Seattle Shorts Part 2

Interview

 

To start off the interview I had Daniel Hoyos tell me a little about himself.

       Daniel Hoyos is 30 years old and graduated from the University of Washington. He has been involved in a number of internships including PBS and volunteered at several film events and festivals. He's been interning, volunteering and working/submitting to films for the past 10 years. His films have been screened at numerous festivals such as the National Film Festival in Washington. This is his first year as a film festival director. He attended as a screener last year at the Seattle Shorts Film Festival and was approached by the director who founded the organization, Monica McGee, who asked if he would like to take over her position. He is excited to be working and taking on the challenge as head of the festival. Mr. Hoyos also wants to adapt and add his own twist to the festival in these upcoming years. As well as the festival, he works for I Am Entertainment magazine, which I will talk more about later.

 

1. How many entries did you get this year?

       We received over 1,000 entries this year.

 

2. How many films do you usually aim to screen each year? Have you considered a screenwriting/presentations block in your festival?

       Because the festival is only 1 day, we usually aim to screen about 17 films. Next year I hope to maybe go back to a 2

      day festival and maybe add a screenwriting competition. I have discussed with a friend of mine who has suggested

      one in the past and it is a high possibility in the works.

 

3. What is the festival's pre-screening process?

     Well we use WithoutABox and FilmFreeway for filmmakers to submit their work. Usually we have about 10-15

      screeners who come in and watch them, they rate the films, review and then give them to the programmers as well as

      myself. Then the 12-15 programmers and directors we have for that year pick films that the audience will like. We aim

      for universal and far reached films, as well as trying to get local shorts. This year we have even looked for films that

     have big names in them to get more awareness-that can be big names in general, but also big names locally.

 

4. So do you usually have about 10-15 screeners each year? And how do you select who will screen the shorts (whose typically chosen as a pre-screener)?
    Yeah, it can vary each year, but usually about 10-15 screeners. We usually pick people we know that will give good
     feedback; and they're all volunteering.  There is a long chair listing on the websites and they fill out film forums. They
     will volunteer for usually 6 months screening the films. And of course screeners will be in and out because of their
     schedules or the timing of how many screenings they have to do, so next year we are trying to secure screeners for that
     period of time.
 

5. How do they score entries? Do they use a scoring template/rubric? Are there scoring guidelines?
    The scoring is built into the submission platform based on a star system. Five stars means it was perfect such as
     perfect cinematography, the acting, story, etc. If it's 5 stars they pass it along to me, as well as 4 stars. Some of the 3
     stars we will consider, depending on what the jury decided.
 

6. Do you have a jury after the pre-screening process has ended?
    Yes, we have a celebrity jury, which we just started this year. The celebrities we select have international backgrounds,
     we didn't want them to just be local. We selected 5-6 jury members and they just happened to be all women this year.
     They vote through private Youtube/vimeo links and fill out the same criteria. So we email them the links, they watch,
     and they have 2 weeks to decide and email me back. The filmmakers get excited this way and especially when we send
     out and announce the award nominations of who was selected. We send these out months in advance to get the
     filmmakers aware they were nominated and excited.
 

7. How far in advance do you send out your call for entries? How do entries typically roll in? Early? Late? In waves?
    Well submissions opens in January and lasts till June. This year they started off slow, then 3-4 weeks in they picked up
     real quick. We have 4 deadlines that filmmakers can submit to. The last one which is the WAB extended deadline was
     added because we were getting so many submissions.
 

8. How many paid employees do you have each year? How many volunteers?
     There is only 2 paid employees-myself and my intern. Everyone else is a volunteer or gets pre-paid for their programs
      that they're involved with.
 

9. Do you use specific programming, trafficking, budgeting software? Do you like it?
      We use Google docs a lot! It's convenient and easy to manage. For budgeting, a great software to use is Minp.com. I
        recommend it, it makes budgeting simple. We don't crowd source because we've expanded through submissions.
 

11. What community outreach do you do outside of your festival season to keep your event on the public's radar and/or to raise funds?
     One of our sponsors, MarQueen Hotel, where some of the filmmakers stay, they screen past films in Oct. which is
      another way to raise awareness. We do outreach through postings on our website and Facebook as well.
     

12. Do presenters/filmmakers pay registration to attend?
     No, there is no registration fee for them, they get free badges. For others, a single day pass is $10 and a day pass is
     about $30-$50 depending on how many screenings they want to go to because each screening $10.

13. Do you give out swag bags to visiting filmmakers? Presenters? Guests? If so, what type of items do you include in those bags?
     Yes, swag bags, but we call them informational packets. Every filmmaker can get an interview as well, which is a 2
      page spread in the magazine, I Am Entertainment. It is published in print and digital and I conduct the interview. It's
      a press opportunity for the filmmakers and it's something new I decided to do this year because I work with the
      company as well.
    

14. Are you able to provide presenters/filmmakers with funds to cover travel or lodging?
      Unfortunately not. Filmmakers have to cover travel and lodging themselves, because we are on a budget. There is a
       couple of exceptions, like this year, I had one filmmaker reach out to me and describe their situation. They needed
       help with lodging and I did it out of pocket because after talking with them I wanted to make sure they had the
       opportunity to come, but usually we have a budget and it's important to stick to it.
 

15. What "perks" do your filmmakers/scholars enjoy at your festival/conference? What else do you encourage them to do while they're in town?
    Well we have a special guest speaker each year. They have a chance to network at our party held at The Lounge. I
    encourage them to go to the Seattle Center and the Space Needle. Then of course, next year if we go back to 2 days,
     which we plan to, there will be more films, more guest speakers and screenwriting.
 

16. Do you have special donor perks during the event? Or how do you thank them?
     There's no donors, but we have sponsors. They are listed on our website and we thank them.  We have advertisements
      shown before films play. We even add them to all of our posters and personally thank them.
 

17. What do you wish you had done differently or better then when you were first starting out? What do you wish you knew then that you know now?
      I would definitely get more screeners then less because there are a ton of submissions. I recommend NOT hiring
      friends and double the amount of screeners because you can never not have enough.

18. How did you decide on shorts?
     There's never been a festival for just short films here. The big film festivals show some, but we were like why not have
      all shorts.

19. In a previous year, we had  a student submit a film from here and it was a min long, but it was disqualified. My question is what determines the time frame of your submissions?
    Well I wasn't here when that student submitted, but if I had to guess it was because there is a minimum on the time
     frame. The minimum runtime has to be 5 min and the maximum is 30 min. I know in the past it's been hard to find that
    information and it was probably in the fine print, but were working on making that noticeable. The reason we do that (
     have a minimum time frame) is it's hard to program into festivals with just short shorts.
 

18. Any other ideas or advice that we haven't thought to ask about?
   Always remember that hard works takes a whole team, have a good marketing plan (if the festival gets marketed out,
   around 99% of filmmakers will find you), also use WithoutaBox and FilmFreeway (which is free for festivals). To all the
   filmmakers, we give out glass awards that have their information on it and a good website that we go to for the awards
   is Crownawards.com. They give discounts and they have awards specifically for film festivals.

Reflection: My interview with Daniel Hoyos was awesome and we talked for awhile. Not only did we talk about the festival we discussed good avenues and opportunities to take and consider when leaving college and pursuing positions in the film industry, such as a film festival director. His journey led him to the position that he holds today and he has always dreamed of fulfilling that role. It was interesting to talk to him because he is in a similar situation to us where he is trying to rebrand the Seattle Shorts festival to make it his own and decide what to do to make it the best for this year. He's changing the slogan, updating the website, and giving the festival a completely different look. We, in Visions, are making decisions and putting together the festival and conference that we feel suits best. We're testing ideas, taking chances and exploring to better understand how a film festival runs, but also how to work cohesively to create an outstanding event for potential filmmakers. He gave me great advice and useful resources to use if we consider doing similar things that their film festival does. For example, I thought it was cool the glass awards that they give out and he gave me the website they use to order them. Specifically for my position this year, as Assistant Director to Development, I will be helping with fundraising and reaching out to sponsors. Talking to Mr. Hoyos, he made a good point to reach out and spread word as much as you can to everyone, so they are aware the festival. He said just by doing that, 99% of the filmmakers will find you because they will find it interesting if you incorporate interest in your outreach. Work alongside and with your sponsors to help promote the event, but also creating good relationships with them for future references. It's important to maintain budget. We are going to be working with different departments and certain departments will ask for money for projects they may have. It is okay to say no or limit amounts because you have to maintain budget. Mr. Hoyos learned the hard way to start saying no. He mentioned how you can get caught up with ideas and you have to be practical and realize when to cut off certain things. Talking to him, helped me understand my role better as AD and how I will be working with everyone in the class. Each role is crucial, and if everyone does their part then it'll be a huge success.