• Eva Madden – is a Halifax based writer/director and 2007 NSI Drama Prize alumna who has made a name for herself with her short film Eastern Shore - produced through the NSI Drama Prize program.

How much money/time did you spend on a website for your film?

• Madden: To be honest I rely on YouTube and MySpace at this point to stream content. I really want my own website, and think it’s vitally important. I just need the time and someone more 'web' inclined to get it up and running. Know anyone?

• Porter: We had a volunteer create our website. But we pay the website hosting fee. I think it's fairly important as lots of people have visited it and contacted us for copies through it. Also, we have a downloadable press kit and pictures on it, so we can direct press and film festivals to it for their needs.

• Carter: I have spent nothing on a website. Instead I have started a blog about the making of the film and, as it turns out, my journey in general as a filmmaker. I do think it is important to have a brand image or a cohesive idea/image to present about you and your work - especially as you grow as a filmmaker. You want to have a place where you can showcase your work and yourself and what you are working on. A place for people to find you.

• Weekley: If you are presenting yourself as a filmmaker, you need to have a "home" where audiences can find information about your work. Right now The Auburn Hills Breakdown has a Facebook page. Whoo-hoo, right? But it's better than nothing and a place for people to keep up to date on the film. Costs? We're building our website right now and with WordPress - it's pretty straightforward and not too expensive. A lot of work though.

• Maybee: I'm considering putting the entire marketing budget (which is zero right now) into a website and saving the paperwork, the planet, and the costs associated with print runs of postcards that nobody wants anyway. Getting a piece of someone's attention is easier on Facebook anyway - you get more of their attention, more of their time, and more of their interest online than in a postcard. There is something to be said for the standards and having them for your press kit, but I would consider them lower priority than getting a shingle out on the web.

• Cotterill: Websites are important but I wouldn't spend any money on them. Everyone has a friend who is proficient enough to help out or give them a few bucks but anyone can make a webpage. They don't have to be fancy. In fact the simpler the better. Our web pages are easy and fast but have some great graphics - that is key though - you need someone to design your art. Artwork that reflects your film so that people immediately understand what your movie is by seeing what you put out there to represent it. This is crucial.

How quickly did you put your work online?

• Porter: We haven't yet put our film online as we have it playing still on TV channels.

• Cotterill: We didn't put Treevenge online for a long time - in fact we never really did - it got leaked so it's out there - we didn't want to ruin our chances of getting into festivals because it was online so we held it back.
  
  With the successes we continued to hold back because so many people were going to be showing it and we wanted to keep it special for the festivals so people had to go to the fests to see the film. Eventually, after about a year, it was put online - we just let it go at that point - the film had done so much - more than we could have hoped for. All that said, depending on the strategy of your film release, the internet could be the way to go. Our first short that we did as a creative team, Hobo With a Shotgun, was released online and that film really went off on YouTube - but it  was part of a contest, not a planned film destined for the film festival world. I think that you have to strategize ahead of time - be aware of your audience - and speak to them, but also be aware of what you want the film to do.

• Carter: I have yet to put a whole film online. I have put trailers up for two of my films. I was more interested in exploring the more traditional route of distributor etc... Having said that, I am certainly much more open to it than in the past. I am still making my festival rounds but after they are done I think I will deal with trying to sell and distribute the film myself and, yes, am considering posting it online. The climate for film is constantly changing and I don't think posting online has the stigma attached to it that it used to have.

• Weekley: This is the question I'm embarrassed to answer. Our films are not online. And we've gotten several emails asking where people can see this film. We've struggled with when to finally go online with the film. With shorts, because it's not about making money but creating excitement for your work, you do want to create some scarcity where people can't just click and watch. So we're still working on that.

• Madden: Most of my films are not yet online as they are either still being shown on TV or are still on the festival circuit. Eastern Shore is being shown on Movieola; Fast Forward in Reverse is currently touring with The St. John’s International Women’s Film Festival Films On The Go Tour. My latest short, What Remains, has just been sent out to festivals with hopes of premiers in various festivals this fall.

• Maybee: I haven't put any of my films online except for under password protection and that has been in response to the short film buyers.
  
  At the Worldwide Short Film Fest in Toronto, they have a fantastic symposium schedule every year and one of the highlights is always the "Who Buys What" symposium. At the symposium in 2007 and 2009 short film buyers were saying that they wouldn't touch a film that was available for free online. Why would you do that to your intellectual property? Give it away and remove its value? But then this year, at the same symposium, I saw that the short film buyers are starting to understand what their role is - they're not purveyors of the latest and freshest - nobody cares about freshness when it comes to short film. They care about goodness. Is it any good?
  
  The buyers don't mind if it's online (so long as it hasn't been seen by thousands of people). In fact, some of them appreciate that a short film can win an audience of its own and that film can bring that audience to a short film channel. Short film exhibitors and broadcasters need these audiences to make up their own audience. As it is now, it's a good idea to keep your film offline (or better yet, online but password protected so you can quickly send a link to a high res version), until it's done its primary festival run.

Considering the apathy towards Canadian cinema by the general public, are people surprised to discover how great your film is?

• Porter: We've had a lot of positive feedback from Canadians and from people outside Canada. We won some Canadian awards and some awards in the USA, France and Korea.

• Cotterill: The only apathy towards Canadian films is from Canadians who beat up their own films. It's really not fair - every country makes bad films and every country makes amazing films. Unfortunately, Canadians just don't know how to celebrate the art they put out there. As far as Treevenge goes we have never been singled out as a Canadian anomaly - the reactions to it have been the same across the world which is an incredible feeling.

• Carter: I haven't felt that. What I have been more surprised by is how I have been embraced by the US and not by Canada. Canada doesn't seem interested in screening my films (for the most part to date anyway) but the US seems to really like them.

• Weekley: Truthfully, I feel our film wasn't very successful in Canada. We played a handful of Canadian festivals. In worldwide festivals we were one of many, many nationalities and us being Canadian didn't mean anything to our audiences. They just loved our film. I think apathy towards one's national cinema is a problem in other countries. At festivals in Sweden we would hear stories of how early in his career Bergman was not taken seriously at home. Ingmar Bergman!! So the problem isn't uniquely Canadian. I like very much what the National Screen Institute - Canada (NSI) is doing. Maybe that's what will help Canadian cinema: fostering teams. Which I think is key to what the NSI is doing right.

• Maybee: Most people I know think short films generally suck. A lot of that has to do with their access to short films and the kinds of short films that get exposure. When you think about it, other than YouTube, which has really taken over for America's Funniest Home Videos, short films still don't have much of an audience, even in a world where the opportunities for entertainment are exponentially greater than ever before. With iPhones etc. now your 20 minute subway ride is an opportunity to watch two ten minute films. People could be consuming short films now in a vastly amplified way, but they're not, mostly because short films are one-offs and there isn't enough money behind them to advertise and promote them. I think people are often surprised when a short film is actually good, mostly because they're used to them being bad. Just as with poetry, more people write it than read it; the same goes for short films. Many people make short films having only ever watched features. A short film is an entirely different beast.

• Madden: I think short films have a great reputation in this country and manage to escape the general apathy that features suffer. I think it’s because short films tend to be showcased at film festivals whereas features require going to a movie theatre on a date night and choosing a Canadian film over a Hollywood blockbuster. Atlantic Shorts, which is a program that runs at the Atlantic Film Festival here in Halifax, always sells out and every year they have to add more and more screenings. And it’s not just friends and family in the audience - there’s a real audience out there, people from all walks of life.

Finally, how is digital changing the game for short films?

• Porter: Less stress on set. Less money needed in the budget. Digital allows for more takes of a shot if you don't think you've got it yet.

• Weekley: We just made a short film that took two weeks from inception to completion. We had a tiny crew, did everything in house and had almost no hard costs. It was amazingly liberating to make a short film with almost no wind-up. Just go out and shoot. We're extremely happy with the results.

• Maybee: The main thing I see happening is that accessibility to the tools is opening up the range of voices and stories that can be told. If anyone's ever seen Thomas Vinterberg's The Celebration, it's pretty obvious that the quality of the picture doesn't have to matter (for some reason poor sound quality, on the other hand, is the death of any film). The other thing that I think has happened as a result of the digital innovations is that a medium that was once, as a rule, collaborative (with some notable exceptions, though those are rare cases), has now become a madman's paradise. You can write, shoot, cut, post, and deliver from a computer at home. One crazy person with a few friends (or fiends) can make a movie.

• Cotterill: The cameras are getting smaller and smaller, need less light - it's just opening doors to make stuff that has never been done before by people that would have never had a chance to voice themselves otherwise.

• Carter: For every amazing, new filmmaker discovered there are twice as many who have no clue how to tell a story visually or otherwise. With that said if you embrace it, try and work with the same ideals using new technology it can be exciting. I think in the end good storytelling wins.

• Madden: Digital has definitely changed the game. We shot Eastern Shore on 16mm film, and that was great but it limited how much we could shoot. My latest short was shot on the Canon EX3, which I love. We put 35mm adapters on and shot with prime lenses so it still maintains a very filmic look and feel. Also, I really wanted to shoot with two cameras - it was an aesthetic choice - as well as staging choice. I wanted to work with the actors in a certain way, in a verité style and be allowed to run whole scenes without only being able to cover one actor. I would never have been able to shoot that way on film, especially with the budget we had.

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