Idea Farm Casting ideas to the wind to see what takes root

filmmaking things to think about

Yesterday I decided to search for a filmmaking community.  I know there are several out there and I know of several people that are involved in them, but I haven't really felt a part of any of them myself.  So I did a search on google for 'filmmaker'.  That was it.  One of the first places I went to is http://www.filmmakermagazine.com/ which had several interesting things going for it right away.  Having recently been part of Sundance, I recognized a few of the movies that were being talked about.

I then stumbled on a very interesting article about the value or purpose of film festivals.  http://www.filmmakermagazine.com/news/2011/02/the-microbudget-conversation-what-are-festivals-good-for/  I was sucked in and had to read the whole thing.

It mentioned a rant from filmmaker Kevin Smith at Sundance which I had not heard about yet, and so followed the link and watched the whole thing: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=90pcHCF2h44

It sure made me think.  He has some interesting points and the article also brings up some interesting points about marketing a film at a film festival.

To boil down the ideas to bullet points to mull over:

• film festivals rarely serve the filmmakers or films as a gateway to getting your film seen across the country in normal theaters, nor getting the filmmakers a deal for a future project.
• getting into festivals costs money and is a gamble
• film festivals still do allow for networking with other filmmakers and industry insiders
• film festivals still provide a means to "get noticed"
• financing a film is hard in the first place, making the film is also hard, trying to market the film to get your money back is really really hard
• distributors only deal in big money- they almost never waste their time on low cost stuff.  not enough profit, or potential profit to spend their time.
• Studios are distributors.  That is how they make their money.  They don't make it from making movies, they make it from selling movies.
• Self distribution is hard because there is not much known or available to support it.
• Self promotion is hard unless you already have huge network of followers on social network sites and email lists, or have access to those that do.
• What Kevin Smith talks about ("road show" approach to marketing/exhibiting) has been done by may other people already- some successes and some failures.  Warren Miller does this very thing, and has for 40+ years.  Success.  Some independent Mormon cinema tried this 5 years ago- flopped and lost money (Handcart).

I'm going to mull these over in my head for a bit and hav a followup post on some other things I've recently found that are related to the money/business side of filmmaking.