Urbanworld Film Festival 2024

Movie Review Coming Soon!

Directed by by Frank Sputh, Bin Martha, Kolumbianerin (I'm Martha, Colombian) is a slowcumentary, the nearly three-hour portrait of a young Afro-Colombian woman, a slow, closely observing documentary.

Watch 'Slapped Straight'

Now available to rent for 48 hours.

Give the Gift of World Cinema! Order The Madlab Post eGift Cards

Expressway Cinema Rentals is Philadelphia's leading photo & video rental resource for the creative community.

Visual Jedi LLC | Specializing in Video Production from concept to creation. Storyboard, audio mixing, editing, graphics design and more!

Pour something different! Premium specialty loose leaf teas sourced in Africa. Sibahle - We Are Beautiful!

The Ultimate Vegan Experience! We are Vegan Soul. Celebrate a new way of life with healthier food.

Fine Art Reproductions - Limited Edition Giclees on Canvas and Limited Edition Prints by World-Renowned Visual Artist and Designer, Synthia SAINT JAMES

 

Read my A to Z Reflections:

The Madlab Post is Home to the weekly Monday Movie Meme: Signup!

Are you ready for the best blog hop on the net? #atozchallenge

*All 31 "Prompts" might not be featured on this blog; I have my own schedule and topics to adhere to.

Your ad could be here, right now.

Search

Come SUPPORT the makers and SHOP for the holidays at MADE@BOK Small Biz Saturday Market where you can get a head start on The Madlab Post’s Shop Small Treasure Hunt with movie tickets, videogames and more! This is a market featuring crafts from artists, designers, makers and small businesses that create within the walls of the historic Bok building. Free entry!

FOR YOUR CONSIDERATION:
Perspectives directed by Neer Shelter has qualfied for the 2024 Academy Awards

WATCH IT NOW

#Oscars #Shortlist

FYC: Academy qualified short film 'Perspectives' directed by Neer Shelter | Oscars Shortlist

MANHATTAN SHORT ADVANCE SCREENING PASSES NOW AVAILABLE. 

RESERVE YOUR SEAT

📣 MADE @ BOK SPRING MARKET IS HERE 📣 Our first Market of 2022! On Sunday, May 1st from 11-4pm, come grab a gift for mom, a treat for your loves or something to brighten up your life in the way only springtime can like clothing, jewelry, ceramic and vintage wares, a brownie or two (or five), and more! 🤗 We'll be setting up in the gym as well as all the shops in retail row through the (new and improved!) Dudley St door.

See you then! ❤️🧡💛💚💙💜🤎🖤🤍

Rent Abyss: The Greated Proposal Ever, a short film made with a diverse cast & crew working together to tell a story about Love, Friendship and PTSD! This urban military homecoming drama is a candid glimpse into the troubles surrounding a U.S. Army Sergeant who gets stranded by SEPTA in the inner city when a wild marriage proposal shakes up his plans to reunite with the only family he knows. 

The 2019 Short Film Slam Round V Championships is showing at Motor House in Baltimore, MD. Visit the Shop for Advance Tickets to our awards showcase!

UPCOMING SCREENINGS:

GET TICKETS!

GET TICKETS!

GET TICKETS!
RESERVE YOUR SEAT for February - March 2019!

--------------------------------

The Madlab Post showed all of the 2019 OSCAR Nominees for Best Short Film in the Animation, Live Action and Documentary categories earlier this year. Missed the show? Get on our mailing list!

 

Bring The Madlab Post to You!

Enter your email address:

Delivered by FeedBurner

Thursday
Dec082011

Taking Movies on the Road: An Interview with Couchfest Founder, Craig Downing #filmfestivals #indiefilm #shortfilms

Taking Movies on the Road_A Couchfest Interview, Photo by Christopher Velasco

The 2011 Couchfest film festival’s international expansion united movie lovers around the globe, from Iceland to Peru and then all the way over in Haiti. It not only allowed for a wider celebration of short films, but any filmmaker whose work was selected to screen at the festival this year can take pride in knowing they their film was seen in places that they probably never imagined being showcased at, much less visiting.

I had the pleasure of discussing the exciting movie madness that was this year’s festival, with Craig Downing, the founder of Couchfest. During this conversation, he revealed some of the surprises, challenges and thrills of taking short films beyond U.S. borders; along with the top reasons why some film submissions are not accepted to screen at this festival.

Madlab Post: Could you give a rough estimate of how many people attended Couchfest this year?

Craig Downing: We had probably about somewhere around 500 people, worldwide.

What methods of promotion helped to attract audience members at Couchfest screenings?

We had a lot of success with word-of-mouth, Couch Surfing had an article about us that drove a lot of traffic to the site and then we had an article with Wired online that drove a lot of traffic and one of my favorite blogs, Laughing Squid did a piece on us – and that kind of trumped things up because we have a budget of debt, so we get really excited about any kind of word or marketing or twitter announcement about us; I think the biggest thing for driving people to the festival is just hearing about the quirkiness of it and then wanting to go experience it.

Most of it was online; we did a couple of Facebook ads and put up some flyers in Iceland – the flyers last about a day, until someone rips them down and puts up their own band poster over them. Online, there are a lot of filmmaking groups and industry blogs that I was reaching out to, mentioning what we were doing – I would say to filmmakers that I really like “Hey, we have a film festival in your city – you could be elbow to elbow with other filmmakers, whether you have a film or don’t have a film playing at this festival.”

Which method of promotion had the better ROI for Couchfest, in terms of attracting an audience for the screenings--Facebook ads or flyers?

It’s hard to measure that but I would say, because Facebook has the analytics that I can look at and I can’t really follow up on the posters – there is probably a better, targeted impact with the Facebook ads. They were very specific for the keywords that we were using and they were visible a lot longer, whereas the posters lasted a day – until they got graffiti over them. The online, Facebook ads were probably more effective.

What were some of the differences between how audiences responded to the 2011 Couchfest program lineup, from country to country?

There were films that I absolutely loved and I got to see all of the votes coming in and was tempted to change the votes for the films I liked – I thought that I picked a film program that was so solid that everyone would love it – I was living in that kind of dream and to see some of the results come back, I was like “wow! How could they not like this film? -- it was so great – these people are cyborgs! – What is wrong with them? Do they not have, like, a mother?! This film is GREAT!” Then again, I ended up talking to some of them and they were like “Yeah, the film is great but the acting of the mom – I just couldn’t handle it – it was just too dramatic,” and I was like “Oh, yeah!” – which is the whole point.

As you probably know, in the middle of the film program – there is a 35 minute program for the houses – we squeeze in a five minute intermission in all of the programs and the point of that is to let people have an opportunity to chitchat and talk, which is realistically what our film festival is about. We say we’re a film festival, but the secret is – we’re not a film festival; We’re a community event where we try to bring people together. So, we trick them into coming together with awesome films, awesome hosts and a fun idea in an awesome location.

So, the idea that there is a difference of opinion between the cities or even at a certain location about films – I was like “wow, I didn’t even imagine that,” but at the same time it’s like “wow, this is a great opportunity,” because I KNOW that stirred up some conversations – because some people loved these films and some people hated them; and I loved the idea that there were probably great discussions about the films BECAUSE of the differences of opinion.

How did culture have an impact on the ways that audiences responded to the films?

One of the locations that we had was Oman, which, they don’t even allow Western media in Oman and when I was talking to the host, I kept asking him “are you sure you want me to put your address on the website? – I’m ok with not listing your location, for your own safety” and he was like “no, it’s totally fine – couchfest films, for better or worse, is not on their radar – they’ll have no idea what’s going on or that we delivered, basically, satanic, Western film to Oman.”

At this point, I would also really like that guy to email me back and let me know he’s alive, or at least talk to me so, you know - I don’t know if his hand has been chopped off –- but anyway, I imagine that their response to films is completely different than say, Brooklyn, New York where we had 20 people get together and watch films.

Another example I can give you, there is a film called “The Dark Side,” which is a parody of “The Blind Side” and they take select sections of the movie and do it in such a way that they recreate it as a horror movie and it’s really, really good – I realized that it’s very American-centric and people in Poland actually told me that they didn’t submit the votes for that movie because they had no idea what it was about, which is fair. I should have recognized that, and it was silly of me to assume that everyone had seen Sandra Bullock’s Blind Side.

Statistically, what genres or types of films have gained the most favor among audiences at Couchfest since the festival's inception in 2008?

Each year, we always try different things; One year we tried to do a festival out of Iceland while also doing it around the world (*wink*) -- crazy! In the past, we did a horror house once and I was absolutely surprised that it was not well attended, so we haven’t done it since.

We did a documentary house one year and that was wildly successful, but the difficulty with the documentary house is – we don’t get a lot of submissions for documentaries because it’s really hard; As a documentarian, you’re really trying to hit deep for the story and get all the facts from both sides and blah, blah, blah; and because the time limit for our films is eight minutes, to do a documentary in eight minutes is pretty much impossible and really difficult.

So, we were just happy one year that we got enough short documentaries that we could actually do a documentary house, and I would LOVE to do it again but we just don’t get enough of them to do it as a specific house. We normally get a couple and then I just kinda soup them together for a mixed genre house.

But wait! There's more....

Stay tuned for Part 2 of this Couchfest Interview, to be posted this weekend, on The Madlab Post!

*Photo by Christopher Velasco, courtesy of Couchfest Films

Technorati Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

PrintView Printer Friendly Version

EmailEmail Article to Friend

Reader Comments (1)

Pretty cool idea. Have to keep this one on my radar for the future. I enjoy short films.

Lee
On 12/12—Blogging advice from a blogging expert (no it’s not me)
http://tossingitout.blogspot.com/" rel="nofollow">Tossing It Out

December 11, 2011 | Unregistered CommenterArlee Bird

PostPost a New Comment

Enter your information below to add a new comment.

My response is on my own website »
Author Email (optional):
Author URL (optional):
Post:
 
Some HTML allowed: <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <code> <em> <i> <strike> <strong>
« Casting & Crew Call for New Balderson Film #indiefilm #kansas #casting #auditions | Main | What are some Memorable Payback Movies? »