Ways to capitalize on online marketing methods and
film festivals to help
attract fans and distributors
I hear the moaning nearly every day. “I spent two years of my life pouring all of my energy and money into making my film and now I can’t find a distributor willing to take it on” or “The deals I am being offered are so low, I won’t be able to break even on the production cost.” While it is absolutely true that the state of independent film distribution has left many producers stunned and investors (or credit card companies) holding the bag on their investment funding, there are still acquisitions taking place for the proven product. How do you know if you have a proven product? The audience you have gathered for your film is a good way to judge and one that will interest sales agents and distributors if you are looking for traditional distribution. It is my very strong belief that filmmakers must start building their audience from the start of a project and stay engaged with them throughout the filmmaking process so at the end of post production, there is a dedicated group of followers waiting to see the film and tell others about it. The most cost effective way to build an audience for low budget films is online.
Audience building activities have never been more affordable and widely available than right now. The proliferation of untold social media sites, blogger sites, online publications, contests, quizzes, games, applications etc. have given creative filmmakers enormous opportunities to reach their audience. Paramount is enjoying massive success with their microbudget acquisition, PARANORMAL ACTIVITY, and making headlines for employing a low budget, online marketing strategy, but many independent filmmakers have been using these same techniques for a couple of years now and have mastered these concepts successfully.
I first met filmmaker Ester Brym on the community website indieProducer.net, where she had information about her new documentary, BUTTERFLIES. Her documentary’s subject—YouTube and the web-lebrities that have been made using that platform—was extremely intriguing and the trailer was well done. She put the trailer to her film on the site and actively solicited feedback and interaction with the filmmaker community. For her, the decision to use online methods and social media to promote the film was determined from the start. “Basically, with BUTTERFLIES, it was clear that we would market online given that our film’s subject matter is YouTube,” said Brym. “Some of the characters in the film helped with the promotion online and they have supported us by attending screenings.”
In order to gather her audience, Brym uses a combination of Vlogs on her own YouTube channel (over 1,500 subscribers), Twitter (over 800 followers), and Facebook (over 900 fans). “I use all the possible sites I know of really. Facebook, MySpace, Linkedin, YouTube, Twitter, DailyBooth, Tumbler, Flikr, fest21, Fans of Film (FOF), indieProducer.net, Shooting People and we also have a Wikipedia page. I give major importance to YouTube, Twitter and Facebook because that's where our audience is concentrated and the chances for getting the message out there with the help of the other filmmakers and YouTubers are the biggest with those sites. We also have a website that is maintained by the film's producer, Tom Duty, where fans can sign up and get regular updates via email,” says Brym.
She finds constant interaction with her fans to be an enjoyable aspect of this experience. The work is time consuming and Brym does most of it herself. “It is mainly me who writes blogs, Tweets, creates screening events on Facebook, and posts videos. It takes up time, but it doesn't cost any money. This is of course one of the main reasons I use social media because BUTTERFLIES was financed privately from our savings and we didn't budget to do promotion any other way. I spend a big part of everyday online, updating different sites. I would say that our presence there is non-stop 24 hours. I find it very nice to hear feedback from the fans and to be able to communicate with them.”
“The goal was simple: to let our audience know the film is out there. YouTube itself has a great following so the audience was already there because of the followers of our film’s subjects. The trick was to tap into them, contact them, let them know. Any trailers, promos or interviews are uploaded to YouTube first, then we link them to Twitter, Facebook and MySpace. I would also like to say that I find MySpace the least effective when it comes to feedback or any kind of interaction,” says Brym.
Through all of this interaction, Brym has received interest from traditional distributors. “I am actually not sure which of the platforms was the most effective when it came to distribution offers. Since I used all the networks, the word got out quicker by combining them. This is the way an unknown filmmaker can really get some attention. I have received interest from distributors via emails on Facebook and Linkedin, so those two platforms definitely are good for professional communication,” says Brym.
