Finally all those days (or minutes) of writing, all the money spend on pre production (or all the free favours you managed to pull), The 18 hour a day shoots, The rain, or the cold, or the burning sun... Numerous fights with your 1st AD (if you had one), producer and cinematographer... sleepless night of drinking coffee with your editor (or by yourself)... have paid off. Or, have they ?
I would like to think that if you can sit down and watch your film after one or two months and still feel its a good film, then they have. It doesn't matter if it wont make a cent back or if it will get rejected from all the festivals in the world, (remember there is always MUFF :p ). It is your film, and if it makes you happy that is already an incredible achievement.
Here is a limited guy of things I have learn in Uni, Conferences, Forums, but mainly by life experiences, that I hope can help other film-makers if not succeeding at least saving money and time on their process of promoting a Short Film in a film festival or in a short film.
Will your film make it into film festivals ? No one can really tell. But here are some basics that I have observed over the years. I am not saying that you can make a film ''formula' to get into a festival. Make the film you want to make, but keep in mind these points.
THINKING ABOUT THE STORY
Good cinematography + Make it international.
It is an easy way to impress or captivate your audience and the critics, specially if your story is not extraordinary. When a frame looks beautiful, people don't mind waiting. Foreign Landscapes are a bonus. If you are planning to submit your film to an International Film Festival. Think that foreigners will like to see something about your country. I am not saying make a film with all-australian theme. But since you are in Australia, chuck in a couple of panoramics of the city, or sea, or desert, or something that screams "THIS IS NOT "insert name of festival country here", ITS AUSTRALIA". It makes sense for a festival to put your INTERNATIONAL film in their INTERNATIONAL selection.
Free tip: Melbourne is not the only city with trams in the world.
Make a story that makes sense or that makes no sense at all.
But nothing in the middle. If you are trying to make an experiment or to be 'arty', go all the way and may be you will get into the "experimental" or "lab" selection. Did you make a film using only still frames from a camera attached to a cat, that were afterwards dribbled by your 3 year old sister?. GREAT. Otherwise stick to stories that pretty much make sense and are easy to follow.
If is a comedy. make sure it makes people laugh. If is a drama, make people sad.
Pretty obvious eh ? Tell your story to 10 friends. make sure that more than half of them laughed. If not, you got a problem. If one of them pee on his pants, you got a winner. If only your mom laughed, try make it into a drama instead. Comedies are crowd pleaser. Its amazing to hear 500 people laughing because you intended them to. But how will you feel if they don't ?
Have something to say.
Films with a clear message have a better chance with audience. They will go out thinking it was good or bad but they will say " I know what he was trying to say" , and if that happens to be something that they agree with, they will like your film regardless. A lot of films in Clermont Ferrand had social messages, or messages against injustice. A lot of gay/lesbian themes, social injustice, life philosophy, politics, racism, things like that. Controversial topics are a bonus.
What is the message of your film ?, "Happiness is in the little things", it works a lot. "Society has gone to hell and its all shit" works a lot too. My film was saying " We crave for love even when it hurts us".
The shorter is not always the better.
People don't mind waiting as much as they mind being rushed. Depending on your market people expect a certain pace of the films. A good rule of thumb has always been around 7 minutes and no longer than 15. But European festivals will expect the same stories you can fit on 7, to be around 10. And they don't mind a 18, 22 minute film. If you have good cinematography, its better to give your film a slow pace rather than rushing the story.
Give them something they have NEVER seen before.
Or put them trough situations they have never imagined. After all its one of the things that people go to watch films. May be you have seen it a million times but it doesn't mean they have. For example, there were a lot of Asian films that showed a lot of Traditional Folk and Daily Life. Like, woman working on village that produces tea. Or a Palestinian man deep inside the tunnels of Gaza. The winner of the international competition at Clermont Ferrand was a polish film about an old man and his grandson playing around in the forest and cutting wood during summer.
BEFORE AND AFTER YOU SHOOT
RELEASE FORMS - DO NOT CALL 'ITS A WRAP' WITHOUT THEM
Get all the release forms you can get, for your Cast & Crew. Give them to your 1st AD and force everyone to sign them. Then send the 1st AD to make photocopies of it and achieve them in a very safe dark and dry place. If you don't have a 1st AD - GET ONE. Or pretend that your sound person, or your roommate, or wife/husbamd is your 1st AD and BEG THEM to remind you to do the forms. Most forms can be found if you google cast and crew forms, or write your own one using a template like tropfest one |
WHY ?
6 Months after, when your distributor (or yourself) is sitting in front of the Egoist.tv buyer, who is happy to pay you around 30 dollars per minute of your film for a Russian and federations pay per view licence. He may ask you if you have all the rights and will prefer if you have them IN PAPER.
DID YOU KNOW THAT?
They are particularly strict with your MUSIC CLEARANCES. If you don't have them, unless your film is a masterpiece lined up for an oscar nomination, without music clearances you are giving up all chances of distribution.
PRODUCTION STILLS. PHOTOS. BEHIND THE CAMERAS.
Remember how you took some funny photos of your cast and crew while you were on the first break of day 1 of shooting ? They DO NOT COUNT as production stills.... Making still frames of your movie outtakes DOES NOT COUNT either. Get your 1st AD or yourself, or Dp, or the Neighbour and take some decent Production stills. At least 5 or 10 different ones that you will be happy to use as a temporary poster of your film.
WHY ?
Lets say you get into 3 festivals, if you use the same still its not only boring, but once you are selected you gave away the rights to that still, the chances of them arguing over the rights of your stills are very rare, but you don't want this to happen. You are also going to need the stills for your webpage, for the back of the postcards, for the news articles, for more festival submissions. etc.. its handy.
DID YOU KNOW THAT ?
When I went to Clermont Ferrand I didn't had any stills, I had to take one from an actress facebook photo and use it to submit to other festivals while I was in the market... Embarrassing.
GET YOUR SOUND AND LIGHT LEVELS RIGHT
Play a DVD of your film on someone else house, and sit as far as you can in the room. You should be able to understand all the lines without putting the volume up from the normal 'news' volume. It cannot be too loud either. Loud music on a huge auditorium can get really annoying even when it sounds ok on your headphones. You should also be able to see your film fine, without having to strain in the dark to see what is happening. Watch it on different TVs and or projected if you can.
In my film there was this line " thank you" that it couldn't be heard, and as little as it sound it makes all the difference in the world for the story. I only realised this after I had submitted to a couple of festivals, but while I was fixing it noticed other bits and pieces where far too low.
POSTPRODUCTION AND MARKETING
GET YOUR DELIVERABLES RIGHT
get your marketing and distribution kit as complete as you can, not only carry copies with you on paper, but also digital copies and online copies of it, so that you can email, post, copy, print etc while you are travelling. Here is a list in no particular order of the things you should have
- Your film titles in French, Spanish, German, etc.
- Synopsis, under 250 words, under 500 words and under 1000 words. Also a 1 paragraph one.
- Full cast and crew credits and contact details
- Dialogue list in English and other relevant.
- Music clearances.
- Lots DVD region 0, with and without English subtitles
- A Pro Res version of your film in an online storage
- A Trailer in youtube/vimeo
- A online private pass protected version of your film (in case you run out of dvds)
- A imdb and an M4V (apple TV) file of your film
- Biography of Producer, Director or anyone important you have in your film
- Photos of the director, producer, or anyone important you have in your film
- Director statement
- Your showreel.
- Postcards, and/or posters, and or printed dvd/cases with your contact info
- Business cards for you and your short film
- A mobile phone or skype number to be reached while abroad.
- Any other press you have of yourself or your film.
There are thousands of film festivals around the world and its hard to choose which ones to submit, It can be very expensive in submission fees and postage. There are lots of great festivals that are free, and also quite a bit of festivals are now accepting your film online.
If you are Australian, have a look at this list of festivals, chances are if you make it into one of them, the government film bodies will pay for you to go. Film Vic gives up to 5k for them. (I am still chasing) The list changed drastically last year where a lot of short film festivals were cut. Just go to film vic and look up 'approved festivals' and that will give you the updated info. the link for the PDF is here. Some other information about grants, festivals and events can be found in the Film Victoria Website
Here is a list of some of the sites that you can use to submit.
Withoutabox - All the big festivals are here, specially American. Create an account, its free!
Shortfilmdepot - Only for short films!. (clermont, concorto, sapporo)
Reelport- More european film festivals Overhaussen, ifva, riff,
Here is a list of the top 50 film festivals by Indywire
And top 50 film festivals by Variety
List of some film festivals, links and deadlines by AFTRS FESTIVALS
Here is a guide about how to submit to festivals by AFTRS GUIDE
ABOUT THE FILM MARKET, DISTRIBUTORS AND BUYERS
A film market it's just that. A place where you go to BUY films. If you have your short film and you want to sell it in a market, it will be like trying to sell your home grown tomatoes in victoria market (Melbourne bigest food market). Unless you have a stand, or sell them directly to a shop, you are wasting your time. Aproaching random people in the film market and selling them your film is the equivalent as a random guy in the supermarket and trying to sell him your tomatoes.
But don't misinterpret. It is good to approach people and talk to them, tell them about your film, and even give them the postcards/cards and dvd asking for their opinion. But if you want to sell your film what you really should do is.... TO GET A DISTRIBUTOR. who will take your film under a range of other films and sell them in a nice package. They will take care of all the paperwork, sell your films and give you a comission.
You can always self distribute your feature film, but self distribute a short film in a short film market its a very long shot. If you do, just make sure you have plently of promotional material and all your papers in order.
Or you can try to get a distributor at the festival, There is usually a list of 'professional attendants' and their contact info on the festival website or catalogues. It is a good idea to drop them an email or note, if they have stands or 'pidgeon holes'. Another good idea is to try to organize meetings during the festival and attend the forums, so you know who is buying, what are they buying and who is selling.
Who are the Australian short film distributors ?..... None !. Aside from FLICKERFEST, who distributes somes of the films that make it into their own festival. By the way, their resource section is AWESOME. read it here. There are some buyers like Movie extra channel, SBS and ABC. When I was in Clermont Ferrand, most countries and even some universities had stands representing their films. It is a bit dissapoiting that there is no Australian presence or representation for short films, oh well. May be I will start a distribution company for short films, I doubt it will be protifable but sure it will be a lot of fun.
LAST WORDS OF ADVICE
Be brave. Learn from your mistakes and don't give up.
You are competing with thousands of filmmakers out there. This year there were around 6500 submissions to the Clermont Ferrand film festival, and about 5000 to Slamdance. They only select about 2 to 5% of the films.
But there is always someone out there that wants your short film and that will enjoy it as much as you do.
Talk to people, get feedback, while you are at the festivals try to talk with as many strangers as you can, keep their details, make contacts, talk about films, watch the films that make it into the festivals, you will be surprised, they are not all masterpieces.
But some of them are,
You can make one of them. ( I will be making some too)
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