Festivals for Web Series

Posted on April 12, 2017 by Michael Korican

Once upon a time, one way to attract attention to your independent film was to exhibit it on the festival circuit.

The idea was that appreciative audiences would prove your film’s worth to distributors who would then pay you to buy your film.

Fast forward to today. There are thousands of films being made each year. Sundance receives over 12,000 submissions and can show only 185.

Okay. So let’s make a web series instead.

We still face the same problems: how to attract an audience and how to get paid.

Enter festivals exclusively for web series.

The excellent CMF Trends has just published a listing of 45 festivals for web series.

“Given the perpetually increasing offer of quality productions, ‘discoverability’ remains one of the main challenges that webseries creators face. What can creators do to make sure their projects stand out from the competition? Among the options that are available to them, they may enter their work in national and international competitions.”

This list includes:

12 in Canada
14 in the United States
13 in Europe
3 in Asia and Oceania
3 in Latin America

The big winner seems to be Montreal with six!

My take: how do you show a web series at a festival? Binge watch all ten webisodes?

CMF lists support for Canadian exports

Posted on November 23, 2016 by Michael Korican

Amidst a background of reflection on Canada’s cultural place in a digital age, the Canada Media Fund has published a list of federal and provincial support for audio-visual exports.

The 10-page PDF list 6 national and 19 provincial programs, ranging from 1 in Yukon to 4 in Ontario.

For instance, Telefilm Canada‘s International Marketing Program:

“…seeks to support the marketing of Canadian feature length and short films that have a huge potential for success. Supports the international promotion and marketing strategy for Canadian productions officially selected to be presented during a recognized international festival. Nature of the assistance: Non-reimbursable contribution that can reach 100% of eligible costs, up to a cumulative maximum of $40,000 per eligible production.”

My take: as we look beyond our borders, this is handy information.

Zapruder Films seeks Canadian female feature writer for dev deal

Posted on September 11, 2016 by Michael Korican

Because they don’t feel the Canadian feature film industry is doing enough to bridge the gender gap, Matthew Miller and Matt Johnson of Toronto’s Zapruder Films have launched a program to help support the development of one emerging female screenwriter.

They will be giving all of their $12,000 Telefilm development funds to one woman to develop a treatment into a first draft narrative feature script.

The rules:

“The contest opens September 8, 2016 and closes September 18, 2016.
The winner will be announced on Friday, September 30.
Applicants must not have written a produced feature length screenplay.
Scripts must be the original work of a female writer and must be written originally in English. Adaptations and translated scripts are not eligible.
The writer must be a Canadian citizen or permanent resident.
The writer must agree to option the material to Zapruder Films for a 24 month period.
The writer must not be a member of any screenwriting unions or guilds.”

Your single PDF application must be at least seven pages:

“One page synopsis of the film
A short treatment of the film (5-10 pages)
A short brief addressing what your film means to you (300 word maximum)”

I asked Matthew and Matt what sort of response their program has received:

“The response has been really encouraging. There have already been several submissions and dozens of inquiries as to the specifics of the rules and regulations. For the most part, it is very hard for young writers without an agent to get their foot in the door. Most companies don’t accept unsolicited works so we think that alone has provided a breath of fresh air. And it is trying to help address the issue of gender disparity in our industry and that has helped to spawn a healthy and spirited debate on social media. We couldn’t be happier with where things are at this early in the program.”

My take: I applaud Zapruder Films for this program. It’s smart on two counts: firstly, they’re addressing the gender imbalance in the Canadian feature film industry. Hey, it’s 2016 already. Secondly, these guys want to encourage new, as-yet-unheard voices, with new, interesting stories to tell. As we all know, story is king, or in this case, queen.

A film festival for every film

Posted on June 22, 2016 by Michael Korican

With something like over 3,000 active film festivals around the world, there’s a film festival for every type of film.

And now, there’s even one dedicated to drone filming: FRiFF.

Filmmakers looking for validation from juries can search for suitable festivals on Withoutabox or FilmFreeway.

Just be sure festival exposure is a component of your overall distribution and marketing strategy.

My take: that’s it — I’m going to start my own film festival. Coming to cyberspace soon! Even if Robert Redford once said there are too many film festivals….

How does your film festival stack up?

Posted on June 8, 2016 by Michael Korican

Stephen Elliott recently posted The Great Film Festival Swindle on The Rumpus.

It’s a fascinating read for filmmakers about to devise a film festival strategy.

The issue is that you need people to see your film — you need to find your audience.

It seems obvious that film festivals can deliver that audience to you.

But it turns out that not all film festivals are created equal. In fact, some are much better than others. And some are downright greedy.

Elliott started with the question, “Why are film festival submission fees so high?” and then started digging and ended up unearthing some invaluable data he now shares with us all.

In essence, he cross-referenced the stories film festivals and filmmakers told him. He was particularly concerned with a film paying the submission fee and its chances of actually being selected. It turns out that over twenty well-known film festivals in the last couple of years collected feature film submission fees but only programmed invited films or ones that had a waiver — none of the films that paid the fees got in.

Elliott asks:

“Is it okay to fund a festival based on exorbitant submission fees and not program the movies that are paying the fees? It’s as if the losers were throwing a party for the winners.”

According to Elliott’s research, the top seven “level-playing field” film festivals are:

For a balanced view, see The Other Side’s Truths about Film Festival Submission Fees.

My take: I’ve had a feature and a few shorts screen at film festivals. It’s nice! It strokes your ego. But the brutal truth is that the explosion of content today means you now have to pay (and pay big) to get into film festivals. It’s almost a full-time job researching, submitting, paying, following up, delivering media, promoting and, potentially, attending film festivals. Be sure the exposure plays into your overall marketing plan. Added thought: I challenge all film festivals to publish their ratio of fee-paying selections to invited or fee-waived selections.

The richest film prize in Canada goes to an experimental feature

Posted on January 20, 2016 by Michael Korican

The Toronto Film Critics Association awarded the Rogers Best Canadian Film Award to Guy Maddin and Evan Johnson at the annual ceremony on January 5, 2016, for their film “The Forbidden Room”.

The pair scooped the $100,000 cash prize, the richest film award in Canada.

At the presentation, Don McKellar quipped:

“I’m telling you right now that’s too much money for Guy. I’m serious. That’s more than his last 45 films combined, their total budgets. If I were you, critics — and this is just a suggestion — I would give an annual stipend, like a fund of maybe $10,000 to Guy every year for life. And he would make a film for you. And you could show it in your clubhouse or whatever and say, ‘That’s our film. Guy Maddin made that for us.'”

In his acceptance speech, Guy said:

“$100,000 is enormously generous, thank you. With it, we hope to bring an NFL franchise to Winnipeg.”

Evan offered up:

“I just want to take back every negative thing I’ve ever said about film critics and — corporations.”

See video in the Globe and Mail’s report.

This is the second time Guy has won — in 2008 his “My Winnipeg” took top honours.

My take: I’m going to win this one day.

Rooster Teeth set to deliver Lazer Team

Posted on September 2, 2015 by Michael Korican

Rooster Teeth has announced that the world premiere for Lazer Team will be on September 24, 2015, at the Fantastic Fest in Austin, Texas.

From the Fantastic Fest media release:

“Fantastic Fest will host the World Premiere of LAZER TEAM, the first feature film from web series gods Rooster Teeth. LAZER TEAM director Matt Hullum and cast members Burnie Burns, Alan Ritchson, Colton Dunn, Michael Jones, and Gavin Free will be in attendance to celebrate the highly anticipated sci-fi comedy and join Fantastic Fest’s official opening night party, presented by Rooster Teeth.”

Recall that in July 2014 this project became the third most crowd-funded film and video project on Indiegogo.com.

My take: kudos to Rooster Teeth for pulling this off. Their 37,000+ fan-funders must be giddy!

Deadlines for writers and filmmakers at a glance

Posted on May 27, 2015 by Michael Korican

Time is linear, right?

Or is it more cyclical?

Taking a page from the Mayans, Jonathan Krimer of writersandfilmmakers.com has compiled three very interesting calendars.

One each for filmmakers, writers and documentary and television markets.

What sets these calendars apart from all others is that they are round. Think discs spinning, not stacks of paper blowing in the wind.

I asked Jonathan what software he uses, what conclusions we can draw, where he got his data and how often he updates:

“It’s Excel! I’m an MS Excel expert and use pretty complex charts in my day job (HR Analyst). So I just thought there might be some information gained from mapping it out visually. I did a basic Google search and found some existing templates that I then had to tweak. They were a bit of a hassle to do actually.

If you look at the writing competition chart, there is definitely a visual message there. There are definite slow months when you should be writing and writing! There are other times when everything must be submitted, so if you space out your writing year accordingly, you won’t miss the bulk of the deadlines.

To make the Film Festival Chart, I used some information from Sydney Levine whom I’ve met twice at TIFF. She also writes and does interviews for Indiewire @sydneysbuzz. She has festival circuit recommendations that I used as a guide.

I have not updated the calendars recently. I think I will update them later in the year.”

See his blog for more details. Scroll down to December 2014.

My take: I love the circular design. It makes it very easy to get the big picture and see events in relation to others. If you miss a deadline, chill, it’ll probably come around again.

Funding for female filmmakers

Posted on February 4, 2015 by Michael Korican

As reported at On Screen Manitoba, BravoFACT and BravoFACTUAL will now ensure that 50% of their awards will go to female filmmakers:

“The change is meant to help foster up-and-coming female filmmakers in Canada. In order to qualify as female-lead, a submission must have a director or producer attached who is a woman. In addition, every BravoFACT and BravoFACTUAL jury in 2015 will include a female filmmaker as a guest juror.”

The next deadlines are April 1, 2015 for BravoFACTUAL and June 12, 2015 for BravoFACT.

My take: this is long overdue. Go grab a piece of the pie, sisters! We need to hear your stories more than ever.

Telefilm Canada searches for shorts for France

Posted on November 12, 2014 by Michael Korican

Telefilm Canada is looking for short films to compile into an 80-minute programme to screen at the Short Film Market at next year’s Clermont-Ferrand International Short Film Festival.

Once again, the incomparable Danny Lennon will curate the films.

The deadline is November 19, 2014.

My take: if you have a short film that qualifies, go for it! Sure, you’ll be one of 5,000 films there, but the credibility selection to Not Short on Talent brings is fantastic.

Michael Korican Thinks

Thoughts on Independent Filmmaking and the Emerging Economic System

Category Archives: Festivals and Awards