sex, lies and videotape was critically lauded when it premiered at Sundance in 1989 and went on to make an astonishing $24 million. Sundance films now make headlines long before their first screening, selling for amounts that make slv’s $1 million price tag seem paltry.

The same year Travelin’ Trains debuted, Rick Schmidt’s book Feature Filmmaking at Used-Car Prices seemed like a revelation. Its central tenet — that a feature film could be produced for less than $15,000 — was a radical concept. By 2004, inexpensive digital cameras and computer editing tools had prompted Schmidt to publish Extreme DV at Used-Car Prices: How to Write, Direct, Shoot, Edit, and Produce a Digital Video Feature for Less Than $3,000.

By the time Hadjii’s Somebodies debuted in 2006 at the renamed Sundance Film Festival, the film world and the festival circuit had seen radical changes. Web sites such as Ain’t It Cool News, Latino Review and Dark Horizons have eschewed established channels between studio and the press, instead infiltrating the studio process itself. In spite of the studios’ notorious reputation for an iron grip, these Web sites have been able to break stories at every step of the production process. They have confirmed and debunked reports of cast and crew changes within hours, even minutes. They have reviewed scripts before studios have given them the green light. They have even circumvented the test-screening process, giving their readers early reviews of films months before their theatrical release.

As for film festivals, the majors like Cannes and Berlin are still Cannes and Berlin. But the Sundance, to the consternation of its organizers, has become a commercial and marketing platform for the promotion of products as disparate as premium vodka and computer software.

However, with change comes new problems. Fifteen years ago, shepherding a film through the production process was a mysterious and miraculous endeavor undertaken by only the most dedicated. Putting a film in the can was a rare feat. Now kids shoot films on everything from cell phones to low-end DV cams and upload them to the web.

Filmmakers are using viral sites to experiment with serial storytelling.
As a result, filmmakers are finding legitimacy is a difficult currency to earn. For the indie production world, technology has become increasingly sophisticated, powerful and cheap. The barrier of entry into “independent film” has been lowered. Internet sites like Myspace and YouTube, along with the simplicity of e-mail, have empowered filmmakers to handle their own marketing and promotions. Home video markets in constant need of product have given writers and directors the room to reach under-served markets and genres once shunned by shortsighted distributors.

Also, the area is crowded. Many more films are produced on a consistent basis. Even as the Internet enables distribution and marketing, even as distributors buy more films for ancillary markets, filmmakers must fight for publicity.

These new opportunities and challenges have made festivals more important, not less. They are where movers and shakers make deals and form alliances; arenas that have fully embraced new technology and expanded their scope even to video games.

Trying to get Georgia filmmakers Eric Mofford, Hadjii, Jon Hill, Leigh Hill and Bret Wood in one location to talk about their festival experiences would have been an impossible task. So we talked with them individually and created a virtual conversation on various aspects of film festivals.

What is your experience with festival audiences?

Hadjii: You do what you want to do because it’s a statement, or the movie you wanted to make. Once that piece of work is done, the audience is going to determine whether it’s good or not. And it’s great to go to different cities and different regions and in some cases different countries, where you can see how your work touches people.

Mofford: Sometimes a festival screening is a good gauge. If you have a movie and if people at a festival have problems with your film, then [the problems] probably need to be examined. That’s the group most open to a film.

Bret Wood: There’s one thing that I never really got till recently. Psychopathia has just come out, and now I’m trying to finish this script for another film and I’m having writer’s block. You’ve got to start the whole machine up again because you’ve been working on this other film.

You take a film to a festival and you can feel the love. A very important, very undervalued part of the festival is the ego boost you get from it. A lot of the time it’s people who are excited about film, excited about genuinely independent film. And they’re excited about meeting and talking about film. There’s excitement, not only about your film, but also about other people’s film.

With so many films at festivals, does it hurt to have a gimmick?

Jon Hill: You have to have something. The problem with film festivals is there are so many films, and unless your film is just amazing, the audience probably won’t remember it, especially a short film. If the audience remembers the gimmick, they tie it into the film, and then they remember the film.

I came up with the name White Bitch Down and everyone was like, “Uh, that’s going to be a hard one to market. You’re kidding me, right?” But when you’re flipping through the seven-inch catalogue, are you going to remember My Grandmother’s Coffin or are you going to see White Bitch Down?

You are working on your career. What about opening doors for others?

Hadjii: I’ve watched independent films for a long time, I love seeing movies like Spike Lee’s School Daze. You see Lawrence Fishburne and Samuel L. Jackson who were in this movie long before they became who they are now. I’ve always wanted to do a movie —especially my first movie — with people who would go on to do great things, who would credit Somebodies as a movie that helped them get their start.

Should filmmakers have a game plan when they attend a festival?

Hadjii: The best piece of advice I got from an older filmmaker was to know what my next project was going to be before I went to the festival.

Jon Hill: When we started going to festivals we didn’t have that. We just started going to festivals and we had ideas, but we didn’t have another script that was almost locked.
You don’t have to have a script that’s locked. But it helps to have an idea that’s pretty solid, where you’ve worked out in your head what that storyline is. Sure enough that’s the first question on everyone’s mind: What are you doing next?

The first couple of festivals we went to, we had a few things going on but we didn’t have them as far along as we would like. So we just had to say hey we’ve got this going on. We didn’t feel that bad about it because we heard stories about people who just came in and totally made up stuff. They had nothing and they just made up projects on the fly.
Network, network, network. That’s the advice most often given filmmakers.

What is your take on that?

Mofford: I think my career could have been different if I had gone to the festivals when Travelin’ Trains was playing. I did go to the Atlanta and Nashville festivals, because they were close. At the time, I didn’t even go to the festivals where I knew Travelin’ Trains had won beforehand, because of lack of funds. However, if your film plays at a festival, you should be there to make contacts, etc. If you’re not going to go to the festival it really isn’t worth entering in the first place.

Since then, with other projects, once I know my film is in a festival I’ve learned to send email blasts and make posters and post cards to promote an audience and then go to the festival to make connections and network for the film and for future projects.

Hadjii: The hardest thing for most filmmakers is getting access to the business, to the industry. For years for I was trying to get an agent, to get management, and no one was giving me the time of day. Once I got into Sundance and they put their stamp of approval on me, all of a sudden I’m meeting all types of people. People I’ve been dying to meet for several years. Sundance made it easier for me.

Leigh Hill: The contacts that you make are just so valuable. And you don’t know who you’re going to meet or who’s going to see your film. Someone could see your film and want it to be in their festival. The credibility a festival gives you as a filmmaker is so amazing. Along with the people you meet and the knowledge you can learn.

Jon Hill: When we got around to the Atlanta Film Festival with White Bitch Down they put me on the short film panel. What was cool was I got to sit next to three or four people who were doing really well with shorts. One of those was Kelly Devine from Independent Film Channel, their shorts acquisition person.

Can you talk about the community aspect of the festival experience?

Jon Hill: It’s such a networking thing. Even at the big film festivals you can tell who’s there BS-ing (sic) and you can tell who the filmmakers are, doing what they love. They’re the most down to earth people there. They’re free with their advice.

It’s just such a community. Everyone wants to see everyone else’s project done. For a short time you’re like this family on a film shoot. And then for a weekend at a festival you’re like a little family too. There were filmmakers we had met in the past and even though we didn’t get to see them at a festival, we knew their films were going to be at the same festivals. It’s just such community. It’s like a traveling carnival.

When I went to Sundance I had — I think it was the Sundance of 1992 — I had a lot of friends who had been involved with Ruby in Paradise. That film won the Grand Jury Prize that year. Because I had a lot of friends there, I got to go to a lot of good parties. It was fun and great. The next year I went to Sundance I didn’t know any of the filmmakers from the big films. I didn’t get into any of the good parties. This is not as much fun. It’s much more fun to be attached to a film that has buzz.

Hadjii: I never went to film school. The opportunity to talk to people who have been doing this for years, people who are doing this on a way higher level than me; I just try to be a sponge and soak up as much knowledge as possible. I’ve also gained a lot of friendships with these people, and I can call them up and ask them questions and they can walk me through things.

Jon Hill: I had a film show in the Homegrown portion of the Atlanta Film Festival. That’s where I was shooting segments for a television pilot. I didn’t think we were going to get in. So I didn’t do anything to get ready for it. Not posters or anything. So when we did White Bitch Down we did the posters, the t-shirts, buttons and all that.

Hadjii, what is your final thought on the festival experience?

Hadjii: The best thing a festival can do is to invite you out to their festival. But once you’re there everything is ultimately up to you. How you market and promote your film. How you use the Q&A’s to market and promote yourself. How you network and operate, that’s your responsibility. That’s not the festival’s job.

You’re up against a major machine. Hollywood is like a casino. It’s not designed for you to go in and win. That’s how it presents itself, because they want you to come and once you’re in they’re going to take you for everything you got. Festivals give you a certain amount of leverage. Even when it’s not much, it’s still leverage.

Legitimacy Above Chaos

Legend has it that Steven Spielberg jump-started his career by slipping away from a tour group at Universal Studios, converting a broom closet into a makeshift office and pretending to be a studio employee till he was given a real job.

But the true tale is that it was Spielberg’s 24 minute silent short Amblin that was the key to his film career. With a budget of $15,000, the short played the festival circuit, ultimately

winning an award at the 1969 Atlanta Film Festival.
From there Universal studios saw the film and Spielberg signed a seven-year contract with the television division of Universal. The rest of the story — filming The Duel, almost single handedly creating the modern blockbuster with Jaws, creating iconic films E.T., Raiders of the Lost Ark and Schindler’s List — has been woven into the fabric of Hollywood history. Talent aside, would Spielberg’s legendary career exist if Amblin had not played the festival circuit?

Over the years, marketing budgets for theatrical releases have ballooned. Multiplexes and home theaters have all but eradicated the art house theater. Yet in the wake of these changes, film festivals are still vital arenas where cinephiles and casual filmmakers can discover new works. They are still a realm in which the old school can still wow audiences and the new school can rewrite the rules.

Most importantly, festivals are the great equalizers, giving filmmakers around the world the opportunity to carve out their own path, their own destiny.