Dancing the Film Festival Beat

In NZ we are really good at making films. The crews (you guys) are skilful, efficient, and practical. We have some really great producers and world-class directors. But the actual making of the film is only the beginning of the project. You must get people to actually watch it.

Hopefully by the time the film is made, the first step in selling it has already occurred. This first step is invariably the selling of the film rights to a sales agent. The price that is obtained for these rights is often a key component of the production budget for the film. The ‘price’ that is paid is actually an advance of the expected sales proceeds, so ultimately you have to pay it back once the film actually starts earning revenue. This is one of the functions of major film festivals – a market where producers with film projects (usually in the form of a script with talent attached) can meet with sales agents to do deals. I went to the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) the year before last with Ant Timpson seeking a sales agent for our film Turbo Kid. It’s a weird process. You go to a lot of meetings, sometimes in hotel rooms, sometimes in bars, sometimes in the industry area at the festival HQ and you try to sell your project to people who are mainly completely disinterested. Ant and I ended up making a good sale to Magnolia Films who were the top of our list (but who we subsequently had to replace due to a disagreement over cast).

The other main function of film festivals (particularly the A-list festivals: Berlin, Cannes, Toronto and Sundance) is to sell finished films. And it is for that reason that Ant and I ventured to Sundance in January this year.

Sundance is in Park City, Utah. A tiny ski town in the mountains at around 7,000 feet. It is stunningly beautiful. An old mining town with tree and snow covered mountains all around. It looks like a movie set. You can jump on a chairlift in the middle of the main street. The first few days I was there, it was 15 below zero (Celsius) in the middle of the day under a blue and cloudless sky

Here is what you need to survive Sundance. Warm clothes. More warm clothes. Some gloves. Shoes that can survive scrambling up steep banks covered in frozen snow in the early hours of the morning. Ear plugs (I shared a hotel room). Duty free whisky (all the beer in Utah is 3.4% alcohol by law and it is illegal for bars to serve doubles). Know someone with a car and driver (hello Taika!). These are the bare necessities for surviving Sundance.

Sundance is very different to TIFF and also to Fantastic Fest (a genre festival in Austin, Texas). Fantastic Fest (which I attended last year for the premiere of ABCs of Death 2) is all about the fans and having fun (although the industry is certainly well-represented there also. TIFF and Sundance are both A-list festivals, but with very different vibes. TIFF is very industry focussed and full of producers, sales agents, and distributors doing deals. Sundance has probably the same level of industry presence, but it is really focussed on the filmmakers (i.e. the directors). As a producer, you can feel slightly unwanted there. Robert Redford created it as a home for independent film, and as a place where filmmakers could celebrate their art free of the tedious demands of financiers and sales agents. The message from the top is all about “do what feels right, not what the money guys tell you to do!” Which of course is a beautiful sentiment, even if often unachievable. (Although I am happy to say that with our film, we really did allow the directors a pretty much free reign on creative decisions even when we didn’t agree, and they got to have final cut. Thank God because, as it turned out, and as we realised upon watching the film with an audience at Sundance, they were usually right and we were usually wrong.)

Although directors are treated like honoured family at Sundance, as an A-list festival it is of course full of sales agents and industry people. I would not recommend going there without a sales agent and more importantly a publicist (which will be arranged by the sales agent). You have a short time to be on the world stage with a lot of very influential people and media organisations around. You have to maximise that opportunity. You can’t just turn up and wing it. We had Katrina Wan (with two assistants) from Katrina Wan PR in LA and she was awesome. From a few weeks before the festival she is hounding the film team for publicity material and pushing it in every conceivable venue. She was relentless. And when she arrived at Park City she went into overdrive. Every conceivable media opportunity was hunted out and pursued. Every chance to get the directors and/or cast in front of a TV camera or print media journalist was identified and taken.

Apart from the screenings and private meetings, Sundance, like all festivals, is about the parties. Every premiere has an associated party. Every major sales agent, distributor, production company and funding body will host a party. The trick is to get invites to the best ones. And here you are on your own. You have to schmooze your way in. Or be hanging out with someone who is very well connected (hello Ant Timpson). You never know who you are going to bump into at these parties – it could be a producer who is looking for a co-pro partner, or it could be an actor for your next film (we met Michael Ironside at a party at TIFF and subsequently cast him as the lead baddie in Turbo Kid). I think it is really important to attend as many parties and functions as you can. More important than catching films (unless you are a festival programmer).

Meanwhile the real job of selling your film is (hopefully) being carried out by the sales agent. As well as the public screenings there are a number of Press and Industry (‘P & I’) screenings. These are purely for interested buyers and for reviewers. Filmmakers are not allowed. I’ve been to a number of these screenings at TIFF (when I wasn’t representing a film). They are interesting. People just get up and walk out after five minutes if they don’t like the look of it. Not many people stay to the end. They are not there to watch and enjoy the film. It’s purely business.

If you ever get the opportunity to go to major festival, grab it with both hands. Whatever your role in the film industry, it is an interesting and exhilarating experience.