Steve Laramie
Veteran
Anyone know what the application process is to get a feature in Sundance? IE do you have to know someone or do you just have to make a really good film?
Sundance?
- Thread starter Steve Laramie
- Start date
taormina
Hates to Rent
In theory, you just make a really good film. The criteria for what constiutes a good film changes every time the judging panel changes, so it's anyone's guess.
By that token, you simply pay your money and submit your film. There is a chance, however slim, you might get accepted.
My gut tells me, however, that successful Sundance campaigns involve money, connections, and extreme talent, the latter being the least important IMHO.
Film festivals are run by people. People who know other people, usually that make movies. If you know someone that is a panelist for Sundance (or any other film festival) you heighten the chances of your film being accepted, no matter what the "official" policy of the festival is. The people are corruptible.
How's this possible - they're supposed to be impartial! Hey, it happens in government all the time and they're supposed to be fair and impartial too.
By that token, you simply pay your money and submit your film. There is a chance, however slim, you might get accepted.
My gut tells me, however, that successful Sundance campaigns involve money, connections, and extreme talent, the latter being the least important IMHO.
Film festivals are run by people. People who know other people, usually that make movies. If you know someone that is a panelist for Sundance (or any other film festival) you heighten the chances of your film being accepted, no matter what the "official" policy of the festival is. The people are corruptible.
How's this possible - they're supposed to be impartial! Hey, it happens in government all the time and they're supposed to be fair and impartial too.
Ryan Patrick O'Hara
Veteran
Now a days, it really helps to have a recognizable low a, or b list actor.
I guess it's always been that way, but seems very common these days.
I guess it's always been that way, but seems very common these days.
Zak Forsman
Major Contributor
festivals like Sundance get maybe 20% of their slate from open submissions. most of it "headhunted" or recommended, and the ones who you read about "getting picked up at Sundance" were often bought beforehand and the festival is used as a platform to announce the sale to drum up publicity.
a way to "know someone" is to do the circuit with a short. my short, IFHY, introduced me to about half a dozen programmers and former programmers for Sundance that want to see Heart of Now and will give it a personal recommendation if they like it.
but the best bet is to bring in an agent or publicist or producer's rep that has real contacts with the major fests. i was recently contacted by an agent and I googled his name and saw articles in THR and Variety about him putting a few deals together at the last few Sundance fests.
a way to "know someone" is to do the circuit with a short. my short, IFHY, introduced me to about half a dozen programmers and former programmers for Sundance that want to see Heart of Now and will give it a personal recommendation if they like it.
but the best bet is to bring in an agent or publicist or producer's rep that has real contacts with the major fests. i was recently contacted by an agent and I googled his name and saw articles in THR and Variety about him putting a few deals together at the last few Sundance fests.
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Steve Laramie
Veteran
I am going to shoot a RED feature over the summer and the way I think of it is as long as were shooting RED 5k and an amazing cinematographer and steadicam op all we really need to worry about is great story and strong acting and we should be pretty much set. I am trying to take advantage of all these resources to the fullest. Which would be of course Sundance. Would you really recommend an agent? I don't like to cross art with business that much unless necessary.
Zak Forsman
Major Contributor
took me a long time to realize this but art without business is a hobby.
Steve Laramie
Veteran
thats true 50 50 if you want to make a living. However I like to stay indi and not have people telling me yes or no.
Zak Forsman
Major Contributor
a framework for sustainability does not mean you need to compromise artistic integrity. i'm not talking about letting the business side influence the artistic side. I'm talking about being business-minded enough to support your art WITH your art, and not by some other means like delivering pizzas.
Nathyn
Low Budget Ninja
taormina
Hates to Rent
Personally I think getting an indie into Sundance with no name actors in it is a pipe dream. Before anyone chimes in with all the examples, realize that many of them had really great connections.
There are plenty of other great fests to submit to that will further your career. Sundance is like the Oscars of film festivals, man.
There are plenty of other great fests to submit to that will further your career. Sundance is like the Oscars of film festivals, man.
Ryan Patrick O'Hara
Veteran
Eh, it's also notorious for odd taste in films that aren't the prepackeged hype machines.
I've seen lots of films from sundance, where I scratch my head and say "Really?!" They are unpredictable, although getting less every year. Sorry to say but sundance which used to be indie is now through and through main stream with indie sideshows.
I've seen lots of films from sundance, where I scratch my head and say "Really?!" They are unpredictable, although getting less every year. Sorry to say but sundance which used to be indie is now through and through main stream with indie sideshows.
Barry_Green
Moderator
That won't help you one iota to get into a major festival.
That might help an iota, but only an iota.
Won't help even an iota.
This is what will help. None of the other stuff matters. Shoot a great story with powerful acting on an HV20, and you might get in. Shoot a good (but not GREAT) story on a Red on a Steadicam, and nobody anywhere will care. Well, that's not necessarily true; if there's a RedFest somewhere then yes they'd be interested; we used to restrict our DVXFest to entries shot on DVX100s for example. But audiences and screeners won't be impressed at all whether you shot it on a DVX or 35mm or a Red. Remember, Open Water premiered at Sundance, and it was shot on a standard-def, interlaced, DV-only, 60i-only Sony VX2000. Pretty much the lowest of the low nowadays, the exact opposite of the spectrum from the Red, yet it premiered at Sundance. For that matter, Blair Witch premiered at Sundance, and its video was even lower quality than Open Water.
Even with a great story and great acting, that's not necessarily enough: what will help you get an open submission spot at Sundance more than all that you've mentioned before, is to have a frickin' amazing director. Festivals at this level seem to care more about the director than any other element, and that includes a-list stars. Have amazing direction and amazing storytelling and you greatly increase your odds. Blair Witch, Memento, Pulp Fiction - nobody had seen anything like those in recent memory, and so they all got in.
If your film has a strong voice, it'll get noticed. If instead what you're planning on saying about it is "we shot on a Red", then -- save your money and don't even send in the submission. Shooting on something unusual might give you a slight leg up (such as shooting on a cell phone camera or using a still camera or something) but only if the film is amazing *because* of the format you chose. Gimmicks don't count at this level; nobody cares if someone shoots their grand debut feature film on a $300 camcorder - UNLESS the film is somehow energized by that particular element. For example, "My Date With Drew" had as its entire premise the idea that they had only 30 days to make the film, because they bought the camcorder from Circuit City and Circuit City had a 30-day no-questions-asked return policy. So the camera actually became a driving element of the story, therefore it was relevant. Other than that, nobody cares. It's too late to try to claim any buzz from the Red; Peter Jackson and Steven Soderbergh already claimed the first slots for that. So... if you want someone to care what camera you shot it on, like a Red, then what you'd have to do is something like steal a Red off the camera truck of a Peter Jackson movie, use it for the weekend to shoot your film, then put it back on the truck before anyone notices it was gone on Monday morning. Then market the heck out of the story that you "borrowed" Peter Jackson's Red to make the film. You do that, and maybe someone will care that you shot it on a Red, but only because they'd care about the story of how you got the Red and the risks you took... *disclaimer, I am not advocating anyone engage in any illegal behaviors to get their film noticed!
Set for ? Something on the order of 4,000 films submit to Sundance each year. They probably pick about 20 from open submissions. The odds are extremely against anyone getting in, which is why you really shouldn't make a Sundance premiere your primary business plan; it's more of a cherry on the sundae if you can get it.
Getting into Sundance or Slamdance or Berlin or Toronto or Cannes or Telluride is nearly impossible, especially from an open submission. I spoke to the festival director for one of the above and asked him directly, what % of films do they program that come from the "call for submissions"? He said about 1%.
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Steve Laramie
Veteran
thanks for the replies. Just wanted to clarify the reason I think RED is an advantage is because it's easier to project then something shot on a cell phone. Any ideas of the kind of films large festivals like?
Jim Brennan
VHS Member Old Skool
FWIW, I agree with Barry's post. Story, performance and unique vision count far more than anything else (and a well-connected Producer's rep comes in a close second). Shoot a great script with technical competence, not a mediocre script with a great camera.
I would read Chris Gore's Book
It covers the major fests, then go to without a box and do your homework regarding which fests look for what. You need to target your submissions.
Finally, ask yourself why you even want to get into a major fest. They are not always an avenue to distribution. In fact, they should never be more than some sort of addendum to your distribution plan. IIRC, there was a film last year starring Ben Kingsley (an Oscar winning, household name), that got rave reviews at Sundance, and had not gotten picked up last I heard. You are better of (IMHO) using the festival circuit as a way to network and form relationships over the long haul, rather than expecting one film in one big fest to do the trick. It might help, and it certainly doesn't hurt to submit, but it is best to have an alternative plan for distribution and use festival submissions as feathers in your cap. I have found Stacey Parks' site to be very informative on the subject of indie distribution.
I would read Chris Gore's Book
It covers the major fests, then go to without a box and do your homework regarding which fests look for what. You need to target your submissions.
Finally, ask yourself why you even want to get into a major fest. They are not always an avenue to distribution. In fact, they should never be more than some sort of addendum to your distribution plan. IIRC, there was a film last year starring Ben Kingsley (an Oscar winning, household name), that got rave reviews at Sundance, and had not gotten picked up last I heard. You are better of (IMHO) using the festival circuit as a way to network and form relationships over the long haul, rather than expecting one film in one big fest to do the trick. It might help, and it certainly doesn't hurt to submit, but it is best to have an alternative plan for distribution and use festival submissions as feathers in your cap. I have found Stacey Parks' site to be very informative on the subject of indie distribution.
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Jim Brennan
VHS Member Old Skool
Hopefully, something shot well (In other words, by someone who knows what they are doing), should look better on the RED than a DVX. But you also have to consider how it will be projected. I recently worked on a film shot on the RED that screened at the Denver and Santa Fe film fests. The first Denver screening was a nightmare because they projected an HDCAM tape of the film through a composite cable into an SD projector and it looked pretty bad (having dome a bunch of the post work, I was not happy). The next time it screened, they used an SD DigiBeta tape and it looked better. But there were people in the audience, that saw it both times, that never saw the difference. Most festivals (I've never been to Sundance), have something less than state of the art projection capabilities. So, while you want your source to be the highest quality possible, the people who attend festivals know that the technical limitations are less important than the story they are watching.
True and false. The problem festivals are facing is that they are getting inundated with submissions. Sundance got over 9000 submissions this year (not the 4000 Barry mentioned) for a little over 200 spots. Anyone can enter as long as they pay the fee. That means films shot on anything get submitted with a huge range of quality in all aspects.
Now, think about what resources need to be available for a festival to properly vet that many films in a 3 month period. (deadline to announcement) 50 people would need to watch 180 films and that is if the films were watched only once, which most fests don't want to do.
a programmer at a major fest wrote on one of the boards recently, when he sees something come in that was shot on 35, it goes to the top of his pile. Others have said that professionally packaged dvd art can get more attention (although they sometimes repackage when the dvds come in so this doesn't happen). Even the thickness of the DVD case matters to some so they can be shelved a certain way. Would shooting on a Red help get seen? maybe. Like the other things I mentioned, it is one more thing to look to that says the film had a professional effort put forth.
That is not to say a film can't get in that was shot on a cell phone, or a dvx etc. In the right hands a dvx can produce something better than another person shooting on film. the bottom line is that getting noticed or lucky is the key and every little bit helps IMO.
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Cheap digital cameras are a blessing and a curse. Just about anyone can shoot a movie, but as a result, it's harder than ever to get noticed.