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:
2:00 - Playing at Tribeca without a premiere
4:00 - How 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)
12:30 - Getting into Tribeca after rejections from SXSW (and other random festivals)
14:08 - How runtime impacts your festival odds
17:30 - Making a short for $10,000
19:30 - Funding models for shorts - self-funding vs. crowd funding
20:30 - 6 years is an overnight success
22:30 - Sofia’s early journey as a producer: a doc about the ghost of a dead cat
25:20 - Developing projects on nights & weekends after 60-80 hours a week in a production office
28:15 - Why she didn’t quit her job on Rebel Moon to focus on producing
33:20 - Why Sofia wouldn’t recommend production office gigs for aspiring writers
35:55 - Sofia’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)
37:20 - Shooting with UNREAL technology
35:50 - Shooting in phases before raising the entire budget
42:20 - Cranberry Heaven in 1997
44:30 - Things take time!
45:40 - Being a union production coordinator on $30million+ projects (Licorice Pizza, Barb and Star Go to Vista Del Mar)
51:50 - Attending American University + moving to LA post-college with $10,000
1:02:30 - Development assistant vs. freelance/production office pipeline
1:05:30 - Pay for union coordinators + insider information about how coordinators discuss rates with each other
1:10:05 - TIME CAPSULE
KEEP UP WITH SOFIA:
IG: @sofiasny
KEEP UP WITH THE SHOW:
All Platforms: @NoSetPathShow
www.NoSetPathShow.com
bio.site/NoSetPath