Most filmmakers create crazy movie websites that look awesome, but do nothing to help sell their movies. Don’t do that!

If you are promoting your movie online, you need to create a simple website. You should have a trailer, an about page, a buy now button, links to your social networks and an easy way for someone to sign up for your audience list. Additionally, adding a few dozen relevant blog articles will help you pick up organic traffic.

Anything else is egotistical movie marketing and bad business.

Posted under DISTRIBUTION

With the demise of traditional DVD distribution, you as a filmmaker are responsible for your audience. Why? Because your audience is your business – and without an audience you will have no movie business.

Having an audience database for your movie is essential.

Whenever I give talks, I make people repeat this aloud. This gets a few chuckles, but kidding aside – this is important stuff for any filmmaker.

Building Your Audience Database

As a professional filmmaker, you need to build a database of people who know you and know your work. But don’t let the word “database” throw you off. A database doesn’t have to be complex. At the miminum, it is simply a list of the names and emails of your subscribers.

Once you have this info, you can easily generate personalized email, letters and phone calls to your audience. And having a list allows you to directly promote your current movie project or an upcoming movie project.

Tools For Building Your List

Most of your list building efforts will happen online. So you need hosting for your website. And I suggest you go with a company that allows you to easily set up a WordPress powered website. That way, you’ll be able to grab a copy of the fully optimized WordPress Template for Filmmakers.

But let’s face it… Even with the greatest movie website on earth – The truth is, most of your movie website visitors will NOT buy your movie on the first visit to your site. Think about it. Most people are busy.

So in addition to marketing your current movie (and all of your future movies), you will need an easy way to capture and collect visitor email addresses. I recommend Aweber as an easy way to build your audience list.  And after you grab Aweber, I suggest utilizing this tool to increase subscriber opt-ins.

Posted under DISTRIBUTION

The new era of filmmaking has arrived. This is a world where you will need to create your own movies, find your own audience and compete with small filmmakers all over the globe for the same eyeballs. Gone are the days when upfront cash advances paid off your budget.

If you are going to succeed as a filmmaker, you will need a new strategy. What can YOU do today to build your audience?

Posted under DISTRIBUTION

Image via Wikipedia

When you’re in the middle of the filmmaking process, you probably aren’t thinking about ways to advertise your movie online.

I want to provide you with a little secret: 

Advertise your movie on StumbleUpon

StumbleUpon is a social bookmarking tool that allows people to share interesting websites with their StumbleUpon  networks as well as Facebook, Twitter and email contacts. And if someone happens to “stumble upon” your movie website, you have the potential to garner significant traffic!

(Case study: Our zombie movie got over 100,000 visitors from the service.)

But did you know you can actually pay for someone to “stumble” your site?

It’s true. And it’s awesome. The StumbleUpon paid discovery service allows you to choose from three advertising service tiers. Each tier provides a different level of audience targeting. The first tier starts at a nickle per stumble.

But here is where it gets interesting. Unlike other paid advertising solutions, StumbleUpon allows for exponential, unpaid traffic. Let me explain:

Let’s say you want to target someone into horror movies. So you invest a nickle to get that person to “stumble” your website. But then that person shares your site with four of his friends. Guess what?

Because your paid stumble resulted in four additional free stumbles,  you really only invested one penny per visit (five cents for five visits). Taking this further, let’s say these five stumblers each share your site with one friend – Now you got ten visits for a nickle.  That is an investment of merely a half-cent per visit!

And if these people tell ten of their friends… I’m sayin’ if you are lucky, then you could possibly get exponential traffic onto your site!

Not bad for a nickle.

Before you get too excited, you should know something. I have tested this service with various movie titles and websites, but so far, only a small handful of my test sites resulted in significant traffic. The rest just were not interesting enough to warrant exponential stumbles.

But for five cents a visit, StumbleUpon Paid Discovery  may be worth a test.

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If you liked this tip, you’ll love my “Film Distribution Action Pack”

Posted under DISTRIBUTION

Given the changes in movie distribution and the fragmentation of audiences around the globe, you are now responsible for sourcing, engaging and building relationships with your audience.

While sourcing and engaging your customer is a new process for filmmakers, most traditional businesses have been managing their own marketing, sales and distribution for years. So the good news is, the model is already out there. You just need to apply it to your filmmaking business.

Here are five tools you should utilize to help you market and sell your movies.

1. Website for your production company.
2. Separate websites for each movie.
3. Opt-in form to capture visitor info.
4. Social networking profiles for your production company and each movie.
5. An awesome trailer, complete with a call to action title card.

If you don’t have a website, check out my affiliate (they pay me to promote) at www.MovieSiteHost.com. If you do have a website, but you have no way to get visitors on your list, check out my other affiliate at www.AudienceList.com

And in the event that you forget everything else about filmmaking success, you must not forget the importance of you audience. Your audience is your business. Without an audience, you have no business.

If you want more info on any of these topics, you might want to download your free filmmaking tools.

Posted under DISTRIBUTION

To survive the volatility of indie filmmaking, you will have to change your strategy. As a filmmaker, you will need both a short term game and a long term game.

Short term, you will obviously want to finish your movie.

Long term, because the market is saturated, you will need to think of yourself as a mini-studio, continually focused on building your brand and sourcing your own audience. To achieve this, you will need to create multiple titles over time, resulting in a very genre specific movie library.

While creating a mini-studio may seem beyond the scope and scale of what you think is possible, setting your sights high is much more proactive than ignoring the fact that backyard indies are now competing for the same virtual shelf space as mainstream Hollywood movies. This is a time of change. This is the indie movie distribution equivalent of the automobile replacing the horse-drawn-wagon.

You need to man up.

There will come a day when all entertainment will be on-demand and cheap to consume. The question is, will you ignore this movement and continue to play your distribution lottery ticket in hopes of winning the dream deal?

Or will you start sourcing your audience today?

Posted under FILM FINANCING

Will Hollywood buy YOUR movie? Image via Wikipedia

Making money as a filmmaker is not easy. I can think of a gazillion other businesses that work much more smoothly than trying to produce projects, source an audience and make some money. Yet despite these odds, serious filmmakers push on.

Assuming you are serious – And assuming you want to make money making movies – here is my advice for today.

1. Do not make a movie unless you know your niche audience.
2. Do not make a movie unless you know how to reach your audience.
3. Do not make a movie unless you have enough money to market your movie.

I know many of you still hold onto the myth that “if I make my movie, Hollywood will buy it for a gazillion dollars.” If that happens for YOU, awesome! Maybe you can help me produce my next movie.

But for the vast majority of filmmakers, the golden ticket does not arrive. And when this happens, you can choose to give up, or work hard as heck to sell your movie yourself. That’s right.

Like any other business, as a business owner YOU will actually have to market and sell your movie, yourself. Welcome to business 101.

If you liked this article, you’ll love the filmmaking newsletter.

Posted under DISTRIBUTION

I know what you’re thinking – Why is this filmmaking, modern moviemaking advocate of internet VOD distribution talking to you about how to design a DVD cover?

Because…

Regardless of distribution technology, your audience still values the visual representation of your movie as a tangible product. And in ways akin to marketing an eBook via Amazon Kindle, you still need a killer design to represent your movie.

To help explain this further, I reached out to my buddy Ian Hannin. If the name sounds familiar, it means you probably read popular comic books. Over the past decade, Ian is responsible for coloring some of the most popular comic books in existence for Marvel Comics and DC Comics.

But in addition to Ian Hannin’s comic book coloring experience, he also designs movie marketing materials, such as movie posters, virtual covers, DVD covers and the actual artwork that goes on a DVD disc to make it look pro.

Jason Brubaker
How important is having good movie art for filmmakers?

Ian Hannin
People judge a book by the cover. Same with DVD or virtual DVD. You need to have high end, awesome illustration.

Jason Brubaker
What components of movie marketing art are most important?

Ian Hannin
Make sure the design complements the subject matter and tone of the movie. A lot of filmmakers fail to think about their target audience when designing movie marketing collateral.

Jason Brubaker
What’s the biggest mistake filmmakers make in their design?

Ian Hannin
The craftsmanship of the DVD cover often leaves a lot to be desired. In the popular marketplaces, such as Amazon and iTunes, your movie will be competing for virtual shelf space with expensive studio titles. Your job is to create high resolution, easy to read and enticing movie marketing materials… Does the movie artwork draw you in and make you want to see the movie?

Jason Brubaker
A lot of filmmakers try to do this themselves. What is your advice there?

Ian Hannin
If you have someone in your team good at graphic art, awesome. Just make sure your art complements the movie and helps you attract your target audience. But if you don’t have a good guy on your team, you can always email me. Maybe I know someone.

Jason Brubaker
You mean like you?

Ian Hannin
Maybe. HaHa!

Jason Brubaker
How can filmmakers hire you?

Ian Hannin
Go to www.IanHannin.com and contact me through the contact page.

Jason Brubaker
How much do you charge?

Ian Hannin
Depends on the package. Just email me at www.IanHannin.com. Let me know what you’re looking for.

Jason Brubaker
Thanks for stopping by Filmmaking Stuff!

Ian Hannin
Thanks. Happy to help filmmakers in need of art!

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Next time you need to make your filmmaking stuff look awesome, reach out to Ian Hannin and see if he can help you. Oh, also, in full disclosure, I am friends with Ian. He will probably buy me a burrito for any business I throw his way.

Happy Filmmaking!

Posted under INTERVIEWS

RSS feed Image via Wikipedia

If you find yourself with a movie and no idea how to sell it, get back to the basics. Unless you get an awesome distribution deal, then you are responsible for the success of your movie. The good news is, most of your sales will come from the internet. And you can get started today.

Set up your movie website at movie site host then create a way to capture targeted traffic and grow your audience list . Once you have the foundation, your next step is to drive targeted traffic to your website.

One simple way to drive traffic to your movie website is through the use of frequent press release submission.

Unlike the old days, releasing your press through the internet means you are no longer limited to traditional journalists. Instead, you can rest assured that your press will be syndicated through RSS feeds. RSS is short for real simple syndication – and many websites aggregate information from RSS feeds and re-post the “news,” complete with backlinks to your movie site.

There are quite a few paid press release submission services out there… But for $5 dollars, you can check out www.Fiverr.com and usually find someone willing to release your press for you.

Anyway, if you like this tip, you’ll love the official Movie Maker Action Pack. Grab a copy today.

Posted under DISTRIBUTION

Mad Scientist in Movies Image via Wikipedia

How to sell nonsense in your screenplay (the Klein-Hasslepark Effect)

Recently I saw “Source Code,” a movie I enjoyed even though ultimately the explanation for what is happening is nonsense. (I know some of you will disagree, but I can’t get into it without spoilers and the point below is valid even if this one isn’t nonsense, because plenty of movies are.)

The key to movies like this is keeping things moving so the audience doesn’t have time to think about it until afterward, and keeping the explanations short.

“Source Code” has a repetitive aspect but each iteration moves quickly and introduces another element to keep our interest, and the keeps things moving along at a good clip. It’s like hucksters at the county fair or time-share salespeople who talk so fast that your brain can’t keep up and just gives up.

However, don’t give your mad scientist too much exposition because in all probability it will be boring and the audience will switch off and that gives them dangerous time to consider whether anything is making sense. You don’t want them to do it. Better to say something like, “This is the first time the Klein-Hasslepark Effect has affected anything larger than a proton! That’s why your wife no longer has human form!”

And then hope for actors and a director as good as the folks behind “Source Code.”

Posted under SCREENWRITING