Film festivals have rules. We don’t like rules.
Film festivals usually require money to submit a film. We don’t like paying money to show our movies.
Film festivals prevent you from releasing your movie before the festival. We don’t like preventing people from seeing our movies.
Most filmmakers want to break into the business. Money is on the mind. Don’t get me wrong. It would be cool if Vanish was our full time gig. But if that’s at the forefront of your mind you will follow the well-worn trail of heartbreak, of which film festivals are a crucial pit stop.
What about approaching filmmaking like gardening? People garden because they love being outdoors, digging in the dirt, and watching their vegetables grow. After harvest, they enjoy the vegetables with people in their lives or give some to their neighbors. Maybe a neighbor serves your vegetables to a rep from a grocery store chain and you get a phone call. It could happen, but does it have to?
{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
I’d like to join this conversation. Not all fests charge a fee to screen, but know that screening your film in any public setting is going to cost you. Even though you have a distributor who fronts money for your theatrical release (if you are lucky enough to get that these days) ultimately they pass that cost on to you and take it out before you ever see a dime. That charge will also include any P&A money, the theater’s cut, the distributor’s cut and none of it transparent so that you can easily track all the spend.
Personally, I think the paltry amount you spend to submit to a festival (average $50 a submission) for the chance to save say $1,000 minimum for one screening in the cinemaplex is pretty digestible. Fests give you access to a facility (they don’t charge you for that), access to media (you still have to pitch them yourselves for your own screening, but they are already open to covering the fest), and access to audiences that attend (you just have to convince them to attend YOUR screening). There is hard work to any theatrical release. You can either pay it in festival fees (quite small) or in multi-city bookings (thousands, probably hundreds of thousands). I know which I would pick.
Thanks for joining the conversation Sheri. We appreciate you taking the time to give your opinion. Regarding your comments, you’re logic is dead on if you want to go the theatrical route. However, you are talking about a sandbox that we don’t play in. We are in a completely different sandbox. It’s the third option you don’t mention – the internet. Interestingly, the reasons we chose this route are the very reasons you lay out in your comment. That mess of a process doesn’t entice us at all. Vanish isn’t interested in the traditional model and we aren’t the only ones. We have our work cut out for us with getting the word out but I think that motivates you to make something remarkable. Unfortunately, the big screen is the sacrificial lamb but we are willing to make that sacrifice.
We’ve made our films available on our website to anyone with an internet connection. We didn’t pay a penny to post our films and numerous people have checked them out.
I’d be interested in hearing more of your thoughts. Thanks again and keep the conversation going!