Does submitting a "working version" hurt film festival chances?

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IslandFilmmaker

Member
I'm just about ready to submit my film to a major festival. The problem is there's one scene in there that has a really tiny mistake in there. It's bearly noticable and last for a split second. The thing is, I noticed it, so I fancy a festival judge who watches and rewatches and rewatches and rewatches my film looking for mistakes will at some point find it as well (it took me 15 screenings on my pc to realize it).
However I won't be able to get together with my editor in the editing studio until a week and a half from the film's entry deadline.

1) Would it be wise to submit this film as a "working version?"

2) Would submitting as a working version hurt my chances of getting into the festival (bear in mind this is a MAJOR festival and I'm a no-name director submitting for the first time)?
 
Nobody at any festival will watch your film more than once. If it's a small thing, let it go. First of all, the odds of a no-name director's first film getting accepted at a major film festival are about 10,000 to 1 (or worse) so ... don't sweat it. If your film's great, they'll understand. But there's pretty much no way a film is going to be bounced out of consideration for a festival, due to a little barely-noticeable mistake.
 
To put things in perspective: lots of movies, even from the Big Boys, have mistakes. Maybe even all of them do, and people usually don't notice.

Case in point:

(note: potiental for mildly NSFW language)
 
In my experience, showing a work print to anyone is a mistake. Critics, festivals, producers, distributors.
Everyone says they're used to watching ungraded material, and then their first reaction is "Why are the colors so flat?".
If the editing isn't locked, they say "Why is the pacing so slow?" or "Why is it so boring?"
If the sound design or mix isn't ready, they say "Why does it sound so weird?".

The first thing people always assume is that what they see is what they get. So don't show anyone anything until it's ready.
 
I help organize a few film festivals and also submit films to many, one thing I learned was that never submit work in progress film (unless the film festival begs like crazy, but still something I wouldn't do), one thing at festivals is the organizers are not the ones viewing your film, but they have a selected committee (except for the ones that are hand selected - many big film festivals have 80% of their films already selected by attending other big film festivals, so the 20% is left opened to invitations via friends, connections, and nonlocals and about 10% is left to local films... So those 20% is being reviewed by a committee members comprised of regular viewers). So often, your film are viewed by people who do not care if it's still work in progress, once they see 'bugs' they will just not liking it. There is also a specific 'rules' these reviewers must do, one is to make sure the film 'can' or 'will' generate maximum attendances if it's screened (after all, their job is to be able to bring $ to the festival so they can continue doing so in future), 2nd is if it fits their festival's theme criteria (which it may change every year or it may be just a certain type of films)...

As a filmmaker, I always never make a film to fit the deadline of a festival, but rather make a film to how I like it and then submit, and knowing that major film festivals may not even bother, I would just usually go to the 2nd or 3rd rated festivals, and get enough laurels. :P

Johnny
 
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