Since finishing my short film ‘I Did last year, I knew that I wanted to submit it to festivals around the UK, but this was a whole new terrain for me. I had a lot of questions about how to do this and no-one seemed to have the answers I needed.
Below I’ve compiled a list of things I wanted to know and how I found them out.
Photo credit: Sundve via VisualHunt / CC BY-SA
Research
Before I even started I looking at festivals I needed to work out my target audience and demographic. Who was my film aimed at?
When we started planning out ‘I Did’ we wanted to very squarely hit the 18-45 demographic (which is a large demographic) but the audience were the people who would watch shows like ‘Gavin and Stacey’, ‘Him and Her’ and ‘Friday Night Dinner’.
Basically me because I like those shows – so I made a film I would like to watch.
Photo via Visualhunt.com
Budget & Cost
Let’s get the boring stuff out of the way first. Submitting films to festivals is expensive. Unless your film is picked up by a distributor, it’s going to be a loss against your financials, so plan for that.
I had £250 in my submission budget and that was it. This should be something you should set aside in your overall budget. I included it in my marketing budget but made sure that I had the funds to do it before allocating.
The Two Big Submission Platforms
There are two main submission platforms for film festivals. Withoutabox and FilmFreeway. All others are pretty much redundant now.
Withoutabox was for a long time the biggest and most well known. It’s owned by Amazon and is about as easy to navigate as shark infested waters in a dinghy. At least for short films that is.
FilmFreeway is a much newer platform that aims to be the anti Withoutabox. Hidden fees for festivals don’t exist here and it is so easy to use, that if you are a first timer like me then it was as easy as opening the fridge. While Withoutabox is getting easier to use, FilmFreeway is still easier and more user friendly.
While FilmFreeway doesn’t have the reach of Withoutabox globally, it is ever so nearly there and for UK festivals, well it’s got them all.
Needless to say I went through submissions on FilmFreeway. A guide on How to so that is at the end of the blog.
The IMDB Credit
This is where in a lot of film makers minds, they feel that they’ve made it. They’re film is on IMDB and they have the IMDB Credit to their name. But how do you get your film one?
The first is to register for an account with IMDB – this will create a page for you (unless you’ve already been listed on IMDB and then it is a case of finding your number and claiming ownership over it through IMDB Pro).
Through IMDB you can submit your film for consideration for a credit. You can find out all about how to do that here.
The simplest way is to sign up for a Withoutabox account and submit your film to an IMDB qualifying festival through Wihtoutabox. Why? Well Withoutabox and IMDB are both owned by Amazon (its a cosy little monopoly).
A lot of people submit their films to Raindance as it automatically generates them an IMDB page for your film. There are other festivals which qualify your film for an IMDB credit. I submitted my film to the Edinburgh Film Festival.
Where was my film eligible to play?
Many festivals have screening conditions and categories within which your film can play. For example, a short film must be no longer than 15 minutes. Or a film must have been made after May 2015.
This is to weed out all the submissions that might creep in for older films. Essentially keeping the market a bit fresher.
With my short film, I search for festivals that were in the South of England and accepted short films upto 15 minutes in length. I chose these two criteria because I didn’t want to have to travel too far for it. Also the film would play better as the cast are all from the South of England and sit within the 18-45 demographic.
The EPK
The Electronic Press Kit is something we all have to put together when submitting our films to festivals. It is your selling device to festivals.
The EPK consists of:
- Teaser Trailer
- Film poster
- Synopsis (short, medium, long)
- Format information
- Cast / crew bios
- Contact details
Filmsourcing has some great free guides and templates to help get you going on producing your own EPK.
When create your own FilmFreeway or Withoutabox account, they have areas for you to upload your EPK and it is submitted each time you apply for a festival.
Photo via Visual Hunt
DCP or No DCP
The digital cinema package is what is used by projectors in cinemas to project your film. It is an all encompassing file. Here is a description.
For feature films, this is pretty much a must to create as many film makers target the bigger brighter festivals (selling the film and making millions, it is the dream).
For short film makers though, creating a DCP is a pricey experience. Adobe have come along in the last few years and you can now create a DCP directly inside of Adobe Premiere Pro CC by Colin Smith.
The trouble though is that testing the DCP is difficult as they are built on Linux and software to test them runs into the thousands of pounds/dollars.
When looking through festivals to choose to submit my own film to, I specifically looked for festivals that didn’t require a DCP. One’s that would take a .mov/.avi file. Many of the festivals I submitted to simply required a Vimeo link and streamed live. It’s a great way for smaller film makers like myself to avoid that headache, especially if you know you’re not going to be pushing the film for financial gain.
Accepting rejection
This is a big part of the festival circuit that you have to accept rejection. You can’t let it get you down or beat you. You have to accept it and move on (chocolate helps in this case as well).
Your film is not going to suit every festival. If you submit your comedy to a horror festival, it will get rejected.
I submitted my short film to 11 festivals in total and it only got in to two of them. I put this down to two reasons. Production value and a niche market.
Comedy is a very broad film genre. A rom-com is almost the kiss of death for a film festival and my short film is a rom-com. Many films deal with very heavy subjects and take their craft to new levels. While I am very proud of how my short film looks and sounds, it’s production value is much lower than every film I saw it next in screenings.
For example, in one screening, my short film was preceeded by a film about suicide and then one about cancer. Both had been filmed on an Arri Alexa Mini and looked stunning. My short film was shot on a Canon 6D (we recorded sound separately with a Zoom H6 and 4 Seinhessier G3’s) and it really does show on screen.
It puts off a lot of festivals but don’t be discouraged by this. My film got into 2 festivals and that’s fantastic. I would’ve been happy with just one!
Attending festivals
Here is the part where I had to lower my expectations of what they are. We immediately think of Cannes and all the glory and buzz and rushing and back stabbing and shoving of films down people’s throats.
The reality is, its actually going to be a civilised situation in a small-medium sized cinema screen with film makers who want to see their film on the screen rather than anything else.
One thing that I took away from all of them was the networking experience. While I didn’t necessarily come away with any job offers or business cards, I came away from the experience of seeing the audience react to the film the way I do. Laughing at the jokes, emphasising with the characters – and that for me is far better than anything financial. To know your film works, is as good as it gets for film makers.
Alternatives to festivals
I have made it sound like festivals aren’t positive experiences, or that they are expensive without a reward, but to be perfectly honest, a lot of films just aren’t meant for festivals – and in hindsight, my short film probably wasn’t suited to the festival circuit at all.
So what alternatives are there? Well you know the answer, stick it online and share it around.
YouTube is a big community but its easy to get lost in the noise and being dragged off to random cat videos.
If however you want to make back some (and I stress some) there are some ways you can do that.
Vimeo on Demand
Vimeo feels like it is trying to be a bit of everything at the moment but one thing they are good at is helping their own users sell their videos online through their On Demand service. Their comission rate of 10% is a welcome relief (so you hold on to most of your cash) and you get a great player you can embed anywhere.
Amazon on Demand
This opens your film up to a whole audience who use Amazon Prime Video or any Amazon streaming service. Again, this can all tie in with your Withoutabox account and allows a mass audience to find it. A bit lost in the noise but having your film on Amazon, what an ego boost!
Vimsy
Vimsy is the new kid on the block and is more targeted towards corporate rather than narrative based work, but here me out. Vimsy allows you host all of your content in one place. The film, behind the scenes, interviews with cast and crew, vfx breakdowns etc all for your audience to indulge. You can set up a paywall with Stripe if you do want to charge for viewing and it takes your videos from Vimeo, Wistia or YouTube.
Conclusion
While it may be daunting to submit your film to a festival for the first time, the learning experience goes with you to the next film, and the next one, and the next one.
My aim this year is to produce two new short films which will be going into festivals (hopefully).
If you have any questions or comments, leave them below and don’t forget to Make Film – Tell Stories.
Links
My short film ‘I Did’
Filmsourcing
Vimeo On Demand
Amazon Video Direct
Vimsy
FilmFreeway
Withoutabox
Photos via Visualhunt
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