I am planning on submitting a couple of mini-dv shorts to film festivals later this year. My question concerns the finished dvd. Does anyone have any experience with how they submitted their dvds????!!!!??

I am editing on FCE then importing my finished shorts into idvd. Any tips from there on how to set it up? Do I just add the standard menu screen & chapter markers.....

Thanks!

This may depend on the specific festival.
Some take DVD for submissions, and some only accept VHS.

As far as the details on the authoring of the DVD, I imagine it will
depend on the festival guidelines. Some may want menus, some
may not, etc.

Check with the festival before submitting.

As a general rule, go simple and let the work speak for itself.
A simple opening menu with your vital information would probably
be fine (Title, Name, contact infomation, runtime, etc).

Nothing fancy.

-Luis

I submitted to 15 different festivals, I made a DVD of our film that would play once it was inserted, no menus, just pop it in and it starts playing. You got to figure the festival people are looking at hundreds of films, the last thing they want to do is go through a menu trying to figure it out.

One good site you might want to check is www.withoutabox.com

I used them and once you fill out your data, name, address, film staff, actors, etc... it's automatically sent to the festival you are applying to, plus they have tons festivals you can apply to.

Good luck with your film, I should be finding out in sept/oct. if we got accepted by anyone.

Thanks for the advice Rik & Luis!

<<<-- Originally posted by Rik Sanchez : I submitted to 15 different festivals, I made a DVD of our film that would play once it was inserted, no menus, just pop it in and it starts playing. You got to figure the festival people are looking at hundreds of films, the last thing they want to do is go through a menu trying to figure it out.

One good site you might want to check is www.withoutabox.com

I used them and once you fill out your data, name, address, film staff, actors, etc... it's automatically sent to the festival you are applying to, plus they have tons festivals you can apply to.

Good luck with your film, I should be finding out in sept/oct. if we got accepted by anyone. -->>>

Rik...thank you so much for telling me about this site. I just finished using them and the process was quick & easy. You saved me a lot of money by not having to create paper press kits.

:)

Dennis,
glad to hear it went smooth for you, good luck with your film.

I'm on the board of KIFF, the Kansas International Film Festival. We accept VHS and DVD for screeners, and 35mm and DV or BetacamSP for projection. The DVDs should be -R, which is what iDVD does, I think.

Hi Bill!

Do you (or anybody else) have an idea how common it is for festivals to charge a submission fee? I'm not trying to be rude here, but isn't it in the festivals interest to get as many films on their hands as possible? (Hence, no fee=more films?)

Thanks.

Most all festivals charge some kind of submission fee. The reason is that it's a lot of work, and you have to watch all the films. At least we do. Some festivals only watch a little of the film and then reject or accept it based on only a few minutes or on fast forwarding. We feel that we should watch the entire film if we charge a fee. We only charge for the competition entries. And last year, the number of entries barely paid for the awards. In addition to the award itself, there are costs associates with printing programs, web site, food, booze for the parties, etc. Also, most people feel that by charging a fee, that helps eliminate the weaker stuff. Sometimes it does, sometimes it doesn't.
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