Why web-only film festivals are retarded

There are a zillion short film festivals out in the world. I just got an advertisement for a Hitchcock-themed contest in my inbox yesterday. That makes about 3-4 that I’ve become aware of this month. Just today I read about the “first ever web-based film festival“. You’d think that a guy like me, publishing bi-weekly shorts online, would be into this sort of thing, but it’s exactly the opposite. It’s because there is so much web-only entertainment out there that I loathe the entire idea of web-based short competitions. It’s the beginning of the end - imagine a future where all film festivals, and therefore all video content, is web-only. Without the social aspects of traditional festivals, the art of filmmaking will be watered down. Winning them would mean nothing and losing means that you’ll just create more to try and win the next one. As creators of web-based video content, aren’t we all competing for attention anyway? Isn’t a formal contest just a little redundant and missing the point?

The people that compete in said web-only film fests are small potatoes, each trying to claw their way out of the fog and into the public eye. Traditionally, venues like Sundance, Cannes, or TromaDance would be the fast track to get their names out there - gain exposure, become a commodity and the ability to make something bigger. With the advent of super-cheap prosumer electronics and an ever-moving Internet audience, you’re looking at millions of content producers that are too low budget to go to a real film fest, but who all have aspirations of making it anyway. These are the people who will apply to web-only festivals. That’s right - by entering, you’re literally competing with that scary guy who uses puppets and somebody’s grandma. Welcome to the Internet - we fight Grandmas here.

Our information culture is rapidly becoming an irony culture, or a remix culture - the biggest memes out there are always trainwrecks - and the bigger the better. With the influx of information pouring into people’s daily lives (i.e. Internet at home, Internet at work, iPhone inbetween), it didn’t take long to turn obscure stories into laugh-fests, and hot news items into entertainment. I just think it’s funny that the cable access of tomorrow (YouTube) is just as enabling to freaks, weirdos, and attention whores as your local college TV station was 10 years ago. The huge difference is that in the last few years, the cable-access personalities of yesteryear have become today’s instant celebrities. Lisa Nova, AVGN - both started out just doing something that they thought was funny - but now with the world watching, their millions of hits translated into fame and DVD sales. 10 years ago they’d still be unknown.

Now with video games adding shared level creation and sharable user experience video, people are communicating in whole new ways. Yup, now there are whole new ways to flip the bird. Isn’t that what people want to see anyway? Aren’t we just dramahogs at our most base? We just want to see some explosions, a pretty girl, an embarrassing sports injury, and some fat kid roll around like an idiot. Welcome to the Internet - aka America’s Funniest Home Videos. Would you like an award with that?