Perspectives on Filmmaking, ep 4 – Are Film Festivals Still Relevant?

by Nino LeitnerOctober 16^th, 2017

cinema5D together with Olympus Europe is proud to present the 4th out of six episodes of “Perspectives on Filmmaking”. A discussion between leading filmmakers who endorse working with compact tools in their film productions. This time: Are film festivals still relevant, and how can you find your audience? 

In case you missed the first episode, please watch it by clicking here, the 2nd one here and the 3rd one here.

Finding an Audience for Your Films

In the beginning we are talking about how to actually find an audience for your films in this day and age – is it not enough anymore to be a good filmmaker, what do we (filmmakers) have to do to stick out of the crowd.

Noaz Deshe thinks that good content – if you do your best – will find its audience automatically. Dirk Wilutzky says mass audiences aren’t important – it should just find the audience it’s intended for, and you can help by making the best film you can. He thinks that surrounding structures should do the marketing work, filmmakers should be able to focus on the filmmaking alone. Noaz thinks the film needs to “get his own life” and be good enough to take care of itself, through word-of-mouth and other measures. He says crowd sourcing in dangerous, because you show something in a very sensitive time when it’s probably not ready to be presented – to which Dirk replies that you don’t actually have to be honest about your final product when looking for crowd funding, you can always alter your plan and make something differently.

Dirk thinks there is a lack of education for people who want to go into marketing for films, and there should be universities specialized on that.

Jannes Amunet chimes in and says that passion is addictive, and that this passion that you radiate when making your film can radiate to your audience and excite the audience about that.

Are Film Festivals Still Relevant?

I raised the question if film festivals are still relevant – and if they aren’t actually preventing the film to be seen by a mass audience because often films can’t be online or available for people to see while they are still in the festival loop.

Noaz replies that a film will “tell you” where it wants to be seen, and that it often is kind of clear where the film will end up ideally and find its audience.

Putting Your Work Online

We talk about how Vimeo offers the an incredible amount of great filmmaking work for everyone to see, and so much inspiration. Janne mentions the “fear of rejection” that filmmakers often have, and he himself has, because he is a perfectionist. And that’s why a lot of people actually don’t put their work online, which in my opinion is a mistake. There are countless ways in which “free” passion projects that I put online in my career have let to big jobs and other shoots, connections and people that I would otherwise never have met.

It’s a classical example of gaining more through sharing.

In next week’s episode, we will be talking about whether technology is more enabling or more preventing from creating content in new ways.