As you might remember from my Top Five Film Festivals To Submit To video, I recommended the Salute Your Shorts Film Festival, despite not having actually gone to the festival myself. Well the ladies over at Salute Your Shorts saw my video, decided I should put my money where my mouth is, and gave me free tickets to attend the festival this year.
Obviously I said yes please and I shot a vlog while I was there so you could see just how much fun the festival was. So here’s my Salute Your Shorts Film festival review for 2022.
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The festival took place at the Assistance League Theater in LA and kicked off with an opening night panel called “Don’t Wait. Just Make!” The panel featured filmmakers Sujata Day, Anna Baumgarten, Jim Cummings, and was hosted by Emily Best.
First off, they all were extremely encouraging of people just getting out there and making films, but being the veteran filmmakers they are, they also had a very realistic view of what it means to be a filmmaker. Jim Cummings even commented that the year he won Sundance was one of the worst financial years of his life.
So here’s some key takeaways from the panel that I wanted to share with you. First up, Sujata shared a quote from Isa Rea and said “Network across, not up.” I thought this was extremely valuable advice because surrounding yourself with other filmmakers that are on the same level as you will only help you in the long run. All the panelists talked about how important it is to create a filmmaking community where you can help support each other to make films, because surprise, making films is hard. So get out there and volunteer on other people’s films because when you help other people they’ll be more likely to help you!
Next Anna Baumgarten shared her tips on creating a short and then expanding that into a feature. Both Anna and Jim have had success in this and talked about how having a high quality short film can show future inventors for the feature that you can make a good film.
And finally, Emily Best shared great tips on crowdfunding. She explained how on Seed&Spark filmmakers are actually encouraged to do staged financing with three stages of funding, development, production, and distribution. Emily explained that the benefit of doing crowdfunding this way is that you don’t have to wait to raise all the funds for the film to get started. This way you can raise money specifically for each phase and have lower thresholds you need to reach for each. Overall, the panel was fantastic and I felt like I left with advice on my own personal next steps as a filmmaker.
Next up was the opening night part which was super fun! Tickets included one free drink and there was even a professional Getty photographer available to take your photo. I took the opportunity to snag one with my fellow Women In Film ladies!
One thing I especially liked about attending the opening night party was it gave me the chance to connect with other filmmakers who had been accepted into the festival. I loved this because then I was able to prioritize what film screenings I attended in order to make sure I saw their films.
After having way too much fun at the party, it was time for day two of the festival and to finally watch some films. And boy what an amazing bunch of films they screened!
Each screening block had about six films and attending filmmakers were given a generous amount of time for Q&A at the end. It was great to get the opportunity to ask filmmakers what inspired them and what struggles they faced while filming.
Unfortunately, I couldn’t attend the full film festival, but I marathon the first day and left feeling like I’d seen a new bar for filmmaking set.
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