I’ll admit I never paid all that much attention before to film festival politics, but my SO’s little film/TV series is now finished (www.buddycopshow.com, if you’re interested) and he’s sending it off to festivals to try to get exposure and such. And what seems to be pretty overwhelmingly obvious when you start to look at the festivals, even the little ones he’s sending off to, is that independent film is largely Serious. There is not a lot of support for Silly here. All the prize winners seem to be “Another movie where the mother dies” or “Film about alcoholism”. He’s really concerned that his stuff won’t get judged on its own merits because it’s so unlike most of the films that seem to do well.
So, are there small-time film festivals where a comedy can succeed? Why are student filmmakers so dour? Are there any true independent movies (not movies picked up by Tom Hanks’ wife, I mean) that are really funny? I know part of it is that comedy is freaking hard while “My dad is an alcoholic” can run off guilt, but watching A apply to all these things I was really surprised at how weighted they really are towards the somber. Am I missing half the experience here? Can anybody reccommend a local festival for fun? Or a really small film (the kind you have to e-mail the director for the DVD, only $10 for four episodes of Buddy Cop Show goodness, act now!) that’s good and funny that we can study to see how people found out about it? Help BCS find an audience!
OK, to expand on that a bit, a lot of people release their independent movies on the internet, either on iFilms or similar sites, or just post them on their own websites. Information about the good ones gets around and the filmmakers can become known. I think this is partly how the creators of South Park got started. And I think the guy who made George Lucas in Love got a real Hollywood job as a result.
Re: South Park, I think there’s a lot more room for independent animated film comedies than the live action sort. And I’d forgotten about George Lucas in Love. But that still doesn’t answer the vital question of why comedies don’t make it independent film and how you can get one to. (Assuming you’ve been posting yours on your website, sold out a local theater at the premiere, and are trying very hard to sell DVDs already.)
American Movie is really funny and so was Swingers.
I think the “Art House” types tend to think more in terms of serious movies and people do think that drama is of higher quality than comedy.
But really, comedy is harder than drama. Everyone knows that a person dying of cancer or AIDS is dramatic.
I’ve known a few film school students and they all tell me that the first shorts that are made for class include a whole buch of suicide films. I think many people who are driven to make a film, which is no small undertaking, are driven by a personal vision and personal visions tend to dramatic.
I thought Kissing Jessica Stein was petty funny. It won the Audience Award for Best Feature Film and the Critics Special Jury Award for Best Writing and Actor at the Los Angeles IFP/West Film Festival (http://www.lafilmfest.com/home.php), and did rather well financially, too.
Try to find film festivals that have more non-film industry people attend. Obviously Sundance and AFI are big ones that mainly have film people and film industry people in the audience and so they have more serious artsy movies; film festivals like SXSW and Sidewalk Moving Pictures Festival have a lot more just regular people attend, so they seem to have more comedies.
I hope this helped and made sense- I’m really sick right now so I’m not thinking completely straight. I was the director of a film festival for a year and was an assistant director for it for two years, so I could probably answer some other questions about submitting your film to festival. Feel free to email me- my email is in my profile.
Comedy is really hard to do well, even in the best of circumstances. And student/ultra-low budget films are rarely the best of circumstances.
First, a lot of ultra-low budget comedies skimp on things that they can’t really afford to skimp on. A classic example is using a cast that is all college-agee. A little old lady or kid or a few Black people can really do wonders for a movie. Another common problem is shooting in bland locations- apartments with plain white walls, poorly lit bars clearly after hours, etc. Little stuff like this can make a comedy with a decent script in to something that looks like it was made by a bunch of high school students with their parents camera.
A good script is also hard to find. Something that seems funny when you are planning it may not be all that funny. You never know how the audience will react. And since low-budget filmmaking is an inherently funny process, you may not realize how much of the humor value is dependent on inside jokes and other things that might turn an audience off.
Finally, if you get a good script, chances are your non-paid actors arn’t experts. And since comedy is often dialogue dependent, sound recording quality is a big issue.
Anyway, the reason why all of this matters is that the only value a comedy has is if it’s funny or not. Few young filmmakers have put together a team that can cover all the bases. But in a drama you can say “Well, the story made no sense, but the cinematography was beautiful” or “The dialogue was weak but the idea was really compelling.” And it’s easy to get talented cinematographers and sound people and the like to work on a project where they can use their skills to their fullest extent.