By Christine Stoddard *
A film festival acceptance is a blessing. But what if you can’t make it to your screening? While a credit is nice, facetime probably counts for more. Some of the main reasons to hit “Submit” include strutting down the red carpet, meeting people, and exchanging contact info. If you miss the photo opps, step-and-repeat, handshakes, small talk, panel discussions, and toasts, you’ve missed crucial parts of the film fest experience. There is, of course, the artist’s desire to see your work theatrically presented, too. As much as I appreciate convenience and accessibility, a virtual film festival experience cannot compare to an IRL one. Still, that doesn’t mean live, in-person film festivals are the only place filmmakers can impress and build a following. YouTube can get you eyeballs, too.
My suggestion? Go for both. Just do so strategically.
Wait, can I submit a film to festivals if I post it to YouTube?
Yes, it may be taboo, but I’ve done it—only not until recently. Why? Because I’d heard it was a no-no. I had a change of heart not long after my short film Uncontested premiered at the Grand Concourse Film Festival in New York City and then screened at the Southern Arizona Independent Film Festival. Unfortunately, I couldn’t attend either event due to prior commitments. In both cases, I was disappointed, but I figured that I’d make it to the next film festival.
Five months passed from one fest to the next. Though I knew a festival circuit could take up to a year, or even longer, I got impatient. It was 2024. I had already survived the restlessness and standstills brought upon arts & entertainment by COVID. How much longer could I wait? What if the film wasn’t chosen for another festival? What if I had missed my chance to see the film screen anywhere? I’d never gotten to witness an audience reaction to Uncontested. What if the film never found a larger audience? Neither festival was huge and certainly didn’t have hundreds of butts in seats. I realized that’s what I cared about most for this film: views. So, I decided that I’d be satisfied with two film festival acceptances and put the film on YouTube.
Right move.
In its first 48 hours, Uncontested garnered a whopping 3K views. No advertising. No press.
The film was (and is) still being considered by festivals. Just one week after the YouTube premiere in April, the New York True Venture Film Festival accepted it.
Still from Uncontested, directed by Christine Stoddard
Ask yourself: What is my goal for my short film?
I spent about two weeks researching YouTube success tactics before uploading Uncontested to my brand-new channel. This largely meant scouring message boards like Reddit and Quora and Googling my biggest questions. During those two weeks, which were the first weeks of my channel’s existence, I used other short films and videos for trial and error. They were lower stakes projects for me. Some were ones I had uploaded to my old YouTube channel; others were class projects or creative experiments I cranked out for the heck of it.
Before I get into specific tips, here’s my most important one: Be honest with yourself. Consider what your heart, soul, career, and bank account all need. Ask: What do I want to achieve with this film? What do I hope to accomplish as an artist? As an industry professional? The more specific your answer, the better.
I knew that I wanted at least 1,000 people to see my short film. I guesstimated that no more than 100 people total saw Uncontested at those two festivals. So I had at least 900 more people I wanted to reach. I came to this number based upon records I set for myself with other short films, the streaming numbers that came in for my first feature film (Sirena’s Gallery), and the consideration that this was a zero-budget project. You may have a more modest or ambitious metric in mind. Or maybe you simply want to work on your craft and build your portfolio and don’t care about metrics at this stage. I not only reached but exceeded my goal because I had a sense of where and how to aim. It’s hard to aim when you’re aimless.
What are some ways I can maximize YouTube views on my short film?
Here’s what I recommend implementing for a successful YouTube premiere:
- Post the film on one YouTube channel. Don’t double-up if you have multiple channels. YouTube doesn’t like it when two channels have a lot of repeated content, so the algorithm will de-prioritize it. Choose the channel where the film thematically fits best. My long-time channel, @ChristineStoddard, is a dumping ground for client projects, acting reels, camera tests, and other clips. I basically use it like Vimeo or Dropbox for files I don’t mind making public or that someone else needs to quickly access. Meanwhile, @StoddardSays, the channel where I posted Uncontested, is curated and regularly scheduled, reserved for films, comedy sketches, and art videos, plus some art photography and BTS from my work as a filmmaker and actor. The latter was the right channel for my short film.
- Build some hype! Don’t just upload the film and make it available for public viewing immediately. You don’t have to schedule a watch party—I didn’t—but you should at least set a premiere on YouTube that’s a few days out. People who visit your channel will see that the film is scheduled and may hit the “notify me” button for when it goes live.
- Schedule the film for 3 p.m. to 6 p.m. during the week. Or on a Sunday! During the week, most people have work and school during the day. You might not get much traction on your film if you schedule the premiere for Saturday because people tend to have plans. Sundays can be ideal because people are more likely to be home and in the mood to watch a movie. Uncontested went live at midnight on a Sunday. People were watching it all day Sunday.
- Choose an appealing thumbnail image that truthfully represents the film. For Uncontested, I chose a still that showed my female and male protagonists since it is a romantic comedy. Some people design graphics for their thumbnails. I often think a compelling still picture works well for a short film because it helps sell the cinematography.
- Feature your film on your YouTube homepage. Make it the first video people see on your channel. They can’t miss it! You can even set it to auto-play when people visit the channel.
- Tell people who already follow you that the film is on YouTube. Post the direct link. This means your followers, subscribers, and friends on Instagram, Facebook, X, Mailchimp, LinkedIn, Pinterest, TikTok, etc.
- Research how to tailor announcement posts for each platform. Save yourself some time by reusing images and text, but don’t just do a straight copy-paste across platforms. Facebook has a higher tolerance for longer text, while Instagram is very driven by images and reels.
- One-on-one DMs, texts, and emails to fans and friends are more effective than public posts that anyone can see. This is because these DMs feel like special invitations. It’s also because the algorithms on Facebook and IG can severely limit how many people see your post. Your organic post reach on Facebook probably hovers around 2-12%. Not too high! Downside of one-on-one DMs? They take more time.
Trailer still for Walking and Falling (or the Worst Day of My Life) by Alan Saltz and Jacob Maximilian Baron
What are the downsides of uploading your film to YouTube?
Yes, you have the chance to rack up hundreds or thousands of views on YouTube relatively quickly. However, there are downsides. This is especially true if it hasn’t yet screened at festivals. Here are the main disadvantages:
- It takes time to plan and market a YouTube premiere.
- Some festivals won’t consider films that have appeared online. Festivals define this boundary differently. Some don’t care if a film is available online if it’s behind a paywall. Others don’t care as long as it hasn’t reached a certain number of views. A growing minority are so strict that they accept no password-free online presence for a film at all. Often the most prestigious festivals are the strictest. Prestige may or may not matter to you. But if you want your film to go to Tribeca, I wouldn’t risk a YouTube premiere until that rejection is in hand. And sometimes, if you know someone, especially at a smaller local festival, they might bend the rules for you. Always read festival rules carefully! You can usually email the festival team with clarifying questions.
Again, step back and evaluate your goals for your film. Maybe, as you see it, none of these “disadvantages” outweigh the potential for high viewership on your film.
Smart people will disagree about film fests and YouTube.
I asked two of my filmmaker friends what they thought of submitting to fests and posting the same video on YouTube. In fact, they were the two people who worked on Uncontested: Jacob Maximillian Baron, cinematographer and editor, and Aaron Gold, my co-star. We also all work on the TV show Don’t Mind If I Don’t together and have a forthcoming feature film called Her Garden. Our film De Colores (Chorus of Melancholy) took home Best Experimental Project at the Latino Film Festival last year. Of course, we don’t make all of our work together and we all made work independently of each other before meeting. Baron and I have known each other going on five years; Gold and I met 2.5 years ago.
“I usually don’t upload to YouTube in case it disqualifies me for festival consideration,” said Baron, who recently shot and edited the music video “Coven” by Wikka. While that video is on YouTube for purposes of building visibility for the band, his feature documentary Walking and Falling (or the Worst Day of My Life), co-created with Alan Saltz, is not. The film is still making its festival circuit.
Gold, an actor, comedian, and producer of the live comedy show “You Are Not Alone” at the Magnet Theater in New York City, disagrees with Baron. He said, “I think YouTube has become the premier accessible video site, so posting your short films to it sounds like the best way to get as many eyes on it as possible.”
“I’ve been in several short films and series posted to YouTube, which then went on to garner festival acclaim,” he added. “I see no logical reason to keep them exclusive. There’s such a small chance that someone at a film festival would have seen your video anyway, considering just how vast YouTube is.”
Again, it goes back to your goals.
Still for Don’t Mind If I Don’t, created by Aaron Gold
* Contributor Bio
Named one of Brooklyn Magazine’s Top 50 Most Fascinating People, Christine Stoddard is a filmmaker, actor, artist, and founder of the creative studio Quail Bell. She runs the YouTube channel Stoddard Says, created the talk show Badass Lady-Folk, and co-hosts the TV comedy show Don’t Mind If I Don’t with Aaron Gold. She is an incoming M.S. Documentary Film candidate at Columbia University Journalism School. Follow her on all platforms @StoddardSays.
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