Austin WebFest: Where Filmmakers Get Seen

The second annual Austin WebFest has already come into its own—this year’s event, running from June 25–27, 2015 in Austin, Texas, will not only feature a host of quality Web series, but also boasts a panel with machinima heroes Rooster Teeth, and a distribution deal of up to $50,000 for the festival winner. It’s all part of what founder Eric Robbins calls their goal of “getting people in front of the people who can help them progress.” Here, Robbins talks about how the festival got started, what’s on tap this year, and how filmmakers can make their work stand out.

How did the Austin WebFest get started?

We’d been to the LA Webfest a few years ago, and realized we needed one of these in Austin. Web series were becoming more prominent and we saw this as the way things were going. So we did the research, got the LLC, and picked the people who are now on the board. And they’re terrific—each has a different skillset and that works out well. It’s still definitely a labor of love, though.

What are some of the panels taking place?

Well, we’re really excited to have Rooster Teeth, they have a huge following in Austin and we’re hoping they bring a crowd. We’ll also have a panel called Women in Web, one about sound and how important that is, and one about distribution.

Do you accept submissions from different genres?

Definitely, we don’t want to set limits. We have comedy, drama, action, horror-thriller, and sci-fi. We also accept submissions from all over the world. Interestingly, we got a lot of submissions from Canada, of which about 75 percent were comedy.

Were there certain criteria that the judges looked for when making the selections? Like the ability to tell a good story?

It’s kind of everything, really—it's not just one thing that carries the film, but it’s judging on a lot of different criteria: sound, score, editing, acting, directing.

Tell us about the grand prize.

Proven Entertainment, who are financing the distribution deal, will be choosing the Austin WebFest Grand Prize of up to $50,000 to finance and pitch the winning web series for distribution.

What can filmmakers do to stand out? Especially because there are so many web series these days.

I think it’s kind of how it all comes together, like if the camera work is amazing, if the editing is seamless—that kind of thing. Last year we had series that were pretty much no budget going up against a $60,000 series, and you could almost not tell the difference. If everything fits cohesively it will stand out from the pack.

Inspired by this post? Check out our Texas audition listings!