Bieber is a star born from youtube. He has a lot of hardcore fans who feel he has talent. He didnt spend millions of dollars to get seen.
Indeed, I've read he got attention with keyword-spamming on YouTube. This way he showed up as related video next to know and famous artists he would sing songs of.
Apparently he sang well enough to get likes, views, buzz and a contract.
It takes both a good product and marketing to sell anything.
Hiding under a rock never helped any product.
But marketing the hell out of crap can be sometimes work... or you loose $200 million a SF... (Disney).
I'm way ahead of you on that. If you don't advertise for new fans, you will not grow. You have to reach out to the people who will buy content. Those people are not on vimeo. They are on FB, YT, and fan discussion boards for similar genre and content. And, they read magazine on movies and go to conventions.
You say you're 'way ahead of [me] on that' but what are you currently doing right? I like or follow your Facebook and Twitter and, however hard you think you need to advertise, you are never going to get followers unless you give them something to follow.
This is why your crowdfunding failed: because the product isn't there yet.
Quote:
Originally Posted by MetalRenard
Meh. No. Look at all the shitty music. Look at Bieber! It's 95% marketing. Sure a good product helps but with the right kind of marketing you can sell pretty much anything.
I'm not sure I get the hate against Justin Bieber. He's a good musician, he's handsome, he appeals to a very specific demographic and that's been expertly exploited. I don't think that there are millions of undiscovered Justin Biebers.
Quote:
Originally Posted by PaulGriffith
There is a lot of successful mediocre stuff that does well because of marketing, but it's the millions+ level of marketing to get it there. The stuff that makes it based off grass roots, word of mouth, guerilla and any other type of low dollar marketing makes it because it's good. If you convince one person to watch/listen/buy and it's good, it gets shared. If that one person hates it then at best they don't share it, and at worst they advise people to avoid it.
Exactly. Comparing spending a few bucks on extra advertising for your short film to the muscle that Island Records can exert is pointless. If, at this stage, you have $500 to spend then I'd recommend that you spend it on the production values of your film rather than blowing it on trying to rope in people to see the film, who'll then go 'boy, I wish the production values were better'...
I'm ahead of you with putting things in place to make IC3 better than IC2.
I have much more outlets than FB and Twitter.
That's why my production page on FB is getting more likes.
The data I'm collecting on FB and YT is useful to create an ad campaign for reaching out to more fans from the fan base.
The new emerging fan base is teenage girls. So, that's where the ads will go.
The IC2 page has 1 like, yours. The MDM page has 61 likes. Please, please do not take any serious data from these. You need to be more sensible about this, clearly the market for your films is not teenage girls. Your facebook demographics might tell you that 80% of your pages likes are teenage girls but 80% of 61 is not nearly enough for you to draw any serious marketing conclusions.
What are these 'much more outlets than FB and Twitter'?
I know you think that you're 'ahead of me' but please bear in mind that I have 1,150 Twitter followers, 732 facebook likes and successfully crowdfunded a film to $620 over our goal. I am not stupid and I do know what I'm talking about here. You can choose to take or leave my advice but if you're repeatedly going to suggest that you know things about online marketing and fanbases that I don't, then I'd like to see the evidence for it.
It's 62 likes and climbing. If you read the posts, the recent likes are coming from LinkedIn. Only a small percentage of the like are fans at this point. Most are from people in the film business. Using data from the YT views is what I will use to seek out fans.
YT and.FB data should be taken seriously.
There are groups on LinkedIn and Google+.
I'm looking at the demographics of the first 1,000 views of the trailer on YT.
I'm looking to increase that 1,000 with ads in magazines when funds permit.
I'm looking at the demographics of the first 1,000 views of the trailer on YT.
I'm looking to increase that 1,000 with ads in magazines when funds permit.
Ads in magazines? That seems like an odd way to promote your project, also an expensive one. Why not try youtube promoted videos? It's simpler, cheaper, and better suited to the medium you're working in. No need to wait for significant funds, you could spend $10 or so on a test campaign, then analyze the results and refine the campaign and run a new one for another $10, etc. You'll get views, you'll get valuable and real marketing/demographic data, and you'll be able to refine your marketing message cheaply before investing in expensive marketing like magazines, etc. You could also try the same thing with the regular adwords ads as well - which might give you more insight into how effective a magazine ad would be, because you'd be advertising to viewers that weren't currently or specifically looking for videos to watch.
Ads in magazines? That seems like an odd way to promote your project, also an expensive one. Why not try youtube promoted videos? It's simpler, cheaper, and better suited to the medium you're working in. No need to wait for significant funds, you could spend $10 or so on a test campaign, then analyze the results and refine the campaign and run a new one for another $10, etc. You'll get views, you'll get valuable and real marketing/demographic data, and you'll be able to refine your marketing message cheaply before investing in expensive marketing like magazines, etc. You could also try the same thing with the regular adwords ads as well - which might give you more insight into how effective a magazine ad would be, because you'd be advertising to viewers that weren't currently or specifically looking for videos to watch.
I'm ahead of you with putting things in place to make IC3 better than IC2.
I have much more outlets than FB and Twitter.
That's why my production page on FB is getting more likes.
The data I'm collecting on FB and YT is useful to create an ad campaign for reaching out to more fans from the fan base.
The new emerging fan base is teenage girls. So, that's where the ads will go.
I think it has never been said before because of a few different reasons. I do not want to discourage you, but your film doesn't seem very appealing to any audience at all.. It looks cheap, the story is weird, you have a few girls in latex costumes and one guy without a costume. All that combined with a cheap greenscreen. I really hope you can find fans, but the film has to be right, to attract viewers and buyers through marketing...
Oh, and 'The Flight of the Flamingo' which Nick is shooting is in production.. And it's looking very promising!
Sorry to be harsh, but after thousands of new threads I just had to say it!
I'm on science fictions boards for writers and filmmakers. When I asked how many people are still fans of Star Trek, Space 1999, Babylon 5, and Battlestar Galactica, you may be surprised how many people are looking for something to fill that void.
Entertainment is most important in a production.
With TV studio scenes like this, do you really believe independent filmmaker can't sell content to cable TV?
True: those series are still popular.
(Babylon 5 season 2,3 and 4 are great!)
But do you think Star Trek ever got on TV if this horrible fightscene was the pilot to sell it?
I don't think Star Trek is popular thanks to this scene.
They 'got away with it' because they were already popular.
(LOL, it looks like they forgot to change the framerate. )
Taking the worst part of a popular series isn't really a good reference, IMHO.
But do you think Star Trek ever got on TV if this horrible fightscene was the pilot to sell it?
I don't think Star Trek is popular thanks to this scene.
They 'got away with it' because they were already popular.
I think it's also a bad idea to compare shows from a totally different era to stuff you're producing now. When Star Trek aired the average viewer had a dozen channels or less to chose from, no home videos to watch, and no internet. It wasn't even a particularly successful show for it's time - that's why it was canceled after three seasons. But it's ratings, considered disappointing at the time, put it on par with American Idol because the audience is so fragmented now.
Audiences are more sophisticated now, have far more options to choose from to spend their free time watching, but have no more free time to spend than they ever did. You're competing against a much bigger pool of entertainment options. Your work needs to have something that makes it stand out to an audience amongst all the other choices they have.
And there's a difference between something like Star Trek and the Black Scorpion show you posted. Star Trek was low budget, and slightly campy, but that was largely because it was a product of it's time and not necessarily a deliberate thing. For a lot of fans that's a big part of it's appeal, it has an aspect of nostalgia to it that is rooted in the innocence and sincerity of a time when that fight scene was cool. Black Scorpion is clearly the opposite - the writers/producers are very aware that what they are making is low budget and campy, so they've chosen to up the camp factor quite a bit so the audience is laughing along with the show's creators rather than laughing at how bad the show is. If you're going to have bad effects, bad fight scenes, bad acting, etc like one of these shows I think that's the approach you have to take - you need to let the audience know (or at least think) that those are deliberate choices, rather than shortcomings, because audiences are much more sophisticated than they were 50 years ago.
Also, things have changed dramatically in just the last decade and even when Black Scorpion aired there were a lot less entertainment choices it had to compete with. There was no YouTube, no Netflix, most old tv shows weren't available on DVD, and most people still had analog cable with far less channels to choose from and no VOD. The fact that it's no longer available on DVD now shows that there's not enough demand for the show to justify spending time or money trying to sell it to an audience - which seems like it makes it a bad choice to emulate for your own projects if you're hoping to make them successful.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Modern Day Myth Prod. LLC
I'm on science fictions boards for writers and filmmakers. When I asked how many people are still fans of Star Trek, Space 1999, Babylon 5, and Battlestar Galactica, you may be surprised how many people are looking for something to fill that void.
What void? If you're a fan of those shows you can watch them just about any time you want, as many times as you want, as much as your schedule will allow. There's also been a resurgence of real quality tv shows being produced over the past decade, so there's plenty of new stuff to choose from in addition to watching your favorite old shows. There's no void people are looking to fill - quite the opposite now in fact, the hard part for a lot of people is trying to find enough time to watch everything they'd like to watch. So if you don't have something really unique which will make someone decide not to spend their time watching old favorites you're going to have a hard time finding an audience.
It's also worth noting that Star Trek was a failure when it first aired, getting cancelled well before it's 'six year mission' was complete. It really only found it's audience/popularity in re-runs/syndication.
It's also worth noting that Star Trek was a failure when it first aired, getting cancelled well before it's 'six year mission' was complete. It really only found it's audience/popularity in re-runs/syndication.
I think it has never been said before because of a few different reasons. I do not want to discourage you, but your film doesn't seem very appealing to any audience at all.. It looks cheap, the story is weird, you have a few girls in latex costumes and one guy without a costume. All that combined with a cheap greenscreen. I really hope you can find fans, but the film has to be right, to attract viewers and buyers through marketing...
Oh, and 'The Flight of the Flamingo' which Nick is shooting is in production.. And it's looking very promising!
Sorry to be harsh, but after thousands of new threads I just had to say it!
That is just your opinion.
Two IT techs by day that I work with who saw the whole 22 minute production who are weekend and vacation time indie filmmakers are asking me to help them with special effects. There must be something there they liked. They gave me good advice and tips on editing one of the fight scenes. I can tell they know their stuff by their comments and suggestions.
There is a market for the show on networks like SyFy, IFC, and some other small cable networks that cannot afford their own studios. My crew believes the story will impress some network. So does the cast, after showing it to people they trust in the industry. What it does not have yet with production values, it makes up with a solid story that is deep like classical sci-fi.
The reality is you don't know or understand the television market.
Watch more TV series and stuff The Asylum puts out. I can't for the life of me remember the name of the 100% greenscreen tv series on SFy. You want cheap, you should have seen that. And yet, SyFy aired the series and not just the pilot. The Asylum airs new movies on SyFy every Saturday night. Rotten Tomatoes calls The Asylums movies on SyFy mockbusters.
At this point, I'm waiting on reviews from 2 sources on the production to be published.
There was a TV series made totally with greenscreen backgrounds on the SyFy networks maybe just 3 years ago that lasted one season.
As funding sources come in, the production values will go up.
The biggest mistake too many independent filmmaker make is to think big budget movie look. A much more realistic goal is a TV series look from popular shows and genres.
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