In 2015 there were many changes to submission platforms, which I already discussed two years ago in the post https://ismaelmartin.com/plataformas-de-distribucion-de-cortometrajes/. New versions were released, pricing policies changed, sites were redesigned, etc., consolidating the trend of many festivals continuing to use these platforms to manage their submissions.
Changes to platforms are always welcome, as this is usually a sector not very given to innovation, even if it may seem contradictory. Withoutabox, for example, kept the same design for many years, and Reelport has still not changed its website since it was created and virtually no improvements have been made.
We started the year with the most radical change of all: the French platform Filmfestplatform announced a new design at the end of February, which has been a major break from the previous one. The website had not changed since it was created, and it has been written from scratch, renewing the design and usability, as well as the submission process. The listing and the way it works have been simplified, and it now allows video uploads, but as already happened with Shortfilmdepot, this new functionality has led to the creation of a pay-per-submission system, following what I have been calling the “Reelport model” (payments to platforms only for the submission, a system pioneered by the Reelport platform in Europe, but which does not exist on American platforms). In this case, the payment is charged on the first submission and not on the next 9 submissions, a good way to save money, especially for agencies, distributors or schools. We must bear in mind that Filmfestplatform remains fundamental for short film distribution in France.
The Spanish platform Festhome is another one that has undergone a radical change this year; a few months after Filmfestplatform, they changed the design. One of the most notable improvements has been to create a link between the fields in festivals’ rules and the films, so that it does not allow submissions if the conditions imposed by the festivals themselves are not met. In addition, statistics have been created and there is the possibility of deactivating projects that are no longer in distribution. Festhome has a special flat rate for films that use the Vimeo link and do not upload the video to its own server.
In the case of the American platform Withoutabox, it has made small design improvements, mainly aimed at improving usability and video management, which has been completely revamped and works through IMDb. The most important change has been support for Vimeo links, following the line of Festhome, but above all of its most direct competitor, Filmfreeway.
Along these lines, regarding support for Vimeo links, the Spanish platforms Movibeta and Uptofest have worked on this and added this functionality throughout 2015.
In recent months, those responsible for Reelport and Movibeta confirmed to me that they were working on improvements and design changes—changes I expected before the end of 2015, but which we will see in the coming months.