Lessons & Observations from the Festival Circuit - PART 1

I’ve been out on the road—or as I like to call it, the “ole regional film festival trail”—with my feature “True Love.”  Whether you premiere in one of the major domestic festivals—Sundance, SXSW, Tribeca, LAFF—or not, you’re likely to hit a number of regional festivals on your way to some kind of ultimate distribution.  Of course, let’s be clear, it’s not a given that you will get into many of the smaller festivals, even if you’ve made a pretty good film.  The competition is fierce, not only from the burgeoning number of new filmmakers forged by inexpensive production tools, but also from more established filmmakers and films, even those with big distributors, (more on that in a bit).  Statistics from consultant and film festival programmer Thomas Ethan Harris state that a typical feature filmmaker spends nearly $3,500 on film festival submissions and only gets into around two festivals, on average.  Another way of looking at it is that the average filmmaker gets into less than 10% of the festivals they apply to.  My own experience with “True Love” confirms these numbers, and while my film may not be perfect, it’s not a disaster either. It was a Sundance Screenwriters Lab project made by an award-winning director. The few reviews I’ve been able to garner have been strong and it has won a couple of awards already.  But make no mistake, this is a tough game and it’s getting tougher—it should be said that I had personal relationships with many of the festivals I didn’t get into.  The head of one of those festivals grew up down the street from me and was in my sister’s wedding! 

If you’ve got a good film and you apply enough, however, you will get into a few festivals. But then what do you do?  Hopefully you will be invited to attend, meaning they will pay for your travel and accommodations.  Some of the better funded festivals will do this automatically, and if they don’t you should insist on it.  As producer’s rep and distribution consultant Peter Broderick says, if your film is at a festival and you aren’t, it’s like a tree falling in the forest.  Your film becomes invisible; all the things that you may hope to reap from that festival appearance will not come your way unless you are there.  This brings up one of the most important parts of festival strategy—setting goals.  You need to have specific goals for what you hope to obtain going to all these festivals. Things like:  securing distribution, collecting press quotes and festival laurels for your marketing materials, networking with other filmmakers and industry professionals, experiencing the joy (hopefully) of screening your film to a live audience, getting audience feedback for your film, finding fans who sign up to your website, meeting potential investors for your next project, seeing the world, having fun, drinking and eating for free, etc.  Some of these things are more important to you than others, and some festivals will be able to deliver some of these things better than others.  Without clearly defining these goals to yourself and working hard to achieve them, much of your festival experience will be a waste of time.  You can’t expect these things to just happen without a plan to make them happen, and a successful implementation of that plan.

So what are a few of the realities that I’ve discovered on my own festival sojourn? 

1.) No matter how good the festival is, (how well organized they are, how strong their programming is, how good their projection is, etc.), they will have difficulty getting folks into your screenings.  Now there are exceptions with certain festivals and certain films—Sundance, SXSW and some other festivals are known for sell-out houses; and some films for a variety of reasons pack them in, (“Dance Of The Dead”—a locally-shot comedy/horror film sold out three performances at the recent Atlanta Film Festival)—but the grim reality for most regional festivals is that it is very hard to get butts into seats, especially if your film is a “relationship drama” or something as hook-lacking as that.  YOU have to help get people into your screenings.  Apply to fests where you have some connection to the town, work on getting press for your film, blanket the place with postcards (a very good place to order postcards is Digital Room) and 11 x 17 posters that you can print for cheap at Kinko’s, network the hell out of the place, whatever.  There is nothing more demoralizing than standing in front of four people when they introduce your film; and nothing happens if nobody sees it.

2.) Publicity is HARD!  Getting something written about your film in the local paper is next to impossible, especially if you don’t have stars and didn’t win a prize at Sundance.  I probably don’t have to tell you what’s happening to newspapers across the country—they’re laying off their staff, especially local film reviewers.  When I got to Houston, my hometown, to screen “True Love” at WorldFest-Houston, I found the Houston Chronicle—the only daily in the fourth largest city in the country—had just laid off Bruce Westbrook, a 20 year veteran, and was down to one critic, who WASN’T covering the festival! (The third oldest in the U.S.).  The free weekly “alternative” paper, The Houston Press, hasn’t had a local film reviewer in years; they only run wire reviews.  Good luck getting a preview or review in that environment.  Some festivals have galvanized the community and have gotten the local newspapers behind them (Sidewalk Moving Picture Festival in Birmingham, AL or AFI Dallas, for instance), but beware!  The films that are going to get the most attention are 1.) locally-made films 2.) films with stars who will be in attendance, and 3.) films distributed by major distribution companies, who employ full-time publicists.  Wait, we’re talking about regional festivals, right? Why are these films in regional festivals?  Welcome to the new film marketing math—big distributors have discovered a new cost-effective marketing strategy for their indie-oriented films—regional festivals. (Read John Horn’s recent LA Times article).  I’ve been running into the same festival hogs at all the festivals I’ve attended this year:  “Son Of Rambow” (Paramount Vantage), “Young @ Heart” (Fox Searchlight), “The Visitor” (Overture Films), “Then She Found Me” (THINKFilm), “Mongol” (Picturehouse), and several others.  They get all the newspaper ink.  They’ve got one-sheet posters and hundreds of 11x17 posters splattered all over the place.  They enjoy all the benefits a multi-million dollar distribution campaign can amass.  Shit, I’ve got $20 to market my film at the Atlanta Film Festival!  And even worse, these films’ veteran stars are winning the acting prizes at some of these festivals.  What’s a $50,000 feature with a no-name cast to do?

3.) Spend whatever it takes to screen your film on tape.  Yes, most smaller festivals are offering the opportunity to screen your film on DVD-R, but if they offer Digibeta or some other tape format, spend the money to get your film on it. Listen, this is the No Budget Film School guy telling you this. I don’t believe in wasting money, even at the end of the process, but if it’s Digibeta, I’m sure you can find someone to pull you a favor, (HDCAM is another thing).  And this isn’t only because the quality will be better.  I can’t tell you how many times I’ve witnessed films stop in the middle, or throw up all manner of digital artifacts, when they’ve screened on DVD.  Twice at one festival they couldn’t show a preceding short film at all because it wouldn’t play, (another reason to be in attendance).

4.) Uniqueness is king.  I say it all the time in my classes.  Uniqueness is the most important quality a festival film can have.  Uniqueness is the reason your film gets into Sundance or SXSW.  Uniqueness trumps talent and competence, (although it certainly helps to have all three).  Genres to stay away from:  mock or faux documentaries, first-person camera films, hyperlink films, (where there are multiple intersecting characters and stories), to name a few.  I’ve seen several well-made mock/faux docs this year, and none of them were at Sundance.  This is a genre that was passé for Sundance 10 years ago.  Doesn’t mean these films aren’t well-made or entertaining, but they’re not unique enough to get accepted now.  And without that Sundance stamp of approval, even good films have a hard time getting into smaller festivals, attracting a sizable audience, or garnering substantive press.

COMING SOON:  PART 2 - Some of the good films I’ve seen out on the Trail…

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