CLICK HERE TO FOLLOW THE ENTIRE PANEL DISCUSSION ON “MANAGING EXPECTATIONS ON THE FESTIVAL CIRCUIT”.

My short film, Saturday Night Special, was accepted into eight festivals and won awards at two. My feature film, A Lonely Place For Dying, is not yet finished and we’ve already been in four festivals and have won awards at two. Over the course of those 12 experiences, this is what I’ve learned:

1.) Submitting early will save you money but it won’t increase your chances of getting into a festival. There is a myth that applying during the early bird window of a festival’s submission cycle will somehow give your movie an edge. I personally have never experienced this. I’ve also not met anyone who has experienced this. I’ve become friends with Stephen Rubin, who was the Program Director for the Santa Fe Film Festival and now consults for a large number of festivals…and he’s never told me anything like this. However, despite this one should still take advantage of the early bird window to reduce costs.

2.) Overall, submission fees are a scam. There’s no other way to say it. I know about a dozen festival directors. Many of them are fantastic people. I truly appreciate what they do and I understand festivals are always short on capital. But, by and large, if they were honest with themselves they’d agree that the submission fees become part of their festival’s general budget. The people who screen your submission are usually volunteers. Your submission fee does not go directly to pay anyone to screen your movie. Ten years ago festivals received a fraction of the submissions they receive today. Smaller festivals received in the hundreds of submissions…now they receive in the thousands. This resulted in an unintended revenue stream for festivals. The festival industry, as a whole, never planned for this. But, they have certainly taken advantage of it. Because of this, submission fees go up every year…and so do submissions. The result is our submissions finance an ever growing percentage of festival’s expenses. Its unethical. Its exploitative. But, currently there are few ways a filmmaker can work around this.

3.) You will be rejected from festivals. No matter how many laurels your movie has, no matter how many awards you’ve won and no matter how many movie stars your movie has eventually some festival will not accept you. Gospel Hill has been tearing up the festival circuit. It’s directed and produced by actor Giancarlo Esposito. It has a 5 million dollar budget. It stars Angela Bassett, Danny Glover, Julia Stiles & Giancarlo Esposito. It has won awards at nine festivals. And yet, The Ashland Independent Film Festival rejected it (along with my film and a slate of other award winning movies). Why? Only Ashland could tell you why. It certainly had nothing to do with quality nor the ability of our films to sell seats, which is the primary goal of any festival. Poundcake is one of the most celebrated independent films of the year. It was accepted at AFI Fest, which is one of the most important festivals on the planet. And yet, when the director submitted the movie to a small festival in their hometown they were rejected. Why? Again…only that festival can tell you. The Job has been accepted into over 130 festivals. What isn’t mentioned is that the film was also rejected by hundreds of festivals. Great movies have between a 50-75% acceptance rate. Marginal films have a 10%. You’re going to have to apply often if you want to increase the number of festivals your movie will play in. And, you’ll need to research festivals to make sure your movie is the kind of movie they show. If a festival has never shown a horror film then no matter how great your horror movie may be it probably isn’t going to get in.

4.) Screening at a festival is the beginning, not the end. I’ve been lucky, A Lonely Place For Dying sells out screenings with very little effort on my part. I give festivals access to a variety of posters to promote the film and they almost always pick the images with James Cromwell. Once they put a picture of James Cromwell in the brochure my job is practically finished. We know our screening will be filled to 80% capacity with no effort. Saturday Night Special required me to hustle. And, no matter how hard I hustled I was lucky if 20 people were in a theatre watching my movie. If it played before a feature then a larger audience would attend…but they weren’t there for my movie. They were there for the main attraction. As a short filmmaker I was always forgotten during the Q&A. And, that’s disheartening. So, now that my movie is the main attraction I try to create a different experience for whoever is showing a short before my movie. I ask whoever is in charge of my screening to let the short filmmaker have a Q&A before my feature begins. It’s the only way that filmmaker is going to get some attention. If you have made a feature with movie stars then your screenings are going to fill up with ease. If you haven’t then you need to hustle. You need to call radio stations two weeks before a festival to seek interviews, you need to send press releases to local media outlets, you need to arrive early and put up posters in coffee shops and video stores throughout town. The festival cannot promote all the movies it screens. Festivals often have multiple movies screening at the same time. Should this be different? Maybe. But, it is what it is. They’ve provided you with a theatre and a technician to play your movie. You must do all the legwork if you want to get an audience.

5.) Winning awards is arbitrary. Every festival is different. In some, the festival director is a dictator and forces their choices onto their jury. In others, the jury is made of volunteers who don’t know much about filmmaking. I know of a festival in Europe named after a major city in which the entire awards process requires payola. The best you can hope for is that the jurists love movies and pick the ones they love…which doesn’t mean they’ll pick you. I was told by a festival jurist that we would have won best picture at a festival but we were still a work-in-progress and they didn’t feel comfortable giving best in show to an unfinished film. I thought “Wait a minute, you’re telling me my rough version is your favorite movie? What else matters?” Apparently, to them it was a critical voting critera. All I can do is shrug my shoulders.

6.) Playing the festival circuit is a flywheel process. It starts out slow. You have far more rejections when you are first submitting. But, once you are accepted into a festival and win an award it gets easier. Not a lot, but a little. When you win a second award at a different festival it gets easier again. If festival directors discover your film has sold lots of tickets at previous festivals then the flywheel starts to spin. Before you know it, you’ll be getting fee waivers and invitations. But, you’ll be able to manage your emotions better if you truly understand that this process is slow and changes incrementally.

7.) Festivals are not about art. Every festival director will say they love independent film. They love quirky movies with unknown casts. They exist to see small filmmakers take their first step to succeed. I think on some level they all believe this, but the machine of a festival completely contradicts this. A festival requires money to survive. They want sponsors. Sponsors want proof that their advertising will be seen by people and generate sales. That means a festival needs to sell lots of seats. And, selling seats to a festival crowd isn’t terribly different than selling seats to the general public. The potential ticket buyer flips through a thick program guide, wading through hundreds of films and picks a handful to buy tickets for. I’ve deliberately sat in the box office and watched people decide. I sat in the box office of Sedona, Durango, Santa Fe and Sundance…and, what stunned me is that people’s criteria was the same as that of a multiplex. I’d hear comments like “Oh, D.B. Sweeney! I like him! Let’s go set that!” or “Sounds like a downer. I don’t want to be depressed.” or “The photo looks strange. I don’t want to take the risk.” Festival audiences are no different than the general public. They aren’t there to take a risk. They value their time and money…they’re going to make safe choices that they feel will entertain them. Festivals have far less in common with a New York art gallery debut and far more in common with your local multiplex…and you are sabotaging yourself if you treat it any differently. Festivals want proof that your film will sell tickets, which will pay for the theatre and provide data they can give to next year’s potential sponsors.

8.) Techs are crazy. Seriously. They do not want you interfering with your screening. Its their theatre, not yours. And, however you formatted your tape is wrong. You’ve changed your specs for every festival because every other tech has told you the same thing. You’ll tell this to the tech and he’ll say “Yeah, I know that tech. He’s an idiot.” Then, he’ll walk away in a cloud of Asperger’s dysfunction.

9.) Older festivals treat filmmakers well…younger ones don’t. This isn’t a universal rule. I’m sure there are exceptions. But, as you apply to festivals this is an excellent guide to understanding how you’ll be treated as a filmmaker. The Sedona International Film Festival has been around for a decade. They provide hotel rooms for nearly every filmmaker accepted. The hotels are fabulous. The parties are stocked with food. They have a filmmakers lounge where lunch and dinner are provided. On the other end of the spectrum is a three-year old festival in Albuquerque. They require the filmmakers to pay for the lunch at the restaurant next door to the theatre. The awards are rigged. The projectionist transfers all the films to his laptop “to save him time” and refuses to respect the aspect ratio of each film. He just throws them all up on the screen in 16×9. They could care less if a filmmaker shows up…they just want whatever ticket sales they can get.

Why is this important? Because you are broke. You’re not acting like a petulant celebrity who wants a bigger trailer. You’re going to spend money on a plane ticket to fly to a festival in which your movie will make other people money. The festivals that provide a hotel room and food are making this process as inexpensive as possible for you. Those are the festivals to focus on.

I have been in festivals where I feel legitimately valued as a filmmaker. The Santa Fe Film Festival is at the top of the list. They treated my movie with respect and worked incredibly hard to accommodate my crew and actors for screenings, extra badges and access to parties. Members of the staff actually walked up to us and said “I love your movie.” They knew who we were and they cared that we were there.

On the other hand, most festivals I’ve gone to truly believe they are the center of the universe. To some degree, they’re right. They’re going to be there next year…you probably won’t be. Instinctively, they treat this year’s resident filmmakers as the sideshow. They expect you to build a relationship with them. They want you to cater to their needs. Most importantly, they want you to show up for your screening, not complain about the projection, participate in the Q&A…and go home.

A good friend of mine won Best Short at a major festival in Los Angeles. Despite being a winner, he said he felt as if the entire festival catered to the celebrities in the audience. They didn’t have films in competition. They were just ticket buyers. And despite this, it was as if he, the short filmmaker who won best short, wasn’t there.

I’ve won awards at festivals I will never go back to. Ever. A festival, which will rename nameless, gave one of my films a huge award. I was thankful. But, the print traffic controller refused to coordinate with Sedona, a festival five times as old as them. It was obvious their entire staff had massive political problems. The print traffic controller was known for screaming and yelling at fellow staff members…including the festival director. She walked up to me and said “I run this festival. No one else. I don’t care what that bitch told you, this is my show and you do what I say.” A volunteer who has worked for this young festival since its inception said that same person would scream and yell at him until he was in tears. They give awards to filmmakers…but, the biggest award they gave was to a local beer company! It was four feet tall. The beer company received a standing ovation. The greatest error this festival made was in accidentally sending me their entire budget. I kid you not…a festival employee (not volunteer) sent me their annual budget by mistake. This festival claimed they could only provide one night of hotel accommodations to each filmmaker. And, yet, every festival executive was staying for free at the most expensive hotels in town…and they all lived in town. There were line items in the budget for “per diems” given to the festival directors. Each hotel was listed with the total number of days they’d donate to the festival…and the days were allotted to the local residents throwing the festival rather than the filmmakers traveling to attend.

Coincidentally, I sat in the filmmaker’s lounge as the same employee spoke to two people about to start another festival in a neighboring town. Here is how the conversation went:

“So, do you have to give the filmmakers a lot to attend?”

“Well, this has been a bad year because of the recession. But, even in good years we try to think of stuff the filmmakers won’t use. The local ski resort normally kicks in free lift tickets and they love it because they get tons of publicity but only about 20% of the filmmakers actually use the tickets.”

“Hey, that’s a great idea! We have a trolley in town that could do that. There are some restaurants that are open strange hours…I bet we could get them to offer a freebie to the filmmakers. That would be hard to collect.”

“Yeah, and don’t forget any place that already gives stuff away. You just walk in and ask them if they can claim it as a gift to the filmmakers. Then, you can add it to the list. Before you know it, you’ll have a long list of stuff that didn’t cost you anything.”

“That’s fantastic. This sounds really easy!”

That my friends, is how most young, inexperienced festivals actually value us filmmakers. We are exploitable. They’re building a business and we’re the unfortunate appendage attached to the films they wish to profit from. And, the person running that festival is probably considered a celebrity in that town. You’re on their turf.

Final Thoughts:
I have to fight my own urges to be a cynic. I have to remember that festivals like Santa Fe, Sedona and Delray Beach value us. Festivals are like people…most are a disappointment, but the few who are truly exceptional must be treasured. The human brain is built to remember negative experiences more than positive ones. It’s a survival mechanism that predates civilization and often interferes with our ability to perceive our world accurately. I know I struggle with this.

If you are fortunate enough to get into a large number of festivals you will have negative experiences. You will be like my friend’s short film who won at a major LA festival but was treated like an unwanted party guest. I hope you’ll also be treated like I was by Santa Fe and Sedona, where festival employees truly cared about my hotel accommodations and the quality of my screening.

I won the Heineken Red Star at Santa Fe. Some could say that is clouding my judgement. I didn’t win anything at Sedona. I still loved Sedona. Sedona, like Santa Fe, is a class-act festival across the board. After you’ve been to a few festivals you’ll realize that the number one thing a festival can provide your film is laurels for a DVD jacket…but the number one thing they can provide you as a person is eye contact.

CLICK HERE TO FOLLOW THE ENTIRE PANEL DISCUSSION ON “MANAGING EXPECTATIONS ON THE FESTIVAL CIRCUIT”.

JUSTIN EVANS began his first theatre company at 14 and began making films at 15. He is the only undergraduate in NYU’s history to complete a feature film while in school. Justin is the founder, former CEO & Creative Director of Mystic Arts in Beijing. He has been a film professor and art director in the video game industry. He recently finished the feature film, A Lonely Place For Dying – the preview screening of which won the Heineken Red Star at The Santa Fe Film Festival. He has been featured twice in Variety, twice in Moviemaker Magazine, and a mini-doc about his film will be airing on IFC throughout January 2009. Justin is a skilled graphic designer, photographer, production designer, screenwriter, cinematographer, director & producer and currently resides in Albuquerque, New Mexico.