Week 3

I conducted my interview with Slamdance Festival Director Anna Germanidi this past

Wednesday (9/10) at 5:00pm.

The film festival was created twenty years ago by a group of filmmakers whose films were not accepted into Slamdance Film Festival. The founding fathers of the film festival

are Dan Mirvish, John Fitzgerald, Shane Kuhn, and Peter Baxter.

 “Slamdance lives and bleeds by its mantra By Filmmakers For Filmmakers. No other film festival in the world is entirely run and organized by the creative force that can only be found in filmmakers. Slamdance adamantly supports self-governance amongst independents, and exists to deliver what filmmakers go to festivals for – a chance to show their work and a platform to launch their careers. The festival has earned a solid reputation for premiering films by first-time writers and directors working within the creative confines of limited budgets" (http://showcase.slamdance.com/about).

Slamdance Film Festival programs narrative featrues, documentary features, beyond features, documentary shorts, narrative shorts, experimental shorts, animation shorts, and “anarchy shorts” of which you cannot directly submit to.

The event is held in Park City, Utah

The event will be held from January 23-29 in 2015.

You can submit either through Without-A-Box or a Google Form that is linked to the website.

Early Deadline: July 25, 2014 ($40 for short entry, $50 for feature entry)

Regular Deadline: September 5, 2014 ($50 for short entry, $80 for feature entry)

Late Deadline: October 9, 2014 ($60 for short entry, $100 for feature entry)

Final Deadline: October 16, 2014 ($70 for short entry, $110 for feature entry)

There are no restrictions as to who can submit films.

There is not a student category.

Slamdance requires a DVD submission, but they will also accept an additional Vimeo link with the password.

99 films were screened at last year’s Slamdance event.

Slamdance does not split their showings into separate blocks. Instead they intersperse films of different modes throughout the day for the duration of the event. The feature length films are usually screened in the morning.

Event passes ranging from $8-$325 will be available through their website starting on November 3, 2014.

Here is the link to Slamdance’s sponsorship page (http://showcase.slamdance.com/sponsors). Based on my preliminary research, I am unsure if any of these partnerships will be beneficial to us.

The incentives for these sponors to reach a certain sponsorship “level” are purely through the amount of money or service provided to the event.

To my knowledge, Slamdance Film Festival does not have a Kickstarter or Indiegogo.

Anna Germanidi informed me during the interview that sometimes they have tried to travel and hold screenings elsewhere for people who cannot attend the festival in January. This is also used as a marketing tool.

The website (http://showcase.slamdance.com/) is easy to navigate. Everything is laid out nicely and it is easy to read the text.

The homepage consists of four major links: Showcase, Film Festival, Screenplay Competition, and Shop. Everything is sorted nicely and the site flows well.

This website is aesthetically pleasing as it has a slick, black design. This site appeals to me personally because it has a very professional feel with just a bit of “fun” fused into it. Specifically, I really enjoy the “ticket” layout that they have. It’s simple, fun, and slick. This kind of reminds me of the Visions4 design of the film reel hyperlinks that we have.

I think that this is the “Goldilocks” of a film festival website in terms of informational text on the homepage. There is not too much, but there is also not too few.

There is not much that I would change about Slamdance’s website. The only change that I would make would be to place a link to the submission process on the front page in clear-view.