Resumen del análisis cualitativo de arvenses

A SHORT HISTORY OF SHORT FILM AT THE SUNDANCE FILM FESTIVAL

I would be remiss if I didn’t offer up a little background on how the shorts department at Sundance came to be, since my work there helped provide a lot of what I’ve learned about short films.

When John Cooper, Director of Programming, Sundance Film Festival and Director of Creative Initiatives, Sundance In-stitute, first started programming at Sundance in 1989, the shorts department consisted of a lonely box of videotapes sitting off to the side. He was told, “Watch them. See if you can make a program out of it.” He did, and the Sundance shorts program was launched.

Cooper, Sundance, and hundreds of filmmakers lucked out in 1989, as the likes of Todd Haynes, Alexander Payne, and David O. Russell were in that lonely box.

Cooper convinced agents at the larger talent agencies to come to the shorts program, which provided those filmmakers with the audience that could jump-start their careers. By 1999 Cooper,

after watching over a thousand shorts submissions annually, passed the torch to Senior Programmer Trevor Groth.

ONLINE FILM FESTIVAL

Cooper explained to me how the dot -com extravaganza truly pushed short film forward by way of providing a medium for the message. Then, as we all saw, the dot -com arena bottomed out.

Now the Internet needed content—free content—and this pro-vided Sundance programmers the opportunity to ramp up short film exposure both at the fest and online. Under the powerhouse energies of Joseph (Joe) Beyer, John Cooper, and the rest of the programming team, the Sundance Online Film Festival became an instant success.

Initially, shorts that played online were selected by Senior Pro-grammers Shari Frilot and Trevor Groth exclusively for online viewing, not to screen in the festival live. That quickly changed and the selections from the larger pool were screened live (in Park City and Salt Lake City) by the shorts programmers (Mike Plante and myself) and Trevor Groth. In the beginning, Joe researched and found top-notch partners and other technological support groups that took a filmmaker’s master, encoded it (with unbeliev-able precision), and uploaded it to a masterfully designed Web page. Now filmmakers could enjoy an audience of not just the sev-eral hundred people at the festival, but hundreds of thousands worldwide. Now, in partnership with iTunes, every short film-maker selected for Sundance has the opportunity to be part of the digital revolution. And for the global audience, for $1.99 per down-load, you could watch most short films that were playing at Sun-dance pretty much while they were playing at SunSun-dance.

In its first year there were 10,000 downloads and by 2006 that number jumped to over 1 million. In 2008 it was an as-tounding 2.5 million streams served from www .sundance .org.

Joe Beyer shares:

“I think it was a perfect storm of a moment in time that first year we served up the same short film program as the Festi-val in Park City, it was a ‘Duh’ moment . . . like, why hadn’t we done this sooner? The first five years, all we dealt with was video quality issues with filmmakers who were scared about the ‘look and feel’ of the video, and why not? It wasn’t that great in the beginning. Boom, Flash Video came along and now all we respond to are filmmakers who want larger and wider online exposure. All this happened literally over-night. What probably moved us most was seeing the shift completed, seeing the power truly turn away from the estab-lishment and into this independent realm. We always noted while it was happening that it was probably the single most exciting time to be working in shorts. It wasn’t that easy to be playing this game in the beginning, but our whole pro-gramming team was behind it, and that made all the differ-ence to getting it out there and getting it done for the filmmakers. From the moment I was hired at Sundance it was clear to me that this was a programming team that truly believed in the short form and we all did everything to bring short films into the forefront.”

Which leads me to . . .

WHY YOU SHOULDN’T CARE IF YOUR FILM GETS INTO SUNDANCE

I know. You’re thinking I’m crazy to tell you not to worry about getting your film into what is considered the Holy Grail of film festivals. Not at all. Even when I was programming at Sundance I was always telling filmmakers this very salient fact: If less than 2% of all submissions are selected in the shorts department, does that mean every one of the 98% that weren’t chosen was bad? Of course not. Many filmmakers I talk to think that if they

don’t get into Sundance their career (the one they’re just start-ing) is over. That’s ridiculous. There are hundreds of film festi-vals all over the world where your short would receive exceptional exposure (sometimes greater than at Sundance, where the press and industry folk tend to be focused on features). [John] Cooper shares:

“If you don’t get into Sundance, don’t give up. Treat yourself with respect. Keep hold of that self-respect and see if you can go to the mid-level, or the regional level festivals. People who go to mid-level film festivals can still be discovered. You don’t need everybody to adore you. You need one person to believe in you who has money or power to take you to the next step, and that’s all it takes.”

While they might exist, I do not know a more prolific filmmaker than Kevin Everson. He’s made three features and more than fifty short films in twelve years. His films have screened at such prestigious fests as Berlinale, Rotterdam, Sundance, and been included in galleries all over the world (MOMA, Wurttenbergis-cher Kunstverein, Stuttgart, Germany, the Whitney). And when he’s not making films he’s teaching students how to make them as an Associate Professor of Art at the University of Viginia.

Kevin breaks down how he looks at getting into Sundance or not:

“Sure, it does make your year. But we’re [experimental film-makers] gutter filmmakers. We’re avant-gutter [laughs], we’re happy to show our films anywhere. I have about three shorts a year, so either one of those will get into Sundance and another will get into somewhere else like Rotterdam. I just keep makin’ ’em and you all keep showin’ ’em [laughs].

People can say, ‘Oh hell, he’s a Sundance filmmaker . . .”

[laughs]. I always push stuff at Sundance because I know

you guys, and you’ve been supportive, but forget about the Hollywood hype bullshit at Sundance, because to me, it’s just like being in the New York Underground. It’s the same shit I see all year long. It starts at Sundance and it ends in Texas [at Cinematexas Film Festival]. Just get your work out there and it’ll all take care of itself.”

Think about it. If your film gets into a smaller festival, the local press is very supportive of it and they want to talk to all the film-makers. A festival where you can be a big fish in a small pond, maybe even win an award or two along the way, have the time and space to beef up your filmmaker network, and grab audi-ence e-mails (remember what Tiffany said, “Your e-mail list is your gold.”). While I was in New York City recently, I had the pleasure to meet with Denise Kassell. Denise was the director of the Hampton Film Festival for six years, and is a well respected programmer and film festival consultant (www .filmfestconsult ing. com). Denise was happy to share her wisdom:

“I think it depends on what your mission is. At Sundance, especially in terms of shorts, the programmers can get any films they want. Because they have that reputation and ev-erybody goes there and it’s a magnet, the grande dame of cinema. The question is, why are we making and distribut-ing films? It’s the same thdistribut-ing in terms of political action: Do you always preach to the converted? Will it have an effect?

Or do you preach to the unconverted, and will that give you a greater effect? I think it does. So in terms of personal work, getting shorts out to the communities, there’s some-thing very rewarding about having a small effect or a re-gional effect, and getting people that would not necessarily see these films to see these films. Also, the little gem is maybe overlooked at a bigger festival, because they think it’s so far beyond them that they never even get there. So there’s

something that happens on a regional level or a local level, and these people don’t even think of going to Sundance, and that’s an amazing service to be doing for the public. And for the filmmaker.”

While Sundance is seen as the most prestigious domestic fes-tival for short filmmakers, outside of the U.S. it’s Clermont-Fer-rand. CF happens every February in Clermont-Ferrand, France.

Their market is attended by some of the top buyers, distributors, and festival programmers internationally. There is no entry fee;

they show approximately 190 films, of which fewer than 25 come from North America. The average number of submis-sions they receive is close to 6,000 (1,200 French and 4,800 international)—a bit more than Sundance. Laurent Crouzeix has programmed for CF for over ten years. He gives us an over-view:

“We have three competitions and there is a selection com-mittee of about ten people for each. The films are shared between groups of two programmers who view the films.

This means that each film submitted to Clermont-Ferrand is seen by at least two programmers. All the films that have been viewed by all members of the committee are then dis-cussed to choose the ones that are going to be selected. It is a very democratic process. Some choices are easy, but for others discussions can become tense. The organization of the festival rests on collective decision, and so does the se-lection. For international entries, less than 10% of the films submitted make it to the final round of discussions. Yet a number of films that may not make it to the selection can actually be picked up for other programs, like children’s pro-grams for instance. Some eventually make it to a special thematic or regional retrospective years later. You never know . . .”

But what I think is one of the best things about Clermont-Ferrand for filmmakers is their incredible market. Whether you are selected for their festival or not, your film is uploaded into their digital marketplace. Rows of computers are available for anyone to view your film during the festival. You are given the opportunity to target buyers or programmers you know will be in attendance to watch your film at the market—it’s an opportu-nity not to be missed.

Other notable short film festivals that are outstanding are Oberhausen (Germany), Ottawa International Animation Festi-val, and the São Paulo Short Film Festival (Brazil). These are festivals that step way outside the mainstream box while still programming mainstream work. For experimental filmmakers these festivals (and there are many others—you gotta sign up with Withoutabox!) offer a world of choices.

SUBMISSIONS —PLE ASE , LOSE THE HIGH-TECH DVD CASE

The first thing every smart filmmaker does is register at www . withoutabox .com, which is an awesome site dedicated to inde-pendent filmmakers and the festivals that showcase them. And every first-time filmmaker I’ve talked to over the years stresses about what the festival programmers think: about their DVD case, their glossy cover photograph, their professional-looking poster-style credits, and their exquisitely worded press release on the back flap.

Please. At the larger festivals (like Sundance) nobody sees that stuff except the submissions department, and they don’t care. Your DVD case is opened and put into DVD cases that hold around 200 DVDs each and then it is sent out to the shorts pro-grammers along with 199 other hopefuls. After the program-mers have watched it, it is returned to your expensive DVD case and shelved until decisions are made. Adam Montgomery,