What I've Discovered about Film Festivals
At the end of this blog post, I am, for the first time ever, sharing my latest short film, BETWEEN THE MOUNTAINS, to celebrate its rejection from a film festival and my recent discovery about how okay that is.
To watch the movie, scroll down to the very bottom. If you’d like to read about my journey and learnings, keep reading.
Cheers to those of you who want to read on, though!
My Film Festival Journey
I’ll never forget the rush of excitement I felt when my first short film, NOT A BENCH, made it into the Klamath Independent Film Festival in 2015. Not only was it accepted, but it won the Grand Jury Prize, which I still have hanging on my bedroom wall to this day.
That was a very special and formative film experience for me, not only because the film’s lead actor, my co-star & close friend, Jimmy Dix, had passed away earlier that year, but also because it gave me hope that even though the movie was technically flawed and full of continuity errors that I had been able to create something that resonated with people so strongly. The film later won the audience choice award at the SOU Student Film Festival (which now has an award named after Jimmy) and it still plays regularly on Rogue Valley Community Television.
NOT A BENCH’s success remains in Ashland. Although I did submit it to a few different film festivals, it was never accepted anywhere else. I am okay with that. To me, although it was such a personal project and I love that people still get to see Jimmy’s face and acting talent from time to time, it was not my strongest film. I believe that I have grown much more as an artist and as a filmmaker. I have directed dozens of projects since then, including short horror films, a disturbing short thriller about a predatory photographer, a comedic web series about vampires, and a music video for a critically-acclaimed folk singer.
And yet, people still often tell me that NOT A BENCH was their favorite of my films, which leaves me with a sinking sort of feeling. While I’m grateful to have made such a lasting impact on people, I can’t help but feel like a “one hit wonder” on a very local level. It makes me think that the success of the movie had everything to do with the humorous script that Jimmy and I wrote and with me being a “quirky cute girl with purple hair,” and perhaps our chemistry. It leaves me with the feeling that the only people who care about me and what I have to say are locals in the Southern Oregon area, and only on the condition that I give them what they want to see — me being “cute and quirky,” rather than having anything to say.
That brings me to the topic of today’s post, BETWEEN THE MOUNTAINS, which I am releasing for the very first time in this blog post that you are currently reading.
Me winning the Audience Choice award at the SOU Student Film Festival in 2016 for NOT A BENCH.
A Movie that Shouldn’t Exist, But Hey, Here It Is Anyway
Now, BETWEEN THE MOUNTAINS is the very opposite of “deep.” I didn’t make this project on anybody’s behalf or because I had some grand statement to make. In fact, I didn’t even make this film with the intention of it being a film at all.
Originally, this 3:30 video that is now BETWEEN THE MOUNTAINS was supposed to be what was playing on the TV screen in my horror film, THE DIMINISHED (now in post-production). One of the lead characters, Tucker, was going to watch it on his TV screen at the very start of his drug-induced descent into madness. This video, which was meant to be an absurdist parody of TWIN PEAKS, was to launch what was going to be a 20-minute “TV sequence” akin to RICK & MORTY’s inter-dimensional cable. Dozens of actors were cast in this “TV sequence,” which was going to feature a disturbing Billy Mays parody, an unnerving sitcom, and two other follow-ups to the BETWEEN THE MOUNTAINS show.
However, due to various nightmarish circumstances that were mostly my fault and that I won’t go into here, THE DIMINISHED went through a huge overhaul. I had to cut 30+ pages of material in order to complete it as a short, rather than as a feature. I cannot even begin to tell you how painful that was for me. That “TV sequence” was pretty much entirely thrown out the window, and lots of actors who had been preparing to shoot their scenes were no longer in the movie.
BETWEEN THE MOUNTAINS was one of the only things I had gotten around to shooting, and is the only thing I shot that works as its own short film. When I discovered that I could edit it together in a way that made the movie it’s “own thing,” I was very excited.
Not only that, but after all of the stress of THE DIMINISHED, it was really freeing for me to be able to edit something that didn’t have so much weight on it. I got to play around with some new editing techniques, learn about 1980s color grading, and just… have fun.
But above all else, I thought this:
HOLY SMOKES, THIS IS A COMEDY? AND IT’S THREE AND A HALF MINUTES? THIS IS SOOOOOO GETTING INTO FILM FESTIVALS!
Because here’s the thing:
Film Festivals, when accepting short films, generally like them to be on the shorter side of short. For a long time, I would act in and even make my own short films that were longer than 15 minutes, only to hear of or experience film festivals turning them down. In almost every occurrence, some kind soul volunteering for the festival (usually someone I knew) would reach out to let me know that “you were so good in the movie / I really liked your movie but it was over 15 minutes long and we only have so much time in our shorts program. Next time, tell your friend who made it / remember to make a shorter film if you want it to make it into the program!”
So, with BETWEEN THE MOUNTAINS, I had a rare opportunity to not only go under the 15 minute mark, but go under it by a significant amount. I thought that it was a shoe-in for festivals everywhere. That it would get in just by being short enough to not be a hindrance to the film programming.
I was so confident about BETWEEN THE MOUNTAINS that I submitted it to dozens of film festivals.
So far, I have heard back from 4. With the exception of one film festival that upon closer review seems a bit sketchy, they all said “No thanks.”
Including, as of last night, the Klamath Film Festival. Where I won my first award for my first film all those years ago.
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HOWEVER, I’m not upset with Klamath or anybody on the board for not accepting BETWEEN THE MOUNTAINS. I know that most festivals have hundreds of films to get through, and that there are many factors that go into whether or not a film gets picked, especially for a shorts program. These things include whether or not a piece has the right “tone” or “theme” for their program, how it will play in combination with the other films they select, and personal preference.
BETWEEN THE MOUNTAINS is a wacky 1980s journey through three and a half minutes of trippy wildness. After all, it was literally created to kick off a bad trip! When I think about the nice folks over in Klamath, many of whom are probably older, have families, and weren’t prepared for the themes, I can certainly see why my weird little short didn’t fit in with what they were going for.
Which is one of the reasons I’m deciding not to make a big deal about entering this film into more festivals, and why I’m deciding to release it online.
Because, at the end of the day, I have to remind myself that I didn’t make this movie to be a film festival show pony. I didn’t make it to enter it into competitions. I made it because I could. And the fact that I have even three-minutes worth of material that survived from what was going to be one of my favorite parts of THE DIMINISHED is a miracle to me.
Plus, STRANGER THINGS just came out, and I’m sure some of you are suffering from withdrawals and need your 1980s-fix.
:)
One last thing though: I have some advice about entering into film festivals for those of you who are interested in doing that and don’t know where to start.
Film Festival Advice
Do your research! There are plenty of film festivals out there that are legit, but plenty more are just “entry fee collection services,” to quote my friend Ryan Niemi (whose drone shots you’re about to see in BETWEEN THE MOUNTAINS).
Just because you didn’t get accepted doesn’t mean your film is garbage. It truly doesn’t. There are so many wonderful films out there that film festivals have turned down. Again, it can be because of length, content, personal preference—it can even be because most filmmakers happened to submit comedies that year, but you submitted the one super-depressing drama. Your may have moved one of the volunteers watching it to tears—but because it wasn’t funny and they wanted to keep it light, they passed you up. It happens.
Just because you DID get accepted doesn’t mean your film is better than anyone else’s. Most “entry-fee collection service” festivals will accept anything and reward you with a vanity laurel. I have enough of those that I bet if I printed them all out, they’d cover an entire wall of my house. I’m sure there are people who do that, too. And even if the festival your film got into was legit, had a screening, and wasn’t just interested in your money, that doesn’t mean that “congratulations, your goose documentary made it in! You are hereby acknowledged as a better filmmaker than your friend Bob whose duck documentary didn’t make it in. You are hereby certified to be a jackass to him forever because you are a certified™ better filmmaker!) Maybe they just literally wanted to feature geese and not ducks for whatever reason. Enjoy your success, but don’t let it go to your head. (I would know. Bob still isn’t talking to me.)
Submitting at all is a gamble and it’s only worth what you make of it. I use FilmFreeway for most of my festival submissions. Almost every film festival charges money to submit, and the ones that don’t are going to have lower odds of accepting your film just because of the sheer amount of people out there who want to submit something without paying. If you feel strongly about your film, go for it. If the festival offers feedback, ask for it. At the very least, make your submissions something you can learn from, and not a bad gambling habit. (She said, with $34 in her bank account, eating her third bowl of top ramen that day).
Sometimes it’s okay to just post something online. Which is why I’m doing this now. I don’t plan on raking in the dough on this one, getting more fancy laurels, or seeing it on any big screens. Knowing that it’ll make a few people chuckle as they watch it on their phones is enough for me.
Klamath is still a solid film festival that Oregonians should consider submitting to anyway especially if you’re a local in the Southern Oregon Area. It’s one of the only Oregon-centered film fests out there, won’t break your bank, and if it does make it in, the festival itself is pretty fun.
Some other cool festivals around the Southern Oregon area are the Ashland Independent Film Festival’s locals only program (which is very competitive but free for locals and worth the effort), the SOU Student Film Festival (if you’re a student), the Killer Valley Horror and Comedy Film Festivals (which I might submit this weird little thing to after all—we’ll see), the Jefferson State Flixx Festival, and the Bend Film Festival, which I’ve never gotten into, but they’re cool, have a rockin’ social media presence, and they at least write very kind rejection letters!
The Actual Movie, Between the Mountains
So, without any further ado, here is BETWEEN THE MOUNTAINS!
Huge thanks to my cast, Galen James-Heskett, Lauren Davis, and Nolan Sanchez, to my DP, Gaffer, and miscellaneous manager Erik Brendeland, Dan McCloy, and Jaime Danielle, and to everyone who supported me along the way. Especially my boyfriend, Kyle Sanderson, the movie’s biggest fan, who encouraged me to post this today.
Thanks for reading and watching.
—Mig
PS - I don’t mean to sound ungrateful to the NOT A BENCH fans. Thank you to everybody who continues to like that film and keep Jimmy’s memory alive. It means a lot to me and to his family & friends that he continues to live on and make people laugh when they stumble across it. (For those of you who haven’t seen NOT A BENCH, you can view that here, and while you’re at it, check out some of XRATS Productions’ stuff on that channel. That’s Ross Williams, a very talented filmmaker and the chillest guy in Southern Oregon showbiz.)