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Indiewood
A Podcast for Indie Filmmakers
In the world of social media, and fast-paced journalism, knowledge is abound. But with all the noise, finding the right information is near impossible. Especially if you’re a creative working in independent film.
Produced by Cinematography For Actors, the Indiewood podcast aims to fix that. This is a podcast about indie filmmakers and the many hats we wear in order to solve problems before, during, and after production.
Every month, award-winning Writer/Director Yaroslav Altunin is joined by a different guest co-host to swap hats, learn about the different aspects of the film industry, and how to implement all you learn into your work.
"We learn from indie filmmakers so we can become better filmmakers. Because we all want to be Hollywood, but first we have to be Indiewood."
Indiewood
The Secrets to Festival Success: Insights from Award-Winning Filmmaker Jamie Parslow
Curious about what it takes for a film to shine at a festival? Join us on the Indiewood Podcast as we chat with award-winning filmmaker Jamie Parslow, who takes us behind the scenes of his journey to winning the Matt Stone Trey Parker Comedy Award for his film Black Hole at the Horsetooth International Film Festival. Jamie shares his experiences from a range of festivals, including the vibrant and filmmaker-friendly Dances with Films, offering valuable insights for navigating the festival circuit with confidence.
In this candid episode, Jamie also opens up about the challenges and rewards of networking in the film industry, from building authentic relationships with industry pros to fostering a strong creative community. Discover the key strategies behind festival selection, including why aligning your film with a festival’s unique vibe can make all the difference. Packed with personal stories and actionable advice, this episode is your guide to thriving in the festival scene and making lasting connections in the film world. Tune in for a deep dive into mastering the festival circuit and beyond!
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A Podcast for Indie Filmmakers
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IG: @indiewoodpod
YT: Cinematography for Actors
In the world of social media, and fast-paced journalism, knowledge is abound. But with all the noise, finding the right information is near impossible. Especially if you’re a creative working in independent film.
Produced by Cinematography For Actors, the Indiewood podcast aims to fix that. This is a podcast about indie filmmakers and the many hats we wear in order to solve problems before, during, and after production.
Every month, award-winning Writer/Director Yaroslav Altunin is joined by a different guest co-host to swap hats, learn about the different aspects of the film industry, and how to implement all you learn into your work.
"We learn from indie filmmakers so we can become better filmmakers. Because we all want to be Hollywood, but first we have to be Indiewood."
welcome back to the indie wood podcast, a podcast about indie films and the many hats filmmakers have to wear in order to make those films. I'm yaroslav altun and I'm a writer, director, editor, cinematographer. I'm not a producer. I don't like producing. Producing, I feel like, is way out of my, my comfort zone, my league my pay grade. Welcome to episode 2 of my chat with the amazing multi-hyphenate Jamie Parslow hi.
Speaker 1:Jamie is a director, writer, cinematographer and producer. Yeah, and like legitimately. So not like. Oh, yeah, he's a cinematographer. He shot like a short once. No, no, like, you have a job where you actively are the cinematographer for a big corporation. You've shot films before You've produced films before. You've written and directed and you know I've read some of your work and it's a lot of fun. It's fun, Thank you, and we met at a film festival. We did?
Speaker 3:We met at Dances with.
Speaker 1:Fil, we talked about your film Black Hole, how that kind of came to be, which I think is really cool, and if you're just catching our session with our series with Jamie, you can go see Black Hole on YouTube on Dust, or you can find a link to it on Jamie's website, which is jamieparslowcom Dot com. So we met at a film festival, dances with Films, which is a cool little indie film festival that's in hollywood. Uh, if anybody um is ever applying to film festival, that's one I think that I should apply.
Speaker 3:I love that film festival so much.
Speaker 1:I love the people I love uh, lindsey, specifically, is like one of my favorite human beings on the planet right um, yeah, she's really lovely although I do want to say just make sure you check your email and your spam, if you've ever submitted, because they'll reach out to you and be like hi, we just want to talk to you, like and gauge your interest, and they'll actively reach out to you. And if you don't respond, oh they won't accept your film I didn't know that and that was what happened to us.
Speaker 1:Like lindsey's email went into into our spam folder and we found it and it was like a week from the deadline or something, and then we emailed her back. No, no, we're interested. Like we just couldn't find the email that you sent so yeah, make sure to check your email if you apply to dances with films, because some film festivals don't do that no they'll. They'll just be like you're in or not, bye that is really how it works.
Speaker 3:Sometimes it's a interesting thing, um, you know, I would argue, smaller film festivals do that though would it like reach and be?
Speaker 1:it's a bit more personable.
Speaker 3:Yeah, because I, my experience was. So I went. Black Hole went to Fantastic Fest, fantasia Fest, film Quest, dances with Films, among many, many others. But the the Fantasia, fantastic Dances with Films and Film Quest were really personable, really personable. It was really lovely. It wasn't like hey, you're in, show up, use your time.
Speaker 3:Yeah yeah, one of my favorite ones also was Horsetooth and they were really, really cool. Which Horsetooth? Horsetooth International are out of Colorado. Okay, they're super cool. They actually not to you know sort of self inflate, but they, they. They saw black hole. Black hole got was tied in votes in terms of like winning. But the other one won because it was a drama. Not because it was a drama, they won as it was a drama and they were like, well, we gotta give this thing something. So they created no way, uh, they created a new genre comedy. They called it the matt stone trey parker comedy award and they uh made that for Blackwell.
Speaker 3:So it was a very inaugural comedy award that they gave and they're super nice, really cool guys Was Dances with Films the first festival, you did.
Speaker 3:Yeah, dances with Films was the first festival I did, because when I did Patch, it was also the first film festival that got me in, and so I created a nice little rapport with everyone and so, um, I really liked it so much that I was just like you know what I'm gonna do that again with black hole and give them first billing um a lot of film festivals. For those of you who don't know, a lot of film festivals won't accept you sometimes if you aren't.
Speaker 1:uh, if you premiered it yeah if you premiered it somewhere else.
Speaker 3:You have have to be really exceptional to to get into a lot of other film festivals sometimes and so, or you just have to know some folks uh, there's that part of it too. But um, dances with films. They were. I just really liked them so much. I like the experience. It's also close to home. I live in studio city.
Speaker 1:So it's easier that way to like sort of um, just pop on across the way. It's easy to justify the trip. Yeah, it's nice to drive. There aren't a lot of film festivals in in los angeles, surprisingly. Yeah, I think, some of the big ones that people might want to consider especially for short films. Dances with films.
Speaker 3:Yep, holly shorts, if you can get into holly shorts that's a big one, that's a really, that's prestige, prestige. It's like it's an oscar qualifying you you probably have an oscar movie movie in Holly shorts if you're going to that one. Yeah. I would say so. Film Invasion is really nice that one's run in Sherman Oaks area. And then they're sort of affiliated with the Sherman Oaks Film Festival as well, so really cool. Jeff runs it, jeff Howard runs it. It's just there. It's super small, really intimate, and I love that.
Speaker 3:It was one of the sort of cooler things you can get into and they premiere at that regal in sherman oak the sherman oaks film festival, mike. But where I was at was called like the white fire room, and it was this itty bitty like no more than 30 person film, or yeah, yeah, okay, yeah, it's cool, very cool.
Speaker 1:So my big question to you, uh, and something I want to talk with you about, is, like, what can filmmakers get, or which filmmakers should get or try to seek, from a film festival beyond just a premiere, because I think you know you premiere that's one thing, but I I think you've already touched a little bit on it this idea of like building a rapport with the film festival staff and you're keeping up with them when you're coming back and like giving them an opportunity. Yeah, because that's, I think, in part, how a filmmaker grows their career, and I think this is going to be a fun conversation about how to grow your career, especially as a multi-hyphenate, where you write, direct, produce and make your own movie absolutely so you know you have a bit more experience with film festivals than me.
Speaker 1:You know from your experience with patch, with black hole.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and then breathing, happy as as well, yeah.
Speaker 1:And what was that? It was a feature film that I produced. Okay, yeah, that was recent.
Speaker 3:Uh, that's the most recent one.
Speaker 1:Yeah, okay, that's the one we talked about off mic right, yes. Okay, cool, cool, cool. What's the? I don't want to say over under, like that's not the right term, but like what's the group of film festivals that you always kind of seek out in Los Angeles? And then internationally, because you just talked about Colorado. Uh, I know there's a couple other film festivals you hit.
Speaker 3:Yeah, you know, I don't know if I like to think in terms of like the best film festivals, in terms of like the grandiosity or like their whatever each film festival assuming they're not ones that are just like, hey, give us money and we'll say that we premiered it each festival has their own sort of. They're all trying and they're all trying to do something cool and unique sunscreen film festival, which is, from my, started in my hometown and and st petersburg, florida is.
Speaker 3:They also have one out here. I met some really cool people, some really good actors and whatnot at that film festival and it's not huge, huge. It's not very well known, but it was a good festival to go to because it was small. And.
Speaker 3:I think that that's one of those things that you sort of forget when you go to film festivals is that everyone's vying for the same space and the same attention, and I don't like to go to film festivals to think in terms of attention. I like to go there to one. I want to see other movies.
Speaker 1:I really like being inspired by other movies yeah or being inspired by things I don't want to do sometimes well, speaking of inspiration and other films, we're at dances with films. There was one movie that premiered and it won. I think it was a feature and it won one of the big awards. It's been a while, so I don't remember specifically what the award was. It was in captive state, that's not what it was called. It was something very similar, though, okay, and it was about, and it was a wife actor and a husband filmmaker, and they were both in it.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And they shot it when she was pregnant.
Speaker 3:Oh yes, and they shot it during the pandemic.
Speaker 1:Right. So they used the backdrop of the pandemic and all this footage they shot of like riots and you know, street closures and people in masks. Do you remember what the title was?
Speaker 3:That was a feature film, yeah, no, you know what when I went? Oh right, there was another short film with a woman who was pregnant and making the short film while she was pregnant, and it was really good.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you're using this kind of moment in history, the pandemic and this kind of civil unrest to really kind of and, from their, their perspective, what they did is they. They used that environment as a prism for, like their own experience in that time frame, like oh, we have a kid, we're pregnant. Like we're artists in a world where you know things are not great yeah, you know civilly, civilly the right word sure and then, you know, also with the pandemic.
Speaker 1:So it was just, I had such a appreciation for the film, not just for the content but, for their approach to it, and I think yeah you know, as you, as you're saying, like you go to film festivals to be inspired and to meet other filmmakers. That was such a cool thing for me to experience because, I was like you. It was just two people. They did the film themselves. Yeah, it was a feature and it was it's amazing from everything I've seen of it, phenomenal.
Speaker 1:I didn't get a chance to catch it, which which really bummed me out because it was during another screen.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I wanted to watch. I saw a movie. I won't name the movie because it inspired me in the wrong way but, um, but what it did is?
Speaker 3:it portrayed alcoholism in a way that I didn't love, and I thought it was one of those sort of cliches where you're sort of like alcoholism isn't like a stumbly, bumbly, like like my life is sad kind of thing. Alcoholism can be as I drink this beer. Alcoholism can be functional and it can be jovial and it can be. It can be a thing that someone makes a choice and they say I will die via alcohol and that's okay with me, cause that's what I want to do.
Speaker 3:I wrote my movie hair of the god um because, literally because of that, I was so like, I'm so tired of the cliche.
Speaker 1:I was like let's just, let's just go the opposite direction and have somebody who's proud of being an alcoholic and like makes it their identity, and I thought that was a really interesting way to when I, when I read that script, uh, an early draft of it, it really resonated with me in that, in that kind of way, because I know of someone who is kind of in that space in regards to alcoholism. You know they're like oh I'm fine, like, and there's someone who doesn't.
Speaker 1:They are someone who doesn't believe in like therapy and alcoholism like I can stop whenever I want, you know, and then they get to a point where they're like I really can't, but I'm just doing it so I don't get more sick, and it it's like, you know, it's a disease in some level. You know that really affects you on some really scary, scary levels. And yeah, when you see it like I remember watching House of Cards and they had that guy who was, you know, a drunk and I don't know if he was an alcoholic per se, but they're like, oh, he's just kind of, you know, bumbling.
Speaker 3:Yeah, you know bumbling, yeah, and it's not like that. No, it's really not. And and you know, you never know, you never know who, and that's the thing is that, like you never know who an alcoholic is or anything, and not to turn this into an alcoholic's conversation, right, um, but but there's they, you know. Uh, speaking of liminal spaces, they live in the liminal spaces they live. You know, there are people who are functioning all day.
Speaker 3:doctors there, there are people who are really important, who are struggling and have to have like a little shot here and there just to get through, and you would never know, you truly would never know. They just have to be in that space.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so back to the film festivals and that movie. So how did it inspire you? In the wrong way.
Speaker 3:Well, because I watched a character sort of just be sad and whatever, and sort of um it was. It was cartoonish and and cliche and I was just like this. This feels like it's not truthful to the process. So I wanted to go, I wanted to go the opposite direction, but that that happens. You know this sort of inspirational. You know somebody does something good or bad one way or the other. I've someone told me many, many years ago. They were like oh, I watched your movies back then it made me, um, say oh, I could, I could also be a filmmaker and do better than that. I was like oops.
Speaker 1:That's funny. You say that because that's how I, like, came into film. Uh, it was seventh grade and I watched a movie uh, blood sport, okay, and uh, you know, I don't want to say it was a terrible movie, because blood Bloodsport is its own thing, like canon films are their own genre of movies where it's like a little campy and like a little. You know, it's that scene from. What's that faux documentary about the rock band?
Speaker 1:Oh, Spinal Tap, yeah it's that scene from Spinal Tap where, like, oh, it goes up to 11. You know what I mean. Like, oh, why don't we go? So that canon film has really just turning up to 11. So I was watching Bloodsport and the next day I was at school, walking to school, and I was like, oh, I would do this differently, I would do that differently. And my brain clicked and I was like, oh, people make movies.
Speaker 3:That exercise is so important. That's sort of like, how would I do it? In what way? And that's kind of the cool thing about film festivals generally going to film festivals and watching how people do something good or bad. If you can see through the veil, you can maybe think to yourself, um, oh, how would I not see through the veil? How would I make it to where an audience would be like, oh, I can't tell that somebody, some, I can effectively feel the camera on the other side of that of that I'm watching. That's really important because you're exercising parts of your brain that you probably wouldn't exercise if you had seen a perfect movie, and I think that that's kind of. It's kind of hard to watch a Hollywood movie and be inspired sometimes because Hollywood movies are 70 million, 100 million, 200 million dollars and that's not money you have.
Speaker 1:No, you can't access that. Even a small quote.
Speaker 3:unquote Hollywood indie film, which is 20 million, 20, yeah, millions of dollars Without a doubt, and so you look at that and you're like I don't find inspiration other than like great writing or great acting and sometimes great directing, but I don't find inspiration about how I can do something from like this itty bitty, nothing, space.
Speaker 3:Great writing or great acting and sometimes great directing, but I don't find inspiration about how I can do something from like this itty bitty, nothing, space. You know what I mean. And when I'm able to watch like a, like a, you know, a small movie, I'm like okay, that was a really great scene, that you did that for no money. That was really really cool like watching, um, uh, coherence or something like that and you're you're sort of like how did?
Speaker 3:how did they do this shot and how did they time this stuff out? And you go, they had no money. That's really really cool. I would have done it better in this way. You know, maybe not obviously, but um, but you, you start that, you start working that part of your brain and you start going, oh, I could have done it this way and I could have done it that way, and that's really super cool. And sometimes you're just super surprised by small movies that just execute perfectly all the way across the spectrum, yeah, and you're like, how did you do that?
Speaker 1:And you get to know those people and they're like, well, we cut the video, they've got their stories, but yeah like that movie with the girl who's pregnant and shot it with her husband, and, and just to kind of touch back on that film it was, it was about, um, how, like the country was taken over by some sort of dictatorship or something. I forget the specifics of it, but it was.
Speaker 1:There was a kind of like sci-fi element to it, a little man in the a castle a little bit of, I think maybe there were aliens, I don't know. But it was really cool to see and inspiring to kind of see someone achieve a feature film. That is good. Yeah, it's hard. With just two people it's hard.
Speaker 1:One of the most inspiring films for me. One of my favorite films is, uh, the movie monsters by gareth edwards his first film and the story goes is that he, you know, got under a million to shoot it, uh, from a company he worked with. They helped produce it and it was him, a camera on his shoulder, two actors, scudamon canary and his wife at the time, who I still think they're married, um, and he's now.
Speaker 1:Scudamon canary is in a film called Xeno Evil with Michael Boy looks terrifying, and so in Monsters it was Gareth Edwards, a sound guy a fixer is what he said and the two actors and they had like a fixer. Yeah, well, because like a guy who just a key grip, yeah it's fine, it's what they call key grips like found locations for them Like it was just the guy.
Speaker 3:So he's a producer, yeah, but they were in Mexico.
Speaker 1:Producer's a good yeah producer's a good, a good word for it, but but he was a fixer and so he just got stuff for them, and so it was like that small group of people in like a bus.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And they would drive around Mexico like jump out, shoot off an outline, it's all improv too, and she was like locals and, like you know, it was all like there was no other actors, yeah, and then that's it. And he did all the vfx himself because he worked as a vfx guy for commercials and it looks so good and it there's a, there's this feeling of um, like longing, and and I don't know how to describe it but it doesn't feel super narrative, but narrative at the same time.
Speaker 3:There's there's a lot of like I'm always uh, I watched um red rocket recently and uh, we'll go back to the film festival conversation here as well. But like I watched red rocket recently, uh, which is sean baker and how he's able to get non-actors to perform really heavy lines, that you know that they like.
Speaker 3:You know that an actor somebody who's not an actor reading a script, would just say it in a hammy yeah, like actor-y way, like a capital, a acting way, but he's able to like, get them to improv a line that is meaningful and and deep and and heartfelt. And that person you know did not come up as, like some, some big yeah you know to do. That's the kind of stuff you'd see at film festivals.
Speaker 1:Sean Baker came up through film festivals yeah, and just for for those listening, sean Baker did tangerine, which was like a big feature film shot on iPhone.
Speaker 3:He just won the Palme d'Or really yeah, or what, I forget what the name of the news from. He's doing. Yeah, the new film he just did, yeah, it's so. He just got that. Yeah, he's an interesting film, a filmmaker, because he, he does that kind of like low budget, like I don't want to say not low effort, that's not the right word like kind of running around with iphones, you know whatever that word is yeah and then he goes, yeah and then he goes and like, does something on you know film.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and he did. Uh was the one in florida.
Speaker 3:Florida project, florida project yeah that was like film but also has a scene in the iphone and that's very close to how I grew up too, like really that that's sort of like super poverty and that, so it's really I love that movie so it's so good. Of course I know right, yeah, but what I guess. What I'm getting at is that you were asking what do you get out?
Speaker 1:of film festivals. Let's, let's, let's refine it. So what do you when you go, when you do a project and you go into a film festival? What, what do you expect out of it? What do you want to get out? Of it, and what do you think other people should get out of it? I love connecting with people personally.
Speaker 3:I love going. I went to Fantastic Fest and the very first thing that happened I want to say her name was Amy the very first thing she did is we show up to the karaoke bar and she's like shots and we're like okay, sure, and they like they did a god man, fantastic festival rules, because they they'll do games.
Speaker 1:so instead of doing panels, they'll just do like boxing or like trivia, yeah, and I'm like that's a super cool way to do it.
Speaker 3:But it is connections, it's inspiration in and all those things. Really you think, oh, it's not really what I'm there for. But you can get managers interested in you and agents. I know I did. After Black Hole there was a guy two people who reached out to me about representing and it never matriculated. It never came through because I didn't have another feature written ready to go, and they wanted to just adapt Black Hole and do a feature film film.
Speaker 3:I was like I have no idea how to do that. Those people are there, I would argue. A thing you shouldn't do personally is uh and this is just because I've had a really negative connotation with it, which is you shouldn't go there trying to be the top dog yeah you should not be there trying to be the guy who, or the girl, whomever that shows up and you're like I want to be the one in charge or I want to be the one who's the winner I want you to look at me.
Speaker 3:Don't do not do that. I had an instance where I was trying to just pal around it's sort of the night that we met and there was a. There was a guy there who, um, talented filmmaker like no, no doubt about it, but he did not want my time. He didn't know who I was, he didn't care who I was, he was just like. I'm not here for this chatty stuff.
Speaker 1:And I was like, ooh, I'm not a big fan.
Speaker 3:And then I'm not in that guy's pocket any longer. I mean no matter what he does. From that point forward, I'm like good for you, but I don't care.
Speaker 1:It going forward. I'm like good for you, but I don't care. It was another person I met, just to add to that because your success and the reason why I think Black Hole did so well, not only because you have the experience and the talent, but you have this community that supports you and you built that through.
Speaker 3:Being nice yeah being nice. I'm not saying that about myself. I'm just saying generally yeah, you're, you're an asshole. I'm actually kind of a jerk, to be honest with you. No, no, uh you're very nice.
Speaker 1:I think that's why we we met and kind of connected, because we, we like we I'm terrible at networking we all had this let's face it, it was.
Speaker 3:It was our wives that that were there that's true, yeah, they're really good.
Speaker 1:Locked eyes across the room and they were like okay, I guess.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, they're so great I would be nowhere without my wife. Um, yeah, like I said you, you were.
Speaker 1:You built up this momentum to create from your ability to network with people and build relationships yeah and with someone who, like that person doesn't want to like, they're gonna hit a wall.
Speaker 3:Well, like I said, some of my best friends right now. We met at a film festival in high school and that became.
Speaker 3:Those are the relationships I have now and they're not faux relationships. They are people I have deep conversations with and we talk about things, but we also create and we we make art and we rely on each other. It's really, really important. Those are the kinds of friendships you can make. I had. I was saying there was another guy that I met that I went to a film festival that I didn't have a project in but, it's a film festival I had been to and I really liked him.
Speaker 3:I really liked his work, I liked his acting, he was an actor. And I came out and I was like oh my God, that was such a great performance, so on and so forth. I saw it and he goes. He asked me. He was like so did you have a film in this festival? I said no, I had it last year, but you know, you just burned that.
Speaker 3:You just burned that Like you had, you had. I'm not saying that I'm someone to have an opportunity with. I'm saying that if you had said that to somebody who was like Of value, not of value.
Speaker 1:Sorry, you're not wrong. That had like, let's say, more weight they can throw. Yeah.
Speaker 3:You know what I mean, Like yeah yeah, that you could burn that bridge easily, you know without a doubt, and you think that that's not the way to do it, and even if you're just having a bad day, like, just be, like, oh, I'm so sorry, I'm not really in, like I'm just at it. I do. I say that all the time. Or I'm having a bad day, I'm always just like I don't know what's going on.
Speaker 1:I'm so sorry if I, if I get testy with you I'm just not a good day, so I feel like it's to use that word again valuable. It's valuable to reach out to your kind of surround the people that surround you in a film festival and communicate with them and see you know where they're, why they are there.
Speaker 1:I remember in grad school someone came in to talk with us. They were a filmmaker who did oh my God, I forget the film now. So long ago they went to Sundance every year, regardless of if they had a filmmaker who did. Um, oh my god, I forget the film now.
Speaker 1:So long ago they went to sundance every year, regardless of if they had a film there or not oh, I see, yeah, yeah, and so they were just like let's go, just go to film festivals, chat with people, and then they build relationships, and then they build their community, and then they build their you know whatever and so that's going to kind of segue into my next question, because for me, even if you have a film, yeah, you don't get into any film festival. Let's say you apply to like 100 not 100, 50, no, no, film festival takes you. Yeah, you should still go to some of them especially if they're local.
Speaker 3:You should know what's getting in, what's not getting in because, um, a really interesting thing that you find out is that not every film festival is made the same. Not everyone has the same taste. The curators like some things in one aspect and they don't like other things in other aspects, and I would argue my taste is different from from some curators I go why did this film get in here? And then other ones. I'm sort of like, you know, you're sort of like wow, this is amazing.
Speaker 1:Like how did they get these films into here? That was my experience with dance, with films. I saw two very separate, two very different films, and one of them was like how did this get in? And the other film was like this. I make sense that yeah, it's taste it's.
Speaker 3:I mean at that point in time, because you normally got one, one person who's sort of one, or two people sometimes who are looking at the content and being like does this fit?
Speaker 1:it's never one person. Yeah, yeah, it's true, it's never one, and every year there's like a different theme or a different kind of vibe that they're going for and um yeah, it just depends on on what the festival wants well, okay, so great.
Speaker 3:Uh, anecdote is um, there's so the last movie that I produced, um breathing happy. We, you know, we had, we had and have strong relationships with the people at fantastic fest. Um, there was a notion at some point that this movie might get into fantastic fest. I personally was like I don't think so. It's a long road up, it's not really their, their kit and caboodle, um, and and some other folks were like oh, it's a shoe and we know the people and so on and so forth, and was like well, I think it's got to fit the aesthetic of the festival itself.
Speaker 3:And sure enough there was some shock when it didn. Well, I think it's got to fit the aesthetic of the festival itself. And sure enough there was some shock when it didn't get in. And it's not because they didn't like us, didn't like our movie, anything like that, it's just that it didn't fit the vibe of that film festival. And that's okay. It's like a gallery.
Speaker 1:You know, sometimes a gallery has a showing that fits a theme a certain aesthetic, a certain style of art, and then you can't bring in claymation into an exhibition. That's all about oil paintings. You know what I mean? It doesn't fit the story.
Speaker 3:Also think about it this way there is a delineation between a short film going to a film festival and a feature film going to a film festival.
Speaker 1:Because a feature film they'll play in a theater for two hours. A short film will play in the same theater with 20 other shorts, yes, or 15 or whatever, but the thing is, a short film isn't there to sell something, Isn't there to you know, some people make also.
Speaker 3:I'll put it to you this way never, ever, make a proof of concept make.
Speaker 1:Also, I'll put it to you this way never, ever, make a proof of concept just stop doing that immediately for a film end it just make the film anyone.
Speaker 3:What a filmmaker. What anybody wants to know is whether or not you can tell a story yeah just tell the story like they don't care that you let. That's what I messed up with with patch. I was like, oh, I'll leave it open-ended. At the end, and all this stuff. No one cared no one cared and I I made that mistake and I was like that was stupid, I should have just rounded. I rounded that story out, but I left it open-ended at the very end. I was like that was a dumb concept there.
Speaker 1:Because you left it open for the feature.
Speaker 3:Mm-hmm or show whatever it was. Stop doing that. You've got to stop doing that, but a feature?
Speaker 1:Yeah, that could end and be ambiguous if you needed to be yeah, you can have someone come in.
Speaker 3:You don't even know what film festival it might happen at. You can have somebody come in and be like I'm in the mood to buy something and I'm a buyer, I'm here to purchase a film that I really like or a film that I think hits our KPIs. You know for our platform that we're doing, and so they'll come in and they may check your film and try to buy it off you right then and there that it's harder. Feature films are a little more expensive to get into film festivals.
Speaker 3:You do have to show up if you have a feature film Short films, I would argue you probably don't need to show up at all of them, because you'll probably get into a lot of them and you're not making anything off of it, though you should go to as many as you possibly can, but feature films you need to be at all of them yeah you need to be at all of them.
Speaker 3:You need to be talking to people and maybe negotiating. Don't take the first. We talked about this. Don't take the first deal that comes in unless you are sure you're never going to get a deal again. Um, I know that sounds scary, but I I talked to a distributor recently and they were like you don't have to take the first deal. As a matter of fact, they even said if you have a short film, that, or a feature film, um, a really cool piece of advice they gave was like if you have a feature film that you want to sort of build a rapport with, you do a tour of your film you don't go?
Speaker 3:go to the film festivals. You go to towns and you say I'm four walling this place, I'm four walling that place. You make your own money, four walling all the way through the process which creates.
Speaker 1:And can you explain a little bit more before? Oh, sure yeah.
Speaker 3:It's. I mean you just you basically just rent out a theater for a time a day, whatever it may be, and you advertise and market people to come on in to to um, take over. And this guy was like this. This dude told me was like build your rapport, get reviews. That's what they were looking for. They want to see good reviews all the way through the process, and then they'll be, and then you can negotiate higher.
Speaker 1:You can negotiate a higher price for for your film or I feel like that's a concept that we can borrow from theater where a show goes on a national tour, gets reviews, gets on Broadway, you know like it does big and just runs forever.
Speaker 1:Yeah, Like we should do that with short films, I'm sorry, with film, feature films, more especially independent films, because you can build your career off of that. You can build a rapport with your community, with you know buyers and sellers and stakeholders, and also make some money off your that's what, and that's the thing.
Speaker 3:Is that like selling your movie right at the top, unless you're going to a sundance or unless you're going to like uh, you know, tell your riders unless netflix is offering you 20 million right in there.
Speaker 3:Yeah I mean, if you've got a little baby guy that you feel really confident about, go to a lot of film festivals. This is actually um, I'll bring aaron up a lot because he's sort of just in our circle, but he, him and his partner, justin benson, and and, uh, david lawson, they took their very first feature film, uh, resolution. They went to tribeca. They got, I think, second place at tribeca or something like that for their feature film, but it didn't sell, it didn't do anything.
Speaker 3:But they, they instead went on a tour of the world with it that's crazy and what they did is they built that rapport with all of those film festivals, with their, with their one feature film that then didn't get them money to do the next one. They actually ended up having to like, redo the process of trying to like raise the money again for um. What was what became spring um, which I, you know, I love, I love spring. And then they made spring happen and the same thing they went they want some stuff, people love them.
Speaker 3:They didn't get the next movie purchased instead they had to raise the money on their own again to do the endless, which is arguably their most well-known feature film, and then that's the one that like took them over. So they had to go from one to the other, to the other, but they had to, like, take these tours, these long tours, and these, these, these, you know um, what do you call them? Just networking.
Speaker 1:Networking events. I feel like, though you take the one and you know you do the tour and you don't have that much success with it, it still opens doors for you. Yeah, that makes the next opportunity.
Speaker 3:Without a doubt. Yeah, because if you make the next and you have to make the next one, you have to make the next one. When you make the next one, you get the door open. Yeah, and then you can say hey, can you get me in?
Speaker 1:And the answer is going to be, more often than not yes.
Speaker 1:Yeah, without a doubt, especially because you know how to get in a room yeah which is more of a, you know uh, non-festival, the opposite of a festival scarier part of that yeah and I think that's a good um segue into that episode is you know relationships and how to utilize, not utilize, but how to you know nurture relationships so that you can get into a room and pitch something to like a producer yeah, a production company. But we'll talk about that next episode, please. We got we got some, some, some stuff to talk about, but thank you for coming on for episode two and thank you for listening.
Speaker 1:We'll see you guys next week. Thank you for joining us at the CFA studio for another series of the Inwood podcast. You can find the podcast wherever you find your podcasts or on YouTube at the cinematography for actors.
Speaker 2:See you next week because we're tax exempt now, so it's a tax write-off and upcoming education. You can email us at contact at cinematography for actorscom. Thanks.