Leadbelly Blues Festival

If you have a good story to tell there is no reason why you should not make it into an independent film. With the right film production techniques, the right script, the right people working with you and a relatively small amount of money you can make a low budget movie that can compete with the best of them on the festival circuit at places like Cannes, Toronto, Telluride and the Sundance Film Festival. If your story is compelling enough people will forget that the production value is a bit challenged.

There are people all over this world who never gave up on their dreams to make films, despite the difficulties that came with working outside of the mainstream film industry. They are passionate filmmakers who believe that anyone with a compelling story to tell has a right to make a movie. Through their struggles these diehard filmmakers have created cheaper ways to make movies. This revolution was born out of frustration due to decades of having their creative voices shunned by the big film studios who favored commercialism over creativity.

The commercialism associated with the films that are being released by the major Hollywood film studios these days is very frustrating for any filmmaker who considers their work to be art. Nowadays movies are tested extensively beforehand to ensure that the studio committing hundreds of millions of dollars to it will not lose money. This kind of testing tends to narrow the field down to only a few kinds of movies that they will invest in which means there is no room for new ideas. True artists can never be happy when there are constraints imposed on their methods and subject matter.

Although the film industry is a merging of story telling and commerce, the story telling part has always been the most important half of the equation for the audience. The big movie studio executives seem to have forgotten this fact as they continue to produce movies that have more style than substance. People would much rather see a good movie with a low production value than they would a bad movie with a high production value.

Talent and a good storyline are generally worth more to movie audiences than an expensive look. If you can just get a good story committed to film and submitted to film festivals, then people will take notice. If a buzz is created about your movie, it can lead to a distribution deal that is worth many times more than the money you invested.

After you have finished with all phases of the film production process you need to find places that will show your film to the public. There is a thing called the film festival circuit and it is the last bastion of hope for people who want to make independent films. Sure, the celebrities and big studios have recently invaded the larger events like Toronto, Cannes and the Sundance Film Festival, but they still make room for the little guys. Independent filmmakers are still the focus of film festivals no matter how much publicity they receive.

Films like The Blair Witch Project are a perfect example of how a film with a very small budget but a very clever story can make it to the big time.

This very independent film was a big hit at The Sundance Film Festival in the late nineties and it was all because of the storyline. The Film was shot and edited on video and transferred to 16mm film only for the print that was needed for screenings at the festival. The independent filmmakers that made this film only spent about 40,000 dollars to make it and get it ready for Sundance. The production value was very poor but people could not stop talking about how the story ended. It received a lot of publicity and was subsequently sold to a major film studio for one and a half million dollars. The studio made 150 million dollars on the film when they blew it up to 35 millimeter and distributed it to theaters nationwide.

Film festivals are places where the playing field is leveled for all the players in the film industry. It is a strange nexus between people who are hungry to get into the film industry and people who have had too much of it and just want to be a little less full of it. They long for the days when filmmaking was more of an art form and less commercialized. The result is that they embrace independent filmmakers in their raw form. When this happens there is always a chance that one of the little guys could be suddenly held up to the spotlight by the big players and glorified. If this does occur it is always because the storyline of the film created a buzz, not the production value.

Located on the Riviera in southern France, the city of Cannes is famous all over the world, not only for its film festival but also for the Cannes Lions Festival, which is regarded as the world’s most prestigious festival of advertising. This glitzy, upmarket city has a population of approximately of 70,000 people and its principal source of income is tourism.

It is over 500 miles away from Paris standing on the Mediterranean coast that provided the natural features which attracted tourists initially. The sand, sea and sun of resorts in the Cannes area are legendry.

The famous Boulevard de la Croisette, is lined on one side with luxurious hotels, restaurants, nightclubs and shops selling goods at prices to suit the purses of the celebrity promenaders it attracts. Opposite the fine sand beaches are usually populated by those who like to see and more importantly, be seen. People-watching is probably the main activity that brings most tourists to Cannes! Another of the attractions is lunching but you might need to watch your eating habits, because you can easily find yourself in the background of a TV commercial or music video.

If there is such a thing as a quiet period in Cannes, it is in the winter, but once May arrives any semblance of calm is totally broken by the arrival of the Film Festival. The city just erupts and becomes submerged with wave after wave of paparazzi, following posing starlets. The whole place gets covered with film billboards, whilst luxury cars fill the roads and private beach parties take over the sands. Then there are the famous balcony parties and private film viewing parties as well as the evening parties thrown by just about everyone striving for more recognition. The restaurants and bars are even more packed than usual and the movie fans join with the paparazzi in their insatiable quest to catch glimpses of their idols at every opportunity.

But Cannes wasn’t always like this and to get some idea of what it must have been like before the rich and famous invaded, you need to take a look at the “old town”. This is known as Le Suquet and it overlooks the west end of the port. It is an area of narrow streets climbing steeply up a hill crowned by an 11th century tower. The views from the top are breathtaking and you can see right across the city and port and out of the bay to the Cap de la Croisette. Looking west, the views stretch over the Gulf of La Napoule towards the Massif de l`Esterel. It is from this viewpoint alone that one can appreciate what must have attracted tourists to Cannes in the first place.

Arranging a vacation in Cannes is probably something best done as part of a wider tour of southern France. You can easily book cheap flights and reliable accommodation on line using the articles and information at holiday destination websites like Best-Travel-Tip.com