SHOW BUSINESS 101 with Barbara Niven
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| June 18, 2007 |
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Leslie La Page - Director, Producer, Actor and founder of LA Femme Film Festival
Leslie La Page talks about being a woman in show business and how she created LA Femme Film Festival as a way to support and showcase women directors, writers, producers and directors of photography. She tells how the film festival process works, what they look for in submissions, and how to make your film stand out! She also distributes films and helps with mentoring, funding and marketing independent film makers. |
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Episode Segments:
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What's it like to be a woman in the film business, and how can we inspire and mentor each other?
Leslie talks about her history as an actor/producer/director and how she learned to combine her business strength with being an Artist. She says women need to do more mentoring "up and down the ranks" and help women get the training and experience they need to compete for every job on the set. Men do it, but women don't do it enough for some reason. Women are talented filmmakers, and we don't need to limit ourselves because of old views in Hollywood. She created LA Femme Film Festival to celebrate and empower films made by women in key roles.
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How do film festivals work, how do I submit my film, and what exactly are the different festivals looking for?
She's got a lot of festival experience, working as a programmer at Slamdance for years. She talks about how she created the Slamdance Bootcamp seminar for filmmakers, to take them from concept all the way through to the finished, distributed film. She is going to do the same thing soon through LA Femme Film Festival.
Leslie says to be smart when deciding who to submit your film to, and talks about the difference between festivals, that each one has a "theme". Find out who goes there, what kind of film do they pick, and what happens to the winners?
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Guidelines for submitting to the LA Femme Film Festival, and how to level the playing field when you're competing against higher budget films
Leslie works with the New Orleans Film Festival too, and talks about Louisiana and Florida film commission tax incentives. We need more incentives in place at the state and federal level, to keep production here in the states.
This is the third year for the LA Femme Film Festival, taking place Oct. 11-14, 2007 in Beverly Hills. Leslie gives the guidelines for submissions, and says since it's here in L.A., there will be lots of distributors attending. That's important, because having your film in a festival is really the only way to get your film seen for most people. She says that smaller budget films can definitely compete against higher budgets with bigger names, and says the key is having a great script, great actors and lots of rehearsal!
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LA Femme is an international film festival, and it's exciting to see films from women all over the world. It's important to network at these events!
LA Femme is an international festival, and she's getting submissions from women all over the world, including China, Korea, Jerusalem and Iran. Leslie says if you don't make it into her festival the first time, she gives you a free VIP pass to attend and watch all the other films to learn what you're competing against, so you can come back stronger next year. You can also attend all the events and parties and network with people like Martha Coolidge, who is being honored this year.
Leslie has a distribution company called Foundation Films, and offers services such as script-doctoring, financing, accounting and marketing. She says never take "No!" for an answer!
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| Guest(s) Appearing on this Episode |
Leslie La Page
 Leslie La Page has produced, directed and line produced for film, TV, music videos, commercials and theatrical productions for the past fifteen years.
She also consults independent filmmakers for feature films, script analysis, budgets, independent marketing, and film festivals and currently teaches at the New York Film Academy as an adjunct professor.
She started LA Femme Film Festival to champion women in film. She has been a Slamdance Film Festival Programmer for over five years and was the creator and Executive Producer for the Slamdance Filmmaker's Bootcamp. For the last two years she's also been Director of Programming for the New Orleans Media Experience Film Festival.
Ms. La Page holds a Bachelor of Arts in Theatre, Bachelor of Administration in Marketing, Accounting and a Master of Fine Arts in Film Directing from the California Institute of the Arts.
Visit the LA Femme Film Festival website
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| If you're a woman in the film business, one of your biggest advocates is Leslie La Page and the LA Femme Film Festival! Learn how to submit your film, and where to find mentoring, funding, networking and support for your project! |
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