FIRST TIME WEB BROWSING: Some links

I spent a lot of time looking for web sites that could give me an honest idea of how Festivals ran, chose films, etc. I was a bit surprised to find that many links spent quite a bit of time talking about being gracious and not expecting your film to get sold out and have your hotel and flight accommodations paid for by the Festival. Do most people think this happens?

Regardless, here are a few links to some good articles with information I may not discuss but you may need or like to know about!

Film Festival Secrets: A Beginner's Guide

Videomaker: Get Accepted Into Film Festivals

Script: Film Festivals 101

ifp: Making the Most of Your Festival Experience

FIRST SUBMISSION: Swimming In An Ocean of Festivals

DON'T SUBMIT WITHOUT A "BOX"

    We had a Kickstarter fund of about $6,000. That covered Production, some licensing, and some Post. It covered no Festival submissions or travel. (We will soon have a new Kickstarter fund up...) Also, though Jonny and I worked together to decide what Festivals we should submit to, I had no idea just how many Festivals even EXISTED out there!

    Our film had a few specific things we thought we could use to narrow our field: the main character was gay, so though it wasn't a LGBT-centric movie, we thought we could enter it into some LGBT-centric festivals. We made a movie about a character who HAPPENED to be gay, but his sexuality wasn't vital to the story. That alone we hoped was important, so we submitted to a number of LGBT Fests.

    Use Withoutabox. Or don't. Use FilmFreeway. Or don't. I used both. (For those who don't know, Withoutabox and Film Freeway are sites where you upload your film as an online screener, create a Press Kit with pictures, bios, etc., and you browse through thousands of worldwide Festivals which you can then submit to with the push of a button. Wildly useful, sometimes derided, and a lot like playing slot machines....)

    What I DO suggest is create your own "Box" as far as confining your spending. We hadn't raised any money for this, but i wanted to get into as many Festivals as possible - a mixture of some Big Names, some Medium Festivals, and some niche or smaller places. This would also be a fabulous excuse to travel, so I submitted to some British and Irish Festivals as well. I did not, however, have a budget. Very quickly, I had amassed over $800 in submission fees to 20-some festivals.

    It becomes addictive. Checking the sites every day, finding new festivals that you convince yourself your movie is perfect for, impulse-submitting for last-day entries. 

    Don't do this.

    Start early and get a list of all the places you REALLY want to submit. Scifi/Fantasy movie? Find the niche Festivals first. Figure out where you want to spend your money ahead of time. SUBMIT to Festivals as EARLY as possible - they get overrun with submissions by the end and who knows if they'll even get around to your movie if it squeaked in at the last minute. Only time will tell if my $800 was well-spent or if we even get INTO any Festivals, so plan your spending ahead of time. Don't be me.

    Jonny and I went to Sundance this year. 

    Jonny had been a few times, I wanted to go, and my writing partner Mike was going for work, so we made it a working vacation. The first cut of "HOMESCHOOL REUNION" was done, and we watched it for the first time on the "big screen" - the widescreen TV at the hotel instead of my laptop.* But we went armed with a bunch of "HOMESCHOOL REUNION" business cards - we'd cut a trailer and had it up on Vimeo password-protected. We hobnobbed and exchanged cards with people, while watching a bunch of films. 

    I mention this for two reasons: first, because of the ten plus short films I saw, I liked three. Some, I have no idea how they were accepted... except, of course, that they had name recognition backing them, in the movie, or that the filmmakers knew the programmers. And THAT is a reason to go to Festivals ahead of time to meet people you can CONTACT and say "Hey, my movie is headed your way, be on the lookout." Knowing someone at a Festival is HUGE. Seeing some of the unadulterated crap that was shown at Sundance also made me feel okay ahead of time for the Festivals that don't accept my film: it's not about quality - it, like everything else, is about who you know. I'm not saying you won't be accepted based on quality, I'm just saying you have a 100% better chance if you know someone. 

    This is where things stand as of July 26, 2015: Entered into 26 Festivals, we have our "Premiere Party" (a showing of the film for local backers and friends at Jonny's house - decorated with the props from our "Reunion" in the movie!), we've got most if not all of the Rewards for our Kickstarter supporters ready (DVDs, Soundtrack, shirts...), and once we get into a festival, it's time to start a new fundraising campaign.

*Crazy story we plan to use at some Q&As:

"HOMESCHOOL REUNION" is about a very shy guy named Dan who can't find the courage to talk to a cute guy at a coffee shop. He's convinced this is because he was homeschooled and that he missed out on how to connect with new people. He sees a bunch of his friend's Facebook pictures of their High School Reunions and gets jealous.  So, he decides to throw himself a reunion. He meets the guy of his dreams, they sleep together, and wakes up from what turns out to be a dream, disappointed.

We watched our cut in the Sundance hotel and had fun. "Our movie officially screened at Sundance!" we yelled! Then, we went to go see our first movie.

It was called "The D Train" and it was about Jack Black who plays a guy planning his high school reunion and feels he needs to get the hottest guy from their class to attend. He flies to Hollywood and has a wild night of hero worship with this guy who he winds up sleeping with, then is disappointed. Oh, and Jack Black's character is named "Dan."

I can't wait to talk about this in front of an audience.

    

     

FIRST CUT: Fixing It In Post

"I AGREE, THAT'S HOW THE STORY SHOULD GO,

BUT THAT'S NOT WHAT WE SHOT."

    The assembly was about 23 minutes. Technically, that still counts as a "short film," but it felt way too long. I edited the movie myself, which was a great idea because I had complete control, didn't have to pay anyone, and had limitless time. It was also a bad idea because I had complete control and limitless time. I'm extremely happy with the final cut, but there's a saying about this aspect of filmmaking: "You don't finish editing, you stop." True. We locked about two months ago and I could still be trimming and tweaking now if we hadn't said "Done - we need to finish this at some point!" 

    We shot a mostly silent film and a lot of information came in close-ups of things on computer screens and iPhones. Some of these things we didn't get, so we wound up doing three or four pickups. I have no idea whether this is common or insane, but we did most of them for free in slightly different locations which I hope doubled well.  (No one has complained so far.)

    Jonny and I had some screaming arguments about the cut and storytelling, all of which made for a better movie. We had two in-jokes from this experience that were huge lessons: Jonny would patiently explain to me how this story had to go and why and what it meant, then I would agree with him, but then explain that "we didn't shoot that." We have to go with what we have (insert pick-ups aside). And MY immediate reaction to many editing suggestions was "Nope - can't do it. Impossible." Then I'd try it and many times it would work.

    We got a number of people to watch it. I was lucky to work at a job where I was surrounded by editors who gave me their advice, plus we showed a select number of professional friends a "near-final" cut to see if the story was understandable. These conversations were wildly helpful and I highly suggest them. Remember: editing is the last step in storytelling and it helps to know that it's being told well.

    Final cut clocked in at 12 minutes. All the while, we were working with a composer to bring our mostly-silent film to life. But then, close to when the film was locked, we thought about having the whole film include sound effects and foley. So we tried it. That's after tracking down somebody who could do a sound mix in Logic, which was harder than you'd think. But when you're putting your best foot forward on your first project and time isn't technically a factor, you do as much as you can to get the best product possible. After all that, we reverted back to the original plan for a silent film, only we went even more extreme and cut some previously-used dialogue. It was a very striking specific choice and brought the movie up a few notches - and it wouldn't have happened if we hadn't tried to add foley.

    We found a great color correctionist who was able to take some of my original ideas of telling the story through extreme and desaturated color and it completely changed the way the film felt. It really is incredible what can happen in Post.

    That being said, every time we thought "We'll be done in two weeks," it was two months. It was around March when I stopped calling it "the movie" and I started adding the adjective "Goddamn" to it.

    One year from principal photography, we were done and I submitted to our first festival.

FIRST PRODUCTION: Prep Is King

FAIL TO PLAN, PLAN TO FAIL. CLICHE, BUT TRUE.

    I am very lucky: I have a lot of friends and they are not only all talented, but they are good PEOPLE. Our movie had one lead character, three supporting roles, and a bunch of extras, which isn't so bad, except that the film took place in five locations and we had to shoot it over one specific weekend. My good friend and Casting Director Chanelle essentially handed me a fantastic cast of some friends and some very talented people I hadn't met before and every one of them was amazing. With the exception of Charlie, our lead, there were no rehearsals or conversations with other actors before getting on set. This was weird for me, as I'm used to rehearsing theater, but worked out perfectly because everyone was professional.

    The actors and DP are part of your storytelling team, by the way: I believe that film and theater are a collaborative process - even if you're Robert Rodriguez and do everything on your own, you can get some great insight by listening to the other professionals around you. Respect and listen to everyone and they will respect and listen to you. The same rule applies to work and life: treat people well and they will want to help you succeed, especially if doing so helps THEM to succeed!

    I did not go to film school. This was my first time running a full production and without a great Director of Photography and Assistant Director who hooked us up with crew, it would never have gone as well as it did. I had a specific shot list and planned to make my days, but I hadn't planned or named extra coverage shots, nor had I ever worked with a sound person before as I had planned for this to be a mostly silent film (as a storytelling device). This caused the sound person to get understandably frustrated. But hey, it was a learning experience and we were paying the crew.

    Most importantly, I learned that respectful control does wonders for morale. Day two was a big reunion scene (the only scene with mandatory dialogue) which was essentially half of the movie. I wanted to shoot it as one continuous shot at the beginning to hopefully cut down on set-ups and do something interesting with the camera. (In editing, this wound up changing to speed up pacing, but it helped on the day.) Talking through scenes with the actors while the crew was setting up (and choreographing a dance number off the top of my head for a central moment in the movie) helped speed things up and cut down on takes as well (see: Cast Talented People).

    Production was three days long but I think I slept ten hours total. (I worked nights so I would leave set by nine, be at work from ten pm until six am, then have to be awake at noon to get to set by two. Lather, rinse, repeat.) But we got everything we planned and it was a success.

....

    Except when you get home after shooting everything you'd planned, you realize that you should have shot two more things that you now consider vital to the movie. Yeah.

FIRST STEP: A Story.

    One of the first things Jonny said that he was adamant about was that the movie have a story.

    Let me explain:

    It should be OBVIOUS that the movie should tell a story, but after viewing a number of short films at a number of festivals and online, we discovered that a shockingly high number of films DON'T! At the very least, a story should have a Main Character, a Journey, a Change, and an earned Ending. Do I sound pandering? Well, good, because that means you hopefully don't have this problem and can move on to other sections.

    This is reinforced by almost every Film Festival blog, vlog, and website "Q&A" that I found, which surprised me, but was a welcome reminder. The most important things most festivals looked for when choosing films:

- Good Sound
- Good Acting
- Good Story

    Even if the movie was shot on a flip phone, if the sound and story were good and the acting wasn't unbearable, the film was at least considered. Which is why I am not only shocked to find out that tons of movies don't meet this criteria, but why I am very glad to not be working as a programmer forced to watch hundreds of these things.

   So we worked for a while crafting the story and finding a way to tell it in the most interesting but simplest way.

    The story always gets told at least three different ways. First, there's the screenplay. That can change a dozen plus times on it's own, but it's where you want to nail down everything vitally important. Next is in production - you may not have enough money, enough contacts, or enough time to shoot the story the way it is written or the way you imagined it would look. So you find new ways of telling the story based on the realities of your situation. Finally, editing: chances are, once you've shot everything in the script with the perfect storyboards and cut everything together for the first time, it doesn't work the way you thought it would. Beats are missing, angles don't work correctly, acting moments aren't cutting together well, a million other things that you thought you nailed on set but, alas, no.

    Don't skimp on the Story. It's the cheapest and sometimes hardest part of a movie. If your film is supposed to simply be a special effects spectacular like the PIXELS short film, okay, but even that had a beginning, middle, and end. Again, I feel ridiculous mentioning this, but it's the most important part of your movie.

FIRST TIME FILM FESTIVAL

     It's in. Officially. Well, by "in," I mean "submitted." Which isn't actually "in." I'm currently "In Consideration" and waiting. Which is... tough.

    I'm Matt, by the way. I'm a writer, director, editor, and actor living in Hollywood, which sounds way more glamorous than it is. I recently finished my first short film and sent it off to festivals. While I wasn't very interested in the festival circuit, the purpose of having a film there, or the mechanics behind everything when I started this project, I became very interested when the Post process was over. I Googled as much as possible to find out about the process and experience of having (and getting) your first movie into festivals and the experience of going, but found surprisingly little.

    Oh, there's a TON of information out there! Most of it is very helpful and I certainly hope it's correct! But I didn't find a diary-style step by step personal experience blog from short film makers. (I'm 5'7" by the way, so technically I'm an "average" film maker.) 

    So here it is. My hope is to make this a continuously-updated guide to my experiences throughout the next year-plus of pushing my film in festivals. I hope it's helpful or at least entertaining.

    Keep in mind: this is a blog about my experiences getting a SHORT FILM into Festivals. This is a very different thing than getting a Feature in. For starters, shorts rarely have to worry about choosing a place to "World Premiere" - it doesn't seem to be an issue the way it is with features. There are also many shorts-specific festivals that may be chronicled here. 

    Incidentally, the first few posts will be about making the movie. Hopefully you've done this already and are just looking for information on submissions or what a Festival Tour is like, et cetera. But a common theme of Festival Programmer comments and suggestions always begin with the movie itself - "How do I get into your film festival?" is often answered by "Make a good film." Doesn't sound like the answer you want, I know. But it's important. (The next Post explains why.) 

HOW THIS WHOLE THING GOT STARTED

(Where I talk about myself a lot)

    I wrote a play in 2008 or 2009 called "NEVERMORE" - a murder mystery based on the work of Edgar Allan Poe. I directed and produced it in 2011 (that's a story unto itself) and it was successful enough to sell out almost the whole run, while putting me $15,000 in debt. GREAT learning experience, though! (Find my "Pay Off Matt's Credit Cards" GoFundMe page here!: ...just kidding.)

    In 2013 I decided to really push things and start directing in earnest. I'd been writing, directing, acting, and editing a web series called "Matt & Mike's Movie Mangle" (movie mangle.tv), but it wasn't nearly as successful as I'd hoped. I met a bunch of people at a birthday party who were all in the same theatre company, the Unknown Artists, and they were looking for someone to direct a new sci-fi comedy called "GEARHEAD AND THE REALBOT." 

    Around the same time, I was hanging out with my friends Jonny and Bobby. Bobby was explaining to us that he was homeschooled and one of us (probably me) said, "Wow, those reunions must be really depressing." We all thought that would be a great short comedic film. 

    Jonny has been a writer for a long time and had been trying to get into the Sundance Writer's Lab while also trying to get a new job as a producer, as he was having issues with his current job. On one of our hikes in Griffith Park, he told me about this article he'd read by someone who had also submitted a few projects to Sundance Writer's Lab and was rejected every time. Then he made a short film which got accepted into the festival and -whaddaya know!?- when he submitted the following year to the Lab, he was admitted! I don't remember if I suggested or if Jonny had the idea to make a full-on short film (and not just a goofy iPhone video), but it was an obvious next step: Jonny needed producing experience, I needed film directing experience, and maybe the film would get us both closer to our goals: Jonny's of getting into the Sundance Lab, and mine of meeting Ellie Kemper at a movie party and eloping.

    At the start of 2015, Jonny and I worked on a script for a short and did some research, seeking advice from some friends who had already had some short film successes. After "GEARHEAD" had closed and I had seen a production of "NEVERMORE" staged in Texas, I decided I wanted to direct the movie. I'd had a few years of experience directing my web shorts and had been teaching acting off and on for a while and wanted to jump to an actual film.

    That's how "HOMESCHOOL REUNION" started.