THE PROGRAMMERS: Doug Jones (LA Film Festival)
What was the
moment when you realized that film was something that you wanted to do - and
actually could do - for a living?
I don't really remember a time when I wasn't interested in movies.
When I was a little kid, weekends meant watching cartoons on Saturday mornings
and Academy Award Theater on Sunday mornings. Then in the afternoons I would
ride my bike to 7-11 and play video games
I first started making a
living--or rather just earning a paycheck--with film when I was 14 and lied my
way into a job behind the popcorn stand of the Hollywood Theater in Sioux
Falls, SD. I told them I was 15. Since that point, there really hasn't been a
time when I wasn't doing something film-related.
How long have you
been involved programming for festivals? How did you get involved?
In the early '90s, I started working at a university film society
in Minneapolis where we would show art house stuff and weekend series of, for
example, classic screwball comedies. We also produced the local film festival.
Now, at the time, my main festival job was shipping the prints (and back then
they were all film prints) in and out
of Minneapolis. One place I would send a lot of films was the San Francisco
International Film Festival, and after a few years I got a job as their print
shipper.
Once I had my foot in the door in San Francisco, I slowly inched
my way into the programming department. First I was someone's assistant, then I
was the department's assistant, then I had a year where I was just there, doing
whatever needed to be done. Finally, some one left to go work for Cannes, and I
was able to take their spot and officially become a Programmer.
On average how
many films do you see per year? How many festival slots do you have to fill?
How long does the selection process take?
I probably see about 500 to 600 feature films a year. (Then there
are 150 plus short films and music videos on top of that.) Although the exact
number fluctuates from year to year, usually the festival has space for between
70 to 80 new films.
The selection process for the Los Angeles Film Festival, which
takes place in June, takes at least 9 months. It starts up in September, when I
start traveling to other festivals, scouting for films. Our submission process
starts in November, when people start sending their films to us for
consideration. Then it just starts getting more and more intense until by March
and April, I'm watching films around the clock (unless I'm at my desk emailing
filmmakers).
Do you make a
living on your festival work or do you have to supplement your income in other
ways?
I am very, very lucky that for the past seven years I have had a
year-round, fulltime job as a film programmer. Before that though, I worked at
a video store and for a long time, like many people I know, I bounced from
festival to festival, working for a few months for a festival, and then moving
on to the next one.
What do you see
the role of a film festival within the overall film industry? How has it
changed in the past five years?
Film festivals can serve a number of different purposes. They can
be a place of discovery, where unknown films and filmmakers make themselves
known to the world at large. They can be a showcase event, where movies can get
a high profile launching platform. But the best thing they can be is a place
where filmmakers get to meet not just filmgoers, but other filmmakers. This
might not help the industry all that much, but it's a great thing for the
filmmakers, who all too often work in a bit of a vacuum. We've had people meet
at the festival who realize they live a block away from one another. They just
never had had the opportunity to meet before.
In the past five years, digital cinema has grown more and more
prominent, and right now this seems to have raised more questions than answers
about what's coming up next. It's the next five or maybe even ten years that is
going to make all the difference.
What are the most
common mistakes people make when sending you a film to consider? What are your
pet peeves about the process?
Don't put a trailer for your film in front of your film. Just let
me get to the film itself.
Don't use those DVD sticker labels. They can gum up my machine.
Feel free to send candy, gum, t-shirts, hula hoops, baseball bats,
tool kits, condoms, stuffed animals, and pizza with your submission (all things
I've actually received), but know that I'm going to put the goodies in one
place and the DVD in another and I'll never remember what came with what.
Bribery fail.
Hypothetically
speaking - because people ask this question all the time - You've seen film X,
you love film X, but you're not showing film X in your festival. Why not?
Because I'm not the only one making the decisions. I'm dealing
with directors, producers, distributors, sales agents, fellow festival folk... and
everybody has their own idea about how things should go with a film. Sometimes
everything falls into place and everything's great; sometimes people have a
different plan than the one I have in my mind. Also, sometimes it's as simple
as there only being one print in the world, and it's already booked for a
screening half way around the world.
What guidelines
do you follow when selecting films? I don't just mean the rules laid down by
the festival you work for, but what are your personal criteria?
At the ground floor--the very foundation of everything--I'm looking
for films that I like and am excited about. This is usually due to the film
distinguishing itself somehow from the rest of the pack. Maybe it's telling a
story I've never seen, or it's telling a familiar story in a whole new way.
Maybe it's something in the filmmaker's style. It really could be anything.
I don't go into the process with any preconceived notions of what
I'm looking for. We try to keep the festival very flexible so we can find the
films first and then figure out how everything fits together. Certainly, at a
certain point in the process, you have to step back and say, "Hmm... things are a
little dark here. Let's focus on finding a comedy." Or maybe we'll find
ourselves with two or three films on the same subject or with the same story
idea. Then we have to start making our annual Sophie's Choices.
If people are to
remember your programming work for only one film, what would you want that film
to be? What is your proudest discovery as a programmer?
When I was working at the San Francisco International Film Festival, I got Yo La Tengo to compose a score to the underwater science documentaries of Jean Painlevé, which they then performed live at a screening at the festival. The band went on to repeat this show, which we called the Sounds of Science, all over the world, and eventually it made it's way onto a Criterion DVD. So that's cool.
Then there's a laundry list of titles that may not have gone on to fame and fortune, but I'm so glad I got the chance to show them--things like Wang Bing's amazing, but 14-hour documentary Crude Oil or Laurin Federlein's beautifully peculiar Build a Ship, Sail to Sadness. I love these films, and if I can somehow help them be seen and appreciated by other people too, then that's great. That's what I want to do.
