When Julie Keck & Jessica King (collectively known as "King is a Fink") tell you that they are social media experts, they can do so with straight faces. Chris asks them to speak in sentences with fewer than 140 characters as they talk about the interplay of social media with audience building, crowdfunding, and celebrity encounters on Twitter.
The Sundance deadlines are just days away, and I encourage you to submit to the Park City festivals lest you regret it later. However, you should also acknowledge that Sundance acceptance is a miracle no matter what your film is. In this mini-episode I talk briefly about the possible opportunity costs of waiting on Sundance.
The Film Festival Secrets podcast is back with a new mega-cheesy theme song and an interview with Will Lennon, director of the short film Phoebe’s Birthday Cheeseburger and Program Manager for the Cinema Eye Honors. Plus: how many calories are there in a McDonald’s cheeseburger?
Episode #15, in which Chris Holland talks crowdfunding with Joseph Beyer, Director of Digital Initiatives for the Sundance Film Festival & Institute. As one of the founders of Sundance's Artist Services program, Beyer has worked with Kickstarter on the successful funding of more than 90 crowdfunding campaigns, raising more than 2.8 million dollars since 2011. Joe now faces his biggest challenge in his first personal crowdfunding campaign — and because of the nature of the project, he can't use Kickstarter as his platform. Tune in for an informative and personal look at the technical, strategic, and emotional aspects of fundraising online.
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.
Episode #12, featuring Sheri Candler, Director of Digital Marketing Strategy for The Film Collaborative. Sheri shares the three questions that filmmakers should be asking themselves about their films – and usually don't – as they begin to contemplate that picture's distribution.
Episode 11, in which Atlanta Film Festival Artistic Director Charles Judson and I discuss common mistakes made by the makers of short films.
Chris sits down with Charles Judson, head programmer for the Atlanta Film Festival. Topics discussed: women in filmmaking, the finer points of festival programming, and "disease docs."
Additional show notes to come.
Download the MP3 now or subscribe in iTunes.
Photo credit: flattop341
Chris & Jesse revive the podcast after almost 2 years. In this episode: the expedited death of 35mm exhibition, the protracted death of the Withoutabox message boards, and how to time your submissions to festivals.
Got questions? We'll answer 'em! Send email to chris@filmfestivalsecrets.com or reply to @ffsecrets on Twitter.
Download the MP3 now or subscribe in iTunes.
Photo credit: D Sharon Pruitt
In this episode Jesse Trussell and Chris Holland gab about the Dallas International Film Fest, Cannes, and other things.
Links mentioned in the podcast:
Got questions? We'll answer 'em! Send email to chris@filmfestivalsecrets.com or reply to @ffsecrets on Twitter.
Download the MP3 now or subscribe in iTunes.
Photo credit: Retinafunk
In this episode Jesse Trussell reports from the Dallas International Film Fest, sitting down with Landon Zakheim (from the programming staff of Sundance, among other fests) to talk about his experiences "on the other side" of the festival fence as a filmmaker with a short in the Dallas fest.
Links mentioned in the podcast:
Special update regarding the karaoke conversation: Later that evening Landon Zakheim was declared Dallas IFF Karaoke Champion for his rendition of Alanis Morrisette's "You Oughta Know."
Download the MP3 now or subscribe in iTunes.
In this episode Jesse Trussell and I are joined by filmmaker Mark Potts and a surprise guest or two while waiting to see MacGruber at SXSW 2010. This was a really fun episode to record. The background noise of the crowd and a few friends wandering by – one of whom stopped in to contribute substantially – really made it a great experience. We're going to have to do this again. Listen now.
Links mentioned in the podcast:
Download the MP3 now or subscribe in iTunes.
It's time for another episode and an embarrassing faux pas: Jesse Trussell and I talk about the upcoming Austin madness that is South by Southwest. Also, I momentarily forget that the Dallas International Film Fest has outgrown its AFI affiliation. I'm sure they'll forgive me eventually. Listen now.
Links mentioned in the podcast:
Download the MP3 now or subscribe in iTunes.
It's time for another episode: Jesse Trussell and I recap our visit to Park City for Sundance and Slamdance, and speak fondly of the Oxford Film Festival. Plus, South by Southwest is just around the corner.
Links mentioned in the podcast:
Download the MP3 now or subscribe in iTunes.
(Updated to link to the correct MP3 file – let me know if you have any problems.)
Podcasting cohort Jesse Trussell and I sit down to chat about the start of the festival year, including the inevitable mention of Sundance and some discussion of the new Filmmaker Summit at Slamdance. Also: announcements from SXSW and the 2010 hiatus of the Hollywood Black Film Fest.
Links mentioned in the podcast:
Download the MP3 now or subscribe in iTunes.
There are probably a few of you out there who noticed that I started a podcast for Film Festival Secrets late in 2008, only to ignore it for over a year. The reasons for this are many but rather than catalog them here let me simply announce the availability of episode number two. Former Austin Film Festival programmer Jesse Trussell and I sat down to record a quick episode about the things we think filmmakers (and festival staffers) should know. We're going to try and do these regularly, and maybe get some additional people to sit down to talk shop with us as well.
Wherever this experiment takes us, I promise you three things about these podcast episodes:
Listen to episode two of the Film Festival Secrets podcast in your browser or subscribe to the podcast in iTunes for automatic delivery of new episodes. There's also a button in the header for the iTunes link if you want to find it in the future.
Oh, and I mentioned in the podcast that I would post the links to our Twitter accounts - you can find Jesse as @jrtrussell and my personal Twitter account (as opposed to the official FFS account) is @stomptokyo.
Photo credit: Gideon Tsang.
Unveiled with very little fanfare, the first episode of the Film Festival Secrets podcast. In it I talk with Fred Andrews of the new Kansas City FilmFest, the joint creation of the festivals formerly known as KC FilmFest and KC Filmmakers Jubilee. You can listen to it on the web with this player:
You can subscribe to get future episodes with this URL:
http://www.filmfestivalsecrets.com/podcast/podcast.xml
(If you don't know how to subscribe to a podcast in iTunes, you can follow these instructions.) I have submitted it to the iTunes store, hopefully you'll be able to subscribe directly through iTunes soon.
 | The Better Film Festival Submissions Toolkit has a very simple purpose: to help you improve the way you submit your work to film festivals.
Divided into 7 core tasks with a discussion of each task, the 16-page Toolkit is designed for quick reading and gives you concrete, actionable tasks to make your film submissions package better. Best of all, you'll get the insight you need to better understand what programmers look for and how to submit with confidence. |
