Join the original In the latter part of 2021, the Utah Filmmakers™ Association consolidated several assets with the name "Utah Film Festival." This included the domain names "UtahFilmFestival.net" and "UtahFilmFestival.com." These actions were taken on behalf of the Utah Film Festival, with the intention of presenting them to the event organizers as an in-kind contribution—i.e. the Utah Filmmakers™ did not have the resources to make a financial contribution and were not interested in receiving any monetary return, just our logo displayed with those of other sponsors.
In the past, Utah Filmmakers™ has provided similar services to other local filmmakers and filmmaking entities, including Millquas Productions, Karen Flynn Entertainment, LLC, and Limbo Productions, LLC.
Hindsight being 20/20, there were definitely more effective ways of going about this, but—at the moment—it seemed prudent to secure all the available assets first. Warren Workman, an official UFA™ Forum Moderator at the time and the founder of the Utah Film Festival, was informed of the domain name purchases and that they were both configured to redirect to the event's website at "TheUtahFilmAwards.com," Mr. Workman expressed appreciation for the gesture and was invited to use "UtahFilmFestival.com" for the event at no cost or obligation, but there was no response to the offer at that time.
In early 2022, during an in-person meeting, Mr. Workman was informed about all of the "Utah Film Festival" assets that Utah Filmmakers™ had secured on their behalf and that the non-profit organization wanted the Utah Film Festival to make use of them as part of an in-kind sponsorship proposal that was still being written. At the time, the idea had potential but would need to be discussed with Mr. Workman's business partner, who was now the director of the event.
In October of 2022, in response to a public query by Mr. Workman about how the Utah Film Festival could attract more sponsors, Utah Filmmakers™ suggested—again—that the event use the "UtahFilmFestival.com" domain name in a good faith gesture prior to submission of the written sponsorship proposal discussed earlier in the year. The event Director was given managerial access to the domain name, which would allow them to configure it to work with their hosting servers—but they never made any of the necessary changes.
A few weeks later, a detailed draft of the written in-kind sponsorship proposal from Utah Filmmakers™was complete and submitted to the Utah Film Festival on November 14, 2022. The proposal outlined one possible arrangement for how the sponsorship could work, with an emphasis placed on the in-kind nature of any potential agreement, i.e. there would be no financial obligation on the part of the Utah Film Festival, which would be able to take full advantage of all assets of the same name and the Utah Filmmakers™ Association offered to maintain the registrations of some of the assets at its own expense in exchange for recognition as an official sponsor of the Festival.
There were several different potential arrangements that could inform the specifics of any final agreement, but—again—the only thing that Utah Filmmakers™ wanted was to be recognized as a festival sponsor. The organization proposed an in-kind sponsorship for one simple reason: as per its Budget Policy, it allocates its resources on a project-by-project basis, so it's rarely in a position to just write a check for anything. An opportunity presented itself to consolidate some assets on behalf of an important Community Member of our organization—similar services having been provided for other members before, as noted above—hoping that the value of those assets combined would be worth a sponsorship.
Unfortunately, after over a year of effort on the part of Utah Filmmakers™, this idea never got past the proposal stage. On December 22, 2022, the organization opted to simply transfer ownership of all the "Utah Film Festival" assets that it had assembled to Mr. Workman—including a check to cover any administrative costs they might incur—and simply recorded the transaction in its records as a one-time, in-kind donation to the event and looked forward to seeing its continued growth and involvement in the community.
