What To Do When Your Feature Fails

J

jeemseems

So after three years of work and spending all my money (to the point of bankruptcy) I'm facing the reality today that I won't be screening at any film festivals with my feature film. I've been rejected by every fest I could afford to enter (about 30 - $1000+). I was even rejected by all the local fests in my city/state.

Im not here to debate whether I deserved a screening or not (I'm starting to wonder tho what the point of local fests are if not to support local talent) but I was curious if his has happened to anyone else, and if so, what you did to salvage something of your film.

It makes me sick to my stomach to think the only chance I have is to stick it for free on YouTube and try to find ways to cajole people into watching it. Has anybody else had to truly abandon their film like this and call it a total loss?

I've been writing a short the last couple months that I intend on shooting in the spring. I don't need any motivation or anything to "keep going", but I have this empty pit in my stomach when I think about how much time, money and self I invested into something I believed in with all my being, only to be left with a film nobody wants to see.

So I guess what I'm really getting at is, how do you go forward without having the closure of at least one screening or some sort of public reception for your movie? It's like an open wound that won't go away.
 
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you can do a private screening somewhere and invite people.

can I ask how many short films you did before attempting a feature? I've yet to tackle a feature film.. it's such a huge undertaking.
 
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sfoster said:
you can do a private screening somewhere and invite people.

can I ask how many short films you did before attempting a feature? I've yet to tackle a feature film.. it's such a huge undertaking.
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I certainly could and have thought about that, but it would cost more money and I'm hilariously tapped out at this point.

Over the course of my life I've made about 30-35 narrative shorts. But in the year leading up to production on my feature I did a web-series that was like 15 short films in themselves - it was that experience that gave me the confidence (ha) that I could try a feature.
 
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hmm well if you know anyone with a projector you might be able to do a cool outdoor screening somewhere, without having to pay to rent out a real theatre.

i have access to one but i doubt you're in maryland.

It's ridiculously hard to get people to watch stuff. I have a 3 minute short and even after personalized messages less than half of my Facebook friends gave me the 3 minutes of their time to watch it.. or even 10 seconds of their time to watch the first scene.

30-35 shorts is a hell of a lot! I've completed 2 :(
Trying to pick up the pace.. my 3 part web series is going to be about 45 minutes so thats why it's taking so long.
 
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I have no experience with such things, but I think you should take a little break and do something fun to clear your head and get rid of that empty pit.
Let it go, at least for now.
Sometimes opportunities pop up when you relax :)

I have failed projects that were never finished, but they were small and I was still a student, so I had many distractions to not wallow in the disappointment.
 
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jeemseems said:
Yeah I mean I own a projector myself so I could do this no problem. I just...don't care, ha. I really don't care what the cast thinks of the movie. They're not what I'm looking for in terms of an audience. Maybe that sounds horrible but they were paid actors, not my friends or anything. And I honestly didn't get along with many of them. Plus I didn't spend 3 years and $10,000 to end up projecting the movie onto my wall for 6 people.
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If you can project it outdoors you'll feel more comfortable inviting strangers. you could make a craigslist post.. gets some free food there and people will definitely show up.

hot dogs are super cheap, like 33c for a dog and bun.
or just invite family and friends.. you don't need to invite the cast although if you do have strangers, etc it might be more fun for them to have the cast there.
 
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directorik said:
I think we all understand and have been through
the same thing. Probably doesn't help, does it? Knowing you are among
hundreds of thousands of filmmakers who have made films that didn't
get into any film festivals. I feel ya. I've had it happen. The way I go
forward is exactly what you don't want to hear so I got nothing.
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I guess if that's true I'd like to know where the outrage is. Too much complacency. I don't really care if a million people like me existed and went through worse and just "soldiered on". That's like the most pathetic thing. If you get inspiration and strength from that, that's pretty awesome but it means something else to me. Sometimes one can have too much humility. I'm pissed. Why aren't you?
 
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Many artists; painters, authors, musicians went their whole lives and weren't thought of as any good until after their death. A lot of artists don't create art for attention but because it's what they love doing. If you're that pissed and angry for not getting attention for your hard work, I'm sure you put a lot into it, then you may be in this business for the wrong reasons. Your intentions for making the film weren't realized, hence the anger. If your intentions were to make a piece of art, then you succeeded, and you would be happy.
 
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stoops96 said:
Many artists; painters, authors, musicians went their whole lives and weren't thought of as any good until after their death. A lot of artists don't create art for attention but because it's what they love doing. If you're that pissed and angry for not getting attention for your hard work, I'm sure you put a lot into it, then you may be in this business for the wrong reasons. Your intentions for making the film weren't realized, hence the anger. If your intentions were to make a piece of art, then you succeeded, and you would be happy.
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i've yet to hear of a film writer or director that received acknowledgement after their death
 
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stoops96 said:
Many artists; painters, authors, musicians went their whole lives and weren't thought of as any good until after their death. A lot of artists don't create art for attention but because it's what they love doing. If you're that pissed and angry for not getting attention for your hard work, I'm sure you put a lot into it, then you may be in this business for the wrong reasons. Your intentions for making the film weren't realized, hence the anger. If your intentions were to make a piece of art, then you succeeded, and you would be happy.
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I'm sorry but that seems just a bit too simplistic for me. Im down for the cause and in it for life; you can't go as long as I've been going with as little success as I've had if the process itself isn't (almost) everything.

I think I'm mostly angry because this was such an immense accomplishment for me and now it's not only as if it never happened, but it's almost worse that it did. I put everything into this project after spending 20 years working my way to it, I literally bankrupted myself and made a lot of tough (and shitty) sacrifices.

And after all that, I thought I deserved....something. I don't know. I'm from a small town in the midwest and we have four local film festivals. I don't care how bad the movie is (most people say it's at least watchable), I was just floored that they all passed on it. I mean, if anybody from around here managed to make a feature film under any circumstances whatsoever (I had to do everything myself) then that person deserves a screening. Period. Too many local festivals trying to front like they can compete with the handful around the world that actually matter, all the while completely ignoring the local talent that's literally dying for an opportunity to show their work.
 
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Over a 3 year period you spent about $3,300 per year and so you had to declare bankruptcy?

worst part is they probably only watched the first 5 minutes and turned it off.
 
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If i were hosting a festival I would take pride in only screening films that my audience would enjoy. This way they would grow to respect my festival and come back next year with confidence.
 
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sfoster said:
Over a 3 year period you spent about $3,300 per year and so you had to declare bankruptcy?

worst part is they probably only watched the first 5 minutes and turned it off.
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I maxed out credit cards totaling that amount over a three year period; I couldn't make the payments and it all got out of control fast. I work freelance (not very often if I can help it) and live in a ghetto neighborhood so I can live cheap and spend most of my time on my films. I was already deep in the hole before I started though - so part of the reason I went so hard on this project was cuz I knew it'd be my last gasp for a while anyway. I guess I was hoping for some kind of opportunity to come out of this to make it worthwhile. But not getting into any fests was pretty much the end of my opportunity possibilities.

Yeah I know, I really feel like a stooge spending all that money on fest entries. But for people in our position, what choice do we have if we want a shot at some visibility? In hindsight I wish I had just saved that money and rented a theater for my premiere. Would've cost the same, if not less, and been a much cooler statement.
 
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i'm in a similar position but i'm working on a short instead of a feature. i don't think anything ever comes out of local festivals though so i'm not sure what your expectations were. To meet a big time producer there?

I'm going to attempt to get into a big festival with my short but if that doesn't happen i'm probably done with film for a while and i'll just focus on my writing and trying to write several features.
 
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sfoster said:
If i were hosting a festival I would take pride in only screening films that my audience would enjoy. This way they would grow to respect my festival and come back next year with confidence.
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Yes but if you're a local film festival you have a duty to support local talent. I firmly believe that. Frame it that way and people will buy tix just to support their community no matter how good/bad the movies are - those films shouldn't be judged by the same criteria as the other stuff (which is the majority) that a festival shows.
 
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I made a feature that played at festivals, but didn't do as well as I had hoped. I guess you have to ask yourself what your end goal was supposed to be, and what it might be now after lowering your expectations. If you got into a few local festivals would that have made your career? I can pretty much guarantee the answer is no. In my case, I lowered my expectations and went from "this film will make it's money back" to "this film will be used as a portfolio piece to get me more work" -- That mentality alone was enough to convince me to put my film online for free. A little over a year later it now has 40k views, which is a lot more eyes watching my film than if I had tried to profit from it. I've definitely moved on and am trying to get my next script made.

Another thing you need to do is be honest with yourself and try to understand why this film didn't do well. Was it the production quality? The story? The acting? If it's all 3 or even 2 of these things, there's probably not much you can do to save the film, but maybe a recut, or a couple clever reshoots could save it. One thing I was considering doing was turning my feature into a short film. I thought about taking a few of the MOST strong scenes and visuals and releasing a short powerful 10 minute film. It could even be sort of experimental if it has to be.

All of my advice is very general, of course, so if you want some more specific advice, PM me with a link to watch the film, or maybe just a trailer so I could get a better sense of the film.
 
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