Marketing and Distribution Festival Research

In making our marketing and distribution plan it was important to pick festivals that would welcome the our film with open arms. Having an experimental musical might make it hard for some people to choose festivals, but not us. The first festival I choose was Visions Film Festival and Conference. I chose Visions first because it is a solely undergraduate run film festival out of our school. I (Kevin) also happen to be the programming director so I know there is a chance we can make it in with the quality of film and the category we are in. It is also an awesome festival to be a part of. You can always plan on meeting other awesome students to network with. The next festival I chose was the Chicago Paracon and Film Festival. They love weird supernatural sci-fi and horror type of films. That being said its not hard to understand why I chose them. Its a nice niche festival and it is in a large city that it would be fun to visit on top of a great place to make some connections in the industry. We also chose the Motor City Nightmares International Film Festival. They have a horror and sci-fi shorts category that would be great for our project. It would give us the opportunity to meet other like minded filmmakers and it could even be a jump off point to a feature if we meet the right person. Another festival that fits the vibe of our film was The Druid Underground Film Festival. They like the darker films which would be great for us. I also thought they were cool because they tour so there is no telling where they will be everywhere and it would be cool not only to go but to meet some of the staff and find out how that works. For a free festival we chose Reel Teal because it is on our campus and the possible monetary prize could fund most of our festival entries on its own. As far as regional festival I chose Indie Grits. I chose them first because you (Andre) and Shannon have brought them up a few times in various classes. While looking them I realized that they are awesome. Not only are they right down the road but they love low budget and student films. The over many different awards and are stationed in a beautiful area to top it all off. The festival that I am really interested in is the Bare Bones International Film and Music Festival. This festival encompasses everything our film is. We took experimental film, mixed a little narrative in, and threw in some music to make the first hip-hopera film. If this is not the festival for us there isn't one. I believe we could easily gain entry into the festival if not possibly win one of the many awards they offer.