The Festival Isn't the Goal, It's the Strategy: What I Taught at Fund Your Film 2.0

This past Saturday at Fund Your Film 2.0 in Oceanside, someone in the audience referred to me as the Film Festival Insider.

I smiled, because I didn't choose that name for my business to describe myself. I chose it for the person I used to be.

In my talk, I shared something I had never said out loud. When I started submitting my films, most festivals said no. The few that said yes felt like a win, and then I'd arrive, look around, and feel like everyone already knew each other. I wanted to belong. I wanted to feel like an insider.

So I kept going. I kept making films and going to festivals. I started volunteering for a festival, then programming, then helping organize it. After more than a decade on that side of the table, I had a long list of what worked, what didn't, and what filmmakers kept getting wrong. Too many of them were spending too much money to learn it the hard way.

It doesn't have to be that mysterious. That's why Film Festival Insider exists.

Here's what I walked the room through:

I gave them a case study filmmaker with three acceptances, all on the same weekend, and $1,000 left. One trip. Which festival do they attend?

The room split three ways, and that was the point. The best festival depends on the job you need it to do. Reach the right audience. Meet collaborators. Earn press and footage you can use later. Add a credential the right people will recognize. Or open one specific next door. 

Most filmmakers never name the job. They just chase the yes.

Then I took them to the other side of the table. A programmer isn't picking the best films one at a time. We're building a full program with a runtime, a tone, and a slate that has to balance. A strong film can still be the wrong piece for one program, and knowing that changes how you spend your submission fees.

 We ended with a sentence everyone wrote at the start, "My festival run will be successful if…", and rewrote it with one outcome, the people they needed to reach, and a result they could actually observe. The room went still and everyone wrote. Hearing how those answers changed from the beginning of the talk to the end was my favorite part.

Thank you to San Diego Media Pros for having me, and to the filmmakers who came out at every stage of their careers.

Where to go from here

If you want to start with your own FilmFreeway page, grab the free 20-point checklist. When you're ready to do a real overhaul of your FilmFreeway page, Freeway Fixr is the next step, and you can complete it in one afternoon.

Book me for your event

I'm taking this talk on the road, and more panels are coming. Stay tuned for announcements. If you're planning a festival, conference, or filmmaker event and want this in your room, email support@filmfestivalinsider.com.