exceptions.  Simultaneously, the need to work with the mainstream distributors has been dropping rapidly.  One could even argue that these distributors have defined their acquisition strategy so specifically that they need to even bother to attend the festival.
Filmmakers need to recognize that what once was the holy grail now needs to be regulated to Plan C or even Plan D.  I wish it wasn’t so and I wish many of the filmmakers could walk off the mountain with their wildest dreams of wealth realized.  But we all need to recognize what Plan A and B really should be these days.
Plan A has got to be that you will need to be the leading force in the distribution of your film.  This is the DIY model.
Plan B is that various experts will all want to work with you on Co-Distributing your film, albeit for a fee.
Plan C is that buyers for different media will want your film and you need to be able to evaluate how to mix and match these offers — or even accept those offers at all.
Plan D is that someone will make an offer of such an amount that it is worth considering giving up all your rights to your film for the next twenty years.
There are many aspects of each plan that need to be considered in addition to these various plans.  I will be doing my best to examine these aspects in the days ahead.  Although Plan D doesn’t really need any further thought than where to find a good lawyer; the indie world has relied on this plan long enough.
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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.