I’d long since grown used to handing my films over to some faceless distributor who showered me with golden promises and called it rain. Sometimes the magic worked, sometimes I was ripped off like a greenhorn.
Most times my film fell into a hole, where apparently the rabbit ate all the good, green stuff.
That steam model – distributor at the top, filmmaker at the bottom – has given rise to more nasty metaphors than any column could support. For a long while, we had no choice. But now social media has come marching in, toppling everything we thought we knew about distribution. The high and mighty voice of The One has been replaced with the mumble of millions.
I have seen the future and it is good.
Old style distribution and its Rolodex have gone the way of the three-martini- lunch. (Shame, that….) We don’t start our day with corn flakes and a copy of Variety anymore.
Our films are more likely seen on YouTube and Vimeo than screened at the Rialto or the Cineplex. Our new distribution platform starts (or ends) with Xbox and PlayStation. We hold the new silver screen in the palm of our hands, our marketing focuses on Facebook and LinkedIn, our funding begins on IndieGoGo and KickStarter. Tweet on.
With no one home behind our distributor’s World Wide door, we’re all left on our own. Not only are we expected to grease the wheels, now we have to turn the crank, too.
We’re all strangers in this brave new land of DIY distribution. Suddenly we have no one to blame for slow sales except ourselves. I suppose it’s more democratic without elites behind the desk, but here we stand, naked, negotiating with ourselves. There are no more scapegoats for all our woes.
Like it or not, ready or not, the future has arrived anyway. Galumph, galumph, galumph…. Move along or it will stomp you down.
It’s time to come to grips with the new bugaboos (and heady power) of promotion and marketing and distribution. Don’t know how to do that job? That’s funny, because it’s NUMBER ONE on the list.
There are ten steps in all. And we all have to take them, one by one, if we hope to have our movies seen.
- Surround yourself with pros who know how to handle tasks better than you. If you’re the smartest person in the room, find another room.
- Know the audience for your show. Work with specifics, not generalities. See them, feel them, touch them.
- Plan your marketing and promotion. Budget for every step of it. Then budget more money. Marketing is not a task for the feint-of-heart or the thin-of-wallet.
- Build a website that’s smarter than sunshine and as seductive as a spider’s web. Now stat the the task of luring your audience home.
- Start networking now. Plan to tweet, blog, e-blast, post, teach, lecture or screen every day from now until you start your next film. Film festival prizes are great, but courting the audience is even better. Face time is much better than Facebook.
- If you’re not selling, you’re not doing your job. Your job? It’s to sell your script, sell your production, sell your ideas to your actors, sell your film to your audience. Sell.
- Plan every step of your marketing and distribution before you start to make your movie.
- Think ROI, but understand that “profit” is measured in more ways than money. Know exactly why your investors invested. And what they want in return.
- Give away far more than you ever hope to sell. If you don’t leave a trail of breadcrumbs, no one will follow you to your movie.
- Write a business plan that’s honest, complex and profound, insightful, exciting and seductive. Make it as tenacious as a fishhook. Let it seduce your investors, entice your audience and guide you into production.
Good luck. We may all be alone now, but we’re all in this together.
