so I'm curious...

 

What kinds of indies are you attracted to?

 

What keeps you going back (to a theatre or festival)?

 

How do we get people interested in and to see the value in supporting emerging indie filmmakers?

 

Have you ever heard of Independent Pictures and the Ohio Independent Film Festival?

 

If you have, did you go this year?  If you didn't go, how come?

 

 

Well I am not sure if you want a reply or to advertise    but since you asked..I don't like indies that are trying too hard to "be cool". Those are worse than  mainsteam swill.  I like dark and dry humor, but also the subtle sweetness that you see in some films. I do not need things to have a classic arc and be wrapped up in a pretty bow at the end. I disnt go b/c I was out of town, but certainly will in future.

no..not an advertisement, truly meant as a question or poll of interests and what draws people to indies and what keeps them coming back.  and, not only what keeps them coming back, but what keeps them coming back in droves.

 

the OIFF offers films by emerging filmmakers so it's a different market than most other festivals.  how do we get people to see the value of those films?

I've never seen an independent film mainly because of lack of knowledge.  If I knew where they were and whats playing, I might go.

^Esquire and Mariemont theater. Esquire is on Ludlow. I saw Garden State opening weekend before it was popular  :wink2: Ironically it was only showing at Newport LOL

I love independent film. Most of my favorite movies are indies. Hate most of the conventional flicks that Hollywood puts out. Not that this is necessarily always true, and not that I shun all of Hollywood. I'm definitely looking forward to some of the summer movies.

 

But I find that indie pix are generally far more interesting and complex in terms of subject matter; they're also usually a bit more risk-taking (note: I don't mean this to mean risque) and unconventional, which I also love.

 

Just recently saw "The Diving Bell and the Butterfly", which was one of my favorite movies of the year. Thought it was incredible. But a movie like this would never play in a multiplex. That's just fine by me, though. Gimme a great indie pic anyday.

The Diving Bell and the Butterfly is a foreign film.  That is not the same thing as an indie film.  Julian Schnabel is a well-known, well-respected director and I can assure you there was a much, much bigger budget for this movie than an independent film.  Whatever distribution house had this film playing in theaters all over the WORLD.  Not the same as an indie film.  At its widest release, it was in over 200 theaters.

 

They had no less than EIGHT production companies contributing to this film as well as 9 distribution companies.  The movie had a budget of FOURTEEN MILLION dollars. 

 

 

Okay .. sheesh! My mistake. It was playing in an art house, so I just assumed it was indie.

 

Regardless, I'd still prefer indie films over the more mainstream movies.

Sorry, I'm just touchy because most people in this town don't do much to support independent film or have any idea how hard it is to get something done when you have basically a non-existent budget.  We have a lot of talented and creative people who have abundant skills in front of and behind the camera in this town but there is very little support from the general public.  I don't believe ANYONE from u/o bothered to come to our film, which showed at the OIFF last week. There were only a handful of people who were there who weren't cast members or our immediate friends and family.

I would have went :)

I would have went :)

 

Thx.  I assume you're not in the Cleve then. :(

"I don't believe ANYONE from u/o bothered to come to our film, which showed at the OIFF last week. There were only a handful of people who were there who weren't cast members or our immediate friends and family."

 

While I can appreciate and understand your justified frustration, I don't know if that's a good tone to take. I understand that you're p!ssed but maybe it wasn't that your film and OIFF was ignored? I wouldn't necessarily interpret a lack of attendance as a lack of support.

 

I'm only speaking for myself, but the last few weeks have been absurdly busy for me with freelance gigs and previous engagements. I've had to pass on a lot of different events that I'd hoped to attend, and when my schedule finally frees up - I'll be a lot more inclined to check out something if the people behind it took the approach of "catching more flies with honey than vinegar". :-)

I would have went :)

 

Thx.  I assume you're not in the Cleve then. :(

 

I'm not, either. I remember your post, though, and I also remember wishing I could've been there. I know that doesn't mean much, but whenever I'm in the city, I try to do what I can to support the local arts scene. I love Cleveland, and I love art of any kind, and it's unfortunate that your film didn't get the support you were hoping for. :( I would've definitely been there had I been able to.

 

I hope the lack of response didn't discourage you from making films in the future. Independent filmmaking is a tough business, and I don't pretend to know about the nitty gritty details. But I just know that it's one of those things where you just really have to persevere. I really wish you all the best, and I hope things turn up for you. :)

Who made this poster? Try to put more of these up at your local coffee shops, theaters, museums, college campuses, art galleries, music venues, etc.

 

"I don't believe ANYONE from u/o bothered to come to our film, which showed at the OIFF last week. There were only a handful of people who were there who weren't cast members or our immediate friends and family."

 

While I can appreciate and understand your justified frustration, I don't know if that's a good tone to take. I understand that you're p!ssed but maybe it wasn't that your film and OIFF was ignored? I wouldn't necessarily interpret a lack of attendance as a lack of support.

 

I'm only speaking for myself, but the last few weeks have been absurdly busy for me with freelance gigs and previous engagements. I've had to pass on a lot of different events that I'd hoped to attend, and when my schedule finally frees up - I'll be a lot more inclined to check out something if the people behind it took the approach of "catching more flies with honey than vinegar". :-)

 

Well, I thought my initial approach was plenty "honey," if you will, and it garnered nothing.  It's not just the UO people. There are tons of people who always say they're going to come to something like this and then never show up.  My irritation is actually for both our film and the OIFF being ignored, if that's the right word.  However, it's just particularly galling on a site devoted to support of all things local and our film being shown as part of several on "Ohio day," the lack of attendance was, to me, appalling.  I'm sure there are people who may not have wanted to see our film given the subject matter, but there were plenty of other films shown that day and they were even smaller audiences than ours.

 

I know people are busy.  The last 3 months of my life have been EXTREMELY busy, that time of year is the busiest for me at work AND I work 2 jobs on top of it.  I know from busy, and I understand if people have previous committments.  It's not like anyone said they would come and then didn't come, it was just completely ignored.  I am just a different kind of person.  I go out of my way to support other local businesses and endeavors. I have gone to art shows where I didn't care for any of the art, seen other movies I didn't think much of (and some I really enjoyed) and it certainly pains my wallet to drive to as many local establishments as I do to buy locally made food and material goods, but I do it because it's important to me.  Maybe it's just an artist thing.  Locally in the theater world, and in our small local film world, we try hard to support each other by attending each others productions whenever we can, given time and budget constraints.  With a group like UO and their focus, I just would have thought SOMEONE would have come to Ohio Day.

^^ That poster is SWEET! I would have selected Progressive Field over CBS though.

ThereseG/rockandroller: just curious .. what was done to promote the festival?

I can't speak to the festival's promotional activities.

 

For our particular film we sent out a press release to the NEOHPAL list, which goes to over 4500 artists/subscribers.  We also each emailed everyone in our personal email address books who lives in Cleveland the information about the showing, and I posted in 2 different places here on UO. I also emailed a large group of people at my job, I would say about 50 people I thought would be interested.  I called a lot of people as well, including those I don't have email addresses for.  A friend of mine also sent out to his own arts email list, I'm not sure how many people that reached, and my Mom emailed a bunch of people at Case Western (where she works).  My husband also emailed some people at his job in addition to his personal email list.

 

We gave a copy to Julie Washington at the PD who mentioned it in her column, and talked with the Free Times, who also mentioned it.  The Scene did not pick it up.

Wow. I can certainly understand your frustration, then.

thx for your understanding.  :-)  Given that I was out of town, working overtime at my day job or working my 2nd a lot the 2 months prior to the festival, that we were able to get that much done is a miracle.  I wrote the release when I was working the registration table at my meeting in New York, for example. 

Rocknroller--what film were you in ? I wanna see some youtube clips or something. I typed in ohio film festival but got pretty much nothing. It would be great to see some previews, showing what the films are like. I would use youtube to your advantage when you send out emails. Include a youtube link. Previews lure people in.

Who made this poster? Try to put more of these up at your local coffee shops, theaters, museums, college campuses, art galleries, music venues, etc.

 

 

thanks for asking about the poster, it is pretty cool, huh?  One of the Independent Pictures' Board Members.  Thanks for posting it the thread, too (I could only figure out how to post the link, but that's another story!)  Anywho, we have some available if anyone's interested (sorry, that's the salesgirl in me :) ).

 

The posters were a kind of after thought because as people started seeing the postcards and thought it looked cool, a few people started suggesting that we get posters made.  But alas, we had no moolah in the budget for posters so literally the week before the festival, as I was talking to someone at my other, other job, about it, she mentioned that she'd ask some folks that she works with at HER other, other job (and the posters were born, thanks to the nice people at R.E. May)..but I didn't get to pick them up until the Monday of the festival  :( .  SO....yeah, I think we're gonna use them to promote call for film submissions for next year, if we have any left.

 

To answer JPop's question about promotion:

 

Press releases were sent to all major and non-major newspapers, including some of those small-ish ones in the Akron area.  We sent an initial one announcing the festival in general, a "day by day" one, an Ohio day one and one regarding the benefit screening and fundraiser on May 9.  Press releases also went out to CoolCleveland but as far as I know, it wasn't covered or there may have been a blurb.  I tried to contact PluggedinCleveland but got no response - although I did post it on the events page as well as volunteering page.  In my humble opinion I think the newspapers didn't cover it well.

 

I posted it on every event board I could think of.  Emails were sent out en masse.  We collaborated with Fashion Week, the LGBT Center, the Domestic Violence Center, United Cerebral Palsy of Greater Cleveland and other presenting partners, so email blasts went out via those lists as well.  We even advertised in Balanced Living magazine in a collaboration with them, for one of the films. 

 

We do ask the filmmakers to help promote since there's small staff (thanks rockandroller!) but I honestly don't think all do (some local filmmakers didn't attend, either..which means neither did their respective entourages).

 

I know that traditionally a person needs to see a promotion something like 7 or 8 times before they decide to support it but in the end, I truly think it's word of mouth that makes something stick.  I even thought about asking someone with a high-traffic blog to blog about it in exchange for a festival pass (would that have worked, anyone?  :)  ).

 

I even created a MySpace page for it, which has been interesting.  Eventually I can post videos there and pics, too..but just hadn't had the time to maintain it beforehand.

Do you know how many attendees visited this year's festival? How do the numbers compare with previous years? Also, just out of curiosity, how long has the festival been running? Must be around 10 years or so, no?

I don't have actual numbers but I estimate lower than past years.  There were some pretty sloooowww times.  One thing that I think made a difference is the time of year - not that that can help now.  May is a difficult time because so many people have spring fever and want to get outdoors vs. staying inside..plus I think there are a lot of fundraisers going on (outdoors, even) during this time, too.  This year was the 21st festival in 14 years since they started out doing several festivals each year, in 1994.

Gotcha. Well, I hope the smaller response hasn't discouraged you. I really encourage you to keep things up if you can. It's such a great thing for Cleveland to be able to host.

Rocknroller--what film were you in ? I wanna see some youtube clips or something. I typed in ohio film festival but got pretty much nothing. It would be great to see some previews, showing what the films are like. I would use youtube to your advantage when you send out emails. Include a youtube link. Previews lure people in.

 

We tried uploading two different trailers to youtube but neither one would load right.  We just aren't technical experts and have no idea what was wrong with them. It's kind of hard to navigate every technology under the universe when you're DIY and have no budget to pay anyone for their help.  I mean, my husband is a director and film editor, he doesn't know anything about youtube or video games or anything else.  He did the best he could but he couldn't make it work and I know even less than he does so I wasn't any help.

 

 

Probably uploaded the video with the wrong file type. There's programs on download.com that allow you to convert them to mpeg, .avi etc.

I'd love to help in the future. :)

I don't think it was the wrong file type since it worked, but it would skip/pause from time to time.  Since it didn't play smoothly, he didn't want it up there. 

If it played okay otherwise, it might've been something wonky with the file format itself. Did you try playing it in Quicktime, outside of Final Cut?

 

If so, and it played okay, I've found that importing the file into iMovie and exporting it into a Quicktime file from there helps to get it into a format that works on YouTube. If it was a widescreen format, that can also cause problems.

First of all, that poster is amazing.

 

Secondly, I do not go to any mainstream movies anymore.  The only shows I go to in person are indies shown at the Esquire Theatre here in Cincy...I LOVE that place.

Did you notice the cigarettes doubling as smokestacks? 

 

Also, it does, in a way, make me feel better to hear that even though some folks are from out of town, they would have attended the festival had they been here.  There have GOT to be more like-minded indie lovers here, too (not just those who go because it's cool, you know?).  We just need to find them :)

 

 

The great thing about the Esquire is that the theaters are small. It's also great that they show previews of future movies and advertise local places. With Indie movies being so risky, hit or miss, I'm not taking chances on seeing a film that I haven't seen a preview for. If you go to a bad movie, it can ruin your night. I paid to see Life Aquatic which was one of the most boring non-funny movies I've ever seen and we left after about 30 minutes. Aside from sleeping through The Pianist, I've never done anything like that.

The great thing about the Esquire is that the theaters are small. It's also great that they show previews of future movies and advertise local places.

 

Exactly...one time my gf and I went we saw a movie in that first theatre (on the left) as you start down the hall.  Probably the smallest one as it seats about 40 people maybe.  We had the theatre to ourselves and it made for an intimate setting to enjoy a nice movie.

 

Plus the added bonus with Esquire is that you can window shop or get some drinks, on Ludlow, as you wait for your showtime.  Oh yeah, it is also what all the cool kids are doing.  :wink:

What was that weird British movie about the police officer? Hot Fuzz or something; we went to go see that at the Esquire and they only accepted cash which none of us had. I'm not too indie for VISA!

The great thing about the Esquire is that the theaters are small. It's also great that they show previews of future movies and advertise local places. With Indie movies being so risky, hit or miss,

 

I agree, and in the case of festivals, it is helpful to get the film and filmmaker info out as soon as possible.  But we're working on that.  Funny thing:  everything with non-profits is intertwined.  You can't do proper marketing and PR without proper staff and you can't have staff without proper funding.  Yet you can't get funded if you don't have the support (generally).  The ultimate conundrum!

Youtube is free! Get those trailors up.

oh, yeah I totally agree that we need to take advantage of YouTube and MySpace video..but just like Rockandroller said, you gotta have some technological skills to do so..not to mention time, you know?  When your staff is limited to a staff of one and a half..and when there's so much else to be done, it's easier said than done.  But no, I do agree....

You know what I do? I use people. Not because I'm selfish but because I help people all the time so I don't feel guilty about it. Supporting the arts and freedom of expression serves a good cause. If you don't know anyone with the technological skills, ask people if they know someone who does. Ask them to ASK people. That's how I've gotten job interviews, references and free furniture in the past.

 

I'm just thinking--imagine the power of having movie trailors included in emails sent out on huge listservs at companies, universities, even facebook, myspace groups. You would be giving large amounts of people a sample of the product/experience. 

ok :)

 

Anyone with great technological skills want to volunteer/donate/dedicate their time, expertise and knowhow to a sassy lil indie film non-profit?  How 'bout become a Board Member?  Or, know someone who might want to do so?

 

:)

I think there are. I wonder what else you could do to further promote the festival with your limited budget. That's kinda the kicker, unfortunately. Have you tried some smaller corporate sponsorships to help in increasing that budget? Maybe local businesses, willing to kick in some money for the festival?

 

Also, was wondering about a cross-promotion type of thing with the Cleveland Film Festival. There's obviously a demand for that type of cinema in Cleveland .. its attendance numbers keep increasing. Maybe you can talk to them about including promotional materials with their festival? I know it's several months ahead of yours.

 

One thing that does frustrate me about Cleveland is that I wish it were more of a creative mecca, more of a leader in the arts in general on a regional basis .. kinda like Portland or Austin are. It seems that this sector isn't quite as strong as it could be, and I wonder what the city could do to attract even more creative people in general to the city itself. That's obviously a broader question, but they're usually the ones with the interest in this type of filmmaking, and it would be so exciting to see this type of community expand and strengthen.

ok :)

 

Anyone with great technological skills want to volunteer/donate/dedicate their time, expertise and knowhow to a sassy lil indie film non-profit?  How 'bout become a Board Member?  Or, know someone who might want to do so?

 

:)

 

As I've noted to rocknroller earlier, I would LOVE to donate my services as a motion graphic designer/print graphic designer to your festival. I would love to get behind what you guys are doing and help in taking your festival to the next level in any way that I can. Unfortunately, I don't live in the city, but even from a long distance type of thing, I'd love to help in any way that I can, as long as my free time affords it. Please, by all means, if anything that I've done in terms of design work interests you and is along the lines of what you'd like, let me know if I can help you.

Hey, thanks jpop!  I saw your post earlier but wasn't sure if the offer was extended to us, too :)  If we can work something out long distance, maybe there are some possibilities!

 

And, regarding your above post:  hopefully Cleveland will continue to move forward in the arts arena....

 

Corporate sponsorships are a possibility  for sure, it's just a matter of knowing the right people to make the right connections for the right "amount" of sponsorship :) 

Yeah. I know, it's tough. But I would have to think that, with your connections at CPT (who hosts the festival, right?), they'd be able to help you in terms of connecting with corporate sponsors? I dunno.

 

In terms of my design aesthetic, I can send you a pdf of some print work I've done at school, and you can decide if it's along your lines. Please feel free to say no. I won't be offended in the least. I'd only like to work with you if you feel I'd be a good fit. Feel free to PM me with your e-mail address, and I can forward it to you.

Channel 13 in New York (WNET), our PBS station, started a great Saturday night film series at the beginning of the year—starting at 9:00 pm with a classic (read Hollywood) movie; then a short; and at approx. 11:00 pm an indie. This is perfect for a reclusive curmudgeon like myself.  Tonight, for example, they’re screening “Raising Victor Vargas,” a coming of age movie about a young Latino teenager on the Lower East Side that received much critical acclaim a few years ago.  Although a few weeks ago this series threatened to become a virtual Ellen Page Film Festival (around the same time she was nominated for an Oscar for “Juno”—and who knew this very young Canadian actress could have done so many movies already?!); it’s been pretty varied in content. Don’t know if any of this is available online to non-New York area viewers, but it’s worth the effort if possible. A warning: a couple of the hosts who introduce each segment are annoyingly pompous cultural elitists (something I strive for but can never truly attain), but fortunately they appear for only a minute or so (good time to take a bathroom break).

I .. LOVE .. this series. It actually makes me feel okay that I'm at home on a Saturday night. :) It's excellent.

 

Unfortunately, we're talking more about Cleveland, not so much NYC, where there's a more established audience for this sort of thing.

that PBS series sounds like a great idea, for sure.  i wonder if we'd (i.e. Cleveland) would ever be able to get something like that started here?  Or maybe on Time Warner OnDemand channel...  Probably at 3:30 AM :)

Isn't there an all Ohio cable channel? I don't know what their audience is like, so that might not be the greatest place to start, I dunno. But it's a thought?

 

Or maybe the festival can approach WVIZ about featuring them on the Applause show, at least?