ATLFF '15 Best Narrative Feature Winner "God Bless the Child" Hits Theaters and iTunes

The 2015 Atlanta Film Festival's Jury Award-winner in the Narrative Feature category was Rodrigo Ojeda-Beck and Robert Machoian's "God Bless the Child," which premiered at SXSW just days before its bow at ATLFF.

After a strong festival run throughout the spring and summer—where it was in competition at most, if not all, festivals—"God Bless the Child" is now receiving a theatrical release in New York City and will be released on iTunes on Tuesday, August 18th.

In "God Bless the Child," an often overwhelmed teenager (Harper Graham) tends to the needs of her four younger brothers, all of whom spend the day challenging each other in games of strength and burgeoning masculinity. All the while, Hannah is searching and waiting for the parent who is missing in action. Deftly walking the tightrope between documentary and narrative filmmaking, "God Bless the Child" gives us a keenly real sense of the joys, and the burden, of raising a family with little support financially or emotionally.

Click here for more information about the Independent Filmmaker Project's (IFP) week-long run of "God Bless the Child" at Made in NY Media Center by IFP. Make sure you pre-order the film on iTunes, or check it out on August 18th!

ATLFF '14 selection A WILL FOR THE WOODS now available On Demand and on DVD!

One of ATLFF '14's most inspired documentaries is now available for you to watch at home! "A Will for the Wood" is now on DVD or available on Vimeo On Demand or iTunes.

Musician, folk dancer and psychiatrist Clark Wang battles lymphoma while facing a potentially imminent need for funeral plans. Determined that his last act will not harm the environment—and, hopefully, help protect it—Clark has discovered the movement to further sustainable funerals that conserve natural areas. "A Will for the Woods" is an immersive, life-affirming depiction of people coming to terms with mortality by embracing their connection to timeless natural cycles.

In addition to being a hit during the festival, a Best of Fest screening took place months later, in August, co-presented by Mountainfilm on Tour ATL. More information about how you can watch "A Will for the Woods" is at www.awillforthewoods.com.

Are You Getting Paid What You’Re Worth? Seven Tips To Avoid Going (Completely) Broke Producing Your Film

Credit orphanjones

Recently, we at the Atlanta Film Festival partnered with the A3C Hip Hop Film Festival to co-present the film festival portion. Among the offerings we had a music video director panel. Out of that came two key pieces of advice:

Pay yourself first. Artists get royalties, video directors don’t.

Think about your residuals. How can you keep getting paid after your job is done.

These may seem obvious to many, however, it’s our experience that filmmakers are hyper-focused on getting their projects completed. Pulling a salary is often an afterthought. For a few of you reading this, it may even be an anathema. Whatever money you’re raising, it’s going to production first.

There’s nothing inherently wrong with working for free. However, if a filmmaker isn’t diligent about communicating what their time and effort is valued at, that can develop into a self-imposed ceiling that’s difficult to rise above.

Here’s some advice gleamed from some of the successful producers and directors that have come through ATLFF.

1. Relying on the sale of your film to get compensated after-the-fact is a risky gamble. Accept that now. As a producer or director, you need to be thinking about your own pay from jump, or you may never see anything.
2. Paying yourself first increases the chances your project will actually see the light of day. It’s difficult to stress about bills, raise money, build up your team and produce your project.
3. Include development costs in your production. Going after investors may require flying out to meet with them. Paper and ink adds up. Don’t let these soft and hard costs put you in the negative. When you get paid, you could be covering what you spent, not actually drawing a salary.
4. Include writing the script when you’re factoring in compensation. Yes, even if it’s your own project. You spent months, if not years writing it. You should get something.
5. Anticipate issues and know ahead of time which scenes can be cut down, change locations or eliminated altogether. Pulling money out of postproduction, or using funds earmarked to keep your production company solvent to shoot everything as planned is a bad idea. It’s going to cost twice as much, take twice as long to finish, or both. Putting your film on the shelf because you didn’t have the money to take a two month break to focus on finishing your film is a momentum killer.
6. Don’t be afraid to use crowdfunding as the start of your funding process. Raising partial funding is a much stronger position from which to raise more funds than having no funding at all. If you’ve built a base and a following, your supporters can be the catalyst to moving a project a long.
7. You can be flexible. Being compensated does not mean you have to see all of the money up front. Ensuring that you’re not coming out of pocket (more than you reasonably should), that you’re comfortable, and you have room to produce your project are the goals. If you only raise enough money to allow you to work one day a week on a project, that’s one day you aren’t rushing around doing something else. Also, it’s a sign of respect for yourself that can demonstrate your professionalism. Working for free isn’t always a sign passion, it can be read as desperation, and even as delusional about your film’s prospects or your own skills.

Originally Posted on Film Threat

Charles Judson is Artistic Director for the Atlanta Film Festival

How Can Working With a Music Supervisor Save Time, Money and Your Distribution Prospects?

Photo by hanul

While I am all for learning the art of filmmaking on the job, there are instances where prior formal education and training would save some big hassles in seeing [a] film out to market. One big oversight that I see within in the DIY filmmaking movement is in music licensing. Without the proper music clearances, a film can go from poised to explode on the market to a wasted effort only your kids will see. If you don’t have the knowledge and experience to ensure proper licensing, it is best to bring in a professional.

"I personally have encountered filmmakers who only cleared their film’s music tracks for festival play, thinking that a distributor would agree to pick up the clearance costs later or the advance will be big enough to pay for the clearances. But unless the film is stellar, gets significant attention from A-list fests and is considered a hot property, this is not going to happen."

Read Sheri Candler's Piece on MovieMaker 

 Sheri Candler is Director of Digital Marketing Strategy for The Film Collaborative. Join us Sunday, October 20, 4:00pm for her webinar: Distribution is 100% achievable…but probably not in the way you think.