Breaking Into Tribeca (& the Festival Circuit) with Sofia Snyder

Show notes

Today independent producer and union production coordinator Sofia Snyder gets into the specific resources she utilized to help land her short films at festivals, including Tribeca; what a psychic told her that prevented her from quitting her job on Rebel Moon; and how she took what she learned from working on movies like Licorice Pizza and Barb and Star Go to Vista del Mar and applied it to the films she’s produced.

Episode Breakdown

1. 2:00Playing at Tribeca without a premiere
2. 4:00How to strategize with film festivals to optimize odds of getting in - Festival Formula (HollyShorts, Poppy Jasper, Kino Presents the People’ Film Festival London, Montclair Film Festival)
3. 12:30Getting into Tribeca after rejections from SXSW (and other random festivals)
4. 14:08How runtime impacts your festival odds
5. 17:30Making a short for $10,000
6. 19:30Funding models for shorts - self-funding vs. crowd funding
7. 20:306 years is an overnight success
8. 22:30Sofia’s early journey as a producer: a doc about the ghost of a dead cat
9. 25:20Developing projects on nights & weekends after 60-80 hours a week in a production office
10. 28:15Why she didn’t quit her job on Rebel Moon to focus on producing
11. 33:20Why Sofia wouldn’t recommend production office gigs for aspiring writers
12. 35:55Sofia’s other shorts (In Old Ranchos directed by Matt Lucas, We Meet Again directed by Matt Lucas, One of These Days concept directed by Joe Blank, Don’t Leave Me Now directed by Monisha Dadlani)
13. 37:20Shooting with UNREAL technology
14. 35:50Shooting in phases before raising the entire budget
15. 42:20Cranberry Heaven in 1997
16. 44:30Things take time!
17. 45:40Being a union production coordinator on $30million+ projects (Licorice Pizza, Barb and Star Go to Vista Del Mar)
18. 51:50Attending American University + moving to LA post-college with $10,000
19. 1:02:30Development assistant vs. freelance/production office pipeline
20. 1:05:30Pay for union coordinators + insider information about how coordinators discuss rates with each other
21. 1:10:05TIME CAPSULE

Keep Up With Sofia

IG: @sofiasny