Digital Filmmaking, Social Media Marketing

The second biggest part of being a indie film maker is learning to market yourself and your work. This comes second only to the actual making of your film.

Yes, I understand that there are still studios and distributors out there, but the competition for both gets stiffer each years. Your best bet is to become good at this part of the job or find someone who is willing to help you.
    

 The good news in this regard is that you can learn to do this over time. Even if you are an introvert and a maverick like me there is hope.

It amazes me to this day that there are still so many digital film makers who do not take advantage of the free options that exist for them to market themselves and their work. Allow me to go over a few that are obvious.

Facebook and Myspace (yeah, myspace is making a comeback) are two great places to build a page around your production and to develop a following.

Google plus is a great way to keep in touch with other film makers and followers. You can set up weekly or monthly Google hangout meeting for those that you wish to interact with.

Twitter is a place where you can keep those interested in your project constantly updated on what is happening day by day.

Pinterest is a great place to share stills from your project and is perhaps the most overlooked place to market your work.

If you want to build a website dedicated to your project you do not have to purchase a domain and host, although if the film is going to be a part of your life for years you might want to consider doing this. A wordpress site can be impressive both to visitors and those you wish to do business with. If you do not know how to build your own website from scratch you are in luck, that is one of the skills that I market. If you want to learn how to construct a wordpress site from start to finish you can click here and visit a page will a few video instructional.

If on the other hand you want to construct a site for free you can go to blogspot and build a blooger website like this one. It is totally free to use and easy to set up.

There are so many other social sites out there like typepad and Tumblr that you can use to reach people.

Once you have set up a series of social media accounts then the next thing to do is to connect them under one umbrella. The reason that you will want to do this is so that if you post at one site it is syndicated to all of them. This saves you a lot of time and effort.

The two sites that can help you with this is Rebelmouse. You can see a quick tutorial video about it below. The video is narrated by the great indie film maker David P. Baker.
  

 Since David is promoting his film Screen, I thought that I would post his six minute preview.
   
"SCREEN" HORROR FILM ( 1st SIX MINS) from David Baker on Vimeo.


 The second site is Onlywire. I like onlywire and have used it not only to connect my social media, but to get backlinks for this blog. Backlinks are important if you are interested in improving the page ranking of your main website. It has gotten this blog to page one in multiple google keyword searches. Quick tutorials on onlywire.





    

 Remember that Onlywire gives you a real free trial for one month. I would suggest, if you are on a budget, to use their free trial during a big promotional or fund raising month.

  

 The lesson I want to leave you with today is to use ever tool possible to promote yourself and your work. You do not get a do over in life. This is it and you got one shot at getting it right so give it your all. Spread the word about your project if you have to stand on a street corner handing out flyers. If you do not have a budget for promotion then social media is your best tool. You can expand your reach by tens of thousands of people if you master this part of the game. Hollywood does not have all the answers. The truth is that many micro budget film makers are already ahead of them in this part of the advertising and promotes game. Through social media we will become an industry that will someday compete head to head with the major studios. If you want to be a success at this business and what I mean by success is making enough money to finance the next project and keeping the lights on and the pets feed then you are going to have learn more about this area of the business. It will not be harder than learning about blocking and lighting. It will be far easier than learning how to edit.

Good luck with your project and please take a moment to help me with my social media. Stumble us on stumbleupon, add me to your googleplus and share this post with a friend by using my share button. That is social media in action.

On Filmmaking and Marketing with Ed Burns

            Filmmaking With Ed Burns

    Hollywood looks at Ed Burns as an indie filmmaker while most micro budget film makers look at him as a mainstream film maker. I look at him as a very important innovator in the world of film marketing.

    Ed was one of the first film makers to understand that the business aspect of the film making process was important. He seems to have figured out early on that if you do not make a profit with your film then those responsible for financing them would not take you seriously.

    Some of you are probably saying, but I have a intimate little micro budget film that must be made and I do not care whether or not it ever makes a dollar. Fine, there are many film makers like this. If you are in it for the one time shot then go ahead and save your money and go out and shoot it over how ever many weeks and or months it takes to get the job done. Hey it took Christopher Nolan about a year of shooting on weekends to finish his first feature. Make your film your way, but if you want to earn a living at this, if you want to make any more films then the business side of things is going to have to be considered.


    Ed Burns is a good film maker. He is at times a very good screenwriter, but his lasting impact will be showing us how to monetize our project through itunes and video on demand. The marketing of your film should be a part of your pre production planning and a major part of post. This is important because this is how we will earn our living as a indie filmmaker. I know that some of you think that you will make your film and find a distributor to handle the financial end of things and maybe there will be a few of your who manage to pull that off, but have you heard the thousands of horror stories about distributors who have cheated low budget film makers out of their profits. If you learn to market your film then you will be in control of the money.

    Okay that is it for today. Good luck with your projects and I am still looking for guess bloggers. If you have a production story that you wish to tell and you can do it in under a thousand words I would love to post it. Look at it as a way of advertising your project.