The second edition of Film Festival Secrets: A Handbook for Independent Filmmakers is under construction. Make sure it answers your questions by joining the community that will guide its creation. It all starts Thursday, June 11th with a webinar at 9pm ET. RSVP here.
Free webinar this Thursday: Short Film Secrets! There's more out there for shorts than just YouTube, despite apparently limited sales and distribution avenues. Learn to make the most of festivals, the red flags that might keep you out, how to get away with breaking the rules, and what to do with that opus afterwards.
Making industry contacts at a festival in a strange town can be a daunting task. Find out how to go in with a game plan and make it look natural. Whether your goal is to play more festivals, build your career, or sell your film, you'll learn the right and wrong ways to introduce yourself and make new friends.
Episode #13, featuring Charles Judson and Christina Humphrey, programmers I work with at the Atlanta Film Festival. Humphrey deals exclusively with short films and shares with us the emotional roller coaster of wading through thousands of submissions. If you've made a short film or you're just thinking about it, you want to listen.
Is now really the best time to make a short film? And, if you’re new to film, you’re not in film school and you don’t have industry connections… how do you even get started?
In this free webinar and discussion (and sneak preview to the Short Film 101 series starting Saturday, Oct 5), Kathy Cabrera will share the answers to these questions. She will address why now is the best time to make your short film; and three easy get-started tips that everyone novices to advanced filmmakers can use to jump into short filmmaking like a pro.
Attention Atlanta-area filmmakers - in cooperation with the Atlanta Film Festival and the Plaza Theater, I am offering a one-day seminar on film festival strategy scheduled for Saturday, December 8th at the Plaza. If you have a film that you're submitting to festivals now or will be soon, this three-part class will help you create a festival strategy for your film.
Each two-hour class session will include a Q&A with yours truly, and a brief evaluation of a film selected from attendees' submissions. (After you register for the class, you will receive instructions on how to submit your film for possible evaluation.)
Part one focuses on your film and how to evaluate its readiness for the festival circuit. We'll talk about how to get honest feedback, what festival programmers are looking for, and common mistakes filmmakers make.
Part two will cover submissions strategy – how to find the best festivals for your film, submissions tactics, and how to save money.
In part three, we'll talk about marketing your film at festivals. This session will cover finding your audience, putting together press materials, and getting people to show up at your screenings.
You can attend just the sessions you're interested in or sign up for all three at a discount.
It's been a while since I've mentioned the 7 Days to a Film Festival Strategy seminar. Unlike my live seminars, this one is delivered as an email "class" once per day for seven days. For the rest of February, this seminar is available for just $2.99.
If you're submitting to film festivals and feeling like you're not getting anywhere, this seminar will help you zero in on the festivals that matter most to your particular film.
The feedback I got from the previous seminar date was that there needed to be evening and weekend options. Ask and ye shall receive: now you can attend the "Top Ten Tips for the Film Festival Circuit" seminar on Wednesday December 14th at 9pm and on Saturday December 17th at 3pm.
Check out the full description of this 90 minute seminar with live Q&A on the seminars page.
One of the more popular talks I give at festivals and related events is a workshop on "The Top 10 Tips for the Film Festival Circuit." This workshop introduces new filmmakers to some basic festival concepts and helps experienced filmmakers get more from their festival run. For the first time ever I'm holding this talk as an online seminar on Thursday, December 1st 2011 at 3pm EST. Included in this workshop is a live Q&A session with yours truly, during which I'll answer as many questions as I can. I'm allowing 90 minutes for the full session so odds are good we'll get everyone's questions answered.
Some of the topics I'll be covering in the seminar:
Spots in the webinar are limited so if you're interested, please register now using the form below.
