What’s the best word to start off this Production Log?

Frustrating?

Disappointed?

How about “let down”?

Take your pick because all of the above is how I’m feeling after receiving another “Not Selected” email from a failed submission to the last Film Festival I had on my list for Gauntlet.  This marks 13 in fact, of a notification email about the film’s judging status that oddly reads very similar to the previous rejections with “Thank you for submitting” followed by “unfortunately we are not able to include your submission”, concluded with “the film was carefully considered by our programming team” and to put a cherry on top “it was incredibly difficult to make this decision”.

I think it was after the sixth rejection email in where I started to see the same copy from all of these different festivals, to where I thought it was comical.  A little bit of levity mixed with the feeling of disappointment.  Alas, here we are, 0-13 in the hopes of Gauntlet being viewed at a festival.  Even though I’m greatly disappointed in that this particular dream was not meant to be, there are two great lessons learned that I’d like to share.

1. Test Audience

Rather, an expensive “test audience” for that matter considering that submission fees are not cheap. All festivals have what is known as a programming “team” of people who watch all of the submissions.  This would be impossible to do for one person to watch every single frame from every submission, so what typically happens is you have one round of viewing from a designated person(s) who then writes up a report.  If your film is “good enough” (subjectively of course), then it gets viewed from a person higher up in making the decision whether or not your film gets selected.  Essentially passing the first round of viewing.  That’s IF the person who views it the first time finishes your film all the way through.

The beauty of having your screener film on Vimeo is that not only can you see how many times your film is viewed, but you can also see how long the view took place in whether or not they finished it or not.  So in multiple cases, I’ve had a view only last the first 30 minutes or so into the film and received a rejection email that it didn’t make the cut.  This is incredibly frustrating because for me, in my opinion, you should watch the entire film before making a judgement on whether the film should make the cut or not.  I digress.

So with that explained, I was able to pay people who had no affiliation to me or to the project to watch the film from their own, subjective point of view.  This was advantageous because after each rejection email, I followed up promptly with a response email that stated this:

Greetings (Film Festival) Programming Team, Thank you for your email and for taking the time to review my film submission titled “Gauntlet”. I respect the judging decision but wanted to take this opportunity to learn what I can improve on as a first time filmmaker. In reviewing my submission, what were the specific areas that my film needed improvement on to be considered? Best of luck to your event coming in (the month the festival takes place)! Thank you again and I hope to hear from you soon.

My thought process was if you’re not going to accept the film, then at least tell me why so I can improve upon my future projects.  Only a third of the festivals responded with their notes and constructive feedback to which I accepted gladly and thanked them for their time.  A good lesson here is even though you may not agree with their feedback and you’re frustrated that you didn’t get accepted, you shouldn’t burn any bridges.  So below are some of the feedback I received and I’m purposefully not disclosing who or which festival they represent to protect their privacy.

Film Programmer 1:

The VFX were cool, but could use some polishing. Still, that is an amazing job for a first time filmmaker. Concerning costuming, it would have helped if the avatars of the players would have had an original appearance. The masks were too familiar to store purchased Halloween masks and took the viewer out of this cyberspace world you had built. To have its own unique look is important.

Film Programmer 2:

..the biggest note I can give is that for indie genre feature films, 2 hours is almost a death sentence. In fact, anything over 100 minutes starts to run the risk of losing consideration with each passing minute. The sweet spot is truly in that 80 – 90 minute range. So with that said, while our team felt that there were a lot of solid elements, uses of good cgi, that there wasn’t enough within the film itself to justify the 2 hour runtime. Moving forward, I would recommend something leaner and meaner, that still keeps the spectacle and ambition you were going for. Focus on the first 10 minutes being the element that wows everyone so we’re “IN” and ready for that journey.

Film Programmer 3:

I thought Gauntlet was probably the most visually striking film we had submitted and probably the most ambitious as well. Your presentation of the film was really good – great poster, trailer visuals, write up etc. that stuff does count as a first impression so I think you’ve nailed that. What I would look at predominantly is the length, I think at over two hours, it’s hard to sustain that level of momentum with a story like Gauntlet. If there was a way you could bring it in at under 90 minutes, I think the pacing will be benefited by that. Similarly I’d also get into the game in under ten mins if you can, I can’t remember which screenwriter said it but I like the mantra of getting into a scene as late as you can and out as early as you can, if that makes sense. That would be my main thing to target, it’s made with such heart and the visuals are just awesome, I’m a kid of the 80s so it really resonates with me. I’d also spend a bit of time finding the right home for the film, it’s got a niche and it’s important to find the best festivals for it.

Film Programmer 4:

I appreciate the graphics throughout the film. The sequences within the video game look cool, but they are way too long which makes the story drag.  It takes an hour for the man to discover his brothers in the video game. (sentence omitted due to spoiler). I really do not know who would be the audience for this film.

2. Film Festivals Have Agendas

The main agenda for any Film Festival is to fill the seats at its event while celebrating the efforts of independent filmmaking within the region and at large.  How this is achieved is by selecting content that fits the festivals’ theme (example if it’s a Horror FF, then they aren’t accepting Rom-Coms) but also content that can adequately fill their viewing blocks.  This means that if the programming team can find a really cool sci-fi, fantasy film that fits their theme and is 90 minutes or shorter, then they’ll have a better time finding a slot to program that film as oppose to a 120+ minute film.  UNLESS that 120+ has big star power and name recognition that the public would want to see it.  This is where yours truly missed the mark in meeting that criteria.  Now, if I went back and cut the film down to less than 90 minutes, I know it would NOT guarantee me a spot, I’m not that naive.  However it did open my eyes that the factor of runtime is especially an important deciding factor when it comes to programming films at a festival.

I was unwilling to cut my film because to me, the story would suffer immensely if I would cut out a whole half hour to appease a programmers’ subjective opinion.  But if having your film be selected by a festival is what you feel is being a successful filmmaker, then please keep runtime in mind when creating your film.  I honestly did take all of the feedback on runtime to heart and realized that it could be possible to trim certain sections to help with the narrative be sped up, something that I thought would be a detriment before I submitted the film to festivals.  So in the end, this was helpful in understanding that I COULD trim parts at the beginning and at the end.  This is what I ended up doing which I would not have known without this Film Festival experience. So as I prepared the film for possible distribution, seven total minutes have been cut, which leads me to my plans for distribution.

FilmHub

After careful research and consideration over the past two years, I’m deciding to submit Gauntlet to FilmHub.  According to their website, FilmHub is a tech-powered licensing platform for streaming channels (Amazon Prime Video, IMDb TV, The Roku Channel, etc.) to license films, series, and shorts. Founded by Hollywood composer and innovator Klaus Badelt and Silicon Valley entrepreneur Alan d’Escragnolle, Filmhub takes the entire distribution process online. Filmmakers list their titles, and streaming channels use the platform for discovery, automated licensing, asset fulfillment, and payment processing.  So early in August of 2022, I created an account and began populating the necessary media assets in order to be a viable candidate to the streaming platforms that are accessible from FilmHub.

This was a big decision and it wasn’t taken lightly.  I believe every filmmaker needs to do their due diligence in researching HEAVILY in who they want to entrust their film projects, if they don’t want to self-distribute their work.  As the film began it’s sound mixing phase, I began contacting filmmakers whom I’ve networked and spoke with them on their distribution journeys.  In addition, I added myself and monitored online forums that detailed filmmakers experiences, good and bad, with distributors at large and to be fully transparent, it’s a dicey business.  There’s unfortunately more bad experiences than good (Distribber ring a bell?) but that doesn’t mean that there aren’t successful stories either.  My recommendation is to research RELENTLESSLY because you owe it to yourself.  You’ve invested time, money and who knows what to finally see your vision come to the screen so do yourself a favor and make sure you know what you want to do next, if seeing your film on the shelves in a store or on an online platform is success to you.  Below is a list of resources that will get you started that I found incredibly helpful but please don’t stop there, expand!

• Protect Yourself from Predatory Film Distributors/Aggregators
• Indie Film Hustle
• J.Horton Indie Filmmaker
• I Made A Movie. It Stunk – Austin McConnell

In conclusion, I now begin the final chapter in preparing the film for possible streaming opportunities, which is crazy to think about. All of the hard work in making sure I have a strong Chain of Title (documentation of ownership), great artwork (posters) and proper media files of the film (codecs and subtitles), I am now fully prepped to see what will come next.  Am I still disappointed that Gauntlet wasn’t accepted by a festival?  Absolutely and personally, I don’t know how long I will carry that with me.  Hopefully not too long because I’m excited for this next phase and don’t want it to be overshadowed from the festival disappointment.

Time will tell to see if going the festival route instead of distribution right away was the right choice or not, but honestly it was a great learning experience and that’s what I’m taking away from it.  Maybe in the future, that dream of seeing a film of mine at a festival will be a reality but right now, it’s not in the cards.  But if I see Gauntlet on lets say Amazon Prime?  Well, that would be a different joyous feeling entirely.

We shall see!

“Showing your movie to an audience… it’s like your kid doing a piano recital. ‘Just let it not fail. Please.”

– Rian Johnson (Looper, Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, Knives Out)