Just keep swimming
Sharks Everywhere
Swimming With Sharks In Film Festival Scam Waters. When you find yourself in a pool of sharks, you just gotta keep swimming. That’s the nature of the beast in this industry. Scammers, exploiters, new industries that have been built on bilking aspiring writers, actors, and filmmakers out of thousands of dollars.
When I was contacted by the NY International Film and Video Festival I was excited (www.nyfilmvideo.com). I’d submitted an online form to them for the 2009 Los Angeles screenings of their NY-LA festival. A film Festival representative called me and told me he could get me into the festival in NY. Great. I was even more excited. But then he said the magic words: it would cost me $400. Not great.
I politely declined.
There are too many good, decent and low cost film festivals out there. Most are not “pay to play.” I hate to use the words film festival scam loosely but when Frank, the guy who called, thought he could convince me that the price was because it’s an “event, and that’s how the industry works.” Dood was totally asking permission to rape my bank account. I felt like I needed a shower.
What was worse was that the call was just part of the NY Film * Video Festivals assembly line business. They call, they convince naive filmmakers that this is how the industry works and they collect $400. If a filmmaker says no, they hang up and speed dial the next victim.
No, Frank. That’s not how the industry works.
In a normal film festival world you pay a submission fee for consideration and if accepted the festival handles the “cost” of screening the film. The $400 fee reminds me of those select media outlets that charge public relations agencies to place articles. Fact is, dood hadn’t even seen my film. He was calling me based on my logline. I never sent a screener! But for $400 the NYFilmVideo Fest will overlook care how good (or bad) your film is.
Moving right along. And You should too. In fact you might want to consider moving right along past quite a few film festivals completely. It’s a crapshoot, a gamble, so you might as well stack the odds in your favor. Stay local. Submit to fests in your area where it’s easier to drum up PR and you can literally pound the pavement to market your film’s screening.
Or premier your film as a web series. This type of position can get your film in front of an audience that will BUY your DVD, the graphic novel and anything else associated with it. Follow my action thriller web series right here Resurrection of Serious Rogers
All I can say is WOW! I can’t believe this, but then again I can. You’re right, lots of scammers in the “entertainment” business and everyone should beware. I don’t agree with you about not using fests, I think they are great depending on what your goal is. Generally there is an average submission fee of about $35-$70 per fest.
I have had people tell me, “we are submitting to 50 fests” and I say “why?” Just submit to the ones that can potentially get you 1)maximum media exposure and/or 2)really have an audience that is attracted to your type of film. There really shouldn’t be 50 of these if you are targeted about your audience. Fests are to be used for these purposes. Forget that being picked up by a distributor business, not happening for the overwhelming majority. But building an audience for your work, getting your work up on the big screen and selling your work onsite or telling people where online they can buy it, that is effective marketing and what you do with a festival.
Connecting with media is another. SO MANY filmmakers overlook this or simply don’t realize that you have to do the outreach. There are outlets to get your word out, but don’t wait for them to find you or hope the press officer at the Fest will help you. They won’t, they are promoting the fest itself, not the films. This is especially true if you have no stars in the film. Either hire a publicist or you/someone on your team must be devoted to media and fan outreach. This is not to be forgotten or you may as well not submit. If you devote time to this, you will be sooo far ahead of most filmmakers going to the fest.
I have talked about this plenty on my blog so have a look.
I think submission fees help in producing a fest, but fests aren’t getting rich off of it, nor off of ticket sales. Most fest workers are volunteer and many venues are donated or drastically reduced. You can tell how much a fest makes by how many activities they have for the filmmaker. Most have very few, they just don’t have the money or the sponsors for that. Use them as a very low cost alternative to renting a theater by yourself and advertising by yourself to reach an audience. But what you make out of this low marketing expense is up to you, entirely.
I’ve heard this exact same story from a filmmaker friend. Same festival, same fees ($400). Don’t hesitate to use the word “scam” because that’s what NY International Film and Video Festival seems like.
Filmmakers need to be savvy business people and solicit, with extreme prejudice, only those opportunities that beneficial to the filmmaker and to the filmmaker’s project. I’ve done a 48-hour film project in the past. It was a great experience meeting and working with 25 people I’d never worked with again. But I’ll never do it again because I wasn’t pleased with the organization’s efforts.
Loved your article. I tried to go back to submitting my film to festivals and ended up with diarrhea. I can’t believe what these companies are trying to get away with!!! Please check this out: http://www.film-festival.org/7DayPSA...
Not only do they want our time, concept, cast, crew, equipment, production & post for free, on top of it they want us filmmakers to pay $120 in exchange of being part of a rushed PSA project. What do these people think we are? I think that is pretty insulting. Not only should this entry be free but they should at least give us equipment. I’d appreciate it if you could recommend other sites where this could be part of a blog.
Best,
Ana