The Implosion of Distributor Passion River… And What it Means for You
by Pat Murphy
Pat Murphy is a documentary filmmaker and editor. His latest film, Psychedelia, uncovers the history and resurgence of psychedelic research. It was sold to universities, nonprofits, international broadcasters, and the streaming service Gaia.
Passion River Films was one of those rare distributors. In an industry with plenty of shady companies, they had a reputation for honesty. Some of the most influential figures in the independent documentary distribution space referred their colleagues to them. And yet under the hood, in that nondescript office building in New Jersey, the operation at Passion River was in serious trouble. And it had been for some time.
Founded in 1998 by Allen Chou, Passion River’s catalog focused on educational documentaries, which they sold to universities, libraries, nonprofits, and the DVD/VOD market. Unlike a lot of distributors, they were flexible with filmmakers. They allowed them to put a cap on distribution expenses and reserve certain rights for themselves. I signed my film Psychedelia with them in 2021 and got the feeling that it was in good hands.
Yet for the past few years, Passion River had been withholding accounting reports and payments to filmmakers. Communication slowly dropped off and eventually went completely silent. Requests for information were ignored. And then earlier this year, they announced—in an unexpected, evasive, and self-serving manner—that they were insolvent. Hundreds of filmmakers lost many thousands of dollars, and some are still dealing with the logistical nightmare it caused for their films.
What happened at Passion River? How did it slip by undetected? We may never know. But Passion River’s collapse should serve as a stark warning to all filmmakers of the precarious nature of film distribution. It comes during a tumultuous time for the industry and the larger economy. It’s a bombshell story that demonstrates the inadequacy of systems to deal with this situation. And it shows how the hardship lands squarely on the creatives who make this industry possible.
What We Know
If you’re pressed for time, here’s a summary of the situation:
- In January, Passion River announced that they had become insolvent, and were selling the “majority of their assets” to another distributor called BayView Entertainment.
- Once filmmakers were connected with BayView, they were told that they had purchased the “assets, but not the liabilities” of Passion River.
- Passion River had been withholding accounting statements and payments to producers in 2022 and earlier, leaving producers without any record of the money they were owed. BayView said they were not responsible for these payments.
- Filmmakers had nobody to contact. Passion River abandoned its offices, shut down their phone lines and email domains, and transitioned their employees to new positions at BayView.
- The total damage in lost payments, although difficult to determine, is likely in the multiple six figures. There appears to be no accountability on the part of Passion River.
Keep reading to get the full story, as well as distribution strategist Peter Broderick’s key takeaway.
Announcing Their Insolvency
On January 31, 2023, Josh Levin (Head of Sales and Acquisitions at Passion River), sent the following note to most (but not all) of the filmmakers that had contracts with the company:
I have some news to share – the parent company of Passion River Films lost the ability to meet its obligations and has sold the majority of its Passion River assets to BayView Entertainment, LLC. BayView is a venerable, much larger film distributor with an outstanding 20+ year reputation in film distribution.
I am sure you have questions about what this transition means for you and your films. These questions can best be answered by speaking directly with Peter Castro, the VP of Acquisitions at BayView. Please email Peter at ***** to set up a call. Peter is looking forward to speaking with you.
According to their contract with filmmakers, Passion River was supposed to send accounting statements and payment 60 days after the end of each quarter. This meant that all sales that Passion River made in the fourth quarter of 2022 (October-December) were supposed to be reported and paid by March 1, 2023.
This timing was particularly unfortunate for me and my film, which had been released in Summer 2022. We secured a streaming deal with Gaia and it was released on TVOD. Gaia pays their licensing fee in two installments. So, I was waiting on the second payment ($9,750) plus all the TVOD and educational sales from my film’s release. Those payments came in the fourth quarter 2022, so I was waiting for that statement and payment to come by March 1, 2023.
Naively, I responded by asking Josh Levin about his own well-being. While I found Passion River’s work a bit sloppy and frustrating, I took Josh to be an honest broker. I was relieved to hear that he was going to work for BayView as Vice President of Sales [LinkedIn account required to view]. To me, the whole thing was portrayed as a standard acquisition. I thought that I would work with Josh as before, but this time under a new company name. I assumed my payment of over $10,000 would come from the new company.
But by the time I was able to get through to Peter Castro (VP of Acquisitions at BayView), it was already March 3, 2023. Neither my accounting statement nor my payment had arrived. My conversation with Peter turned out to be extremely unsettling. This was no ordinary acquisition. BayView had purchased the “assets but not the liabilities” of Passion River.
Yes, that’s a thing. Apparently BayView did not actually purchase the rights to our films, and therefore they were not responsible for any outstanding payments from Passion River. And they had no way of collecting that money or telling us what happened to it. We had the option to sign new contracts with them, at a less favorable split than we had with Passion River.
As for getting answers on what happened over at Passion River, such as why they became insolvent or what they did with the money that was due to us? There was no avenue to explore those questions. Josh Levin, now employed by BayView, said he was forbidden to talk about anything that happened at Passion River. Allen Chou, the president of Passion River, whom most people had never met, was elusive. The voicemail boxes at Passion River were full and their email domains would bounce.
I was devastated. And furious. Like most folks, my film was an independent labor of love over several years. What made it sting even more was the fact that Passion River did not actually secure my streaming deal with Gaia. Gaia heard about my film through my own marketing efforts, and as a good faith move towards Josh Levin, I decided to give Passion River their 25% commission on that deal.
As it turns out, I was not alone.
Finding the Others
Without any helpful information, we began finding each other through online forums like The D-Word and the Facebook group, Protect Yourself from Predatory Film Distributors [Facebook account required and one must join the group to view]. Eventually, we gathered on a private channel, so we could share information and piece together whatever we could from our own investigations and experiences.
Each film’s situation was different, but pretty much everybody reported the same experience working with Passion River: disorganized workflows, poor communication, improper accounting, missed payments, and even downright deception.
Filmmaker Jacob Bricca of Finding Tatanka said, “They were responsive at first, informing me of sales they had made and giving me regular statements showing that I was slowly paying off the charges associated with creating the DVD and distributing the film. This communication dropped off as the years went on. I finally contacted them again in mid 2022. These inquiries went unanswered. Finally, after repeated attempts to get a reply, I got a statement in early 2023 that I was owed over $1,400… I have never seen a penny from Passion River.”
Jacob was the only filmmaker I ever spoke to that had received an accounting statement for the fourth quarter of 2022. The rest of the filmmakers did not receive any accounting statements for that quarter, leaving them without a written document of what they were owed. Many reported incomplete accounting prior to the 4th quarter as well. Time and again, filmmakers were told by Josh Levin that he would “ping accounting” about their issue. However, filmmakers received no response or follow through.
While all this was happening, Passion River was still actively marketing their catalog. In March of 2023, I found an End of the Semester Sale on their website, which was active from December 1, 2022 to January 31, 2023. My film was featured prominently on the page, even though I had never received a single report of an educational sale. The fact that they would deliberately run a sale as late as December (when the sale to BayView must have been known), raises serious ethical questions.
“Passion River is not the first, or last, film company to go out of business,” said Emmy-and Peabody-winning and Oscar-nominated producer Amy Hobby. “But the lack of transparency, failed reporting, and missed payments simultaneous to continued recoupment off filmmakers’ backs is egregiously unethical.”
Attempts at a Resolution
Besides dealing with the financial fallout from Passion River, our other big question was about what to do with our films moving forward. They were still up on VOD platforms, but where was that money going? And what do we do now that we don’t have a distributor?
Director Kim Laureen, of Selfless, signed with Passion River in 2020: “Since day one I have had to chase reports and payments.” Unlike me, she was never notified of the sale to BayView. With nobody to contact about her pending payments, Kim sent a tweet out to Passion River. That got the attention of Peter Castro, VP of Acquisitions at BayView. Kim had a conversation with Peter, in which she explained why people were frustrated. Peter agreed to host a Zoom call with Kim and any other filmmaker who felt mistreated. Kim and I put out notices to the group of filmmakers about a “virtual town hall” on March 17, 2023.
Peter must have been surprised when he logged on to zoom and found dozens of angry filmmakers asking tough questions and demanding answers. Consultant Jon Reiss also joined and was instrumental in getting straight answers. The conversation went on for almost an hour and a half. We were able to confirm the following during that meeting:
- It’s unclear exactly what BayView purchased from Passion River, but it allowed them to collect revenue off of our films without a contract.
- Since BayView was currently collecting revenue on our films, they would send us payment for 2023 sales whether or not we signed new contracts with them.
- For those of us who wanted to move on to new distributors, BayView would facilitate that.
It sounds like many people ended up signing with BayView. But most of the people I’ve spoken to decided to move on to new distributors or go a DIY route without any distributor. Figuring out how to do all this and getting Allen Chou to cooperate was full of complexities over the ensuing months:
- Many distributors required an official release from Passion River. Through a collective effort led by producer Amy Hobby, Allen Chou wrote an official letter on May 9, 2023. This was his first communication to us, more than four months after the transition.
- Passion River had used an aggregator called Filmhub to upload many of our films to TVOD platforms. We were able to transition accounts with a representative there. In this scenario, the filmmaker keeps 80% of TVOD revenue, rather than giving Passion River or BayView their commission.
- BayView sent us accounting statements for Q1, as promised, on May 15, 2023.
Legal Recourse
One of the biggest revelations for me was the inadequacy of the legal system to deal with this situation. When I signed my deal with Passion River, I went back and forth on the legal language endlessly. I did everything I thought I could to protect myself and spent thousands of dollars in legal fees to do so. And when Passion River blatantly breached the contract? There was no good answer on what to do.
One avenue the legal system provides is small claims court. It’s designed to get your case heard in front of a judge without the need for an attorney. One filmmaker, who wishes to remain anonymous, decided to go this route. Their lawyer told them it was a “clear-cut case.” The filmmaker and their partner had painstakingly put together a Statement of Reasons, outlining their relationship with Passion River and what they were owed. In New Jersey, the maximum allowance is $5K.
Small claims court was on Zoom, and Allen Chou was there with his attorney, Spencer B Robbins. When it came time to present, Robbins interjected with an arbitration clause that was in Passion River’s contract, stating that any dispute between the parties should be brought in front of an arbitrator. With that, the judge threw out the case. The filmmakers tried to make a rebuttal but felt they were not given a proper chance to speak.
The filmmakers were so distraught that they decided to cut their losses and move on. “It’s why people lose faith in the justice system,” said one of them. While it’s difficult to say how much Passion River withheld from filmmakers, we can make a general estimate. Passion River had around 400 films in their catalog. So even if each film was only owed $1k that would aggregate to $400k. Almost half a million dollars. Where all that money went remains unknown. And as far as we can tell, nobody involved has been held accountable.
Key Takeaways
Here we are almost a year later. Many have expressed anger and depressed feelings around the whole situation. Writing this article has brought up a lot of emotions. But it’s also made me determined to not give in to cynicism. We need to turn this awful situation into something productive. In an attempt to do so, the following are some key takeaways from the experience.
1) The Importance of Due Diligence
“The best way that independent filmmakers can protect themselves from bad distributors is to do due diligence,” said distribution strategist Peter Broderick. “Due diligence should involve speaking to 3-5 filmmakers who are currently, or recently, in business with that distributor. The filmmaker should not ask the distributor for referrals, they should look up which films the company is working with and have confidential conversations with them about their experience. Is the distributor sending reports regularly and paying on time? Are they easily accessible to their filmmakers? Have the results matched the expectations created by the distributor? If the filmmaker isn’t comfortable sharing numbers, that’s fine. You just need a clear sense of whether working with this distributor is an opportunity or could be a disaster.”
It’s true that if I had done proper due diligence in 2021, when I was considering signing with Passion River, I probably would have avoided disaster. It seems that Passion River had been withholding payments even back then. But we also need some sort of institution where we can centralize our experience and knowledge around distributors. The issue is that everybody exists in their own silo and they don’t speak up out of fear. We need some sort of centralized way to create accountability.
2) The Filmmaker Suffers Most
It’s clear that the filmmakers bore the brunt of this entire fiasco. We were the ones who invested in our films. We are the ones who suffered the financial fallout. The employees at Passion River got new positions at BayView. Josh Levin maintains a faculty position at American University. There’s not much revenue in independent documentaries, and there is a layer of professionals who scrape whatever exists up top, leaving little to nothing for the filmmaker. So be careful where you spend your resources.
3) A Warning of What’s Ahead
The collapse of Passion River happened at an uncertain time for the industry at large. 2023 started off with the Sundance Film Festival, which saw the worst sales of documentaries in years. There will continue to be more disruptions as new technology and viewing habits change the way films are made and seen. This is also happening in a tumultuous macroeconomic environment. I would not be surprised if more distributors start to become insolvent or if they sell off their assets in the same manner Passion River did. In fact, there’s a thread on the Protect Yourself Facebook Group [Facebook account required and one must join the group to view] about filmmakers not getting paid by 1091 Pictures. If you have a contract with a film distributor, be on high alert. Stay on top of payments and reports. Ask the difficult questions. Be vigilant. If Passion River gets away with all of this, it could become a blueprint for other distributors to follow.
Thank you for reading. If you have any questions or comments, please reach out to me at pat@hardrainfilms.com.
admin October 31st, 2023
Posted In: Distribution, DIY, Documentaries, Facebook, Legal
Social Media Update 2020
by Sheri Candler
Every year, I compile a presentation for the TFC all-staff meeting to inform the group on what the latest social media trends are, what changes have recently taken place and what may be to come on the major social media platforms. This post will share the insights I gathered with that might benefit filmmakers in the coming year.
General Social Media Trends
- People’s attention spans are short and the way they like to consume content has also changed. Content formats like Stories have become popular. They are short, engaging, and addictive in a way that people can spend hours scrolling through one Story after another. Facebook forecasts that sharing to Stories will surpass sharing to Feeds at some point in the coming year. Consider creating a 15 seconds vertical video as one of your trailers.
- 1 out of every 4 Facebook Pages now use paid advertising as part of their social media strategy and Facebook accounts for 23% of total U.S. digital ad spending. If you’re trying to grow an audience via Facebook and Instagram, budget will be needed for paid social media placement.
- 4 in 10 consumers say they are unlikely to become emotionally attached to a brand unless they are interacting via social media, but those interactions need to be authentic and personalized. This means refrain from only posting about your projects and really try to relate, on a personal level, to your audience.
- Most popular mobile social networking apps in the United States as of September 2019, by monthly users (in millions). Facebook is still tops when it comes to users.
- Approximately 223 million Americans use social media in 2019. This is a slight increase over 2018, and a slight decrease compared to 2017. Overall, however, social media usage is essentially unchanged over the past four years. The ONLY social network growing among young Americans is Instagram, up from 64% to 66% in the past two years. Social networks in 2019 are now nearly as likely to be utilized by people 35-54 years old, than those younger, which is good news for theatrical campaigns and documentary makers.
Social Media Usage: Total U.S. Population, from 2008 to 2019
- Facebook is actually less popular now than it was four years ago. But it is still at the top of the list for daily users.
The only demographic group that is using Facebook more than in prior years are Americans 55+. - The average monthly change in page likes is just 0.13% Building your Facebook audience is definitely a slow and steady game.
The average organic reach for a Facebook post is 5.5%. Take the number of fans on your page and multiply it by 5.5% to see if you are reaching the average per post. If you are not, then re-evaluate what you are posting. - 60% of Americans who watch digital video do so on Facebook and the average engagement rate for Facebook video posts is 6.13%
Among U.S. adults who use Facebook, around three-quarters (74%) visit the site at least once a day. - Facebook has eliminated Post Scheduling for pages on DESKTOP. To access this function, you need to use Creators Studio or third-party scheduling tools like Hootsuite.
- Groups are booming on Facebook. They’re pretty much the platform’s most popular feature, and engagement in groups is skyrocketing.
- A change in Reach calculations. More on that here.
- New Creators Studio insights called Traffic Source. More on that here .
- Twitter’s U.S. user base is predicted to grow 0.3% in 2020.
- Only 20% of Twitter’s daily users are American.
- Compared to other age groups, Gen Z is most likely to be using Twitter. (By comparison, only 26% of 30- to 49-year-olds use Twitter.) That said, Gen Z is still much more likely to be using YouTube, Instagram, Snapchat and Facebook. 65% of Twitter’s top 10% of users (by tweet volume) identify as women. And 69% of this group say they tweet about politics, and identify as Democrats.
- Tweets with hashtags get 100% more engagement, but only 1 or 2 hashtags.
- 93% of video views on Twitter happen on mobile so be sure to use mobile-optimized video that has subtitles or captions for sound-off viewing.
- No political advertising. Political ads are defined as content that references a candidate, political party, elected or appointed government official, election, referendum, ballot measure, legislation, regulation, directive, or judicial outcome. Ads that contain references to political content, including appeals for votes, solicitations of financial support, and advocacy for or against any of the above-listed types of political content, are prohibited under this policy.
- Redesign of the Twitter layout on desktop happened in summer 2019.
- Twitter lets you add a photo, video or gif to a Retweet. Read more about this here.
- 2 rumored changes that could be coming in 2020. The ability to prevent other users from mentioning you without your permission and ability to disable a retweet on your tweet.
- 1 billion people use Instagram every month, though only 110 million are located in the United States.
- Instagram is the most popular traditional social network among U.S. teens 13-17yrs. Only YouTube is more popular with teens. 72% of U.S. teens say they use Instagram, compared to 69% for Snapchat and 51% for Facebook.
- The gender mix on Instagram is pretty even: 52% female and 48% male.
- In case you were thinking of hiring an influencer to help with an Instagram campaign, brands pay Instagram influencers between $100 and $2,085 per post. For videos, they pay between $114 and $3,138, and for Stories they pay between $43 and $721.
- Brands post an average of 2.5 Stories per week.
- Instagram is now hiding Likes on mobile devices for US accounts after testing in several other countries. Facebook may soon start hiding likes, too. Likes can still be seen on desktop.
- Donation stickers available on IG. Instagram launched donation stickers for Stories back in May, giving accounts the capacity to raise money for non-profit groups via the option. A non profit must be registered on Facebook first in order to have this capability.
- IGTV now supports Landscape Videos, though it is up to the user to actually turn the phone to watch them. Most people watch their IG feed in vertical position so uploading a landscape video is asking to go against consumer habits.
- It is recommended to use Facebook Creators Studio on desktop to manage a brand Instagram account because it gives access to scheduling posts and expanded metrics.
Sources: https://www.convinceandconvert.com/social-media-research/social-media-usage-statistics
https://blog.hootsuite.com/facebook-statistics/#business https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2019/05/16/facts-about-americans-and-facebook
Recent changes that affect Facebook Pages
Source: https://blog.hootsuite.com/twitter-statistics
Recent changes that affect Twitter
Instagram.
Source: https://blog.hootsuite.com/instagram-statistics
Recent changes that affect Instagram
A word about TikTok
For those who do not have teenagers in your life, TikTok is a video sharing platform where short updates, typically accompanied by music, are shared publicly. This is one of the fastest-growing social platforms and forecasted to continue to grow by leaps and bounds in 2020, but be cautious with any platform championed by teens. The very young are quite fickle and meteoric rise is frequently countered with equally quick crashes as the party moves to the next shiny thing. For a look at brands killing it on TikTok, read more here.
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Sheri Candler February 21st, 2020
Posted In: Facebook, Instagram, Marketing, Social Network Marketing, technology, Twitter
Tags: Facebook, social media, social media for filmmakers, social media tools, Twitter
Social Media Update for Indie Filmmakers, Part 1: Facebook
If there is one constant rule in social media marketing, it’s that things are always changing. What might have worked a year ago, six months ago, possibly even yesterday, is not working today. Each social platform is continually trying to stay relevant to followers and increasingly trying to improve profitability for shareholders and business users.
At a recent all-staff meeting for The Film Collaborative, I was asked to present recent changes to the main social platforms most relevant to marketing independent films and to advise on how to take advantage of these changes. Here are the trends and changes I think most independent filmmakers should be aware of when planning for their marketing efforts. This is a multi-part series with the first part focused on Facebook, the biggest social network (by FAR) in the world.
Reports of Facebook’s demise have been circulating for many years, yet despite all the controversy and concerns over account hacking, user privacy and election rigging, Facebook as an enterprise has continued to grow in the past months. Worldwide, there are over 2.23 billion monthly active Facebook users as of Q2 2018, an 11% increase year over year. In fact, a recent study projects that “Facebook will command 24.5% of all video ad spending this year … and be the top social media platform with an estimated 87% share of U.S. social media video ad spending.”
In order to optimize their profitability and relevance to Facebook users, as well as implementing their commitment to better policing the content that is distributed on the social network, changes are constantly being made to the platform which affect business pages. Here are the recent ones:
- Introduction of Admin Registration: If a Facebook page or Instagram account you administrate is going to pay to boost or advertise ANY content of a political or national legislative interest persuasion, you will not be able to place ads unless you are personally registered with Facebook. This entails a scan of your driver’s license or governmental photo ID and a letter which will come in the USPS with a code that you have to use in order to register.
- Admins may register and carry all pages they administrate under their registration. Admins who do not register will be unable to place paid ads on content that is deemed “political” and this is a broad list. Topics like education, immigration, environment, abortion, civil rights, etc.are all deemed political and in need of permission and labeling. See the broad list here. I would imagine that many documentaries will need to be aware of this rule. All “political” ads will be cataloged into a Political content database for anyone to search.
- All active advertising is now publicly visible under the Ads and Info tab on any public Facebook page: From the Info and Ads tab, people will be able to view the active ads a Page is running across Facebook, Instagram, Messenger and Audience Network, even if they’re not in the target audience. Any clicks on the ads do not contribute to the click count and clicks are not charged against the advertising budget. For more info on this go here.
- Yet another change to the newsfeed algorithm. The new algorithm puts more emphasis on data points that show active interaction. That means comments, shares and reactions (in this order) are crucial. Also, personal posts are more valuable than business posts so if you want to do well in the newsfeed, strongly encourage individuals to post for your film organically. In order to create meaningful interactions, pages need to share things that are meaningful to their followers, not just to themselves. Only if followers engage emotionally and personally will they feel the need to comment, share or interact with your content. However, Facebook will actively demote any posts that explicitly ask for actions such as “tag a friend” or “leave a comment below” so try wording your posts as questions or use words, images or videos that elicit reaction. You might also ask your followers to set your page to See First so that they will keep seeing your posts in their newsfeed, even after an algorithm change.Probably the most important advice filmmakers should be aware of, with Facebook and all other major social media platforms is embrace the power of PAID REACH!
- Pay to play is not new on Facebook. It has been happening for at least three years and still filmmakers are putting so little into it. With Facebook further de-prioritizing content from pages and brands, its time to be educated and more prepared for paid advertising in order to reach targeted audiences in the newsfeed, among many other places. Education is especially needed for using Ad Manager rather than just boosting posts. Ad Manager gives much more precise control over where ads appear, who can be targeted, cost per click, links where traffic will go and creative to be used, but it does need practice…or working with someone who uses it. Ad Manager also is constantly evolving, so taking a crash course will only begin to cover the basics.
- It is important to note that paid Facebook advertising DOES NOT just encompass Facebook. It stretches to include Instagram, banner ads on Instant Articles and Facebook Audience Network, Messenger, Instagram Stories, and Facebook Stories. Perhaps IGTV will be coming as an ad platform in the future. For those who think their target audience is not using Facebook, likely you will be reaching them through Facebook Ad Manager on one of the many other places they are visiting online, so do not discount Facebook as an ad platform.
- Create mobile first content. This is especially true for videos being posted to Facebook, but also to Twitter and Instagram. Filmmakers need to stop creating only one trailer, in a 16:9 aspect ratio. Most likely your trailer is not going to be shown on TV, so start thinking about how to optimize it for mobile viewing. Mobile viewers now do not turn their phones, and often do not watch with the sound on so provide caption overlays.
Videos on Facebook perform exceptionally well, so lots of compelling video clips and stories should be created. The chart below shows all of the different formats possible and filmmaking teams should bear these in mind when editing for social media use.
As examples, reference these clips, featurettes and trailers:
As I hit Publish on these updates, doubtless something new will be cropping up that will either expand your ability to reach new audiences or curb that ability in some way. It is important to keep up with the the changes or work with someone who handles social media marketing on a constant basis so that the efforts you put in to reaching audiences aren’t a waste of time, labor and money. Social media is the most cost effective and measurably impactful way of putting your work in front of those who will love it, but as with all forms of marketing, it takes a budget and consistent testing to perfect the right messaging and content that will capture attention and cause an audience to seek out your full work.
My next post will cover one of the next biggest social media platforms, Instagram, and take a look at what is changing and how to optimize your efforts there.
Sheri Candler will be participating on a panel at the New Heights Arts Symposium called “Top Marketing Tips for Indie Filmmakers.” The FREE, full day symposium will be held in Santa Clarita, California on October 20. Details here.
Sheri Candler October 16th, 2018
Posted In: Facebook, Marketing, Social Network Marketing, Uncategorized
Tags: digital marketing, Facebook, film marketing, independent film, Marketing, Sheri Candler, social media, The Film Collaborative
How Should Filmmakers Use Social Media in 2018?
Updated January 25, 2018 to take into consideration changes announced for Facebook and Instagram.
As 2017 winds to a close, I wanted to take some time to evaluate what I’ve learned in the social media space this year, both in my work with independent filmmakers and working for public media.
Between those two endeavors, I have helped to create, test and connect audiences to over 350 short videos made specifically for social media. The vast majority of those were less than one minute in length, included captions burned into each video, and used a paid social approach to ensure that the videos were seen by a highly targeted audience who would be most likely to share them.
Here are the main things I want to share with you as you contemplate your use of social media in 2018:
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- Cardinal rule on social: The content you post must be interesting and relevant to motivate a reaction from the viewer. Boring links, boring videos, boring images, boring calls to action that clearly only benefit you WILL BE IGNORED [and will be demoted in the newsfeed by Facebook algorithm]. The organic videos that performed the best for me were a story in themselves. They weren’t trailers, they weren’t promo videos, they didn’t often include a call to action on the video, and they weren’t random behind the scenes footage. The stories took one main idea and presented it first, then explained the idea, then sometimes ended with a question to encourage people to comment. The more shares and comments the videos received, the more views it got. But why am I mainly talking about videos? Because…
- By 2021, 82% of global internet traffic will be attributed to video. As more and more newsfeeds are filled with short video content, your account will need to compete. You’re a filmmaker so generating quality video content should be easy for you. But remember, 90% of the videos people see in their feeds are watched with the sound off. Better to make a video that is not audio driven, but rather driven by images that can tell a story on its own. Also, it is best to present these videos in a square format, rather than in a horizontal rectangle. As most people now access social media platforms via their mobile devices, a square video (1:1) fills the screen and gives a much richer experience. Widescreen videos are crunched and make captions difficult to read. See good examples here and here.
- Facebook Live, Instagram Live, Live Story for Snapchat, Periscope for Twitter, Youtube Live. Live or near live experiences will continue to proliferate on social. Some of this may be ephemeral content, that lives for only 24 hours. If you have an exciting event happening or you have access to a person with a large following, you should be utilizing live sessions on social media. Facebook, in particular, will be highlighting videos that receive lengthy interaction in the comment section. If you want to see a comparison between Youtube Live and Facebook Live, CLICK HERE.
- Influencer marketing is a thing, but it isn’t free. It is awesome to think that if you tag a celebrity, they will share your tweet, but the real impact comes from those who have an engaged following instead of a vague, large number. Look toward influencers that have a niche following and are more willing to get excited about your project than a tweet from a celeb who has little connection to your project. Another idea could be to utilize influencers as social media content creators for your project. Rather than hoping to access their network, perhaps you can pay them to create for yours. Be advised, the Federal Trade Commission is now cracking down on sponsored posts that do not publicly disclose a paid sponsorship arrangement. It is better to work with companies that specialize in bringing influencers and brands together, like MediaKix Mostly Sunny and Heartbeat as they are usually up to date on the regulations and how to negotiate deals. For an idea on pricing for working with influencers, see this Digiday report.
- Facebook organic posting is nearly dead. If you are still posting links, photos and videos that do not regularly receive multiple comments, you can stop. The company has just announced that it will stop showing posts by brands and publishers if those posts are not inspiring conversation (comments) as their new focus is on bringing people together, not pushing traffic and views. Facebook is not interested in sending traffic to other websites or providing a passive viewing experience (such as video views with no comments). This change will really hit pages that have not been inspiring conversation in their comment sections. However, don’t ask for comments in your posts. Engagement bait will be demoted in the newsfeed. This change will not affect paid promotion.
- Which means that you MUST invest in social advertising. Yes, you could boosts your organic posts, but you really should be set up on Facebook Business Manager and running campaigns through Ad Manager. You need a monthly budget to spend. Anyone who has tried to build up a following or reach their following on social will know the time of reliable, free, organic reach has passed, and it isn’t going to return since social media platforms have shareholders who want to see revenue. The good news is this allows for smarter advertising spend for a trackable return than publicity or more traditional methods of advertising (posters, postcards, flyers, TV/radio/outdoor/print). While a marketing mix is important and if you can spend to hire a publicist for earned media, and place media buys in as many outlets as possible, then by all means do it. But try tracking that write up in the New York Times or Variety to any kind of monetary return outside of an ego boost or calls from your friends to say they saw it. It is nearly impossible unless you run a survey at the theater or on a digital VOD service to prove that your publicity spend or traditional advertising spend resulted in any measurable return. There is so much proof of awareness and actual revenue tied to a digital advertising effort, even over the number of Likes/Retweets/Favorites and “Impressions.” Added bonus for Facebook advertising, you can create Custom Audiences to keep remarketing to those who have shown an interest in your posts rather than spending to hit the disinterested. You’ll just need to install the Facebook pixel on your website, store, Eventbrite etc in order to track properly and accumulate that audience for later targeting. Also, if you are going to be setting a monthly budget, you need to be setting monthly goals for growth. How do you know if what you are doing is working if you don’t measure against a goal? I wrote a piece on tracking social media earlier this year.
- Twitter growth is the slowest of all the major social media platforms. If you are building up a big following on Twitter, you may want to quickly branch out. Twitter is great for breaking news stories, but rather sucks for self promotional tweets.
- Instagram is also making changes, but they have been a little less forthcoming in this news. If you are using Instagram for business, such as having an account related to your film, you should make sure that it is set up as a business account, not a personal account. Just as years ago, Facebook stopped supporting personal profiles that were being used for business, Instagram is starting to do the same. Besides, it is great to access analytics that are offered on business accounts, so go ahead and set your account up like that or convert. Also, you should be taking advantage of Instagram Stories, rather than just posting photos and videos. Stories can now be archived on your account so they won’t disappear after 24 hours, as long as you choose to feature them on your account. For instructions, go HERE. One last bit of advice, start following hashtags that are relevant to your project. Accounts now have the ability to follow a hashtag, not just other accounts. See more on that HERE.
- This year, Facebook introduced Watch and rumor has it that they will start prioritizing shows rather than only short content in their newsfeed. With this knowledge (and the vast audience that Facebook reaches), have you considered turning that feature script into a series instead? A series of content with an ongoing narrative between episodes provides many benefits: increased audience retention, strict production schedule and time management, sponsorship opportunities, and being able to create a loyal community over the long run instead of starting over with each new project. Social media is a great place to ensure distribution of said series. It is also a low cost place to test out plots, characters, flow, audience reactions etc. without having to gather heavy investment for a feature that is untested and has no clear path distribution.
For everyone here at The Film Collaborative, I wish you a happy, creative, industrious, and prosperous new year. Look for members of The Film Collaborative at Sundance 2018 and at many other film festivals and events in the coming year.
Sheri Candler December 17th, 2017
Posted In: Facebook, Social Network Marketing, Uncategorized
Tags: Facebook, filmmakers, independent film, Instagram, paid social, Sheri Candler, Snapchat, social media, social media for filmmakers, social video, The Film Collaborative, Twitter, YouTube
A Divine independent film release
Sheri Candler April 3rd, 2014
Posted In: Digital Distribution, Distribution, Facebook, Film Festivals, iTunes, Theatrical
Tags: BFI Lesbian and Gay Film Festival, Bloor Cinema, Bryan Glick, Cinema Village, client, documentary, Downtown Independent, Film Festivals, I am Divine, Jeffrey Schwarz, Jeffrey Winter, membership, Roxy Theater, screening fees, Sheri Candler, SXSW, testimonial, TFC, The Film Collaborative, Wolfe Releasing
Social media basics for filmmakers-the myths
In the last post, I talked about the mindset change that artists have to go through in order to successfully use social networking. In this post, I want to dispel some myths that people have about how social networking works so that you won’t fall into unrealistic expectations. Other posts include Mindset Change, Facebook, Twitter, Youtube
Myth #1 Social networking is FREE
While it is possible to set up accounts on social channels for free, the expense of time and money to maintain them is not. To accomplish goals on social channels takes planning, creating compelling content, optimizing it for search engines, and publishing it on a consistent basis. If you plan to have a person dedicated to handling all of this for you, they should be paid. If you plan to have Facebook as your main channel for audience engagement, you’ll need a budget just for promoted posts and advertising to help build up the page and keep in contact with the fans you attract (more on EdgeRank when I cover the Facebook platform). Running social media “campaigns” of any kind will take money as they are essentially an advertising function (Campaigns are short term efforts meant to have maximum impact. More on this below.)
Myth #2 It works FAST
As anyone who has been active on social channels will tell you, building up a significant following takes time. Lots of time. Everyone starts with zero. If you were planning to use social channels as your main tool for gathering attention for your work, I hope you have already started giving to a community well before you will ask favors of them like spreading the word on your work, attending screenings, buying merchandise, etc. This isn’t a 10 minutes a day kind of activity (contrary to what some social media authors would have you believe), it is an activity that should be ingrained into your creative life starting now.
Myth #3 You won’t need a website, just use Facebook
It is extremely unwise to be completely dependent on a 3rd party site to keep you in touch with an audience. What if that site gets shut down? What if they close your account? What if they change the rules about what you can do with your page/take away functionality? That direct connection to an audience is in jeopardy when you allow a 3rd party to have control over your account. Your website is YOUR online real estate on which you are building your creative empire and you must have control over it. You will want to control how it looks and how it functions as well as collecting data on your online efforts and on your supporters (email, location, interests etc). While you will use certain social tools, first and foremost you must have a site that is under your control and from which you can make money.
Myth #4 An intern is fine to handle it
Would you let an intern speak for your production on Entertainment Tonight or in the New York Times? Social media channels have a global reach and are cataloged in search engines to be found at any time in the future. Anything published from your social accounts represents YOU and your work. Letting just anyone speak for your brand is not a good idea. The best person to let loose with that kind of responsibility is not your 23 year old intern just because she is “good at Facebooking.” That isn’t a knock on 23 year old marketing professionals because, if they have business training and marketing skills, they are definitely a great member for your team. Social media is really many things wrapped into one: marketing, customer relations, media relations, crisis management, and branding. It will probably take a small team of professional people working from inside of the production (as opposed to hiring an outside firm) to find long term success using these tools. If you entrust a member of the production, intern or otherwise, with this responsibility, make sure your social accounts use your company’s email and everyone has access to the passwords. Otherwise, you could wind up with no access to these accounts if and when that person leaves.
Myth #5 Social media works like advertising
Unknowingly, you may be using your social channels like advertising. Advertising puts out one way messages designed to interrupt the widest audience as possible usually to sell something. It is a paid tactic where the receiver has little choice but to be interrupted from what they are trying to do (watch a TV show, listen to music, read an article, drive in traffic etc). Advertising is about pushing a message with little regard for those who hear it.
Social media is a pull tactic. Rather than interrupting people with messages they don’t want to receive, social channels enable people to give their permission to speak to them by following your page or your account. They expect not only to hear from you, but to speak back to you and they expect you will listen and respond. A dialog, not a monologue. Also, they follow you based on things you share that are valuable to THEM, not just to you. Advertising doesn’t listen, or require any dialog. It is a one marketing tactic of several you can use, but don’t confuse it with what people expect on social channels.
You may use the term “campaign” to speak about using social channels to advertise your work, but social networking is not a campaign. Social networking is a long term, ingrained activity that professionals now have to incorporate into their lives. A campaign is a short term effort meant to drive toward one specific goal and definitely involves spending money to make sure that campaign is heard.
In actuality, any place online where information can be published, commented upon or shared is considered social media. That pretty much encompasses the internet. Now that I have outlined over the last 2 posts how to approach your efforts on social channels, the next few posts will dig into the main 3 sites commonly referred to as social media being used by most people; Facebook, Twitter and Youtube.
Sheri Candler June 5th, 2013
Posted In: Facebook, Social Network Marketing
Tags: campaign, control, myths, social media, social media as advertising, social media basics for filmmakers, social media intern, social networking, websites
European distribution series: OnlineFilm
By Sheri Candler
Here is the second part in a series on European distribution tools. I met OnlineFilm AG CEO Cay Wesnigk, based in Germany, while attending the FERA General Assembly in Copenhagen. Like most people in attendance, he is trying to understand the repercussions and opportunities of the online space to the film industry. His response was to come up with a solution that allows filmmakers themselves to profit and to spread their work to territories outside of their home country by using the internet.
SC: What does OnlineFilm hope to accomplish for European filmmakers and film audiences?
CW: The Onlinefilm.org System is a multilingual marketplace for films and an application service provider for digital distribution and marketing services, owned by a collective of independent producers/ filmmakers. Any rights owner from all over the world can use its technology to offer films as download to own and stream to rent or both.
To reach these goals, we want to strengthen and enlarge our network of national partners that are running the Onlinefilm.org system in their territories and run national websites that use the same technology to develop local markets. Together with our partners we want to develop new tailored ways of marketing by using social media and viral campaigning in their languages and territories and then learn from each other and teach our best practice examples to the film makers to empower them to use the onlinefilm.org system in the best possible way to market their films.
Our motto is “Films are made to be seen” and we want to make it possible for the international audience to access the films they are interested in and find those they did not know existed, helping the makers to find and access their audience.
SC: Do you think the audience is ready to start watching full length films online or on mobile devices?
It should be added to the question, “legally aquired” films. I think it is a proven fact that our audience is watching films on those devices, just go through a train in Europe and you will notice how many people are watching films on laptops and tablets, some even on smart phones. In catalogues of supermarkets, hard disks are offered that have a connection to regular TV and a remote control as well as Network access that make it easy to bring downloaded films to the TV screens. For us, the question is not if there is an audience out there for our films, the question is, is there an audience willing to pay for them?
But there is another angle to your question, a topic for online watching of films is the deceleration of the audience. It is difficult to watch 90 minutes linear programming with no interaction expected on a computer or tablet when the IM Messenger pops up, the Skype rings and your email program reminds you that a new mail has arrived in your mailbox… For that we need to find ways to decelerate our audience. One is the easy connection of the device with the TV set as mentioned above. Leaning back in front of the TV with the mouse out of reach is half of the trick. The other half still has to be developed.
SC: There are already many online streaming platforms for films, many of them are free streaming and ad supported streaming. What is the plan for driving audience interest to OnlineFilm?
CW: A film is a little bit of celluloid and a lot of marketing…
We have experienced that many film-makers do not promote their films once they have upload them in to the system by using the tools and strategies actively that we supplied for them. Some of them do not even link to the films from their own homepages, let alone think about how to promote their films through other channels that would generate audiences for them. Even a good Google ranking for film titles searches that we can supply does not bring the revenue, since for that, the customer has to know that a film exists and must actively search for it. So we have drawn the conclusion that we must act more on the filmmakers behalf to create more sales and such make the option to offer films through the Onlinefilm.org system more attractive. One measure we took was the cooperation with other outlets and websites by offering them tailored Mediatheks for their visitors, creating more outlets and chances that audiences will find a film by chance.
The next step will be to create best practice examples through social media campaigns that will lead to more sales of the promoted example films.
We offer tools to the filmmakers to help them create their own audiences. We offer at the same time a Platform for curators, for the hunters and collectors. They can use the search tools the site offers them to find the raw diamonds. They can browse through the categories, use our full text search in German and English or search for directors or film titles they might already be aware of.
Film of the week on the OnlineFilm homepage
The film of the week section on the landing page of www.onlinefilm.org can change its focus on three different film categorie; Docs, Short- or Feature films, or offer a mixture of all of them (default). With this preselection we want to promote films to people who just drop by our platform with no special film or interest in mind. We often change the selection and try to keep the offer interesting and diverse so every visitor should find something of interest to him and, if not, might be motivated to dig deeper into the catalogue, to find out more about its wealth of topics and genres.
In the second line “the featured films”, the recommendations also changes accordingly once a customer selects where his point of interest lies (docs, short, feature). If someone tells us he is interested in shorts, the site will offer him different shorts. If he tells us he likes docs, he will be offered mainly docs. This is how we try to keep our first time visitors on the site and offer them selected films out of our large catalogue that might be of interest for them. The more we get to know from a visitor on the site, the more we want to tailor the offers made to his interests.
Our national portal Strategy – many different editorial lines
If a visitor decides to “explore the Network” he will be guided to the overview map with all national sites that are active so far. He can then select one of them, where our national Partners have the editorial control, offer national content or content they consider interesting for their fellow country man. Their editorial line is subjective. They will offer the films from their country and others they have found in the system and deem interesting for their audience. We plan to extend the editorial possibilities of the partner pages so the partners will also have their own film of the week and other editorial possibilities to promote certain films on their sites.
By creating sub portals with a special focus, it is also always possible to follow a new editorial line if enough films to justify that are in the system..
Our Greek partners www.greece.onlinefilm.org are the most advanced, they have been with us right from the very beginning of the project in 2007 and they also have made the most out of the technology that onlinefilm.org has offered them so far. As an example, on their editors page, they made their own sub categorisation and such made it possible to browse through the films via topics they have selected on their own.
Greek director Roviros Manthoulis’ collection page
They also have published the Roviros Manthoulis collection and make it possible to browse through the films of this renowned Greek filmmaker. Both serve as an example for an individual editorial line of a partner portal.
Another example is Ireland.onlinefilm.org. Our Irish partner has chosen quite a ew titles from the system and publishes them on his site. Among them a French/Greek film called IRLANDE: LA MEMOIRE D’ UN PEUPLE about Ireland and its music in the 70s. This film has become quite popular on the Irish website and no one in Ireland would ever have known about this document of Irish folk music if it would not have been uploaded by our Greek partner and found and published by our Irish partner. Also interesting to note is that our Irish partner translated the site into Gaelic language, another way to make the site something special. We use a multi language editor that makes it possible to translate any of our sites in as many languages as necessary.
Since it is always also possible for any rights owner to upload any film from anywhere, we have many films from countries where we do not have a partner installed yet. The more films we get from one country the more active our search for a partner there becomes. We always offer anyone who uploads at least 30 films to get his own Macro shop. This would entitle him also to get a promoter percentage of 8% for any customer that enters the System through his shop. If the relationship develops well and we see the person is active and well connected, he can apply to become a national partner and will then be able to also add other films he has not uploaded into his shop. If he is willing to invest into the cooperation, he can apply for full partner status that would also guarantee him part of the revenues any film uploaded from his territory might generate as a partner percentage. An example of a tailored Macro shop of a German distributor is here: www.filmgalerie451.onlinefilm.org
This is how we slowly built our Network of national partners and built more and more local outlets with their own editorial line.
Some more examples you will find here
www.kurzfilmtage.de/videothek the Videothek of the Oberhausen Shortfilmfestibval, run with onlinefilm technology and with Onlinefilm films
www.freitag.onlinefilm.org A videothel of a German Newspapers Website, run on onlinefilm technolog and with Onlinefilm films
SC: Is this platform mainly for German films or is the focus on all foreign language films?
CW: Any one can upload a film no matter where he or she comes from. We encourage people to upload the film in its original language version and in English. Subtitles are sufficient. More language versions can be uploaded and offered for different self chosen conditions. We even offer a tool ( in Beta) with which one can create subtitles to a film which is uploaded into our system and save and offer them. Subtitles can also be imported into the tool and exported into many formats if produced with the tool. The subtitle tool is designed in a way that a filmmaker could ask a professional or friend in another country to create the subtitles of a film he has uploaded. We are also planning to create a system to allow a person who has created subtitles to opt in and get a piece of the revenue as remuneration for his work, any time the film is watched with his subtitles.
SC: What prices are being asked of the audience to pay?
CW: The price per download or stream is defined by the rights owner who offers the film via the onlinefilm.org system. Over the last 2 year,s the average download price per title has increased from € 2,50 (2008) to € 5,00 in 2010 and to € 6,00 in June 2011 (from a range between € 0.99 and € 16,00). Our bestseller right now costs € 8,50 per download (around $10 USD).
SC: How do you handle payments on the system for all different currencies? Can those not on the Euro still use the OnlineFilm system? How about those who don’t have credit cards?
CW: Right now you pay via Paypal in Euro, that works also with a credi card via Paypal guest status, then you can stream or download the film direct when redirected by Paypal after the payment is done on their server. We are looking into possibilities to offer films in different currencies viaPpaypal right now and hope to offer that kind of service in the near future!
As an alternative, we already offer payment through international bank transfer via IBAN and BIC to our account in Germany. Once the money is sent to our onlinefilm account, the buyer sends us a pdf with the view of the online money order ( screen shot or what the online banking software offers) and we sent him or her the download links via e mail or put the film for streaming into his or her account at onlinfilms under “my films” This sometimes takes a few hours to fulfill but it is better than nothing. So far it has been used mainly by Paypal haters.
SC: What is the revenue split for filmmakers? Are there any fees that have to be paid for the films to use OnlineFilm?
CW: No fees are asked just to offer the film on onlinefilm.org. If you just use the system to host trailers/teasers and use our promotion tool to send free downloads and streams to selected people, but you do not offer the film for payment to a general audience, we would ask you to pay for used bandwith and storage. But there is a free amount of traffic per month, sufficient for trailer hosting of average films, that anyone can use before that happens.
The revenue is split as follows. 51% of the turnover always goes to the producer/ rightsowner. If the rightsowner buys 1.000 shares of the Onlinefilm AG and such becomes co-owner of the system ( option) he can get 5% more which then ads up to 56% . If he sells the film via an embedded shop or Macro shop from his own page and opts in for the affiliate percentage, he will get an extra 8% which then makes his or her revenue climb up to 64% of the sales price (the Affiiliate system still has to be implemented).
SC: What kinds of films are doing well at the moment? documentary, horror, drama? What might these successes all have in common? Do they have notable names, festival accolades, strong coproduction deals that have given lots of promotion, great mainstream media reviews?
CW: We mainly have quite old films on the platform so far, this has many reasons in copyright issues unclear, release windows and power play of the old gatekeepers trying to hinder the films going online all together. Only very few of the films could profit directly from any marketing campaigns.
The films that are successful right now have a campaign behind them or at least some promotion mostly done by the filmmaker via personal website or mailing list. The others are just occasional sales by active seekers for exactly that title. They live on their past time fame.
One very successful 15 year old film Deckname Dennis is a first part of a film called Die Mondverschwörung presenting the same character and using the same technique, that has been released theatrically recently. Through the press the new film received and by creating a social media campaign for the new film that clearly stated its predecessor was available online (Facebook, Youtube, a website, Twitter) we made that film popular again. You might say it went viral and made quite an impressive turnover for its rightsowner. To download the film, the price is 8,50 Euro. We were extremely happy that through a good text the director posted in the blog of a pirate site where the film was also available, we got them to link to our legal offer and take down the illegal offer. Through our link statistics, we can see that many people come from there to us.
SC: I know that the German film industry is particularly concerned about online piracy, how does a site like OnlineFilm help alleviate this concern?
CW: We do not use DRM systems simply because we do not believe in them and we do not want to make it difficult for the customers. Also we do not want to greet our customers as criminals that we do not trust. We follow the principle of “digital rights fair trade” in short “do not bullshit your audience and your audience won’t bullshit you”. Our download is DRM free, whoever buys it will also be able to download the film again, when he needs to. He just needs to log in with his username and it will be in the “my films” section. Since our streaming technology is “dedicated flash streaming” it is not quite as easy to save the stream as with other techniques. The stream is rented for 48 hours and usually cheaper than the download, but it can also be offered solely if people want to better protect their work and do not want it downloaded.
SC: Is there a geoblocking mechanism on OnlineFilm so that if a filmmaker has sold a online sales territory or has a sales agent looking to sell a territory, that territory is blocked? I know that many sales agents ask for a hold back timeframe on titles so they can sell those territories around the world. Is the site mainly to exploit titles that are no longer active in the marketplace? In effect, taking films out of the “library” mode and putting them back out into the marketplace?
CW: At the moment we do not offer geoblocking. Anyone half clever seems to be able to enter any system with a false IP and ridicule these mechanisms. Secondly, we think if a customer wants to legally purchase a film we should sell it to him and not tell him to go elsewhere (namely the pirate sites). We will nevertheless implement an IP scan and geolocation tools in the near future. We have to since the industry seems not to change its ways as fast as it should. We hope to be able to serve the customer by offering a revenue share with the person or distributor who has the rights in the territory where the customer comes from. But this might still take while to program and implement.
SC: Does OnlineFilm do any marketing on the part of the titles? Or is the filmmaker expected to conduct their own marketing strategy to drive traffic to the site?
CW: Onlinefilm does marketing for the site and through the many partner sites also tries to drive more traffic towards the films. We also market some titles that we select via our onlinefilm Facebook page and via the film of the week and the recommendations on the landing page. We have a space on the Kulturserver Network where we can promote individual titles.
When our staff has time left, we also try to encourage links to topic driven films from topic driven websites. We offer marketing support for filmmakers that are open for it, but we ask for a fee if they want a campaign run by us. Then we try to build a social web campaign with them and show them how to, or do the job for them depending on their skills and time or money they want to invest.
This is something we definitely need to put more energy in because far too many filmmakers here do not know how to self promote their films and rather invest their time in making a new one. The revenue made online with many of the films is so far not big enough to encourage distributors or filmmakers to invest a lot of time or money in extra marketing. But since we see that the turnover with films is growing constantly, we hope that this will change and lead to an exponential growth of sales once people will be willing to invest more in marketing once they see the potential.
We are preparing a social media campaigning and online marketing handbook. At the same time we are trying to connect with people who specialize in the craft of online film marketing. We want to develop business models with them that will work for them and the rights owners possibly also on a revenue share basis.
My thanks to Cay Wesnigk for taking the time to talk with us and explain how his company is helping European filmmakers make the shift from a primarily cinema driven distribution model to an online one.
Orly Ravid July 25th, 2012
Posted In: Digital Distribution, Distribution, Distribution Platforms, Facebook, Marketing
Tags: Cay Wesnigk, Copenhagen, download, DRM, European Digital Distribution, featured films, FERA, geoblocking, Germany, Greece, Ireland, online film distribution, OnlineFilm, Paypal, Roviros Manthoulis, streaming
European distribution series: Assemble
By Sheri Candler
As a result of my recent trip to Europe to participate in the annual FERA General Assembly and Sheffield DocFest, I found some great new independent film resources I would like to share. Sometimes we get too focused on North American resources so it is good to pull in useful information from all over the world. This will be a series of posts over the next few weeks that highlight these new services. First up, Assemble
Assemble (formerly MovieSparx) is a tool for filmmakers and distributors who want to ease the headache of building audiences and selling films on the web. It is clever software that creates and manages your web-presence, gathers and tracks your audience and provides a sales mechanisms to sell your film and related products. I spoke with Founder James Franklin about how the software works.
What made you want to build this? What need did you see in the industry that wasn’t being fulfilled properly?
JF: Simply put – we felt that the vital online presence for a film was almost always a hit and miss affair. Film websites are too often rubbish and do the film a disservice.
About 8 years ago I founded a London based design studio working just for indie film projects. We ran a lot of promotional campaigns for films around the world and learnt an enormous amount over some very high profile projects. Whilst doing this, and when I would speak at festivals about what we learnt, the same questions and problems would come up from filmmakers over and over again.
The main problem was that although everyone agreed that promoting a film and finding an audience online was important and a great opportunity, the reality was that it was very time consuming, had a steep learning curve and was a prohibitively difficult and painful struggle. Just to make matters worse, the budgets were always too small for creating the necessary marketing assets and the tools available at the time had to be hacked by techies to work for an indie film. Generally the assets for each film project – website, widgets, mailing list, shop etc – would be about 70% the same as every other project and about 30% unique. But each time everyone would have to work hard to just get that 70% out the door – we and the filmmakers felt like we were constantly re-inventing the wheel. And so we decided about 3 years ago to create a web-tool that would power these elements out of the box – film website, online shop, widgets etc. It was going to be easy, efficient, flexible and beautiful. We would also pour our knowledge and experience into the system so that best practice was baked into it from the beginning. The very first release was at SXSW in 2010.
There are a few guiding principles we’ve stuck to. Firstly, that it’s always in the filmmakers interests to help promote the film direct rather than promote yet another platform – it’s all about the film project not us. Secondly, that the production team are always the most committed and passionate of advocates and with the right tools and experience can do the best job of promoting and selling the film. Lastly, we understand the importance of the film’s marketing materials /key art / branding – this is what really sells the film and is very important online. Anything we make has to work with the branding and be both functional and well designed.
What does Assemble do for productions? Walk me through the steps all along the way of a production using Assemble from conception of a film to distributing it. Are there some example films at different stages? Describe what they are doing.
JF: We provide the best possible web presence that adapts to each stage of a film. That web presence includes the film website, branded trailers & embeddable widgets, facebook apps, a shop and other important modules. Each Module is made just for film so it works exactly as you would expect out of the box. For instance, adding an award adds a laurel to the website. Each module works with the others, so the shop can appear in Facebook and the trailer for instance. Each of those modules adapts depending the stage the project is at – so in development, it makes the most of the one photo and short synopsis you often start out with. Then the modules adapt for fund-raising or crowd funding, production, festivals and finally distribution. Lastly each module adapts by country so that it can properly support different territories being at different stages – ready for download in the USA but in theatrical in Australia – without interfering with each other.
Currently the modules are:
– Website
– Blog
– Shop
– Widget / Branded Trailer
– Facebook page app
– Screenings
– Mailing List
– Sign-up for media
– Crowd-Funding support
– Gallery
– Awards and Laurels
– Reviews
There are too many features and options to go through everything in detail. But to give an example about how this this works just for film and is designed to be more efficient, take a look at the screenings module. This handles events and screenings either as part of a theatrical release or at festivals. Usually screening dates and times end up on a single page which has to be constantly updated and is hard to find or a film relies on a potential audience remembering at a later date.
With Assemble, once the production team have entered an event or screening’s details into the back end it appears automatically, in chronological order across all assets – on the website, the trailer, in Facebook and so on. It can be automatically added to the Facebook page as an event for people to share with others. People can even send it to a friend as an invite, or share it to social networks. It can even set up a reminder for you so you’ll get an email the day of the screening. If there’s a screening near you it will flag up on the website home page. When a screening date has passed it’s automatically added to the past screenings. We can even supply a feed of data for partners.
Of course, if there isn’t a screening near you, you can demand one with a simple form or if available, you can set up semi-theatrical or community screenings and sell screening licenses. All of this works straight of the box.
We’ve also worked hard to never lose a potential customer. For instance, if someone in Canada wants to watch the film but it’s not available on DVD or for download yet, rather than giving the unhelpful message ‘this is not available in your region,’ the system will automatically work out an alternative (it may be on at a festival near them, or available from a distributor, or on Amazon – we can route them through to wherever is best). At the very worst, if it’s not available at all to them we can get them to sign up to the mailing list or demand it.
Some example sites at each stage are:
How Far Is Heaven – a simple film website The Spirit Level – integrating with IndieGoGo Planeat – shop with downloads and merchandiseJust Do It – powering the shop only alongside a VODO release
Black Gold – long tail of distribution (the film is from 2006)
Europe Loves Cinema – a site with a slate of films Tigerlily Films-a production company site with many films
As the above all geo-detect, the design changes depending on where you are visiting from.
Is the software mainly built for one title at a time or for a production company in the long term?
JF: It works well for both. The system really comes into it’s own when you run a production company or distribution website and your slate of titles off the system. They all integrate together and save a lot of time and work as well as collecting all the valuable data across the whole lot. That is key, if production companies are to thrive in the
future they must take ownership of their audience data and take it with them to the next project. That way it gets easier every time. Only Assemble can make that part happen.
What advantage would it be for a filmmaker to use a distributor to access this since your site says it is for distributors as well?
JF: It’s a flexible system and so will work for both individually. Ideally, the production team should be on the system from development and running even a basic web presence from the beginning, that way they can start to take control online. And the big advantage for a production team is that our tools work with even the most complicated rights and distributor structure.
When Assemble says it builds websites, is that on the production’s own URL or is it through your platform as a 3rd party?
JF: We power websites for films, much like wordpress powers blogs. You can use your own URLs with the system. The design for each site can be done either through us as a customised project or by a third party designer. The idea is that it’s as flexible and beautiful as possible whilst still being easy.
The description says it builds an embeddable trailer. Do you mean it makes a trailer built by the production embeddable? Why wouldn’t we want this on Youtube instead where we can track views and where they come from? Does Assemble do that too?
JF: We’ve made a very flexible widget that acts as a branded trailer. We think it’s very important to use Vimeo and You Tube as part of a campaign and so we use these to provide the trailer video – You Tube and Assemble play well together. The widget then ‘wraps’ around the Youtube video to create a branded trailer which also can hold extra modules like the shop, a watch the film page, twitter feed, blog, screenings and so on. And you still get your view count up and can track who’s watching it with You Tube.
Does Assemble provide training on how to use the system? For many indie productions, this whole process of building an audience and selling directly is completely unknown so how does Assemble help demystify the process?
JF: Yes, we provide training. We’re also adding a series of how-to videos to help things. We also hope to add more general videos on how to make a success of the project using Assemble.
Does Assemble help market the projects or is it only a tool to use by film productions themselves? Would the audience ever come to Assemble or are you more a B2B?
JF: We are not another platform. We are a B2B business, we don’t want to build a relationship with a project’s audience, rather we provide the tools to enable the production team to do that. However, we do help market projects in various ways and we can advise on how to do this as we’ve many years experience at this. One of the key ways a film can market itself online is firstly through social media sharing and secondly affiliate networks.
Assemble heavily supports sharing with social media and building an affiliate network. We help advise people if needed on how to make both of these work hard for a film project. For example, we have by far the most flexible and innovative affiliate tracking system, you’re not tied to one rate and can offer different percentage kick-backs. We find discount codes can work just as well and sometimes better. In addition, we are constantly innovating and testing, then putting what we learn back into the system.
When you say you sell downloads, what makes those downloads disabled to be reuploaded on the internet? Is there a mechanism for hampering that activity?
JF: If a project sells DVDs then these can be easily ripped too. We do review for Youtube and download links. Our own download mechanism can alert us if there are excessive downloads on a single link. We think the pricing of downloads should mean that for a potential customer, it’s easier to just buy the download rather than have the hassle of finding the torrent or download link. People who would pay generally prefer to pay honestly, thats the best way to stop piracy eating revenue.
Orly Ravid July 10th, 2012
Posted In: Digital Distribution, DIY, Facebook, Marketing, Social Network Marketing
Tags: Assemble, European independent film, film distribution, film marketing, film promotion, independent film software, James Franklin, low budget independent film, MovieSparx, selling films on the web, Sheffield DocFest
“If A Tree Falls In The Forest” and other ruminations on social/community-based marketing…
by Jeffrey Winter, Sheri Candler, and Orly Ravid
The old philosophical thought experiment “If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?” has never been truer for film distribution. With the incredible number of films available for consumption on innumerable platforms, getting some form of distribution for your film is no longer the core problem. The central issue now is: how will anyone know about it? How will you find your audience? And how will you communicate enough to them to drive them to the point of actually seeing it?
Before we plunge into that question, let’s take one step back and discuss the term “distribution.” In today’s convergence universe, where anyone with technical savvy can be surfing the Internet and watching it on their television, every single person with a high speed internet connection is in some way a “distributor.” Anyone can put content onto their website and their Facebook and de facto make it available to anyone else in the world. Anyone can use DIY distribution services to distribute off their site(s), and get onto larger and / or smaller platforms.
Even getting your film onto some combination of the biggest digital platforms – i.e. iTunes, Amazon, Hulu, Netflix, and Cable VOD – is not insurmountable for most films. We’re not saying it is easy…there are a myriad of steps to go through and rigorous specs at times and varying degree of gatekeepers you’ll have to interface with and get approval from. But with some good guidance (for example, we at The Film Collaborative can help you with that), some cash, and a little persistence…these distribution goals can usually be achieved.
But in a certain way, none of that matters. If you have your film available, say, on iTunes…. how is anyone going to know that? Chances are you aren’t going to get front- page promo placement, so people will have to know how and why to search for it. This is why the flat fee services to get onto iTunes (which we now offer too) do not necessarily mean you will net a profit. Films rarely sell themselves. You are going to have to find the ways to connect to an audience who will actively engage with your film, and create awareness around it, or you will certainly fall into the paradox of the “tree falls in the forest” phenomenon… which many independent filmmakers can relate to.
So we arrive at the current conundrum, how do we drive awareness of our films? The following are the basic “points of light” everyone seems to agree with.
- Use the film festival circuit to create initial buzz. If you can, get the film into a break-even theatrical, hybrid theatrical, non-theatrical window that spreads word of mouth on the film.
- Engage the press, both traditional press and blogosphere, to write about the film.
- Build a robust social media campaign, starting as early as possible (ideally during production and post), creating a “community” around your film.
- Build grassroots outreach campaign around any and all like-minded organizations and web-communities (i.e. fan bases, niche audiences, social issue constituencies, lifestyle communities, etc.)
- Launch your film into ancillaries, like DVD and digital distro, and make sure everyone who has heard of the film through the previous five bullet points now knows that they can see the film via ancillary distribution, and feels like a “friend” of the effort to get the word out to the public-at-large.
- Be very creative and specific in your outreaches to all these potential partners, engaging them in very targeted marketing messages and media to cut through the glut of information that the average consumer is already barraged with in everyday life. This, above all, means being diligent in finding your true “fans,” i.e. the core audience who will be passionate about your subject matter and help you spread the word.
Our book SELLING YOUR FILM WITHOUT SELLING YOUR SOUL and its companion blog www.sellingyourfilm.com/blog already highlight a good number of filmmakers who have used some combination of the above tactics to successful effect in finding a “fanbase” of audiences most likely to consume the film. Here, in this posting, we illustrate some additional recent films and tactics useful to filmmakers moving forward with these techniques.
WE WERE HERE, by David Weissman
Selected for the U.S. Documentary Competition by the 2011 Sundance Film Festival, WE WERE HERE tells the emotionally gripping story of the onset of AIDS in San Francisco in the early 1980s. The Film Collaborative handled festival release for this film, as well as international sales and grassroots marketing support on behalf of the theatrical and VOD (and US sales in conjunction with Jonathan Dana). Theatrical distribution, press, and awards campaigning is being handled by Red Flag Releasing.
On the face of it, WE WERE HERE is a documentary about a depressing topic like AIDS, and therefore doesn’t seem like the easiest sell in the world. However, it also happens to be an excellent film that was selected for Sundance and Berlin, as well as a film that has fairly obvious niche audiences that can be identified and targeted. As soon as The Film Collaborative came onboard, about a month prior to the Sundance 2011 premiere, we set about creating a list of more than 300 AIDS organizations in the United States, and reached out to each of them to ask them to get to know us on Facebook and our website, and also offered to send them screeners, in case they wanted to host a special screening down the road etc. Needless to say, we got an enthusiastic response from these groups (since we were doing work they would obviously believe in), but the goal here was not to make any kind of immediate money…we simply wanted them onboard as a community to tap into down the line.
Simultaneously, we created a targeted list of 160 film festivals we thought were best for the film — mixing major international fests, doc fests, and LGBT fests – and sent each of them a personalized email telling them about the film and asking them if they would like to preview it. The film (to date, is still booking internationally) was ultimately selected by over 100 film festivals (many not on our original target list of course).
As the screenings began, we reminded the filmmaker over and over to follow every introduction and every Q&A with a reminder about “liking” the Facebook page, and completely to his credit, filmmaker Weissman was always active in all aspects of Facebook marketing…always posting relevant information about the film and replying to many “fan” posts personally. Not surprisingly, a film this powerful and personal generated many deeply affecting fan posts from people who had survived the epidemic etc…, or were just deeply moved by the film. As a result, the Facebook page became a powerful hub for the film, which we strongly recommend you check out for a taste of what real fan interaction can look like. Warning….a lot of the postings are extremely emotional! One quick note – some of the most active subject members of the doc were made administrators as well, and also respond to the posts…a clever idea as it surely makes the FB fans feel even closer to the film, since they can talk with the cast as well. This would be an interesting thing to try with a narrative film as well…having the cast reply on Facebook (FB)… which is something we haven’t seen much of yet.
With the basics of community built – between the AIDS organizations, the Festivals, and the FB fans, we now had a pool to go back to…. both on theatrical release as well as upon VOD release (which just recently happened on December 9, 2011). For each major theatrical market, and for the VOD release, we went back to these people, and asked them to spread the word. We asked for email blasts, FB posts, tweets…whatever they could do to help spread the word. And without a doubt the film has gotten out there beyond anyone’s wildest initial dreams…although with VOD release only last month and DVD release still to come, final release numbers won’t be known to us for some time now…
But you can be assured we’ll be hitting up our community when the DVD comes out as well! Also please note that these techniques and efforts apply to any niche. For example, on a panel at Idyllwild Film Festival a filmmaker, Jeff Sable, talked about his documentary about his father playing for the Chicago Cubs and how he sold 90,000 DVDs himself (and he also did event theatrical screenings via Emerging Pictures). He simply went after the niche, hard.
HENRY’S CRIME directed by Malcolm Veneville
Starring Keanu Reeves, Vera Farmiga, and James Caan, world premiere at the 2010 Toronto International Film Festival. Released in limited theatrical run in April 2011, and available on DVD and digital platforms as of August 2011. Although a film with “A-level” cast, the film was produced independently and distributed independently by Moving Pictures Film and Television. The film tells the story of a wrongly accused man (Reeves) who winds up behind bars for a bank robbery he didn’t commit. After befriending a charismatic lifer (Caan) in prison, Henry finds his purpose — having done the time, he decides he may as well do the crime. Ancillaries for the film are handled by Fox Studios. The Film Collaborative’s sister for-profit company, New American Vision, was brought aboard to handle special word-of-mouth screenings for the film, as well as social media marketing, working in conjunction with several top publicists and social marketing campaign companies in the business.
On the face of it, this film couldn’t possibly be any more different than WE WERE HERE. A narrative, heist/rom-com with major names sounds a lot easier to sell than an AIDS doc with no names. And yet, the process of reaching out to the public was surprisingly similar….both in terms of what we did and what other professional consultants on the project did as well.
First, we targeted major film festivals and major film society organizations around the country for special “word-of-mouth” (WOM) screenings of the film – seeking to create a buzz amongst likely audiences. Since the film was to be theatrically released in major markets, we targeted the festivals/film societies in these markets. This result was successful, and we got major WOM screenings in NY, Los Angeles, Seattle, San Francisco, Boston, Chicago, as well as Buffalo…which was important only because the film was shot and set in Buffalo and used significant Buffalo-based crew and resources, making it a perfect market for the film.
Next, we broke the film down into logical first constituencies for the film, which we identified as follows: 1) fans of Keanu Reeves and fans of his prior movies, 2) fans of Vera Farmiga and fans of her prior movies, 3) fans of James Caan and fans of his prior movies, 4) twitter accounts that mentioned any of the cast as well as those dedicated to independent film etc., 5) web communities dedicated to anything related to the playwright Anton Checkov (because the film features significant and lengthy scenes dedicated to Reeves and Farmiga performing Checkov’s Cherry Orchard), 6) key websites dedicated to romantic comedies, 7) key recommenders of independent film, etc. Over the course of approximately six weeks prior to release, we reached out to these sites regularly, in an effort to build excitement for the film.
While this grassroots work was taking place, our colleagues in publicity organized press junkets around the film, and of course solicited reviews. In addition, marketing professionals from both Ginsberg Libby (http://ginsberglibby.com/) and Moving Pictures (http://www.movingpicturesfilmandtv.com/) were constantly feeding marketing assets for the film as well as exclusive clips both to the major press, key film sites, as well as to the official Facebook and twitter for the movie….all with the same goal in mind…i.e. to create awareness for a film that, although it had the feeling of a traditional Hollywood film in many ways, was actually thoroughly independent and lacking the resources for major TV buys, billboards, print ads, and other traditional marketing techniques.
Unfortunately, in the end, HENRY’S CRIME did not truly take hold, and the theatrical release was far less than stellar. The reviews for the film were not complimentary (it is a good film, but not a great film), and the word-of-mouth was also not sufficient to drive the performance of the film.
This of course often happens with independent film releases, and in this case the lessons learned were particularly instructive. It was apparent while working on the film that the community-building aspects of the marketing campaign started far too late to truly engage an audience large enough to support the release (it only began in earnest about six weeks before the film’s release…even though the film had had its festival world premiere nearly SIX MONTHS before). In addition, HENRY’S CRIME proves the old adage that, sometimes, you can lead a horse to water but you can’t make them drink…meaning that the word of mouth audiences and press reviews didn’t particularly spark interest in the film in the wider community because they weren’t particularly excited by the film.
This is a lesson sometimes we all need to learn the hard way…that in today’s glutted market, it isn’t always enough to put out a decent movie….in fact in today’s competition, you really need to put out a independent movie that is actually great…or at least connects so deeply with your audience that they are compelled to see it.
Of course, one endless question rages on here. What are the long-tail effects of the outreach? Just because people didn’t turn out in droves to see a film in the theater, does that mean they won’t tune in on a later date in the digital platform of their choice. Certainly many people who have HEARD of Henry’s Crime who didn’t see it in the theater may one day rent it on an available digital platform, and that is why the grassroots work is so critical. We are setting up today what we can’t possibly know until tomorrow….or maybe several years from now.
TAKE-AWAY LESSONS from this post
By comparing these experiences, there are several take-aways that filmmakers should be encouraged to keep in mind when thinking about marketing their independent film. Here are some of them….
- Build a list, both in the real world and online, of every organization and cross-promotional partner you can think of (or google), that might be interested in your film.
Reach out to them about your film, and ask for their support. This is arduous work, but it has to be done. From Sheri Candler: “Initially you will take part in the community before you tell them why you are there. For example, I started researching where online the ballet community hangs out and who they listen to. I also endeavored to meet these people offline when I could. If I was going to be in their city, I asked to meet for coffee. Real life interface when you can. I then started following those online communities and influencers quietly to start with and interjecting comments and posts only when appropriate. They were then curious about me and wanted to hear about the film. If I had gone on to the platforms or contacted the influencers immediately telling them I was working on a film, chances are they would shun me and ruin my chances to form relationships. This is why you have to start so early. When you’re in a hurry, you can’t spend the necessary time to develop relationships that will last, you can’t build the trust you need. It helps to deeply care about the film. I think the biggest takeaway I have learned when it comes to outreach is the very personal nature of it. If you don’t personally care, they can tell. They can tell you are there to use them and people are on their guard not to be used. The ideal situation is they WANT to help, they ASK to help, you don’t have to cajole them into it.”
- Offer your potential partners something back in return.
With a film like WE WERE HERE, this wasn’t difficult…because the film naturally supported their work. But, for most films, you’ll need to offer them something back… like ticket-giveways, promotional emails, branding, opportunities for fundraising around the cause, merchandising give-aways, groups discounts, etc. Be creative in your thinking as to why YOU should get their attention amongst the many other films out there.
- Community-building is an organic, long-term process…
Just like making friends in the real world, the process of making “friends” in community marketing and online takes time and real connection. With WE WERE HERE, we had a year to build connections amongst AIDS orgs, film festivals, and attendees at numerous screenings. The opposite was true with HENRY’S CRIME….six weeks just doesn’t work. Ask yourself…how many “friends” could you make in six weeks?
- Community-building only really works with films that truly “touch” their audience.
In today’s glutted marketplace, you need to make a film that really speaks profoundly to your audience and excites them ….unless of course you have a huge enough marketing budget to simply bludgeon them with numerous impressions (this, of course, is usually reserved to the studios, who can obviously launch mediocre films with great success through brute force). You, probably, cannot do this.
- You need to be very specific and targeted in your outreach to likeminded organizations etc.
Don’t rely on organizations to give you “generalized support.” Provide them with very specific instructions on how and when they should outreach about your film. For example….make sample tweets, sample FB posts, and draft their email blasts for them. Give them as close to a ready-to-go marketing outreach tool as possible…with a specific “call to action” clearly identified.
- You’ll need warm bodies and some technical know-how on you side to accomplish this.
There’s absolutely NOTHING mentioned in this post that an individual filmmaker with a talented team of helpers cannot accomplish. But whether its using HootSuite or Tweetdeck or Facebook analytics, or a compelling set of marketing assets and the time and energy to get them out there….you’ll need a team to help you. Remember, all DIY (do it yourself) marketing is really DIWO (do it with others), and you’ll need to build your team accordingly. If you are short on cash…you’ll likely need to be long on interns and other converts to the cause. But if you are seeking a professional team that’s long on experience and expertise, you can find many of them on The Film Collaborative’s new Resource Place page, located at http://www.thefilmcollaborative.org/resourceplace/. There are many services out there to help you who have done this before….you are not alone! Sheri wonders: “how many people are reasonable”? Of course it varies, but I think 4 is safe. A traditional publicist with a big contact list for your target publications who handles press inquiries and placements; an outreach/social media person who is a great fit for your audience to regularly post and answer questions/comments from the audience not the journalists; a distribution/booker who figures out how the film will be distributed and all of the tech specs, shopping carts, contracts, festivals, community screenings that are appropriate; and the graphic designer/web designer who figures out the technical and aesthetic elements needed to make the online impact you will need.
It is still a big job for only 4 people but it would be completely overwhelming for just one person to do or a person who doesn’t know what they are doing and a bunch of interns to handle.
- A final take home:
You may not see immediate results of each outreach and we know how dispiriting that can be. A lot of times early in the process, you will fail to connect, fail to get a response, but keep plugging away and you will very often come to enjoy the fruits of your distribution / marketing labor whether by emboldening a cause, generating more revenue, or enhancing your career, or all of the above.
Happy Distributing!!!!
Orly Ravid January 18th, 2012
Posted In: DIY, Facebook, Film Festivals, Marketing, Social Network Marketing, Theatrical
Tags: AIDS, David Weissman, DVD, Henry's Crime, James Caan, Jeffrey Winter, Jonathan Dana, Keanu Reeves, list building, Malcolm Veneville, Orly Ravid, promotional partner, Red Flag Releasing, Resource Place, Selling Your Film Without Selling Your Soul, Sheri Candler, Sundance Film Festival, The Film Collaborative, Vera Farmiga, VOD, We Were Here