Two-and-a-bit years ago I wrote and consequently directed a short film called ‘Viola’. It’s about a couple who go to stay at a rural AirBnB-type house, where they encounter an Alexa-like device called Viola. As the evening progresses, it becomes apparent that someone - or something - else may also be occupying the house. I pulled together a great cast and great crew (including a couple of annoyingly eager and capable teenagers from the local media college), and - perhaps most important of all - a near-perfect location, which had the sort of expansive, spooky cellar that I’d been dreaming of.

The shoot went surprisingly smoothly, and it didn’t take too long to do the edit. But when it came to the sound mix & music, I struggled. Sound design/mix is a huge part of films that I think most people aren’t aware of. Sure, you know the film has sound, but if it’s good then you don’t really notice it. You do notice it, however, if the sound is poor, e.g. if one part is suddenly quieter, or doesn’t sound like it belongs there. Our ears are very clever.

It was a real struggle, with a lot of hard thinking on whether it needed music or sounds. Truth be told, the boundary there is very blurred, and often what you have in horrors is something that’s a bit of both. Tense high-pitched notes mixed with scratchy sounds and sudden ‘Doofs’.

Anyway, so after a lot of back-and-forth with the sound mixer & composer Matt - who’s a musician-cum-sound designer who I made a music video for a few years back - I eventually arrived at a place where I was happy with the sound. It was a slog, and a labour of love on both our parts. But finally it was done.

So all that was left was to do the colour grading (tweaking the look), paying particular care not to include orange and teal.

And then it was done. Complete. Finito. Ready to roll!

Now, film festivals are a whole new thing to me. I mean, I know what they do and I’ve been to a few, but I’ve never submitted to them. The go-to place to submit is a site called FilmFreeway, where you can search by genre, location, etc.

There are approximately 1,000 horror film festivals around the world. One thousand. So finding the right one is daunting. Generally, the more esteemed a festival (you’ve no doubt heard of Cannes and Sundance, for example), the higher the submission price. $100+ for the big ones. Then there are small festivals, many 1 or 2 years old, who want to attract as many good films as they can.

So I tentatively entered ‘Viola’ into a few cheaper fests, including fairly local ones. Usually entering a local one might make them ore likely to accept you, since you can actually attend - turn up, accept your reward with grace and a witty remark, and then hang out and schmooze, wowing starry-eyed fans with your knowledge of the Top Five Goriest Horror Movie Deaths. Or something. But in these ‘difficult times’, that’s not so much the case … at least not for a few months.
I also quite frivolously entered a couple of larger festivals that were closing soon.

Then sat back and waited.

And waited …

… and waited about a week until I had my first acceptance. The Cotswold International Film Festival, a monthly celebration of films which didn’t seem to actually have an online screening, but hey ho. My first ‘laurel’.

What’s a laurel? you might ask. Well, Julius Caesar used to wear a laurel wreath on his head to show he was a strong, powerful leader. (Apparently it may have really been to hide his comb-over.) And 2,000 years later, they are the sign of a strong, powerful film. See below for some gratuitous examples.

Why a laurel?! you might also ask. Quite simply, it’s a stamp of approval. It instantly says: ‘This filmmaker has talent’. Like an Oscar, essentially, but you get a downloadable image which you can then plaster over your movie poster along with your other laurels.

So I was glad to have accepted my first laurel (even if I didn’t win anything further in that festival). But a week later I then won ‘Best International Film’ at The Thing in the Basement Film Festival. This caused a wry smile, as I strategically entered this particular contest because Viola heavily features a basement, and I didn’t think that many international films would enter. It may have been three, I hope it was three hundred; but who cares as nobody will ever know.

After that, I got a couple of rejections, but then a couple more acceptances. Feeling confident about my film, I entered it into a few more festivals (something that quickly adds up when you're paying sometimes $15-25 each time). I then got accepted into the LA Crime & Horror Festival, and also won Best Cinematography! Hoorah! I can’t take a huge deal of credit for that award, since I pretty much looked at the monitor and said ‘Yep, I like that’, and Will shot it. But - as with everything - I did have the final say.

Since then, it’s been a very good couple of weeks, with a new acceptance or award almost every day. Okay, so some of these are brand new contests, some of them monthly rather than annual, which don’t exactly have the esteem of Sundance - but still. As well as another half dozen Official Selections and an Honourable Mention, I won another Best Cinematography, a Best Scare, and a Best Director.

On the back of these, I’ve had other festivals approach me and offer me discounts on entry, and even offer me bigger discounts when I’ve ignored them the first time. I am yet to be offered big bucks to make a feature film, but fingers crossed …

Below is a selection of laurels garnered so far.

Viola Success