How not to enter the Austin Film Festival
The most common mistakes and clichés employed by rookie filmmakers
"Okay, this is the scene where the lead thinks about his ex-girlfriend while indie-folk plays in the background."
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Every year, thousands of wannabe Godards toil tirelessly over their copies of Final Cut Pro, hoping to create a cinematic expression worthy of admission to the Austin Film Festival. On the other side, as programming director Kelly Williams points out, are programmers who “watch countless hours of movies while also working eight-hour days and trying to plan events,” which means becoming the next big festival hit depends on being interesting enough to catch the attention of judges whose eyes are bleeding from fatigue. Unfortunately, “interesting” often amounts to the same old clichés: “What happens is you start noticing trends,” Williams says, “mistakes that people make over and over again.” With the final deadline for submissions coming up this Friday, July 3, Decider asked Williams to enumerate some last-minute tips on things to avoid if you’re hoping to be a part of this year’s festival.
Tip #1: Avoid giving your characters clichéd occupations—particularly if it’s the Grim Reaper.
Kelly Williams: I’ve been screening movies now for about eight years, and it seems like of the two occupations that I see, the first is always “the reluctant Grim Reaper.” It’s weird how common that is. And the most common supporting actor occupation has got to be the “world-wise bartender who knows everything—who’s smarter even than the professor—and he always solves the main character’s problems.”
Decider: Why the Reaper, do you think?
KW: I don’t know, but he always shows up—and I’m talking over years and years of movies. And it’s usually a twist, like, “Ohhhh, he’s the Grim Reaper! I get it now.” But at this point, I’ve seen so many Grim Reaper movies—and it sounds so odd that I’m saying that—that I already know when the twist is gonna come. I’ll turn to the person I’m watching it with and say, “I bet he’s the Grim Reaper,” and sure enough…
Tip #2: If you’re making a 10-minute short, don’t make your credit sequence five minutes.
KW: Why not just make your movie five minutes to begin with? To be totally honest, I think I’ve only seen one where the credits sequence was half the movie, but a lot of times you’ll get even five-minute shorts with incredibly long credit sequences, with actors you’ve never heard of all listed up front like you’d see in a feature film. You’ll definitely have better luck getting in if you just stick to the movie.
Tip #3: No, it was not all a dream.
KW: People love twists, and the most common one—which I thought went out with Dallas—is “It was all a dream.” Why can’t it just be real? Why does it all have to be a dream?
D: Why can’t it just be the fantasy of an autistic kid staring into a snow globe?
KW: Exactly. Less people remember that one, at least.
Tip #4: Every party does not need a pooper.
KW: This is one I don’t understand that’s just in movies in general: Why did you go to the party if you’re just gonna get all huffy and go outside? You know, your main character goes to a party, and he steps outside because he’s upset or in a rut or whatever… I guess it’s to get the girl to come talk to you. This is just another one of those clichés that belongs on a checklist, like “dark sunglasses on the killer” and stuff like that.
D: Getting huffy at a party—that just shows that your lead character is too deep to have fun with his jackass friends right now.
KW: Yeah, they weren’t being sensitive to his feelings. They forgot how hard it is to be the Grim Reaper.
Tip #5: Hey, Georges Méliès: Have you heard of these things called “talkies”?
KW: One of my big pet peeves is silent movies. I’m always shocked at how people will make old silent movies with placards and everything. It’s so hard to make a movie to begin with, why would you recreate something from almost 100 years ago on video? I think I speak for most people when I say, if I’m going to bother watching a silent film, I’d rather take the time to actually go get a Charlie Chaplin or Buster Keaton film. But a modern silent film? That baffles me.
D: Have you ever admitted a silent film to the festival?
KW: Not a straight-up one, no. To not use dialogue and only intermittent sound is one thing, but a movie that’s actually shot in sepia tone, and everyone’s wearing vintage costumes, and there are placards and stock Scott Joplin music? No. I don’t know why people want to do that.
Tip #6: Your packaging should not be more interesting than your film.
KW: This has become a little more rare in the last couple of years, but those elaborate press kits… Really, all we need is your DVD and your contact information. I remember one guy sent a big bottle of sake—which was nice, actually, but that was more of a bribe. Recently this one guy sent us his film, which was all about mental health, in a big doctor’s notebook. That’s really neat and all, but it’s not really the best place to spend your money. It might be helpful for the press or something.
D: It’s not.
KW: Well, there you go.
Tip #7: If you’re making a documentary about yourself, you better make sure you’re interesting.
KW: Just ask your neighbor: “Hey, am I interesting?” If they say yes, then maybe you’ve got something there. The same goes for your brother or your dad: You better make sure they have a damn good story. And travel documentaries are always really rough for us to watch, where someone goes backpacking in Europe and they take a camera and then cut it together. That said, I have seen some good films done like that. We had one last year that was a travelogue told from the point of view of the traveler’s sister who was at home writing him a letter. But you know, I get so many people who obviously just got out of college, and they took a trip to Southeast Asia and filmed it, and they think they’re being fascinating. Check with someone else first to make sure you are.
Tip #8: The biggest mistake you could make? To not submit.
KW: You never know what a programmer at any festival is gonna go for. There are a lot of movies we take that aren’t the most polished and don’t have the biggest stars in them, and we’ve played them because we loved them, and we liked the filmmaker and what they were trying to say. Every programmer wants to find the next big thing from Nebraska or right here in Austin. So the worst thing they could do would be to not submit.
D: So if you’ve got a great Grim Reaper story, get it in there.
KW: Yeah, we’re dying for the next great Grim Reaper story. Let’s have it.
