Blog Article by: Edgar Jimz
The following is an article for new filmmakers. However it can be utilized as well by actors and other crew members to better understand the complexity of submitting a project to film festivals.
Continued from part 1…
FESTIVAL PAGE
Every film festival has a page. It is a very complete page with everything you need to know about the festival and a relatively easy process to submit your film. Description. This is an explanation, by the festival, on what they are about. It will tell you everything the festival wants you to know about them. Be careful here and place a “red flag” because some of them will be openly exaggerating many things. I encourage you to visit their website and dig into their history and archives as well as previous festivals. Look for things like still photos, previous award winners, testimonials, videos and all you can get a grab on it. This will give you an idea if they are what they say they are. Categories. The page will include what kind of films are good for submission. Feature Films, Shorts, Documentaries and any other category designated by the festival.
Festivals Rules. It explains which are the rules and regulations and what could be a factor for your film to be disqualified. This is extremely important, because if you submit your film and your film does not qualify for any of the reasons, you will lose your money. There will be no refunds. They will not let you know that you have been disqualified. You will receive an email with the rest of the films that were not accepted. Therefore, you must read everything before you submit. Submission Deadlines. The submission deadlines are another important part of the process that you should be aware of. Submission Deadlines are generally broken down to “Early Bird”, “Regular” and “Late” Deadlines. In many instances, there will be a “WAB Extended Deadline (“Withoutabox Extended”). This last one is presented to you as a “magical grace period” for you “lucky filmmaker” to get your film entered into competition. In reality, it is a waste of money because by this time most of the festivals have already a line up established.
THE SCREENING PROCESS.
Once you submit your film either by DVD or by your internal upload (“Secure Online Screener”-an additional charge of $2.95 will be imposed), the film will be watched by a person called “screener”. In many instances, that could go from personal to business reasons, many films are not even watched or screened (general emphasis). You want your film to be watched by the screener and you need the best shot for your film to be fairly judged. This will happen during the “Early Bird” and the “Regular” Deadlines. Let me explain you why. This submission process runs for long months. Big film festivals have the personnel and resources to assign the incoming films to many screeners. However, most film festivals don’t have that many screeners. In many cases, screeners are friends and family members. On top of that, this is a voluntary duty. The screeners are people like you and I, it doesn’t matter in which film festival. They have a job, they have families and they have things to do. Now, figure this out. You are a screener and you come from work tired, hungry, sticky in need of a shower and you have 50 films to watch within certain amount of time. OK! You might be doing that for a month or maybe a little more than that, but I assure you that this particular screener will get annoyed with films at one point in the process. Then he will be watching no more films of those films assigned to him. If your film is within that bunch–you are dead.
Here is the catch on submitting your film during the “Early Bird”and “Regular” Deadlines. You want to get those screeners fresh and hot before they get tired of watching films for free. You want your film to be one of those that created that initial good impression. You want to pass that first round of scrutiny. If your film passes this first round, whichever are the following stages, your film will be watched until the final decision is made.
Remember in the final decision stage, there will not be 800 films to watch but probably 100 and by fresh people. Therefore, besides of submitting your film on time, you will present your film like a nice dish for the screener to eat. Send a nice DVD Case with a colorful poster and prints. Make that film a temptation to watch. Most people will follow the festivals rules and send a DVD with sloppy written magic marker information on it and less than a desirable appearance. Make it pretty! Make it stand out from the rest! Make that first screener incapable to resist the impulse of watching that DVD. You don’t even have to spend money on this.
You can do it yourself with PhotoShop and the magic of Staples. If you can afford to buy a Lightscribe Hard Drive- for about $80- buy it and engrave the DVD’s with the information you need to write on it instead of writing it with a magic marker. This takes additional time and money, but I think that it is worth the effort. Some film festivals discourage the use of a nice and well presented DVD. It is simple, they know it works in the mind of the screener. Another negative situation that is completely out of your control during the screening process is when you submit to a film festival that lacks of good organizational skills. The situation that could happen in this cases is that films are not being assigned to the screeners as they come in and they keep piling up. This is a very dangerous situation because many films will not be watched due to the fact that the process will be rushed. You will not know this fact until the notification date arrives and the film festival pushes the date forward. They will tell you that the delay is due to a big increase in late submissions. Cross your fingers and pray hard on this one.
FESTIVAL DURATION.
The festivals will have a duration or a run from somewhere between two days up to weeks. In some cases, there are festivals that run for two or three weeks. In exceptional cases even months. You better take notice of the duration of the festival before you even start reading about it. If the festival runs from two to four days, do not continue reading about it. Your opportunities on making it into that film festival are not too good unless you have a gem of a film. The shorter the festival is the more bad business for you and great business for them. Clear example of this– New York Los Angeles International Film Festival (LA). I submitted my second short film to this festival last year. Submission period ran from July through September. The festival ran for 2 days in October. And you know that it is not a 24 hours run. The rejection letter reads in part: “Due to the vast amount of submissions of high quality and merit, our decisions were exceedingly difficult to make. Unfortunately, there are limits on the amount of projects we can select in comparison to the submissions we receive”. Very truthful statement that one! This same festival advertised again in 2012 a two (2) days run. You can go right now and check in their website. The festival schedule is really one (1) day only. YES UNO! After paying the rent for the theater from 1:00pm to 11:40pm and buying a couple of $25.00 trophies, the revenues should be excellent. We rest our case!
Film Festivals operate by slots. They have allocated some slots for features, some slots for shorts, etc. The submission period was opened for months and in most of the cases they receive hundreds of films and you know that they do not operate 24 hours a day. Therefore, the business side of this, is that they will receive way more submissions that what they can really showcase or handle. That’s the big profit there!
You will increase your probabilities on making it to the line up with a good film and submitting it to a film festival that runs for a considerably and descent amount of days such as seven days or more. I want to be clear, if you know that you have a great film, you have to take risk and gamble more than a filmmaker that has an average quality film. The more film festivals you submit the more opportunities you have to be an Official Selection.
SUBMISSION FORMAT.
The submission format is how you present your film for screening. This is by sending a DVD through the mail or by using the “Secure Online Screener” method which is the file of the film that you can upload in Withoutabox, as I mentioned before. With “Secure Online Screener”the film festival can easily access your film. For real? Let me give you a more detailed and personal point of view on this super important assumption. By using the “Secure Online Screener” you indeed will save money and time running back and forward to the Post Office and spending money in envelopes and postage. It will only cost you $2.95 versus envelopes, postage, DVD’s, time burning DVD’s and the trip to the Post Office. However, you can be playing with fire and risking too much. Allow me to explain this by breaking it down for you.
1) If the file (film) fails for any reason when the screener is watching it, due to excessive buffering, any other signal problem or malfunction, that could be the end of your film right there. The screener will probably skip you and go to the next film. An old fashion DVD will most likely not fail.
2) If the screener comes from work, is tired or is annoyed with the kids, or the mother in law, the screener may not be in the best mood to start with the famous “computer ritual”. As we all know this is getting the computer starting it opening it going to the website, password, looking for the film, waiting for this waiting for that, and on and on and on. How annoying is all that right? And if the screener has a cheap computer… Forget about it!
Nothing better than getting that old fashion DVD, putting it into the DVD player and watch that film with a superior speakers system and in a better and bigger screen. The screener will be sitting comfortably and in a better mood to enjoy your film and look at it with a more positive attitude. And all these almost problems free. As a matter of fact, this year I submitted my film to multiple film festivals and I was forced to conduct and involuntary experiment. As a sample, I took all those festivals that sent out their decisions from July through October 2012. My film did not achieve a single Official Selection status from all of those which I submitted using the “Secure Online Screener”. Now in the case of the film festivals that I sent out a nice and attractive DVD, my film was accepted in all of them! Is this a coincidence or what? And from those Official Selections, the film received more than 14 nominations for awards. That is by the time I am writing this article. This situation was so shocking for me that I was forced to re-group and come up with a new strategy. I sent out DVD’s to all the recent film festivals that I had already submitted through “Secure Online Screener” and that were still within the deadline.
After this, trust me, I will pay the extra money and make the run to the Post Office with no problem. This situation increased my fears about the famous and supposedly convenient “Secure Online Screener”. To make it worst, I came across with the Oscar Qualifying Austin Film Festival. They have included a very important note for you and it reads: “The Austin Film Festival is not responsible for the streaming quality of WAB Secure Online Screener. If you choose to submit a Secure Online Screener and would like to guarantee the quality of your submission, AFF strongly suggests you submit a DVD in addition to your Secure Online Screener submission.” As I said, this is a very personal and subjective point of view. But I just gave you some important evidence that you better take into consideration. Be yourself the judge.
WAITING PERIOD.
The film has been submitted and now starts the agonizing waiting period for the festival to take a determination on your film. If you are not a filmmaker, you do not have an idea on how mentally exhausting this period of time is. You can not wait to bring the breaking news to your loves ones, actors and crew that the film has been accepted in a film festival. This is our reward time and the positive feedback telling us that people out of our immediate cycle liked the film. But with this probably will come more expenses. Now you need to advertise your film and if the film festival is in the vicinity, you have to mobilize your people to assist to the screenings. And trust me the film festival will tend to include as many films as they can from the immediate areas near the location of the festival.
For example, if you reside in New York State, you have a considerably better opportunity to be accepted in a film festival within New York State and surrounding states. Why? The film festival wants you and your people to go and spend money there in admission tickets, etc. Therefore, the film festival will not hesitate to include in the line up more films from the immediate areas no matter if they have received better films from the North Pole. This is an opportunity that the filmmaker should take advantage of. Filmmakers should submit their films to as many film festivals as they can from the areas near his location. I didn’t say that all films from the area will be accepted. I said that there will be a tendency to include more films from the immediate areas. Anyway this widely expands your opportunities to become an Official Selection.
On the other side of that, and being a little sarcastic, if your film is accepted only in your immediate area and it is never accepted in a remote location of the United States, or in another country that may be a strong indication that your film is not that good. Sorry!!!!! But do not worry you will be the only one that really notice this fact.
IRREGULAR REQUESTS.
In some cases you will receive what I call “Irregular Requests” by some film festivals that are designed to generate more income for them. They may want you to purchase a space in a magazine or program to advertise your film. Do not feel committed to engage in any of these expenses. Stop and analyze each of these requests. In the case of the magazines or programs, they are mostly paid by businesses that sponsor the film festival. The film festival just want more money! If you have been in a film festival before, you well know that this magazines or programs do absolutely nothing for your career and probably will end up in the nearest garbage can outside the theater. Therefore, spending from $100 to $800 on this it’s just bad business. Take a little vacation with that money instead or drink it outside in the nearest bar after the screening.
In conclusion, you must be watchful while conducting your researches on film festivals. Do not submit by instincts or impulses like I did before. Read and analyze the same way you do when buying a house or a car. There are many good film festivals out there with great people behind them. All of them need funds to operate and it is very reasonable to charge a fee. But in the society that we are living in today many people will take advantage of anything in their reach to make a buck and have a better life. That is when the film festival deviates from its real mission and it is no longer aimed to discover and assist emerging talent. This business is so good for many, that even when you receive the rejection letter, they encourage you to submit your film again the following year or to make a new one and submit it to them again. They really make you feel like a winner when you are not.
Ultimately, having positive results with your film will depend on the criteria of that first screener. This is the person that will open the doors for you and forward the film to the next person on the screening process. It would be fantastic if Withoutabox could at least regulate the use of their amazing website. Some people are using it in an abusive and improper manner making them look like participants. Their good reputation could easily be questioned in the near future. Another example of the extreme is the 2012 Cockatoo Island Film Festival in Australia. This festival advertised in Withoutabox the inclusion of 240 short films to this year inaugural extravaganza.
Take a look at their website and you will see an amazing film festival with great films, celebrities and concerts. What you will not see are those 240 short films. I was able to count less than 15 short films in the line up. This is a shame and in this case I will dare to call it a “scam”. Who knows how many filmmakers submitted their short films under the believe that in reality they were including 240 shorts. That number is attractive for the filmmaker and increases the possibilities in the their minds that their film will be accepted. That is what happened in my case and I submitted my last film. The festival used Withoutabox as a vehicle to achieve their dishonest agenda. This malicious behavior must be stopped. We need film festivals. They are the most suitable outlet for us upcoming filmmakers to showcase our work. Just be cautious and be smart. Remember that we are the next generation of great filmmakers. Somebody has to replace Lucas, Spielberg and Scott. That means us. We must continue. We can’t stop doing what we are doing. Pursue your dream and do not stop… not even to take a breathe.
GOOD LUCK TO ALL
By Edgar Jimz
Actor (SAG/AGTRA) & Filmmaker
President of Screen Working Actors Tactical Specialists, LLC.
www.swats1.com