Jon Reiss has an excellent two-parter up at Ted Hope’s Truly Free Film blog. Titled “25 Points to Consider in Approaching Your Festival Premiere,” it’s broken down in a list of things you should consider in general before arriving at, really, any festival with your film, and then those other things you should think about if you are planning to make the festival premiere some part of your distribution launch. The latter piece in particular hit home as I’ve spoken to a number of filmmakers recently who have asked for DIY distribution advice. They want to know who to partner with, or how much I think they need to raise, and, like Jon’s posts, I wind up resorting to a kind of Socratic method in my replies. What are their goals for the release? How much personal time (versus hired-out time) do they plan to spend on it? How important are the ancillary markets and how quickly to they want to get there? Jon breaks this down even further, so check out his posts.