Category Archives: Festivals and Awards

Film Festivals move online for now

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Chris Lindahl reports on IndieWire that Numerous Distributors Pulled Films from Online Film Festivals in 2020.

He refers to a new report recently released called The New Era of Indie Film Exhibition by Jon Fitzgerald, Brian Newman and Lela Meadow-Conner.

They surveyed 100 filmmakers, film festivals and distributors.

The insights are somewhat predictable:

  • 70% of filmmakers expect to share in a percentage of online film festival ticket sales.
  • 79% of film festivals had films withdrawn after the decision was made to move online.
  • “70% of distributor said that geoblocking and ticket caps were decided on a case by case basis, but 60% of distributors said they preferred ticket caps on virtual screenings. 30% of distributors said that if a film they wanted to acquire was not geoblocked they would let the filmmaker know that would stop them from making an acquisition.”

Specifically, filmmakers want to see:

  1. “More breakout sessions with filmmakers
  2. More networking and access to industry players
  3. More live Q&A sessions with audiences
  4. More flexibility in viewing times, not just a one time stream
  5. Better stats and data after the festival
  6. Social component, more interaction with audiences
  7. More press and social promotion
  8. Audience data & email lists
  9. More help in creating revenue opportunities for filmmakers
  10. More open dialogue with the filmmakers
  11. More panel discussions & educational offerings”

My take: this report makes fascinating reading and illustrates the vastly different, and opposing, goals of filmmakers, film festivals and distributors when it comes to the festival circuit. I would say filmmakers and film festivals are united in wanting as much “exposure” as possible whereas distributors would prefer festivals to remain as small and exclusive as possible so they can further “exploit” their acquisitions commercially.

How to sell your film ‘Demystified’

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Tim Molloy of MovieMaker alerts us to a new podcast/vlog all about selling your independent film called Demystified.

It’s produced by StudioFest, an annual competition to pair one writer with one director and $50,000 to make a feature film.

The first episode follows founders Jess Jacklin and Charles Beale to the American Film Market (AFM) and their meeting with Glass House Distribution about their first feature Souvenirs.

Here are the highlights, according to Tim:

  • 7:30: Do you need a sales agent to sell your film?
  • 8:20: How does a sale work? Is it revenue sharing?
  • 8:35: Do you need to finish your film before you approach a distributor?
  • 9:00:  How important is a trailer?
  • 10:00: What genres are most marketable? Can you sell a drama with an unknown cast?
  • 11:36: How much does it cost to hire Nicolas Cage?
  • 11:50: Should you reveal your budget?
  • 13:30: Should you count “in-kind” contributions toward your budget?
  • 16:20: What you can compromise on, and what you can’t.
  • 17:23: What’s the etiquette for meeting a distributor?
  • 18:20: How much money can a lower-budget movie with no stars expect to make?
  • 19:10: Can you just go straight to Netflix?

It’s a very entertaining and enlightening podcast.

You can enter this year’s StudioFest at FilmFreeway.

My take: Of course you need a sales agent. There’s no way you can connect with all the outlets for your film across the world. However, please realize you may never see anything beyond your advance. Expenses will always dilute revenue until there’s nothing left to split. See Hollywood accounting.

How to make a low, low budget sci-fi feature

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Aleem Hossain blogs on No Film School How (and Why) I Made an Indie Sci-Fi Feature Film for $30K.

It’s a fascinating read. His belief is that:

“We should rethink why we are making independent films in the first place, especially indie sci-fi and speculative films. I don’t think we should even be trying to compete with Hollywood. We should be striving to make films that are strikingly different from big-budget films.”

Aleem faced five challenges making After We Leave and solved them creatively. Although he answers them from a sci-fi point of view, they can be extrapolated to indie filmmaking in general.

#1. The Brainstorming Phase: What Are Sci-Fi and Indie Film’s Core Strengths?

“Hollywood is very good at making its kind of movies. Why should we try to compete with them with a lot less money? In my mind, the only reason to make an independent feature film is to create a movie that only you would make. A kind of film that wouldn’t exist if you didn’t exist. I think what independent films can offer are new directions in style, tone, theme, topic, representation, and viewing experiences. They can challenge the mainstream artistically, politically, and narratively.”

#2. World building does not have to be expensive.

Rather than with a VFX-laden long shot, sometimes a world can be built with a carefully composed close up:

“The future version of Los Angeles that I imagine in my film is undergoing severe water shortages. This glass is the only clean water we see in the entire film. Every other time characters drink, they drink dirty water or something other than water. I don’t have a shot of a huge empty reservoir. I don’t have a shot of drones “mining” water from clouds. I have one clear glass of water, provided by the most powerful and richest character in the film… and my main character chugs it down. It cost me nothing. But it’s definitely world building.”

#3. The standard model of film production discourages artistic risk-taking.

Aleem laments, “The system is always telling us to play it safe.”

To counter the “stay on schedule” mantra, he bought their camera gear:

“We could choose to just try one crazy complicated shot, exactly at sunrise, and then we’d all go off to our day jobs. If it didn’t work we could try again the next morning.  There was no downside other than our time… and because we were fitting it in around our existing work and lives. This way of working was, in fact, the thing that convinced collaborators (some long time friends, some new) to work on the film. They all had day jobs that paid way better than I could. The reason they gave up their nights and lunch hours and weekends to work on After We Leave was that I was offering them a chance to try things they normally didn’t get to try. To reach for things in a way they normally didn’t get to.”

This also freed up his actors to ask for extra takes and for his DOP to extend magic hour by shooting at the same time over a number of days.

As to locations:

“I ‘scouted’ for hours on Google Street view looking for rundown and beautifully gritty locations… and then I placed small scenes in each of them. We shot all over Los Angeles. We didn’t get a single permit. We didn’t need to because we didn’t care if we got kicked out of somewhere… it wouldn’t throw off our schedule or make us cut the scene or waste a ton of money. We’d just film it next weekend at a different location. And the truth is, most days we were a crew of three people with a DSLR, a Zoom recorder and a mic, plus one or two actors. We shot in 25 different exterior Los Angeles locations and were approached only once by the police and twice by private security. And in two of three of those times, they weren’t telling us to stop filming… they were making sure we were safe in what they perceived to be a dangerous location.”

#4. VFX don’t have to cost a lot of money, they (just) cost time.

Rotoscoping and motion tracking in Adobe After Effects have improved so much in the last ten years that green screens and locked off cameras are no longer necessary.

See their VFX reel.

#5. There is actually a huge advantage to being micro-budget when you reach the distribution phase.

Aleem realized his advantage was, “I needed to make back less money than other films.”

After being rejected by top film festivals, he found success at niche ones:

“After being rejected by 22 festivals in a row, I got an email from Sci-Fi London raving about my movie. I gave them the world premiere and After We Leave won Best Feature Film there and everything started to change. We went on to Berlin Sci-Fi, Other Worlds, Boston Sci-Fi and won a number of awards and got great reviews.”

Aleem concludes:

“The big lesson I learned is to only do what I felt we could do well and to pick a story that makes use of that. And that’s the irony… by avoiding mimicking the films that try to appeal to huge audiences, I actually created a film that resonated with audiences.”

My take: Lots to take away here. Embrace your limitations. Less money can mean more time. Raise enough to get it in the can. Then raise more to finish it. Use the right festivals to connect with your true audience. Never compromise your vision.

Inside the film festival selection process

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Caleb Hammond, writing in MovieMaker, reveals How to Get Your Film Into Festivals.

Illustration by Angela Huang

The article summarizes responses from “a range of festival directors (many with 10-plus years of experience), programmers, and of course, screeners” to a detailed survey.

Having been a screener and member of programming committees for a number of film festivals, I’ll also chip in.

Do screeners watch every minute?

“44 percent of screeners made clear that they watch every submission to completion. Thirty-seven percent said they occasionally fail to finish viewing a submission and only 19 percent said they frequently stop a film submission early.”

I watch every minute, unless a submission is so terrible or clearly outside a festival’s field of interest.

Should my film be long or short?

The consensus is that shorter is better. Remember, the shorter the films, the more that can be programmed.

I agree. I watch hundreds of films so I’d rather watch two shorter films than one longer one. Put another way, a longer film has to be significantly better than two shorter ones to make it.

Will a film festival bend its rules for me?

Do your research and “really know the profile of every festival you consider submitting to.” This way you can save time and money by avoiding submissions to unsuitable festivals.

Make sure you check off every requirement of the festivals you submit to — no exceptions. Bonus: help me make sure your film qualifies if there’s any question about any of the requirements by explaining everything to me in your personalized cover letter.

Will festivals let my bad sound pass?

No. Bad sound is a tip off, like bad acting and bad visuals, of a bad film. Anything sub-standard makes it much tougher to accept a film. Paradoxically, casting a known actor in your film may actually raise the bar for all the other aspects of your film.

I agree. Bad sound is hard to ignore. I would almost suggest doing one or two takes of every scene close-mic’ed without camera to give yourself plenty of sound options in edit (before resorting to ADR.)

Can diversity help my film?

Yes. If two films are tied, the one with more diversity wins.

I look for diversity in both the cast and the crew.

I missed the deadline. Can I submit after the late deadline?

Maybe, but it’s not recommended. Submit as early as possible for a couple of reasons. Earlier submission costs are cheaper than later ones. Plus the later you wait, the greater the chance that a festival has already started to make decisions. Even if they haven’t, your late film is subconsciously judged agains all that have been seen before it.

I advise that you do not send a work in progress because you are asking the festival to make a couple of gambles on you and your film: will you or won’t you finish the film in time and will it or won’t it be better than other finished films that could have been chosen? Better to not rush it and submit next year when the film is completed.

I love these closing words, quoting an anonymous programmer:

“There’s a festival for every film and a film for every festival. Submit to the ones whose vision you agree with and want to support, whether you’re accepted or not.”

My take: Make the best film you can. Know your ideal audience. Research appropriate festivals on FilmFreeway. Offer your film to those festivals for their programs. If your film is selected, congratulations! If it isn’t, feel good in supporting those festivals. Continue to believe in your film and realize it wasn’t a good fit with their programs. Make better films, and repeat this cycle. Nevertheless, if you go through this loop too many times, consider starting your own film festival!

Academy leaves Rule Two alone

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Brian Welk reports in The Wrap that “the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has opted against changes to Oscars eligibility that could have shut Netflix productions out of future ceremonies“.

The Academy’s Board of Governors upheld Rule Two, which states that a film must screen in a Los Angeles County commercial theatre for a minimum of seven days, with at least three screenings per day, in order to be eligible for Academy Awards.

They rebuked a proposed rule change by Steven Spielberg that would have seen streamed features restricted to television awards.

The 92nd Oscars will be handed out on February 9, 2020.

My take: when you realize the Academy Awards are a marketing vehicle for the film industry, this spat starts to make some sense. It illustrates the rift between the old guard and the technological innovators. I wonder how Spielberg will feel when Apple+ streams his projects.

Spielberg wants to make it harder for Netflix to win a best picture statuette

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Zack Sharf reports on IndieWire that Netflix has responded to Steven Spielberg’s lobbying for rule changes (that would make it harder for the streamer to win more Academy awards) with a tweet:

From the Orlando Sentinal:

“Spielberg, an Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences governor representing the directors branch, reportedly is planning to propose rule changes that would prevent streaming services such as Netflix, Amazon and Hulu from competing in the Academy Awards without their projects getting a full theatrical run first.”

He makes his case next month, per Anne Thompson:

“Last Thursday, an Amblin spokesperson confirmed that Academy governor Spielberg will bring up at the next Board of Governors rules meeting in April proposed changes that would force streamers such as Netflix to fulfil a more robust theatrical distribution requirement than the 2012 rules demand to qualify for Oscar consideration. It’s not at all clear that Spielberg has enough backing from the 54-member board to put through those rule changes.”

Netflix has won many awards, including their first Academy Award in 2017.

My take: I think Spielberg is afraid of change and the massive buying power of the streaming platforms. He loves movies and cinemas. I too would hate to see the theatre-going experience fade away. But that’s partly the film industry’s fault since they put so much emphasis on movies based on comic books. Imagine how interesting cinemas would look like if comic book movies were banished to TV.

FilmFreeway defeats Withoutabox

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Chris O’Falt reports on IndieWire that FilmFreeway “will not use its position to force festivals into exclusive arrangements,” the tactic that Withoutabox thought would ensure its survival.

Last week Withoutabox unexpectedly announced that it would be shutting down within a year.

O’Falt quotes Andrew Michael:

“While we love it when festivals choose to use FilmFreeway exclusively, we never require exclusivity and we never will. Festivals should have complete autonomy as to how they run their events and the services they choose to help them reach filmmakers. We don’t believe in the approach that WAB used to lock up festivals exclusively with secret contracts. We’ve always believed that if we provide festivals with a high quality product, personal customer care, and a world-class user experience they will continue to happily utilize FilmFreeway to facilitate and manage their submissions.”

O’Falt sketches a brief history of WAB and its issues.

He then reveals some welcome news from FF:

“Recently, the company started offering festivals the ability to sell tickets on FilmFreeway with no fees, and is getting ready to create a free-of-charge DCP creation tool for customers. This week, FilmFreeway plans to announce a price reduction.”

My take: I’ve used both services and withoutadoubt FilmFreeway is better than Withoutabox. I think the only benefit WAB provided was that your film would get a listing on IMDb. Soon, you’ll have to do that manually. 8-(

A New Release Strategy for your Short Film

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You’re proud of your short film! You want to launch it into the world so you create a release strategy. Typically, it looks like this:

Andrew S. Allen, of Short of the Week, thinks it should look like this:

He’s arguing from a partisan position because he’s part of an online festival that can premiere your short, but I think he make a lot of sense.

He even has survey results and statistics to back up his assertions.

In a nutshell, he suggests:

  1. Create an online + festival strategy. Submit your film to online outlets early.
  2. Secure your premiere with a top tier festival or online site.
  3. Find partners — connect with curators to reach their audiences.
  4. Don’t prioritize money — it’ll likely hurt your exposure.
  5. Don’t sign away exclusivity — hang on to your right to ‘be everywhere’.
  6. Go cross platform and get your film everywhere.
  7. Internationalize your film with subtitles to reach even further.
  8. Compress your release window over days/weeks rather than months/years.
  9. Launch, engage and recalibrate during the week of your release.
  10. Be prepared to pitch your next idea or project.

My take: once upon a time, the mediascape was an orderly grid: on one axis you had ‘windows,’ a hierarchy of platforms (theatrical, pay TV, airlines, free TV, libraries, etc.,) and on the other axis you had ‘territories,’ geographic regions (North America, Europe, Australia and New Zealand, Asia, Africa, etc.) Then along came the Internet that blew away time and space. The ‘Conventional Strategy’ above harkens back to the time of the Old Mediascape. ‘Be Everywhere All at Once’ is firmly rooted in the digital New Mediascape. One great reason to adopt it: you never were making any money from your short, so you might as well get it over with with the BEAAO Strategy and save yourself a couple of years. After all, time is money.

How to Choose the Best Picture Oscar

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The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences held the 80th Oscars last Sunday.

The Creature from the Black Lagoon

Guillermo del Toro‘s “The Shape of Water” won Best Picture.

Going in, I thought “Dunkirk” and “Three Billboards outside Ebbing, Missouri” were the front runners, with “Lady Bird” a close third. “Get Out”?

But can the winner be predicted?

Youyou Zhou, writing on Quartzy, offered The Ultimate Statistical Model for Predicting the 2018 Academy Awards Best Picture.

She rated the nine nominations on four scales:

  1. Buzz and fanfare
  2. Prior awards
  3. Money talks
  4. Critic reviews

She then asked the reader to weigh each category to produce a prediction.

Of course, we now know the actual winner, so we can reverse engineer this to gain some insight into what’s important in winning Best Picture.

I played around with the sliders and came up with:

  1. Buzz and fanfare = 15%
  2. Prior awards = 70%
  3. Money talks = 10%
  4. Critic reviews = 22%

I know it adds up to 117% — hey, I didn’t build this.

The biggest predictor was Prior Awards. In fact, “The Shape of Water” wins with all the categories at 25% and Prior Awards at 100%.

This graphic illustrates the favourites on each of the four scales.

My take: This just begs the question, how do you predict the other awards shows?

Digital Box Office streams indie flix for free

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This week I’m seeing a lot of ‘sponsored content’ posts for a new service called ‘Digital Box Office‘. (However, this is not a paid for post.)

“Developed by Hollywood Insiders and launching in early 2017, Digital Box Office is a groundbreaking global film platform that supports and caters to filmmakers as its #1 priority. Built on the latest state of the art infrastructure and incorporating the most sophisticated technology, Digital Box Office offers an unparalleled opportunity for film viewers to watch content in the highest quality viewing experience possible. Not only will your film have the capability to immediately reach millions of consumers globally, your film will also be seen by a community of some of the most important decision-makers in Hollywood. Digital Box Office is where many of today’s Hollywood rainmakers will be scouting their next big film project and talent. Digital Box Office is the first and only service of its kind.”

The platform is free to all; create an account, watch shorts and features, and then rate them out of five popcorn servings to carry on watching more.

Digital Box Office is also a film festival. Happening on May 11 and 12 in Los Angeles, the plan is to make this an annual offering. There is $25,000 in prize money:

“Digital Box Office will support the independent filmmaker community by offering a cash prize of $10,000 to the filmmaker with the top performing film on DBO each year. In addition, the filmmaker with the top performing film in each category and our top performing student filmmaker will each receive a cash prize of $5,000 dollars.”

Filmmakers can submit films for inclusion. DBO wants a non-exclusive 90 day window, after which the film is taken down.

My take: With less than a thousand films on the platform now, there’s an opportunity for indie filmmakers to get exposed here. If DBO gets traction, this could be a great thing. I do think the search tools on the site need some beefing up. Otherwise, it has potential and you might want to consider it in your distribution plans.