> Indie Film Marketing & Promotion

rayw said:

Illegal Downloads Made 'Man from Earth' a Hit; Now What to Do For an Encore?
http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/illegal-downloads-made-man-earth-627396

"Instead, Man from Earth became a BitTorrent blockbuster. According to Wilkinson, someone got their hands on a screener of the film days before the DVD release and with a press of a button, the film was being downloaded on file sharing sites across the Internet.

“To be clear, they weren't paying for it,” Schenkman explains in the Kickstarter video. “But they were downloading it, watching it, sharing it with their friends, and posting online about it. Even on IMDb.” In one week, Man from Earth jumped 7,700% on the IMDb's moviemeter, a statistic that tracks activity on a film's page, becoming the most searched sci-fi movie on the site. Both filmmakers cite the illegal traction as having a positive impact on legal sales of the film.

With a crowdsourcing campaign, Schenkman and Wilkinson hope to tap into that same fervor. “The simple truth is that if only a tiny fraction of the people who illegally downloaded Jerome Bixby's The Man From Earth donated $5 to this campaign, we'd be funded several times over!” they state on the site."​

The film itself 'The Man From Earth' → http://vimeo.com/62926833

The KS campaign → http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1759006687/the-man-from-earth-ii-man-from-earth-millennium

Someone remind me to follow up on how this campaign goes. Please.

Click to expand...

Reminder

sfoster said:

Reminder

Click to expand...

Thank you.

Gimme a few days, I'll see what I can shake out of the trees.



Alright, as all regular IT readers over the past couple of years know I've been casually searching the bejeezus out of indie film marketing & promotion.
What I've exclusively run across outside of film festival circuits are variations of "social media and advertising."

I think all my regular readers are sufficiently informed/bludgeoned about the benefits of website + Facebook + blog + twitter + YouTube + crowdfunding audience development/cultivation from the moment the concept congeals (NOT when the final edit is made.)

Social media.
Use it.
Don't be a lazy dumb@ss.
Making the film is fun.
Marketing it is a PITA.

Hosting distributors aren't going to spend a dime marketing your film.
It's all you, baby.

Filmmaking is NOT a meritocracy.
"Film it, and they will come" is a big fat lie.

You got all that?
Good.

But sometimes you hafta be aware of what you are not seeing.
I am not seeing any articles whatsoever on "go here, spend $XX for Y% return on your advertising dollars for your indie film."

At some point in time your six degrees of circle of contacts is going to exhaust itself.
Either when or before you reach that point you are going to hafta start spending money to increase your sphere of interested viewers to watch your film(s).
This is genuine advertising.
And my initial research is... not promising.

http://www.slate.com/articles/techn...large_brands_online_ads_may_be_worthless.html
Note: article is two pages.


More to follow.

Not sure if this is covered by one of the numerous points above, but two friends of mine are drafting a business plan to open an "online cinema". The idea is to showcase no-budget and low-budget films (submitted free of charge to the film's makers) and charge a very small monthly or annual subscription fee for viewing new film makers' production with an online reviewing system (although hosted advertising is a viable option too), and low cost pay-per-view for established film maker members, with a 50/50 split between the site and film-maker (with the % rising for the film maker depending on ratings).

The problem they highlighted (market research is apparently ongoing) is how many people would be interested in such an idea, and recouping advertising. I am tempted to make an investment as I trust the guys and the plan looks good on paper, but at the moment I'm holding back due to current finances and the lack of thorough market research.

Does anyone think this is a good idea? It would be nice to see growth in distribution and showcasing for indie film-makers..

There are several "challenges" for the model.

First is making the public/consumers aware of a product.
Word of mouth & circle of social media friends only goes so far, after which it's all about spending money on advertising, which mean ROI issues.
Advertising ROI is very... spotty.
Sure, venues can tell you how many people their publication or viewership has, but that doesn't translate to any predetermined "$X input = $Y output."

How deep are the pockets of your entrepreneurial friends and how long can they pump cash into advertising before they build a critical mass? or fail?

Second, their first batch of films are likely to be stinkers or public domain films a hundred other sites already are trying to scratch together to get anyone to see to generate advertising revenue.
There are very few viewers that would be willing to pay even $10 a year to have unlimited viewership to a wide selection of no-budget indie stinkers.
Feature length no-budget indie films that are actually engaging are few and far between.

Furthermore, there's almost no one that eschews traditional Hollywood films and lives off an entertainment diet of almost exclusively no-budget indie films or even big budget indie films.
Most folks just don't care, and trying to find the few that do care is a very expensive process.

Investigate the business model Hulu et al have used.
Big bux.
BIG BIG bux!

rayw said:

There are several "challenges" for the model.

First is making the public/consumers aware of a product.
Word of mouth & circle of social media friends only goes so far, after which it's all about spending money on advertising, which mean ROI issues.
Advertising ROI is very... spotty.
Sure, venues can tell you how many people their publication or viewership has, but that doesn't translate to any predetermined "$X input = $Y output."

How deep are the pockets of your entrepreneurial friends and how long can they pump cash into advertising before they build a critical mass? or fail?

Second, their first batch of films are likely to be stinkers or public domain films a hundred other sites already are trying to scratch together to get anyone to see to generate advertising revenue.
There are very few viewers that would be willing to pay even $10 a year to have unlimited viewership to a wide selection of no-budget indie stinkers.
Feature length no-budget indie films that are actually engaging are few and far between.

Furthermore, there's almost no one that eschews traditional Hollywood films and lives off an entertainment diet of almost exclusively no-budget indie films or even big budget indie films.
Most folks just don't care, and trying to find the few that do care is a very expensive process.

Investigate the business model Hulu et al have used.
Big bux.
BIG BIG bux!

Click to expand...

Thanks for the feedback, much appreciated. I won't pretend to know much about business workings as in background is molecular biology and medicine, however I believe they have a decent idea. You've raised the same points as I (and they to be honest) have. The real problem is that people, like you say, don't care so much about indie films (although are happy to watch the "big" ones, and often assume they are "Hollywood" films). Even with the low costs I believe they have reservations without the research into how well this will kick off. I am not directly involved with the project but I believe the pricing is being done in US$ and works out to $2 a month (rolling contract style) with a price of $1 per film viewing for those not covered by the subscription. Obviously this is cheap but the fear seems to be people will even begrudge a dollar (£0.66 at the time of writing to watch a film that may be hit or miss. Obviously, the online review service will go some way to helping promotion within the site.
As I noted, advertising will play a part, although I don't know the details. However of the two, one had a former career as an advertising exec, the other is a banker. The advertising and business background is the part I have faith in.
What bothers me, and them, is a important point you raised about the product and how viable it will be. I know they are planning on various networking ideas to try and gain backing from industry insiders, but other than that I am well outside the loop.

Personally, I just like the idea of it, and the opportunities it would bring to those who do not have much of a market.

Apply what you can:
http://yongfook.com/actionable-growth-hacking-tactics.html

I believe Video on Demand is a much cheaper, hassle-free distribution and marketing platform in 2015. Not just Indie movies, medium & small budget mainstream movies can also make a cut on this platform. Distribution goes digital, marketing goes digital and you earn a list of potential subscribers (viewers) you can target for your next release. Cool? Get yourself a VOD platform, like, right now on http://www.studio.muvi.com/page/tour

Lot of theaters and production houses still detest the day-and-date and Ultra-VoD releases, claiming it would dent the box office business. The less of a stigma there is surrounding a VoD or day-and-date release, the more VoD releases we’ll see, especially as fewer small films have a shot at theatrical distribution, which means there’s already a glut of VoD releases vying for attention.

At Muvi Studio, we encourage the VoD model for independent cinema, knowing how difficult it becomes to survive the onslaught of major white label studio flicks and yet showcase a movie with great content. Hence, we brought in a completely customizable Do It Yourself VoD Platform for content creators and studios to help them publish their work and take it to the kind of audience they want to.