Here is a list that should get your creative juices flowing so you can come up with your own inventions. The ideas are really clever, and I think they’re great—but they’ve been done, so use them to inspire your own wacky concepts.
STAND OUT
Some might advise against doing something outrageous to promote your film, but I encourage it. If you’re one of the many filmmakers without distribution or Brad Pitt in your movie, you’ll need some kind of extra push. Be creative.
Create a flyer for your film and make it look like a parking ticket. Put it on all the cars at the festival and in the festival parking lots.
Make a flyer that looks like a twenty-dollar bill. On the other side is info about your screening. Spread them all over town. NOTE: The Feds don’t like this one, so be careful. Counterfeiting is illegal, so make sure to replace Abraham Lincoln’s photo on the five-dollar bill with your own, or do something else to make it obvious that the money is fake. Many copy stores will not make copies of money, as they already know these laws.
T-shirts are easy, but depending on the local environment, you can come up with better items of clothing, like earmuffs, sweatshirts, ski caps, boxer shorts, or G-strings. (Hey, that’ll get my attention!)
Create a cereal box (the single-serving, tiny kind) with the poster of your film on the front and back. Screening info is printed on the sides where the ingredients should be.
Give View-Master viewers to the press with still images of your film printed on the still frames in the viewer. The frames on a View-Master are made from 16mm film, and custom View-Master sleeves could be made cheaply. This one would be really cool, but likely expensive. There are plenty of ideas to come up with on your own; the point is to do something unique so people will talk about it and ultimately attend your screening.
There are plenty of ideas to come up with on your own; the point is to do something unique so people will talk about it and ultimately attend your screening.
CREATE YOUR OWN MARKETING MATERIALS
Demonstrate to others how your film might best be sold to a paying audience in theaters. Your own early marketing materials (poster, trailer, website) along with the hype those generate in the form of publicity (articles in magazines and newspapers, on television, and the Web) will show a distributor that there is a market for your movies.
The single most important thing a filmmaker can do to get attention for your film on the festival circuit is to find a champion. A champion can be a film critic or reviewer, a well-known filmmaker, or someone who speaks with some kind of credibility when it comes to the content of the film. A champion provides a quote or endorsement touting the virtues of the movie that can ultimately be used to help secure a sale. For indie films with no stars, finding the right champion just may be the difference between getting a distribution deal and ending up as one of the thousands of cine-orphans.
One young Michigan filmmaker brought his low-budget horror film to the Cannes Film Market in the early 1980s. After failing to attract attention for his gruesome movie, he happened to run into horror novelist Stephen King. The wide-eyed young filmmaker begged King to attend a screening of his little independent movie. King agreed and liked it so much that he provided a quote, which was used on the poster. The quote read:
“The most ferociously original horror movie of the year.”
—STEPHEN KING,
author of Carrie and The Shining
REMEMBER: IT’S A CAREER, NOT A GET-RICH-QUICK SCHEME
Have realistic expectations. You’re not likely to get rich and your lifestyle is not likely to change even if you beat the odds and sell your film. Look ahead to your next film project and keep your eye on the real prize. The sale of the film is not the prize. Making the film itself was probably the best part, you just didn’t know it then.
That famous quote was used on all the marketing and posters at the time. Just those few words from King put this little indie movie on the map. Michigan filmmaker Sam Raimi credits the quote King provided for Evil Dead for helping to launch his career.
The secret is to come up with a champion who breaks convention and will get audiences (or distributors) interested in seeing the film. Securing a “thumbs up” from a prominent film critic (a dying breed in movie marketing anyway) is a long shot at best. Being creative about exactly whom to approach is critical.
The Last Game is a documentary about the story of a high school football coach who participates in the game of his career, which pits him in a regional playoff game against his own son. Producer’s rep Jeff Dowd felt that a quote from a prominent director of sports movies would give the movie a leg up. Here’s the result:
“I remember when I directed Hoosiers, the Los Angeles Times said, ‘You don’t have to be a man or a basketball fan to love this movie.’ You don’t have to be a man or football fan to enjoy The Last Game. It has a wonderful and inspirational true story with great characters and exciting real life drama that the best Hollywood screenwriters could only dream of inventing. And if you are a football player, coach, athlete or fan, it’s a must see!”—David Anspaugh, Director (Hoosiers, Rudy)
This David Anspaugh quote has been used in all the marketing for the film, including the DVD release. The film racked up positive reviews from critics and gained the attention of audiences.
My own company, Film Threat, was in need of a champion for our first DVD release. The feature-length documentary Starwoids, about a bunch of Star Wars fans waiting in line for the Episode I premiere, already had a great sales angle—Star Wars. More than a few people have heard of that film. But asking DVD consumers to watch an entertaining documentary can be like asking a kid to eat vegetables. We had to get creative. We knew we needed someone to endorse the film and give it even more credibility. Someone who could elevate an already great doc and make it a must-see. We settled on independent director Kevin Smith. He perfectly represents the Star Wars generation to fans. Smith liked the film enough to record some voice-over narration and even provided a ten-minute interview about Star Wars’ influence on his own films, which became an extra on the DVD. Selling Starwoids with Kevin Smith’s endorsement became a lot easier. (And damn if I’m not grateful to him for it.) His affiliation gave us the credibility to get the film into retail chains, and filmmaker Dennis Przywara actually made a healthy profit from his indie doc.
Now, most might think that a movie reviewer could make a good champion. And they often do. But sometimes an endorsement from an unlikely source will provide a much better way to get attention. Just ask my pal Silent Bob.