An insightful interview with one of my favorite festival directors.
I know that when I think of DIY filmmaking, one of the first filmmakers who comes to mind is Tony Comstock, whose wonderful film, ‘Damon and Hunter: Doing it Together,’ played at CineKink a few years back. He and his wife, Peggy, have been producing and distributing explicit documentaries for the past decade – and they regularly top Amazon sales lists for number of DVDs sold. Obviously, they’re doing something right – during a recent distribution/marketing panel I attended, Tony was tweeting me from a sailing excursion through the Caribbean, prodding me to ask the participants how many of them owned a yacht.
Overall, I think Comstock Films exemplifies how many filmmakers on the “porn/erotica” side have—largely through necessity—become proficient in getting their work out there and noticed once it’s been produced. Rather than waiting on the hope of some distributor picking them up, the need is there to reach out to an audience directly, bringing with it a front-running understanding of all the tools necessary to do so, especially staying on top of reaching out through the internet, including supreme mastery of SEO and finding ways to circumvent the many technical road-blocks that are intended to inhibit sexual content.
A fun story from NPR about the resurgence in popularity of a drive-in theater in Illinois. Having survived the onslaught of home video, the theater has become a social hub for local families. The result? They’re knocking down an abandoned cineplex to add a third screen.
The takeaway for filmmakers: there are all kinds of ways to watch movies, and therefore all kinds of ways to get your movie seen. You just need to find the hook that makes your screening an event.
Yet another in our series of South by Southwest 2010 videos, this time with Brian Chirls, creator of Crowd Controls. This venture is based on his work with Four-Eyed Monsters and is currently powering some of the fan engagement with Iron Sky.
Thanks to Mark Potts for shooting and editing this video.
Bring your sense of humor. Make it personal, not corporate. Respond,” said Meg Hamel, director of the Wisconsin Film Festival. “Don’t make it seem like you’re only doing this only to sell tickets. Don’t make it seem like you’re doing this because somewhere you read that social media was the next big thing. And here in Wisconsin, people really do care what you have for breakfast, as long as it involves bacon.”
My argument here is really with the notion that a premiere at a major festival is your point of maximal awareness. It’s not, never has been and never will be, unless such festivals do a lot of re-visioning of what they are and how they operate.
It’s truly a sign of the self-absorption of the entire industry that they can think this is remotely true.
Tate English and Lynn Mikeska (writer/director and star, respectively, of The Ballad of Friday and June) spent some time at the Oxford Film Festival recording a series of webisodes to document their festival trip. Rather than making the series a simple travelogue, however, they went out of their way to make each episode funny in a self-deprecating way. Well-made webisodes like these capture some of the local flavor of a festival town and involve fellow attending filmmakers involved whenever possible. (You want to give people a reason to link to your videos, right?) Off-the-cuff video blog entries are a fun, inexpensive way to build a fan base and to draw attention to your film’s festival run.
With the Park City festivals (Sundance, Slamdance, and other ‘dances that come and go with the years) just a week away, I thought this was a good time to check in with Chris Thilk about some of the philosophies and techniques of promoting an indie film at a large festival.
Let’s say I’m a filmmaker with a feature film playing at Sundance or Slamdance. I’m aware that million-dollar advance checks are few and far between, but I’d like to give my film the best chance possible for finding a distributor and/or an audience. What are some realistic expectations to set for this experience?
The expectations you have going in should be in direct proportion to the leg work you’ve put in prior to the festival, whatever it is. If, in support of your movie, you’ve already done some outreach to movie blogs that might be interested in the film, have built up an audience on Facebook or Twitter and generally can go in to the festival with some wind at your sails already your chances are much better.
I don’t have a lot of money for a publicist. How can someone with a limited budget be heard over the hype?
First off, dissuade yourself of the notion that you’re going to be heard by a large audience. The best strategy for creators of niche products – whether we’re talking about small movies or small beers – is to be heard by the right audience. That takes a lot of work upfront as you do research into potential communities of fans and such but then participating in those conversations is exactly as hard as having a conversation over email or even real life. You’ll never break through the hype around something like Transformers, but that’s not where your goal line is. Your goal line is finding the audiences and communities who are interested in what you have to say. Again, that takes a lot of upfront work, but it’s every bit as essential to the movie’s success as finishing the script so don’t consider it an add-on effort.
Filmmaker takes my response as proof of fervent interest in his/her film and promptly adds me to an email list, pimping the film’s screenings in cities where I do not live.
Sound familiar? If you’re subscribing people to your mailing list without their permission, you fall on the Goofus side of the age-old Goofus/Gallant spectrum.
For me this happens just often enough to be annoying, but for a festival director who deals with thousands of films each year, it’s a real problem. It only takes a few seconds to unsubscribe (if such a link is provided), but wading through an inbox filled with unsolicited (and usually irrelevant) news from well-meaning filmmakers robs festival staffers of many, many hours. Adding a programmer to your mailing list without their permission will accomplish the opposite of what you want – your film will get noticed, all right, but cast in a negative light.
Don’t hurt your film’s chances by spamming – there are better ways of getting your film noticed.
For more on email marketing best practices, check out the MailChimp blog. MailChimp is a terrific service. I use it for the Film Festival Secrets newsletter, to which you may subscribe – but only if you want to do so.
Festival consulting is available at reasonable rates. Whether you just need a few answers or want a complete strategy for your film, I'm here to help. Read more >>
First Time Here?
There's a lot to learn about film festivals. Learn more about Film Festival Secrets and see some of our most popular articles. Read more >>
With the Park City festivals (Sundance, Slamdance, and other ‘dances that come and go with the years) just a week away, I thought this was a good time to check in with Chris Thilk about some of the philosophies and techniques of promoting an indie film at a large festival.
So here’s something that happens to me a lot.
