Film Festivals

[jsmorgun]

If you guys remember a couple weeks a go I was debating whether or not to pursue animation "professionally" or to do it in the spare time and possibly compete in festivals. Well I have decided to go with the latter.

If anyone has any experience in submitting to festivals I could really use a little insight. I have looked into it a bit......and really could use so help on the following.....

Which festivals are best suited to spend the "world premiere" on?

If you submit to a foreign festival, are you expected to be there (i.e. Cannes)--->fares as low as $1500!!!!!

Do you transfer to film only after the film has been excepted?

What are the rules when doing CGI for 35mm? (i.e. Blacks can only be 90% black due to shadowing)

What resolution should the film be rendered at for transferring?

And anything else you could tell me about anything that has to do with any festival would be great.

Thanks guys,
CJ

[gmask]

Some festivals I would reccomend are

Siggraph
Ars Electronics (very highend with prize money)
Spike And Mike (gross, weird animation)
ResFest (wide range of techniques and genres)
Rotterdam Film Festival
Chicago Undergound FIlm Festival (low brow low budget)

Most Festivals have some sort of entrance fee so you want to make sure that the festival is reputable as there are some that are just in it for the profit.

I would not say that it is expected or a requirement to have a 35mm print to get intoan animation festival.. usually only big animation studios go that route and you are not a big studio. The rates for printing vary and are usually lower in high volume (hours as opposed to minutes). You could look at www.efilm.com for some high rates. You also have to consider getting your sound to film which is another ball of wax to deal with. Really if you want Hi-Resolution then consider Hi-Def.. I think most festivals can accomodate that and it will cost you alot less trouble.

I don't think any festival expects you to be there.. I guess if you win an award they'll let you know so that you can be there if you wish. If you spent $10 grand or more printing your film I can imagine you can afford a plane ticket.

There is a book or books on the subject of submitting to festivals. The biggest tip is to manufacture a thorough press kit. For some festivals this includes making slides of frames from the film for reproduction in their advertisments and catalogs.

Some festivals have an exclusive submission policy.. I think this is a load and are to be avoided.. basically this means that if your piece is accepted into their program that it cannot be shown in another festival at the same time.

The next thing you need to do is to make the aniamtion. You may wish to make note of when your target festivals have deadlines and work that into your schedule. Some festivals will allow you to submit a work in progress and let you finish by an extended deadline.

Consider hiring a professional sound designer or composer to score your soundtrack. Canned music usually sounds canned and not all animators are great sound designers so leave that to somebody who specializes in it..besides you'll be too busy trying to finsh the animation. Likewise I would have somebody else edit the piece. Show the storyboards to objective viewers and get feedback. Make an animatic so that you know what the timings are before animating and get an editor to help you with this.

Goodluck

[jsmorgun]

Wouldn't the hi-definition route end up being more expensive. I can get a transfer to 35mm for about $345/minute (sound, negatives, and print). I really dont know how much is involved with hi-def. I thought that (as far as animation was concerned) the best quality you could get was by a laser transfer (which is REALLY expensive).

How do they project hi-def? What medium is used? And how much do you think it would be to transfer? I tried to look it up, but there doesnt seem to be a whole lot of information available on it.

Your a huge help, thanks.
CJ

[gmask]

$345 sounds pretty good..

There are Hi-Def projectors.. most any post house that offer hi-def services could give you a quote for output.

It just seems to me that you are putting the horse before the carriage.. The people who judge these competitions shouldn't care wether it's on film or video.. they'll judge it based on the technique and storytelling not how well the film transfer came out. I guess it depends on what kind of competition you are shooting for. Most large computer animation festivals expect video as the final output and delivered on Beta SP or Digibeta.

For festivals like Siggraph most of the screenings are on video and then they show excerpts of the "winners" in a theatre with either video projectors or film if available.

After looking at couple of festivals it sounds like you are interested in competing in filmmaking festivals which does not rule out animation and they probably do expect a film print. Of course if you are submitting to Cannes you won't beable to show the film anywhere else until after their festival is over. Don't forget the french subtitles if you plan on having dialogue.

[gothicka]

I'm on the committee of the Brisbane International Animation Festival in Australia, and we're currently asking for animators to submit their films to us. What we do is invite animators to send us a VHS preview tape so that we can decide if it's an appropriate film to screen, then if we decide to screen it we contact you to ask you to send either a betacam SP (PAL for us in Australia) tape, OR 35mm. We pay for the return of your tapes. No, you don't have to be there, and it's not a big fancy competition with huge prizemoney or anything. But we don't have any shortage of top quality international animators sending us their stuff and making guest appearances - they just get a buzz out of knowing that their animation is out there being seen and building up their reputation etc. If you're interested in submitting a tape to us, go to www.biaf.com.au and download the entry form.

good luck with your career CJ!

[jsmorgun]

Siggraph
Ars Electronics (very highend with prize money)
Spike And Mike (gross, weird animation)
ResFest (wide range of techniques and genres)
Rotterdam Film Festival
Chicago Undergound Film Festival (low brow low budget)

---

I checked out a couple of these festivals (including Brisbane International) and they didn't really specify festival restrictions. Since most large "film" festivals limit how many showings your film can have previous to the festival.....and always giving strong preference to "world premieres"......are "animation" festivals the same way?

Sorry about all the questions....but the more I look into it, the more complex it gets. It seems that finding a festival is like finding a grant (there's only a couple out there suited for you). For example (and correct me if I'm wrong): Siggraph gives preference to films under 3 minutes, Sundance under 70 minutes (w/ world premiere & completed preference), Cannes under 15 minutes (w/

[gmask]

Here's the problem as I see it...

Figure out what your animation is going to be first. You should nottry to tailor your artistic expression to fit into the particulars of any given festival. There are plenty of festivals out there for animation. Typically though most of the entries in an animation festival are under 5 minutes. I think your film has to be at least 90 minutes to be considered feature length.

To me it would seem that you'd be shooting for 3 minutes tops. This is your first project.. it doesn't need to be epic. It's kind of bold to think that you work is of the kind of quality that I would expect to see at Cannes but how knows. Some festivals (especially ones where money is involved) are more or less strict provisions to ensure that what is shown there will attract world attention to the festival. Most of the people I know that submit to these events are mainly interested people seeing it and whatever exposure comes ffom that. Festivals like Sundance are all about getting a distribution deal for your independant film.

SIGGRAPH covers the gamut! If you can do it with computer graphics they will consider it. If you tell a good story and the execution is good they will show it in the theatres. Everybody from students to scientist to educators to world class animation companies get work shown in Siggraph. You could do something that is beautifully abstract with no dialogue or recognizable forms to a single character delivery a humorous monologue to a full on CG 70mm ride film or a scene with several hundred Orcs marching .. whatever.. But because they try to show as much stuff as possible they can only show items of a certainlength. In the viewing theatres they tend to show aniamtions complete and will show animations that are longer but probably nothing over 20mins. In the Electronic Theatre which is a program selected by a judging they show shorter segments to stay within total program time of a few hours.

It is possible that you may create a character or story that somebody may actually want to invest in.. I can't think of an example off the top of my head but it's possible. Short films themselves rarely get distribution.. for whatever reason it's too diifcult to market something that short.. Hoever some festivals like Spike and Mike have been successful at marketing tapes of their festivals (I don't know how profitable that is for the artists though)

The main thing is to put your best effort into making something that is your expression and that audiences can appreciate but you don't have to conform to any rules or guidelines if you don't want to. From there the right festival or festivals will make themselves obvious and in the meantime you can research those festivals and find out more about them.

[gothicka]

yeah, I agree that you should not restrict your creative potential by trying to conform to some festival 'ideal'. I guess that for the most part, the films that we screen at Brisbane Int Anim Festival are all between 3 and 15 minutes, but we do screen the occasional 30 minute or more animation if we think that people would enjoy seeing it. There is no set requirement for a film to be a certain length. One of the things people look for in a film is for it to be unique and an enjoyable experience to watch - imposing restrictions on format, length, medium etc just blocks that creative process too much.

[deke-kincaid]

Check out these two pages:
http://asifa.net/ (click on the film festival link at the bottom) About 25 animation film festivals around the world there.

Also
http://www.filmfestivals.com/index.shtml

Also check out the web pages of any animations you have seen at siggraph and such and see where they are screening them at.
Like:
http://www.major-damage.com/

[deke-kincaid]

here is another page I forgot about:
http://www.awn.com/village/festivals2.php3

[jsmorgun]

Thanks for all the great responses guys. Life would be alot more stressful if it wasnt for this forum.

Cj

[joeld]

Hey there,

I'm currently doing the EXACT same thing you are, except my ultimate goal is to take home an Oscar for my animated short. Any other festivals I will submit to are only because I'd have to win the gold award from an Academy recognized festival to qualify to compete for an Oscar(or you need to have a commercial showing in the LA area in a theater for 3 days straight).

Currently, I have pre-production about 50% completed. There are a total of 13 scenes and 148 shots. I will be doing this alone(including composing the film score--I'm also a musician), unless someone is interested in helping. I have gone on a sabbatical for 2~3 years to work on this film fulltime. My finances are covered, so I can do this without worrying about money.

I have many of the same questions you do. If you are interested, email me and we can help each other out with information and planning.

Rob(luna@enchanted.prohosting.com)
www.enchanted.prohosting.com