Three Tips When Submitting a Short Film to a Festival
… seriously, read the room.
1) Keep your credits short; no one cares… seriously, read the room.
As the founder of the Weird Short Films Festival, I can't tell you how many times I've watched a 6-minute film with credits that run 2 1/2 minutes.
How am I going to screen such a film? Filmmakers really need to understand that they are not the only film in a block. Having extremely long credits kills the vibe and is essentially dead space. I'd much rather have two short films vs. one short with long credits. Filmmakers are competing; they should keep that in mind.
Festivals want the best films, but we also want to have the most. If we have a film block for 50 minutes, do you think we'd want five 10-minute films or mix it up a bit? And if a film with the yawn-inducing credits is competing against two shorter ones that can fill in that slot nicely, shit yeah, we're going to put in the two.
Yes, we all want to see our names on the big screen, but when it lingers, it looks amateurish because the film is short, which is what the credits should be.
2) We see you have a drone, but… seriously, read the room.
Many filmmakers are using drones to capture that overused overhead shot. You know the one, it's usually at the beginning, and look, slowly it's a forest or small town with houses and trees and that telephone pole, and I'm hungry, there's an odd smell in the air, the back of that chair has some sort of ripped sticker on it, I wonder what it was and why they ripped it off… what just happened? I'm now aware that I'm in a theater and not engrossed in the story because of this excessively long drone shot. My god, when will it stop?
We get it. Things look cool from way up there. But it’s... LINGERING. Why? This looks like stock anyway.
Be a good digital splicer and cut it way shorter.
3) Open up the iris… seriously, read the room.
Why are some films so dark? I can't see shit. I hear shit, but I can't see anything. On what over-bright screen was this film edited? How did this film get the thumbs up when it's just… a black screen?
Night is not a loss of sight. There is lighting even in these really dark scenes. It's a pro move to test the camera behaves as intended before committing to the production. Not all cameras can handle the dark.
When a filmmaker submits a film that is just too dark, they should understand that we, the festival, can't guarantee it will even be visible on screen at our event. Why? Because our projector may run slightly darker than the screen on which the film was edited. We can't risk it.
I hope these tips help.