From: atrowbri (email suppressed)
Date: Sun Jun 14 2009 - 20:17:12 PDT
I'm responding late to this (for the internet 11 days is late) but I
find it totally inexcusable to fail to respond to people who send you
work (unless you did try to respond to everyone and simply missed
someone through an error).
I'm relatively inexperienced in this but in 2005 we put together the
Polymer show for the Hunter Museum of American Art. I am still
ambiguous about having charged money for submissions. It was only $15,
we had NO other budget, and the money went towards costs and
programming, but I still feel a bit ashamed of having done so. It was
sort of disturbing how quickly and easily we raised over $1000 in
doing so. I cannot even imagine the sums that the big "experimental"
film festivals make. (Not to pick on anyone, but how much does
[redacted] Underground Film Festival rake in? I've gotten a huge
number of reminders from them this year. Send us your work, big city,
$35!!!) So the charging money part, which I defended here in the past,
really alienates me now. Charging money to artists hoping to connect
to people? Charging ARTISTS who just need to score lines on a CV in
hopes of making a living in academia because ways of living as an
artist are slim? Charging artists to maybe show their work? It's
pretty vile. I only paid a few entry fees since then and stopped
completely within a year of that. I apologize to anyone here who we
charged, whether we showed your work or not. Ultimately I'd say refuse
to pay anyone, ever, for any reason, to show your work. Yes, there are
some good shows you can score with but ultimately the best location
for your work will be those venues that WANT to see new work, who
understand that the PRIVILEGE of seeing new work is paid by watching
the many, many mediocre or bad works that are submitted. Thank you to
every festival that's reviewed my work, whether you showed it or not,
without trying to take my money. I know the counterarguments about
time and effort, cost of putting something together, etc and I reject
them. The second showing of Polymer was all curated from work we saw,
scouted on youtube, friends we knew and it didn't feel gross at all. I
specifically sought out work from people I respected or knew would
benefit from a show. I hope to re-implement open calls, no fees, for
the next show and see even more work. (And if it's terrible in the
first 30 seconds? I can shut it off without feeling someone paid me to
watch it.)
So, back on topic, if you ask something of EVERYONE you owe a response
to everyone who responds. If not, you are rude and deserve the
reputation to cultivate.
Love,
Adam
On Wed, Jun 3, 2009 at 8:01 AM, Caryn Cline<email suppressed> wrote:
> Dear Frameworkers,
>
> I’m submitting my experimental films to festivals again, after a hiatus of
> several years. When I submitted before, in the early 2000s, I always
> received a response from the festival, whether my work was accepted or
> rejected. Now, I find that festivals that reject my work rarely contact me
> at all.
>
> I wonder why this is the case? I’ve paid a fee to enter, usually, and it
> seems to me that the very least the programmers, or their interns, can do is
> to send me a form letter letting me know that my work didn’t make the cut.
> It would be even better to receive a thoughtful response with some feedback
> about my work. I realize that programmers often have a lot of entries to
> view and judge, but shouldn’t a response, even a canned response, to each
> and every filmmaker, be a standard of professional courtesy?
>
> I know that there are curators and programmers on this list. I will
> appreciate hearing their perspectives, as well as those of other
> filmmakers. I would also be interested to hear about festivals that do
> respond to all applicants.
>
> Thank you,
>
> Caryn Cline
> New York City
>
>
>
> __________________________________________________________________ For info
> on FrameWorks, contact Pip Chodorov at <email suppressed>.
-- Adam Trowbridge www.atrowbri.com www.snstncntnrs.org www.tw-co.com __________________________________________________________________ For info on FrameWorks, contact Pip Chodorov at <email suppressed>.