Welcome to the Itch Film Festival Vol. 1

The purpose of this jam is to make a film anywhere over three minutes long in two months.

The film can be any genre you like. Horror, experimental, drama, comedy, etc.  It just has to be over three minutes long.

It can be shot on anything you like a cellphone, camcorder, DLSR, it can even be a series of still images with audio played over them.

You can embed the video on the film's itch page when you upload it to the jam, or you can make a zip file and have it be downloadable in case you want to charge money for it. If you do want to charge money, I would recommend uploading to Vimeo and making the video password protected, then putting the password in a word document and putting that in the downloadable zip file instead of the video file as a films are often too large to upload to itch.

If you want to submit to a proper film festival there are many festivals that take submissions that have already been released online, though from what I've read festivals tend to give priority to world premiere films. I can't seem to find the list at the moment, but two of them off the top of my head are the Sundance Film Festival and the Nashville Film Festival. 

Those are pretty competitive festivals though, so I would recommend looking on Film Freeway to find festivals that are the best fit for your film.

If you're worried about qualifying for an official festival, you can submit any time after the jam ends, but if you do think you'll need more time I recommend uploading the itch page to the jam and making it private until your film is ready. I'm pretty relaxed about the submission date.

If you have any questions post them in the community page and I'll try to answer them as quickly as possible.

You can start working on the film now. I understand two months is not a long time to make a film, especially if you are planning on making it longer than ten minutes. I would recommend reading about/viewing Dogme 95 films (The Celebration, Julian Donkey Boy) and mumblecore films (Hannah Takes the Stairs, Trigger Man, Funny Ha Ha). These films are mostly improvised and utilize documentary style camera techniques (minimal amount of complicated shot setups). The purpose of these styles is to minimize the cost of the film and the time spent to complete it.

A great book that breaks down these techniques and gives you advice on how to write for them is this Rewriting Indie Cinema: Improvisation, Psychodrama, and the Screenplay.

If you are planning on making a short film under 15 minutes, then I would highly recommend Crafting Short Screenplays That Connect. The advice given in this book actually applies to how many feature films are structured in a really concise way that other screenwriting books don't. But I will summarize the advice given in the book here as it's not as easily available. Traditional short and feature films often contain a series of discoveries characters make, then decisions they make based on the discoveries, which often lead them to making an improbable connection with another character (connecting with someone they otherwise wouldn't or differ from). The book breaks it down in more detail and gives your writing challenges to build your understanding of these elements, but that is the gist of what the book is about.

A great resource to hire actors is Backstage | Auditions, Casting Calls, Jobs, Talent Seeking, Advice. 

Although feel free to use friends and family instead.

A great resource for cameras and how to use them is Wolfcrow.

A great all-around resource for filmmaking techniques and gear is No Film School.

Many of you already have the Adobe Creative Suite and can use premiere pro to edit your videos. If you don't have Premiere, Adobe offers a free version, although with significantly less features, called Adobe Rush.

Ultimately how you make your film is up to you. But, I would recommend using the gear and resources you already have and spending as little to no money as possible.

Have fun and I can't wait to see what you make!