I want to create an yearly online film festival, awarding movies in short and feature that are specifically more genre orientated (action, horror, thriller, comedy)...

Now this si something I have never done before so I'm looking for suggestions on how I could make this work, format etc.

Over to you guys!

Well, the things that I look for in an online film fest are:


Well publicized
Simplicity in submitting (No 1,000 legal documents to agree to)
Filmmakers retain all rights to submissions
Prize(s) make the effort worth while

Some sort of protection if you are going to offer people downloadable versions of films. (Apple DRM would be best since it is cross-platform).

Dan (indietalk) was trying to start one of these awhile ago. You might do a search and see what people had to say about it.

See I think the idea has legs but its teh how to go about it that escapes me. An international, web based film festival could be amazing, and done right get good publicity for all involved. I just need to rationalise the how....

Some sort of protection if you are going to offer people downloadable versions of films. (Apple DRM would be best since it is cross-platform).Hmm, DRM.

Whenever I visit a website that requires a seperate application download to decode the DRM, I pass it up. Who knows who wrote that application or what it's going to put on my PC. There's been many reports of spyware, trojans, rootkits and the like being introduced as DRM. I stay far, FAR away from any site requiring DRM.

Apologies for the rant, but this is just my opinion. Your mileage may vary.

Hey Phil--

This was posted on a different forum. Thought you might be interested since they are doing their 2nd Online Film Fest.

http://www.haydenfilms.com/

first write down what you want to do the festival for, then find some company that would like to host it and work some 'design ideas out, do some beta testing and then see if it work. Run it like a business and perhaps on that statement, get a business and a marketing plan in place. :)

Cheers for the advice guys. Long road ahead!