From: Stephen Kent Jusick (email suppressed)
Date: Sat Aug 26 2006 - 15:27:27 PDT
Just to add to Freya's WAB comments:
I think Withoutabox is horrible and not really a useful tool for
experimental filmmakers or venues.
That said, I tried it this year the 19th MIX Festival, at the urging
of one of our board members. We also had PDFs available for download,
which allowed makers to bypass WAB.
All in all, I found WAB to be very unhelpful and unconcerned with
issues confronting experimental film, formats and issues. We're
working on our own electronic system that will allow makers to submit
to MIX in a paperless way, and will continue to allow regular paper
entry forms. Of the 400+ entries we received, only about 75 came
through WAB, although many were also titles that I solicited from
various distribution or production sources that don't fill out forms
of any kind.
WAB's fee structure is confusing, and the staff is not very
responsive or knowledgeable. They couldn't answer my question about
their fees and said they get back to me, but they never did, and that
was weeks ago. All in all, not good.
As for a common submisison form, I think that's what WAB is trying to
do. But for experimental venues, I don't see it working well. There
are so many format oddities, it would be hard to work out.
Some places care about more info than others. I didn't care about
production format, but now I do, and I want to be able to search
titles that are at least shot on film, even if they are not exhibited
on film, etc.
SKJ
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