Film
Festivals take a large role in the film industry as they "" (). There are lots of film festivals across the entire
of the world and this number has been rising in the last decade, with
equipment becoming more and more accessible it allows for
more people to create films. I will be looking at a number of short
film festivals and seeing how they operate and the process in which
people apply to compete in these competitions.
Film
Festivals also help the industry move forward in terms of technical
advancements as it allows for small film makers to showcase their
daring and unique films. These wouldn't be shown by large companies
such as Warner Brothers as there is too much risk if the market do
not like the new technique. Cindy Hink-Yuk Wong in Film Festivals
explains how they are "places where people can go to
'recharge batteries'" from the usual and similar story
lines of blockbuster films. She also talks of film festivals and how
they "provide a unique network through which all those involved
in Cinema may view the past, explore the present and create the
future." (Wong, 2011 pp.2)
I have
found a numbers of different film festivals here is a list of just
some of the ones available within England, I will be looking into the
following two and looking at their individual ethos and what they do
within the industry;
- Bird Eye View
http://www.birds-eye-view.co.uk/
The Bird
Eye View Festival was set up with an ethos all about female film
makers and looking into ways to help women into the industry. It was
found that "women make up less than 10% film directors"
(Birds Eye View, 2013). This film festival aims to help young female
film makers into the industry and they do this via there film
festivals which raise awareness of the lack of equality between males
and females in the industry.
The ethos
of the company is that "We have a dream. A dream of a culture in
which half the creative vision comes from women. A film industry in
which women contribute creatively on an equal footing with men."
(Birds Eye View, 2013).Founded in 2004, the Bird's Eye View festival
is a film festival dedicated to female film makers which runs yearly in which the festival only allows entries from female directors as a way to add an exclusivity to the festival and so that there is a pool of talent that can be found easily by film companies. Below is a video from the 2011 festival in which they talk about the ethos and the winners of that year.
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Interviews
To find out more on the inside of Film festivals I decided to do a call out asking different companies if they could give me some information on film festivals and how they feel about them. I asked Film Festivals such as Sante Fe Indie Film, Toronto Film Society and Film festival Flix. I also asked some people who had won or been nominated awards such as Garrett Sammons and lastly I asked some #Independent film companies such as Lamb Films, Dark Worlds and Unsung films. Out of the people asked I got responses from Garrett Sammons and Unsung Films.
Film
festivals are a mixed bag. On the one hand, they are a great tool to
gain exposure and traction to a film. On the other hand,
festivals are a highly political system. But I think festivals are
making a shift in purpose for film and art as a whole. Anyone
can (and are) making new festivals. I think many of them try to get
back to what they were all about originally; celebrating and
film. All that to say, if you have a film you'd like to be shown
in the festival circuit, submit it to as many festivals as
possible. It won't meet the criteria or agenda of every one, but
it will hit home with certain ones.
-
Garrett Sammons, Emmy Award Nominated Director.
Festivals
are important mainly because they represent the audiences rather than
the studios and producers. For this reason, I personally prefer
the independent ones rather than the Academy Award Ceremonies Sundance, Raindance, Syd film fest etc. These give audiences a
chance to express an opinion,rather than serve big studios'
interests. In the end,it should be about talent, not money.
-
Unsung Films, a Independent Movie News Website
I found this useful as it showed me the other side of film festivals and I found it interesting that both of them prefer the smaller, independent film festivals due to the political presence which is seen at larger film festivals.
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Survey on
Film Festivals
To gather
some primary research on whether people go to film festivals and why
they think the film festivals are important, or not important.
I asked the people firstly if they had ever been to a film festival.I got a result of 46.7% saying that they had been to a film festival before. I then followed this up by asking which film festivals they had been to. The majority had said they had either been to the Bradford Animation Film Festival or the Bradford International Film Festival.
I then asked why the people thought that film
festivals were important and got a variety of results, the majority
of which were positive. A specific answer which was provided was that
they are a "Great
idea and give a range of opportunities to film lovers, but often over
taken by too much celebrity." and "Film
festivals are a great oppurtunity to explore the art of film making
and the relationship between the industry and the film maker."
other answers included that they a "great
platform to showcase new films".
Following this I asked if they felt that film festivals help aspiring young people and how they think that this is done. The majority of the answers talked of how they allowed for a platform for young people to get their work seen by the industry, one of the answers were that "They help aspiring young film makers by providing them with the chance the show their work to an audience and get themselves known within the industry." and "They premier realistic goals and "achievable" achievements. For example, having an inspired film of yours being shown at a film festival is a much more productive goal to work towards than getting a Oscar."
I wanted to know if the people that I was asking were from a demographic which went to the cinema a lot as this might impact on if they went to festivals or not. In the result I found that it was tied at 40% between once a month and every 6 month. This result surprised me, but shows that film festivals reaches a larger audience then film fanatics. It was a surprising result for me and I found it interesting seeing the variety of answers on this question.
For my demographic analysis I also asked the people what their ages were so I could see what the predominant age was. I was expecting a majority of people aged 18 - 34 as this covers the age range of people who would want to be in film festivals and are the same age as me so I would get a lot through social media of that age.
Overall through these results I was both surprised, mainly by the correlation between people who went to the cinema often and those who go to film festivals. This research has been invaluable as it has given me a broader look on how the public see film festivals and the way they respond to them. I have also found it interesting some points raised such as "Great idea and give a range of opportunities to film lovers, but often over taken by too much celebrity" which was surprising as the majority felt that they were good ideas but this person felt that they are being over taken by the celebrity culture.
Cross referencing this to the answers I got from both an Emmy Nominated Film Maker and the head of a Film Website I found that there were similar opinions from both the public and the people who work within the industry. They both found that the larger of the film festivals were political and that they felt that film festivals were important as it allows young film makers and actors to make their way into the industry in a way which is based on their talent not on money.
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Wong, C. (2011) Film Festivals: Culture, People, and Power on the Global Screen. New Jersey: Rutgers University Press.
Birds Eye View. (2013) Homepage. [Online] Available at: http://www.birds-eye-view.co.uk/ [Accessed 31.5.2013]
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