Online fests with deep pockets
by Steven Rosen
As the $100,000 winner of the inaugural Doorpost Film Project contest - one of a growing number of websites using film-festival techniques to spur growth and interest - John Gray is a shocked and happy man.
After all, his winning short film “Before I Wake,” a sobering look at a man confronting his family’s tragic past in search of hope and healing, is only the second the Atlanta resident ever made. “When this opportunity arose, I decided to go for it,” Gray said. “I was thrust into this, and said if I drown I drown, but I’ll see if I can swim.”
Gray’s first film, “Freedom to Live,” made him one of the Doorpost contest’s 15 finalists from among 300 short-film submissions. They then had to make a second film in one weekend, helped by $17,500 in cash and equipment provided by Doorpost. The winner, along with $30,000 and $20,000 runner-ups, was announced this month in Nashville. The three were chosen through a weighted system that included online voters and a panel of judges.
Gray is an entertainer as well as youth/singles minister and youth choir director at his Baptist church. Raised in Cincinnati, he once toured with gospel performer Kirk Franklin and also worked for Tyler Perry Productions - Latisha Fortune, who has worked for Perry as a production/personal assistant, served as his producer. As part of his prize, Gray will get to meet with studio development executives. On his own, he’s also hoping for a meeting with Perry.
While it’s still a developing trend, Doorpost and such sites as Babelgum, Crackle, and HaydenFilms have been sponsoring shorts contests/festivals to boost exposure, elicit emerging filmmakers and acquire content.
Doorpost, which is funded by donors wishing to remain anonymous, aims to support an emerging community of “visionary” filmmakers. Its project director, Nathan Elliott, explains “visionary” as those who can “look inwardly through fresh eyes and ask, ‘Why am I a filmmaker? Why am I doing this?’” Doorpost’s online mission statement says it’s out to “aid the seeking of truth.” There will be another contest in 2009.
Babelgum, the European-based, advertising-supported free Internet TV site, this month had Spike Lee announce its second, 2009 Online Film Festival for shorts and medium-form films. For the first, online viewers voted for 10 finalists among 1,012 entries - a professional jury headed by Lee then selected winners from that shortlist. For the 2009 fest, there will be just four entry categories with individual awards, plus a 20,000 Euro Spike Lee Award, a 20,000 Euro Looking for Genius Award and a Professional Jury Award with an as-yet undetermined cash award.
Meanwhile an established organization, the Paley Center for Media, is coupling with MTV sketch-comedy team Human Giant on a contest for two-minute (or less) comedy shorts. Human Giant will judge the entries and the winners will by shown on Paley’s website during the Nov. 5-9 New York Comedy Festival.
Is all this activity good for shorts? Not everyone is sure. “It is important to remember that sometimes films that look ‘ok’ online do not hold up when presented on the big screen,” says Gloria Campbell, shorts curator for November’s Denver International Film Festival, in an E-mail. “There will always be the need to create films that are designed for the theater screen rather than the computer monitor. One concern is that often the online outlets appear to attract the ‘one-trick’ and/or surprise-ending stories rather than some of the more thoughtful, or longer length, shorts.”
Going a different route in terms of using film-festival techniques is the new SnagFilms, founded by entrepreneur/filmmaker Ted Leonsis (“Nanking”) to offer documentary filmmakers an ad-supported online site to distribute their feature films. It is coupling with next month’s Hamptons International Film Festival to simultaneously premiere the Robin Wright Penn-narrated “Haze,” about a fraternity death in Colorado.
And on Oct. 21, just after the conclusion of the Oct. 15-19 Hamptons festival, SnagFilms will stream one of its documentaries “The End of America,” based on Naomi Wolf’s book. SnagFilms is also offering a Hamptons Extra component online - presenting several of the documentaries that just missed the festival’s cut because it didn’t have slots or theaters to show them.
“The notion is that a festival has to work with a limited number of physical sites for screening,” says SnagFilms’ CEO, Rick Allen. “Also, people can’t come from all over to see the films they do show, so the audience is limited. Online provides the best answer.”
As the $100,000 winner of the inaugural Doorpost Film Project contest - one of a growing number of websites using film-festival techniques to spur growth and interest - John Gray is a shocked and happy man.
After all, his winning short film “Before I Wake,” a sobering look at a man confronting his family’s tragic past in search of hope and healing, is only the second the Atlanta resident ever made. “When this opportunity arose, I decided to go for it,” Gray said. “I was thrust into this, and said if I drown I drown, but I’ll see if I can swim.”
Gray’s first film, “Freedom to Live,” made him one of the Doorpost contest’s 15 finalists from among 300 short-film submissions. They then had to make a second film in one weekend, helped by $17,500 in cash and equipment provided by Doorpost. The winner, along with $30,000 and $20,000 runner-ups, was announced this month in Nashville. The three were chosen through a weighted system that included online voters and a panel of judges. Gray is an entertainer as well as youth/singles minister and youth choir director at his Baptist church. Raised in Cincinnati, he once toured with gospel performer Kirk Franklin and also worked for Tyler Perry Productions - Latisha Fortune, who has worked for Perry as a production/personal assistant, served as his producer. As part of his prize, Gray will get to meet with studio development executives. On his own, he’s also hoping for a meeting with Perry.
While it’s still a developing trend, Doorpost and such sites as Babelgum, Crackle, and HaydenFilms have been sponsoring shorts contests/festivals to boost exposure, elicit emerging filmmakers and acquire content.
Doorpost, which is funded by donors wishing to remain anonymous, aims to support an emerging community of “visionary” filmmakers. Its project director, Nathan Elliott, explains “visionary” as those who can “look inwardly through fresh eyes and ask, ‘Why am I a filmmaker? Why am I doing this?’” Doorpost’s online mission statement says it’s out to “aid the seeking of truth.” There will be another contest in 2009.
Babelgum, the European-based, advertising-supported free Internet TV site, this month had Spike Lee announce its second, 2009 Online Film Festival for shorts and medium-form films. For the first, online viewers voted for 10 finalists among 1,012 entries - a professional jury headed by Lee then selected winners from that shortlist. For the 2009 fest, there will be just four entry categories with individual awards, plus a 20,000 Euro Spike Lee Award, a 20,000 Euro Looking for Genius Award and a Professional Jury Award with an as-yet undetermined cash award.Meanwhile an established organization, the Paley Center for Media, is coupling with MTV sketch-comedy team Human Giant on a contest for two-minute (or less) comedy shorts. Human Giant will judge the entries and the winners will by shown on Paley’s website during the Nov. 5-9 New York Comedy Festival.
Is all this activity good for shorts? Not everyone is sure. “It is important to remember that sometimes films that look ‘ok’ online do not hold up when presented on the big screen,” says Gloria Campbell, shorts curator for November’s Denver International Film Festival, in an E-mail. “There will always be the need to create films that are designed for the theater screen rather than the computer monitor. One concern is that often the online outlets appear to attract the ‘one-trick’ and/or surprise-ending stories rather than some of the more thoughtful, or longer length, shorts.”
Going a different route in terms of using film-festival techniques is the new SnagFilms, founded by entrepreneur/filmmaker Ted Leonsis (“Nanking”) to offer documentary filmmakers an ad-supported online site to distribute their feature films. It is coupling with next month’s Hamptons International Film Festival to simultaneously premiere the Robin Wright Penn-narrated “Haze,” about a fraternity death in Colorado.
And on Oct. 21, just after the conclusion of the Oct. 15-19 Hamptons festival, SnagFilms will stream one of its documentaries “The End of America,” based on Naomi Wolf’s book. SnagFilms is also offering a Hamptons Extra component online - presenting several of the documentaries that just missed the festival’s cut because it didn’t have slots or theaters to show them.
“The notion is that a festival has to work with a limited number of physical sites for screening,” says SnagFilms’ CEO, Rick Allen. “Also, people can’t come from all over to see the films they do show, so the audience is limited. Online provides the best answer.”
Michael Jones is the film festival editor at Variety.com. 
Post a comment