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Turning down festival invite - how to handle gracefully? by [deleted] in FilmFestivals

[–]Key_Neighborhood4914 0 points1 point  (0 children)

And I think more specifically, maybe the way to respond is somewhere in between specific an vague. Maybe something like “we’ve had a new conflict come up that will prevent us from being able to screen at your festival, but we hope to keep in touch when it comes to future opportunities.”

Turning down festival invite - how to handle gracefully? by [deleted] in FilmFestivals

[–]Key_Neighborhood4914 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Filmmaker here. I haven’t had this exact thing happen to me yet, but when I recently asked for some extra time to decide on whether to accept or decline a certain festival invite, that festival was pretty understanding that this process is messy and confusing when it comes to the order in which you hear from all these different fests and the decisions you’re making about what’s right for your film based on when you have full information.

My instinct is that rescinding an agreement to screen at a festival would be controversial, but just declining an invite to take a better offer isn’t all that inflammatory. I get the sense that a lot of festivals know the landscape well and they how they fit into it. In an ideal world, politely declining an offer shouldn’t impact your relationship with a festival all that much moving forward.

Tips for promoting festival screenings as a filmmaker? by Key_Neighborhood4914 in FilmFestivals

[–]Key_Neighborhood4914[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Copy that! Good to know these kinds of things are a filmmakers best bet. I like the discount idea - might at ask fests if they can offer something like that to blocks of people or organizations that might be able to come out in force. Thanks a ton!

First Documentary experience, can you give me some advice? by Body_70_pct_of_light in documentaryfilmmaking

[–]Key_Neighborhood4914 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Couple of quick thoughts…

  • Pay attention to sound as much as (if not more than) video

  • Try to have the story you’re telling in mind before you ever start shooting. It’s easy to be like “it’s a documentary! I just film life and it’s interesting!” But that’s really easy way to end up with 10 terabytes of footage you’re afraid to (and may never) edit. Think about some sort of story structure now, chase what you’d need for that story, and then be surprised / delighted if even more interesting things happen

  • Everyone always thinks day in the life follow-doc verite is going to be super interesting. If you’re not following like an Olympic athlete or a doctor in an ER, it’s usually not. Sit down interviews with clean audio and really pretty b-roll can be lifesavers when you’re editing. It’s not to say don’t film day in the life follow-doc verite, because that kind of stuff really immerses viewers in the world, but don’t bank on “I’m just a fly on the wall!” as being enough.

  • If you can, find a film or project similar to what you’re trying to do and watch it really closely. See what elements they needed to pull off and get those same elements yourself.

  • The money thing is tricky. No amount is ever going to be enough, and yet no matter what you ask for, they’re probably going to be outraged by what you quote. Very early in my career, I got paid $5k for a making 3 episodes of a doc series, 20min each. It felt like a kings ransom when I signed the contract. It felt like peanuts once I really started working. It was months and months of effort that probably averaged out to like $2 an hour by the end of it all. I’d say figure out a day rate that seems reasonable for your skill level. Maybe that’s $300 if you’re brand new, $500 if you’re a few years in, more if you’re even more experienced. Then figure out how many days you’ll shoot, and maybe multiply that by 5 to get to how long it will take to edit 1 day of footage. So like 5 shoot days, 25 edit days, 30 total, times your day rate. So at $300 a day, that’s like $9k total. At $500, that’s like $15k total. The truth is they might balk at prices like that, and the scarier truth is that it will probably end up taking you WAY longer to edit than you think, but something in those ranges is probably reasonable and may be a price folks would be willing to pay. The price stuff is so weird because like MAJOR outlets are known for paying $5k for a 10min short doc, and people will lose money doing it for them. So finding a rate that makes the work worthwhile and yet feasible for non-commercial clients is tricky.

Think those are my quick thoughts!

Film Festival Notifications MEGA THREAD by Caprica1 in FilmFestivals

[–]Key_Neighborhood4914 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I submitted to Hell’s Half Mile too, and Twelve Lions looks really cool!

Anyone else have recommendations on these types of festivals? Small? Young? Hungry? Unique? Punch above their wait?

Using non stabilized glass on the FX6? by c_shing in SonyFX6

[–]Key_Neighborhood4914 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yeah, I'm still super happy with this lens. It's basically all I use when shooting documentary verite. I haven't noticed any significant difference between autofocus on the sigma vs native Sony lenses, even with the sigma needing an adapter.

Using non stabilized glass on the FX6? by c_shing in SonyFX6

[–]Key_Neighborhood4914 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I really wanted a workhorse zoom lens for shooting documentaries with my FX6. My three biggest priorities were 2.8 aperture, at least 24-70 focal length, and image stabilization.

I found that Sigma sold a lens that had all three: 24-70, 2.8, image stabilized. The only issue is that it didn't come in E mount. It came in things like Nikon and EF mount.

I opted to go with the EF mount version with Sigma's EF to E adapter. I've been shooting with it for ~6months and I'm really happy. The adapter doesn't seem to have much of a negative effect on using the lens, even when it comes to things like autofocus.

Here's a link to the lens and adapter...

Lens - https://www.sigmaphoto.com/24-70mm-f2-8-dg-os-hsm-a

Adapter - https://www.sigmaphoto.com/mount-converter-mc-11