My interview with Co-Director of Indie Grits, Seth Gadsden…
1. They received 300 films this past year, the most
they’ve ever received.
2. It’s a 10-day festival so they try to show as
many as they deem worthy.
3. -7. The pre-screening process
goes like this: There’s only a couple pre-screeners or jurors and then Seth.
The jurors split up the films, watch them, rate them on a color coded system
ranging from green to red (these colors can be vague such as orange, etc.),
then send them to Seth. He watches them but also go through the ones that
“didn’t make the cut”. They try to promote diversity in the picks. So if a
female director’s film gets rated “red”, Seth will go back in just to make
sure. Only about a quarter of the films entered are from female directors. We
talked a while on this. Another way they gather entries is to actually curate
them. If they stumble upon a film they like, they’ll go after it.
8.
The call for entries is October 1 and lasts through December. Because of
how long this is, they really don’t push for films beforehand.
9.
Indie Grits works directly with their venue the Nickelodeon Theatre.
That being said, employees of the theatre need to be able to work with indie
grits during the entirety of the festival.
Because they are growing at a rapid rate, they are always looking for
more people to bring on and volunteers for yearlong stints.
10. I’m not sure about the software. But as for
the dynamics of who’s doing it, other than the two co-directors, everyone seems
to be moving around positions to get the job done.
11. Indie Grits works directly
with other local events. This promotes advertising and potential sponsors. Next
year, they’re teaming up with “Girls Rock”, a summer camp for teenage girls
where they learn to play an instrument and are put into rock bands. That. Is. Awesome. They also ask their
filmmakers to talk to surrounding schools while visiting, including high
schools.
12. They do give swag bags to
filmmakers as well as have a filmmakers’ lounge with free food, fun, and booze.
However, guests are not allowed into the lounge. The filmmakers also have 100%
access to everything.
13. No, filmmakers do not pay.
14. Filmmakers have to cover
travel and lodging; however, one of Indie Grits’ sponsors, Sheraton Hotels,
provides discounted rooms. Seth is trying to get free rooms for at least one
night for filmmakers next year.
15. Since the festival is 10 days
of jammed packed activities in all different venues, the filmmakers usually
have their hands full as well as see a good part of Columbia. This also goes
back to the visiting of local schools while there.
16. Seth is actually redoing the
whole website “as we speak”. On the page, you can see different levels of
sponsors, but they’re not really distinguished enough as they’d like. The perks
of being a sponsor is pure advertisement…plain and simple.
17. This is going to be Seth’s
second year working with Indie Grits so as for the beginning, I’m not too sure.
However, he said multiple times that they were changing A LOT. They continue to
bring in more and more events that are unique not just to the area but also to
film festivals all over. Something that was super super cool that he mentioned
was that for next year, they are doing an interactive art installation. They
are renting out 10 hotel rooms for different artists or filmmakers. The artist
can do whatever they want in the room as long as there’s SOMETHING playing on a
screen. Guests can walk through each room, hang out, talk to artist, and I
guess there’s a party at the hotel’s pool involved with it as well. The changes
they’re making are all for bringing new unique experiences to their festival.
This festival is the jam, and I am definitely going next year and hopefully submitting
a film this year.
18. Alive and kickin…
19. The advice was to try to
incorporate as many local organizations and events as possible to bring more
and diverse people into our festival.
