How To Succeed In Not Making Your Film Festival An Ass Clown Festival

Ok Film Festival, I must admit, I was really excited when I read your program and saw all the awesome films you had playing. A more impressive lineup of films than a lot of festivals. You have a large emphasis on big foreign films, including The Class, the winner of the Palme d'Or this year. The Heartbeat Detector, which has the guy from Diving Bell and looks amazing. The Unknown Woman, Let the Right One In, Stolen Holidays, Wonderful Town, Timecrimes and a handful of others. You also have a couple mumblecore movies, Yeast and Nights And Weekends, which I always enjoy watching. You even have The Wrestler. THE WRESTLER. So, you have all these BIG movies, ones I'm sure might even come to most theaters at some point, but it's pretty neat to see them early. You don't have a whole bunch of small features, but hey, that's ok. You have a great lineup of docs also. Hey! Look At This! You have 13 shorts programs! 13! You are also giving away 7 prizes for shorts! 7! Wow, Film Festival, you must really like shorts. And one of them I actually worked on as Director of Photography. Wow! So how did you ass clown everything up Film Festival? I'm not sure how you did that, but here are some things you can do to avoid ass clowning in the future:

A. Give Filmmaker passes to, now follow me here, Filmmakers. I know this sounds a little ridiculous, but trust me. Currently, you give Filmmaker passes to people with feature films in the festival but not shorts. Wha? So, I did the math on that. After the math, I realized about 3 or 4 people got Filmmaker passes. How is that possible with so many features though? Well Film Festival, most of your feature films are BIG films, foreign or not, which I mentioned earlier. These people are not coming to your town out in the middle of nowhere. Come to think of it, I doubt most of the people with shorts in you are gonna make the trip, especially if they don't have a pass. So why not give any Filmmaker, with a a film in you,  who shows up, a pass? Makes sense to me. 

S. So you don't want to give Filmmakers a pass, ok. What do you currently give them instead? 4 "vouchers" for films. So they still have to go to the ticket booth, the same time as everyone else and trade in their voucher for a ticket. This sucks. Refer to point "A" for how to resolve this. 

S. Don't have 2 venues that are 15-20 minutes away from each other. Here is why:

C. On your day of shows, your tickets sell out an HOUR AND HALF before the show. That means you have to show up almost 2 HOURS before the show to get a ticket.  So if you want to see two movies at two different theaters, forget about it, you're fucked. It would be great for the Filmmakers who came to your festival to not have to deal with this by having a Festival Pass. That would be kinda smart and a favor to the Filmmakers. How about that? No? Ok.

L. Don't be in St. Louis.

O. I don't have any more points, but I need to finish the list for the bad joke.

W. I'm really just upset because I showed up to see a movie and it was sold out and had to drive 15 minutes back home. I poured a little scotch and decided to blahg. 

N. I know I didn't direct or produce the film we have in you, Film Festival, but I did shoot it and I have gotten passes at every other festival. I know I could be a normal person and stand in line and show up early and all that, but, I'm not a normal person. I'm a Filmmaker. And you are a Film Festival. Do you make Battery Makers wait in line and pay to go to the Battery Festival? I don't think so. Normal people have to wait in line at the Battery Festival, but not Battery Makers. (3 posts, in a row,  with batteries mentioned, YES!!!!!). 

And this is an added point, but, Film Festival, a cash bar at the parties? You lose Film Festival. You lose.