Blogs Rabble Rouser RABBLE ROUSER: A Truly Awesome Film Festival | RABBLE ROUSER: A Truly Awesome Film Festival |
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| Written by Rabble Rouser | ||||||||||||
| Thursday, 17 April 2008 | ||||||||||||
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Monday was the final submission deadline for the inaugural From Here to Awesome (FHTA) online film festival and about 100 submission videos were received. Awesome is an appropriate word to describe FHTA. No film fan or filmmaker will want to miss this opportunity. Do yourself a favor and be a part of this extraordinary event. Filmmakers had until Monday to upload a 3-minute submission video to the FHTA website. In the video, the filmmakers make a personal pitch for and typically show scenes from the feature or short film they each are working on - these submission videos are intended to generate audience interest in the eventual finished film product. Last week, an updated FHTA website went live, allowing movie fans to watch these submission videos. Film fans have until mid-May to watch the 3-minute pitches and to declare whether or not they would be interested in later seeing the completed film. Film fans express support for films they like by rating them as "awesome." Fans can rate the videos at the FHTA website, as well as find the videos on MySpace, YouTube and other promotional sites. Many thousands of film fans already have rated films, festival organizers said. The point of FHTA is to inspire filmmakers to use existing promotional opportunities - both online and in the material world - to build an audience for their movies, as well, and this is important, to discover new ways to promote, distribute and exhibit their movies and create a sticky audience that will eventually see the completed film. FHTA is the brainchild of filmmakers Lance Weiler, Arin Crumley and M. Dot Strange. "We're trying to change a bit of the film festival model that has been in place for so many years," Weiler said in a phone interview. "This is truly an open-source film festival. Information is one of the first things that will bridge the gap between technology and entertainment. If you can help filmmakers make it directly to their audiences, and those audiences can be cross-pollinated, then who knows what is possible?" FHTA will look to its audience to evaluate how effectively the 100 submitted films use existing promotional tools as well as how inventive they are in creating and exploiting new ones. FHTA organizers will evaluate audience response, and in Mid-May announce which 10 features and which 10 short films have been the most effective at building an audience utilizing both their submission video and a holistic publicity strategy. "We want to see if the filmmakers are embracing web 2.0 to get their work out to a wider audience," Weiler said. Obviously, filmmakers have toiled to create videos which are clever or are able to nail the gist of the entire movie eloquently in 3 minutes. For some, creating the tight 3-minute sales video might be harder than making the 2-hour dramatic feature that it sells. FHTA organizers are looking for more than simple "numbers" in their analysis of filmmaker's promotional efforts - utilizing cleverness and inventiveness to create new opportunities for an audience to discover a film is paramount. The 10 features and 10 shorts chosen for showcasing will receive global distribution via theaters, the internet, DVD, video on demand and mobile devices. These 20 films also will benefit from the largess of 20 established indie film companies who have signed on as FHTA sponsors. Showcase films each will receive free Errors & Omission insurance policies from Heretic Films. Mobmov.org produces mobile drive-in screenings, and the showcase films will be screened publicly in this manner in 15 to 25 cities around the world. VUDU, a video-on-demand service that doesn't require a customer to have a computer or cable/satellite TV service, will present the showcase films via VOD. Breakthrough Distribution and Amazon Unboxed will provide DVD distribution, and OurStage.com will present a special award. One feature and one short both will be honored with a special distinction. FHTA will look to its audience to determine which one feature and which one short did the best job fulfilling the mission of the FHTA festival. In the fall, the makers of the selected short and feature will travel to Paris, all expenses paid, and the filmmakers will be feted at a party and the two films will be shown with appropriate fanfare at the City of Light's legendary movie-house - the Cinémathèque Française. Wonderland and Power to the Pixel are co-sponsoring the Paris event. Weiler said that other FHTA exhibition events are planned for this year in England, Ireland, Melbourne, Mexico City, Montreal, Vancouver, and possibly Tokyo. FHTA does not charge any submission fees for its festival, nor does it take any proceeds from exhibition of the films. FHTA will encourage all participating exhibitors to enter a 50-50 split with filmmakers on all monies earned from exhibition. Word about several clever submission videos already has spread. The submission video for a comedic mockumentary feature about a fictitious porn producer - The Auteur - has spread to numerous internet sites. Click here to watch The Auteur submission video. Not to be lost amongst all the fanfare for the 20 showcase films is the point that ALL films being promoted at the FHTA will benefit from the exposure the festival promises. Not only will all films be able to grow their audiences, but filmmakers will learn from other filmmakers' promotional techniques. FHTA hopes that all filmmakers will be better and wiser at playing the distribution and exhibition games due to the festival's efforts. "We're looking to create as many opportunities as possible and by default many of those opportunities will be available for the other films or you'll find somebody who wants to help your next film. It's really about opportunities," Weiler said. For example, any of the submission videos might generate future living room screenings, local theatrical runs or a DVD and video-on-demand deal for the finished product. There are no limits to the possibilities regarding the promotion, distribution, exhibition and discovery of films that participate in FHTA. "It's a revolution that is the spark to ignite a new thought process," Weiler said. "We're saying that 'here is some information and you have more options.' We want to help people identify and turn on to other options." This summer, FHTA will sponsor two filmmaking educational events on the West Coast, one in Los Angeles and one in San Francisco. The events - each titled DIY DAY - will occur in July. IFD will publish the details for each DIY DAY, as they become available, as well as updates throughout the year on FHTA activities. Go to FHTA now, watch submission videos and vote for the films that you think are "awesome." The organizers intend for the FHTA festival to be an ongoing year-round event. It's appropriate to quote Jeff Spicoli from Fast Times at Ridgemont High: "AWESOME! TOTALLY AWESOME!" Share It!               
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Making films is democratized, but distributing them is not. From Here to Awesome is a new type of film festival working to change that inequity.
The Rabble Rouser
Kent Victor Schuelke is The Rabble Rouser. He is an actor and filmmaker, and the editor of www.independentfilmsdirect.com. He has acted in several independent films and on-stage in Los Angeles, and he plans to direct from his own script (but not act in) a digital feature in 2008. He has a long history in film and television production (check him out on IMDb), and also worked in the video game biz. He got his start in journalism as a college freshman in 1981. In 1986, he interviewed movie legend Cary Grant for his little college paper and when the actor died a couple months later Schuelke sold his Grant talk to Andy Warhol's Interview magazine. He is a product of Hollywood's last Golden Era (1967-1980). As a child, Schuelke remembers seeing Bonnie and Clyde on the big screen at about age six. Schuelke watched American Graffiti about 30 times on the big screen at the little single screen movie house in the tiny Iowa farming village where he was reared. He has been almost singularly obsessed by movies since age four. His favorite films are the ultra realistic ones — Dog Day Afternoon is among his favorites and the purest description of the type of filmmaking he holds in highest regard. Schuelke lives in Los Angeles, and loves it. His current professional life is focused on acting, making films and writing about movies, and he is so happy with his life path that he might even consider dropping his therapist. But the Rouser will not go off his medication — his co-workers at IFD will see to that, for everybody's sakes. 
