THE IMPORTANCE OF HAVING A RED CARPET AT YOUR FILM FESTIVAL

Anyone that knows me at all, or my history, knows about one of the primary things I do for a living, etc. would likely think it was fightin’ words if someone legitimately asked me, “What’s the point of having a red carpet at a film festival?”

But someone on a Facebook thread populated by people that run and produce and are involved with film festivals in more than a passing manner, did, in fact, ask me that very question. And the truth is that I have actually had to explain this to various people who did not know at various times since I ran my first red carpet at AFI FEST in 2006. The most recent time (I mean, prior to this guy on the Facebook thread) was someone at a major arts organization that had absorbed a film festival into their fold and while they had a general idea of why you had red carpets, it was vague, with no direct connection, and it was clear that they were not the kind of people that would “okay” or sign off on something like that just because “everyone else did it.”

 

I sincerely really enjoy those moments. Because, I am a true believer in what I do. I believe in the necessity and importance of film festivals and the equally fragile and resilient ecosystem of filmmakers and independent filmmaking they support AND I believe in the absolute value that a properly produced and run and utilized red carpet has for those same filmmakers, the film festival, and the photographers, and the press that participate in them. Easy to get me started on the topic, not so easy to get me to shut up.

To be clear, my philosophy and thoughts on the value of red carpets comes from being both a filmmaker, a publicist, and a journalist. I have been, and continue to be, employed in each area, so I know first hand what it is like to experience the red carpet in each of those shoes. I know the goals, I know the angst, I know the pain-in-the-assery, and I know the missed opportunities when they happen. So, we are going to look at it from each of those perspectives as well as the perspective of the person that runs the film festival, programs it, or has to keep the sponsors happy.

 

ARE YOU A FILMMAKER?

Probably not (if you were asking the question that started me off on this thing). Or at least one that isn’t sure whether they’ll ever convince someone to give them money to make another film. Or worse – whether they’ll even convince someone other than mom, dad, husband or wife, boyfriend or girlfriend, kids, their REALLY good friends, and maybe the people that worked on the film will even watch it.

 

If you ARE A filmmaker then you need to promote yourself and your film at the fest you happen to be screening at right now and to the fests you hope to screen at in the future – with this and your next film(s) AND to the people that are interested in buying your film, hiring you, or giving you money for the next film. You WANT photos of you to pop up of you standing in front of a film festival’s step and repeat when someone does a Google image search of your name. In fact, you want multiple images to come up of you at a bunch of fests – because that communicates that multiple someones other than you and your editor and your mom thought the film was good enough to program for a paying audience.

In the best case, you’ll be interviewed and that interview (or interviews) will be posted somewhere so – in a similar scenario – people can see you talk and figure out that you might be charming, smart, funny or various combinations – and thus, intrigued to check out your film.

 

 

Self promotion. Gotta do it. And the red carpet puts everything there on a silver platter for you – half the work is done for you if you’re the filmmaker. (Of course, that’s provided that it’s done correctly, but we’ll address that later.)

I have had filmmakers duck my red carpets. Ignore them. Say it’s not their thing, or they feel uncomfortable doing it, blah, blah, blah. To be blunt, it’s not smart to not take advantage of the promotional opportunity and tools that a red carpet can provide. You got a trust fund or a husband or wife that’s funding your films, then great – enjoy your hobby or your personal de Medici benefactor and be “an artist.” If that’s not your gig, then you better start studying up on the William Castle game plan and figure out out to get asses in seats. If I was a film programer and I heard something about Dava Whisenant’s awesome documentary BATHTUBS OVER BROADWAY, then a quick Google search would show her and the film’s subject Steve Young in front of step and repeats at multiple fests of mine like Tallgrass, Heartland, Naples, among many others and those photos would tell me that thing was a fucking hit AND they are clearly fun, and entertaining people I’d want at MY film festival.

 

If you look up the film QUALITY PROBLEMS, you’ll see photos of the filmmakers Brooke and Doug Purdy and their producers and cast at the Women Texas Film Festival, the Harlem International Film Festival, NewFilmmakers L.A. I ran those red carpets. But guess what? They played A LOT of other fests. Won awards at some of them. Where are those pictures?

 

No red carpet. But, wait! A festival photographer grabbed a photo before their screening!

I wonder where those photos went? They certainly didn’t make their way to a place where a simple Google search could find them.

 

Michael Cain, co-Founder and President of EarthxFilm (and co-Founder of AFI DALLAS before that) used to say to me, “If a photo wasn’t taken of it, then it never happened.”

So that idea of grabbing a photo in front of the theater marquee? It just doesn’t cut it. Not for the filmmaker and not even for your film festival.

As a filmmaker that wants to build a career, I believe one of the secrets to that is not living and dying on each individual film. Nope. I want people to seek out a “John Wildman film” because they have an idea of what that might be and they want to see the next one AND here’s the important part, I understand that I personally, am part of my branding as a filmmaker. My movies are coming out of my head, so here’s a picture of that head on a red carpet and here are some thoughts coming out of that head in an interview that…hopefully…will lead you to renting THE LADIES OF THE HOUSE or buying the DVD (Boom! Gotcha!) Seriously, if you Google or YouTube me and the film, you’ll see that almost every single photo and interview connected to THE LADIES OF THE HOUSE, I am with my creative partner and wife Justina Walford. There is a reason for that. It goes to the branding of us as filmmakers and we utilized our press opportunities to further that along.

 

And that brings us to a personal anecdote when we were doing our film festival tour with THE LADIES OF THE HOUSE… We were at a top Southern film festival on the regional circuit which only had one red carpet, I believe – Opening Night. Well, we had myself, Justina, and four of our stars in attendance (at the film’s expense). We arrive for our premiere and not only do we not have a red carpet, but there isn’t even a festival photographer there to take our picture in front of the step and repeat that was in the lobby. I literally had to flag down a guy at the counter getting popcorn and hand him my iPhone to get a photo I could use.

And this was a significant, well-reviewed film festival. Major lost opportunity for them as well as us. I literally had “the ladies” the title of the film was referring to – each in movie star mode.

That was a fuck up.

 

MOST JOURNALISTS DON’T EVEN DO RED CARPETS

No. That is wrong. Specific journalists do red carpets. Photographers do red carpets. Sites that stream interviews do red carpets. If you are fortunate enough, then your local TV affiliates might do one of your red carpets. Same with a radio station or two. And even some print. (Or, more correctly – online, because let’s face it about print, right?) if they learn that they can have damn near each attending filmmaker in a one-stop shop for their interviews and hunt for tasty quotes.

If you are a journalist covering a film festival, you know what sucks? Having to work. That’s what sucks. Having to chase down a filmmaker to schedule an interview, corral some of them to get the photo to support your story, your coverage. For Festworks.com, I do a “Ten Burning Questions” interviews format for feature filmmakers and a “Shorts and to the Point” one for shorts filmmakers that I can email because I don’t have time to transcribe the in-person stuff by this point. So, anything you can do to make it easier for a journalist to cover your film festival and AS MANY FILMMAKERS AS THEY CAN…that’s what you do. That is, if you kinda want people outside of your social circle to know that your film festival exists. And the red carpet, flat out, makes it easy for EVERYONE to do their job and get what they want.

 

Oftentimes, I convince a writer or a reporter or a host of a show to come and grab a spot on my red carpets because they won’t have to chase anyone down. Even if they have sworn off covering red carpets. I sell them on the fact that they won’t have to deal with another irritating publicist like me with ridiculous controlling demands and unreasonable requests. If I am that journalist, then I am being served a sampler plate of feature filmmakers, shorts filmmakers, VR projects, people coming in from all over the world, or local talent, and maybe even a movie star or an award-winner here and there. All of them in one place, one strip of 20-foot red carpet, during the course on one hour’s time. Didn’t even have to walk up to them and introduce myself (Believe it or not, I am shy. Seriously. I am not kidding.) No, someone would literally walk up to me and introduce me to the filmmaker(s), tell me the which film they worked on and what they did on it. They might even give me a clue how to pronounce their name – if it’s not obvious – saving me from that potentially awkward moment.

 

If I’m a photographer then not only are all of those people corralled for me, but someone is posing them – making sure that they all actually looked at my camera as I took the shot and I didn’t have one dude with ADD looking at the popcorn bag he just saw pass by while everyone else was focused. For once, I don’t have to do that routine where you entertain the filmmakers and try to get their attention like you would with a kid getting their first posed photos at the mall shaking some noisy keys by the lens or squeezing a squeaky toy. And then afterward, someone tells you whose picture you just took, the film they worked on, what they did – and – and – and – they spell their name for you.

If you are a photographer, that shit is magic.

 

 

RED CARPETS ARE JUST NOT OUR STYLE, MAN

I’ve heard this one. I’ve worked for this one.

And there are a couple problems with this response. One, you have to take a look in the mirror and admit if you are a film FESTIVAL or you are a screening series. There is a reason we use the word “festival”, right? It’s an event. We have filmmakers attending. We’re doing Q&As with them so the audiences can meet the and ask questions. We have panels to talk about filmmaking and topics related to the world of film. We have parties celebrating the art and entertainment of film. We have people mingling and talking about the films they saw in lounges. Sometimes we have outings or special dinners with our filmmakers. It’s a festival.

Or you are a screening series. You have programmed a lovely retrospective and we’ll buy our tickets, watch the film and then go home afterwards. Maybe we’ll have a drink and discuss the film and THEN go home. That’s a screening series.

We can watch a film on our 4K screen in our living room or on our lap top or even on our phone. But we won’t have the filmmaker in our living room unless we are really wealthy or really well-connected.

That is one of the reasons we have a film festival. And frankly, a red carpet is one of the basic things you do to distinguish yourself from a screening series.

Two,  ultimately it isn’t about you. It’s about the filmmakers. They are the priority. You think you’re above doing a red carpet? Well, tough shit. You do what benefits your filmmakers. It is not a slam dunk to be able to attend a film festival. It’s expensive, getting schedules to work out is never a sure thing, and there are A LOT of film festivals out there. So if a filmmaker actually comes to your film festival then you need to treat them like a fucking rock star. They actually made – completed a film. Better, they made a watchable film. Better yet, they made a watchable film that you (or your programmers) thought was so good that it deserved one of the slots in your fest. So, they deserve to be treated as more than someone that just wandered into the theater. Imagine a couple getting married and the parents not having a photographer there because that just wasn’t their thing. think that’s an extreme way of looking at this? Then you probably didn’t use the last of your savings to finish one of your films.

I’m being completely serious. You manage to make a movie and then somehow get it accepted into a film festival, and then figure out a way to attend while still paying your bills, and then tell me how it’s really no big deal.

Now that this column has got me all fired up, let me pull back a bit. Red carpets come in all shapes and sizes. I’ve run 150 foot carpets at NYFF and the Chaplin Gala at Lincoln Center, red carpets twice that length at the AFI Life Achievement Award ceremony, red carpets in front of the Chinese Theater for AFI FEST, a Yellow Carpet for the Feel Good Film Festival, a Green Carpet for EarthxFilm, and a Blue Carpet for the Bentonville Film Festival. I’ve had little ten foot red carpets in the corner of movie theater lobbies, next to the coat rack in a festival’s filmmaker lounge tent, and I had one that had so little space afforded me that we did the photos in the entrance lobby and then I stationed video crews in the interior lobby before you entered the actual theater. A couple years back, a hipper-than-thou film festival in a historical old theater didn’t prioritize the red carpet because they were above it. So we took over a little side room upstairs and just did photos in front of their step-and repeat and then did a second set of shots staged on a “fainting couch” sitting next to it before escorting the filmmakers to interview pods we had staged further down the hall.

 

This year, I had a theater manager, paranoid about the hullabaloo in the lobby distracting their intros, “shut down” the red carpet before it was done – not caring that ten more filmmakers were still waiting to do their photos and interviews. I, along with an assistant, actually carried part of the step-and-repeat outside so those filmmakers could have their moment and we could finish. Later, I killed that theater manager and my assistant dismembered the body and disposed of it in random empty Stella Artois crates throughout the festival’s village.

I kid. But if that theater manager is back this year, they will have a restraining order keeping them away from my red carpet – for their own safety.

I got sidetracked. But the point is that one size does not fit all when it comes to red carpets. Usually, that’s because logistics sometimes are tough, budgeting tougher, or the film festival hasn’t figured things out priority-wise yet, and I’ve needed to improvise and make the best out of the hand I’ve been dealt, the geography I’ve been offered to stage everything, and the staffing (or lack of it) to pull it all off. And that usually happens because the film festival is not putting the filmmaker first. Bottom line. They may pay lip service to that idea, but they aren’t. I’ll say it again: Give. Your. Filmmakers. Their. Rock. Star. Moment. Just do it.

 

BUT SERIOUSLY, WHAT’S IN IT (THIS RED CARPET THING) FOR ME AND MY FILM FESTIVAL?

Let me take a quick moment to talk about something I find personally hilarious when I look at film festival websites. It’s all of the photos that are posted of people having a great time at parties or doing what amounts to the impromptu selfie in front of a step and repeat.

Just random people having a great time. No photo ID, no description. Are they filmmakers? Are they board members? Members of their film society? Extras from THE PURGE movies? Who knows? And who fucking cares? Apparently, that film festival is the only one that has cracked the code and figured out how to have fun at their fest. Finally, a film festival where you can drink a lot, hang out with people and listen to a DJ and stuff! Book my flight and stat!

That’s what those pictures communicates to me. You might as well have stock photos with staged models from Getty Images, because I don’t know those people and I don’t care about those people. In fact, it’s possible I automatically dislike those people because they are partying down and I’ve got two more press releases and an honoree’s schedule to write today. Or if I’m a filmmaker I’m pulling my hair out as my computer takes its own sweet time rendering this goddamn edit. And they better be fucking hot, like supermodel hot, if I’m just looking at random pictures of total strangers.

Or how about that shot of a bunch a kids doing something like a group cheerleader jump or giving the collective “thumbs up” for the camera. I don’t know those kids. They aren’t mine. I don’t even have kids. In fact, I feel much about kids like W.C. Fields did – don’t really even like them that much.

 

 

Unless one or more of them made a film. Framed a shot. Spent time in the editing bay. Learned how to cut something together. Held a fucking boom mic. Those kids I care about. I want to know which one was the writer, and who learned she had talent as a director, or the boy that discovered he had a knack for that “producing” thing. I want to know the title of their film. At the first Niagara Falls International Film festival this year, on Closing Night, well after the Red Carpet had happened, the Closing Night film screened, the filmmaker awards were given out, and we had essentially put that thing to bed, I saw three kids milling about by the step and repeat. I could tell by the color of their badges that they were filmmakers, but I hadn’t met them yet. I introduced myself to them and found out their names were Emmanuel Shamenda, Chun Gee Hong, Isabelle Bertino (of a short film titled PI they had made in school. Chun Gee Hong directed it, Isabelle wrote it, and Emmanuel was in front of and behind the camera doing a lot of stuff. This was their first film festival and had just driven up from school to experience the last night – didn’t even get to see their film screen. I had seen the film and told them what I liked about it. I then made them stay there for fifteen minutes while I charged my iPhone so I could get a photo of them on the red carpet to include in my photo gallery of the film festival. I gave them their moment. It was the same moment that I gave Jim De Koch and his cast from I’M TAKING YOU HOME. They had driven all the way from Milwaukee and wrote to thank me weeks later because he and his team we’re treated just like two-time Academy Award-winner Mark Bridges was on the same red carpet. They got the NFIFF stamp of approval that they were legit.

 

 

So, I really don’t give a damn about pictures of smiley, drinky people, at your parties. I don’t even care about random people I don’t recognize holding forth on some topic at a panel I didn’t attend. That panel could have been a bunch of blow hards reciting their resume’s greatest hits, what do I know?

No, I’d like to know that who the filmmakers were at your fest. I’d like to see that you had a writer/director with her DP and editor getting some photo love on your red carpet, getting their time on the other side of the camera. I need to know that you care enough about the guy that worked on a mind blowing VR project to tell me the title of his film and what he did on it. If I’m a filmmaker, then that tells me that your fest is celebrating the making of film and the people that actually DO make them. It isn’t just screening movies, it’s putting filmmakers on a pedestal – and this is very important – NOT JUST THE ACTUAL MOVIE STARS. Everyone. Even the shorts filmmakers.

 

 

When I first made the transition of personal celebrity PR to film and film festival PR, a filmmaker posted something on his personal site still awash in the afterglow of his time on my red carpet. There was a photo from AFI DALLAS (now DIFF) of him being interviewed between Lou Diamond Phillips on one side and Bill Paxton on the other. He was in a film festival with his very first short film that he made for roughly a grand and yet, he was given the same respect and attention by me and my staff, he was treated equally on the red carpet as the two movie stars. He couldn’t believe it. Still couldn’t believe it – a week or so later. At that time, film festival veteran Christian Gaines was the head of film festivals at AFI (They had three of them at that time.) and he had seen that post and emailed a link to me, saying “I am calling this the Wildman Red Carpet.”

Back to your question, because I know it’s all about you and your film festival.

I kid.

Kinda.

Look, if you honestly can’t see the merits of doing the red carpet out of your sense of responsibility toward your filmmakers, then fine, hard case, let’s talk about this from a business perspective.

It IS a festival. Remember that part. Well, the red carpet does, in fact, instantly create a spectacle and an attention-getting draw. And I don’t mean just having a step and repeat up so that anyone can wander by, telescope their selfie stick and go to Facebook or Instagram nirvana in your theater’s lobby. Nope. I mean, the countless moments and the collective energy and buzz as people start craning their necks or wander over to see who that is getting their picture taken or wonder if they recognize who that is that is being interviewed.

About ten years ago, I was running a red carpet at the North Park Shopping Center for AFI DALLAS and we had Charlize Theron there for BATTLE IN SEATTLE. We were on the ground floor next to an escalator leading up to the theaters located on the next level. Well, I looked up and the railing circling us was three deep it seemed on all sides with people trying to get a glimpse of Charlize walking the red carpet.

 

The red carpet itself is an attraction. It says you are throwing an event, pure and simple. People don’t shine big lights on people, take their pictures, or put a microphone in front of their face and have them talk about themselves unless they are important. And if I’ve bought a ticket to see a film at your film festival, then it is going to be very likely that I’ll feel a little cooler about it if I noticed that the filmmaker was someone important enough to have their picture taken and interviewed before they did the Q&A at the movie I watched that night. So it isn’t just about grabbing a quick picture of the filmmaker in front of their poster or the theater’s marquee. No, this is Sales 101.

And you have sponsors. Sponsors that want benefits resulting from the cash they’ve given you, or the goods they’ve supplied, or whatever support that translated to them being sponsors. Well, their logo in the program guide is great. The passes are awesome. The logo on the crawl before the fest’s trailer plays is just super.

But… How about THEIR rock star moment? You know, when they get to get their picture taken just like the directors and actors. Maybe their logo is even on the step-and-repeat and they can do that pose where they point at their own logo. Best of all, what if they get to pose with one of the filmmakers. Well, that’s a little more juice to sell them on coming back the next year or maybe even upping that sponsorship, yes?

 

Now, let’s talk about the people that didn’t make it to the fest that night. But maybe they saw the coverage of the red carpet on the news that evening. And it looked fun, and it looked like an event, and maybe now they are going to go check it out the next night because they don’t really need to see THE AVENGERS a third time. Or maybe the film festival is over and they didn’t even know it existed in the first place until they saw that clip from your Closing Night red carpet. And now they just might be inspired to go to your website and see what it’s all about.

Or…

Maybe, they’ve stumbled upon your website or heard about your film festival and decided to look it up and see what that whole thing is about… You know what’s better than the words describing your film festival? Pictures from the film festival. You know what’s even better than those pictures? Moving pictures. And best yet, interviews with filmmakers taking about how amazing their experience has been at the fest, how they can’t wait to come back because it’s the best one they’ve been to yet, and how your film festival is just a can’t-miss event.

And that same video or a similar one can also be used by you or your sponsorship person to get more backing, get more money because your film festival looks like the real deal, and there is filmmaker after filmmaker saying variations on the same theme: “This film festival rocks.”

And that marketing material, those enthusiastic sales pitches from actual filmmakers came from your red carpet. The filmmakers got to promote themselves and they happily promoted your film festival at the same time.

On your red carpet.

Now, all of this being said (and I know there was A LOT of this and that being said), you want to make sure you do this thing right.

 

So, you might want to give me a call…