After a great deal of positive feedback, Eric and I have decided to submit ARMY Men to a handful of film festivals. After looking in to the upcoming film festivals, we chose to send it off to the Cannes Film Festival, Los Angeles Film Festival, Atlanta Film Festival, USA Film Festival, The McGuffin Film Festival, Arizona International Film Festival, Telly Awards, and the Con-Can Film Festival. Most of these festivals have submission deadlines some time in February, and we didn’t have anything prepared for them, so it was a rush to get everything done in time.
We needed a pile of media to send out, so I whipped together a one-sheet, DVD Jacket and DVD label. I like the look of the current U.S. Army advertising campaign, so I gave it all a similar look.
Fortunately, I took plenty of production stills on set, because most of the festivals request them and a headshot of the director. I chose eight of the photos, and printed them 2-up on letter size photo paper, and printed Eric’s headshot 1-up. Each of the DVDs was in a case with a professional looking printed label on the disc, and a glossy insert in the case. It looks like a retail package. This is one of the most important things in my opinion. IMAGE IS EVERYTHING. Obviously, content is king, but if it looks good on the outside, there is a better chance of getting noticed.
The packets containing a DVD, poster, production stills, director’s headshot & bio, and entry forms and checks have all been sent out. Now it’s time to wait and see which festivals let us in.
