What’s the Difference Between a Film Festival, A Film Market, A Film Generator & Film Grants?

May 21, 2015

 

Tired of checking your schedule for when to apply to what? Take a look at this Calendar including four areas of film you should always keep your eye on.

So, what’s the difference between a Film Festival, a Film Market, a Film Generator and Film Grants?

Festivals: There are eight thousand and one film festivals throughout the world. It seems every city has it’s own festival. If it’s a larger city, there will be multiple festivals each with their own unique angle. Seattle and Toronto both boast over 70 unique film festivals each. Sometimes that’s a god send for niche films that are trying to find their audience.

Festivals are designed to attract audiences, industry and press. Festivals increase the notoriety your film and it’s crew. Festivals are in essence a filtering process for industry and audiences. Getting your film in the right festival will increase your fan base, especially if you are going to go ‘Total Indy’ on distribution.

That being said, we have created a film chart, which include the main festivals of importance. You never quite know who you are going to meet, but at these festivals, your very likely to meet serious filmmakers, screenwriters, and other festival programmers looking for material. Get off your butt and go!

Film Markets are where buyers meet sellers. No Public, just business. If you finished a film, you must attend one of these markets! If you want to meet production companies, producers, sales agents, distributors, festival programmers, financiers, bankers, and of course, other filmmakers and screenwriters. Don’t forget to bring a film poster of your work!

Film Generators (or Accelerators) are currently the most interesting aspect of filmmaking because they are disruptive, entrepreneurial and innovative ways of using technology to create the necessary elements of a film, whether it be funding, financing, eyeballs (audience), and even distribution.

Some examples are: Cinecoup.com is brilliant model where filmmakers learn to develop the most important aspect of filmmaking – that is building an audience first. If every filmmaker worked backwards, that is get the audience first by learning how to promote, then financing and distribution AND THEN production, we would have a lot less indebted filmmakers. Cinecoup even has a distribution model in place.

WritersandFilmmakers.com uses technology, basic math and collaboration to fund films. Writers review films and decide the best filmmaker. Filmmakers read scripts and decide the best scripts. The winners are then funded to collaborate by taking the best script and shooting it. There funding model is unique, but low budget.

Dogfish.com, like Cinecoup, asks their selected ‘power teams’ to develop the necessary skills in becoming not filmmakers, but business savvy marketeers. They select and treat teams like startups, not filmmakers, and assist with seed funding, mentorship and future investment opportunities.

Film Grants: Sometimes mavericks in the industry decide to leave a legacy of funding films. Sometimes philanthropists want to extend a cause. Sometimes its the government trying to support an industry. Who are we to complain? What’s the catch? Grants always involve preparation, time and paperwork, paperwork and more paperwork. They also usually come with restrictions based on citizenship or content. We’ve selected a few for our chart so you can review if they fit with your agenda.

This article is courtesy of Writers & Filmmakershttp://writersandfilmmakers.com/portal/blog.html.

The Audience Awards is film’s social network connecting audiences to films, filmmakers, film schools and film festivals. The Audience Awards hosts short film competitions where the audience chooses the best films.

June Noel

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