SO YOU MADE A FILM, DID YOU? NOW WHAT? Congratulations! You finished a film! You've done more than 90% of all so-called filmmakers/coffee-shop-wanna-bees. You are officially cooler. But now what do you do? You show all of your family and friends, of course. We all need that self assurance that the $10,000 we just spent on our black and white artsy visual masterpiece was worth the moolah. Of course everyone will realize your genius and Hollywood will finally wake up and call you everyday. It happens to everyone, right? Maybe, but first there are a few things you need to do. Making the film was easy compared to what you now have to go through. You need to get people to see it. That means festivals. You have to find all the festivals you can and submit your film. There seems to be a new festival with some kooky, way-out name like, "The New Orleans Film Festival" starting up every day and you can find them all online. Everyone knows about Sundance, Slamdance, Raindance, Breakdance, Telluride, Cannes, etc., etc., etc. But there are an untold number of festivals with growing popularity. But beware - there is a fee you must pay for each entry in each festival. I'm going to take a wild guess and say that you're probably not independently wealthy, so effectively choose only festivals your film might be right for. Many of the hip new festivals use a service called www.withoutabox.com, which walks you through every bio, credit, synopsis, grocery list that any film festival may ever want to know about your 7 minute film. After chugging through this process you will begin to wonder why your synopsis is longer than your script, just write, and dream of the fame. Although www.withoutabox.com is pretty niffty, its still good idea to create package for your film. When you submit your masterpiece, you’ll also need a small “kit” that goes with it. A short bio, a synopsis of your film, and credit list. At this point, you are no longer a filmmaker. You're a marketer. Make little cereal boxes with your film's picture and logo on the side and put your info on cool stuff within. Make keychains with your web address on them. Everyone loves T-shirts and they double as walking billboards. Come up with your own stuff because I'm not going to do it all for you. Since you do not have a $20 million marketing budget, you must brainstorm and be a creative beast. It’s all about selling your film, bringing people in, getting noticed. You should attend the festival if you can. Once there, you should have posters, flyers, give away a few goodies. You can also start up a website. Put your film on in so the world can see it. You can post info on what awards you've won, what festivals will be screening your work, contact info, and all the reasons why you're the next big thing. Oh, and most importantly, get back to work. This is just one film. Chances are you made a lot of mistakes and learned more than you thought you would. Time to make another film. Some Hip-Happening Festivals |