Where can High School kids submit short film for competition/awards?

[Leslie Wand]

telling us what country are you in might be a start?

in australia there’s any number of comps that can be found simply by looking film comps up on the net…

leslie

[Dave Petteruto]

Well Duhh!!! Your right!!! It would have been helpful if I would have told you that I reside in the U.S.A. Southern Califorinia to be exact!

[Michael Morone]

I recently had to decide what film festivals to submit my film to (also a student film). I was lucky though, and the people I was working with knew a lot about the business. However, they used a book called “The Ultimate Film Festival Survival Guide”. It is a few years old, but it helped them and me decide which ones would be good choices. I also suggest just searching the internet for film festivals. I am sure that there are some local ones relatively nearby.

Depending on how good the film is, you can try for different tier film festivals. Through books, websites, and the film festivals themselves, I think you should be able to find one that works. If the film is REALLY good, then don’t be afraid to submit it to a top film festival. The worst that could happen is that it gets rejected and you lose 30 bucks.

Just some tips on this process: I really suggest that you (or the students) call the film festival that you plan on submitting to. You should probably ask to speak with the program director, and you can ask whether or not they have seen your film (assuming that you submitted it). You should try and emphasize that fact that this is a STUDENT film, and that it is a GOOD STUDENT film, because that’s something different and special that makes the film stand out. The film festivals would be more willing to accept it with this in mind. Also, if it’s true, and the film festival is nearby, don’t forget to mention that you will try to get as many people as possible to support the film if it is accepted. There are so many films that these film festivals watch; you want to find some way to make this one stick out.

Good luck in your search and I hope that the film gets selected.

Michael M.

PS- It’s always nice to know more about the FF than what you can research, so I don’t want this post to end this thread. Is there anyone who has any knowledge and any suggestions as to which ones are good ones to submit to?

[Dave Petteruto]

Michael,
Thanks for all the info. I really appreciate the time you took to give me a very in-depth answer. I think that the film the students made is pretty good, the only worry that I have is that since it was done for a high school assembly (not with competition in mind), the students were not worried about copyright issues that go along with using music. They used a pretty popular theme song in the movie and I don’t know if that would raise issues if they were to enter the film into any competitions. Does anyone have any thoughts on this?

Thanks
Dave P.

[Gary Kleiner]

[dpetto] “They used a pretty popular theme song in the movie and I don’t know if that would raise issues if they were to enter the film into any competitions.”

I expect that would be a big problem in most situtations.

Gary Kleiner

Learn Vegas and DVD Architect

http://www.VegasTrainingAndTools.com