Avoiding Fly-By-Night Film Festivals

Unsure if an impressive-looking festival is really worth the fee? This month we're talking about how to spot film events that aren't quite what they seem.


 

Browsing through festival services like Withoutabox and FilmFreeway can be as overwhelming as selecting a wine at a fancy restaurant. How do you be sure that it's a good one?

It's an unpleasant fact that dozens of new festivals pop up every year and some of them exist only to prey upon film-makers. There really isn't a sure-fire method for weeding out these scoundrels, but there are some things you can look for to make a determination if a festival is worth the price of the submission fee.

Although many online contests seem to be created solely for the fleecing of film-makers, don't make the mistake of thinking that you are safe by just sticking to live events. There are quite a few bare-minimum festivals out there that count on the idea that you'll spend a lot of money for the chance to see your work on a big screen... and many of them won't even deliver on that.

You can usually get an idea of what you're in for by looking at the venue. Festivals held in cinema houses or large event halls will probably have everything one imagines a film festival should have.

Smaller festivals that don't have the thousands of dollars needed to rent a big theatre for a day may take place in a more social-friendly setting like a community center or even a bar. (Tavern festivals can actually be a lot of fun!)
 
And then there are the least expensive alternatives, which are usually rented warehouses, temporary office spaces, or library meeting rooms. The very bottom of the barrel is a festival held in a residential home, or worse, the backyard.

Most festivals will include the address of the event on their listing with film submission services. Thanks to the magic of Google Maps, it is fairly easy to determine what type of location is hosting the event. If they only list a general area or state that the location will be announced at a later time, it may be a warning sign that a live event may not actually be planned.

While it is entirely possible that a festival with a small venue may be worth its weight in gold with the networking opportunities, there are a few things that may indicate that a festival is either out to drain the wallets of its participants or that attendance by the film-makers is actually being discouraged.

Be wary of festivals that charge the selected film-makers for tickets to the event. Unless there was no submission fee and ticket sales are the only way that the event covers its expenses, this is a very unusual practice. Most reputable festivals will offer at least two free tickets to each of the selected films and screenplays.

Some predatory festivals will offer free “basic” admission to selected film-makers but then strongly encourage them to upgrade by purchasing a V.I.P. ticket with a pitch that is designed to prey on one’s fear of missing out on great opportunities.

These expensive upgrades usually involve access to exclusive parties where unnamed but super-important special guests have been invited. The operative word here is invited, which doesn’t mean that the invitation was accepted.

So how do you avoid these vampire festivals that were designed to bleed your wallet dry? It’s not always easy because some of them put out some really impressive bait.

Ask questions first.

If a festival boasts about special VIP parties, ask the fest if entry is complimentary for selected film-makers. Ask who the “special guests” are. A reputable festival that has confirmed the attendance of celebrities will usually advertise them.

If at all possible, reach out to someone who has attended the festival in the past. Google the festival and look for anyone who may have let loose with the criticism on a blog, forum, or social media. When people get burned they do tend to talk about it.

Of course, this may be impossible if the festival is listed as being in its first year. So the best thing you can do if you suspect that a festival might be a fly-by-night scam is simply not to submit to it.

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Avoiding Scams in the World of Online Film Festivals

Many of the festivals created solely to line the pockets of the organizers are fairly easy to spot. They are generally online-only contests that put nothing of monetary value up as prizes and have very little (if any) operating expenses. Often they will have prestigious-sounding names with the word "Awards" in the title.

Such a festival may have a low entry fee to attract a lot of submissions and ridiculous amount of award categories that suggest that anyone can win a nice pair of auto-generated digital winner's laurels if they submit often enough.

Others may have much higher submission fees and a pitch that suggests that they are a very prestigious awards competition. They are a bit more stingy with the free laurels and almost all entries are treated to an auto-generated rejection letter. 

A growing trend among these festivals is to put their awards into separate submission categories.  This essentially forces the film-maker into paying multiple fees to basically nominate themselves for more than one award. 

Some of these festivals might offer impressive trophies to their winners for an additional fee. (We've seen some charge well over $100 for them!) Of course there are also the additional shipping and handling charges too.

If you're a trophy-hunter, these fests might be exactly what you are looking for. However, it should be pointed out that you can have your very own trophy made at a local engraver shop for a lot less than what these festivals will charge you for it.

Quite a few of these shady online festivals sweeten the pot (and demand higher submission fees) by offering attractive prizes that you would have no way of confirming. They may promise that the winners will be shown to studio executives or "industry professionals" for consideration, giving film-makers the impression that they have close relationships with some of the top dogs in Hollywood. However, they'll never name these "industry professionals".

Others might promise a consultation session via phone or Skype with an industry professional to their winners.

The catch here is that there will not be a solid appointment date for this phone consultation. Those industry professionals will always be busy on some project whenever you contact the festival about arranging for it, assuming that the festival responds at all.

(As of this writing one of our editors has been waiting over a year for such a prize to be fulfilled and has been contacted by other "winners" who have been waiting even longer.)

Another trick we've seen are monthly online festivals that list themselves as live events. They will claim that select films from the winners will be screened at their big live festival at the end of the year.

While some of these festivals are actually legitimate, the shady ones can be difficult to spot unless you happen to be looking to submit on the last month and see that the event date is the exact same day as the selection notification date. Most online-only fests will use the same date for both, but a "live" festival will only do this if they don't want anyone showing up!

Before you start black-listing every online festival in existence, there are some notable exceptions to consider.

Most screenwriting competitions operate online simply out of practicality. Unless they are holding live table reads, writer workshops, or an extravagant awards ceremony, these competitions often just consist of a website and a jury.

Reading scripts is time-consuming and requires knowledge of the craft, so many writing contests will require submission fees to compensate the judges. It is not uncommon for those fees to be very high for later deadlines in order to encourage early submissions.

Another type of online festival that may be worth considering are those that offer services, feedback, scholarships, or even just cash prizes. These are sometimes hosted by organizations or production companies looking for scripts or shorts that can be produced into larger projects and they are usually not shy about stating their intentions straight up in their listings.

If you've submitted to a festival and begin to feel like you've been duped, especially if a promised award or service has not been delivered, the first thing you should do is contact the festival directly. Many small festivals get dozens, if not hundreds of submissions and it is possible that the festival director missed you when sending things out.

(One festival we entered was extremely embarrassed when they discovered that the email with a script analysis they thought they had sent us was saved as a draft instead.) A legitimate festival will try to fix the problem immediately.

As a rule of thumb, give a festival two weeks after the notification date to deliver on the goods unless they give you a solid date for when to expect your prize. After that, contact the festival about the problem and see how they respond. 

Keep in mind that many small online festivals are only run by one or two people who may have just been overwhelmed by the amount of work that goes into a legitimate contest.  However, if the issue hasn't been resolved within two months, you may have fallen prey to a dishonest festival.


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The Great Laurel Debate

For a novice film-maker, receiving those first set of laurels is a monumental occasion that goes right up there with the first IMDb credit. It makes no difference which festival they came from, they are like a badge of honor that proves that somebody out there thinks the film is good.

More sets of laurels follow. Most are Official Selections, but there might be some Semi-Finalist or Finalists in the mix. And if the Film Gods are smiling down on the project, there may even be a few Winners. All are proudly displayed on the film's poster for everyone to see. 

If the film is good and the film-maker keeps it in the festival circulation for a while, the laurel collection can grow into a vast forest that reaches beyond the open spaces on the poster and begins to deface it.

And so the great debate begins as to how many laurels should be displayed, from which festivals, or should they even be there at all?

It really boils down to what message the film-maker wishes to send and the audience that is to receive that message. 

If the goal is to impress the masses who aren't keen to the hierarchy of film festivals, then a poster overflowing with laurels certainly does the trick. It's a good idea to plan ahead for this and make sure that the poster design has plenty of open space to display the laurels without obstructing the artwork.

However, if the aim is to impress saavy film-makers and investors, a poster covered with laurels from lower-level festivals may bring about little more than a few snickers. To make an impression on that crowd, you need laurels from top-tier festivals like Sundance or Cannes tastefully displayed on the poster.

There is some debate as to whether or not Official Selection laurels should be displayed. It seems unfair that these are looked down upon by some, given that they are earned by beating out hundreds, if not thousands, of other entries. A truly knowledgeable person will recognize it as an honor, but there are those uppity folks who argue that only winning or nomination laurels should appear on a poster. 

The safest route is just to keep laurels off of your poster altogether and just use them on the film's website or other promotional materials.

Yes, this is a real movie poster.

Another option is to have three versions of the poster: one clean, one with only Winner laurels, and one that showcases every set of laurels the film has earned. That way you can use whichever poster best suits the occasion.

Regardless of how you decide to decorate your poster, don't ever let the laurel snobs get you down. You may not have a Sundance-worthy film, but you do have a film that several other festivals have a high opinion of.

 

 

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