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my hs recently had its 3rd annual film festival. we had it in our thetre and just had all the films on vhs hooked up to a projector so it was big enough. i would recammend doin something like that and then just charging a couple bucks or whatever to ppl. this is the type of thing that if it goes well the first year will continue (especially if u have an actual hs film class/club). i would also recammend that when u do it to tell ur local newspaper/tv channel as they will probably love to cover something like this and give good exposure. good luck.

A lot of it depends on the number of participants you have involved. Often for a closed highschool festival, all who enter are accepted, in order to fill space and support the film program on campus. Larger festivals, of course, have their panel of judges, which you may have to do if you open it up to others outside your school. Then you'd have to decide whether to limit it to other local highschools, or anyone in your area, and so on. Then you could post a call for entries in the paper or around town and distribute entry forms. (You can find examples of this at most festival web sites.)
When my highschool planned its festival(which fell through for ridiculous reasons), the film instructor also had awards distributed for all of the traditional categories and enlisted fellow artists and technicians to serve as the judges.
Sorry if any of this is insultingly obvious to you. I hope it helps. It should be an "interesting" experience.

shout out to all the video club presidents!

anyway, our high school has put on a film festival for the past seven years. 256 people came to our fest this year (held on may 21). Here's how we did it: We held viewings of the different categories in different classrooms (ie: the dramas were shown in room 121, documentaries were shown in room 123, etc...).
The viewings took place from 6-8pm and then there was an awards ceremony from 8-9:30 where
there were about 20-ish categories awarded:

drama (upperclassmen and lower)
documentary (upper and lower)
commercial (upper and lower)
psa (upper and lower)
comedy (upper and lower)
best live production
and a parade of technical categories:
best director, best cinematography, best editing, best use of music, best use of graphics,best actor/actress, best original screenplay.


Half way through the show there was an intermission where drinks and food were served in the commons area. All the videos were judged roughly 3 weeks prior to the fest so the awards were able to be made up. The whole fest cost about $950 which includes $750 for these nice glass awards with the winner's name engraved into them.

good luck!

Hi...I'm actually a graduate of Melville...I'd love to submit my film. Would you play shorts by alumni?

"anyway, our high school has put on a film festival for the past seven years. 256 people came to our fest this year (held on may 21)."

We had ours the same night too! But only 241 people showed up

then again, it was only our 5th, but our 3rd year we got nearly 500 people.

I like our system- we have a DV deck connected to a new projector that projects onto a screen in the auditorium (which is set up like a theater) and they just play all the films. They got rid of awards in these past few years, probably because barely anyone submits anymore.

Hey, I actually spoke to you awhile ago...if your interested in having Melville alumni's films at the festival check out my film "bottom feeders" on the site, and let me know if it interests you for the program. Thanks