TFC Tidbit of the Day 26 – Planting your marketing seeds
Plant your marketing and distribution seeds at pre-production / production stage. Think about your audience in advance of making your film and think about your title carefully from a marketing point of view too. Do a little research to see if the title has been used recently and might cause confusion with another film currently in the market.
Buy up all related and possibly desired urls and start on the site, draw in traffic and collect names and contact info. Make sure your set photography is top-notch from a marketing and publicity point-of-view. Start building community around your brand as a filmmaker and the film itself, and possibly even sharing parts of the content with your future audience.
TFC has a marketing services menu that includes options for access to a DIY Marketing Toolkit to guide microbudget filmmakers in their own marketing initiatives.
TFC Tidbit of the Day 27 – Don’t Reinvent the Wheel When Reaching Out to Pre Interested/Niche Audiences
Chances are that whatever your subject matter/theme/niche audience for your film, there have been other films in recent years that targeted the same audiences. Most filmmakers feel some camaraderie with each other and many may offer you advice on how they reached their audiences.
Connect to fellow filmmakers and don’t be shy about asking them to at least mention your film on FB to their folks, or tweet about your film. We can’t emphasize enough how many filmmakers find themselves building lists of organizations and emails from scratch when someone else probably has already created a similar list. Consider the community spirit of DIY filmmaking and ask for a little help, or offer to compensate a filmmaker for their efforts on your behalf.
This is the idea behind TFC’s The Film Collaborators site, a place where filmmakers can share resources.
TFC Tidbit of the Day 28 – Know Your Blogger Community
Whatever subject matter and themes you are tackling in your film, chances are pretty good there are prominent (and not so prominent) bloggers already writing about these topics and targeting folks who will care about your film.
Unlike the traditional mainstream press, you don’t need an expensive publicist to reach them … just find their contact info on their blogs and reach out directly with a nice personal note that includes your synopsis, your web links, and your offer to send them a screener or trailer if they want one. None of this is brain surgery. Within a few days of google research you should be able to identify most of the major players in your niche.
Theme and topic aside, there are also of course many bloggers out there just writing about quality independent film, so remember to reach out to those folks as well.
One additional hint — find a way to INCENTIVIZE the blogger to write about your film! A contest to give away a way a few free DVDS of your film is often the best. It gives the blogger a prize to offer his or her readers and gets you the free viral press you need!
TFC Tidbit of the Day 29 – Find a Fellow Filmmaker to Share Your Four Wall Screens
If you need to qualify your film for Academy consideration, or your SAG contract stipulates you need to play theatrically for a week or so, you can often cut your cost in half by sharing those screens with another filmmaker in the same position.
For example, Academy qualifications require a film to screen 2 times a day for one week in NYC and LA, but that means there are at least two other screening times a day that another film can take. That way you can share theater rental, equipment rentals, and union projectionist fees. Make sure each of you get at least one prime screening time each day and drive your audiences to those times (in other words, don’t take 12 noon and 2 p.m…..but 12 noon and 7 p.m. is ok!). Obviously you can’t maximize your grosses by sharing screens, but at least you can meet your qualification requirements at a reduced price.
TFC Tidbit of the Day 30 – URGENT: Build Some Distribution Expenses into Your Production Budget
Nothing is more disconcerting than filmmakers who spend $100K (or whatever) to make their film, but now have nothing left to make screeners, exhibition masters, hire publicists, set up buyer screenings, hire a team to oversee their web presence, etc. A film in the can is only a tree toppling in the forest, and if you have nothing left in the bank then your tree will certainly fall silently on deaf ears.
Remember that everything AFTER you complete your film will still cost some money, even if it is only Festival submission fees; the postage and assistance to get the film out there; a few key trips to important Festivals and markets where you can promote your film; and distribution deliverables (including MUSIC CLEARANCES). A good guideline minimum is 10% – 20% of your production budget to help you start the distribution process…so if you are thinking your film will cost 100K to make, then make the budget 110 or 120K at least.
Don’t get caught in the ultimate trap that so many filmmakers find themselves in; a film in the can with nothing more they can do with it. You didn’t max your credit cards to end up in this dilemma! Think about distribution expenses IN CONJUNCTION with production expenses. Please!
