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!

Attention advertisers and filmmakers!

To celebrate the release of our filmtiki beta version, we are giving away ad space! First come, first served: the first 5 of you get the following for a duration of 5 weeks: a rectangle banner ad in our right bottom corner (360px) or a full banner on the top of the page (468×60) – choose your advertising real estate.

For tech specs (upload sizes and formats) please contact Wolfgang on marketing@filmtiki.com or via twitter.com/filmtiki.

Another week, another linklist with hot news and must-read articles. Have a nice read!

UK Film Council to Be Discarded (!) (by Monika Bartyzel)
Ten Films That Weren’t at Comic Con … But Should Have Been (by William Goss)
Crowdsourcing Films (by Conor Friedersdorf)
25 New Faces of Indie Film Unveiled (by Brian Brooks)
Kutcher says Twitter will change film-making
Micro-Budget Filmmaking: Stretch Every Dollar (by Danial James)
Ulrike Kubatta – She should have gone to the moon (by Iris Lamprecht)
10 Cool Crowdsourced Music Video Projects (by Amy-Mae Elliott)
Vimeo Awards – We’re celebrating the best in online video
YouTube wants your 15 minutes of fame (by Brenna Ehrlich)
European HDSLR Masterclass in Majorca in September – Book now for huge discount! (by Nino Leitner)
Yes Men Make $11,000 on First Weekend of P2P Release (by Janko Roettgers)
TFC Tidbit of the Day – week 5
GERMAN: Freie Indiefilme via Torrent (by Wolfgang Gumpelmaier)

TFC Tidbit of the Day 21 – Start Your Marketing the Same Day as Your Filming

It is no longer enough to just make a film, you have to create community and anticipation for your film as well. And social media and viral outreach takes a long time to reach critical mass, so build your social media presence into your production schedule. Just this week a filmmaker asked us…”I’m in post-production, should I wait for a distributor or start thinking about marketing now?” The answer? — do not wait for anyone! By the time you exhibit your film at a film festival you should already have built a community so that you can make the most of your public exhibition and be best positioned to distribute your film effectively and as directly as possible… And it also so happens that distributors these days are looking at your number of facebook friends and your twitter followers to help them make acquisition decisions….as it helps them gauge interest in your film. But even more pointedly, one’s ability to get onto Cable VOD will be impacted by perception of marketing and audience interest and that’s still the lions share of revenue stream in digital and very competitive, and for when your film is available on DVD and digitally, you’ll have a community to distributed to. Think of your film as a cross-platform story, and allow your community to access it from whatever medium they choose…that way when the film is finally finished they’ll be primed to see it. So don’t procrastinate….start letting people know about your film NOW.

TFC Tidbit of the Day 22 – Know your audience and engage with them in the real world too

Internet marketing is critical, but nothing beats a face to face interaction with real human beings. One you’ve identified who your audience (or niche) is, show up regularly at all the places where those people congregate and talk to them! Nearly every time we run across a small film performing above expectations at Festivals or at the Box Office, we later learn that the filmmaker was a charismatic self-promotional dynamo, and drove the audiences to the theaters themselves. For example, if your film has spiritual themes…ask if you can speak about it and show a trailer at the local church/temple/synagogue/mosque. If you’re making a stoner comedy… well we know how well those films do when their community is aware of the work . Get out there and be a self-promotional whore….modesty may be sexy, but it doesn’t get an audience to the theater. Its up to you to rally the troops!

TFC Tidbit of the Day 23 – Consider Innovative Ways to Theatrically Release Your Film

Instead of spending tons of money trying to inspire boxoffice success or buying it, create “events” around screenings….have live performances, Q&A’s, invite big groups of people to bring their members, etc. Don’t be passive….fill that theater with everyone you know and you just might convince other people that there is a built-in audience for your film. This does not have to happen via the traditional theatrical model though that can be a small part of the release to get reviews but the rest can be a sort of EVENT THEATRICAL or HYBRID THEATRICAL release and you can sell DVDs at the screenings and build your community list and dialog too. Companies such as Fathom, Screenvision, Cinedigm offer alternative theatrical bookings and event screening options in traditional theatrical chains such as AMC, Cinemark, and Regal. (Stay tuned for our next blog on this topic and we’ll cover services such as Emerging Pictures too). Selling DVDs at festivals and event screenings is a key revenue stream and should not be overlooked.

TFC Tidbit of the Day 24 – Building Your Fan/Community List

Recently Ari Gold, director of Adventures of Power, mentioned that at one of his screenings he instead of just asking people to sign up to his mailing list, he had them text him their emails to a special designated #. He captured way more emails than he would have hoping people would remember and bother. And of course one can pass out a list the old-fashioned way. Of course have an option for people to sign up on your site as well. But having a fan or community list will give customers later and forever as you make more films. You may even test-market your films to that community before you finish them.

TFC Tidbit of the Day 25 – Widgets, Ifliers and Phone Apps

Viral tools such as WIDGETS, and iFliers (which we design and are like mini combinations of a website & HTML E-blast) are cheap and simple ways to get the message out about films. We did iFLIERS for END OF THE LINE and EYES WIDE OPEN for example and GASLAND used WIDGETS and the key is to have a viral tool that can be forwarded-on-to-a-friend. Perhaps offer fan or sponsor (if you have one) benefits to people who forward to 100 or more… Regarding Phone Apps (iPhone, Droid, Blackberry…) we don’t believe these are necessary for every film, but films that are issue based or that have a strong niche appeal or name cast can benefit from having an App that can keep adding new content and new information to engage audiences and fans and they can sell the film! TFC works with two iPhone App developers for example.

Here are this weeks links, enjoy!

Life During Wartime: The Year’s Best Indie Film (by Richard Corliss)

Festivals Help Rep Movie Houses Hang On (by Reyhan Harmanci)

Healthy Success: 100,000 units sold, without a distribution deal (by Edward J Delaney)

Creative Commons Licensing Now Available for Vimeo Videos (by Samuel Axon)

Video: How to measure word-of-mouth (by Jörg Wittkewitz/Olivier Blanchard)

A must watch: full-length video of my talk on the Future of Communications and Social Media at NBS Brazil (by Gerd Leonhard)

Crowdsourcing landscape – Discussion (by Ross Dawson)

How ‘Inception’ Became the New World Cup (and/or Justin Bieber) (by Simon Dumenco)

Radar Music Videos – The marketplace for music video directors, commissioners and promoters.

Facebook Launches Stories To Celebrate 500 Million Users (by Nick O’Neill)

German: “Ich mache bessere Filme als Vorlesungen” – Ein Interview mit Duncan Jones zu seinem Film “Moon”, Twitter, dem Verhältnis zu seinem Vater David Bowie und zu seinen weiteren Plänen

Filmmakers and E-mail versus Social Media (by Michael R. Barnard)

The Next Big Thing for Marketers: Social Magazines

TFC Tidbit of the Day 16 – Qualifying for Academy Award Consideration for Documentary Filmmakers

Just because a documentary doesn’t get a theatrical distribution deal doesn’t mean it can’t be considered for an Academy Award. Since many great docs don’t get distributed theatrically, many filmmakers choose to qualify the film themselves. But it’s not cheap.

The least expensive option is the IDA’s DOCUWEEKS program (www.documentary.org), or you can four-wall the film yourself. It needs to run at least two times a day, for a week in New York City AND Los Angeles. Theaters that regularly cater to this kind of Academy-qualifying runs include the Laemmle’s in LA, and the IFC Center in NYC. Know in advance that you should expect to pay at least $30,000 to qualify this way. If you are considering this kind of run….TFC can help.

TFC Tidbit of the Day 17 – Can my film ask for a screening fee on the Film Festival circuit?

The quick answer is YES….well, maybe. It depends how sought after your film is, and who is representing your film. If you have a world premiere at one the top film festivals like Sundance or Cannes or a handful of others, then Festival programmers will request to see your film.

The general rule is if a programmer REQUESTS to see your film and then accepts the film, you can ask for a rental fee (usually between $500 and $1,000 is a good place to start). However, if you SUBMIT to a Festival, then generally they will not pay you. However, if you are represented by a distributor or a producer’s rep, they may have more negotiating power and be better able to get you a screening fee. ALSO….niche festivals such as Latino Fests, Jewish Fests, LGBT Fests, Asian fests etc. are much MORE likely to pay you fees to screen your film, because there is less product for them to choose from, so they are more likely to NEED your film in their Festival.

TFC Tidbit of the Day 18 – How can I get non-profit organizations to support my film?

If your film’s subject/theme closely mirrors the mission statement/goals of an organization, you can reach out to them to lend promotional support to your film. For example, many documentaries deal with themes that non-profit orgs are fighting for in the REAL world, and a good film on these subjects can subsequently help raise awareness of their issues — making it a win-win for both the organization AND the film. Many organizations are open to these kind of relationships…but the most common mistake filmmakers make is to get unspecified or “mushy” support from an organization, and nothing quantifiable ever materializes. You need to give an org something very specific to do….i.e. send an email blast about your screening at a Festival, or organize a screening on their premises. If you are considering the latter option, consider organizations that actually have an auditorium or screening room. For this reason, museums and churches are often the best options as they are already in the exhibition business.

TFC Tidbit of the Day 19 – Theatrical Exhibition

Every filmmaker wants a theatrical exhibition for their film because of the prestige and the classic appeal. Key, in our opinion, is to know what’s possible and what you’re paying for. There are lots of services that charge big fees to book your film. Be knowledgeable about when you can book yourself (Landmark, Film Forum, Quad, Laemmle Theatres, Cinema Village, lots of others), or spend less on theatrical.

Publicity is the most important part of theatrical and that’s what you should spend money and time on. A New York Times review is usually a key goal, and it won’t come from having just a NYC release (that’s new NYT policy). A Theatrical release is important to directors for the obvious reasons and it is a very useful marketing component, but
the operative word is “useful”. It’s useful only if it does not cost you more than you’ll make back from it and ancillaries that are enhanced by it.

According to one of our VOD partners, Comcast and InDemand have said, off-the-record, that they will start insisting on a 10-city day & date release for films to have access to their service. This policy would be implemented to help sift through the glut of the content in supply. We caution, before filmmakers rush into that spend, to think whether their film is likely to make it onto key Cable VOD platforms. Will the spend on theatrical likely be recouped on VOD? Also, cable VOD wants day and date releases, but theatres don’t so be cautious when planning your distribution route.

TFC Tidbit of the Day 20 – Event Theatrical Exhibition

Fathom is a great known service doing event screenings in key theater chains across the country. Their key chains are: Regal, AMC, Cinemark, and some Loews and Pacific Theatres too but they’re fewer in number.

Films such as I.O.U.U.S.A have made great money and had a great release with Fathom. Other services such as Cinedigm and Screenvision are also offering similar programs at the same top chains. AMCi announced it’s reserving screens for indie films too but details have not been released on this program yet. More on this in our new blog. Stay tuned.

Are you a filmmaker who has worked with a distributor or service company for theatrical exhibition? Tell us about them in our Distributor Report Card.

Here are some informative links I came across the last days, this time with some more details

DepicT!
Can you do it in 90 seconds? Watershed’s super-short filmmaking competition as part of Encounters International Film Festival

MovieSet
Build Audience with MovieSet. We help you absorb your audience in the filmmaking journey.

FilmRally
FilmRally is a place where everyone involved with the process of making a film can rally together for the sake of the project. It is a film scheduling engine coupled with a social networking tool.

aple.ep DVD + amoeba motion loop collection press release
This 5 track EP highlights amoebas creative process “arrange.process.loop.edit.” The audiovisual project is being made with ableton live controlling vj software but will also contain remixes by a string of artists including Dubassy, Tom Wall, Ben Sheppee, and the Russian VJ Mafia.

Pioneer One on VODO
Pioneer One is the latest project from Josh Bernhard and Bracey Smith whose previous indie feature The Lionshare, became VODO’s biggest success to date with over 450,000 downloads since its release. The success of the project inspired the writer/director duo to develop this quality drama in collaboration with VODO and its distribution partners. With a successful distribution of the pilot they’re hunting for the donors and sponsors that will make the continuation of the show possible.

From Here To There
The first part of the adventure series is now available for viewing online on Vimeo.

SnagFilms Unveils Lineup for Second SummerFest of First-Run Docs
Now in its second year, SnagFilms Summer Fest 2010 will give online audiences the chance to watch award-winning and world premiere documentary films from July 16 through September 2.

INDEPENDENT FILM FINANCING VIA A FILM TAX CREDIT FINANCE STRATEGY
Whether or not you allow to a thought which eccentric ( ‘ indie ‘ ) movie financing, (and of march you have been articulate about eccentric televison plan financing additionally ) is passed a simple indicate is simply which tax credit filing , as well as a financing of those tax credits has never been some-more renouned than in a stream sourroundings in Canada – 2010.

TFC Tidbit of the Day – week 3
Guest post from our friends over at The Film Collaborative.

The importance of having a blog (part 2) – guest post
Guest post from our friends over at the Bud Spencer Movie project.

TFC Tidbit of the Day 11 - Ad Supported Platforms

Platforms such as YouTube, Snag Film and Babelgum are all based on ad-supported revenue (though we recommend using it to drive transactional and for PR). Hulu was ad-supported but has moved into a subscription model. YouTube is the SECOND LARGEST search engine in the world with 2 billion views per day and is monetizing over a billion views per week globally.

TFC Tidbit of the Day 12 – Rights licensing is very tricky

Think before you put all your eggs in one basket. Broadcasters and home video distributors sometimes want competing rights. Sometimes distributors want all rights and yet won’t exploit them all. It’s prudent to analyze options and the possibility of breaking up rights and windows and explore available options with people who have experience with this and can help you. This is our mandate, to help. Consult with someone who is up-to-date with industry standards, guidelines and rights definitions but most of all, someone who is experienced with revenue models, windows and all the possibilities in negotiations. And no one should get exclusive rights without paying properly for them.

TFC Tidbit of the Day 13 - Aim for flexibility when negotiating your contract

It’s critical that one’s contract contain language that covers a wide range of contingencies and possibilities in a rapidly changing and unpredictable landscape. Plan for changing revenue models, companies to go out of business, and rights classes/categories to shift and have your contract drafted accordingly. There is nothing you cannot protect yourself from in a contract, as long as you are reasonable, and an honest distributor will expect you to cover yourself.

TFC Tidbit of the Day 14 - Ask questions

There are a few aggregators and lots of distributors so before committing yourself, weigh your options, and ask lots of questions. Always ask for and check out references and don’t trust any one source.  Different films have different potentials so compare yours to ones that match up from a marketing and demographic perspective. Get clear about expenses being recouped, layers of middle men between the consumer and the company you are contracting with, and marketing efforts that either you or your distributor or both need to undertake to have your film known in the marketplace.

TFC Tidbit of the Day 15 - Mitigate the middlemen

Ask for revenue potentials and examine how many layers of middlemen there are between the distributor/aggregator and the stores or platforms that you most want to be on, assuming that you cannot go direct (which often is the case). Make sure distributors are not going through too many middlemen, or selling to themselves and double dipping, or simply offering to do something on your behalf that you could do yourself. And make sure you know what their deals are with key stores or platforms.

Did you know that The Film Collaborative has a social networking platform for filmmakers called The Film Collaborators? Visit the site to set up your free account.

Good reasons to have a blog

To have a blog is very useful for a number of reasons. Especially for low budget productions it is essential to reach a large community / audience without the usual high costs involved in PR. The easiest and cheapest way is to use the potential of Social Media. You can use and combine a variety of tools. Your own blog is very helpful to introduce your project to many people at a time. For example, some “widgets” are permanently included to give the reader basic information. For further and recent information it is easiest to blog, but the most important thing is to keep your blog alive!

Other important tools to gather a Web 2.0 community are Facebook and Twitter. To keep in touch with your followers or fans permanently it is recommended to use these tools regularly. Imagine you are working on a film project and today you are meeting your editor to explain your thoughts about the movie: you fetch your smart phone and twitter “great! met with the editor – everything’s fine” and afterwards you post some pics and a blog entry with more details to your blog. To promote the news you write a short teaser note on Facebook and voilà – you’re perfectly networked!

Meanwhile it is very easy to integrate other sites and networks directly on your blog frontpage!

To sum it up, Social Networks never exist alone but always work hand in hand with other Web 2.0 platforms. A blog is one of the main and crucial tools for a smooth and effective network! As an example how good the blog system works, take a look at our own blog at www.budspencermovie.com: within a very short time we reached 60 000 clicks and became number 58 of the fastest growing blogs on WordPress (June 2009). The popularity we reached is enormous: enter “Bud Spencer” on google.at and you’ll find our blog (about the documentary we are doing concerning Bud Spencer’s life) on the first page (with varying positions)! Even more impressive is the fact that with entering the key words – defining our project – “Bud Spencer” and “Dokumentarfilm” – on google.com the first 19 entries all refer back to our blog!* In addition, we also use Youtube to promote our movie with our own channel, which is successful as well (position 58 in category “Reporter” throughout Germany), check it out on: http://www.youtube.com/budspencermovie

(by Karl Martin Pold and Sarah Nörenberg)

* as at March 2010

Hope you had an awesome week! Have fun with this weeks links:

The Ever Democratization of Filmmaking (by Philip Gibb)

In 5 years you will pay your rent with Facebook

INFOGRAPHIC: Learn How Google Works

Ridley Scott and YouTube Want You To Film One Day in Your Life (by Stan Schroeder)

The Awe(some/ful) Future of Independent Filmmaking (by Dan Seitz)

What Businesses Can Learn From Filmmakers (by Tyler Weaver)

DIYDays NYC – AR & Geolocational storytelling [vid] (by Lance Weiler)

DIYDays NYC – Noah Harlan: How to build a mobile app [vid] (by Lance Weiler)

‘The Social Network’ Teaser Trailer Arrives (by Joe Utichi)

10 Outstanding Shorts at Outfest ‘10

TFC Tidbit of the Day 6 – Windows for digital content

Windows are a reference to release windows, the prescribed time gaps between which films are released in different media. Make windowing deliberate rather than confusing the customer with scattered pricing in different formats and releases.

The preferred release schedule should be: Cable & Satellite VOD; then Transactional; then Rental; then Ad-Supported platforms; then Mobile/Wireless. In the next tidbits, there will be examples of each of these platforms.

TFC Tidbit of the Day 7 – Top 10 Revenue Generating MSO’s (multi system operators-Cable and Satellite, basically)

These figures are accurate as of Dec. 2009 (reference NACTA http://www.ncta.com/Stats/TopMSOs.aspx). Take these figures into consideration when negotiating with an aggregator who promises to get your film onto these platforms.

* DirecTV usually does not take films for VOD with grosses less than $10,000,000 in box office.

TFC Tidbit of the Day 8 – Success with VOD

Cable VOD likes films with a theatrical profile. VOD is very marquee (name) driven and genre driven. Its marketing effort is limited hence the need to have films with a recognizable name in the marketplace or with recognizable “stars”. Regarding Day and Date, cable operators like to note that the film is in theatres while it’s on VOD. In the past, Comcast had asked for a 90 – 120 day window ahead of all digital distribution, but is now sometimes doing Day and Date releases. It depends on the film, the platform, the distributor, and the campaign.

TFC Tidbit of the Day 9 – What’s Transactional?

Download-To-Own (DTO) is a transactional platform. iTunes, Playstation, Xbox, Amazon VOD are all DTO sites. iTunes and Xbox account for the majority of the non-cable revenue in the digital space, for now.

Several Hollywood studios have announced that they are doing deals with a new download-to-own store from DivX and the site FreshFilm.com such that their movies will be playable on millions of DivX enabled devices.

TFC Tidbit of the Day 10 – Rental Platforms

Popular rental platforms include iTunes, YouTube, and Virgin Media. Caution: Rental in due time. New Video, for example, notes seeing a clear cannibalization of DTO when Rental is turned on too soon. The number of people who will buy, just have to have it, are stronger if a rental release is delayed. If released at the same time, those that would have bought will rent if they can.

Starting last week, I turned our weekly blog posts into a series of link-posts, using original headlines of the linked articles, also mentioning authors if available . Hope that’s ok for you? If not, just leave a comment, please!

PODCAST: I Am Such A Delicate Flower (The Dead End Show)

The SXSW PanelPicker is a two-step online system that allows the community to have a significant voice in programming Interactive, Film, and Music conference activities for SXSWeek 2011 (March 11-20).

Film Fund-amentals: The Indie Scorecard (by Dennis Toth)

5 Tips For Crowdfunding – 1001 Positively True Stories of a Writer/Director (by Angelo Bell)

Distribution Damnation: Independent Filmmakers Vs. Polychro (by Angelo Bell)

FilmTiki Blog: Filming on Tour (by Lukas Palm)

FilmTiki Blog: TFC Tidbit of the Day – week 1 (by Orly Ravid)

Will New ‘Hulu Plus’ Edge Out Netflix? (by Max Fisher)

80% Of Worldwide Internet Users Watch Online Video (by Rod Low)

7 Steps for Creating a Social Media Marketing Plan (by themaria)

Movie marketing: Video banners boost box office takings

German: Paramount startet Social Media Kino (by Norbert Hillinger)

Jon Reiss is taking a break from his Tip of the Day series for a little while, but meanwhile we have something new for you: Orly Ravid, one of the founders of The Film Collaborative, has written a digital distribution guide, available on their site. For the next 4 weeks at least, FilmTiki will be distributing the TFC Tidbit of the Day weekly, so stay tuned and make sure you don’t miss them by subscribung to our RSS feed.

TFC Tidbit of the Day 1 – Choosing a Digital platform

THE FILM COLLABORATIVE is the first non-profit, full-service provider dedicated to the distribution of independent film, including narrative features, documentaries and shorts where no rights are taken from the creator. In this tidbit series, we hope to give good insight into the world of digital distribution in a way that is helpful to the filmmaker.

Digital platforms should be treated like online visual media stores, not distributors. For this reason, one should be very mistrustful if a company asks for exclusive license rights. Even when dealing with aggregators, they should only have exclusive rights to get the film onto specific platforms and at most they can ask you to follow specific windows in handling other platforms (By way of comparison, such a request from a brick-and-mortar video store such as Blockbuster would be occasional at best, and then they would pay a lot for that and it would only be for a short window of time, such as six (6) months).

Much of this information can be found within our Digital Distribution Guide, available to our members. For this week, you can gain access to the full Guide by contributing $35 to our IndieGoGo campaign.

TFC Tidbit of the Day 2 – Evaluating a platform

A good thing to find out is the extent to which any given platform or distributor licensing to platforms have marketing tools and/or commitments in place. Will doing a deal with them be like having your film in the basement of a crap dvd store in a strip mall in Iowa (no offense to Iowans), or, will it be like having it on the shelves facing out in a big chain with some advertising, or will it be somewhere in between? Not all distributors and aggregators market films well or even at all so choose carefully or have a back-up marketing plan.

Much of this information can be found within our Digital Distribution Guide, available to our members. For this week, you can gain access to the full Guide by contributing $35 to our IndieGoGo campaign.

TFC Tidbit of the Day 3 – Time and cost questions to ask yourself

One must analyze one’s investment of time and costs in doing delivery before committing to any distribution option. Can you do yourself what the platform is offering to do for you? How much time and cost will you take on to accomplish the task? Is it worth it to pay someone for their expertise and connections? Just because it is theoretically possible to handle the work yourself doesn’t mean that is the best option for you to choose.

Much of this information can be found within our Digital Distribution Guide, available to our members. For this week, you can gain access to the full Guide by contributing $35 to our IndieGoGo campaign.

TFC Tidbit of the Day 4 – Considerations for choosing a platform

Some platforms can be accessed via Self Distribution (e.g. Youreeeka or Maxcast) while others can only be accessed via an aggregator (e.g. Netflix, and iTunes, which at the moment is by far the greatest revenue generating platform in the digital distribution space). Some aggregators are better than others and some distributors and aggregators take lower fees than others. Choosing the best platform/portal for your film must be done with care and must also take into account the type of film it is and its overall release plan.

Much of this information can be found within our Digital Distribution Guide, available to our members. For this week, you can gain access to the full Guide by contributing $35 to our IndieGoGo campaign.

TFC Tidbit of the Day 5 – Revenue from Digital Platforms

From a revenue-generating point of view, at present, those who deal in the space will tell you that iTunes is the #1 platform; Hulu is working well for some but not for all; and that Netflix’s “Watch Now” is starting to show promise but one’s film needs to be on DVD with them too and be somewhat in demand. Some platforms are subscription based, some are transactional, and some are ad-tagged revenue-based. And sometimes a hybrid of the two not is only a doable solution but actually an ideal one, especially for smaller special-interest films.

Much of this information can be found within our Digital Distribution Guide, available to our members. For this week, you can gain access to the full Guide by contributing $35 to our IndieGoGo campaign.

We started our orchestra tour in June. Everything was set and ready to go. We were four people who were in charge of making the documentary and could not wait to start shooting. The first stops on our tour were Prague and Brno in the Czech Republic and I think we were well prepared for this.

The gear

Unfortunately I could only organize one HD Camera: the Sony HVR Z5, which records on compact flash cards. Nevertheless, this meant that we did not need inconvenient tapes anymore =). This sped up our workflow. We took some external hard drives and our Macbook and were able to capture footage at any point – anywhere. To get good sound we had two external mics. One on the camera, for the atmosphere and one on our quickpole. For low light shots, we had an LED Light Panel, which we could attach to the camera, and this little light thing kicked some ass! We were always two or maximum three people when doing interviews or filming a discussion. In fact, this is not a huge amount of equipment, but it had its advantages.

Our philosophy…

…was not to attract attention. The band should not feel inhibited by the film team.  At the beginning, everybody was somewhat nervous when the band realized that we were filming them and you could see this weird behavior on camera. Some of the people suddenly tried to talk very smoothly and in ways played a role. That of course was cheesy and not very authentic. But after a while they adjusted to the filming situations and didn’t care when the camera was around. In fact, sometimes they waited for the film team to join a situation before they started a conversation or discussion. However, most of the time it was very difficult to be at the right moment and in the right place with a rolling camera. So what can you do about it?

Getting what you want…

on camera meant to be always alert and informed about what is happening and what is going to happen. When is the next concert, when does the band arrive there and start preparing for the gig? On the other hand, when the group is splitting up for the day, who do we follow, what could be interesting for the film and where could a funny situation happen? To our advantage we were four people, which enhanced the level of information. On the other hand there often were short notice decisions being made which we didn’t know of. We had been busy filming something and parallel to that some band members instantly decided to check out the city (which can be very interesting in terms of meeting cool people or stuff like that). Therefore, you wonder where some people have left and what are they doing right now. Well and at the end, you didn’t get a cool situation on camera. Well, we just had to accept this. You can’t always film and be everywhere and at the end it was better to not press the record-button all the time, because as paradox it might sound, when you are filming in order not miss something, you often miss more than when the camera is not rolling.

What I learned…

originated in the described situation above. But there is more to it, which I want to describe with an example: When I was entering the club, concert hall, or bar where the next gig was going to take place, I always started filming everything happening around me. After the gig, I often realised that even though I was capturing everything on camera, I missed a lot of important and good stuff that was happening around me. How can I solve this filmmaker’s annoying crux? Do we need another camera? Well I say – no! The problem was more the kind of a hunter’s tunnel vision on his prey who doesn’t realise that he just missed a much bigger and tastier meal. The same thing happens when making a documentary. The filmmaker is hunting the best shots but is only looking through his camera, which offers only a small and very restricted view on the situation.  That was what was happening to me. At the end, I was the victim of the camera and only looked through its little viewfinder.

What I did was to start shooting right when I saw a new place of a gig to catch my first look on the, for me, unknown place. Then I switched off the camera and just tried to experience the place without any technical support.  After some time you observe kind of the specialties of the place. The things giving the place its personality. I asked myself: in what way is the room structured? What influence does it have on people? How can they move and be in this room? What kind of people are they? Why are they here and how do they feel?

When I could answer these questions for myself, which was normally after one or two cokes and a cigarette, then I started shooting again. Finally, I didn’t collect so much film material and at the same time it was good stuff, which made me happy.

And we were more than one person who could operate the camera, so when I stopped filming in order to observe the room, somebody else could start filming. Moreover, later he could take time to check out the location when I was filming the second time. Well, I guess this was a very effective way to film with one camera and I continued this way on the tour…by the way, Prague was cool and Brno kicked ass! Check out the videos we made:

First Stop: Prague!

and Next Stop: Brno!

Support indie film and help us build an Online Film Community: http://www.indiegogo.com/FilmTiki-Online-Film-Community

This time I only have some links for you. Hope they are useful and interesting anyway:

• Banksy 1, Oliver Stone 0
• The Conversation Prism
• Free Film Budget
• The Disposable Film Festival
• Notes and quotes from the PGA’s 2010 “Produced By” conference
• A DIY Case Study In The Making: Here & There
• Title-friendly, VOD-friendly
• Malaysian web users team up for crowd-sourced film
• Switzerland goes sci-fi
• Can We Build A Bigger Community Of Film Lovers?
• Indie Filmmaking And Seo Marketing A One-Two Punch
• Independent Film Making is Facing a Rocky Road
• DIYDays NYC – Brian Chirls [vid]
• Film Bazaar India partners with Moscow Co-production Forum
• Lazy cat – lucky mouse

You want to find new movies and help making them big? Please support FilmTiki on IndieGoGo and make that happen:
http://www.indiegogo.com/FilmTiki-Online-Film-Community

Today’s tip will be a meta tip.  If you go to Twitter and search #totbo  you will see the stream of tips, ideas, comments, suggestions etc from everyone who was engaged in the Totbo NY Workshop in the room in NYC or who virtually participated in distant lands! Kudos to all the participants at the NYC Totbo Workshop this weekend who sent out hundreds of tweets about what was being covered in the workshop. And special kudos to @khanb1 who compiled all the posts into a tumblr post – you can check it out at:

http://khanb.tumblr.com/post/667684601/compiled-tweets-of-totbo-by-circlesoffire

So the NY workshop was great – we had over 70 people in the room – with special guests Sheri Candler, Caitlin Boyle and Lance Weiler.  Next stop Vancouver, the Los Angeles Film Festival Symposium, followed by a four city tour of Australia in July and then San Francisco on July 31/August 1st.  Check out the Totbo site for information.

Audiences: Made, Not Born
Interesting guest post on Truly Free Film by Jeremy Pikser about the characteristics of audiences.

How To Fund Your Project on IndieGoGo (Internet Week NY)
On Saturday, June 12, the Internet Week NY will host a panel discussion, including project champions from successful IndieGoGo projects.

Whoopi Goldberg and Jeremy Irons Join The Team!
The guys from buyacredit have great news: Hollywood stars Whoopi Goldberg and Jeremy Irons join their team!

On set of Lucasfilm’s RED TAILS & meeting Philip Bloom
Austrian filmmaker and blogger Nino Leitner wrote about his recent experiences on the set of Lucas’ film Red Tails.

IndieGoGo and MTV partner up
MTV New Media is calling for all IndieGoGo creators to help them develop and distribute their projects.

What Happens to a YouTube Video After 1,000 Uploads?
According to Mashable, YouTube user canzona uploaded a video to YouTube, downloaded it and again uploaded it. He did this a 1,000 times for over one year. This is what happened to the video:

Online film promotion offers cash incentive
The Hollywood Reporter published an article, starting with the following words:

Backers hope providing £20 ($30) credit to anyone in the U.K. who visits www.fullstreamahead.co.uk will help entice consumers to legally access film content online.

Read more about Online film promotion offers cash incentive.

Send us your DVD
As part of our crowdfunding campaign (20 days to go!) we started another campaign called “Send us your DVD“. Please check it out!

By the way, did you see our video? Here it is:

FilmTiki – Online Film Community from FilmTiki on Vimeo.

As you may have noticed we’re working on an upgrade of our website www.FilmTiki.com. In the past few months we’ve learned that it’s still hard for filmmakers to reach their audience, although the situation has improved.

So we decided to make FilmTiki a community platform where filmmakers and filmlovers can find and connect each other. One of the major changes we will come up in the next few months is the integration of film profiles:

Filmmakers can add their projects and on the other hand filmlovers can find new, innovative films, which they can love, share,  comment and help to get seen by a larger audience. In a basic and free version of FilmTiki, filmmakers can use this feature to spread the word about their project, even if it is still in preparation.

To secure some further financing we launched a funding campaign to ask you and your friends, fans and followers to support our ambitious journey for independent film. In return you get a so called ‘VIP Perk’. For e.g. $30 or more we’ll send you a Mystery Book or DVD – used or new, short film, feature, documentary – blockbuster or indie film (that was made by a filmmaker of the FilmTiki community)! You’ll be surprised!

Here are some of the DVD’s we’re giving away:

• One hour fantasy girl (Edgar Michael Bravo)
• Fatsy (Oliver Stangl, Christian Tod)
• Too Long Fu (Hermann Aichwalder) 
• monks – the transatlantic feedback (Dietmar Post, Lucia Palacios) 
• Zombie get a date (Leetal Platt)
• War, Inc. (John Cusack, Grace Loh)
• etc.

Most of them have been featured on FilmTiki and so could be yours:

Send us your DVD now!

Become a first mover: send us your DVD now and you’ll have the honour to add your project to FilmTiki’s movie database as soon as it launches. AND you’ll be featured on FilmTiki’s redesigned frontpage to get some more exposure for your project! Of course you’ll also get a mention in all our several other online channels, including our blog, Twitter and Facebook-fanpage.

Your DVD will be used as VIP Perk during our funding campaign or as give-away once we launched. So we’re giving it back to the community and help you make sure your movie finds its way to the audience!

All you have to do is the following: send us your DVD until June 30 2010 to:

OneTiki new media GmbH, Mariahilfer Strasse 1d/13, 1060 Wien, Austria

And please also tell all of your filmmaking friends about this opportunity and support us in building an Online Film Community!