Archive for "MANAGING EXPECTATIONS ON THE FESTIVAL CIRCUIT"

Nov 22 6 comments
MANAGING EXPECTATIONS ON THE FESTIVAL CIRCUIT, The Red Machine

Film Festival Expectations Revisited (Or, “Curse You, Justin Evans!”)
.: by Stephanie Argy

A few months ago, the New Breed contributors ran a discussion about our expectations for film festivals. I put myself on record as being somewhat ambivalent about the whole idea — about whether fests can attract the right audiences for each film, about whether filmmakers can get decent exhibition and screening times, and about whether fests are really the right environment to build the connections and collaborations that will sustain us through our careers.

But what really stuck with me from that New Breed discussion was a blistering rant by Justin Evans, about all the ways that filmmakers themselves fail to contribute to festivals — about how we’re flakes and selfish and ill-prepared and ill-mannered — not to mention poorly dressed. His accusations gnawed away at me for months.

Then our feature The Red Machine got very lucky: the movie was selected by the Mill Valley Film Festival, and we had our world premiere there last month — October 11 and 12, 2009.

Mill Valley is a world-class festival in northern California that has been in existence for 32 years, and they are completely on their game. We knew that they would do their part — that our exhibition would be phenomenal (and it was - HDCAM in both of our two screenings in the festival’s excellent Smith Rafael Film Center in San Rafael, California) and that they would know how to program well for their audiences (and boy, did they get that right).

We felt that we needed to match their effort and do everything we could to make the festival experience a great one for everyone. We treated it as an experiment — for now, I’ll call it the Justin Evans Experiment. Here’s a run-down of what we tried; some things will be relevant for other films, some less so, some went really well, some could use refinement (or abandonment):

1. Scout.

We treated the fest like we would treat a shoot. We’d never been to Mill Valley, so three weeks before the fest, my directing partner Alec Boehm and I drove the eight hours from Los Angeles to northern California to check out hotels and restaurants and get a sense of the place — and most importantly, to meet the festival staff. When we saw how hard they were working, we began to think of them as an extension of our own crew, and to see that our interaction with the festival was one more collaboration. It made us realize how much we had to do.

2. Participate as fully as possible.

Alec and I both attended the fest, and we were very lucky in that many of our cast and crew were willing to make the trek to Northern California to join us, including six of our actors — both of our leads, Lee Perkins and Donal Thoms-Cappello, plus Meg Brogan, Maureen Byrnes, Madoka Kasahara, Chad Nadolski — and many of our crew. The stage was a little crowded during our Q&A’s, but it was great to have many voices answering questions.

3. Take part in everything you can that’s associated with the fest.

We know an old-time agent/manager who says he used to tell his actor clients going to a shoot to “become family.” Our variation on this for filmmakers going to a fest to “become local.” If a fest offers you any way to connect more to its audiences and to the community, take them up on it.

One of the coolest things about the Mill Valley Film Festival is that it’s run by an educational foundation called the California Film Institute. The CFI does a great program during the festival called Filmmakers Go To School — and it’s exactly what it sounds like.

The festival hooked us up with a local high school, the Marin School. We sent script pages for three scenes from The Red Machine to their film teacher, Kieran Ridge, and their drama teacher, Philip Van Eyck, who had his students prepare their interpretations of our scenes. When we got to the school, the students showed us what they had come up with — and after living with our own versions of the scenes for so long, it was really thrilling to see them reimagined by someone else.

To give the students a hint of the difference between stage acting and film acting, we chose one of their renditions of a scene and created a mock film set environment around them, with other students standing in as film crew. Finally, we showed them the scenes they’d prepped as they appear in the final movie. All in all, one of the best experiences we had at the fest.

There are panels, there are workshops, there are all sorts of ways to get involved.

4. Suggest More Things

In honor of a Red Machine character named Agnes Driscoll — a real-life mathematician and linguist who was the head of U.S. Navy cryptanalysis during the 1930s — we proposed a panel called Girl Geeks, a conversation among some of Driscoll’s nerd chick descendents — including me.

Mill Valley took us up on the idea, and programming administrator Holly Roach ran with it, booking an interesting group of women out of northern California, including moderator Tiffany Shlain (The Tribe) and artists and technical people from ILM, Pixar and YouTube.

5. Displays

Because The Red Machine is set in the 1930s, we have costumes and props that are a little out of the ordinary. Mill Valley was fantastic about letting us create a display of our women’s costumes (which we put on mannequins and changed out from time to time so that there would be variety) and the Japanese code machine that is our title character (and the target of the movie’s heist).

6. Giveaways

The costume display fed nicely into our one big giveaway — we got together with Annamarie von Firley, who designed and custom-tailored the women’s costumes in The Red Machine, and gave away two $200 gift certificates for clothing made by her salon — one certificate handed out at each of our two screenings.

We weren’t the only ones to do a giveaway at Mill Valley: the filmmakers of the feature Passengers taped a postcard for their movie on the bottom of a theater seat, then gave the person in that seat a bottle of wine; we thought that was a nice idea, too.

The giveaway was one thing I would have done differently: originally, we’d envisioned it as a way to attract people to our screening. But because Mill Valley is so good at promoting the fest, and because they have such a supportive community, we sold out both of our screenings less than a day after tickets went on sale to the general public. As a result, we never really promoted the giveaway or even talked about it that much, and on the first night, when we gave away the gift certificate, the audience was frankly confused. The second night, we mentioned it before the movie played, but it’s still something that could have and should have been promoted and presented better.

7. Swag

The Red Machine was actually our second movie to premiere at Mill Valley; the first was our short film Gandhi at the Bat. Unfortunately, we missed Gandhi at the Bat’s Mill Valley appearance because we were shooting The Red Machine when it played — but Mill Valley still gave Gandhi at the Bat a great launch into the world. In recognition of that, and as a thank-you to Mill Valley and its audiences, we decided to give a Gandhi at the Bat DVD to every single person who came to see The Red Machine at Mill Valley.

We put the DVDs into muslin bags that we rubber-stamped with “The Red Machine” and “World Premiere, Mill Valley, 2009.” We created miniature 1930s-style lobby cards for The Red Machine, with cryptograms on the back, and we put a small assortment of those into each bag. We also created replicas of some of the prop documents from The Red Machine and put one of those into each bag — letters, a menu — but ultimately I didn’t think those particular prop documents were special enough or worth the effort they took.

Our decision to give away swag became more complicated and expensive when less than a week before our premiere, we had a call from Mill Valley, telling us that they had moved our first screening into the biggest theater at the Smith Rafael — bumping us up from 260 DVDs to give away at the two screenings to a possible 470. But we took a deep breath and gathered up what we needed to cover the new estimate.

An interesting side effect of giving away the Gandhi at the Bat DVDs: somehow, one of them found its way to Karen Redhook Dallett, the operations director of the Santa Fe Film Festival. Karen watched the Gandhi at the Bat DVD, then emailed us and asked if she could screen Gandhi at the Bat at Santa Fe; we said yes, of course, and oh, by the way, did she know that we’d just finished our first feature? She asked for a screener of The Red Machine, which we Fed Exed to her immediately from Mill Valley. She ended up booking both movies, which will play together at the Santa Fe Film Festival on December 4 and 5.

8. Clothes

Finally…one of Justin’s comments that that provoked particular controversy was his contention that filmmakers at fests dress like slobs.

We’d found the value of dressing up before, when Gandhi the Bat played the Baseball Hall of Fame. For that screening, a friend made a dress for me — a short Yankee pinstripe dress with “Gandhi” on the back. (Women tourists at the Hall would gasp and ask where they could buy a dress for their own team — a possible lucrative ancillary stream for the movie, if we could ever work out the licensing with Major League Baseball!)

This is a tale that probably won’t be useful to my mostly male New Breed colleagues, but for our Mill Valley/Red Machine screenings, I ended up finding the perfect dress, in a fabric made up of typed text, very much in keeping with the cryptographic/linguistic tone of the movie. The dress was bright white, and on stage among all the people in dark and muted outfits, I looked like a lit-up lightbulb. (Handy info for those filmmakers who want to be easy to spot — perhaps for you gentlemen, a bright white Tom Wolfe style suit?)

The result of all this effort was that we and our cast and our crew had an extraordinary experience at Mill Valley. Part of it was being at a great, well-run fest that loves and cares for its filmmakers; part of it was being there with a feature rather than a short (at the grown-ups’ table at last!), but part of it also came from having engaged so fully in the fest.

So thank you to Justin — and also curse you! You forced us to set a new standard for ourselves, and like a bell that can’t be unrung, now we’re stuck having to live up to that for the foreseeable future — which in addition to Santa Fe on December 4 and 5, will also include a screening in Prescott, Arizona on December 16, and the Sedona Film Festival in February, 2010.

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Apr 28 13 comments
MANAGING EXPECTATIONS ON THE FESTIVAL CIRCUIT

RE: MANAGING EXPECTATIONS ON THE FESTIVAL CIRCUIT
.: by Justin Evans

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

So, we’ve talked a lot about the pros and cons of film festivals. Here’s the real question…what would it take to improve festivals? We know that festival directors will wander around to this blog eventually. I’d love for them to read a list of suggestions for improving festivals. I hate mentioning a problem without presenting a solution. Here are my ideas:

1.) ELIMINATE PAY FOR PLAY.
Festivals should refund submission fees to accepted movies. This would solve many problems. This would dramatically impact filmmaker’s festival application budgets with only a minimal impact to festivals. Let’s run the numbers. Festival X gets 3,000 applications @ $50.00 each and accepts 300 movies. They have a total budget of $150,000.00. That’s $15,000.00 gross (or, roughly 10% of their budget). If they refunded the $50.00 fee to the 300 accepted, they’d still gross $13,500.00 (which means this impacts their total budget by 1%). And, they’d be sending a powerful message…if you’re film is worthy of our festival, you don’t have to pay to play here. This would have ancillary benefits as well. It would eliminate the shadowy practice of waivers. A complicated dance exists between the filmmakers who know how to get waivers and the festival directors who want to give as few as possible. It’s a nuisance to festival directors. It’s time consuming for both sides. And, it creates animosity. Filmmakers look like their gaming the system. Festivals look like the only thing they care about are submission fees. If festivals eliminated Pay For Play, they’d be able to tell every filmmaker “If you get into our festival we’ll refund your submission fee” and eliminate the shadowy waiver system.

Now, I know some filmmakers believe that rejected films shouldn’t have to pay. I strongly disagree. While no movie is accepted to 100% of the festivals they apply to, the cream most certainly rises to the top. I’ve been in the back rooms of festivals and seen the shelves of DVD’s. I’ve seen how much of the submissions are amateurish junk. If someone wants to submit a $300.00 feature film shot on a consumer camcorder with bad acting, bad sound and a bad script they most certainly should pay the submission fee.

2.) 20% PROFIT SHARE FOR FILMMAKERS FROM SCREENINGS
Festivals always talk about how poor they are. However, we filmmakers have you trumped. We’re not just poor…we’re in debt. Why does a movie like Gospel Hill, which cost five million, not get a share of its box office revenue from festivals? It sells out nearly every showing. Gospel Hill has played at least 15 festivals. The average theatre seats 200 people. It usually screens twice. And, it has sold out nearly every screening. Tickets are almost universally $10.00 each. That’s $60,000.00. Can’t festivals afford to share 20% of that with the film’s production company?

3.) ELIMINATE AWARDS
Being an official selection should be the only award given at festivals. The politics, gossip and infighting that surround awards is noise that detracts from screening movies. Telluride has this policy. Is there a filmmaker on the planet who wouldn’t give their right eye to be an official selection of Telluride?

I like awards. They make me feel good. They look good in my office. But, when I’m honest with myself I realize that festivals shouldn’t be a contest. They’re an exhibition. And, I get almost as much value from being an Official Selection as I do from getting another shiny medal to put on my shelf.

Now, until awards are eliminated you bet I’m going to pursue them. They become a vital part of my business plans. They prove to investors that I’m good at what I do. But, if you as a collective whole eliminated awards and I explained to investors that awards are a thing of the past and the reward is being an official selection they’d understand that.

How do you eliminate awards as a collective whole? Well, we got this thing called the internet. You could send email messages to each other and…you know…talk about it.

4.) ADOPT A UNIVERSAL PROJECTION FORMAT
Have you ever been in the projection room of a festival? The number of decks and projectors is dizzying. BetaSp, DigiBeta, DVCam, HDCam, DVD, 16mm, 35mm…the choices are too numerous and they drive up the cost of festivals. Personally, I vote for the immediate adoption of Blu-Ray. Decks are only $200.00 and the cost of duplication is $40.00 for a filmmaker. I can already hear people howling. “Sound will fall out of sync.” My answer: You’re applying an antiquated argument that beleaguered DVD players from a decade ago. I had one of those DVD players…when Clinton was President. Every time I hear someone talk about how DVD-R’s are unreliable, the audio falls out of sync, the discs don’t play I notice they have an unusual amount of white hair and remember the Vietnam War. The sync problem from the 1990’s was a hardware issue, not a codec issue. Maybe it’s time to buy a new DVD player…you know, one that was made in the 21st century. Besides, we’re not suggesting you screen DVD-R’s. We’re talking about Blu-Ray, which is a significantly better technology. Technology marches on, flaws are eliminated, quality improves and Blu-Ray is a fantastic format that would mean every festival in the world could afford to project in 1080P with surround sound.

And, I’d buy into the argument that we need five video tape formats and two celluloid formats if festivals consistently demonstrated the ability to screen well. I have yet to attend a festival that isn’t constantly struggling with projection. It’s too many machines. It’s too much gear. This isn’t a case of “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” The system is most definitely broken and your techs are holding the system together with bailing wire and chewing gum.

The cost savings would be tremendous. You’d be able to reduce the number of techs needed for a festival. You’d eliminate the need to rent decks. You’d be able to prep a theatre far faster. You could require every filmmaker provide two copies to a festival, giving you greater screening flexibility. The cost to filmmakers would be reduced significantly. Festivals would make a greater profit, filmmakers wouldn’t hemorrhage money on multiple copies of their film in multiple (expensive) formats and the audience would benefit from an enhanced technical experience.

5.)STREAMLINE FILMMAKER COMPENSATION
Get rid of the gift bags. We filmmakers exploit you and grab as many as we can. You resent the process, anyways. And, it isn’t the kind of compensation a filmmaker needs. None of us need another denim bag with soap crystals from Debbie’s New Age Soap Emporium and 20% off coupons for a hot rock massage at Danubi Spa. Give us a hotel room and meal vouchers for local restaurants. Smaller festivals would triple the number of filmmakers who attend if a filmmaker knew they would have a hotel room and food. And, for festivals that struggle with getting free hotel rooms don’t fret. You’ve had an easy solution staring you in the face since the beginning of this ad hoc festival explosion…house filmmakers in volunteers homes. Seriously. Gather your volunteers together and give them one free festival pass to whomever will allow a filmmaker to stay in their guest bedroom for two nights. No, it’s not as simple as hotel rooms…but, if you are a festival struggling to house filmmakers this is a viable solution. As your festival gathers steam you can upgrade to hotels in the future.

If you can’t get restaurants to give you comps, get coupons for a discount. Don’t tell me you can’t convince a local restaurant to give you festival coupons for 25% off. In this economy or any other, what restaurant wouldn’t want 50 filmmakers coming into their restaurant? Turn it into an event…let them put a sign up that says “Unofficial Filmmmakers Lounge” or “We Support Independent Film - 25% Off For All Festival Filmmakers!” My guess is they’ll see an increase in revenue from residents as well as filmmakers during festival season.

6.) ELIMINATE FEATURE FILM Q&A BIAS
Most festivals pair a short with a feature. And, the short is completely neglected in the Q&A. The festival chose the short for a reason. The audience watched the short for a reason. Sometimes, the short is better than the feature. By holding a Q&A for the short before the feature begins, all filmmakers are treated equally.

7.) SPEED DATE FILMMAKERS & LOCAL INVESTORS
My sales agent is a blunt man. “Festivals are for your ego. Markets are for business.” He’s right. And, while every festival can’t make itself a market, they can create a market opportunity by holding the equivalent of speed dating lunches with filmmakers and potential investors. Most festivals hold “filmmaker mixers” (although, I have yet to understand what we’re really doing at these mixers considering how loud the music is). Why not structure an event that truly gives purpose to having residents meet touring filmmakers? If you read my articles on investment, it takes very little effort to educate small investors on the tax benefits of investing in motion pictures. We’re a tax shelter, my friend. We’re the safest investment in America. We’re backed by the Federal Government and subsidized by your state legislature. Require filmmakers to attend with a 10 page business plan and 1 page executive summary and speed-date filmmakers past local investors. You’ll see filmmaker attendance climb, ticket sales rise and your festival will suddenly have a strong business model.

8.) ADOPT A UNIVERSAL ONLINE SCHEDULE PLATFORM
I have to submit a synopsis, pictures and film details to every festival’s website. www.withoutabox.com was supposed to eliminate that, but it hasn’t. www.bside.com has the potential to do this. What I personally like about B-side is that I can email their staff and have them copy my materials from one festival to another. I did this for Delray Beach. I had B-side copy and past my materials from Durango to Delray Beach. B-side’s interface needs work. It’s UI isn’t intuitive, which creates more work for B-side’s staff. They’d save money if they upgraded their UI. Despite the UI problems, B-Side is a massive step in the right direction. This saves festivals and filmmakers time while creating a consistent user experience from festival to festival…which is a good thing! Why would every festival want to reinvent the wheel?

If you’re a festival director please consider these eight suggestions. I truly believe that these suggestions will increase the profitability of your festival, streamline your operations and compensate filmmakers in the manner they really wish to be compensated. Most of us (the sane ones) don’t want to be treated like celebrities. We just want to be treated with respect. And, you’ll find that many of us get that this is a business. We want your business to be profitable…but, not at our expense. I’d do away with all the free backrubs in filmmakers lounges and frou-frou schwag for a simple, streamlined relationship with a festival in which both of us profited from my movie and your venue.

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.

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Apr 27 10 comments
A Lonely Place For Dying, MANAGING EXPECTATIONS ON THE FESTIVAL CIRCUIT

RE: MANAGING EXPECTATIONS ON THE FESTIVAL CIRCUIT
.: by Justin Evans

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

Now that I’ve listed all the ways film festivals let us down as filmmakers, I think it is time to turn this around. Let’s talk about how we filmmakers let down film festivals.

1: WE ARE FLAKES
Let’s face it, the overwhelming majority of filmmakers are flakes. We show up late. We fill out forms incorrectly. We ship our tapes after the deadline. We dress like jackasses. We complain about petty nonsense.

I always dress in a suit. I always show up at my screenings early. I always participate in a tech rehearsal (because, even if this annoys the tech, my job is to serve the audience. The audience is my boss). I always say please, thank you, sir and ma’m. It’s not a put-on. It’s good manners.

I only complain about the things that matter. I’m not going to tell you which festival served lunch ten minutes late and that the food was cold. That’s unimportant. I care about how the staff behaves, how they screen my movie and how they conduct the professional aspects of their festival. If a hotel forgets to get me towels, I’m privately annoyed but do not consider this worthy of ever mentioning publicly…and certainly not in a blog.

I can’t say the same for other filmmakers. I’ve sat in parties where filmmakers are LOUDLY talking about how the salsa is bland. So what? Yes, they’re serving mashed potatoes in martini glasses. I also believe that was the most bizarre catering choice on the planet earth. But, what’s the point in talking about it loudly and in front of the festival staff?

I strongly believe we filmmakers should dress better. I don’t mean we should put on a fashion show…but, if we want our work to be taken seriously, why do we dress like social misfits? What we wear is a uniform and it sends a signal to the festival staff and the audience. I have two festival suits. A grey Banana Republic suit and a blue Calvin Klein. I wear hip dress shirts without a tie. My belt, watch, socks and shoes all coordinate. And, the message is “You paid to see my movie. I respect you. I didn’t just roll out of bed with sleep still in my eyes. I take this event as seriously as you do.”

Here is the other secret to why it is worth looking like a professional. As a result I’m treated like one. And, festivals are swimming with people who just might invest in a movie. I want that potential investor to take me seriously. Dressing well is the first step.

And, I’m not the only one who believes this. Every movie star I’ve hung out with at festivals practices the same principal. James Cromwell came to the Santa Fe Film Festival in a fantastic blue pinstripe that said “This is a serious event and I respect that you are here.” Giancarlo Esposito dresses in tweeds with a jaunty hat that says “I’m artistic, but hey, I’ve been in GQ and if you’re going to hand me an award I care enough to show you equal respect by dressing like a professional”.

Showing up in an offensive t-shirt, ripped jeans with bed head simply says you don’t give a damn about them. Why would anyone take a filmaker seriously if that’s what their external uniform communicated to the festival staff and the audience? And, don’t tell me we don’t wear uniforms. That’s all we wear.

I was preppy in junior high. Then, I became a goth for about a year. One day, I wore a name brand shirt as part of my black-and-grey ensemble. I got reamed by my goth friends. “You can’t wear a name brand shirt!” That’s when I realized that everyone is wearing a uniform. For a year I’d rebelled against dressing like society told me to, and it turned out that whatever segment of society I was part of would do the same thing. So, I picked the uniform that best represented who I really was and promptly returned to being preppy.

I think most filmmakers dress like slobs because it is supposed to communicate how serious they are about their art. The message seems to be “I don’t care about silly things like fashion. I care about making movies”. This message fails. All it says is we’re children. I don’t see my clothes when they’re on me…other people do. And, those people extract meaning from what I wear. So, I want them to see me for who I am. I’m a serious entrepreneur. Their money is safe in my hands. I manage their investment wisely. I’m creative, but I’m organized and focused. My uniform speaks this. The film professor from USC who shows up with rainbow hair, torn fishnets and enormous hoop earrings looks like someone who really doesn’t care about being at the festival. And, snapping gum during a Q&A only emphasizes the audience’s snap judgement.

Let me add one more note to this. Would you dress casually for the Oscars? No, you’d arrive in formal wear. Guess what…this festival is the Oscars to the local patrons. For some, this is the most important event of the year. At Sedona a large number of the patrons would step out of a limousine in formal wear. This is their night. This is special. And, we show up like fratboys at a keggar. That, my friends, is called acting like a flake.

Now, if we showed up in a tuxedo or gown that would probably be too much. It would look both naive and clownish for a filmmaker to do that. But, can’t we wear a suit for once in our lives? As Matthew Perry so wisely said on Aaron Sorkin’s Studio 60 “Dressing like little boys isn’t cool anymore.”

2: WE ARE SELFISH
For my first two festivals I thought it was all about me. Boy, was I an ass. Now, I understand that it is all about the audience. Festivals are adding more and more parties. Many are billed as an opportunity to meet a filmmaker. Despite this, the patrons aren’t there to hear about your movie for an hour. I talk about my movie for 30 seconds to a minute. That’s probably too long…I’m still learning how to tame my inner narcissist. Once I’m finished talking about my movie I ask the person why they’re here. If they’re a filmmaker, I talk about their film. And, despite the paradox, I want to talk about their film more than mine. If they’re a volunteer or staff member I want to talk about attendance. If they’re a patron I want to talk about their favorite screenings. Sometimes, I get on a rant about how we independent filmmakers are about to enter the golden age of independent cinema, but that’s after a few glasses of champagne and only with fellow filmmakers who have expressed an interest in making a big movie.

We also steal. I mean that. We are thieves. If you’ve ever taken more than one gift bag, if you’ve put food from a party in your purse, if you stumble into a party with an open bar and start guzzling drinks left and right…you’re exploiting the festival’s generosity.

Now, we all know many festivals don’t respect us. But, that’s no excuse for us to show up and hoover drinks as some passive-aggressive “they owe me” revenge tactic. I’ve seen this and it’s embarrassing. The point of a party with an open bar is to have about one drink an hour. It sure as hell isn’t to get drunk. And it isn’t to walk out of the restaurant with puffy pockets. Perhaps you are on a budget. I respect that. Everyone knows you’re a poor filmmaker. But, I’ve seen people gorge on the free food. Slow down and show the festival that you realize catering isn’t cheap.

The gift bags is a big issue for me. At my first festival I grabbed two extra bags and am now deeply ashamed of it. I don’t need extra bags. The bag is a thank you gift. Yes, the festival orders extras. Yes, they’ll give leftover bags to friends and family afterwards. Yes, most of what is in a gift bag is donated. That doesn’t entitle me to more than one. When I walk into a fellow filmmaker’s hotel room and see a bunch of giftbags I lose respect for that person. And, no one is sly enough to not be noticed by the film festival staff. They see how we behave and the naked greed we display causes festival employees to bristle. Just as we’ve become jaded about festivals, they’ve become jaded about filmmakers.

On top of being greedy it’s tacky. It’s like the people who stay in a hotel and strip the room down to the walls. Do you really need tiny soaps and mini-shampoos? What’s the deal with a free bathrobe? It’s just a bathrobe. And, that TV remote isn’t going to turn on your TV…so leave it alone. That’s what filmmakers are often like at festival parties. We’re locusts that consume everything we touch. Imagine being a festival director and observing filmmakers behaving this way. If you were a festival director and this is how filmmakers behaved at your festival, you’d quickly become jaded as well. The allure of hanging out with artistes would wear off. And you’d say to yourself “Man, I thought it was going to be different than this”.

3: WE ARE UNPREPARED
We show up late. We don’t have promotional materials. We don’t know where are screening is. We don’t know where to get our badge. We don’t know where to park. We stumble & stutter through our Q&A. We have no business cards.

It’s as if most filmmakers consider themselves the audience. They show up and attend the festival. My fellow filmmakers, please understand this…we’re staff. A good festival treats us well, but we still have a job to do.

If you’ve never been to a festival you can still research everything I listed above before you go. You don’t need experience to know how to google the film’s website, print out mapquest directions, jot an itinerary and get 100 business cards printed (at some place other than Vista Prints, please).

4: WE DO NOT SUPPORT OUR OWN FILMS
The overwhelming majority of filmmakers do nothing more than print some posters and postcards. That ain’t gonna cut it, folks. We need to do more. Much more. And, if you’re a filmmaker with a reputation of doing more festivals will program you more. They know you’ll fill a theatre.

5: WE PICK THE BEST SEATS IN THE HOUSE

I’ve seen my movie. I don’t need the best seats. I need to be in the back near an aisle. I’m getting to the point where I don’t enjoy watching my movie in a theatre anymore. I’d rather pace uncomfortably in the lobby and duck back into the theatre during the closing credits, ready to conduct my Q&A.

If you are attending your first film festival then you probably won’t be able to help yourself. You’ll want to sit smack dab in the middle of the theatre. If you can’t help yourself, do this…but, please, do this once and never again. I said it earlier and I really mean this…the audience is our boss. If I’m taking an investor or family member to a film festival, that’s different…yes, I’ll chose good seats. They’re part of the audience and I owe them greatly for letting me chose this bizarre profession. But, if I’m at a festival by myself or I’m attending my second screening at a festival, the seats are for paying ticket holders. I’d be happy with a folding chair in the back (if the Fire Martial would allow it).

6: WE DON’T HAVE MANNERS
Have you sent a thank you card to the festival director for screening your film? Have you offered to buy your tech a drink? If someone introduced your movie, did you thank them personally for doing so? The two words I see most filmmakers desperately need to learn are…

…Thank you.

That’s it. If you did nothing else but say thank you to everyone at the festival you’d make an enormous impression. A handwritten thank you note goes MILES. I know one filmmaker who sends home made brownies. I’m trying to find the time and energy. I certainly see that his gratitude has made an impression.

FINAL THOUGHTS:
When I go to a festival it is work, not play. Even if I’m at a party I’m working. I’m having fun while I do it…but, I throw impromptu poker tournaments (which is always a good ice breaker. I got to know the Colorado film commissioner that way) and I’m trading business cards left and right. I leave a festival exhausted.

Having done all that, I think I’ve earned the right to have high expectations of the festivals I attend. I consider them a partner in building audience interest in my movie. I want them to do their share. Treat me nicely, look me in the eye, don’t rush me out the door, respect that I care about the quality of my screening, understand that my #1 concern is my film plays well before an audience. In exchange, I dress well, speak politely, show up early, charm your patrons and I won’t hoover your food and drinks. We can’t expect respect unless we give it.

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.

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Apr 26 2 comments
MANAGING EXPECTATIONS ON THE FESTIVAL CIRCUIT, White Knuckles

RE: MANAGING EXPECTATIONS WHEN YOUR FILM HAS NEVER BEEN TO A FESTIVAL.
.: by Kevin K. Shah

I’ve never been to a really large festival like Sundance or SXSW, but I intend to go someday regardless of whether or not my film gets in. I see the merits of showing up, meeting people, listening to others, sharing your work, and more importantly - learning from the experience. I have been to a few smaller but respectable festivals, such as the Indian Film Festival of Los Angeles (going on right now) through the efforts of Nehal Shah - and also through screenings of IFHY, and the efforts of Zak Forsman & Sabi Pictures. I haven’t however, been to a film festival for a film I that wrote/directed besides Blue in Green, and that was at Beverly Hills Film Festival which at the time proved to be forgettable experience for all the Blue in Green filmmakers involved. I want White Knuckles (a film recently completed by Sabi Pictures that I directed) to be the first film that gets in… i.e. the “good Festival experience”… but my expectations have certainly changed.

Before it used to be about ‘selling’ – whereas now it’s more about ‘sharing’. Because of DIY, the emergence of nano-budget interdependent filmmaking, and following the developments of sites like New Breed and the Workbook Project, you could say that my film festival expectations have changed fundamentally. Again, perhaps it’s in part because of web resources recently that point to a real “nexus” of thought forming on the internet that will shape our cinematic future (as we help shape it).

The continued growth and evolution of technology seems to open great possibilities of connecting filmmakers to their audience (”fans”), and connecting all of us to each other while creating quality films. White Knuckles is a beautiful film waiting to be seen by a larger audience, with performances of a life-time and a collaborative approach to the creation of the story and characters (and I always thought the film would play well at festivals). Perhaps it still might but I used to expect the kick-start for the film would be a festival acceptance. Now I’m prepared to take some, if not all my eggs out of the festival basket as White Knuckles begins its festival rounds. Officially or unplugged - I still plan to attend with my film in hand and meet others and see their works of passion.

SIDE NOTE: If a major studio saw the film at a festival and wanted to make a certain offer under certain conditions I would have to seriously consider it - but I don’t see that as the goal anymore (just a fantastical notion). I now take the more chill position of: ‘it really doesn’t matter if it doesn’t happen here - there are other avenues.’ That’s how I’ve come to manage my expectations for the first festival for this film. I’d much rather become friends with the fans of the film that want to talk about it – than to make a deal with someone I don’t know for ‘ownership’ on something that I am hoping to learn how to make-self sustaining anyway.

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

KEVIN K. SHAH is an American-born Indian director, producer and filmmaker based in Los Angeles. He has worked industry jobs ranging from marketing executive to behind-the-scenes producer, and has also worked outside the business as a dog-walker, tree-planter and middle school art teacher. Kevin has written a variety of scripts, made dozens of studio documentaries and produced a few feature films he finds deeply meaningful. Over the years he has also published poetry, photography and creative fiction in literary magazines. Kevin is a world traveler, activist, humanitarian, pacifist, environmentalist and a vegan. He watches very little television.

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Apr 25 1 comments
MANAGING EXPECTATIONS ON THE FESTIVAL CIRCUIT, You Wont Miss Me

RE: MANAGING EXPECTATIONS ON THE FESTIVAL CIRCUIT
.: by Ry Russo-Young

I think what’s great about this panel discussion is that we can really see the variety of ways people navigate the festival circuit or choose not to partake in festivals at all. It’s also nice to hear people say things that ring so true! For me, festivals have been a great way to get involved in the independent film community and to meet future collaborators and film friends. I dislike the word “networking” because it sounds creepy right? I try to see every festival as the first day of college, maybe there are a couple people from your high school you know but for the most part you’re just there because you all share a common interest in films and the idea is just to get to know each other and to make friends and show your film.

My first film ORPHANS premiered at SXSW Film Festival and won a jury award there in 2007 which helped get it into many other festivals and have some good press. My second film YOU WONT MISS ME premiered at Sundance Film Festival in 2009 and is currently playing the festival circuit. I would strongly encourage filmmakers to target festivals they think they might be able to get into and to think long and hard about what the ideal festival to premiere your film at is- certain festivals specialize in certain kinds of films at different budget levels. For example, Toronto is a top notch festival but they rarely take super low budget American indie films so maybe it’s not worth the application fee. I would advise really spending a big chunk of time trying to get into the specific festival you think is the best place for your specific film- try to meet the programmer or to meet filmmakers who have been there before, go to the festival the year before you plan to apply. Festivals are great because they are a community but what to expect to get out of them is really a whole other monster.

Seems like several people at the panel here have done a great job of discussing the wonderful and the terrible festival experiences and I can say, I’ve also had my share of amazing festivals (Sarasota definitely being one of the best) and awful festivals (the filmmaker lounge was in a parking lot - never going back again). I think the big expectation that isn’t met is that filmmakers rarely ever sell their films at festivals anymore so the questions really becomes about what happens after the festival to the film. Where does it go? How do people hear about it? How do filmmakers connect to their audience? How do we as filmmakers maintain a sense of optimism and afford creative endeavors in this landscape of homogenized studio films making it to theaters and the art house distributors going bankrupt and not paying for films anymore. The model is broken so how do navigate it or make a new one?

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

RY RUSSO-YOUNG grew up in downtown Manhattan and graduated from Oberlin College in 2003. Her first feature film ORPHANS, received a Special Jury Prize at the 2007 SXSW Film Festival. ORPHANS was released on DVD by Carnivalesque Films and is now available through Netflix and Amazon. In 2007, Russo-Young appeared as Rocco in HANNAH TAKES THE STAIRS, released by IFC Films. She received several grants including a New York State Council of the Arts grant to complete her second feature YOU WONT MISS ME that premiered at the 2009 Sundance Film Festival.

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Apr 23 7 comments
A Lonely Place For Dying, MANAGING EXPECTATIONS ON THE FESTIVAL CIRCUIT

RE: MANAGING EXPECTATIONS ON THE FESTIVAL CIRCUIT
.: by Justin Evans

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.

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