The 5 Pervasive Issues Preventing the Emergence of New US Film Hubs

If you’re a filmmaker, you probably already know a lot of other filmmakers in your area.  If you don’t, you should.  That’s one reason why film community events are absolutely vital for the independent film industry.  It’s far from the only reason that communities of independent filmmakers are vital for your success as an independent filmmaker.  

I’ve been involved with a few film community organizations ranging from Producer Foundry to Global Film Ventures, and even the Institute for International Film Finance.  I’ve also spoken at organizations across the country.  From the experience of running more than 150 events and speaking for a few dozen others, I’ve noticed some commonalities across many burgeoning independent film communities, so I thought I would share some of my observations as to why most of them aren’t growing as quickly as they should.  Without further ado, here are the 5 pervasive problems preventing the growth of regional film communities.  

Lack of Resources

It’s no secret that most independent films could use more money.  It’s true for film communities and hubs as well.  In general, most of these community organizations have little to no money unless they’re tied to a larger film society or film festival.  Unfortunately being tied to such an organization often prevents the work of community building due to the time and resources involved in the day-to-day operations of running a film society or the massive commitment that comes with running a film festival.  

Compounding the issues with a lack of resources is that a community organization built to empower a regional film community isn’t something that you could raise equity financing from investors.  Projects like this are much better funded using pages from the non-profit playbook.  There are organizations looking to write grants specifically for film organizations seeking to empower communities.  You can find out more about the grant writing process in this blog below.

RELATED: Filmmakers! 5 Tips for Successful Grantwriting.

While local film commissions do provide some support to locals, their primary mandate is generally built for a different purpose that I’ll discuss in the next of my 5 points.  

Most tax incentives emphasize attracting Large Scale Productions, not building local hubs

Most film tax incentives are heavily or sometimes even entirely oriented on attracting outside productions as a means to bring more revenue to the city, state, region, or territory.  This is understandable, as many film commissions or offices are organized under the tourism bureau or occasionally the Chamber of Commerce.  Both of those organizations have a primary focus on attracting big spenders to the local area in order to boost the economy.  

RELATED: The Basics of Film Tax Incentives

This mandate isn’t necessarily antithetical to the goal of building local film communities.  There is nearly always a local staffing requirement for these incentives, and you can’t build an industrial community if no one has work.  Some of the best incentives I’ve seen have a certain portion of their spending that is required to go to community growth, as San Francisco’s City Film Commission had when I last checked.  Given that the focus of the film industry is focused on attracting outside production, there is often a vacuum left when it comes to building the local community and infrastructure as a long-term project.  

Additionally, given that film productions are highly mobile by their very nature using tax incentives to consistently attract large-scale projects is almost always a race to the bottom very quickly.  If a production can simply say to Colorado that they’ll get a better deal in New Jersey, then the incentive in Colorado fails its primary purpose.  Eventually, these states or regions will continue a race to the bottom that fails to bring any meaningful economic benefit to the citizens of the state.  While the studies I’ve seen on this often seem reductive and significantly undervalue the soft benefits of film production on the image and economy of a state, the end result is clear.  If all states over-compete, eventually the legislatures will repeal the tax incentives.  After that, outside productions will dry up.  

When this happens, local filmmakers are left out in the cold.  The big productions that put food on the table are gone, and there’s no meaningful local infrastructure left to fill the void that the large studio productions left.  

Creating a film community is a long-term project with Short Term Funding.

It takes decades of consistent building to create a new film production hub.  People often have the misconception that Georgia popped up overnight, and this isn’t true. While the tax incentive grew the industry relatively quickly on a governmental timescale, I believe the tax incentive was in place for nearly a decade ahead of the release.  Georgia’s growth was greatly aided by local Filmmaker Tyler Perry’s continual championing of the region as a film hub.  

Most of the funding apparatuses available for the growth of film communities are primarily oriented toward short-term gains.  That makes long-term growth a difficult process, but if cities and regions outside of NY, LA, and ATL are to grow it needs to be a part of the conversation.  

There are some organizations out there pushing to build long-term viable film communities outside of those major hubs.  Notably, the Albuquerque Film and Music Experience has a great lineup of speakers for their event in a few weeks.  I’m one of those speakers, so if you’re in the area check it out, and check out this podcast I did with them yesterday.  

It’s hard to bring community leaders together

As I said eat the top, I’ve been involved with and even run several community organizations.  One consistent theme I’ve noticed is that most community leaders are very reticent to work with each other in a way that doesn’t benefit them more than anyone else.  This means that one issue I’ve seen consistently is that while there are disparate factions of the larger film community throughout most regions it’s nearly impossible to bring them together to build something big enough to truly build a long-term community. 

Most filmmakers and film community leaders are much happier being the king of their own small hill than a lord in a larger kingdom.  

Filmmaking is a creative pursuit, and it requires some degree of narcissism to truly excel.  This is amplified when you run a local film community.  Sayer’s Law states: “Academic politics is the most vicious and bitter form of politics because the stakes are so low.” If you replace the word “Academic” with “Filmmaking” can be said for the issue facing most film communities. Call it Yennie’s Law, if you like. #Sarcasm, #Kinda.

I discussed this in some detail with Lorraine Montez and Carey Rose O'Connell of the New Mexico Film Incubator in episode 2 of the Movie Moolah podcast, linked below.

The industry connections for large-scale finance and distribution generally aren’t local.

If you’ve read Thomas Lennon and Robert Ben Garant’s book Writing Movies for Fun and Profit you’ll already know that LA is the hub of the industry, and if you want to pitch you need to be there.  Given the fact I live in Philadelphia, I believe it should be fairly clear I disagree with the particulars of the notion the overall sentiment remains true.  Also, if you haven’t read it click that link and get it.  It’s a great read.  (Affiliate link, I get a few pennies if you buy. Recommendation stands regardless of how you get it.)

If you want to make a film bigger than at most a few million dollars, you’re going to need connections to financiers and distributors with large bank accounts.  You can find the distributors at film markets, but all of the institutional film industry money is in LA.  While you may be able to raise a few million from local investors, it’s really hard and it is an issue facing the growth of independent film communities nationwide.  

Another issue is around the knowledge of the film business and the logistics of keeping a community engaged and organized.  While I can’t help too much with the latter, I can help you and your community organizers on the knowledge of the film industry with my FREE film business resource Pack!  It’s got a free e-book, free macroeconomic white paper, free deck template, free festival brochure template, contact tracking template, and a while lot more. Just that is more than a 100$ value, plus you also get monthly content digests segmented by topic so you can keep growing your film industry knowledge on a viable schedule.  Click the button below!

As I said earlier, I’m speaking at AFMX this year.  If you like this content and you’d like to have me speak to your organization, use the button below to send me an email.

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How and Why to Test Screen Your Indiefilm

If you’re a filmmaker who’s got a film that’s nearing completion, you’re probably going to want to get some opinions on it before you think you’re ready.  This involves test screenings.  Given that I’ve hosted a few in the past, I’ve learned a few things that work and others that don’t. 

1. Invite people who aren’t filmmakers

While the very first people you’ll want to get feedback on your cut from probably ARE filmmakers, they won’t be the only people you want to talk to about your project.  Filmmakers tend to understand the process a bit better than a standard viewer and are going to be more able to look past a lack of color correction and audio that still needs work.

However, filmmakers have their own set of biases when it comes to low-budget independent work.  The easiest way past that is to do test screenings for the people you expect to WATCH your movie as opposed to those that helped you make it.  It’s best to wait until the film is nearly done before doing this, as these screenings tend to be labor-intensive and can be expensive.  Also, if you show the film too early, it can negatively impact the press for the film. ​  ​

Generally, I think the time you want to start showing people in the industry is around picture lock.  The test screenings should be done closer to the completion of the film when you think you stand a chance at getting into major festivals.

2. Give out PRINTED comment cards/Sheets at the close of the event.

I’ve done enough events to know that if you give out PAPER sheets for people to fill out anonymously at the event, you’ll probably get around 80-90% of your audience willing to fill them out.  However, if you send a follow-up survey in email, that number is around 10-20%, even if you incentivize them. 

As such, you should make sure you have a single-sided sheet ready for people to fill out at the event.  Don’t make people give you their names, but do ask about their age range and potential ethnicity.  If there are other demographics you plan on targeting, you should also add questions asking people if they identify with any of those groups. 

I’ve added a few templates to my resources section below.

Get the FREE template in my resources section!

3. Ask the viewers to RATE the film on IMDb & give them the ability to AT THE SCREENING

IMDb is one of the earliest places you can start asking consumers to rate your film.  In general, it’s best if you ask them to rate the film at the test screening.  You can set up a subdomain on your site that automatically redirects to the IMDb page.  Then you can use a QR code generator to make sure people have access to it.  Give them time to fill out the form and rate the film between the film finishing up and a Q&A.  The whole process (for both) should take 10 minutes or less, meaning a 15-minute break will also allow people to use the bathroom. 

I believe your film needs to be marked as completed to capture this rating. ​

4. Capture emails to let the beta viewers know when the film comes out.

If you’re a filmmaker, you need to build your email list. (More on that in the related blog below.) You should create a custom tag for people who attend the screening of your film.  If you capture RSVPs of people through Eventbrite, then you can just add that tag when you import them to mail chimp or whatever other mailing management program you want to use. 

Related: Why every filmmaker needs an email list.

5. Consider inviting local press

If your film is gearing up for release, offering press passes to local print outlets, prominent bloggers talking about movies, or other digital creators will probably serve you well.  It may or may not get them to actually come out, but the benefits of them coming.  Just make sure you’re not spammy about it.

Related: 6 Rules for contacting press.

Thanks so much for reading! If this all seems like a bit much, I do it for some of the films I represent or distribute. If you’d like me to consider yours, check out my services page. If you like this content, you should check out my new youtube channel. Also, don’t forget about the templates, ebook, and way more in my resources packet.

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How Filmmakers Can Use Community Screenings to Maximize Impact and Profits

For those of you who are unfamiliar, a community screening model is an alternate version of a theatrical where instead of booking theaters across the country.  There are so many places with high-quality sound systems across the country that it can make a lot of sense to book these secondary locations instead of spending the money to four-wall a theater.  Since we talked about what a community screening package generally includes, I thought I’d go over what it takes to book those screenings this week. 

1. Identify your Target Audience

​As stated above, community screenings are best utilized when there’s already a strong presence of your niche audience gathered around the same geographic location.  This most likely means that you’re going to need to target a niche like the Faith-Based community, the LGBT community, or some other cause-oriented community. 

The Secret utilized community screenings to great effect, as did other documentaries like Food Inc and Forks over Knives.  This tactic is most commonly utilized by documentary filmmakers, as their films tend to attract dedicated niche audiences with slightly more ease than a narrative film would.  That said, if you can build a following for yourself and your film within this niche, there’s no reason that these same sorts of tactics couldn’t work as well. ​

2. Figure out a communal gathering place for them

If your community has a regular meeting place, such as a church, rec center, yoga studio, or other area that has a large screen that can be used to show movies it can be an extremely effective place to start talking to someone about hosting a film screening. 

Even if your film isn’t a faith-based film, some unitarian churches may still be worth approaching.  The biggest downside to places like Unitarian churches, (or general use area like a rec center) is that they don’t always have the same sort of community built around them that places like churches tend to. 

3. Research those community leads lists

Once you find an example community gathering place, you’re going to want to look for similar places around whatever region you’re looking to advertise community screenings too.  I wouldn’t generally say to do a screening at more than one location per city, but since you’re not going to close every place you try, I’d consider getting 5-10 per area you want to screen in. 

​Keep in mind, You’re living in a large, sprawling city like Los Angeles or Denver.  If you are, you might want to consider holding one in different areas of the city.  For Denver, you could consider one in LoDo, one in Aurora, one in Cherry Creek, and one in Highland’s Ranch.  In LA, you could consider one in DTLA, one in Culver, one in Burbank, one in Santa Monica, and one in Westwood, etc.

4. Create a screening package

I covered this last week since this blog was likely to come out long.  Read it below:

RELATED: The 9 Essential elements of an indifilm Community Screening package.

5. Generate marketing materials

The marketing materials I’m talking about are for marketing the people who would host the community screening, not those who would attend.  The materials for those who would attend will be covered in more detail on the expansion of section 4 next week. 
​
What I mean here are things like a pre-written email that you can plug some names into and send, a brochure on your film and why it would appeal to both your target audience and the people hosting it, a tiered pricing plan for your screenings that ideally start as a revenue share and go up from there.

6. Sell the community Screening package to them.

Finally, it’s time to dial for dollars and reach out to them. If possible, it will help your close rate immensely to send them the brochure in advance, but that can get a bit pricy. You can try sending a cold email, but it’s reasonably likely that you’d end up in more spam filters than would likely be helpful. I know that telemarketing isn’t fun, but it can be extremely useful in terms of actually moving these sorts of packages.

Thanks so much for reading! If all of this sounds like a lot, that’s because it is! Lucky for you, it’s also a service I offer. Check out the Guerrilla Rep Media Services page. If you’re still figuring out what the next steps are for your film, you should grab my free film business resources pack. It’s got Templates for festival brochures, distribution, tracking sheets, an investment deck template, a free ebook, a whitepaper on the economics of the film industry, and more. Also, you’ll get monthly content digests to help you grow your film business knowledge base on a manageable schedule.

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Why I started a YouTube Channel

I started a Youtube Channel!  I’ve been debating whether or not to do so for a while, but I wanted to make sure I did it right. With the release of this blog and this video, I’m now going to be releasing around One video a week, and maybe more in the future.  Why am I doing this?  You can read on to find out, or just watch the video below.

There’s this misconception that youtube is for amateurs and people who haven’t found their way into the real film industry yet.  So I’ve already had a decent level of success in film, why am I starting one? While there is a bit of truth behind that misconception, the notion is outdated.  It’s best to view YouTube as it’s own social media platform, where some things work and others don’t.  After all, if Will Smith isn’t too big for youtube, there’s no universe in which I would be.

All of that only answers why not start a youtube channel, but I still haven’t stated why.  After all, I am busy with my work with film representation and distribution, writing blogs and books, speaking, appearing on podcasts, and more.  How is it worth my time to start a YouTube Channel?  Well, here are the 5 reasons I’m doing it. 

I practice what I preach

I’m continually advising my clients to expand their social media presence.  If you don’t build a brand and a community around your work, you won’t be able to build a sustainable career in the film industry at this present time.  YouTube can be fantastic for engaging with your community and can be a great tool for building your online presence. 

Experimentation is necessary for growth

In order to grow your independent film career, you need to take risks and experiment.  Some of them end great, and others end terribly.  The only thing you can do is to keep trying and measure your results as you do.  In lean methodology, this is summarized in the build, measure, learn feedback loop.  If you don’t build it and test it, you’ll never figure out what works. 

Social media is constantly changing.

Pretty much any serious user of any social media platform knows that all of the major platforms are constantly changing.  Facebook and LinkedIn recently changed the Functionality of their share tools, so I’m looking for more ways to get in front of eyeballs. The other thing here is that diversification of the platforms you put out content for will help you make sure that your presence remains strong even if certain platforms change in a way that adversely affects you. 

I’ve been blogging for a long time, but not everyone has time to read as much as they’d like.

At this point, my collection of blogs and books is fairly vast.  I believe I’ve written around 170 individual blogs across various platforms plus 3 books over my time writing.  While I did make one audiobook, These Vlogs and livestreams are likely to be something you can listen to as much as watch, at least to start.  That may change over time, as it’s likely I’ll start to implement graphics into the videos if this gets enough traction. 

My life goal is to make the Film Industry a Sustainable investment class.

​That may sound like a complete non-sequiter, but a HUGE barrier to that is filmmakers not understanding business. By helping to make the knowledge filmmakers need to build their own sustainable careers and companies practically ubiquitous, we can help overcome the knowledge gap and move closer to that goal. Until Alex Ferrari’s FilmTrepreneur came along, very few people were doing this on YouTube, despite there being a dirty of knowledge related to filmmaking.

So that’s why I started a youtube channel. Thanks for reading, but next time you should probably watch the video and listen to it. If you like the idea, check out my channel, subscribe, and ring the notification bell so you know when I drop a video. You can find that via the button below. Also, if you’re super psyched about this, please share this post or any of the videos themselves. It definitely helps. See you Next week!

The SINGLE MOST IMPORTANT Asset for growing your Indiefilm Career RIGHT NOW

Last week I wrote about how distribution has changed over the last several years.  This week, I thought I’d expand on the number one most important thing for independent filmmakers when it comes to building their brand and marketing their movies. What is it?

AUTHENTICITY

Gone are the days when you could simply push out your product with a cool poster and bomb trailer that had nothing to do with the film and expect to make a lot of money.  If you’re going to be a creator, especially one who focuses on selling content to Gen Z millennials like myself you’re going to have to make sure you’re authentic about it. Here’s why

Authenticity makes you more relatable

Most people (especially younger people) have been watching insane amounts of media from a young age.  As such, we’ve learned to tell when someone is full of it.  Most of the time, we can tell when people are playing a character (even if that character is TOO idealized a version of themselves) and when they’re not telling the whole truth.  The rise of youtube and social media has shown us that millennials crave authenticity. If you want to relate to your audience, you’ll need to be authentic. 

Authenticity helps you build stronger relationships with your community and fan base.

Similarly, if you’re not authentic, it’s very difficult to build a relationship with your audience or your community.  It’s not the 80s anymore.  You can’t just blast out music and ads in a pink windbreaker, puffy shirt, big hair, and striped socks and expect people to buy your movie.  Every brand tries to build a relationship with its potential customers using various social media platforms.  However, you can have the advantage, if you’re careful about it. 

Major brands are such a large collection of people it’s not possible for them to maintain an authentic, personal brand.  As such, they generally need to spend a huge amount of money on advertising and sponsorships to keep moving their products. ​

You, on the other hand, need only be authentic and work to speak for your audience in a relatable and non-condescending way. 

Authenticity helps you organically grow your brand reach

Paid growth on social media is expensive.  Authentic, valuable content has more viral reach, and as such it will help you grow your brand, your impressions, and as a result your audience.  If something seems extremely corporate or sponsored or unrelatable, nobody is going to share it. Most filmmakers can’t afford the fees to boost content regularly enough to build their entire brand by it. 

Authenticity correlates to higher reviews

I talked about this at the top of this blog, and in much more detail in this blog. But you can’t just sell your film as something other than it is anymore. If you do, the reviews will suffer. If you made a wonderfully written break in narrative time thriller and then it gets marketed as a heart-racing action film, people are going to be pissed. I would be too, if I was expecting Commando and got Memento.

Thanks so much for reading! If you want to know more, you should join my mailing list for blog digests of blogs just like this one, as well as an awesome film marketing resource pack. That button is right below. I don’t just write about film distribution, I also used to run a US distribution company, and I still represent films to bigger players to myself. If you still need distribution for your film, you should consider submitting it. I rep on commission and there’s no submission fee.

Why Film Distributors & Sales Agents Need to know about your Social Media.

I try to stay active in at least a few Facebook and LinkedIn groups, and one question that comes up more often than I thought it would is why distributors need to know your social media numbers.  The argument that generally follows is something like “Just because people follow us doesn’t mean they’re going to buy our movie.” For the most part, we get that you probably have a lot of filmmaker friends, and your filmmaker friends are often surprisingly difficult to get to buy your movie.  That’s not the only, (or even the primary) reason why we need to know about your social media.  Here are 6 reasons why

1. Film Marketing works better if we’re amplifying your voice rather than creating it. ​

Your distributor is likely to be releasing multiple films around the same time as yours.  That’s just the nature of the business.  We generally need to have at least 5-7 films that we’re promoting or getting ready to release at any one time in order to continue to pay our overheads.  As such, if you can amplify the successes we have for your film, it’s likely that they’ll have a much greater effect than if we just sent out the announcements on our own.

You sharing big announcements and successes of your film with your community will not only have some level of an impact on sales, it will also help build awareness of the film which will help the broader marketing done by your distributor be effective at helping your film capture enough attention to break out of the white noise caused by the sheer amount of content being created. ​

2. We need to see you have the ability to build community.

Being a successful filmmaker requires a lot of the same skills required to build community.   (Check the Community Tag below for more on why.) Your social media is generally the easiest way to understand that.  Again, this is not JUST about sales.  It’s also about how personal you are and likely feeds into how easy you are to work with.

3. We need to see you understand and engage with your target market.

The most important thing in selling your film in the current market is authenticity.  If you try to write about a niche you’re not a part of, it probably won’t be very well received by said niche.  We look at your social media to make sure that you do have ties to those communities, as it means that your work is more likely to be authentic.

Unfortunately, we don’t have the time or sometimes the inclination to be a part of all the niches and subgroups we’d like to truly understand.  As such, it’s not always possible for us to accurately assess the authenticity of any film targeting a niche or sub-group that we don’t take part in.  Seeing that you take part in those groups can be a good indicator for us. 

4. If you’re a filmmaker, you’re a public figure.  We need to see how well you manage that.

If we end up with a breakout success on our hands, your social media will get some additional scrutiny.  We want to see if there are some bombshells that could cause problems for us later on.  Most of us don’t go back too far, but we do take a look to assess whether or not it’s likely that something bad might come out.

5. We want to understand your brand to see how it will be to work with you

As I said before, filmmakers need a brand. For most people, the way they manage that brand is through social media.  We want to see what you do with it.

Further, we want to see if you tend to do nothing but troll, shitpost, or rant about politics all day.  We also want to see if there’s a major sign of mental instability in your posts.  I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with that on its own, but we will be working with you in some capacity for a few years, and we need to ensure that the working relationship will be healthy and productive.

6. We’ll help you find new customers, but it’s more effective if there’s a base to start from.

Finally, as I alluded to at the top our voice and marketing is best used to act as a megaphone to hone to get your message out there. If you already have an engaged base, our job will be much easier. It really is as simple as that.

Thanks for reading. I hope you found that information useful. If you did, you should consider joining my mailing list on the left. In addition to monthly blog digests segmented by topic, you’ll also get a resource packet including templates for submissions to distributors, lead tracking sheets, and even templates to make your investment deck. deck. Also, if you found this because you’re in search of a distributor, I don’t just write about it, I have been one in the past and I currently still know most of them. Click the lower button to learn about my services.

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How to Get your Movie on Netflix

Many filmmakers and even more film consumers just want to know when work will be on Netflix.   In recent years, this has become more difficult than it was previously.  IT used to be that it was a relatively easy sale to get on Netflix, although the money wasn’t very good.  More recently, the bar has been raised substantially, and the money you get for it hasn’t increased as much as we may have liked it too.  What follows is an outline of how to get your film on Netflix, both as an original and as an acquisition.

How do I become a Netflix original?

To become a Netflix original, you must be picked up by Netflix early on in development.  Generally, you’ll need to have contacts that can get you into meetings with the higher-end development executives at Netflix.  You’re also going to need to have a strong script and package already in place.  You might even need some money already in place, although that’s less important given the way most of their original deals are structured. 

At this point, if they take the project you’ll get a Presale stating that the money will be paid to you once the film is delivered complete.  After that, you’ll have to take it to a bank to liquidate the presale so you’ll be able to make the movie on the likely ambitious schedule they’ll put you on.

Generally, the pay for this is pretty good, looking very similar to other high-end presales.  If it’s well managed, and you focus on financing sources like tax incentives as part of your mix, you’ll make a decent wage and everyone involved will end up much better off.  ​Including your investors.  

Make sure you don’t send them any copyrighted material without them requesting it, that’s a blacklist you don’t want to be on.

Acquisitions.

What Netflix pays for acquisitions is a different matter, as is the process for your film being acquired by Netflix.  First, it’s important to note that you can’t approach Netflix yourself.   You will need to go through either a localized distributor or a sales agent to get to Netflix.  I do have contacts in this department, but it’s not something I’ve done a lot of business with directly.  Netflix has also gotten extremely picky about this in the last few years, favoring their original content.

If I’m completely honest, I also wouldn’t pay some of the better-known aggregators to make this approach for you. Given the volume of business that goes through them, it’s generally a very low success rate.  Sure, some of them will refund money if unsuccessful, but often there are hidden fees and the money is tied up for a decent amount of time.  When the fees from those aggregators are in excess of 10k, that’s not really good for most filmmakers. To be clear, this is not something Netflix itself charges.

It used to be that Netflix would take almost any content that was able able to meet broadcast standards. and they thought they would get a decent amount of views for it.  In recent tears, however, Netflix’s Acquisition strategy has been refocused to only accept films with a domestic theatrical, often demanding 6 figures at the box office to even consider the film.  While there are ways around this, it’s inadvisable to much other than work with a reputable distributor who has deep connections to the platform. 

In regards to their distribution payments, there’s a lot more that I’d love to say but really shouldn’t say publicly due to existing contractual obligations as well as other concerns regarding pending business. ​

DVDs Through the Mail

Most of the time when people think of Netflix, they think of their Subscription Video on Demand offering.  However, there are a surprising number of people who still subscribe to their DVD offering which was rebranded to DVD.com.  Generally, the way Netflix gets these DVDs is by simply buying discs at wholesale from the manufacturer.  They don't tend to buy too many DVDs, so even if you're getting lots of rentals you end up not making a whole lot of sales.  Most of the time, they buy fewer than 100 DVDs, which is less money than you probably think it is.  You don't see any money per rental beyond the initial purchase price.  

That said, since DVDs are almost always non-exclusive rights, the additional revenue does help, although it's nowhere near the amount of money you'd see from something like a Redbox deal because they don’t order as many discs. At least, that was true before RedBox's IPO and subsequent Acquisition.

Thanks so much for reading!  I hope this blog was useful to you.  If you’d like to learn more, I recommend joining my mailing list for regular blog digests and other resources about film distribution and marketing.  Click below for more information.

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Opinions expressed in this piece are not in any way endorsed by Netflix, Its parent company, or any subsidiaries. Opinions expressed within are solely those of Guerrilla Rep Media, LLC and its founder, Ben Yennie.

5 Ideas For Email List Giveaways for Indie Filmmakers

Traditional marketing wisdom states that you should offer something of value to your potential customer prior to trying to sell to them.  However, this value proposition is different when you’re talking about making a film versus selling a software application.  It has to be something of value to your customers, and since most of your customers are not going to be other filmmakers you’re going to need to think outside the box and offer something that people who only consume content are going to be interested in.  Here’s a list of some ideas to get you started.

1. An unreleased short film

Unfortunately shorts don’t tend to have much value of their own.  Their primary purpose is to build the skills and the brand of the filmmaker who’s making them.  Luckily, this can make them ideal for giveaways behind an email capture.  You’re giving the consumer a taste of you style, as well as developing your relationship with them for the future. 

It’s important to note that these shouldn’t be your film school exercises or camera tests.  This should be thesis-level work if it’s going to have any value whatsoever.   If it did the festival circuit and racked up some awards then it’s likely to be a good giveaway that actually provides a decent amount of value. 

2.  A concept piece for the film you’re currently working on.

If you made a short film as a proof of concept for the feature, this can be a great giveaway once you get closer to the release.  That is, unless you have spoilers for the feature in the concept film.  If you do, you might need to re-edit the piece slightly. 

Timing this can be difficult.  I would make sure that the film is at least about to hit the first window of release before offering the concept video as a giveaway. 

3. Behind the Scenes featurettes.

With the DVD market in decline, its become much harder to get the old DVD extras than it used to be.  But even if you’re planning on having a full film distributed via transactional video on demand, (TVOD) that doesn’t mean you can’t make more content available on your website for those interested enough to seek it out.  If they are that interested, they’re exactly the sort of person you want on your email list, and they’re probably happy to join it. 

4. A copy of a script for a feature film you’ve already distributed.

This one skirts the line of being more for filmmakers than the general public.  However, if you have a film that’s already 2-3 years old, giving away the script as a value add can be quite valuable.  While most filmmakers are aware of the Internet Movie Script Database (IMSDb) but most of the general public is not.  This seems like something that could be novel to your ardent fans, and costs you very little to generate. 

​All of that being said, don’t post this as an email giveaway if it’s not already distributed. 

5. Concept art and Character Bios from the film.

The people you want on your email list are your community and your early adopters.  The rabid fans who can’t get enough of your work.  These are the sorts of people who would also love to see your concept art, behind-the-scenes photos, and more detail about the process of making the film.  Character bios can be great for this.  If you can make these little things into a behind-the-scenes featurette, then all the better.

Thanks SO much for reading!  I practice what I preach, and since my target demographic is primarily filmmakers, I give away a free resource package.  Join my email list and check it out! The package has an e-book with exclusive content, a whitepaper, a template collection, tons of research links, and money-saving resources, plus a monthly blog digest for continued education that fits your schedule.

5 Steps to Grow Your Filmmaking Email List

At least as of right now, if you’re going to sell anything on the internet, you need to build your email list.  Since most filmmakers aren’t really marketers, here’s a basic guide to building your email list of potential customers so that you’ll have an easier time selling your film once it’s time to distribute it.

1. Provide Value in the form of content.

Marketing is telling people how great you are.  Content marketing is SHOWING people how great you are.  You need to provide a steady stream of content to your followers to really build your following and your brand.  This content can be something as simple as behind-the-scenes photos, bits about how the film production is going, or even quick little live streams talking about how everything is going on set.  You can also blog using your own site, or share your blogs on ProductionNext.com.

2. Offer an Exclusive Value Add in exchange for signing up for an email address.

If you want to sell something on the internet, you need to provide value before you do.  The product itself can’t be the value add, no matter how awesome you think your content is.  You need to build a relationship with your customer, and giving them a simple gift is a great way to start that relationship off on the right foot.  It’s good to think of this as a sample of your future value, similar to a Pink Spoon and a Sample at Baskin Robbins. 

​For ideas on what sort of giveaway to use, check back for next week’s blog.

3. Drive traffic to a form built using Mailchimp or another platform.​

Once you make the offer of the free giveaway, you have to capture their email.  Generally, it’s good to categorize people to help get them on the right list as well.  I use checkboxes on my list to sort by event location, and associations with film schools or bookstores.  I’d recommend that you do something similar, but be careful not to go beyond 3 sets of questions.  If you do, your rate of return is going to drop significantly. 

4. Have the confirmation email automatically deliver the Exclusive Giveaway.

The less work you have to do on this the better.  I recommend you have your email list automatically deliver a link to the final giveaway.  A setting on mail chimp will let your final opt-in take the new subscriber to a hidden page on your site where you can set up a download or viewing link for whatever you decide to use as a giveaway. 

5. Provide valuable content in the form of emails, as well as the occasional sales hook.

Finally, the work isn’t done after you get the email. You need to provide valuable content to each new member of your mailing list, as well as make the occasional sales hook. The way I strike a balance is by using simple Mailing Automation provided for free by Mailchimp. I use the automated mailings to send out blog digests to each new member on a monthly basis based on when they signed up. I keep adding to this automation when I have time, and I try not to include sales hooks in the first automated emails.

Anyway, Thanks so much for reading. If you like this content, you should check out my email list! As I said above, it gives your free blog digests organized by topic, as well as access to a free film market resource package and a whole lot more! You’ll also stay up to date on new releases and events from Guerrilla Rep Media.

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13 Things you NEED on your Production Company Website

One of the things that most filmmakers tend to struggle with tends to be creating a website for their projects.  Given that it’s nearly 2019, your business needs a website, and it needs to be good.  However, many filmmakers’ websites tend to be hard to navigate, overly complicated, or focus more on the photos from the shoot than the subject of the project.  So, I thought I would create a post outlining some of the best practices in creating a website that I’ve come across.

Domains and Subdomains

So one of the first things you need to consider when creating a website is the domain.  Generally, I’ve found that creating a master domain for your production company and subdomains for your project is a very effective tactic.  As an example, this would look like www.myawesomeproductioncompany.com for the main domain and myawesomeproject.myawesomeproductioncompany.com for the subdomain.  Obviously, you wouldn’t want something as long as your subdomain, but that’s more to illustrate a point than a practical example. 

The exception to this would be to give a custom domain for the first year or two of release and then have that page redirect to a subdomain listed above.

There are a couple of reasons that I favor the subdomain layout.  One is that you don’t have to maintain as many domains.  Another is that it simply feels cleaner.  There are a few drawbacks to this approach though.  A lot of WYSIWYG (What You See is What You Get) design platforms like Weebly, Wix, and Squarespace don’t have great support for it.  As such, you may have to use a platform like WordPress or Drupal to build your site, and doing that requires at least a basic understanding of web design.  I used to use Weebly but I switched over to Squarespace.

Tabs and What they contain

The rest of the blog is an outline of what tabs your production company site as well as your project subdomains should include.  To start, I’ll list the tab on the page, then I’ll list major features on that tab, and then I’ll explain a little bit about why each of those features needs to be there.  But before we dive in…

Every Tab gives you the ability to join the mailing list

Developing your mailing list as a filmmaker is a really important piece that you absolutely NEED to do.  Your mailing list is a vital part of your community, and it’s one of the most effective ways to actually sell your products.  In general, you’ll give something of value away for free, I use my resource package.

The basics of your funnel should be that you move people from social media to your website, then from your website they join your list, then over time, you turn them from prospects into customers and from customers to repeat customers.  But in order to make that funnel work, you need to make it easy to join your email list.​

Homepage

Trailer
Sales/availability Links for the most recent project
Sales/availability links for your most popular project
Links to all your social media

For those of you who are very far from fluent in Webspeak, the homepage is where you land when you first visit a website.  As such, you want the most important information there.   Given this is the homepage for the company, you’ll want the trailer for your most recent and upcoming projects, and the sales/preorder link if it’s available.  If you’re running a crowdfunding campaign, this should be front and center on this page.  You’ll also want to make sure you include prominent links to your social media, just to make sure that you can get as much repeated contact with the people who visit your website as possible. 
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You may also want to include logos of all the places your company has been featured in the press. ​

About Tab

The About tab is where your key personnel get their bios and photos posted.  There are a lot of ways you can do this.  If you have a large staff, then you can do click-throughs for each of them.  If you’re like most startup production companies, you probably have 3-5 staffers at most. If that’s the case you can just do it all in one page.  

You may want to consider adding a mailto link, or you may not.  If you include a mailto link, you run the risk of being contacted by spammers.  But you also never know what may come of those links.  I’ve gotten hourly consulting clients just from the mailto links on this site.  If you want to split the difference, use something like Fname (at) Domain (Dot) com or use a captcha plugin.

Projects Tab

Includes links to all your project subdomains
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This is a listing of all your projects.  I’d recommend having poster images of each as well as loglines, synopsis, and the number one sales link that you want to emphasize. 

Press Tab

This is where you keep all the press coverage your company and your projects have gotten.  I think some of this should be a feed with links to all your press, but you should also have a graphical representation of logos where you or your company has been featured. 

Blog feed for what’s going on with your projects.

I’m (rather obviously) a big fan of using blogs and content marketing to support your business.  If you’re reading this, it’s clearly been somewhat effective.  I think blogging about your journey as a filmmaker is a good way to keep engaged with your community.  They don’t need to be as long or involved as the sorts of blogs I do, but they can be a really effective way to grow your fan base. 

Contact Tab

Make yourself available for contact through your site.  Even if all you’re doing is putting a mailto: contact form.  You’d be surprised what can come of this.  I know at least a few sales agents use them to get the films they really want. 

Project Specific Site(s)

As I stated at the top, you should have a base website for your production company and subdomains for your projects.  Here’s what goes on for your projects.

Homepage

Trailers
Social Media Information.
Sales Links
Festival laurels/Awards

Just as with the Production Company page, you’re going to want to list everywhere that you can find the film online.  You’ll also want to show where you can find the film online.  In general, it’s better to link to the company pages rather than give each individual film its own social media account.  After a while, that just becomes incredibly tedious and cumbersome to maintain.  For more information on that, check out the blog linked below.

Related: Facebook Page Management for Filmmakers. ​

About page for key cast and crew.

This page goes into a lot more detail about the top-level crew on the film.  You’ll basically want all your department heads listed, with pointers to their IMDb, their chosen social media outlet, and maybe a brief bio. 

Contact page for distribution inquiries

Most of the better sales agents I know go after really good films. Make it easy for them to reach out to you. In your contact dropdown, list distribution inquiry as an option. Make sure that one goes to the relevant person, distributors do look for content regularly.

I hope this was a good resource for you. If you want more resources, I’ve got a free package for exactly that. It’s got an e-book, monthly content digests, a whitepaper, templates for Decks, promotional festival brochures, Sales agent contact tracking templates and form letters, and a whole lot more. Oh, did I mention it’s free? Grab it with the button below.

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Why Every Filmmaker Needs a Strong Personal Brand

Most filmmakers want to make movies.  However, few think about establishing themselves a brand as a filmmaker.  In the immortal words of Alex Ferrari of Indie Film Hustle: “If you don’t think you need a brand as a filmmaker, you’re wrong.”  As wonderful as I personally find that quote, I think it needs a little elaboration. What follows are 5 reasons you NEED a brand as a filmmaker.

1. It helps to further relationships with your customer

A brand is essentially the cumulative interactions any potential business partner or customer has with an entity or organization.  So in a sense, saying a brand helps you further your relationships with your customer is a bit redundant.  However, the idea of you your brand, is essentially the personification of your company.  Having this personified image of your company makes it much easier for your clientele to establish a relationship with your company.

2. It helps people better identify with the creators behind the content.

At least when a brand is starting out in the film industry, the brand will be heavily associated with the filmmakers themselves.  As such, for the first couple of films your company makes, the brand you’re developing will also be furthering the personal brands of the key crew.  If your key crew tends to put out similar films time and time again under your production company’s brand, then eventually the brand itself will develop a following of its own.  After a time, it creates a feedback loop.

3. It gives your audience something to you and your work with beyond a single film.

​If you develop your brand correctly, then consumers will come to know what films you make that they like.  Giving your customers a brand to rally behind can really help them to develop a relationship with the creators.  Instead of being able to say I really Liked Paranormal Activity, customers can say I really like the movies Blumhouse puts out.

4. It helps you develop a community around yourself.

People can have a really deep association with brands.  Look at what happened when Coca-Cola Released New Coke.  Even though taste test after taste test proved that consumers strongly preferred New Coke to Coca-Cola, the brand eventually experienced a tsunami of customer complaints for getting rid of the old flavor of Coca-Cola.  Essentially, the brand had built such a large community that were so attached to their original product, when they took it away a small but extremely vocal part of their community couldn’t handle it. Even though many of those parts of the community were shown they liked New Coke Better in blind taste tests. 

Branding and Community building can be so powerful that even when a customer prefers an alternative product, they’ll keep coming back to yours for that warm fuzzy feeling they get when they use your product. Don’t forget, that can be a double-edged sword if you ever want to pivot to somehting new.

5. It turns you from a person to an icon.

Most of the people reading this already know that JJ Abrams is the head of Bad Robot Productions. However, there are a lot more people involved in Bad Robot than just JJ Abrams. The bumper of the robot running through the field gives sets the scene for an exciting time at the movies since you associate it with other times you saw great movies that were preceded by that bad robot bumper. You remember that bumper, it’s iconic. Such associations are how JJ has become an icon that will likely outlast him.

If you want help building your brand, you should check out my FREE indiefilm business resource package. It’s got an e-book, a whitepaper, lots of templates, and a monthly blog digest to help you grow your knowledge base so you can build a filmmaking career.

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5 Essential Elements of a Filmmaker’s Personal Brand.

Last week we outlined why your brand is so important to your career as a filmmaker. This week, we’re going to dive into how you begin to define your brand.  Your brand is the cumulative outcome of all the interactions anyone has with you or your company.  As such, this list is far from complete, however, these things are quite important when you’re getting down to defining your brand.​

1. What Genres you do primarily work in? 

If you start working primarily on thrillers, then it can be hard to effectively transition to something like family.  Generally, filmmakers and film companies will have certain genres that are heavily associated with their brand, even if that’s not all they work on.  An excellent example of this is Blumhouse, which primarily focuses on the thriller and horror genres.  After you’ve got more of an established brand, you can begin to expand into other genres, ideally with some level of stylistic relation to the ones you built your brand on.   

Your ideal audience is more important than any specific project or genre, but your audience will have a lot to do with your genre.

2. What elements of your style are similar or the same across your projects?

This is probably more important to keep consistent for your brand than genre is.  There are certain stylistic elements that remain largely the same across a director or even a high-level producer’s work. 

For Stephen Spielberg, there’s a certain wondrous quality that often feels very clean and expensive.  For Quinten Tarantino, his films generally have a pretty strong 70s vibe to them, even when they’re set far outside that time frame.  For Jerry Bruckheimer, most of his films are bombastic, with lots of special effects and explosions, and often feature a glorified music video in the film itself to boost soundtrack sales. 

3. What unifying themes or motifs do your movies have?

Generally, directors have recurring themes and/or motifs that occur throughout their work.  Hitchcock had a long-standing fascination with birds, eyeballs, and Freudian Psychology.  All of Kevin Smith’s movies seem to take place in the same extended universe and almost always feature Jay and Silent Bob.  Quentin Tarantino’s work almost always features lengthy banter that’s largely disconnected from the plot of the film but serves to flesh out the characters and is almost always incredibly entertaining and enlightening.

4.  What is your creed? (Mission statement)

Most business books call this a mission statement, but I personally prefer the tact that’s taken by Primal Branding in looking at your mission statement as a creed.  A creed is what you live by.  It’s why you exist.  It’s a deeply personal thing, and it informs every piece of content your company will ever make. 

Film companies don’t have these as much, so we’ll look for other examples to illustrate my point.  Apple’s mission statement is “Think Different” Google’s mission statement is to “Organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful.”  Google used to have a similar sort of tagline that was “Don’t Be Evil,” But they took that down recently.  For my other venture ProductionNext, the creed is “You do the Creative Part, we do the rest.” For Guerrilla Rep Media, the creed is to make that I don’t make movies, I help filmmakers MAKE MONEY with theirs.

5.  How do you engage with your audience?

As stated at the top of this article, a brand is the culmination of all interactions any potential customer or business partner has with a company or individual. In this day and age, it’s absolutely VITAL that any entrepreneur finds a way to effectively manage their interactions with their community and their customers. For most of us, that will rely heavily on our social media presence. You’ll need a strategy of what content you share when you share it, and how it both provides value to your potential customers and fits within your mission statement.

Thanks so much for reading!  If you like this sort of content, you should sign up for my resource package, it’s got an e-book, a whitepaper, and an evergrowing list of templates and resources. Plus, you’ll get a monthly digest of content just like this blog organized by topic, and a recommended reading list including an entire section on branding. Click the button below to sign up, and let me know what you think of this blog in the comments.  Also, if you liked it, share it!  It helps a lot.

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Top 4 Reasons to Crowdfund your Independent Film

Most filmmakers hate the idea of crowdfunding.  While nobody likes constantly having their hands out and asking their friends for money for a whole month straight, it’s something that most filmmakers are going to have to do early in their careers.  It’s very possible that most filmmakers will have to do it more than once.  But the reason you crowdfund isn’t just about the money.  There are lots of other reasons crowdfunding can be a boon for a filmmaker’s career.  Here are 4 of them.

1. It’s one of the Most Viable Ways to get First Money in.

The first money in is always the hardest.  In the past, the most common way to get the money was from friends and family.  More recently, this has been replaced with crowdfunding, although in practice it’s still primarily a friends and family round, it’s just a scaled-up version of it that handles taking in the payments for you. It’s also something you can do even if you don’t have a rich uncle. 

​But keep in mind, nothing worth having is free.  While this is one of the most viable ways to get first money in, it’s far from easy.

Related: Top 5 indiefilm Crowdfunding Techniques

2. It’s one of the Quickest Ways to get Money you don’t have to Pay Back.

But wait, Ben, haven’t you said in the past that a crowdfunding campaign’s preparation starts a whole year in advance?  Like in this blog linked right below this sentence?

Related: Indiefilm Crowdfunding timeline

Well incredulous voice in my head that sometimes comes out in the form of content on my website, I did indeed say that.  Not only did I say that, but I stand by it.  I stand by it due to the fact that the real, hardcore prep only starts about 3 months prior to the campaign, and the work before that is primarily engaging your community (which you should be doing anyway.) 

Generally, grant money isn’t very fast, tax incentives both tend to be rather slow and come with a lot of strings, and product placement tends to not pay out until the film is completed, and often isn’t even money that’s directly given to you.  Pretty much every other form of financing are things you have to pay back. 

Although it should be noted that you do have some pretty big responsibilities to your backers.  You need to fulfill the rewards you promised them, and you need to keep them up to date on your progress as you move through the various stages of development. ​

3. It’s a way to Engage with your Community at an Early Stage

One of the biggest things that set successful filmmakers apart from hobbyists in the current landscape is the ability to cultivate community around themselves and their work.  Crowdfunding can be a really powerful means to support this end.  Crowdfunding is a great way to identify and engage your early adopters and the core of your community.  It’s a great way to stay involved with them and make them feel like they’re an important part of your project.  In actuality, they are important parts of your project. 
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But engaging with your community is about far more than getting crowdfunding backers. Your core community of backers can become your most vocal advocates from the earliest stage.  If your work comes out well, they’re likely to share it with their friends and start your word-of-mouth marketing when it comes time to distribute your project.  They’re a lot more likely to do this than the average person since they’ll have been around since the beginning.  Their friends might even join your community the next time you crowdfund. ​

4. It’s Validation for your Project

One of the biggest things investors look for in a project is also one of the things that’s the hardest for filmmakers to provide.  Especially in the early stages of their career.  Having a successful crowdfunding campaign proves to investors that not only is there a market for this project, but that you know how to reach them.  This is a huge hurdle to overcome when approaching angel investors.

That being said, it’s important to keep in mind that the reverse is also true.  If a project fails its crowdfunding campaign, it’s incredibly difficult to convince an investor that there is an addressable target market.  Or, at least that you have the ability to address said target market.  So with that in mind, you should only try to raise what you know you can get via crowdfunding, and then plan to get the remaining sources via other financing methods. 

Thanks so much for reading!  If you liked this content, you grab my film business resource package. You’ll get an ever-growing list of templates, money-saving resources, and even an e-book or two.  You’ll also get monthly digests of blogs segmented by topic.

5 Takeaways from AFM 2018

I’ve been going to the American Film Market® for 9 years now, and I’ve been chronicling what’s going on with the market in many ways from podcasts to blogs and even a book or two.  So given that AFM® 2018 wrapped up yesterday, I thought I would do something of a post-mortem.  While I’ll outline my feelings on the whole thing in this blog, the long and short of it is that the state of the American Film Market is mixed

But before I dive into it too deeply, I’d like to say this.  My vantage point on this is purely my own, and subject to the flaws that one would expect from experiences of someone only attending the market for a few days this year.  I went on an industry badge because I simply needed to take a few meetings to check in on things I’ve already placed with Sales Agents, as well as shop a couple of my newer projects to the people I prefer to do business with.

I considered exhibiting this year but decided against it after hearing how slow Cannes was in May, as well as the massive drop in buyers AFM Experienced last year.  We’ll see how that changes next year.   One last note, I wrote this blog in traffic in LA, while my wife drove.  I normally don't publish first drafts, but it's time-sensitive, so apologies for any typos. 

So without Further Adieu, let’s get into the post-game.

1.  Buyer numbers appear to be up, and they’re buying

Word in the corridors last year was that AFM went from around 1800 buyers in 2017 to around 1200 buyers in 2017.  After talking to a few sales agents who shall remain nameless, it appears that the total buyer count at this year’s AFM is somewhere in the vicinity of 1325.  While walking the corridors I definitely saw a lot more green badges than last year. 
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Not only were there more buyers there.  It appears that they’re actually buying films.  I heard several sales agents remarking that they had closed multiple sales at the market, and the buyers were sticking around much longer than they have in years previous.  Overall, this is good for the market, especially given that for many years almost all of the business was done in follow-up not actually during the market, especially for smaller-budget films. ​​

2.  Exhibitor numbers appeared to be down

In previous years, both the second and third floors of AFM were packed with smaller sales agencies,  This year, only the third floor was booked and even then it seemed as though fewer offices were booked.  Also, it appeared that many of the offices on the 8th floor seemed to be vacant. 
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After talking with a few exhibitors, it appears likely that this trend is going to continue next year.  Several I talked to were unsure of whether or not they would continue to exhibit at AFM.  Although we’ll see if new names come up to take their places.

3. The Entirety of the Loews required a badge to access

This made a lot of headlines prior to the market.  I was hesitant to believe that this would be a good thing for the market, particularly for the high priced film commission exhibitors on the 5th floor.  I only showed up to the market on Saturday, but apparently it was extremely quiet for the days preceding it.  The market seemed somewhat slow to me, but mildly busier than I expected it to be on Saturday, and, but began steadily dropping off on Sunday and Monday, and Tuesday was VERY slow, even by the generally slow standards of what is functionally the last day of the market.  

Word on the street is that many of the regular exhibitors on the 5th floor were not too happy with it, especially for the first few days.  Although I’ll keep my sources on that anonymous.  One notably missing 5th-floor exhibitor was Cinando.  It’s possible they moved, but the spot that they normally occupied was vacant.  This could be due in part to the growing prominence of MyAFM. 

In some ways, it was nice, though.  It was never too hard to find a seat, and once you got into the building there were no additional security checks.  Not sure if that makes up for the drawbacks though. 

4. The Location Expo on the 5th floor was fantastically useful, but under-attended

AFM opened one of the Loews Hotel Ballrooms for use by film commissions and specialty service providers starting on Saturday.  It was really useful to be able to talk to various commissions and compare incentives.  However, there very few times I saw more than a handful of people there, and I dropped by at least 8 or 9 times because of various sorts of business I had to do with some of the vendors in the rooms.  (More soon)
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Overall I hope to see it again, but I can’t help but think it would be more useful to all involved if it were in an area that did not require a badge to check out. 

5. Early Stage Money exists there (For the Right Projects

I was surprised to see how much traction my team got for an early stage project, despite the fact it has a first time feature director.  Admittedly, we came in with a good amount of money already in place, and it’s a good genre for this sort of thing but the fact that there might be a decent amount to come out and report in blogs early next year.
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Thanks so much for reading!  If you haven’t already, check out the first book on film markets, written by yours truly.  Also, join my mailing list for free film market resources so you’re ready for future film markets.

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All opinions my own. AFM and the American Film Market are registered trademarks of the Independent Film and Television Alliance (IFTA) This article has not in any way beed endorsed by the IFTA, AFM, or any of its affiliates.

Why Genre is VITAL to Independent Film Marketing & Distribution

This is a topic that’s a little basic, but it’s a fundamental building block of understanding how to market your film. So I thought I would do a breakdown of why genre is so important to independent filmmakers in terms of marketing and distribution.  I do touch on in my book The Guerrilla Rep: American Film Market Distribution Success on No Budget, but even there I only cover it in a sense as it pertains to the market.  Let’s get started. 
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Before we begin, we should talk about what a genre actually is.  At its core, the genre of your film is primarily a simple tool for categorizing how your film compares to other films.  It’s a broad bucket of similar elements that lump films together in a way that makes it easier to sell them and easier to convey the general experience of a film succinctly.  Knowing this will inform everything else on this list. 
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Generally, there are both genres and sub-genres.  Sub-genres can generally pair with any genre, but some pairings work better than others.  Here’s a somewhat complete list of genres and sub genres.  Genres tend to focus on plot elements and overall feel whereas Sub Genres also have more to do with themes or settings.

Genres

• Action

• Horror

• Thriller

• Family

• Comedy

• Drama

• Documentary

Sub-Genres

• Adventure

• Sci-Fi

• Fantasy

• Crime

• Sports

• Faith Based

• LGBT

• Romance

• Biographical

• Music/Musicals

• Animated

So Why is Genre So Effing Important?

Genre provides a general set of guidelines for filmmakers to follow when crafting a story.

Since there are certain elements that are inherent in any particular genre, understanding the tropes of any particular genre can be very helpful in crafting your narrative and in shooting your film.  If you know you’re shooting an action film, then there had better be fight scenes, shootouts, and car chases.  If you’re making a thriller, there should be a lot of suspense.  If you’re shooting a horror, a good amount of your budget will go on buckets of blood.  Knowing the tropes in advance can really help frame your story and what you need to shoot your film. 

Genre categorizes it for potential customers

As mentioned above, genres are simply categorizations of similar elements of a film.  As such, certain viewers will develop an affinity for a certain genre. Some people will like some genres more than others.  Sometimes a viewer will be in the mood for one genre, but not in the mood for another.  Kind of like how sometimes you’re craving Mexican food, and other times you’re craving Chinese.

Genre helps to find an audience for the film

Think of this as the reverse of the point above.  If your film has a well-defined genre, it can be great for discovery by the audience that’s seeking it out.  Again, think about the food example.  If you’re a Mexican food restaurant in an area where the community is all huge fans of Mexican cuisine, you’re likely to do well.  However, if you’re a barbecue joint in a city known for its insanely high levels of Veganism, you might be in for a rough go of it. Of course, this kind of ignores the problem of oversaturation but there’s only so much I can tackle in 600-800 words.

Genre categorizes your film for Distributors and sales agents

Distributors and Sales agents understand the issues above.  In addition, they often build a brand around certain genres so that there’s a high degree of audience recognition from them.  Buyers and distributors often continually serve the same end viewer, and as such their brand is particularly important, and they often seek a similar sort of film time and time again.  Think about the difference between the programming on Nickelodeon and Cartoon Network, or the difference between Comedy Central and MTV.
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Sales agents generally develop deep relationships with the same buyers.  As such, they become acutely aware of that buyer’s brand, and the sort of content they normally buy.  As such, that’s the sort of content they look to acquire. 

What happens if I cross-Genres?

So this is somewhat beyond the scope of this blog, but it’s a point that should be made and I don’t think I could spend an entire blog on it.  So keep in mind that cross-genre is different than a genre and a sub-genre.  A Cross Genre would be a horror comedy or an action thriller.  Those are two examples that generally work, at least in the right circumstances.  Other genre-crossing like Action Drama or Family Horror probably don’t work so well. 

Here are a couple of things to keep in mind about going cross-genre. 

It doesn’t add to the audience it limits it

If you make a film that’s both horror and comedy, it doesn’t sell to people who like either Horror and Comedy, it generally only appeals to people who like BOTH horror AND Comedy.  So instead of expanding your horizons, it limits them.  However, people who like both of these genres are going to be far more likely to really enjoy your film, just because they don’t get as much horror/comedy content as they might like.  That said, getting to these people can be both difficult and expensive. 

If done poorly, it confuses the message.

As you can see from the later two examples above, if you cross genre poorly it can be very creatively limiting.  A horror family movie doesn’t sound like it would be possible to do very well.  I know that Indiana Jones and the Temple of doom had elements of this, as did Gremlins, but The Temple of Doom was primarily an Action Adventure movie, and Gremlins would be very difficult to package in this day and age. 

If you'd like to learn more about film marketing and distribution, you should join my mailing list.  You'll get access to a FREE set of film market resources, as well as several digests over a few months of articles just like this one, organized by topic, delivered directly to your inbox.  

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The 7 Essential Elements of A Strong Indie Film Package

Most filmmakers want to know more about how to raise money for their projects.  It’s a complicated question with lots of moving parts.  However, one crucial component to building a project that you can get financed is building a cohesive package that will help get the film financed.  So with that in mind, here are the 7 essential elements of a good film package.    ​

1.Director

As we all know, the director is the driving force behind the film.  As such, a good director that can carry the film through to completion is an essential element to a good film package.  Depending on the budget range, you may need a director with an established track record in feature films.  If you don’t have this, then you probably can’t get money from presales, although this may be less of a hard and fast rule than I once thought it was.
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Related:What's the Difference between an LOI and a Presale?

Even if you have a first-time director, you’ll need to find some way of proving to potential investors that they’ll be able to get the job done, and helm the film so that it comes in on time and on budget

2. Name Talent

I know that some filmmakers don’t think that recognizable name talent adds anything to a feature film.  While from a creative perspective, there may be some truth to that, packaging and finance is all about business.  From a marketing and distribution perspective, films with recognizable names will take you much further than films without them.  I’ve covered this in more detail in another blog, linked below.
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Related: Why your Film Needs Name Talent

Recognizable name talent generally won’t come for free.  You may need a pay-or-play agreement, which is where item 7 on this list comes in handy. ​
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3. An Executive Producer

If you’re raising money, you should consider engaging an experienced executive producer.  They’ll be able to help connect you to money, and some of them will help you develop your business plan so that you’re ready to take on the money when it comes time to.  A good executive producer will also be able to greatly assist in the packaging process, and help you generate a financial mix.
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Related: The 9 Ways to finance an Independent Film.

I do a lot of this sort of work for my clients.  If you’ve got an early-stage project you’d like to talk about getting some help with building your package and/or your business plan I’d be happy to help you to do so.  Just click the clarity link below to set up a free strategy session, or the image on the right to submit your project.

4. Sales Agent/Distributor

If you want to get your investors their money back, then you’re going to need to make sure that you have someone to help you distribute your independent film.  The best way to prove access to distribution is to get a Letter of Intent from a sales agent.  The blog below can help you do that. 
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Related: 5 Rules for Getting an LOI From a Sales Agent

5. Deck/Business Plan

If you’re going to seek investors unfamiliar with the film industry, you’re going to need a document illustrating how they get their money back   This can be done with either a 12-slide deck, or a 20-page business plan.  I’ve linked to some of my favorite books on business planning for films below. 

6. Pro-Forma Financial Statements

Pro forma financial statements are essentially documents like your cash flow statement, breakeven analysis, top sheet budget, Capitalization Table, and Revenue Distribution charts that help you include in the latter half of the financial section of a business plan.  

There’s a lot more information on these in the book Filmmakers and Financing by Louise Levinson.  I’m also considering writing a blog series about writing a business plan for independent film.  If you’d like to see that, comment it below. ​

7. Some Money already in place

Yes, I know I said that you need a package to raise money, but often in order to have a package you need to have some percentage of the budget already locked in.  Generally, 10% is enough to attach a known director and known talent.  If you’re looking for a larger Sales Agent then you’ll also need to have some level of cash in hand.

This is essentially a development round raise.  For more information on the development round raises, check out this blog!

Thanks for reading, for more content like this in a monthly digest, as well as a FREE Film Market Resources Package, check out the link below and join my mailing list.​

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Filmmakers! - 5 Steps to Successful Grantwriting

A few months ago I worked with the absolutely lovely Joanne Butcher of Filmmaker Success to put on an educational event about grant writing here in San Francisco.  Joanne has raised millions in grant funding for several non-profits over the course of her life.  While I can’t distill everything from her talk into a single blog, I can give the people who weren’t able to make it some of the key takeaways.  So without further ado, here are the 5 rules for applying for grants.

1. Research

This might just be a Guerrilla Rep Media Rule of life at this point.  If you understand the field you’re playing on, you’re going to be much better at whatever game you’re going to play there.  The only way you understand that field is by researching it. But I digress. 

When applying for grants, the first step is to research and find grants to apply to.  (Duh) Focus on grants that match the subject matter of your film. It’s best to only apply for grants you’re perfect for, even if they are not directly related to filmmaking.  

The fact is that no one can apply to the thousands of grants they are eligible for is why limiting to the perfect matches is going to greatly increase your success.  It’s almost always a bad idea to bend something to fit a grant application. The key here is to remove the mindset of scarcity, and instead focus on finding the right fit.

As an example, if we were looking for funding for a reboot of The Little Mermaid, Joanne would recommend looking into marine science foundations, climate change foundations, and local artist grants, local filmmaking grants, or since it’s based on a Hans Christian Andersen book, even Denmark’s Cultural heritage foundations might be worth applying to.  

This article is a good place to start for your research.

FILMDAILY.TV'S GRANT LIST

2.   Set a goal for applications

Set an achievable goal for grants you want to apply for.  A safe bet is one per month. This would put applying for grants as a heavy part-time job for you though.

It can be hard to find relevant grants to apply to get up to 1 per week, so you should consider applying to grants that are thematically related to your content, as opposed to strictly applying for film grants.  What I mean by this is if your film is about homelessness, then maybe apply for grants from organizations helping the homeless, stating how you can help increase the awareness and impact of their foundation through the power of motion pictures.  ​

3.   Answer the Questions

Now that you’ve researched to find relevant grants, and you’ve set your goals, it’s time to start grant writing!  I know that sounds super intimidating, but really it’s just answering a very long series of questions. 

Although when you’re answering your questions, you should remember that it’s more than just providing information.  Your goal here is to sell the grantor on why your project is the one that will get the most bang for their funders buck.  

Every funder’s primary responsibility is to fund the projects that provide the most value to the foundation.  Generally, this means the projects that get the most eyeballs on them, and offer the most benefits to the communities that particular funder serves.  Your job is to convince that funder that your project is the one that will do that. 

4.   Hit Send

I know this sounds rather obvious, but once you’ve written your grant you need to press send.  However, a lot of filmmakers get stuck at this step, and spend so much time perfecting their application that they either miss the deadline, or could have applied to a whole different grant in the time they spent making one of them about 2% better.  Hit send, and start applying for the next one. 
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5.  Apply Again Next Year

Finally, the first time that you apply for a grant, don’t be put off if you don’t get it..  Most funders get far more applications than they have money to fund, and competition is fierce..  That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t apply, it just means that you need to keep applying, and, over time, improve both your proposals, your projects and your relationships with the funders.  “After all, says Joanne, “you can’t apply a second time until you’ve applied for a first.”

IF you’re a filmmaker, you’re always likely to have some project that will require funding.  Thus, relationships with funders will be very important to your long term career. By applying for film grants, you start to develop a relationship with the grantor, even if your grant applications are unsuccessful.

Also, if you’re declined, you can actually call up the funder, and ask why.  Most times, grantors will share some insight as to why your application was declined.  Doing this can put you in a much better position to get the grant next year. Just don’t be rude when you do; the point is to build a positive relationship

Thanks so much for reading!  I’d heavily encourage you to check out Joanne Butcher’s website below.  Also, check out the free indiefilm resource pack for EXCLUSIVE templates and tools to help you finance your film, as well as a monthly blog digest to help answer any questions that you may end up needing to fill out your grant proposal.

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7 Reasons Courting an Investor is Like Dating

There’s an old adage that Investing is like Dating.  In fact, I’ve talked about the similarities both on meetings with investors, and dates with people who are qualified to be investors.  So as something of a tongue-in-cheek yet still (Mostly) safe-for-work post, here are 7 ways courting an investor is like dating. ​

​1. Your goal is to see how compatible you are with the other person.

Most of the time, if you want to get into bed with someone, you want to be compatible with them first.  Getting money from an investor isn’t like a one-night stand.  You don’t just get the check and then never hear from them again.  Getting into bed with an investor is a long-term deal, so making sure you two work well together is simply a must.  Otherwise, the break-up may not be pretty. 

2. If you come off as Asking for too much the first time out, you probably won't get a second.  

The first time you go out with an investor is kind of like that first coffee date.  you’re both sizing each other up, and you want to see how you click.  If you went on a first date trying to make out and take the partner back to your place, it’s probably not going to end well for you.  Similarly, if you start asking an investor to whip out their checkbook on the first meeting, then you’re not likely to get a call back for a second. 

In summation, the goal of your first date should always be to get a second.  If you’re out with an investor, then the second meeting is the sole goal of the first meeting. 

3. It Generally takes at least 3-5 meetings to jump into bed together.  

As with dating, it generally takes 3-5 meetings to decide to get into bed together.  Often, the longer it takes the more likely it is that the relationship will be fruitful down the line.  At least to a point.  If it takes more than 7 meetings to get a check, the investor (or your romantic partner) might just want to be friends. 

4. Both Parties have something to gain, but generally speaking one has significantly more options than the other.  

Just like women are generally more sought after than men in the dating scene, Investors are generally more sought after than entrepreneurs. This may sound crass, but the only pretty girl in the room is going to get a lot more offers than the 10 guys pursuing her.  The ratio is similar for investors. 

So sure, while everybody is looking for a mate, and every investor needs deal flow, generally one side has more options than the other.  It’s important to remember that when attempting to court an investor.

5. They're Probably going to Google You.

Everybody does diligence in this day and age.  If you didn’t think your date was going to check out your online presence, you should probably think again.  Investors are going to look into your past history, and maybe even check your credit before they invest in you.  Dates will do as much as they can on a similar level, but probably not check your credit.

Related: 5 Steps for Vetting Your Investors

6. If you jump into bed on the first date, you're in for a wild ride.  a

One-night stands can be fun and all, but if you jump into bed with the wrong person right after meeting them it can be a real nightmare.  (Or so I’ve been told…) If you don’t take the time to get to know somebody before you get into a serious relationship with the, you’re going to be in for a nasty surprise.  All investment deals are serious relationships.  Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise. 

7. When you seal the deal, you might be stuck with that person for YEARS.

If you take money from someone you’ll be dealing with them until all investors somehow exit the company.  This can be many years.  The Series A Investors at Twitter didn’t exit until their IPO Years later, and a film generally takes 3-5 years to pay back their investors, if they ever do.

If you do get into bed with an angel investor to finance your feature film or web series, they’re going to be a part of your business for a long time.  It’s not just about finding independent film angel investors, it’s also about courting them and making sure you’ve found the right investor, not just the first investor who makes you an offer.

If you want some help with this courting process, my free resource package is a great place to start. It’s got a free e-book that might answer some questions your investor may have. It’s also got a deck template you can use in your first meeting. Get it for FREE below.

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6 Tips to manage your Indiefilm Facebook Page

Your social media presence for your company is extremely important.  Likely, the most important piece of it is your presence on Facebook.  Facebook has the largest user base, and if you know how to use it you can tap into a huge part of your target market.  Here are 5 rules that will help you grow your Facebook presence. ​

Focus on a Page for Your Company, not your projects.

When you set up your Facebook page, it’s better to focus on a page for your production company instead of your film.  This way, when you move on to the next film, you’ll already have the audience you’ve created for your film.  You may have to create a page for individual projects, but you should focus on keeping the audience for your company page engaged.

Also, its getting more and more difficult to run a business through a standard profile. You can try it to increase organic reach, but you may end up hurting yourself more than helping yourself.

Always respond to Messages to your page

If you want to keep your reach up, you need to respond to questions and comments that come to your page via messenger. It can also lead to some really notable business opportunities and sales for you. At least, it has for me.

Don’t try to manage too much at once.

Just having a huge Facebook page won’t do you much good.  You have to use it as a way to engage the audience for your projects.   To do this, you have to regularly post content relevant to your target demographic. Finding or creating high-quality, engaging content is a very time-consuming process.  If you want to try to manage too many pages at once, you’re likely to burn out and not be able to continue regularly posting relevant content.

If you let too long pass between posts, your fan base will start to decay.  Further, when next you post, your posts won’t reach as far because Facebook’s algorithm won’t let them.  It’s much better to focus on managing one or two pages at the same time and helping those pages to grow within the platform.

Share useful content to relevant groups

One good way to grow your brand recognition online is to post valuable content to your page, then share it with groups filled with your target demographic.  I do this all the time.  In fact, there’s a good chance that’s how you found this article.  This content shouldn’t just be sales links for your film, it should be free content that provides some value to the group.  You can post the occasional sales link, but you shouldn’t do so more than once per week. 
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Related:5 Dos and Don'ts for Selling your Film on Social Media

It’s important that you avoid being too spammy while doing this.  I have a list of 5 groups to share to each of my pages on a daily basis, to help ensure I don’t post to the same group too many times.   It takes some time to set up, but it’s the best way to avoid running afoul of group admins.  That’s not something you want to do. Trust me.  (Sorry if you’re one of the admins I’ve run afoul of, just trooping through this.

Always post videos natively

By this, I mean always upload your videos directly to Facebook, and don’t post a Vimeo or YouTube link.  If Facebook sees that the video is coming from Vimeo or YouTube, it will only get about 20% of the reach.  If, on the other hand, you upload it directly to your page, it will actually get a lot of prioritized placement in the feeds of people who like your content and their friends. 

Don’t put your movie on Facebook, put your trailers there and point to Amazon.

Finally, Facebook video is a great place to post a trailer, but not a great place to post your entire film.  First of all, you won’t be paid for posting your video to Facebook like you would be if you posted to Amazon Video Direct or YouTube.  Second, most people just don’t watch full-length films on Facebook.  They’ll watch videos that are only a few minutes long. 

As such, posting your trailer can be a great way to get extra attention on it, and then you can link off to a place where people can buy it or watch it for free.   Doing this can not only increase the number of people who watch your film, but might even increase your total audience. 

Thanks so much for reading.  If you like this content, you should consider liking my page on Facebook!  Here’s a link.

www.facebook.com/theguerrillarep.

Also, join my mailing list for more indie-film business content, plus a free e-book, template, and more!

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5 Ways to Market Your Movie Besides Social movie

There’s a lot of advice on the internet, as well as on this blog about marketing your film using social media.  That’s with good reason, Social media is among the most cost-effective ways to market your project if you do it properly.  Further, it helps you maintain a long-term relationship with potential customers.  That being said, it’s not the only way to market your film.  It might not even be the most efficient way when it’s the only thing you do.  What follows are 5 ways to market your film other than social media.

For this blog, all 5 of these tactics can and should be used in conjunction with each other, and can greatly augment your social media marketing.

Before we begin, every once in a while I’ll take a question I get on Twitter and turn it into a blog.  This question came @AmandaVerhagen a while back, but I’ve not had time to adequately address it until now.  If you have a question about film distribution, marketing, financing, or sales, feel free to @Mention @TheGuerrillaRep and I might just write a blog to answer your question.  

Events

Hosting an event to spread the word about your project can be a great way to build excitement and generate interest in your project.  This can be something as simple as a happy hour at a local bar where you buy a few drinks for strong supporters, or as complex as renting an event space, supplying the booze, and having some people say a few words.  Ideally with entertainment.

What you do really comes down to how much time you have to organize and what your budget it.  The importance of the milestone you’re celebrating also plays a factor, although any milestone worthy of an event is also likely worthy of some time to organize it

Festivals

Shocking, I know.  However what does bear mentioning is that festivals are only as useful as you make them.  Getting into festivals can be a great way to expand your network and grow the reputation of the film, however the effect that will have will be limited unless you learn how to work the festival. 

Essentially, getting into a festival provides you a space where you can utilize every other item on this list to grow your notoriety, your film’s reputation, and your professional network. 

​Flyers/Givaways

​Having something tangible you can give away to people at events in festivals will help people remember you.  They’ll remember you even more if you attach something to the card that has some immediate value beyond the information you’re handing out.  This can be as simple as a tiny piece of chocolate attached to a card, a bottle of hand sanitizer, or even a small bottle of alcohol( if the demographic is right.)

Adding a giveaway will help you stand out in the minds of whoever you give your giveaway to .It’s easy to get lost in a pouch of postcards and flyers, but something as simple and cheap as a piece of chocolate can make all of the difference in how you’re remembered by the event goer. 

​Stunts

Pulling some sort of marketing stunt can be a great way to stand out and attract a bit of press.  Whatever you do, you’ve got to make sure you do it safely though. 

One of the most famous stunts at Cannes was when someone lit themselves on fire (in a fire suit) and then after they were put out, it was revealed to be an attractive your woman in a bikini who starred in the film she was promoting.  Rumor has it the woman later lost that bikini while being interviewed, but that’s another matter.  Also, that happened in the late 80’s/early 90’s, so the culture was different.

Your stunt doesn’t have to be as outlandish as that, but should be as memorable.  If you have a  war movie, you might want to consider throwing toy paratroopers from a rooftop you can gain access to.  If you’re promoting at Sundance, a woman in a bikini making a quick walk through the cold with premier tickets would certainly grab some eyeballs and some attention.  Especially if you can work in a joke about accidentally packing for Cannes. That said, make sure you have a trenchcoat and hot drinks on hand to help her out when she inevitably gets cold.

In any case, the goal of the stunt is to get eyeballs in a safe and legal way.  It’s to help you and your movie be memorable and to ideally attract a bit of the final item on our list. 

​Publicity

​Publicity is almost always the most cost-effective way to spread the word about your project.  However, it’s not always the easiest thing to get.  Generally, you’ll need a relationship with an outlet, something truly eye-catching, or a good publicist to get any substantial amount of coverage.  Sometimes you’ll need all three. 

There are a couple of ways you can disseminate a press release.  PRNewswire.com is relatively affordable, but it’s unclear how much individual press coverage you’ll get out of it.  It does still help with your SEO (Search Engine Optimization) to at least a degree though.  

Generally, if you can afford a publicist, it’s the best way to go by far.  My favorite publicist is October Coast, they’re very cost-effective for the value they provide. While it’s possible to get big marquee press coverage from October Coast it’s unlikely. This means you probably won’t get you the big outlets like Deadline, Variety, or THR, but you will get dozens of relevant niche blogs. In general, you’ll need a higher-cost publicist, or if you’re lucky your distributor, sales agent, or producer’s rep will handle this for you.

EDIT FROM THE FUTURE: There may be a few more things I’ve learned from Running Mutiny that I’ll share in a new blog around the efficacy of paid ads and sponsorships. Comment if that’s of interest.

Thanks for reading! If you want more help financing or distributing your movie, the best place to start is my film business resource pack. It’s got templates, an e-book, and a whole lot more to help you grow your indiefilm company and career. Oh, it’s completely free, get it below.

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