Nature / Wildlife Festivals

[Helen Habib]

Hi, am looking for info about film festivals for nature and wildlife films. I searched through a thread here on the forum (http://dvinfo.net/conf/showthread.ph...light=festival) and saw varied opinions about film festivals. Is anyone familiar with "Planet In Focus"? I tried searching this DV forum but didn't get any results.

So my second question is, can I search this forum and have it look for a phrase, because I tried Planet In Focus in double quotation marks, as well as planet+in+focus and got alot of results but the words were searched separately, therefore the results were not relevant.

Anyway, looking forward to your thoughts / info.

[Mick Jenner]

Hi Helen,

Don't know anything about Planet in Focus but one of the biggest festival and workshops is here in the Uk, it is held every 2 years and based around Bristol (Home of BBC wildlife).
Its called Wildscreen and details can be found here www.wildscreenfestival.org
Hope this is of help

Regards

Mick

[Helen Habib]

Thanks Mick, Wildscreen looks like an awesome festival!

[Meryem Ersoz]

go dig around withoutabox.com and you'll find lots listings for enviro and wildlife festivals...also here: http://www.wildlife-film.com/

in the US, the jackson hole wildlife FF is the biggie...

are you wanting to attend? or to submit?

[Helen Habib]

Yes Meryem, I did register with withoutabox. I'll want to submit.

[Meryem Ersoz]

the reason that I'm asking is that many of the festivals that show wildlife films don't necessarily bill themselves as wildlife film festivals -- like the mountain film genre of festivals. many of those show wildlife films but don't bill themselves as wildlife film festivals. but those can be great avenues for having wildlife films shown to an international audience.

and those festivals that are wildlife-specific, the big ones, typically screen a lot of work that was done for broadcast by well-funded companies and are often very, very difficult to get into.

i'm just suggesting that, if you're submitting, the festival name or apparent type is not always the only way to figure out the best placement for your piece.

[Helen Habib]

Meryem, that's what I observed. When I completed registering with withoutabox, a list of 209 festivals came up which withoutabox determined that my video would suit. When I scrolled through them, there was no indication at all by the name, that they were wildlife and nature oriented. Mainly, they are named after the place where they are being held.

And yes, I noticed with Wildscreen (and now Mountain Film) that they are closely associated with BBC, Animal Planet, National Geographic and so on, which level of equipment and production experience I do not have.

I'll continue searching, thanks very much for your input.

[Jacques Mersereau]

Jackson Hole and The International Wildlife Film Festival are two wildlife film festivals in the USA with prestige.
Jackson Hole is the "commercial" festival and IWFF is more the filmmaker's festival.

We won a Finalist Award for our documentary, "An Osprey Homecoming" at IWFF beating out National Geo, BBC, CBC and other large corporations' entries.

We didn't enter Jackson Hole.

[Helen Habib]

Thanks for your comment Jacques, it's encouraging to know that, and congratulations also!

[Helen Habib]

One of the film festivals that I'm interesting in submitting a film to, has this as part of their terms and conditions.

Here is the excerpt, it is preceded (in the sentence before) by "I understand that...

...Uses of my film's content may include but are not limited to playback over TV channels, printed marketing pieces, commercial advertisements and Internet distribution."

I'd appreciate hearing an explanation of what this means. Thanks.

[Jacques Mersereau]

From what I can tell of the small portion quoted, it would appear that "they" can use your film in any situation they desire. Does it mention anything about "publicity purposes", length of term, or non-commercial use? If not, you might want to apply elsewhere.

[Helen Habib]

Jacques, here is the paragraph in which the excerpt appears:

"I understand and agree that if my film is accepted to the 2009 Festival, the [name here] Film Festival may use my film, all or in part, for any marketing activities to promote the festival. Uses of my film's content may include but are not limited to playback over TV channels, printed marketing pieces, commercial advertisements and Internet distribution. "

So I thought that the "uses of the film's content" would apply to the marketing activities to promote the festival, but in actuality, it doesn't repeat that thought in the sentence that it appears, that's why I asked for comments.

The rest of the terms and conditions are very brief - it has to do with lost tapes and the deadline date for submission if the film is accepted.

[Jacques Mersereau]

Although I would consider this document poorly worded, I don't think you will have trouble.
It does point towards a somewhat loosely run ship imo.

When it comes to copyright, huge corporations and payment, I know famous Rock Stars who would have to sue their record company for payment on EVERY ALBUM. Yes, there were contracts, agreements and all was legally perfect, but I guess by holding on to the money for as long as possible, the company came out ahead since they had lawyers on retainer anyway.

Remember, a contract is only as good as those who sign up's honor, and before one usually makes money from media creation, you have to give away your hard work and hope to achieve enough success and notoriety to eventually make money. I guess what I am saying is you could only be so lucky has to have your stuff stolen, distributed across the world and seen by millions. Most have to pay extra. :-)

[Helen Habib]

Originally Posted by Jacques Mersereau

I guess what I am saying is you could only be so lucky has to have your stuff stolen, distributed across the world and seen by millions. Most have to pay extra. :-)

I quite like looking at it that way. :-)

Thanks for the response.