Marie Castaldo, 52, of Queens, New York, was arraigned on Tuesday night on charges of first-degree scheme to defraud, third- and fourth-degree grand larceny, petit larceny, third- and fourth-degree criminal possession of stolen property and second-degree harassment. “The defendant is accused of duping advertising and film industry vendors into providing their services for free to her film festival by – in most cases – making a small up-front payment and then refusing to make any further payments,” Brown said.
It’s always a good idea when submitting to any festival to do some research on the festival in question – using Google’s blog search tool and looking for the name of the festival with the words “scam” or “rip-off” is a quick way to find out if there have been complaints in the past.
Tate English and Lynn Mikeska (writer/director and star, respectively, of The Ballad of Friday and June) spent some time at the Oxford Film Festival recording a series of webisodes to document their festival trip. Rather than making the series a simple travelogue, however, they went out of their way to make each episode funny in a self-deprecating way. Well-made webisodes like these capture some of the local flavor of a festival town and involve fellow attending filmmakers involved whenever possible. (You want to give people a reason to link to your videos, right?) Off-the-cuff video blog entries are a fun, inexpensive way to build a fan base and to draw attention to your film’s festival run.
With the Park City festivals (Sundance, Slamdance, and other ‘dances that come and go with the years) just a week away, I thought this was a good time to check in with Chris Thilk about some of the philosophies and techniques of promoting an indie film at a large festival.
Let’s say I’m a filmmaker with a feature film playing at Sundance or Slamdance. I’m aware that million-dollar advance checks are few and far between, but I’d like to give my film the best chance possible for finding a distributor and/or an audience. What are some realistic expectations to set for this experience?
The expectations you have going in should be in direct proportion to the leg work you’ve put in prior to the festival, whatever it is. If, in support of your movie, you’ve already done some outreach to movie blogs that might be interested in the film, have built up an audience on Facebook or Twitter and generally can go in to the festival with some wind at your sails already your chances are much better.
I don’t have a lot of money for a publicist. How can someone with a limited budget be heard over the hype?
First off, dissuade yourself of the notion that you’re going to be heard by a large audience. The best strategy for creators of niche products – whether we’re talking about small movies or small beers – is to be heard by the right audience. That takes a lot of work upfront as you do research into potential communities of fans and such but then participating in those conversations is exactly as hard as having a conversation over email or even real life. You’ll never break through the hype around something like Transformers, but that’s not where your goal line is. Your goal line is finding the audiences and communities who are interested in what you have to say. Again, that takes a lot of upfront work, but it’s every bit as essential to the movie’s success as finishing the script so don’t consider it an add-on effort.
Filmmaker takes my response as proof of fervent interest in his/her film and promptly adds me to an email list, pimping the film’s screenings in cities where I do not live.
Sound familiar? If you’re subscribing people to your mailing list without their permission, you fall on the Goofus side of the age-old Goofus/Gallant spectrum.
For me this happens just often enough to be annoying, but for a festival director who deals with thousands of films each year, it’s a real problem. It only takes a few seconds to unsubscribe (if such a link is provided), but wading through an inbox filled with unsolicited (and usually irrelevant) news from well-meaning filmmakers robs festival staffers of many, many hours. Adding a programmer to your mailing list without their permission will accomplish the opposite of what you want – your film will get noticed, all right, but cast in a negative light.
Don’t hurt your film’s chances by spamming – there are better ways of getting your film noticed.
For more on email marketing best practices, check out the MailChimp blog. MailChimp is a terrific service. I use it for the Film Festival Secrets newsletter, to which you may subscribe – but only if you want to do so.
The Sundance Film Festival announces its slate today. I know a lot of filmmakers who submitted to the festival this year. For their sake and mine I don’t really go into the nitty-gritty numbers of how few films – no matter how good – get into this most coveted of festivals. Now that most of them have heard a yes or now, however, it might actually help their spirits to know the truth. (Last year I wrote a kind of pep talk piece on this subject that you’re welcome to read.)
Let’s do some back-of-the-napkin calculations here. According to what a Sundance programmer told me last year when I was writing Film Festival Secrets (the book), about 8,000 titles were submitted to Sundance last year, and that number could have gone as high as nine or ten thousand this year. Let’s use the conservative 9,000 for now. Checking out last year’s program guide reveals that Sundance programs fewer than 200 films total, including shorts. So 200/9000 = .022. Only two percent of the films submitted get into the Sundance Film Festival.
As John Cooper, Director of the Sundance Film Festival put it in a tweet earlier today: “3724 features submitted and we can only invite 113. So many tough choices. For me, a very good news-bad news day.”
(It has been pointed out to me that this means that three percent of feature films got in, but who’s counting?)
The numbers aren’t really much better at any other large-to-medium festival, though I estimate that acceptance rates hover between 3% and 8%. This isn’t a criticism of these festivals, merely a statement of the way it is. There are more films being made and submitted than ever before, and the large, well-known festivals can’t grow their programs fast enough to keep up. The selection process at a festival like Sundance isn’t about finding great films – it’s about figuring out which great films you want to show. As I told a client just the other day: “I think you made a film that’s good enough for Sundance, but whether it’s the kind of film that Sundance is in the mood for right now is the real question.”
The good news is that there are now more small-to-medium sized festivals than ever before, and that the number of really great festival-worthy films hasn’t kept up with that growth either. So while it may be a programmer’s market at the top of the heap, there are plenty of festivals further down on the pyramid who are hungry for quality movies that haven’t yet had their world or national premieres. Sure, it would be great to premiere at Sundance or AFI Fest or Berlin. The trick is to stay in the game long enough – and to keep making movies good enough – that you’re in the right place when your right time comes along.
The subject of your film’s world premiere can be a tricky one, particularly if it’s a feature. Don’t be too coy about your plans with the festivals to which you submit, however – the festival directors have a better grasp on premiere politics than you do. They also know all too well their own festival’s relative prestige status when it comes to the decisions filmmakers make. But how should you properly use your film’s premiere status as an incentive for festivals to program it? As one filmmaker recently asked me:
I don’t want to be disingenuous in my application by promising the world premiere to everyone, but not having had it yet, see it as a sweetener for the cover letter. Should I hustle it until I have it?
You definitely want to use your premiere status to your own advantage, but be honest about it and clearly communicate all changes to that status. You might be tempted to refrain from notifying the other festivals, but that will only create an awkwardness if and when that other festival calls to notify you of your acceptance.
The following sentences added to your submission’s cover letter will cover most situations:
As of this writing, the world premiere of “Example Movie” is still available. We have submissions out to several festivals and will keep you apprised of any premiere status changes.
When you decide to have your world premiere at a particular festival, simply send an email to the other festivals still considering you with the subject line “premiere status update for EXAMPLE MOVIE” and let them know about your film’s upcoming screening(s).
There are plenty of filmmakers who rush to finish their film for Sundance, fill out the paperwork, send off the DVD, and then… stop. There’s nothing wrong with waiting anxiously to hear from what is arguably the world’s most famous film festival, but if you’re not submitting to other festivals while you wait you could miss out on the entire Spring season. Break out your list of target festivals (see chapter one of Film Festival Secrets for more on this) and get cracking. Here’s a handy (but by no means complete) list of festivals with upcoming deadlines. Check each festival’s web site for their late deadlines, submission rules, etc.
Edit: I should point out that I picked these festivals for their relative prominence and for the fact that their deadlines come before the Sundance notification date (around Thanksgiving). If you’re a festival director and would like to post your own upcoming deadline in the comments, please feel free.
IDA’s roundup of a pair of panels from FIND’s Filmmaker Forum:
All agreed that the film festivals are going through a tough time right now. “Film festivals are losing money and they are closing,” lamented Jones. “CineVegas is closing for a year. Jackson Hole [not the Wildlife Film Festival] has closed completely. Sponsors are pulling out, so festivals are dealing with budget cuts in other ways, such as taking fewer films. When the festival outlets dry up, we lose a critical distribution mechanism. I consider film festivals like art galleries–they are the only place where you can see particular films onscreen.”
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With the Park City festivals (Sundance, Slamdance, and other ‘dances that come and go with the years) just a week away, I thought this was a good time to check in with Chris Thilk about some of the philosophies and techniques of promoting an indie film at a large festival.
So here’s something that happens to me a lot.
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