Last of the Scottish Wildcats trailer and site up!

**coffeefilms** · June 20th, 2006, 11:58 PM

Shameless plug I'm afraid!

Coffee Films have just completed the wildlife documentary Last of the Scottish Wildcats, shot completely independently on a really tiny budget, trying to document one of the world's rarest cats.

Users of this forum have given us really useful feedback in the past so we'd like to invite everyone to check out the website which includes a trailer, lots of photos, imformation on the making of the film and the wildcats themselves, so if anyone has a spare 5 minutes to surf come and check it out;

Last of the Scottish Wildcats by Coffee Films; project website;
http://www.coffeefilms.com/scottishwildcats

The film is already entering film festivals worldwide and may even find it's way to TV in the near future.

Thanks very much!

Steve Piper
www.coffeefilms.com
www.myspace.com/coffeefilms

**Xendar** · June 21st, 2006, 06:23 AM

Hi Steve,

Congratulations on the documentary. Just had a quick look at the trailer and it looks good. Would be very interested to see the finished article.

I'm just embarking on editing a documentary about the Great Yorkshire Bike Ride. I would be interested to hear any tips you may have for festival submission and trying to get it onto TV.

**coffeefilms** · June 21st, 2006, 04:21 PM

Hey Mark,

With regards to festivals it's really about finding the right ones, there are increasing numbers of documentary festivals worldwide (but keep in mind for the US, Canada and a lot of Asia it's NTSC format transfers required) and they're the best bet, although if you feel the film is REALLY good you could try some of the big names like Edinburgh, Chicago etc. many of which have documentary sections. You can find a lot of doc fests listed at http://www.documentaryfilms.net/festivals.htm

It's well worth getting some nicely made up materials like stills, crew lists, directors statement etc, and if you get into anything big do try and attend with lots of flyers to publicise your screenings; festivals are all about networking opportunities!

With TV, you need to shortlist channels likely to show your film (so sports channels, maybe something like discovery, UK Travel, BBC are probably worth trying), and be realistic as no one appreciates you wasting their time with something inappropriate. Because docs are a smaller market than features people are quite friendly (especially in wildlife!) so you can simply drop an email to anyone involved in acquisitions at your chosen channels, be polite, ask them if you can send them a copy, follow them up in 1-2 months time to try and get some feedback. Most broadcasters have a "commissioning" site so if you Google "BBC Commissioning" you'll get an industry site full of guidelines on program quality and details of who's who.

Your budget affects your sale price, so if you made it for a few hundred quid don't admit it or that's all you'll sell it for!

Steve