Re: MEDIA CITY 13

From: owen (email suppressed)
Date: Sat Sep 09 2006 - 13:36:51 PDT


Hi,
To this point I'd like to add that I make short films, 10 seconds to
5 minutes in duration and I'd like to enter a few into multiple
festivals or series.
It gets expensive. I am lucky enough to be able to afford to pay
entry fees. But I pity the strapped film maker that makes very short
experimental films and is prolific and wishes to have them screened
outside of her circle of friends.
owen

On Sep 9, 2006, at 4:16 PM, 40 Frames wrote:

>> It is great what Media City is and can do, but let's not forget that
>> they've got the deep pockets of the Canadian government to make this
>> possible. For those of us struggling to run festivals stateside,
>> it's really not as simple as waving a magic wand & doing away with
>> entry fees. (My fest, FLEX, only charges $10, and is free for alums
>> & foreign entries.) As has been pointed out here before, none of us
>> are doing this in order to fleece the filmmakers. Most of us are
>> filmmakers. And most of us hate entry fees as much as you do. But
>> in the absence of generous government and/or institutional subsidies,
>> they may be necessary.
>>
>> 2 cents,
>> Roger
>
>
>
> Roger,
>
> I appreciate your comments, and certainly understand the
> sentiment,though
> I have to say I still disagree....just one of those dividing
> subjects I
> suppose, and not necessarily something we have to agree on.
>
> That films get shown is indeed very important. I would just prefer
> to see
> that more barriers to showing films get eliminated for filmmakers. A
> festival is thinking about their costs, meanwhile the filmmaker (if
> submitting work to festivals with fees) has to cough up a considerable
> amount.
>
> Let's say everyone charged as little as your festival, $10. If one is
> submitting to let's say 50 different festivals that's $500, and
> were just
> talking submission fees, not shipping costs (which many festivals
> aren't
> covering), and the fact that the festival is not returning tapes/DVDs
> which means the filmmaker has to pay more in duplication costs
> since the
> festivals don't allow for bicycling tapes/DVDs. (Who knows perhaps
> in the
> near future filmmakers will be delivering AV files instead tapes/
> DVDs, but
> there's other issue regarding this process, such as unauthorized
> duplication and distribution.)
>
> There does remain the option for a filmmaker to make a formal
> request (by
> phone, email, snail mail) to have the fee waived, but this seems to me
> another barrier and the amount of time one would need to devote to
> this
> project stacks up when looking at the total number of submissions.
>
> I'm not saying it's easy here in the States, and certainly Canada
> has some
> amenities that are hard to come by for artists living/working in
> the U.S.
> (Oregon in particular has very little opportunities for filmmakers,
> and
> the Oregon Arts Commission does NOT even recognize filmmaking as an
> artform worthy of funding at the State level), but I think its
> important
> to look at other perspectives, particularly the filmmaking side. If
> funding existed for filmmakers at the local or state level, and was a
> reasonable amount (our regional arts council barely provides enough to
> cover project costs, forget about paying yourself), then paying small
> festival submission fees may not seem like such a big deal.
>
>
> Regards,
> Alain
>
>
>
>
>> On Sep 9, 2006, at 4:06 AM, 40 Frames wrote:
>>
>>>> CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS
>>>>
>>>> MEDIA CITY, INTERNATIONAL FESTIVAL OF EXPERIMENTAL FILM & VIDEO ART
>>>> WINDSOR, ONTARIO, CANADA
>>>>
>>>> Media City is seeking submissions for its thirteenth edition,
>>>> February 13-17, 2007
>>>>
>>>> Entry deadline: November 24, 2006
>>>>
>>>> Absolutely no entry fees!
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> Brilliant! Perhaps others should take cues....no entry fees.
>>>
>>>
>>> Alain
>
>
> ================
> 40 FRAMES
> Alain LeTourneau
> Pamela Minty
> 425 SE 3rd, #400
> Portland, OR 97214
> United States
>
> +1 503 231 6548
> Skype ID: frames40
> email suppressed
> http://www.40frames.org
>
>
> __________________________________________________________________
> For info on FrameWorks, contact Pip Chodorov at <email suppressed>.

__________________________________________________________________
For info on FrameWorks, contact Pip Chodorov at <email suppressed>.