Saskia Wilson-Brown

How small festivals are the future of meatspace film distribution: Thought 1

In January, I attended the Slamdance / Sundance extravaganza in Park City, Utah, helping produce the Slamdance, WorkBook Project & Open Video Alliance Filmmaker Summit.  While there, I participated in and listened to a lot of conversations about the shifting role of film festivals, particularly as those shifts apply to a mid to high level independent festival such as Slamdance. What follows here is the first of five four thoughts that came to me about the functionality of film festivals (and in no particular discursive order).

1. For small festivals, the ‘shifting’ purpose of film festivals is actually not shifting at all.

People seem to concur that the primary purpose of film festivals is (was?) akin to that of an art gallery: To sell art.

Festivals have been acting as the gatekeepers to commercial distribution, and the standard path for a filmmaker would be simple: Make a film; get into a fest; get the film acquired for distribution (of course, if all went well).

Though this is a relevant deduction for festivals like Sundance, which were indeed functional gateways for the film system, I would argue that for the smaller festivals catering to independent or local film (and for the indie filmmakers whose work was typically programmed there) this was never a relevant model in the first place. The reason for that is simple: Distributors tended not to attend those festivals.

This commercial raison d’etre, then, has only ever been an apt assigned purpose for the bigger festivals. Further to that, this fact was sort of inherently understood by the film community: Not many filmmakers ever submitted their film, for instance, to the Tulsa Overground Film Festival, Nevada City Film Festival or Cucalorus with the intention of selling to HBO.

I think we’re assigning and bemoaning this dwindling commercial purpose to small festivals retro-actively in light of a perceived dearth of distribution deals – a dearth which, again, is only really relevant to festivals that were the hosting space for sales in the first place, and entirely irrelevant to the continued purpose of the small festivals who saw no such activity in their meeting rooms. Most annoyingly perhaps, small festivals gamely play along, trotting out their one or two success stories as bait for a system that never functioned for them or their filmmakers in the first place.

With the advent of digital media and the burgeoning (but hopeful) success stories around online/DIY distribution strategies, the purpose of the festival as a sales agent becomes even more obviously questionable. But more on that later when I publish my second thought: ‘Culture-defining, not money-making’. Probably fairly obviously from the rather literal title, it is about what I see as the ‘new’ purpose of film festivals.

For now, I leave you with a recent tweet from Ted Hope: David Brown’s Secret To His Success: “I never lived beyond my means, & therefore, I never had to be a slave to Hollywood.”

Next installments:

  • #2: Money-making should not a successful small festival make. Culture-defining should.
  • #3: What festivals should do to better serve their communities: An exercise in managing filmmaker expectations.
  • #4: How to sustain without selling out: An exercise in ego management.

Filed under: diy distribution, film, theory , , ,

Nova Jiang & Michael Kontopoulos’ Moon Theatre at TED

Are we all in agreement that a strong projected light and a blank wall makes us want to throw down a shadow puppet or two? Sometimes despite ourselves, even — and certainly with no expertise– we attempt the ‘dog with ears and moving mouth’ shadow, or, for those less nimble fingered, the ‘butterfly attached to thick wrists’. It’s super satisfying to make such an immediately  controllable mark on a nice smooth surface.

In any case, Nova and Michael took this instrinct a step further with their Moon Theatre- allowing us shadow puppet amateurs to create elegiacal, complex, movable shadows on the moon (or at least the closest simulacrum a projector and a round bounce screen can supply).

In this video, Michael and Nova discuss their Moon Shadow Theatre, collaboration and the technology behind the shadow puppets at the Bing Innovation Lounge at TEDActive in Palm Springs.

Filed under: dispatches , , , , , , , , , ,

Flash Mob at TEDActive

Film guy and flash mob organizer Kenneth Hughes got about 50 TEDActive members together to engage in a little ‘idea spread’ via flash mob in Palm Springs- to the surprise and mixed reactions of some of the local Palm Springs residents. Be sure to watch out for the locals’ giggly, gleeful, wiggling (and in some cases begrudging and fearful) participation in the video I produced about it, here.

Footage was shot by Brooklyn’s mssng peces, Sarah Shewey (pinkcloudevents.com) with shaky backup flip-cam footage by Saskia Wilson-Brown.

Filed under: dispatches, video , , , , , , ,

Evan Grant’s Multi-Touch Sphere at TED

In this video, Evan Grant explains his multi-touch sphere on exhibition at the Bing Innovation Lounge at TED Active in Palm Springs.

Check out more of Evan’s work at seeper.com. The sphere was a collaboration between Seeper and Pufferfish. I’ll be uploading more videos from TEDActive, all week.

Filed under: dispatches, video , , , , , , , , ,

James Patten’s Audiopad at TED

In this video, James Patten explains his Audiopad project at TEDActive in Palm Springs. Look out for lots of complex hand gestures, some fancy wallpaper, and really bright guy.

Check out more about James Patten and the Audiopad, as well as other projects, at http://www.pattenstudio.com/. I’ll be uploading more videos from TEDActive, all week.

Filed under: dispatches, video , , , , , , ,

Que pasa con Saskia?

I’m an independent media advocate, producer-at-large, and strategist for independent film, film festivals, and filmmakers.

A captive tweeter @saskiawb

Pic de la semaine

Little Gelfo

There's a story, here

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