Founded October 2008 Columbus, Ohio
Central Ohio — let's make movies.
The Mid Ohio Filmmakers Association offers an open exchange of ideas, resources, knowledge, and professional opportunities to its members. Through that empowerment and our combined resources, we keep expanding the artistic and economic opportunities for locally produced media and the filmmakers who create it.
Filmmaker Resources
Everything a filmmaker in Central Ohio needs, sorted by what you are actually trying to do. Columbus and Franklin County first, then Central Ohio, then statewide, then national.
Every outbound link on these pages was checked live on 2026-08-05. Open the full hub
Before you shoot Permission, money, paperwork, and the script.
- Permits & Filming Locations Whether you need a permit at all, the Columbus and Franklin County process, parks and public land, drones, and the rest of Ohio. Five days' notice minimum, thirty if a street closes.
- Funding, Grants & Tax Credits Be honest about which tier you are in. Ohio's tax credit and an artist project grant serve productions two orders of magnitude apart, and applying to the wrong one wastes a month.
- Business, Legal & Insurance General information, not legal advice. Forming the production properly, the cover it needs, and what an Ohio-licensed attorney should see before you sign anything with money or liability attached.
- Screenwriting Screenwriting software free and paid, including MOFA's own Fountain editor. Protecting the script, writing to what you can actually shoot, and getting feedback worth having.
- Production Workflow & Templates The paperwork is not bureaucracy. It is the difference between a crew that knows where to be and a crew standing in a car park at 7am texting each other.
Making it Gear, space, people, and keeping them safe.
- Gear Rental & Purchase Rent before you buy. A camera body loses half its value in three years; a lens you rent twice a year never has to be insured, stored, or sold.
- Studios & Stages A stage buys three things: sound control, light control, and the right to work past 11pm without a neighbour calling the police. Needing fewer than two of them means shooting on location.
- Crew, Cast & Unions Where to find crew and cast in Central Ohio, the order to hire in when the budget is small, running a casting session that works, and paying people properly.
- Ohio Unions & Guilds Which union or guild covers which job in Ohio — SAG-AFTRA Ohio-Pittsburgh for performers, IATSE Local 209 for film crew statewide, the stage locals, the AFM locals, WGA East — what becoming a signatory commits a production to, and the four to six weeks it needs first.
- Safety on Set Independent sets get people hurt in a small number of predictable ways: electrical, rigging, vehicles, firearms, water, and exhaustion. Preventing them takes someone whose job it is to say stop, not a budget.
Finishing it Picture, sound, and footage you cannot shoot yourself.
- Post-Production You can build a complete, professional post pipeline for nothing. Edit, colour, VFX, titles, and sound mix are all covered by free software that is used on released films.
- Sound & Music Audiences forgive a soft image. They do not forgive audio they have to strain through. If you have one budget line and one crew position to spend, spend both here.
- Stock, Archival & Public Domain For establishing shots, historical material, and anything you cannot afford to stage. Especially useful for documentary work, where the archive frequently is the film.
Getting it seen Festivals, deadlines, and your own screen.
- Film Festivals & Submissions Submission deadlines and fees move every year, so this page links to festivals rather than restating dates we cannot re-verify. Always read the deadline on the festival's own site.
- Contests & Competitions A timed competition is the most reliable way to actually finish something. Most unfinished films die in development, not production, and a deadline you did not set yourself fixes that.
- Screening Venues & Exhibition A festival rejection is not a verdict on your film. Columbus has enough independent screens that putting on your own screening is a real option, and it usually reaches more of the audience you care about.
Getting better Learning the craft, and meeting the people who do it here.
- Education & Training Degree programmes in Columbus and across Ohio, free learning that is actually worth your time, workshops and screenings as education, and how to work with students.
- Community & Networking Filmmaking in Central Ohio is a relationship business at a scale where you can actually meet everyone. That is the advantage of not being in Los Angeles: two years of showing up makes you known.
3 Weeks of Wonder 2026
Teams get three weeks to write, shoot, and edit a five-to-ten-minute sci-fi film. The kick-off was Wednesday 13 May 2026 at 7pm at the Mime Wolf Casting Inn; turn-in was Wednesday 3 June at 8pm.
Best Film
Signal:Node
2026
- 1st Runner Up Chuck's Reality Rental
- 2nd Runner Up Thy Neighbor
- Best Director Jason Baker and Brian Roberts
- Best Actor Matt Daniel
- Best Actress Dawn Marie Hughes
- Best Supporting Actor Jay Kunzi
- Best Supporting Actress Elizabeth Cave
- Best Cinematography Jason Baker
- Best Screenwriting Heather Bayles and Matt Sams
- Best Editing Brian Roberts
This year's contest Previous winners Sponsored by Midwest Photo
Ohio Film Festivals
Ohio runs a lot of festivals. These are the four on our list — the full page has the links.
- Cleveland International Film Festival Promotes artistically and culturally significant film arts through education and exhibition.
- Columbus International Film + Video Festival The United States' longest-running film festival.
- Film Festival of Columbus Promotes Columbus as a filmmaking destination for all budgets, alongside work from around the world.
- Cincinnati Film Festival Around 100 films over nine days, with workshops, Q&As, and an awards ceremony.
Built by MOFA, free to use
- MOFA Screenwriter A Fountain editor we run ourselves. Source on the left, the formatted page on the right, and a page count measured the way a production office measures it. Exports Fountain, Final Draft .fdx, plain text, and PDF. No account, and the file stays yours.
Come to a meeting
8pm, the second Wednesday of every month. All artistic talents welcome — members and first-timers alike.
Officers
- Scott Spears President
- Shane Howard Vice President
- Krista Zaglanis Treasurer
- Ryan Kraynak Secretary
- David Atlas Fundraising
Find us
- Facebook group facebook.com/groups/midohiofilm
- Twitter @MidOhioFilm
- By post MOFA, P.O. Box 141392, Columbus, OH 43214