By Steve Rainbow
It is almost universally accepted that the best way for a low budget feature film to get noticed is to try and get selected for a film festival. The more prestigious the festival, the better your films chances are of getting notice by a larger number of people, because the people in positions to show or distribute your films go to these premium festivals.
But you can never guarantee that they, or any film festival, are going to accept your film, so you have to be strategic in your approach to submissions. So how do you go about getting your film into the festivals?
My first feature called NFA was selected for the Edinburgh International Film Festival and this exposure pushed it towards reviewers; consequently, it now has a distribution deal. Not only did EIFF move NFA towards a more likely distribution but it also gave me the opportunity to network and spread future ideas, some of which are bearing fruit.
My second feature film is called iWitness, although its working title was Fun with Caravans. The reason the title got changed was because the production companies involved, who I have worked with many times before and whose opinion I trust completely, felt that iWitness was a more sellable title, and I agreed. This ‘branding’ of your film is all part of the process of film festival submissions and ultimately sales. So now iWitness is in the process of being submitted to film festivals.
Most of the more recognised or niche film festivals accept submissions from the website ‘Withoutabox’, so if you’ve never done it before, it’s worth checking them out first. Firstly register your film on that site and upload all of the relevant info that film festivals want to see, such as technical specifications, cast names, crew names, synopsis, director’s notes, director’s biog and press pack. That is why, when you get towards the end of shooting your film, you want to be making notes so that you can accurately fulfil these requirements later on. In short, always have one eye on marketing and selling your film, right from the off.
The cost of submission varies from festival to festival ‒ some are actually free, but most cost, so you need to have some money budgeted for submission fees, which include discs being burnt, boxes purchased, dvd covers designed and printed, then postage on top of submission fees. A budget of, lets say £500 would probably allow you to comfortably submit to 5 festivals as long as you get in early; the price goes up closer to the closing date, but you can make that budget stretch if you research first. My friend Brendan O’Neill (Producers’ Forum member) has a very comprehensive list of film festivals and I’m sure if you asked him nicely, he would share it with you.
iWitness is a psychological thriller starting David Proud, and we believe that it is the only film ever made where a disabled actor plays an able bodied person. This is its USP, so I have selected a few festivals that champion disability as part of their remit as well as the ones that favour thrillers and psychological dramas.
For more information about iWitness and Steve's company Rainbow Films please go to http://www.rainbowfilms.co.uk/
This article first appeared in our November 2014 Newsletter. You can read it here
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