Filmmaking Stuff Filmmaking Stuff provides resources for independent filmmakers. The website includes articles on how to take a story idea from script to screen, including articles on scriptwriting, producing, finance, shooting, editing, directing, marketing, distribution and how to build an audience. Filmmaking Stuff also has articles detailing how to make money making movies – including interviews with Hollywood Producers, Directors, writers and other filmmaking professionals.

As a filmmaker, when you set out to make your movie – you have to think of the process like a business. You are creating a product.You are going to take your product to market. And if the stars align, you will sell your product.

To do this, you need to plan your marketing strategy from day one.

How will you reach your target audience and sell enough units to recoup your movie investment?

If you can’t answer these questions, then you do not have a movie business. You have a filmmaking hobby.

Posted under FILMMAKING

This filmmaking question came from one of our readers named Paul. He wondered how to make a movie on a shoestring.

If you have the same question, here are 5 filmmaking tips for making you movie:

1. Plan a story you can have fun with.
2. Make sure you know how to reach your target audience.
3. Use your weekends to make shorts (for practice.)
4. Break down your screenplay into a workable budget.
5. Collaborate with people who have more experience.

As a reminder, the biggest question you need to ask (and answer) is this:

Given the resources that I have right now, what is the feature that I can make this year?

As a filmmaker, you need to take action and make your movie NOW! The world awaits. If you want more information, make sure you reserve your spot in our filmmaking community.

Posted under FILMMAKING

As a filmmaker, you must realize that movie marketing is essential to your success. And while I’m sure you “know” this, you probably aren’t doing anything about it.

In an effort to provide you with bite sized steps you can take to accelerate your filmmaking success, I have listed the top ten things that all filmmakers must include in their movie marketing:

1. Definable hook.
2. Great screenplay.
3. Clearly definable target audience.
4. Cost effective way to reach the target audience.
5. Consistent branding (logos, fonts and colors) on movie marketing collateral.
6. Awesome poster.
7. Great Movie website that helps you “sell” your movie.
8. Marketing plan included in your business plan.
9. Team of people consisting of at least one internet nerd.
10. The willingness to implement your own sales and marketing strategy.

At speaking events, people always ask me questions about DIY or Self-Distribution – usually wondering if these methods are better than handing over all rights for some middle-man to get them into the many VOD outlets.

My response is always the same.

If the deal makes sense (meaning, you are happy with the deal), only you can decide if you should outsource your sales, marketing and distribution to some other middle-man.

But if the deal doesn’t make sense, wouldn’t it make sense for you to do what most traditional business owners do – add a movie marketing division to your production company! Then figure out how to create some movie marketing magic!

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If you liked this article on modern movie marketing, you might also enjoy more info on how to market and sell your movie.

Posted under DISTRIBUTION

I have been writing a filmmaking book. It outlines the whole modern moviemaking philosophy – and originally I thought I would stay with the modern moviemaking theme, and possibly call it “Confessions of a Modern Moviemaker.”

The title is fun because, historically books titled with the word “confessions” seem to intrigue readers… I also fear the title might be a little too gimmicky. So before I send the book off to the press, I thought I would ask you for advice.

Before I do, let me tell you what the book covers…

Unlike most the other filmmaking books you’ve read, this one is going to be tons different. In it, I will cover how to create a mini-movie studio, how to gear your material towards your target audience, how to reach your target audience and how to market and sell your movie without the middle-man.

Because coming up with a title is really tough, I need your help. I have decided to create a contest…

All you have to do is comment below with your best book title. And if I use your title, you will win a free copy of the book as well as a half-hour of modern moviemaking coaching (valued at $300) on Skipe or phone if you’re in the US.

This is a completely biased contest. And it is possible that nobody will win. This filmmaking book contest expires on August 30th, 2011.

Do you want to play?

If so, please comment ON THE FILMMAKING STUFF SITE with your best filmmaking book title idea below.

Posted under Filmmaking News

As a filmmaker, one of the toughest challenges you have is getting money to make your movie. Part of why this is challenging is because you have no idea how you are going to sell your movie. Without a clear plan on how you will market and sell your movie, you do not have a business – you have a hobby.

So here is a quick 7 part checklist you can utilize before you even think about movie finance.

1. Strong Hook: What is your movie about and why should I care?
2. Great Scrip: You need a great script that you believe in.
3. Production Budget: How will you spend your movie money?
4. Marketing Plan: Distribution is dead. How will YOU reach your audience?
5. Marketing Budget: Yeah. That’s right. You are now responsible for this too.

Do you want more information? Click here to download an awesome filmmaking book for free.

Happy Filmmaking!

Posted under FILM FINANCING

Twitter for Filmmaking Image via Wikipedia

The whole world of movie distribution is changing. This is important because the success of you movie depends on distribution.

Given the deterioration of DVD sales channels, to become successful as a filmmaker, YOU are now responsible for sourcing, engaging and selling your movie to your intended target audience.

In this filmmaking article, I decided to share my most frequently asked movie distribution questions:

Q: What about Facebook and Twitter?
A: Essential, but only part of the strategy. Even if you had a gazillion followers (which you probably don’t), it is very difficult to convert these folks to paying customers.

And if you don’t even have a Twitter or facebook page for your movie, then you will have to invest quite a few months of Twitter time, to build relationships, community and authenticity with your audience.

Q: What about my website?
A: Firstly, stop building stupid, complex flash websites. 1999 is over. And we have entered into an era where fresh, unique, interesting and SEO friendly content is king.

Figure out your website objective. And make sure your site works!

Example?

In the festivals it is OK to have press kits and behind the scenes stuff. But when you start selling your movie, your objective changes to a BUY NOW mentality. Monitor your stats and then eliminate all pages that distract your visitors.

No website? Visit my affiliate www.MovieSiteHost.com and reserve a domain name and hosting. (Disclaimer, this is an affiliate. They pay me.)

Q: Audience List building?
A: Building a list of people who know you and like your work is essential for your current movie and your long term success. As you were reading this article, you probably saw a pop-up where I offer you a ton of free stuff – for the price of your email address.

This is one of the ways I build a list. Feel free to study what I do on this site, then copy this filmmaking list building strategy for your own movie website.

Here is how you do it. And yes, as a disclaimer, I get paid to promote just about everything including the following recommendations. But these are the exact tools I use. So why not?

1. Reserve your domain address and hosting for your movie and your movie company. There are about a gazillion web hosting companies. But I use Bluehost for everything. You can find out more here: www.MovieSiteHost.com

2. After you have hosting, I recommend installing the WordPress CMS to handle your movie websites. Why? With MovieSiteHost, installing wordpress and having your website is only takes a few clicks. (Note: If you are not using MovieSiteHost, you will have to check and make sure your hosting company can handle WordPress Installations.)

3. Once your site is up, you can add your trailer and also, create a blog to tell people about your movie. Having frequently updated, fresh content will aid you in search engine optimization.

4. Ask people to become your eMail pal. For this, I use two tools. Firstly to manage my ever growing email database, I utilize aweber. Here is my affiliate link – www.AudienceList.com. Why? It’s more professional to send movie emails from a 3rd party email company with a good reputation, than your gmail account. Plus, there a few SPAM requirements you need to follow. Aweber is very strict in helping you adhere to SPAM compliance.

Once my audience list account is set up, and because this is a wordpress site, I am also able to easily plug-in a tool (which you probably saw a minute ago) called pop-up domination. (Yep. I get paid to promote these guys too.) And this tool has dramtically increased my subscriptions. You should use something similar on your own movie website.

5. The most important tip to remember is this (say it out loud 100 times): “My audience is my movie business. Without an audience, I have no movie business!” Seriously. You are responsible for cultivating genuine relationships and sharing as much value as you possible can with your audience. Treat them like gold!

Q: I don’t get social media. I just want to make movies. How much do you charge to do this?
A: First of all, I am not cheap. Sourcing an audience is tough work, time consuming and potentially expensive. This is why studios spend a gazillion dollars on marketing! But assuming your movie is still playing festivals, you have a well defined target audience (you do know your niche, right?) and you have some buzz – then that makes my job easier. But still not cheap.

Modern Movie Marketers (and people like me) usually charge between $10,000-$25,000 dollars for a 3 month strategy. Most of that money is used in marketing efforts. And most marketers make very little profit. So with that said, if you are creating a marketing budget, you need to know that marketing is not magic, it’s not a science, and while it’s essential, it’s not cheap.

And let’s be very frank. Most filmmakers don’t have that kind of money.

So here is an affordable alternative. I recommend simply grabbing a copy of the Independent Producer’s Guide to Distribution. You can find the movie distribution action guide here.

Happy Filmmaking!

Posted under DISTRIBUTION

When I put on talks about internet movie distribution, I am often asked if filmmakers should still consider finding a traditional theatrical or DVD distribution deal. My answer to that question is simple: If you have an offer and you’re happy, it’s a deal.

The problem is, most traditional movie distribution offers suck.

And the bigger problem is, most filmmakers don’t find this out until long after the festivals are over, the money has been spent and the movie is in the can, collecting dust. This is usually the time when people call me for a consultation.

During the call we discuss various movie marketing strategies, both online and offline. Our firm is interested in finding movies that have a definable hook and an established target audience. A good client is someone who has crunched numbers and has realistic expectations on how much money the movie can potentially recoup and how long this will take…

Many first time feature filmmakers believe (rightly so) that they have the most amazing movie on earth – and they cannot understand why nobody has “bought it.” While I cannot speak for prospective acquisitions executives, I can tell you two things that I see a lot with independent movies:

1. The movie has niche audience potential, but does not clearly communicate to the appropriate audience.
2. The movie does not have a clearly definable niche audience, which means the movie targets everybody.

Out of both of these scenarios, the easier one is the niche. Depending on how you pronounce the word, niche rhymes with rich. And I firmly believe that niches will make you riches. But most filmmakers fail to think this way. But targeting everybody is the same as targeting nobody (think about it) and YOU don’t have enough money to target everybody.

The other point is this, many filmmakers believe that marketing is magic. It is not… I mean, when marketing strategies work out, it’s time to open the champagne and brag about how awesome you are. But if marketing was a sure thing, movies would never flop.

My company bills $600 per hour for movie marketing consulting. Depending where you are with your own marketing and sales strategy, you may wanna forgo consulting and just grab a copy of my movie distribution guide. To add extra value to the package, I have now added a half-hour phone call BONUS.

You can find out more about the movie distribution guide here: www.HowToSellYourMovie.com

Posted under DISTRIBUTION

Do not make a movie unless you know how to access your movie niche audience. I know the drill – you probably think this filmmaking advice is way too business oriented. I don’t care.

A few years back, I got involved in a project “for the love” without considering who would actually buy the movie. Guess what? The movie died. The movie did not make money. And several of my friends are still paying off their credit cards. That was stupid. Avoid this.

Filmmaking is more fun when you can cash checks.

So how do you find you niche target audience? It begins with your USP (your unique selling proposition). Answer these questions:

1. What is your movie about?
2. Is there an audience for your movie?

Some of you will have silly answers to these questions. You’ll say, “YES! My movie is appealing to everybody.” And I’ll say – “well guess what? Everybody is nobody!” Here is my rule of thumb… If there is a print magazine devoted to your subject matter, then those subscribers are your target audience. If you cannot find a print magazine, then odds are good that your niche is too small or not profitable.

The other thing you can do is find some keywords related to your movie and use Google’s Keyword traffic estimator to find out if anybody is actually searching for your topic.

1. Goto:Keyword Tool
2. Type your search term. Make sure you put your keywords in quotes, like this: “Filmmaking Stuff”
3. Hit submit.
4. Once you get results, look for a box on the left-hand-side that says “exact.” Click that box and submit again…
5. The search data will be displayed.

This information will let you know if there is a market for your movie. If there is, then your next step in this process is to test your concept. To do this, set up a crowdfunding campaign at one of the following sites:

1. www.indieGoGo.com
2. www.KickStarter.com
3. www.crowdfundingmovies.com

With a crowdfunding campaign, you’ll be able to test your concept long before you jump into your project two feet first…

If you liked this filmmaking article, please Tweet about it (utilize the little box at the beginning of this article.)

Posted under FILMMAKING

Like it or not, many social networking sites run the risk of going out of vogue. So as a filmmaker, if you are working to build a relationship with your audience – From day one, you will want to migrate your fans off the social networking sites and get them into your own email, mailing list.

For this, I recommend using a reputable third-party email marketing service such as www.AudienceList.com.

In full disclosure, the company does pay me to promote, but it is the company I utilize for my own business.

With this tool, as soon as you sign up for one of their inexpensive accounts, you can easily create ways for your movie fans to connect with you. For an example of how this works, STOP: If you would like over $47 dollars in useful filmmaking tools for FREE, sign up below:

If you just clicked that link, you probably got an email asking you to confirm your subscription. Assuming you clicked, you were then redirected to a “Thank You Page.” And on that page you were able to download all sorts of premium filmmaking tools, for free. This is what legitimate email marketers call the “double-opt-in” process.

While I am obviously utilizing list-building to create a more meaningful relationship with filmmakers (and YOU), this model can be (and should be) applied to your own movie business.

The major difference between email marketing and traditional movie marketing methods is that members of your target audience find you, and give YOU permission to email them. This is important, because unlike traditional movie marketing methods, with email marketing, you will only communicate with people actually interested in your movie.

To make this easy, your audience list is simply a collection of email addresses. Most filmmakers will also collect the person’s first name with the email address so that they can personalize the email. So instead of saying “Hello Zombie Movie Lover”, you can say “Hey, Jason!”

While I usually stick to just collecting a name and email address, www.AudienceList.com also makes it easy to collect information such as the address and phone number of your site visitor. While this extra information may help refine your  marketing strategy – the truth is, most of your movie website visitors will not take time to fill out an extensive opt-in form.

An opt-in form is a little box that asks visitors to provide you with their name and email address. Here is an example:

With services like www.AudienceList.com, as soon as your visitor opts-in, the contact information is added to your database and managed for you, automatically! These subscribers are now part of your “list,” and you can email them with updates, deals and movie festival screening times – to name a few examples.

The other week I gave a talk at the UCLA film school. And someone asked me why I emphasize audience list building so much – So this is important. Given the disruption to traditional distribution sales channels, building an audience list for your movie and your career might be one of the most important decisions you ever make. Why? Because regardless of how the independent movie industry changes, one constant will always hold true. YOU will need to get people to sit down and watch your movie, and hopefully pay you for this privilege. www.AudienceList.com can help you get started.

Posted under DISTRIBUTION

As a filmmaker, you need to be promoting both yourself and your movie via Facebook. Assuming you already have a personal profile, you know the site allows you to easily stay in touch with friends, have conversations with co-workers and find pictures of your ex-girlfriend. But from a promotional perspective, Facebook is a powerful tool for filmmakers.

If you are part of the Filmmaking Stuff community on Facebook, you probably noticed how nearly 3000 filmmakers have leveraged the community to reach out to share ideas with filmmakers, from all over the world. But in addition to using Facebook for direct personal interests, when you account for the ever changing world of movie distribution, Facebook provides you with a big opportunity to source and connect with your target audience.

If you have a personal Facebook profile, and a movie worth promoting, you need to set up a page for your movie. To do this, go to facebook.com and scroll to the bottom of the page. From there, click the link that says create a page.

You’ll then be redirected to a web page that asks you to pick your page type. If you’re promoting a movie, choose “entertainment” and then pick “movie.” Facebook will then ask you for the name of your movie.

From there, Facebook will ask you to log into your account. If you do not have an account, (and you should), you’ll have to create one. Once complete, your page will be set. All you gotta do is fill in pertinent information about your movie, including a description, photos, links to your movie website and possibly, your movie trailer.

Your next step in the process is to reach out to your facebook friends and invite them to “like” your movie. Depending on your genre and story line, not all of your friends will respond to your request. Don’t take it personally. Many of my movie projects have been ignored by friends, probably because they are over-inundated with various requests from Angry Birds, Farmvill and other distractions.

Assuming you can break through the noise, the advantage to utilizing Facebook to promote your movie is your ability to connect with your audience. Unlike BIG Hollywood power-players, your fans have access to you.  This allows you to add value to their experience, beyond simply watching your movie. By cultivating these relationships, your audience is more likely to promote your movie to their friends, which helps you build your fan-base and make more sales, without spending much money.

In the event you would like to promote your movie further, Facebook  provides you with some very targeted advertising opportunities to reach your target audience. For example, if you are promoting a zombie movie, you will actually have the ability to reach out to zombie enthusiasts and get them to “Like” your movie.  Because they have demonstrated interest in the genre, your ability to build a relationship with these fans, and possibly get a sale, may increase.

One of the coolest aspects of building a Facebook fan page to promote your movie is the ease at which you can build buzz and community around your title.  Fans will be able to post content on the wall, and as a result, you will be able to monitor word of mouth and find out what people are saying about your movie. And in the event you get a few spammers, you can moderate comments to ensure that the content doesn’t become stupid.

In addition, some filmmakers allow fans to post photos to the fan pages. This sort of activity reinforces community and encourages word of mouth. For example, if your movie is in the festival circuit, you might ask your fans to post pictures of the screening. Then once the photo is posted, frends of these fans may see the picture – which may cause them to “like” your movie too. But the hidden benefit of user generated content is – you don’t have to worry about generating additional content!

Posted under DISTRIBUTION