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The extremely prestigious European festivals tend to be overhelmingly full of social realism/philosphical drama pieces.
The European and UK funding bodies who use public funding are primarily interested in "cultural significance" and they won't give you money unless you've managed to get into these types of festival.
For instance, there's a new scheme open in the NW of England for Directorial mentoring from the likes of Danny Boyle...in order to qualify as a Director you had to have films shown or won an award from two of the festivals I listed above.
In short, all doors are closed where I am unless I get into those kind of festivals...and there's clearly certain kinds of films that they prefer...besides, I'd quite like a Golden Bear...wouldn't you?
I gotcha. And a Golden Bear would be pretty sweet. Ferocious clawed behemoth beats a leaf any day as far as aesthetics are concerned.
And I see where you're coming from. I need to keep in mind that while the industry has its standards worldwide, there's also variations from country to country, especially since my industry experience has been predominantly international. Good call.
I'm thinking however that we do the Feb WC - in what ever format, I like Phils's suggestion - or stick with a 10 page short that can be entered in these comps.
So i guess I'm saying - why not use the WC's scripts as the comp entries?
Cheers stevie
I think it's a good idea..and I did toy with it.
In the end I decided that these kind of stories probably require a bit more tweaking and are better left brewing a bit longer in the mind than a OWC would allow for.
The OWC will be equally relevant, just a slightly different field of combat.
Not all European festivals are full of the type of shorts you have mentioned. Some are incredibly simple, shot on a shoe string budget but very clever. Take The Crush, an Oscar nominated short from Ireland. It's about a young boy who develops a crush on his teacher and challenges her boyfriend to a duel.
If you want something to do well in festivals make it topical, controversial or clever and interesting. If you want to win make it all 3.
Not all European festivals are full of the type of shorts you have mentioned. Some are incredibly simple, shot on a shoe string budget but very clever. Take The Crush, an Oscar nominated short from Ireland. It's about a young boy who develops a crush on his teacher and challenges her boyfriend to a duel.
If you want something to do well in festivals make it topical, controversial or clever and interesting. If you want to win make it all 3.
Good shout. Love the idea for the film.
By the way...did anyone notice my pathetic back-tracking in the thread?
I started off saying "Let's win the major awards!"...then I see the ones from the Bermuda Fest and decide I couldn't possibly compete.
Terrible attitude...terrible.
Got to be bold. If that's the bar, then we have to aim even higher.
Thanks for this thread. I watched all of the vids you posted except Avatar. Download was too slow. Toyland was amazing IMO.
After watching these, though, it seems like critics enjoy films that are not told in linear fashion as much. Most have flashbacks or two separate timelines running at the same pace never catching up with one another til the end. The latter was what Toyland did, worked great in that.
Do you think a straight forward, real time film has less appeal?
Yeah, Toyland is a major achievement...top class film.
As for the straightforward thing...not really sure, however, I think there is a more "Cinematic" culture in Europe particularly and in festivals generally...by which I mean the idea of Cinema as Art, so naturally they may have a certain bias to more non-mainstream narrative forms.
Second simple choice is to figure out which festivals have already had their 2011 entry deadlines expire or will be before any reasonable production turn-around-time can be achieved.
Don't know what Tropfest NY is up to for 2011. Gotta do some more digging around there. http://www.tropfest.com/ny/ That last entry looks a wee old and the link may have been forgotten about. Don't laugh. It happens.
I think to compete here might not be too far fetched: http://www.oscars.org/awards/academyawards/rules/84/rule19.html A To be eligible for award consideration for the 84th Awards year, a short film must fulfill one of the following qualifying criteria between October 1, 2010, and September 30, 2011. This qualification must take place within two years of the film's completion date: 1 Fuhgetaboudit 2 The film must have won a qualifying award at a competitive film festival, as specified in the Academy Festival List. Proof of the award must be submitted with the entry. The Academy's Short Film Awards Festival List is available on the Academy's Web site or may be obtained from the Academy.
@Ray. Some nice info. there, I'll check it out when I can. Just to clarify...this idea is separate to the OWC idea...this is a more long-term scheme/collaboration attempt.
At the moment it's just at the theory stage...I'm going to strip down the list of festivals and find a workable strategy...find a mix of things, some high level and some like Ray suggested...very short stuff with decent cash prizes.
Part of the idea was to find screenplay contests that fit in as well...so that's something that needs to be looked at.
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Attention all writers: Let's win the major awards!
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