Tough Love: Why You're Still Not Festival Ready
In today’s jam-packed independent film marketplace, it is not enough anymore to just show up and look pretty. Talent and a good hairdo alone will only get you so far.
What strategies, communication techniques, and tricks can savvy filmmakers and producers utilize to help their films stand out to festival programmers upon submission and to audiences once accepted? Is there more to do than just make the best film possible?
Join us for some straight talk and tough love focused on helping you discover the most creative and effective ways to get noticed by key industry, audiences and critics. Panel will include live pitching from select audience members and analysis by our crackerjack team of filmmakers and tastemakers who will share advice and best practices to ensure you and your film are fully prepared to connect with audiences (other than your adoring Nana!)
Presenters
Named one of “10 Digital Directors to Watch” by Daily Variety, Jon Reiss is a critically acclaimed filmmaker whose experience releasing his feature Bomb It with a hybrid strategy was the inspiration for writing Think Outside the Box Office: The Ultimate Guide to Film Distribution and Marketing in the Digital Era, the first step-by-step guide for filmmakers to distribute and market their films. In that book he created the concept of the Producer of Marketing and Distribution (PMD) in order create a new crew member who would be in charge of a film’s audience engagement and release. He recently co-wrote Selling Your Film Without Selling Your Soul with The Film Collaborative and Sheri Candler.
Reiss is a consultant helping filmmakers with their distribution and marketing strategies. He has worked with and consulted for IFP, the Sundance Institute, Screen Australia, Film Independent, Creative Scotland, The South Australian Film Corporation and numerous film schools and festivals to devise ways to educate and help independent filmmakers in the new economic landscape. He has conducted his TOTBO Master Classes over three continents and is the year-round distribution and marketing lab leader at the IFP Filmmaker Labs. He also teaches at the Film Directing Program at Cal Arts.
Reiss is working on two more book projects: the first is devoted to the PMD, the second book takes the structure of distribution and marketing outlined in TOTBO and applies it to all art forms. Reiss also contributes to Filmmaker Magazine, Huffington Post, Indiewire, Screen Daily, Moviemaker Magazine and other publications
Rose Vincelli is the Program Manager for IFP, the nation’s oldest and largest organization of independent filmmakers. At IFP, Rose focuses primarily on producing their Independent Filmmaker Labs; a year-long mentorship program for first-time documentary and narrative feature directors in post-production; and Independent Film Week’s Project Forum, a meetings-driven forum for scripts and features in production with key industry executives seeking new projects.
Rose is currently producing the hybrid documentary short MAN ON MARS, and previously produced the documentary shorts TRANSPOSITION and NO ONE WANTS TO EAT THE PARSLEY. She was a film programmer for the 2005-07 SILVERDOCS: AFI / Discovery Channel Documentary Festivals. She majored in media studies at Hampshire College. Born in Canada and raised in Richmond, VA, Rose has great passion for food, film and art; all things she’s revels in in Brooklyn, NY.
Tim Sutton is a filmmaker, educator and founding director of Video Kid Brooklyn, a media arts workshop for New York City Youth. His film, Pavilion, is one of ten films by first time directors accepted into IFP's 2011 Narrative Lab and he was recently selected as one of 25 filmmakers selected by the Film Society of Lincoln Center to participate in the Emerging Visions Conference. Tim lives in Brooklyn with his wife and two young sons.
Saturday, March 10
