Speaker 1: Let me explain film festivals, how they work and what you can expect. A lot of filmmakers, after they finish their film, want to put their film into the film festival circuit, which is a good idea, but let me explain film festivals, how they work and what you can expect in my estimation, film festivals are basically a celebration of filmmaking. You make this great film and you want to share it with audiences and the quickest and easiest way to do that is to put it into a festival or many festivals because the festivals bring the audience and that way your film can be viewed and you can have a good time, you meet other filmmakers, you do Q&A's after your screenings and people give you feedback. The filmmaker goes there, they're the celebrated and it's a good time because you get to watch people, watch your films and hopefully enjoy them. The problem with the film festivals, most film festivals, is that it costs you money, one to submit, two to go. Festivals generally don't pay anymore, they used to years ago they would pay to have your film in or fly you in or whatever, pay your expenses, but that's not the case generally anymore and other than the very big festivals like the top eight to ten film festivals, buyers don't generally attend the smaller festivals, they only attend the bigger festivals. So everybody has these myths and legends that hey I'm gonna go into a festival, some buyer's gonna sit in my screening and they're gonna discover my film and they're gonna give me a ten million dollar deal and I'm gonna be the celebrated filmmaker. And by the way, that has happened. Every once in a while it happens, okay, but it's the anomaly not the norm. That usually doesn't happen. The big festivals, first of all, like the Toronto's and the Sundance's and everything, they're really really difficult to get into. Sundance last year I think had 14,000 applications and I think they took, I don't know, 20 films or something like that. And the thing is that these big festivals now are driven by the bigger films. So you'll notice that all the big festivals now have and have had for decades now studio films that bring in A-list actors and drive audiences to come to attend the festivals. That's how the festival basically makes money and becomes this sort of A-list big festival. Most of the attention at a big festival goes to the big films. So even if you do get accepted to Sundance, which would be a miracle in itself, then you got to spend a lot of money to make sure that people attend your screening because you have to do a lot of publicity to make them aware of your film and hopefully you get a decent slot. Sometimes at Sundance you get, you know, Monday morning at 10 a.m. in one theater and everybody's tired because they partied the night before and, you know, they were out to the big screening on the Sunday night screening and then the party and they're out till 3 in the morning drinking and they don't wake up and don't go to your film. So even though you're in the Sundance festival, your attendance is pretty low unless you have done a lot to promote your film. So it's kind of expensive to do the publicity and the promotion. You generally have to hire a publicist and do a lot of outreach and try to get press there and that type of thing. Even when you get accepted, make sure you understand the implications of that. There's still a lot of costs involved and hopefully, you know, your film will get attention, the attention it deserves. But those are the top 10 festivals. There are, I think there's over 4,000 festivals now and the rest of those festivals, other than the top 10, aren't going to get that kind of caliber of buyer out if they get buyers at all. So those festivals you're just basically attending to have some fun, like I say, meet with other filmmakers, potentially, you know, get some audience reaction, that type of thing. Assuming that these festivals are even attended by audience. A lot of them aren't. I've been to festivals, into screenings, where both with my films and seen many, many other films, where screenings could have three or four people in them and it could be like a five o'clock in the afternoon screening or seven o'clock and that might be because it's competing with another movie or just nobody heard about it or there was a snowstorm and nobody came to the festival that night or whatever the case may be. Now hopefully, you go there, your screening goes well, a couple hundred people attend, everybody claps, you have a good Q&A and you know, maybe you're gonna get all the accolades and you know, put it on your poster and that type of thing. But you still have to get distribution because festivals don't generate revenue for you. They actually are a cost. So it's the same process that you have to go through that I explained in distribution. You're just maybe a year away now because you played in, I don't know, 10, 15, 20 festivals and you enjoyed it. You had a good time but it's not generating revenue for you. So don't think that the festival route is the way to generate money. It's the way to have fun and celebrate yourself as a filmmaker. I highly recommend it if that's what you're looking for. But if it's money you're looking for and just money, then put your film right into distribution right away. Carve out a window and say, hey, I'm gonna be going to festivals. Tell your distributor that but get your distribution going because if you wait, then your film starts to get dated after say a year of doing festival runs and that could cause you some issues. Now the whole festival thing is tricky to navigate by the way because a lot of the festivals require you to be premieres within certain criteria. So if you're going to say one of the 10 big festivals or you know the top five anyways like Cannes or Sundance or you know Toronto, they require you to be a world premiere. It's the first time the film ever plays in front of an audience in the world. You have to premiere there otherwise you disqualify your film. So you have to check and make sure that you don't disqualify your film because it played in another festival before it played in the festival that they had the criteria for. So navigating that can be a little bit tricky. So you really have to look at you have to have a plan as to what festivals you want to go to and make sure that you submit and don't accept an invitation that is going to disqualify you from a festival that you really want to get into. But that gets tricky because let's say you get into five festivals and you haven't heard back from Sundance but you really want Sundance but you know five weeks in a row after that you've got festivals that accepted you already but you can't accept them you can't accept the acceptance because you're waiting for Sundance and then you don't get into Sundance and all of a sudden you've forgone you know these acceptances. You have to know how to navigate that it could be tricky hopefully you have a good plan and there are people who actually you can work with professionals who help you navigate and plan that type of thing. The other thing I suggest about festivals is the way I pick them is I mean I pick them based on you know what I think the good festivals are obviously that are well attended. The other thing I use as a criteria personally is which cities do I want to attend or which regions. Do I want to go to say Colorado in the winter because it could be fun. Do I want to go to you know certain places that I haven't been to before certain states certain cities. If you're going to attend the festival you don't have to by the way as a filmmaker but generally you want to if your film gets accepted. This is a trip for you and it's gonna cost you money because you're generally gonna pay for the flight and the hotel and whatever. Choose where you want to travel and that's where you apply you know as part of the festival circuit. I know that sounds crazy but you know there's something realistic to it. If you don't want to go to Alaska then sure you can apply to Alaska and if you get accepted you just tell them you're not coming because you don't want to go there necessarily. The cities that you do want to apply to if you do get accepted then you know that then that's fun. What is the acceptance rate at festivals? Extremely low. I personally believe that a lot of festivals are in business their main revenue source is the application fees. That's why so many festivals exist right now because it's so easy to create and start a festival and launch it. As long as people submit you're gonna spend 50 to say 75 $80 on a submission fee to most festivals. If they're getting two three four ten thousand submissions they're making a pretty good living off the submission fees. They're only accepting you know maybe a few dozen films or maybe 50 or a hundred at most. A lot of films don't get accepted. That's a reality and you know you're gonna have to decide how many festivals you want to apply to sort of what your budget is for submission fees and strategically you know which ones you think are gonna be good for your film which ones you want to attend and you have to say okay I'm gonna spend $3,000 on festivals or say $5,000 of which $1,000 will be submission fees you know $4,000 will be travel or say $3,000 travel and $1,000 on say publicity for the festivals I get into and you have a plan. Again there's a lot to think about with festivals. The major place to submit by the way is place called Film Freeway it's an online platform it's really good. If you're gonna do the festival thing check that out I think you would come across it anyways and you know most importantly with festivals remember you're a filmmaker you're celebrating your film you you're gonna have a good time and so just enjoy that process enjoy hobnobbing and meeting with other filmmakers and with audiences and then after it's finished distribution begins that's in the work starts