Had a thoroughly-wonderful overnight excursion last week to the Borrego Springs Film Festival. Borrego Springs isn’t even a town, as far as the law is concerned, it is a “census-designated place”, one of my favorite pieces of strangely-provocative bureaucrat-ese. The last time I was out there was way, way back in my days as a story development executive, working on a little picture called 29 Palms – the first Hollywood feature I ever worked on, and a darkly-hilarious lesson in just how much chaos can befall even a movie made by professionals.


One thing you don’t expect when making a little Tarantino-knockoff thriller in the desert is that your set will be washed away by a flash flood on the second day

One of the festival organizers actually remembered our movie – he both works with the Chamber of Commerce and liaises with the Park Service for when productions come into town to photograph their otherworldly desert. He told me a pretty terrific story that involved the late Marlon Brando and a golf cart.

I was there to represent the feature film Cloudy With a Chance of Sunshine, which I have an acting role in. The filmmakers were suddenly unable to attend, and so bequeathed their all-access passes to me; which included some of the bribes perks a truly filmmaker-friendly festival always throws in – such as gift certificates to local restaurants and a discounted hotel stay. While I’ve seen several screenings of Cloudy at this point, Borrego Springs managed to pack the house with a vocal, appreciative crowd that greatly enjoyed the old-fashioned romantic comedy, which made it easy to enjoy watching again. I also spent the rest of the festival having random people point at me and make pot-smoking jokes.


CAUTION: TRAILER CONTAINS FOOTAGE OF ME AS A STONED WEIRDO

I fully admit that I’m becoming a junkie for the festival world – I’ve attended a handful now both as a fan and a filmmaker; and they are becoming my favorite excuse to plan an expedition, not just for career reasons but to encounter new little communities and interact with enthused film lovers from everywhere. I usually leave having made at least one or two new friends whose festival itineraries I start to eagerly track for intersection with my own. It’s a community I’m excited to be a part of.

I also feel like I learn significantly more with each trip about what sort of festival I want to submit to. I actually submitted The Retriever to Borrego Springs and they passed on it; but seeing their audience – largely older retirees, I can see why my short wasn’t quite right for them. And that gets filed away as a little bit of boots-on-the-ground wisdom for my future projects.

If you want some comprehensive advice for how to select festivals worth your time, Cloudy producer/co-writer Rebecca Norris Resnick wrote a terrific column for ScriptMag.com about how to tell the good from the bad from the ugly.

I won’t give redundant versions of her advice; but I’ve noticed something worth setting down here. I have learned a little bit about a large number of creative endeavors, whether it’s making a film or producing an audiobook or publishing your own book. So often the same skillset proves handy – do your research, collate a crapton of data, set your standards and see what choices emerge from that work. I’ve been very fortunate to get into this world at the time that FilmFreeway.com has broken the effective monopoly on on-line film festival submissions that Withoutabox.com enjoyed for so long. The competition has made both services better and everyone benefits; especially filmmakers. It’s now a relatively straightforward process, if you invest the hours, to compile a substantive list of festivals that account for their longevity, what amount/type of material they program, and the cost/timetable for submitting to them. This substantially improves the success of your festival strategy.


Never undertake strategy without a big map and those big map push-y things

Now that I have attended some festivals, as well as worked behind the scenes vetting submissions to a large one, I have a better idea of the type of festival I’d like to get into; and what some best submission practices are. I’ll organize a few of those into a separate post soon enough, I think.

Bringing Cloudy to the Desert

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *