Brian Chirls

On Film Festival Premiere Requirements: Who’s It Good For?

Watching a presentation by Brian Newman, CEO of Tribeca Film Institute, I took note of a discussion on the value of having a film screen as a worldwide, nationwide or regional premiere at a given festival. Newman says he believes the social experience of a festival screening renders the requirement unnecessary, even when a film is fully and freely available online, though his colleagues at the Tribeca Film Festival disagree.

It’s been a few years since I submitted a film to a festival, but I remember it being a miserable process. It’s hard enough to deal with deadlines, trips to the post office (do people do that anymore?) and all those fees (a nasty debate in itself), but I found the premiere requirements practically crippling. Since then, I’ve attended many festivals and have even helped program one, so I have a different understanding of how these things work.

Below, I examine the issue from the perspective of different groups involved and see how each is affected by premiere requirements. I encourage anyone with more experience or a different take to post a comment.
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Audio: IFF Boston Audience Building Panel

Here is an audio recording of our full panel at Independent Film Festival Boston, Followers: How Filmmakers are Building Their Audiences Online in the 21st Century.

You can listen with the embedded player below or download the full mp3.

The other panelists were:

1. Scott Kirsner (moderator) is a journalist and all-around smart guy. He’s the author of two books, Inventing the Movies, which I frequently cite as a defining analysis of how the film industry falls behind on innovation, and Fans, Friends & Followers, an excellent collection of interviews with artists who build their own audiences and distribute their own work. He also writes the blog Cinematech.
2. Chris Holland Director of Festival Operations at B-Side and author of Film Festival Secrets.
3. Sean Flynn producer and cinematographer at Principle Pictures.

We discussed a range of topics, including:

1. Benefits and pitfalls of social networking (Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, etc.)
2. Strategies for reaching audiences before, during and after production
3. Crowdsourcing to build audiences as well as help production
4. How much of your content to post online for free
5. Ad revenue models
6. Distribution formats (DVD, download, streaming, theatrical, etc.)
7. Applying all the above to other media such as music and art

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Panel: Independent Film Festival Boston

On Sunday, April 26, 2009, I will be speaking at a panel at Independent Film Festival Boston on digital strategies for building and communicating with your audience. I hope to reveal some of the tools I’ve been working on over the past year.

I’m looking forward to attending IFFB for the first time. I’ve heard great things about the festival, since Four Eyed Monsters played there in 2005, and the festival’s Program Director Adam Roffman managed the very successful Boston release of the film in 2006.

Here are the Details:
Sunday, April 26, 2009 @ 12:00 pm
Somerville Theatre
55 Davis Sq
Somerville, MA 02144
(617) 625-5700
map

The other panelists are:

1. Scott Kirsner (moderator) is a journalist and all-around smart guy. He’s the author of two books, Inventing the Movies, which I frequently cite as a defining analysis of how the film industry falls behind on innovation, and Fans, Friends & Followers, an excellent collection of interviews with artists who build their own audiences and distribute their own work. He also writes the blog Cinematech.
2. Chris Holland Director of Festival Operations at B-Side and author of Film Festival Secrets.
3. Sean Flynn producer and cinematographer at Principle Pictures.

Update: I recorded and posted the entire panel here.

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