Helen DeWitt, longtime Producer of the London Film Festival, has given us her feedback on our To upload, or not poll. Speaking on behalf of one of the world’s largest and most prestigious festivals – and one that upholds the premiere rule – we’re very pleased to welcome Helen’s comments.

“One thing that filmmakers and festivals have in common is the desire to have work seen and appreciated by audiences. Of course there are numerous ways to do this and, especially for shorts, there is no one tried and tested route. In terms of deciding whether to put your short film online, filmmakers obviously consider a number of issues around audience access, quality of experience, context, monetisation and future prospects for the film and the filmmaker.

Clearly, putting you film online can theoretically give you greater audience numbers than any other delivery method. But does this automatically make it the right thing to do? Possibly not. If you don’t do any additional promotional work then those audiences may not know it exists, so you can’t tap in to even a small percentage of the potential viewers. The quality of experience may also be important to you and you might really like your film to be seen on the cinema screen. In our live-cinema impoverished world, the best chance of this happening is at a festival. You need to be mindful that many festivals, like London, operate a premiere policy, so if this is what you want, don’t go online first. You can always do that after the film’s finished its festival life. Another advantage of festival screenings is that they can create a significant buzz around the film and anticipation may built for the online experience later on. It may be spotted by a potential producer or development executive who can make your next film happen. The industry do use festivals to discover new talent, so a successful festival screening could – just could – be the making of your career. Many festivals have short film awards and this could not only mean a nice bit of cash, but also a higher profile for your work too. One other thing that festivals offer that is harder to find online is a context for screening the films. This is because films are selected and programmed with particular ideas in mind, whether this is in a thematic programme or before an appropriate feature. If you’re lucky, either way this can mean that your work is programmed a alongside filmmakers whose work you admire. Again, this can only help your film achieve a greater reputation by means of its situation.

In terms of money, it’s unlikely that a festival will pay for the screening of a short film. Some will pay for a festival visit, most will offer some form of hospitality. This, of course, is fun, especially if it also means hanging our with those filmmakers you admire. Its hard to make sales of shorts at festivals, maybe with the exception of Clermont Ferrand, where the world’s shorts-buying TV channels and DVD companies will gather. Its also pretty hard to make money from putting you film online, unless you’re doing it through an outlet that gives money from advertisement sales back to the filmmakers. However, if you have funded your film by online crowd-sourcing, there could well be an expectation from your online investors that they should be the first to see it.

In terms of future prospects, its not simple. The key thing is to weigh up all the advantages and disadvantages of all the promotional strategies that you may adopt. The best time to do this is before you even turn the camera on. It doesn’t mean that you have to stick rigidly to the plan if unexpected opportunities come up, but it does give you advance marketing intelligence and a guiding pathway.”

- Helen DeWitt