Pre-Production Unit- Continuing to Investigate Format and Distribution Method

Today I am going to spend the majority of my time researching international (and local) film festivals that we could submit "Inoculum" to. I believe it is important for me to do this at this stage in the pre-production process, as doing so will allow me to make changes to the initial project brief in order for our film to be submittable to a certain festival.
For example, as mentioned in a previous blog post where I briefly investigated some film festivals, there are a number of factors that limit what kind of films are submittable to certain film festivals, and under which category.
For example, some films can only be submitted if they are under a certain running-time, created by a certain type of film-maker (in our case, Students), and sometimes even under a certain production budget.
One festival I am particularly interested in submitting Inoculum to is the "British Independent Film Festival", a festival that has been running for 7 years now. I discovered this festival several years ago, whilst studying my Creative and Media diploma at my sixth form, and now that I am planning a production, I believe it would be very beneficial for me and Charlie to submit to this particular festival.

One reason I have selected this film festival in particular is because it is held in our home country of Britain, which means if need be, myself and Charlie could actually realistically and affordably visit the festival at the time of our film's showing and receive instant feedback based on the audience response. It would also allow any curious viewers to ask us questions about our film and the overall production if they wish.
I began my investigation into the submission standards and process for this film festival by visiting this website: https://www.withoutabox.com/03film/03t_fin/03t_fin_fest_01over.php?festival_id=7829 which I found through a google search.
I found this site particularly useful, and I managed to ascertain some very important information right away, including the actual date the festival will be held, as well as the categories that you can submit to.

The overall objective of the festival is as follows:

and the categories that the festival accepts submission for are:

As you can see from the listed categories, in conjunction with the running-time limit of 25 minutes we have already established for our film project, I came to the conclusion that there is a total of two categories that me and Charlie are able to submit our film to when completed. These categories are;

• Short Film
• Student Film

Once I had established which categories our film would be submittable to, I decide to check out some of the more technical requirements, including the price of submission and the deadline for submission to these categories. 

I first checked out requirements to submit to the "Short Film Category."

The first major aspect I wanted to know was the price of submission. Because myself and Charlie are working with a very small budget, relying mostly on our student finance for this project, we have to consider the price of submission very carefully. The prices for each category are actually relatively cheap, especially when considering that me and Charlie will no doubt split the price between us.

Short Film's entry price and submission deadline can be seen here:

I believe that me and Charlie will be best paying the £45 Student fee and submitting for the "Late Deadline", which is March 15th 2016. I believe having this deadline will give us plenty of time to realistically shoot and edit our film from January onwards ready for submission prior to this date.

The requirements and pricing for the "Student" category feature almost exactly the same requirements as the Short-film category, with the exception being that in order to submit to the Student category, the people submitting to the category must be students at the time of production. Obviously this applies to myself and Charlie anyway.

WHAT'S IN IT FOR US?
Something I discovered during my research however was that there are different awards depending on the submission for each category, which I think could aid us in other areas of the production.
All of the awards that are able to be won in the SHORT FILM category are;

And the awards able to be won in the STUDENT category are:

As you can see, there are more awards to be won in the Short Film category than there are in the Student Film category. I have been thinking that this may be beneficial for us to mention in other areas of preproduction and production. For example, in casting-calls, adding that the film is being submitted for consideration where actors and actresses could be recognised for their hard work (via the "Best Actor" and "Best Actress" awards, may allow for a much greater amount, and higher standard of actor application for this project.
I believe that winning any of the awards offered in the Short Film category will definitely give me, Charlie and the cast we will be working with a sense of authenticity as film-makers, and as such I believe that the Short Film Category is the best category for us to submit to.
One thing to consider however is that the Short Film category can be applied to by creators of all ages and experiences, meaning that we will have a lot higher standard competition, from people that could potentially have many more years experiences in film-making than myself and Charlie, whereas in the Student Film category, we would be submitting alongside people of similar experience as ourselves, which means the competition would be around the same level as us.

Another submission requirement for the British Independent Film Festival are the following;

From what I can gather, these materials are required to show the production and development stage of the films that are being submitted, which would also be used to show that the people submitting the films actually created them. These materials should be relatively easy to get a hold of, as we will be producing most of these things as part of our academic submission anyway.

Another area of importance is the attendance for the festival. Something I will be considering highly when confirming which festival we will submit our project to is the amount to people that attend the project, and the overall opportunity for exposure myself, Charlie and our cast and crew will have to a larger audience.
I will also be considering how successful previous production companies that have submitted to this film festival have become, and investigating what projects they have gone onto after submission. I believe this will give me and Charlie a better idea of where we will be at after the project, should our film be successful at this festival.

As I continue my investigations, I have decided to follow the festival's facebook page at: https://www.facebook.com/BritishIndependentFilmFestival?pnref=lhc so that I can continue to learn more about the festival and others submitting to it.