In order to cut the time and cost of shooting and editing videos, the company purchased a Flip camera for under $200. “We’ve found this to be a great way to generate quick content. For example, as we traveled on the Southern Circuit Tour of Independent Filmmakers, we could shoot one-minute vignettes and plug the camera directly into our laptop; within minutes we are ready to upload to our FB and YouTube pages. It was also a wonderful way to shoot fan reactions immediately following a screening. While it’s hard to mobilize people to take the time to sit and write a review, we’ve been successful in gathering an arsenal of video reviews we can post,” said Zimet.
The key things that Silber and Zimet suggest to low budget filmmakers are a great trailer and a professionally designed website. “It’s the website that creates that crucial first impression. We invariably refer anybody we have queried to our websites, and we know that they make a judgment based on them.” Silber said. The duo also realizes the importance of building up an audience well in advance of presenting the finished film. “What we didn’t know then – but do now – it is important to try to build an audience before the film is even completed, i.e. with FB pages that may include content such as pre-production; stills and video from shoots; even audition tapes. Unfortunately it took us over three films to realize the importance of having really great production stills,” Silber laughs. “Yet another thing we did not know but do now, is to budget for marketing. As a result we paid as we played, doing what we could at any given point in the process, based on the few bucks we might have in our pockets at the time. We have probably spent more time now marketing any one of our films than we spent making them. The truth is, only the love you have for what you’re doing will sustain the enormous effort it takes to do it. While we have finally found distribution partners for some of our films (UK’s Journeyman Pictures and LA based Nelson/Madison Films), we still know deeply that in the end it’s up to us and us alone to continually generate interest in the film. This marathon has an elusive finish line.”
A filmmaker who did receive initial interest primarily from his MySpace presence was Mark Thimijan for his film BARSTOOL COWBOY about an unemployed cowboy who can't find love and vows to stay on a barstool for three months hoping to find some answers at the bottom of a beer bottle. “The first thing I created was a MySpace page. Myspace doesn't have the traffic it used to but it's still a really good outlet. I created a filmmaker profile and used the poster for the profile picture. I uploaded the trailer and then I started adding friends by targeting profiles I thought would have an interest in my content. I was offered a few screening opportunities due to my presence on that site and by the time the DVD was released a year later, my number of friends on MySpace was over 4,000,” said Thimijan. He also states that Facebook, YouTube and Linkedin have been good outlets for the film and for himself as a filmmaker. “Facebook doesn't allow you to add fans easily, they must come to you through either your own friend list or your existing fans’ friend lists, but the nice thing is you can send specific updates to your fans. Linkedin is more for professional use and better to use for the filmmaker’s resume rather than promoting a film. On Youtube, something I like to do is post a new one minute clip from the film every other month or so just to keep the visual content fresh,” he said.
“The goal for me of using the social media platforms was to make people aware that the film existed, build a buzz, stay in contact and by the time the film was released there would be an automatic audience already put in place,”said Thimijan. He ultimately was approached by Celebrity Video Distribution as a result of his film’s presence on festival websites and his proven audience. “When using social media outlets, it's not really about spending money, it's about spending time. It really doesn't cost anything to promote on the internet but it can consume many hours of the day. I would estimate in the past year I have spent over 1,000 hours promoting on the internet, whether it be MySpace, Facebook, posting in forums, message boards, sending emails, uploading trailers. It is a lot of work but very much worth it as I've gained a new fan base that will hopefully follow my work for years to come,” said Thimijan.
