Hello again, welcome to part two of my blog on the BAFTA #ShortSighted 2013 event. In yesterday’s post I started with telling you about what the first segment was like and about getting a feel for what kind of an event it was going to be – a useful one. So back to the CCA.
We’d covered film festivals, getting your film out there and the need for both a plan and a budget for your festival run. There was a curious bearded man who quite emphatically and with a tinge of aggression asked about how much money can be expected to be made from various techniques and distribution systems which were being discussed and how could someone get the submission fee for a festival waived. I think I was with him to some extent until I realized the example he was giving was only a £15 submission fee. Now I know that isn’t nothing, but if you’ve been able to get a film made then I find it hard to believe that you can’t dig £15 out of somewhere.
I think there was a funny shift in mood when the man started asking his questions with that tone and I think it was a good funny-shift, as it were, because we’d gone from having no one asking questions to people jumping in with questions and the panel were more easily quizzed and challenged. It was a healthy atmosphere for learning. Still think that guy was a bit odd though, ha. Spoke to him afterwards at the drinks mind you and he was quite nice, I mused with him about his line and tone of questioning.
After a short break, we return for the second session of the day – ‘New Theatrical Opportunities for Shorts’ – where Kate Taylor (@sheshark) mentions that good stills are essential for the sale, distribution & exhibition of short films (as seen in the tweet at the top of the page). One of the crew from my last film gives me a glare from across the crowd. We did not have good stills.
Kate continued in a charismatic and quirky narrative about her recent experiences as the ‘Exhibition and Distribution Officer’ at the Independent Cinema Office, what kind of films shes working and what typical week would look like for her. Kate helped us at the pop-up programmers group to show the David Bowie starring Nicolas Roeg directed film ‘The Man Who Fell To Earth‘ for our recent Refugee Week event at Garnethill Multi-cultural centre, so I knew first hand about the kind of work she was doing and what she was supporting.
To get an audience around your film and make a success of your cinema events she emphasised several points, speaking as both a programmer and a distributor.
As a distributor she was looking for all the rights (music, music, music!) to be fully cleared and accounted for and, as previously mentioned, some great stills. She particularly noted that great stills can be particularly beneficial when you consider that some festival programmes will only use one still to represent a programme of short films, so if you need to make sure that your film is where that still is coming from!
We then did an exercise where she showed us what a typical week looks like for a programmer at a small independent cinema. A monthly calender planner with several films written in the boxes representing each of the days. She tells us that the films are all those which are being released on that day. So throughout each week and the broader scope of the month she needs to decide what films of the many being released to screen and at what time. Kate then brings up an image showing only three days and it’s then passed on to us as we do a 5 minute exercise debating with the person next to us about how we would decide what to programme for those days.
Afterwards, Kate dissects the kinds of choices we might’ve made and goes through all the films, which ranged from general hollywood rom-coms like ‘Hope Springs‘ to niche-audience documentaries, like a documentary on blues musician BB King. The answers are not clear cut. It’s not only the likely audiences of the films and the genres present, but what sort of a venue the cinema is – does it have a predominantly elderly regular audience to whom an otherwise reliable mainstream film may not appeal and succeed?
We heard of the trials and tribulations she’s experienced in recent years with the cinemas she worked with and the distribution work shes done, through recessions and changing tastes. Many good anecdotes and bits of advice came out of the day, but overall there seems to be an emphasis on balance – the business side of film exhibition needs to be remembered just as much as the artistic, a lacking on either side can cause the failure of the event. Know your audience, know your film and supporting the other film events around you.
Great attention was paid to the matter of where short films are getting shown theatrically and what opportunities there are in a cinema market where most theatres simply refuse to show shorts purely because of money that could be gained with additional advertising in the space a short would require.
She talked us through how some independant and arthouse cinemas approach short film programming, not only before features but on their own as well. What sells and what doesn’t was also discussed, with short films of a recognisable genre lasting around 12 minutes often being the most successful, the addition of a star instantly adding to the film’s value.
Kate was brilliant. All that insight into a programmers job was important because it highlighted the job someone has as a short film festival programmer when they are looking at your short films and decided what’s going in the festival and what’s going in the bin. What these programmers need to do about their films, with community, with timing, with supporting their fellows; she showed us how this is the what we need to be doing, the filmmakers, with our social media around the film, with our choice of distribution (theatrical, online, festival, when?), watching other peoples short films and promoting other peoples works.
To add to all that, she went into great detail about where short films are getting shown theatrically and what opportunities there are in a cinema market where most theatres simply refuse to show shorts purely because of money that could be gained with additional advertising in the space a short would require.
She talked us through how some independant and arthouse cinemas approach short film programming, not only before features but on their own as well. What sells and what doesn’t was also discussed, with short films of a recognisable genre lasting around 12 minutes often being the most successful, the addition of a star instantly adding to the film’s value.
To find out more about what Kate does, you can follow her on twitter @sheshark or go to the Independant Cinema Office website and find out more about what they are about.
In keeping with the previous #ShortSighted2013 blog, I’m going to add a video on the end I found after the event. This time it’s a short film about a girl looking for hope and colour in a bleak grey world.
Cherry Blog 