The other day I saw a post on Craigslist looking for music videos to submit to a film festival with NO ENTRY FEE!!! Those of you that don’t make films may not know that for nearly every film submitted to most film festivals in the world, the filmmaker must pay between $25-$60 just to have it watched. That’s on top of the cost to print a DVD or Blu-ray and ship it to the festival. Then they decide whether it’s good enough to be screened. THEN you pay to print even more copies, ship those, along with printed materials for their use to promote in-festival AND materials like postcards and posters for your own promotion of that specific screening. Multiple festivals means BIG money the filmmaker has to fork over. Just think of how much Sundance raked in last year with THOUSANDS submitted (over 7,500 short films alone…). As you can see, a FREE SUBMISSION means a lot.

“Pale Blue Dot” Q&A with Joe Roy III

I submitted “Pale Blue Dot” through the ad and got a response about 24 hours later. They loved it and wanted to show it. Immediately. The festival itself, The Unexpected Film & Arts Festival, is a weekly showcase of short films and music videos hosted at the Karma Lounge in L.A. My video was selected for the January 30th screening. The cozy little bar projected “Pale Blue Dot” along with 4 other shorts for the patrons, filmmakers, casts, and crews followed by a Q&A with each director. This was my first Q&A, and I was a bit nervous… At the time, I thought my answers were pretty good considering my nerves. Looking back, I think I rambled on far too long. Following the screenings, the singer of one of the other music videos – the incredibly talented L’Marco (as seen on “Duets” alongside Robin Thicke) performed his versions of songs by Kimbra and Beyonce. Stand-up comedy rounded out the night. I did have to take off before the comedians wrapped, but all in all had a phenomenal night celebrating art! I left inspired too. I honestly can’t wait to submit again… hopefully next time with a dramatic short film – something that I’ve been itching to do for a while. If you live in the L.A. area, have a look at Unexpected’s site and visit some Wednesday night… And get the Karma fries! I will keep you in the loop if I get in there again. For the most up-to-date info on my screenings, follow my Twitter and Facebook pages!