Promoting your Indie Film
Jette, who is a Cinematical contributor, posts this open letter to indie filmmakers on her site celluloideyes.com.
I write about movies for Cinematical. Maybe yours is one of three films I’ll see in a single day of a film festival. Or maybe it’s one of the films screening in a couple of weeks at a local theater and I’d like to include it in my weekly News from Slackerwood listing.
Only … I search the Web and I can’t find the information I need on your movie. You don’t have a listing on IMDb, or maybe it’s a bare-bones listing that includes only the director’s name. I search Google and can’t find a Web site for the film. I finally find your Web site and it is a single page that includes no stills and no information about the cast and crew. It’s frustrating and unhelpful to me, and a missed opportunity for extra publicity for your film.
In the article she explains how Cinematical ran a big image from V for Vendetta for their SXSW article not because they wanted to, but because it was the only film that had any pictures on google images. If stills had been available from one of the smaller independent films they probably would have ran those instead.
Besides making it a lot easier for journalists to write about your movie, there is another reason to make or budget for the website. I was at a panel featuring Edward Noeltner, president of international distribution company, Cinema Management Group. He explained how the low-budget horror flick, Reeker, secured distribution based off its website. Writer/Producer Dave Payne understood how he could use the web to present distributors a clear picture of the films market potential. Good images that looked like a box cover, along with a really good trailer available on the website, convinced Ed that Reeker was a slam dunk before he ever even saw the movie.
Even if your film is just a short you should still think about how your going to market it. Last year my friend Tom Dunlap made an excellent short documentary about Bird Watchers called Life List. His website provides a place for agents or producers to look him up and also is place to purchase Life List. However, unless your making X-Men 3 skip the flash!
June 14th, 2006 at 5:26 am
[…] I’m waiting on some pictures before I give you guys the full report; however, I wanted to point out quickly that I saw exactly half of all the short films playing and only one has a website. If your short film played at CineVegas and I was going to review the shorts progam One Rate Short is the only one I would have press materials for. […]