The first step-by-step "How To" guide to film festivals, offering filmmakers a bird's eye view of what it takes to have a successful festival experience. Practical, hands-on information with examples and exercises to help the filmmaker include: Targeting the right festivals; Creating a press kit; Promoting and branding your film; Promoting and branding yourself; Filling out entry forms; Creating a logline; And much more.
To garner the attention and recognition that will get a film distributed, entering film festivals is a must. With more than 500 festivals worldwide, each listing features detailed information, including contact names, addresses, Web sites, entry materials, entry deadlines, and fees. Insider information for each festival is also included, such as what types of features are shown most frequently, festival reputations, noteworthy celebrity sightings, location details, and more than a dozen interviews with festival industry professionals. It includes a listing of the 16 best festivals including the hugely diverse Berlin International Film Festival, the revamped and vastly improved Chicago International Film Festival, and the Valladolid International Film Festival, where A Clockwork Orange premiered. This book also includes a handy guide for film buffs who want to plan a vacation around an interesting festival in a marvelous setting, as well as film house listings for a great escape into the dark for a movie fix.
Every year thousands of filmmakers like you unleash their newly completed movies upon the film festival circuit. Whether you're a first-timer with a comedy short or a seasoned veteran with a documentary feature, you all face the same set of problems. You all ask the same questions. You all want the pleasure of seeing your film play before a festival audience and gain the recognition it deserves. This is your book. Film Festival secrets will help you select the right festivals for your film, prepare your festival screener, save money on festival fees, create marketing collateral, and craft a screening sell out plan. And that's just the beginning.
Sundance - A Festival Virgin's Guide is the essential handbook for filmmakers, film industry professionals, and film-fans looking to attend the festival. Demystifying the event and providing practical advice for attending, Sundance - A Festival Virgin's Guide™ is about helping you make the most of your visit to Park City and America's most important film festival.
As the digital revolution has democratised film production, a new hybrid model of distribution is the way independent filmmakers can take control of their own distribution. This approach is not just DIY or Web-based - it combines the best techniques from each distribution arena, old and new. In Think Outside the Box Office, Reiss explains audience identification and targeting, negotiating split-rights agreements, the new role of film festivals and more.
Whether you’re a producer, screenwriter, filmmaker, or other creative, you probably have a project that needs constant exposure, or a product to promote. But how do you rise above the noise? In Crowdsourcing for Filmmakers: Indie Film and the Power of the Crowd, Richard Botto explains how to put crowdsourcing to use for your creative project, using social media, networking, branding, crowdfunding, and an understanding of your audience to build effective crowdsourcing campaigns, sourcing everything from film equipment to shooting locations. Botto covers all aspects of crowdsourcing: how to create the message of your brand, project, or initiative; how to mold, shape, and adjust it based on mass response; how to broadcast a message to a targeted group and engage those with similar likes, beliefs, or interests; and finally, how to cultivate those relationships to the point where the message is no longer put forth solely by you, but carried and broadcasted by those who have responded to it. Using a wealth of case studies and practical know-how based on his years of experience in the industry and as founder of Stage 32—the largest crowdsourced platform for film creatives—Richard Botto presents a comprehensive and hands-on guide to crowdsourcing creatively and expertly putting your audience to work on your behalf.
The last decade has witnessed an explosion of interest in film festivals, with the field growing to a position of prominence within the space of a few short years. Film Festivals: History, Theory, Method, Practice represents a major addition to the literature on this topic, offering an authoritative and comprehensive introduction to the area. With a combination of chapters specifically examining history, theory, method and practice, it offers a clear structure and systematic approach for the study of film festivals. Offering a collection of essays written by an international range of established scholars, it discusses well-known film festivals in Europe, North America and Asia, but equally devotes attention to the diverse range of smaller and/or specialized events that take place around the globe. It provides essential knowledge on the origin and development of film festivals, discusses the use of theory to study festivals, explores the methods of ethnographic and archival research, and looks closely at the professional practice of programming and film funding. Each section, moreover, is introduced by the editors, and all chapters include useful suggestions for further reading. This will be an essential textbook for students studying film festivals as part of their film, media and cultural studies courses, as well as a strong research tool for scholars that wish to familiarize themselves with this burgeoning field.
How to Work the Film & TV Markets takes independent filmmakers, television and digital content creators on a virtual tour of the entertainment industry’s trade shows — the circulatory system of the entire global media landscape. This book highlights the most significant annual events around the world, details a dossier of all the players that frequent them and examines all the elements that drive the market value and profitability of entertainment properties. In-the-trenches insights from our modern, real-world marketplace are contextualized into immediately implementable practical advice. Make the most of your finite investments of funds, time and creative energy to optimize your odds for success within the mainstream, business-to-business circuit but learn how to select, apply and scale prudent, proven principles to drive your own Do-It-Yourself/Direct-to-the-Consuming-Crowd fundraising, distribution and promotional success. Heather Hale demystifies these markets, making them less intimidating, less confusing and less overwhelming. She shows you how to navigate these events, making them far more accessible, productive — and fun! This creative guide offers: An in-depth survey of the most significant film, TV and digital content trade shows around the world; An overview of the co-production market circuit that offers financing and development support to independent producers; An outline of the market-like festivals and key awards shows; A breakdown of who’s who at all these events — and how to network with them; Hot Tips on how to prepare for, execute and follow up on these prime opportunities; Low-budget key art samples and game plans; A social media speed tour with a wealth of audience engagement ideas. Visit the book’s space on www.HeatherHale.com for additional resources and up-to-date information on all these events.
John McGrath is a restaurateur turned executive chef, author and an active film critic who has reported for radio, television and print media for more than 16 years. Author of Watch This Movie, a collection of reviews of his top 1000 films, John is also a veteran of seven Cannes Film Festivals. His last book It's All Part of the Alpine Experience took a behind the scenes look at life as a seasonaire in the world's most famous ski resort, Chamonix Mont Blanc. Cannes Confidential reveals everything there is to know about the legendary Cannes Film Festival but too afraid to ask. No one has previously attempted taking such an insider's look at the cinema cognoscenti, the hype, the Riviera underworld and the glitz, glamour, sleaze, sex and debauchery that intermingles with the lifestyles of the rich and famous and is the real life blood of the famous festival.
