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Your production is complete. Now what?

Unless you are one of the very few people that create for themselves, you will want to find an outlet for your short film.

The fairly tradition route is to the film festival circuit. But where to start? The first step can be quite daunting. There are so many festivals listed online; how do you know which to trust, and which are worth your money?

Well, to start off with you need to familiarise yourself with these websites:

• Withoutabox – the world’s largest independent film community. Online application submission service for film festivals. 
• Film Freeway – submit to hundreds of film festivals and screenplay contests in one simple place. Free and easy for filmmakers. Fair and simple for events.
• Reelport – entry platform facilitating fee-based online submissions for various festivals worldwide. Manage your film submissions and save time and money. Our mission: No more mailing of DVDs and no more shipping of analogue screening copies.

• Short Film Depot – enter your films easily into the major festivals around the world using one single form.

They are all platforms to submit to festivals but some are easier (and cheaper) to use than others. FilmFreeway is the newest but also the easiest to use. Withoutabox was the site to use, it’s not super easy to work your way around the site, and people have turned against Withoutabox in recent years.

You’ll find what suits you and what festivals suit your film. (Helpful hint: I like to aim at short film festivals first and expand from there).

For the past three years, I have been wandering through these websites and have developed my own personal festival list. Yes, it was time-consuming to create, but I am a producer so you learn to love paperwork. I’ve even gone so far as having separate spreadsheets for alphabetical and chronological order, short film festivals, and Australian festivals. One day, when I think it’s complete, I plan on sharing it with you all. Until then, you can see my formatting in the picture below.

Best of luck to you all.

I was going to skip past this video, but then I thought it has some really useful information that you may not yet have discovered for yourself… and that is how to fill a set with fog without having those pesky little fire alarms go off.

So watch and learn:

Book to film adaptations… some tangents… and some trailers.

If you haven’t already come across the Periodic Table of Storytelling let me introduce you to a brilliant storytelling resource…

Check it out here.

There seems to be this on-going debate over whether making short films is good for your career or a waste of time and money.

Some fun facts about the Australian screen industry…

I’ve been M.I.A. for a while now because my blog decided it didn’t want to publish anything. But I believe I’ve finally fixed it so there’ll be more posts to come.

Of course every great action film should end with AC/DC!

This graphic reminds me of those movie poster pictures that circulated social media a while back. Remember those? The ones that showed how movie posters from the same genre are practically identical. If not, you can check it out here.

Robert Rodriguez is often considered that filmmaker to emulate, especially when you are (ironically enough) in film school and shooting low-to-no budget films. Despite his obvious disdain for film school, Rodriguez gives up some of his time to teach you how to make a low-budget film the easiest way possible.

With this YouTube clip which is currently making rounds on social media, I find an air of affectation in Rodriguez that you could typify with Hollywood, yet you would not expect from a filmmaker who seeminly denounces Hollywood and all it’s lack of soul.

Nonetheless, there is so much interesting information said very very quickly. Yes, it is slightly out-dated as technology has advanced and I do wonder if you have no film education at all whether this would just leave you with even more questions. But I still think it’s a worthwhile watch.

I hope you enjoy…

Just a quick little post, because I know I’ve been slack lately.

If you haven’t seen it yet go watch THESE FINAL HOURS! Not only is it an Australian film. It is a GREAT Australian film. I left the cinema with a big, stupid grin on my face. It’s been a long while since a film has had that effect on me. Totally worth your hard-earned cash and your support.