The Film Festival Experience

I’m heading down to the San Diego Film Festival to support a friend who has a film screening and it got me thinking about what festivals can do for you.  Particularly in the world of Youtube and a million little no-name festivals.

There are many things a filmmaker gets out of film festivals and it’s slightly different for shorts and features so I’ll stick with shorts for now.

Basically, here’s what you get from festivals…
-    Experience screening your film (including learning how to properly set up your film beforehand because even some of the big fests employ kids to work the booths - and they are usually unsupported, not knowledgeable enough and extremely stressed out from filmmakers jumping down their throats.  Hint: Please, thank you, and a smile goes a long way in this situation.)
-    Practice talking about your film in public (I’m a PR whore so I try to give whatever interview I possibly can to both promote my film and so I get practice giving interviews now when no one gives a crap about me.  It’s painful to watch your first ones, but if you’re honest with yourself you can get better quickly.)
-    Publicity
-    Exposure to lots of great and not-so-great films and filmmakers
-    An opportunity to meet festival programmers
-    An opportunity to meet distributors (though this really only occurs at the bigger fests)
-    A greater understanding of festival programming (there will always be a celebrity-directed film that sucks but screens everywhere, a experimental one that no one seems to understand but also keeps popping up and other such craziness.)  Programming really is an art form though - some fests get it and others definitely do not.
-    Awards (these are much needed because once festival season is over it’s the only thing that sticks around to let everyone know how cool you are.  And if we’re honest, that’s what Hollywood really is, a coolfest.)
-    Bragging rights (see awards)
-    A bit of a vacation seeing the world (most European fests fly you out and put you up.  But don’t get too caught up in this - you could lose a year of your life traveling around when you should be making more movies.)

It’s all a learning experience.  Every moment of this crazy film journey.  And, as a friend reminded me this week, since the only way you really get any value in Hollywood is to direct a feature that wins at major festival or write a script that sells, you have to make your festival experience work for you as much as possible.  Hustle, hustle, hustle people!

If anyone has any questions about what do to prepare for or what to do at film festivals, let me know and I’ll answer them next week.