ASK & DISCUSS INDEX

7 years ago - Vasco de Sousa

Why do you need festivals? They are mostly a waste of cash. A few are free to enter anyway. (Check out notice boards in your home town, and ask local filmmakers.)

Seriously, when you choose a movie to go to, do you really care which festivals it won?

Spend the money on making your web-series better, not on some jumped-up wannabe critics. With the entrance fee of one festival, you can feed a family in South Sudan for a week.

(That said, there are a couple film festivals I like attending, but as far as I'm aware they don't charge a submission fee.)

7 years ago - John Lubran

The commercially driven business imperitives of some film festivals are not always as evident as they ought to be. Laurels and awards from the great majority of them have dubious value. I'd even suggest that emblazoning some of their motifs on ones PR might be counter productive. If a festival doesn't attract the physical presence of experienced and manifestly professional film makers in addition to beginners and enthusiastic amateurs it's probably not worth the bother, because it's the networking potential that provides the best value of so many festivals.

The festivals that don't charge film makers but have industry sponsorship and associated links but are more demanding of quality and harder to get into, are more likely to issue awards that do provide commercial benefits to the film maker.

Dispite the hype, unless ones victory is with one of the small handful of 'blue chip' festvials, distribution success has little to do with most other festivals.

Just watched a troubling news item about youngsters wanting to be super models and being ripped off by agents who are very skilled at putting on a believable front. Beware of scams, sharks and svengalis.

7 years ago - Jane Sanger

Sorry I disagree with Vasco- having laurels all over your work in the early stages gives you credence. The general public don’t know a worthy festival from a great one and so when you crowd fund you put accepted to x festivals got y no of awards. The donations fly in faster, it’s just marketing. You say you have no money - start with a few free entry festivals then do a small crowdfund £300 ish for money for the better ones. So you say in your crowdfund hey look we already got into 4 festivals. We’re on a roll help us enter ——-And then name a few good web series festivals eg Raindance has web series I think. Also a tip only ever enter festivals I. The early bird timefrMe for cost and chances of getting in are higher.
Also getting an award at a festival DOES get you noticed. It Does encourage future funding if you go to the festivals and network. Don’t forget the British Film Council (different from BFI) will give you money to travel to the prestigious foreign festivals on their list if you get in ..... wonder why? Because it has been proven that there are chances at certain festivals to further your career.

7 years ago - Vasco de Sousa

Sorry if I confused the question with my initial response. The initial question was what to do when you can't afford the fees.

I guess you could crowdfund to raise money for the fees. It sounds interesting, I wonder what rewards you'd give in such a campaign.

As Jane Sanger also suggested, the British Council does fund getting there. But, if you don't even have the money to apply...

That said, there are free-to-enter festivals in interesting locations.

Also, note that two of us here are named Vasco now, so I think it's me who Jane Sanger disagrees with. :)

7 years ago - John Lubran

This is turning into another interesting and phylosophical conversation. It depends on what one wants from a festival award. Esteem and merit is perceived differently by different people. In terms of the great game of film making as associated with the art of it for its own sake and where no significant distribution commensurate with economic viability is likely or expected, then the whole 'great game' of seeking favours or commendations from the worthy doyens and institutions who by caprices of social politics may be able to direct some sort of beneficial resource towards ones worthy artform; well yes, that's one thing.

It's not as significant though as it may seem and the chasing of these titbits is much over blown.

For decades now there have been in place numerous grant and resource in kind institutions, very often, though usually only nominally, headed by some esteemed worthy; no doubt some have been pleased to have been chosen by them, those few who are good at playing that 'great game'. Even though in times past I played that game with some success, I've learned to steer clear of these institutions in the same way that I don't respond to tendering invitations from the public sector or NGO's manifestly entrenched in the same sort of sociopolitical cultures. The inherent corruption, even not always of a pecuniary kind, and inefficiency of institutionalism in general is enough to give the term 'worthy' its opposite meaning.

For every miserably won benefit there's probably a hundred applicants who invested time and resources uselessly; and often a very great deal of time and resources; I have the files me lud.

If something has an intrinsic value in society, especially with film and television, it can be viably distributed. I doubt that there's many crowd funded fiction features at all, even at a low six figures. Where micro budgeted films and shorts are concerned I imagine those crowds to be relatively small making assessing the value of festival laurels insufficient to provide for an empirical analysis.

It's different strokes for different folks. From my point of view, if one is creating something that a critical (viable) number of viewers are likely to want to invest their time watching, I'd not waste my time and spirit chasing worthies for their patronage or condescension on anything other than my own terms, but use that saved energy for extending my creativity towards making my own more worthwhile benefits.

No doubt there are some activities that have little hope of existence, ever, other than with the subsidies of either public or charitable patronage; but that's altogether something else.

Such dubious largesse however is unable to provide a working and sustainable template for all but a few of the 40,000 members of SP, let alone the aspirant community at large.

7 years ago - Glyn Carter

As someone who has submitted around ten different short films to a total of around 60 festivals, I'm more with Jane than John and Vasco.

Festival selection shows your film is at least watchable. It's vital for your cv. BAFTA-approved festivals are one key eligibility test for some funds. Networking is crucial - you might meet an agent, a producer with money (and even at the bottom end of the festival food-chain where it's mostly othr newbies, you can share experiences and maybe meet your next DP).

Filmmakers have to make films, but there's no point, unless their masterpiece is getting noticed. It's a calling card, right?

Hence publicity is as essential as the film itself, and needs to be budgeted for alongside production costs.

Publicity can and should have several strands.
(1) Put it on YouTube and promote the hell out of it on social media to boost the number of hits. Hard work, and you'd probably rather be making another film.
(2) Send links to targeted individuals.
(3) Get a "name" to endorse it.
(4) Get a review on one of the sites that do short film reviews (shameless self-publicity: I'm setting one up any day now, so contact me glyn@shortfilmreviews.video for details)

So far, so free or cheap.

(5) Organise a screening, and invite agents, publicists, producers as well as the cast and crew and all your industry contacts. Unlikely to be successful unless you already know enough people that (2) above will do the job. But it's useful networking for your cast, crew, investors etc. And you never know.

(6) Enter festivals.
- set a target - do you want two or three selection laurels, enough to establish your film isn't rubbish? Or do you think that 20 laurels is impressive (I don't think more is better, it just implies you had a huge festival budget). But more submissions means more chances of winning an award, which is very valuable.

- I had a 25% success rate from my submissions overall

- Be realistic about how good your film is. No point submitting a mediocre film to a BAFTA/Oscar approved festival. It will be outgunned by better. Online-only festivals are less picky. [What consitutes "good" and how to get an objective view of your film is a different discussion, but see (4) above.]

- go for a range of levels: reputable festivals and new/obscure/online. Take advantage of the local bias of any festivals near to you.

- attendance costs are more than submission costs. I went for places I could get to easily, or where I had friends with sofas, or where I fancied a holiday to.

- for Vasco: check they take webseries. If not, ask if they'll accept a pilot. (Call the first episode the pilot!)

Bit of a brain-dump here, but I hope it's useful.

Last bit of publicity: Short Film Reviews offers a guaranteed published review and screener link, AND entry into our annual live festival (London, March), for less than most festival fees. Call me biased, but I think that's a no-brainer!

7 years ago - Jamie Kennerley

I'll play devil's advocate here - and don't take ANYTHING personally - but why exactly would you want to submit your web series to festivals?

Presumably you've released it online already, and it's run its course. And if it didn't gain any traction that way - which is the way a web series needs to gain traction - then I'd imagine it's not going to achieve much more through a festival. And if it's REALLY REALLY good (and you should know), and for some reason you haven't released it online yet, then DO IT, or get a company involved that works specifically producing and distributing this kind of work. And they'll see that it's good and they'll snap it/you up.

Annoying as it may sound, the projects that are REALLY good, be they shorts, web series, features - and I'm talking once they're made and ready to exhibit - have a life of their own. Even the decent festivals will then ASK YOU to submit your series to their festival because they want to have it on the programme.

The process is slightly different with shorts, as in they CAN have a full festival life before they're released online, but a web series needs followers and an active regular audience, which a festival is not going to give you. And a couple of awards from a few shoddy festivals (or which there are plenty) will not help your web series be any better or more successful. It just won't.

In other words...and also... if it's not great, don't keep flogging a dead horse, as we say. Be proud of what you've done. Release it in a nice, permanent way online for the world to see, take what you've learned from this experience and plough it into your next project.

And the even BRAVER thing to do would be to release it and ask this forum - or wherever - for critical feedback. Much more useful than an award from Skegness 'International' Film Festival.

7 years ago - Vasco de Sousa

Sigh. The filmmaker says he has no money, and people still try to sell him stuff.

Vv,
I checked out your profile, and it says that your film was on Portuguese television. That, to me, is more impressive than almost any film festival, except perhaps Cannes and Sundance. (I know Portugal is not famous for its television, but film festivals tend to be for total beginners.)

While I'm not too keen on the script, the fact that you actually made an effort with sync sound, and you allow the actors to perform, means that your film shows more skill than many festival "winners" that I've sat through.

It's not my kind of film, but I think you're past the beginner stage. I think if you did a little more to describe your film, that would do more for it than simply winning awards.

7 years ago - Vasco Vieira

Wow, thanks very much for all this wise and diverse feedback guys! @Vasco, I always thought festivals were a good vehicle for getting your work seen, regardless of the outcome. And as @Jane said, a great way to sell the marketed product if you do make it in and even win awards. I also did a screening at The Screen on the Green that sold out and received great praise, however I feel like it needs to get out of the cast and crew world and get a chance with the general public. At the same time, @Jamie makes a good point raising the quality of the work and its power to attract the good people - and in response to that, I truly believe it's got potential to be something big! - but I believe it is my duty to do as much as possible to getting it seen, not only for my own growth as a filmmaker but for all of those who contributed to this project with their unpaid skills and time.
Maybe I'm being impatient here and haven't really given the project the time it needs to grow and be seen, but I also don't want to waste any precious time while it's still hot.
So bottom line: I should submit to as many free festivals as possible, definitely try to source some money for the ones that are worth paying for submissions and keep marketing the sh*t out of it!. Also worth get the series reviewed so it gets more traction and followers - sound advice!

Thanks again to everyone who replied,
Vv

7 years ago - Nick Hilton

I have to say that I think that festivals in the UK are really bad at having web-series categories, and mostly they just get cluttered up with really high-budget stuff from Europe. Chances are that if you can't afford the festival entry fees, your project is going to struggle against some of the stuff that has TV quality production values anyway (and there's usually only 8-10 series programmed at any of the places that do web-series, which are over subscribed anyway...).

But I do think this sort of thing is important for filmmakers doing content for online, not simply for professional purposes but because it's nice to get that opportunity to exhibit your work in a room full of like-minded people, something that is often denied us. So, yeah, I wish there were more reasonably priced IRL film festivals for web-series.

That said, concern yourself first with the release mechanism. Few festivals will deny you entry because a web-series is publicly available because, unlike short films, that's the nature of the beast. I'd also add that I've had some success directly emailing the smaller film festivals with a web or web-series category and asking them about their programming and potential waivers. If you and your cast/crew are based in the same town as their festival, and can guarantee 5+ bums on seats, they may be able to cut you a deal.

7 years ago - Glyn Carter

@ Vasco De Souza - I assume the sigh was in my direction...

Yes, I was publicising Short Film Reviews, but not specifically to Vasco V. Others will read this thread.

As it happens, we're offering a free review to the first 100 people who contact me. We'll post a review and a screener link (optional) to a short film, documentary, animation or even webseries.

Contact glyn@shortfilmreviews.video