Showing posts with label film freeway. Show all posts
Showing posts with label film freeway. Show all posts

Monday

DIY Film Festival Pushes Pause

Dear DIY Filmmakers.

Due to circumstances beyond our control, we've decided to suspend the film festival for this year. 

We're hunkering down and figuring out what we need to figure out, editing, re-editing and rethinking our master plan.

FIFTEEN YEARS!!!!



That's a long time. Older than most cars on the road.  Older than most studio executives' tenure. We've had successful Festival screenings across LA and Hollywood, from the Egyptian theater in Hollywood, to AFI and more often at the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel.


We've had a number of people go on to success from their DIY filmmaking roots, people who've gone on to direct feature films, commercials, television - and when they take the time to write to us, point out that we were part of their journey. Winning their first award sometimes puts them on a path they didn't think they could have made.



When "the cost of making a film is as much as a pencil and piece of paper, then we'll find true art."
  

So sayeth avante garde filmmaker Jean Cocteau.  
We appreciate the thought...


But at the moment, we're a completely online film festival, and shifting over to Film Freeway did not give us the same kind of exposure or simple access that the folks at WithoutABox did - which is not a complaint or criticism, just an observation...


In the past we've had contestants from across the globe; New Zealand, Australia, India, Nepal, Iran, Ukraine, Israel, France, Italy, Germany, England, Canada.. not to mention entries from across the US, from film school students to professionals (Thomas Dolby) who had a piece of work that didn't fit into any known category but was a "do it yourself" enterprise.


We applaud you filmmakers.  You made films about artists, films about composers, about ice cream addiction, comedies about life and death, full length features about murder, mayhem - sometimes made with friends and family, but all of the festival finalists and winners demonstrated examplary story telling skills. (Take a look at any of the films linked on this page - all of them worthy of notoriety and applause.)

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While we retool, rethink, and go forward, we encourage filmmakers to do the same. Retool, rethink - don't let fear of success stop anyone from doing what they were meant to be on the planet to do.  Scan through some of these posts, see if there's something that will inspire future artistic endeavors and dropping the fear of starting a film.




We'll catch you on the flipside. (Or later on this year once we figure out where to land this plane).


THANK YOU DIY FILMMAKERS! Until then...


From the folks who brought you the DIY Film Fest



Friday

Happy Holidays from the team at the DIY Film festival

Ho Ho Ho!

Hope you all are enjoying your holidays, or holidaze more accurately.  From cookies to chocolate, stuffing to being stuffed, it's a time of the year where we can all look back on where we thought we were going and whether we got there or not.

This was a year where the DIY Film Festival shifted out of WithoutABox website into Film Freeway. 


The jury is out, as they say, whether that will be an effective move.  We focus on do it yourself filmmaking and filmmakers, and have a history of highlighting some really interesting and different works that their creators have submitted to our festival.  As noted, we used to have screenings at the Egyptian in Hollywood - and eventually we found that our audience was mostly online, quite a few overseas and from around the globe.


We've highlighted film from around the globe; from Ukraine, from Syria, from Iran, from India, from Australia, New Zealand and all points inbetween.  It didn't make sense for us to invite filmmakers to come to Hollywood at their own expense - and because streaming services have become so advanced, we took the leap into the cyber world of film festivals.


We like to highlight stories from a variety of places, passions - and Pinnacle Editing systems has been instrumental in giving us packages to the award winners. But just making the film, finishing the film can be a reward in itself.  It takes a lot of time effort and help from others in order to finish a film - and we are aware of all that effort entails.

This is just one of many venues that people can submit their film to, one of many festivals to highlight the creative effort put into a work.  One never knows who is going to be inspired by doing so.



We can point to one of our festival winners who submitted a non synch sound film some years ago, a film without dialog, but was so powerful and moving that it won the festival.  That filmmaker reached out to us after the awards ceremony and said that he felt encouraged by the award, that despite having a good day job doing work in the film business for others, the encouragement and recognition gave him something else to consider and is now directing feature films and advertising.

We have seen other filmmakers make incredible pieces with special effects, with great acting, with comic twists and turns - but what they have in common is not that they made it with an eye to their wallet, but with an eye to their hearts.

Which is what we reflect on during the holiday season.  Giving gifts that come from the heart. And we at the DIY Film Fest like to point out that gifts can come in all sizes, including films that are
made from the heart, and when finished, folks are looking for a place to have their work highlighted.

We used to have people mail in DVDs - and now that WithoutaBox has disappeared, we may one day find a different method for receiving submissions. But for the time being we're using FilmFreeway to see how that goes.  We've been at this for 16 years, and the films themselves can be seen at the side of this page, or links to them can be found there.  

The goal? or the journey is the destination?


So anyone can see that we've been at this for awhile, and enjoy highlighting the best that DIY filmmaking can offer.


We are the only official DIY FILM FESTIVAL - a copyrighted concept - and we understand and appreciate that as a concept others may want to use that title to apply for their own work.  "Doing it yourself" is a concept that comes out of the age we live in, where "when the cost of filmmaking is as much as a pencil and a piece of paper, then we will have true art in film" (to paraphrase Jean Cocteau)... so we encourage everyone to do the thing that moves them, put that thing that moves them into a camera, and edit that thing that moves them into a film.


One doesn't need to submit a film to a festival in order to complete their mission - it's nice to be asked into Sundance, Toronto, or the Cannes Film Festival (among others) and depending upon the city, there are some really fun and life changing festivals to be part of.  


But there are also people reading this from around the globe, who may or may not be able to submit a film to those venues, and have found us instead.  So welcome to you!

In order to submit your film to our festival, follow the links to the side of the page. Or click here and click on "Submit." 

 Follow your dream, follow your passion, and follow your heart. Happy Holidays!

Wednesday

The DIY Film Festival joins Film Freeway!

Long live the DIY Filmmaker!



As mentioned, we've become a completely online film festival, and we are now in our 16th year!


Withoutabox has announced they're no longer going to be in the film festival business after the end of this season, so we will be migrating our festival to the FilmFreeway website to handle all submissions. Starting on June 1st, 2019, this will be our new address: https://filmfreeway.com/TheDIYFilmFestival


Meanwhile... we have a slate of films that have come in from around the globe, and we're very excited here at the DIY Film Festival to present them to you.


This is reminding everyone know that February is the last month to submit a film to our 2018 festival.  The absolute drop dead deadline is March 15th, 2019 - after that the finalists will be notified, and the winners announced after by the end of the month.

PREVIOUS WINNERS INCLUDE:



Pinnacle is our main sponsor, along with 
our sponsor: FILMHUB.COM (previously KinoNation) which has distribution via many online outlets!


It's been a thrill to see new films from across the planet - we've had features in from Pakistan, from Iran, from Israel, from Ukraine, from India, from China, from New Zealand, Australia, Canada... we've had students from across the globe submit films to the festival...

Some of the winners have gone on to fame, including a festival favorite Cody Blue Snider who is directing commercials and making his feature film debut.  He blew the festival crowd away with his first short "All That Remains" which was an early festival winner...



 and has gone on to make the amazing April Fools Day which is worth sharing as well.... (considered by some pundits as one of the best short comic film made; check it out below) (Our pal Cody Blue has also made a film about the water protectors at Standing Rock)



Fool's Day Directed by Cody Blue Snider from Delirio Films on Vimeo.


We at the DIY Film Festival support DIY filmmakers on all levels, and are eager to dive into the latest films that have arrived for us to present to you.

Rock on Filmmakers!!!