Programming For a Film Festival
So, I’m doing programming for a film festival. I’ve only watched like 5 films or so and I’m already getting another perspective on this process. First off, I now completely understand why every book I read said to make things as simple as possible for the programmers. You want them to be able to see your tracking number on the DVD. You want them to be able to put the DVD in a DVD player and boom, the film plays without them having to take any extra action. They don’t give a crap that you have a fancy DVD menu and they don’t care about the name of your production company. If they have to take any particular extra effort to see your short film, you’ve already put a bad taste in their mouth about your film and they are more likely to recommend a rejection. I’ve read all about this, but now it’s even more apparent. Of course, I’m pretty obsessive, before I sent Censored to any film festivals; I read about 4 books on how to do it.
Speaking of books, I just finished How Not to Make a Short Film by Robert Marie Munroe. It’s a very slick and handy little book. Especially the end which has a pretty extensive list of film maker resources. Some of her favorites film festivals, production websites, and even a section for film making blogs. It pretty much has it all covered. It was a good read. I’m kind of wondering what I should read next. Probably a book about either sound design or cinematography. I’ve read a couple books on cinematography, but it’s an interesting topic. I really should probably tinker with my camera more. Just to see what kind of interesting shots I can get.
So, I have a new goal. I want to enter Do Nice Guys Finish Last in Sundance. Will it get in? Probably not, but who knows, I could get lucky. Worse thing they can do is send me a rejection letter. Most rejection letters are pretty soft. Like:
“We regret to inform you that your film was not selected for our festival. But we encourage you to enter it in other festivals and keep making films because everything is relative and blah blah blah.”
It’s actually kind of nice. What if you got one that was really harsh one day? Like:
“I could sit here and drone on about how you should enter this in to other film festivals, but I won’t. I’m actually the programmer and I’m writing you this specially to tell you to please not make any more short films. This was so bad, I seriously considered shooting myself 2 minutes in, so I wouldn’t have to live through another waking moment of this boring and horrible excuse for a short film. I’m serious, I loaded the gun. If I pounded on a keyboard with my forehead for 20 minutes straight, the jargon that followed probably would have produced a better script then this bile. What I have just watched was by far the stupidest thing I have ever seen. I am now dumber after watching your short film. If this world were just, you would be killed in some sort of horrific camera accident. I used to like film, I really did, but your film was so bad, I’m afraid I’ll have flash backs and tremors if I ever watch another film again. Like shell shock from soldiers coming back from Vietnam. I hate you. Please kill yourself.”
That would probably never happen. If it did, I might cry. That makes me really glad that they do the things the way that they do.
Tonight, I’ll be down near the Huntington Beach Pier for the SoCal Film Festival Movies by the Pier event. If you’re in the area, stop by and say hello.
Tags: books on cinematography, carl keitz, censored, dngfl, do nice guys finish last, film festival, film industry, how not to make a short film, john q phats entertainment, john q. phats, johnqphats, jqp entertainment, jqpentertainment, kristen carter, ngfl, nice guys finish last, programming for a film festival, roberta marie munroe, roberta munroe, short, short film, Short Films, socal film festival, socal film festival huntington beach ca, submitting to sundance, sundance