For submitting SO to film festivals through WithoutABox (aka WAB), they suggest we have a press kit, and my impression is that this will be time well spent. The things that the press kit can contain (plus my notes on what I think would help most) include:

1. Trailer and/or clips - A trailer is pretty important.
2. Production still photos - A promotional poster or two or three
3. Director statement
4. Production notes - A statement about SO being a collaborative project created by people all over the world using A:M.
5. News & Reviews

Additionally, we will need to have the film available in DVD and/or .MOV format for review and exhibition, with a single person responsible for getting copies to the festivals we choose to submit to.

Here is my take on the tasks that need to be done in the very near future. I will help coordinate these activities and do most of #6, but I will desperately need volunteers for the others.

1. Create a trailer
2. Author a DVD (I suggest Region 0 NTSC) Done by Holmes!
3. Create a poster
4. Write production notes
5. Duplicate DVDs for exhibition
6. Choose festivals (based on fit, cost, and who can go to them), sign up, and pay
7. Go to festivals

Please let me know in this thread what you can help out with. If for any reason you need to contact me off-forum, you can send a message to mouse at remove intranet dot org.

Chris, send me your mailing address to holmesbryant at gmail and I will send you a DVD with menus and one without menus.

I spent some time tonight (my goodness, look at the time) looking for festivals on WithoutABox. I think the criteria for choosing a festival will be Fit, Cost, and Location. For Fit, it's how well we fit their category (and possibly the reputation of the festival). Cost is obvious. For Location, I'd prefer if someone that worked on the film could attend, otherwise someone else from the forum.

I've listed below some festivals I have found that might be a fit, their dates, where located if not obvious from the title, their URL on WithoutABox, what category we might fit in, and the submission costs. I have not yet taken into consideration other requirements, such as exactly what they need in a press kit.

I chose locations based on where I knew people that participated in the making of Scarecrow lived and might be able to attend. There were numerous other festivals that might be good candidates (some in Florida, Hamburg, Ohio, Flint, etc.). Let me know in either this thread or by email (Edit: that's mouse at intranet dot org) if you would be interested in attending a festival and what your location is, and I will keep you in mind when looking for more festivals.

Tacoma Film Festival : Oct 6 to Oct 13, 2011
https://www.withoutabox.com/03film/03t_fin/...estival_id=4973
Feature Film (Fiction or Documentary) – 46+ minutes
June 15: $80

Sydney Underground Film Festival : Sep 8 to Sep 10, 2011
https://www.withoutabox.com/03film/03t_fin/...estival_id=5828
Feature Films (30+ minutes, any genre)
May 27: $55; June 24: $65

Sausalito Film Festival : Aug 19 to Aug 21, 2011
https://www.withoutabox.com/03film/03t_fin/...estival_id=7451
Features (minimum 30 minutes)
May 27: $40; July 1: $50

Kidz Filmz Festival (Manasquan, NJ) : Jan 27 to Jan 29, 2012
https://www.withoutabox.com/03film/03t_fin/...stival_id=10437
Children's Features (minimum 60 minutes)
June 1: $25; Sep 15: $30; Oct 15: $35

VideoFest (Dallas, TX): Sep 22 to Sep 25, 2011
https://www.withoutabox.com/03film/03t_fin/...estival_id=5775
Narrative Feature (minimum 25 minutes)
June 1: $65; June 28: $110 (they try to award an honorarium to all accepted)

Austin Film Festival: Oct 20 to Oct 27, 2011
https://www.withoutabox.com/03film/03t_fin/...estival_id=1016
Narrative Feature (minimum 41 minutes)
June 1: $45; July 1: $50; July 15: $60

Jersey Shore Film Festival (Irvington, NJ) : Jul 28 to Aug 7, 2011
https://www.withoutabox.com/03film/03t_fin/...estival_id=5406
Features (between 50 and 130 minutes)
June 2: $55; June 17: $60; June 30: $80; July 13: $85

Crystal Palace International Film Festival (London, UK) : Sep 20 to Sep 30, 2011
https://www.withoutabox.com/03film/03t_fin/...estival_id=8497
Features (over 50 minutes), Animation (any length)
June 20: 48 UK; July 20: 33 UK

Los Angeles Reel Film Festival : July 20 to July 21, 2011
https://www.withoutabox.com/03film/03t_fin/...estival_id=8490
Narrative Feature
May 31: $65; June 8: $75

Philadelphia Film & Animation Festival : Sept 29 to Oct 2, 2011
https://www.withoutabox.com/03film/03t_fin/...estival_id=6440
Animated Feature – 45 to 135 minutes
June 21: $50; July 1: $75

Withoutabox is the best film submission portal, but unfortunately it is focused mostly to festivals where you need to pay the submission fee (Withpoutabox lives from provisions). Submission fee could be a serious expense (I meet a guy with a very good(!!!) short film, which he submitted to more than 100 festivals and was accepted to only one! He spent thousands of dollars to get nothing in return).

Maybe you guys from US don't know but while submission fee is a standard in US festivals, in the most of other countries you don't have to pay submission fee! (that's why most of the festivals on the Withoutabox are located in US). So my suggestion is to focus on other countries. For European festival you don't only need to pay a submission fee, but also if you film is accepted, a lot of festivals will invite a director (or producer) and cover all expenses (travel expenses, hotel...). Plus the money prizes are bigger in European festivals.

Other submission portals:
http://www.shortfilmdepot.com/pre_index.html
http://www.reelport.com

P.S. Just now I realized that my experiences are only on short film festivals. SO is a feature... Those links are for short films. The situation could be different in the feature film festivals. :-( Well- anyway, maybe this could be helpful to someone who is working on short film.

Thanks Dusan. That is some good information.

For the festivals with a fee... if you've missed the cheapest early bird entry fee, wait for it to come around again next year.

My rule of thumb was to not enter anything that was a "1st" or "2nd Annual" as those have no track record of significance.

Large, very significant, well-known festivals like Sundance are no-gos because of the enormous competition except in some extraordinary case where they have a category that your movie is an exceptional fit for and you happen to know someone on the screening staff.

What I saw at our one festival appearance with TWO is that competition in the "feature" category is enormous. Low budget filmakers are turning out great live action adult-targeted features. TWO made it onto that festival because they had a "Children's" show to fill and TWO was probably the only child appropriate feature submitted. Lots of shorts, but a 3 hour program of just shorts doesn't work.

Look for very specific niches that SO can fit.

"Feature" is too broad a category for SO.

"Animated feature"? Possibly. ( I never saw one in the festivals i looked at, however)

"Fantasy Feature"? Lots of competition from live action there.

"Childrens Feature"? Again, lots of live action competition.

"Low-budget, no-budget"? possibly

"Low-budget, Children's Animated Fantasy Feature"? If you see one go for it.



GIRAF is free, so might as well give them a try although they didn't take TWO last year.


Dallas Video Festival is an unlikely target as they are looking for very cutting edge, odd stuff. They do send out the longest and most apologetic rejection e-mail of all i received, however.

Films for most of the festivals shouldn't be older than 2 years! So you shouldn't wait too long.




I strongly disagree! There is an old saying: "If you want to throw the stone over the tree, you must aim to the moon!" :-)
The big festivals doesn't shows only films from the eminent film-makers. It all depends from the selection jury. Maybe you will be lucky and the selection committee will see "something" in your film. Maybe they will find interesting the way you made it (over the internet, without director, producer, without any budget... this is very interesting, because it opposed to all the laws of film-making :-) Maybe selection committee will show it in some of non-competitive or informative sections? Non-competitive selection on the Sundance is still much, much better than competitive selection (or even an Award) on some village festival.) Many things depends on pure luck and of course "marketing" (most of the times those factors are much more important than quality of the film). Last year Sundance has more than 12.000 film submitted! There is NO WAY(!) that selection jury would actually watch all the films. So the luck is very important factor. Festivals are a lot like lottery.

There is more than 10.000 film festivals in the world! There are maybe 20 of them which could really do something for your film. Most of other are waste of time and energy (many times you won't even find a mention of your film on the Internet or local papers). So aim high! :-)

Anyway- you must emphasize in the blurb of the film how that film was made. I believe that was your strongest "selling point".

Kikiriki (Dusan), good points! WithoutABox did seem US centric. I found a list of European film festivals ... if you have any experience with or impressions of any of them, I'd love to hear your feedback. Also, the Reelport site you listed does have a few possible leads that I will follow up on. Regarding big festivals, I think they might be worth a try only if there is an extremely good category fit for our film. Of course, if it's free to submit, then we could just go ahead regardless.

Anyway- you must emphasize in the blurb of the film how that film was made. I believe that was your strongest "selling point".

Agreed!

Robcat: I don't see any evidence that there was a GIRAF 6 in 2010. I have sent an email off to the festival to see what they are up to.

Regarding topics, good feedback. Some festivals tout "Independent", meaning no- or low-budget films, and sometimes have a feature length animation category. I will definitely hone in on any children-focused festival or category. I am amused how "feature length" varies from 30+ minutes to 70+ minutes depending on the festival.

It looks like GIRAF is still going, I was just looking at the wrong part of their site. I don't think it fits into their award categories (Best of Alberta, Best of Canada, Best International Short Animation Awards (Juried), & Audience Favorite Short Animation Award), but it's free so we can try to submit it anyways with the goal of simply having it seen by an audience.

They say they take films from all over the world. All you have to lose is $8 in shipping!

But I just saw a schedule of either their next or last festival, they only have two features programmed so it's a long shot in any event.

Cool. SO is from "all over the world" A perfect fit!

Is the "Scarecrow of Oz" title sign model from the beginning titles available? I don't see it from SVN, and I was thinking of using it in a poster. ETA: Aha, I see an "Opening" folder.

I also see a /Data/Poster project, which may have been used for a ComiCon poster. Is there a copy of what was created from that?

P.S. Holmes, I received the package you sent last week.

Here you can find list of festivals without submission-fee. (note that most of the festivals outside US are free):
http://www.filmfestivalsecrets.com/extras/no-fee/

Yes the opening Oz sign should be in the Opening folder.


I don't know (or remember) anything about that. I don't have a /Data/Poster folder.

Giraf Festival Nov 2-6, 2011 ...
DEADLINE: August 1, 2011

Nice opportunity to submit it

For the poster, I was thinking of an ensemble theme, with different poses for each set of characters. Here's a "quick" layout of the characters together, with only Scarecrow, Tin Woodman, and the crow posed (hmm, I see now that the crow doesn't have a good silhouette); I was thinking of having the view of Jinxland's port from the castle as the backdrop, and the bottom 1/4th would have credits-like info.

Click to view attachment

I also did a test render (no hair, etc.) of the existing poster project (under the Data/Poster folder in SVN). I'm pretty sure the final poster (if it was actually used) had the title overlayed in the upper right area. Here's what my low quality render looked like:

Click to view attachment

Let me know if you have any ideas, or would like to give it a go yourself!

Regarding Giraf, they do not have a prize for international feature length animated film, but I will try to submit it indicating that we are interested in getting it seen by an audience even if it is not eligible for prizes.

I have the final poster here in psd format. But it's a big file (300mb). I can separate it in to layers though.

July submission summary:

GIRAF 7 - STATUS: Submitted, receipt confirmed
http://www.giraffest.ca/
Festival Dates: November 2-6, 2011
Festival Location: Calgary, AB (Canada)
Submission deadline: 2011-08-01 (postmarked)
Actual submission: 2011-07-14 (form submitted), 2011-07-15 (DVD mailed); receipt confirmed by festival
Notification Date: ?
Category(s): While SO does not match any award category, they indicate that they accept all kinds of formats and I am hoping they will still be willing to show the film

Flyway Film Festival - STATUS: Submitted
http://flywayfilmfestival.org/
Festival Dates: October 20-23, 2011
Festival Location: Pepin & Stockholm, WI (USA)
Submission deadline: 2011-07-31 (postmarked)
Actual submission: 2011-07-28
Notification Date: 2011-09-01
Category(s): Children's Feature; Animation

These festivals are both free submissions, and they had minimal or no press kit requirements on submission. However, we have progress on a press kit, including production stills (from the movie itself thanks to Holmes), publicity stills (poster thanks to Ken), info (director bio from Holmes, I will possibly add other information), and a trailer (still in progress, I will update more as we are closer).

This weekend I will once again peruse the festivals for the next set of submissions. I figure they will be easier once we have everything together, just a matter of duplicating the materials and filling out the submission forms and paying the fees and mailing them all off. I'll report on any acceptance or rejection as they happen, but only post summaries of submissions once per month.

Good work. Yup, don't pass up the free ones.

Yay! Way to go Chris

We were not accepted for GIRAF7:

At least they replied, I never heard from them at all after I submitted TWO.

Just a quick note ...
I submitted to the Kidz Filmz Festival in NJ and the Ferndale Film Festival in MI, both submitted through WithoutABox. Those submissions will be enough to get SO onto IMDB.

As I mentioned, we got a rejection from GIRAF, and the notification date has passed for the Flyway Film Festival, so it is safe to assume we did not get chosen for that one.

We have a Scarecrow of Oz IMDB page now. Take a look, and let me know what I should correct (there is a lot that will need to be added, since it couldn't be entered in on WithoutABox, which is where the data got initialized from).

Past submissions:
Ferndale Film Festival: Notification date passed. Presumed not accepted.
Kidz Film Festival: Notification Date: 2012-01-01

I'm burning disks for submissions this week. I hope to submit this week to:
KIDS FIRST! Film Festival in Santa Fe, NM
Florida Film Festival in Maitland, FL
Reynolda Film Festival in Winstom-Salem, NC
Green Bay Film Festival in Green Bay, WI

I'm considering the following for the end of the month (due btw 28th and 31st of Oct):
Newport beach FF - Newport Beach, CA
Ashland Independent FF - Ashland, OR
Crossroads FF - Jackson, MS
Sacramento Intl FF - Sacramento, CA
Tupelo FF - Tupelo, MS
The LES FF
360 | 365 FF - Rochester, NY

That's awesome Chris. Thanks for all your work.

Hi, folks, for the KIDS FIRST! Film Festival, they request an age group that the film would best fit in. I don't have any kids, so my guesses would probably not be so good. What do you think I should select?

I might guess 5-12 or 12-18 to get the widest range. I will specify that it is really appropriate for kids (and adults) of all ages.

Available groups are:
2-5, 5-8, 5-12, 8-12 and 12-18

Thanks!

Well, I need to get this done, so I'm going to go ahead and choose 8-12. 12-18 would be more teens that might be more interested in older stuff.

ETA: Disks all burned, registrations sent through WithoutABox, and mailers made up for 3 festivals. The Florida FF requires the exhibition copy be in formats I am unable to create, so I'm omitting them. Will drop the 3 off tomorrow at lunch.

Thanks for doing this Chris.

SO deserves to get out there and be seen by an audience.
Hopefully your effort will make that happen.

After all is said and done it'd be great to hear more from you and Robert of your experiences running the festival circuit.



That sounds promising.

The 8-12 age range seems right to me. I showed the movie to a couple of 10 year old boys (with parents) and they both stayed interested and watched the whole thing. Not sure though if they really liked the movie or if their parents just threatened them with death if they didn't sit still and keep quiet

I would have thought the 5-12 would also have been a good age range.

I think I misspoke above and should have said that I submitted as the 5-12 age group. Unfortunately, I don't see a way of seeing the contents of the submission through Withoutabox to verify that is what I said.

I mailed those three sets of disks off over lunch today. The Reynolda festival only offers awards/prizes to students, but accepts non-student submissions for viewing as non-competition.

Yeah, my neice (6) and nephew (5) love the movies. The imbd page looks great. Is it possible to put the trailer on it? Thanks again Chris.

Yes, it is possible to put the trailer on it. I have an email in my inbox allowing me to upload one trailer video. Ernesttx is getting close to a final version, and that's what I'll use.

I think it might be possible to upload the movie there and get paid for downloads, as well, although I haven't looked into it yet. I'm sure IMDB/Amazon would get paid for it more than we do.

Trailer is now on the Scarecrow of Oz IMDB page.

looks Good Chris--------watched the trailer twice ----very nice . Great job all you gals and guys who made that movie. Was fun to look at the credits and see so many of the names I still see here in the forum. Applause. (And I love the Poster for that film--really cool)

I believe Angelo's last name is spelled Panetta (not Penetta)?

I'm not sure if I have the power to change the spellings of an already existing person, but I will check when I log in next.

Submission made to:
Newport Beach Film Festival in Newport Beach, CA
Category: Animation - Feature (asked to also be considered for Family - Feature)
Decision Date: 2012-03-13, Festival Date: 2012-04-26

Previous submissions:
Kidz Filmz Festival, Decision Date: ?
KIDS FIRST! Film Festival, Decision Date: 2012-01-15
Reynolda Film Festival, Decision Date: 2012-03-21
Green Bay Film Festival, Decision Date: 2012-03-23

There are a bunch of submissions upcoming for Oct/Nov:
Crossroads Film Festival (Jackson, MS)
Sacramento Intl Film Festival
Tupelo Film Festival (Tupelo, MS)
The LES Film Festival (New York)
360 | 365 Film Festival (Rochester, NY)
Talking Pictures Festival (Evanston, IL)
Washing DC Independent Film Festival
Athens International Film and Video Festival (Athens, OH)
Big Muddy Film Festival (Carbondale, IL)
Santa Catalina Film Festival (Sherman Oaks, CA)
deadCENTER Film Festival (Oklahoma City, OK)
New Media Film Festival (Los Angeles, CA)
Chicago Underground Film Festival
Oregon Independent Film Festival (Eugene, OR)
CalAni

Submitted on Friday:

Sacramento Intl Film Festival
Talking Pictures Festival (Evanston, IL)
Washington DC Independent Film Festival
The LES Film Festival (New York, NY)

The 360|365 Festival was unexpectedly closed out on WithoutABox. If they get it fixed by Monday, I'll be able to submit to them.

Wow. That's a load of festivals. Fingers crossed. Thanks for the effort.

Submitted through WithoutABox:

Big Muddy Film Festival (Carbondale, IL)
deadCENTER Film Festival (Oklahoma City, OK)
New Media Film Festival (Los Angeles, CA) (digital screener)

I will send out the DVDs on Thursday for Big Muddy and deadCENTER.

I'll submit soon to Santa Catalina and a few more (Chicago Underground, Oregon Ind FF, CalAni, Tupelo, Athens), and then things will settle down a little. I think there are a lot of festivals from February to May, and these submissions are a reflection of that.

That's a lot of entries! Any bites yet?

Not yet. Of the pending festivals, the expiration dates are in first quarter of 2012. I'm trying to get in on the cheap "earlybird" price for the festivals, so the lead time puts them about this time range.

Rejections/notification expiration:
2011-08-25 GIRAF (Calgary, AB) (They actually sent a nice rejection email, though not specific to our movie.)
2011-07-02 Flyway (Stockholm/Pepin, WI)
2011-10-10 Ferndale (Ferndale, MI)

Notification dates of submitted festivals (in notification-date order):
2012-01-01 Kidz Filmz Festival (Sea Girt/Manasquan, NJ)
2012-01-01 KIDS FIRST! Film Festival (Santa Fe, NM)
2012-01-31 Big Muddy Film Festival (Carbondale, IL)
2012-02-09 Green Bay Film Festival (Green Bay, WI)
2012-02-15 The LES Film Festival (New York, NY)
2012-02-20 Sacramento Intl Film Festival (Sacramento, CA)
2012-02-30 Washington DC Independent Film Festival (Washington, DC)
2012-03-01 Reynolda Film Festival (Winston-Salem, NC)
2012-03-01 Talking Pictures Festival (Evanston, IL)
2012-03-01 deadCENTER Film Festival (Oklahoma City, OK)
2012-03-08 New Media Film Festival (Los Angeles, CA)
2012-03-13 Newport Beach Film Festival (Newport Beach, CA)

Sadly this stuff cuts into my modeling/animation time.

Four more submissions (and location and notification date):

2012-03-15 Tupelo Film Festival (Tupelo, MS)
2012-03-23 Athens International Film + Video Festival (Athens, OH)
2012-07-08 Oregon Independent Film Festival (Eugene, OR)
2012-04-15 Iowa Film Festival (Iowa City, IA)

I have decided against the following festivals I had been considering:
Santa Catalina Film Festival - complicated submission requirements
Chicago Underground - they are looking for more avant-garde or low-brow stuff

This weekend I will do some more searching for festivals online; otherwise the only other one to submit before year end is Cal Ani.

Rejection from Kidz Filmz Festival.
Notification date passed for KIDS FIRST! Film Festival.

Festivals I'm considering signing up for this month (abbreviations: FF=Film Festival, IFF=International Film Festival, Ind=Independent):

CalAni - California Intl Animation Festival
Bel Air FF
Santa Monica FF
Flickers Rhode Island IFF
Sidewalk Moving Picture Festival
Nantucket FF & Screenplay Competition
Greenville IFF
Rincon IFF
Davis FF
Great Lakes IFF
Colorado Film Awards
Toronto Animation Arts Festival Intl
Lucerne IFF
Costa Rica IFF
New Jersey IFF
Newport IFF – Wales

Are there any trends you are seeing with all of these festivals?

For instance, do these film festivals mostly operate on (government/corporate) grants?

Well, not a lot of trends. Except for the major players, most of them seem to be not-for-profits. Based on the submission IDs I'm getting, I suspect that they get far more submissions than they have slots for. I was a bit surprised we didn't hear back from the kids-based festivals.

It's difficult to know how good of a match our film may be for any given festival. Some are very clear that they are horror or Jewish or LGBT or black American or comedy or shorts or animation or documentaries, but then there are a lot that are "whatever". There are quite a few small time festivals. There are a couple that are sponsored by high schools or universities.

Some of the festivals are really keen on having the director and/or producer be there, and encourage filmmakers to hang out together and learn from each other.

There are one or two others that are more like traveling film festivals, where they show the film in a few different places in a region (e.g. the east coast).

The festivals do not provide any feedback as far as how appropriate the film submission was or how well we did compared to other submissions. We are just now getting to the time when the first significant round of festivals that we submitted to have their notification deadlines, so we'll get a better idea if our current approach is working or not. Submitting a film really feels like casting it out in a bottle onto the ocean, and waiting to see what comes back. I was originally worried about whether or not I should submit to any given festival, but then I just said, "screw it!" and am submitting to almost any festival that has animation or children-oriented feature-length film categories that accept DVD as the screening format and don't have crazy press kit requirements or crazy expensive registration.

I also have been relying mostly on Withoutabox. I was looking at the European and other international festivals for a brief while, but was not having good luck finding ones that took feature length animated films.

Note: If we do get accepted to either Puerto Rico or Costa Rica, I might be tempted to attend!

Thanks for that. Very good information.

And well deserved! If I had the cash I would even pay for your travel expenses. You are doing invaluable work Chris. Even if we don't get accepted to a single festival, I know how much effort you've put in. Thank You!!

You're very welcome, Holmes!

Submissions made last night, 2 of which not allowing digital submission were mailed in today:

Sidewalk Moving Picture Festival
Flickers Rhode Island IFF
Bel Air FF
Greenville IFF
Rincon IFF
Davis FF

Not submitted:

Nantucket FF & Screenplay Competition - required submission in a weird format
Santa Monica IFF - the due date was RECEIVED BY and not POSTMARKED BY, and the next level expense was too high. Maybe next year.

The others I mentioned are due later this month.

That's Great!

While on vacation, I submitted:

Great Lakes IFF
Colorado Film Awards
Costa Rica IFF
CalAni
Newport IFF (Wales)
Hollywood Reel Ind FF

I did not submit Toronto Animation Arts or Lucerne due to complicated presentation formats I didn't think we could provide, and I skipped New Jersey because of cost