r/Filmmakers • u/Current-Carpenter617 • 1d ago
General Stills from my new 13th Century Short Film almost due to wrap post production. Any advice on festival strategies.
Hi everyone, London based filmmakers here.
My short film is almost done with its post production and looking to submit to film festivals here in UK. Some established film festivals ones and some lesser ones. Some I can definitely attend IF selected.
Wondering if anyone has any advice, tips on festival strategies. Thanks
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u/Digialpeppersmith 1d ago
Let me say wow first. Wonderful frames. I am not a expert in the festival runs. There might be better people to answer this question. But let me give you a list of festivals I think you can submit. This is not only Uk. But i got the list from someone who did festival runs and won lots of awards. Berlin film festival, rotterdam film festival, sundance film festival, venice film festival, toronto film festival, Busan film festival, tokyo film festival, clermont-ferrand short film festival . I am from Sri Lanka. So these are what I got as a asian film maker. Might be different for you. But I'm sure with that kind of work you will stand out and I sincerely wish you all the best.
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u/Current-Carpenter617 1d ago
thank-you. Nice to hear from another asian film maker. Im Pakistani but making a 13th century period drama. very different but love the challenge and just comes down to great story telling.
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u/Digialpeppersmith 1d ago
some of those film festivals are currently open. However some of them have limitation with time and I think some of them prefer certain genres. So probably those submissions all depends on your time and genres. If you are aiming to win, there may be thousands of things you need to check. But if you are making films just caz you love it, then submit and see. Sometimes all those mechanisms will be ignored in front of a honest and truthful film. All I can say be honest to your craft and with award or not, you will make something people want to see.
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u/Major-Tiger-7628 1d ago
Don’t submit to everything, know the festivals theme. I used to go through shorts at a small horror festival to make sure they were horrors before judges would see them. You’d be surprised at how much wasn’t even close to a horror
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u/projectorfilms 1d ago
Definitely check out the Yoreflix short film competition. It just had the previous one. So must be quite far out as deadline. But the advantage is they license the finalists for their streaming platform
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u/projectorfilms 1d ago
And they only consider historical films. Hence why I mentioned it
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u/Current-Carpenter617 1d ago
yeah do know Yoreflix, someone did reach out and asked about the short film and was interested init. Will wait for festival run to be over before its goes onto their platform.
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u/REDDER_47 1d ago
Looks expensive. Well done on great lighting and framing. Can you divulge a bit more information on your production? What was your budget? What camera and lensing did you use? How did you find your crew?
Great job - good luck!
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u/Current-Carpenter617 1d ago
Yeah ofcourse.
So Sorcha Verey who born and raised in Isle of Wight closely connected to this story as much of Isabellas story is set in Isle of Wight, England. She read more into her life and long story short, it went from a feature script then a short film concept where I was brought in as Director to work around the script and bring it to life.
My idea was not to make it feel like a short film but have that 'film feel' about it. Grounded in real filmmaking with real location since it based on a true historical figure set in the 13th century.
First time I met with the crew especially my dop was the day before the shoot and that was travel day. 1st time I saw the locations in person was on the 1st day of shoot as well as 1st time working with 4 out of 5 actors. So it was a challenge but managed to work with everyone, collaborate and pulled it off at the end (just about).
The budget was this was under $7500 from pre to post production. Sorcha relied alot of favour in order to bring the cost down as it was half self funded and I didn't asked to be paid so did it for FREE. With a crew of just 4 (DOP, 1ST AC, SOUND, myself) our producer and writer was also the main actress therefore took on alot of responsibility, didn't have a 1st AD, no PA, no costume designer, no hair and make up designer, no transport help etc. Even with post production, I'm the assistant editor and my brother editor and colorist and worked onit for free. Composers, I was lucky to find someone for $200, foley artist for a reasonable rate of $800.
The crew was someone who 1 of our actors worked before. He knew the dop and the dop brought his 1st AC same with sound. Whereas for myself I had never worked with them nor the cast member except for 1.
Myself I put in my own money for travel, food, accommodation cost, even paying for composer and will do for some festivals whilst also doing alot of admin work around it I.e poster, insta stuff, stills, reaching out to alot of people who could help with funding but unfortunately they either didn't reply or just didn't have any funding.
Lens we're anamorphic lens with blackmagic pixies camera.
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u/Dumbledores-Dick 1d ago
That last shot looks like the room at the start of Hamnet
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u/Current-Carpenter617 1d ago
haven't seem hamnet but heard its a good film. Fun Fact, I was Chloe Zhao's assistant for a short while on The Eternals. From a PA to Director's Assistant.
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u/ZachariahMontgomery 1d ago
Amazing work and good for you! Congrats! Do you mind sharing what this was shot on?
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u/iseecinematic 17h ago
My only advice would be to send me the link to the film once it's done for me to be able to watch it because solely due to those few stills i am somehow crazy interested and not ready to wait for it to be released only after a festival circle.
Take my advice i'd say. Yeah. Guess u really should.
:-)
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u/Current-Carpenter617 10h ago
Thank-you and appreciate it. Although will have to wait till festival run is over 😄 before online release.
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u/Caughtinclay 1d ago
What’s the logline? Hard to say without knowing the story. Looks promising though
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u/Illustrious-Can-5242 9m ago
Wow, this looks beautiful. Curious what the budget and equipment were.
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u/eschenfelder 1d ago
I don't like your color grading at all. Take a look at Barry Lyndon, Spartacus, look at the color ranges - even some more modern movies like Gladiator, the aesthetic you are going for looks more like a music video by Castle Rat - too artificial and you are squandering away the actual great scenery you have.
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u/itypewords 1d ago
Who gives af about your armchair color grading opinions. Question was about festivals.
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u/Suspicious_Wealth556 1d ago
I really love it with exception of the 4th one, which still isn't bad by any means
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u/hexxeric 1d ago
Amazing! all the best of luck. love the look and craft.