Short Films - Film Festivals or The Internet

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devilry

Hey guys, I have a quick question I'm hoping some of the experienced pro's in here can shed some light on.

I'm working on a 5 minute short film and I'm trying to decide if it's worth it to put it into a number of different film festivals worldwide or to simply put it onto the internet on my personal website where anyone can freely watch it or can download a high-res version of the film.

The main goal of the short film for all the people involved is to simply get our names out there and to pick the route (festival vs. internet) that will help us get the best opportunities to work on bigger projects.

From my point of view with my limited experience and knowledge, I see the internet as a much larger audience than film festivals and that can possibly help us get more attention and opportunities. However, with film festivals even though the audience won't be as large as the viewers online, you are dealing with real professionals within the industry. Another benefit of submitting to film festivals is that you can 'possibly' get awards or money and for a no-low-budget short film any kind of award or cash prize is always welcome.

So, I thought I would ask you guys who may have some experience or knowledge about this sort thing and don't mind sharing their input on what route we should take for a 5-minute short film? I should mention that this is also a 3-D stereoscopic short film, it's a fairly ambitious project but we got a number of talented people involved.

Thank you and I really appreciate the help.

-Varinder
 
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I'm not an experienced pro, but I have had two festival screenings of two of my short movies here in Greece.

Why don't you do both festivals and the internet?

Here are some thoughts based on my own pitfalls.

Festivals: the problem with festivals is that you don't know if you'll get in. And if you do get in, there is no promise that you'll win anything or that people will even remember your movie. If you combine both tactics, definitely show your website's URL somewhere in the movie. Even then, you have no guarantee people will visit your site. For instance, most people thought my URL was a joke and didn't visit my site; it was the Greek equivalent of decadence.com.

Internet: costs no or very little money to get your movie on the Internet, the problem is advertising your site to the prospective audience, to make them aware your site exists. Advertising costs money, but PR doesn't, so selecting appropriate media and sending them press releases and invitations for interviews or other coverage is the smart, budget-conscious thing to do. Also, I can testify from personal experience, an audience responds better to an article that advertises something rather than a straight advert.

Hope that helps
 
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Thanks for being so helpful pryce.

The situation was a bit more complicated to simply do both, it was rather one or the other. But I figured out a way to make all my plans work. From what I can tell and may be quite obvious is that going the festival route is a lot more rewarding and beneficial compared to the internet.

I'm glad to hear your film got selected into a couple of festivals,

Cheers,
Varinder
 
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There are a lot of ways to view 3D. With heavy-duty shutter glasses that you would normally wear at theme parks. But the most economical way of viewing 3D films in theatres or at home in my opinion would be the way IMAX and realD show their 3d films. Using very cheap, light and comfortable 3D polarized glasses you wear. You would normally need two projectors to project the 2 images (like IMAX) or you could use the realD system that allows you to project a left and right image very quickly with one projector, 144 frames per second, so you would get 72 frames per eye I believe. There are a number of other ways you can see 3D but I prefer the polarization method.
 
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