132: How to Market Your Indie Film (Part 1)
[Podcast] How to Market Your Indie Film (Part 1)
Podcast: Play in new window | Download (86.2MB)
Subscribe: RSS
In this episode, we workshop the film, "Time of the Season", and explore tactics of how to market an indie film in today's digital landscape. This is part 1 of the workshop.
What happens after you've finished your indie film?
A lot of independent filmmakers find themselves in this dilemma of what to do next after they've killed themselves making their film.
Filmmakers, Jamie Benyon and Lucy Jordan, had met while working as Production Assistants (PA's) on some of the biggest films made, including Wonder Woman, Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, and Star Wars: Rogue One.
When it came time to make their own film, they challenged themselves by tackling a dark comedy centered around a family reunion. Jamie shares the adventures about making a film with over 14 actors on set and finishing in 11 days!
Read Jamie's article here: Why I Left the Film Industry to Finally Make My Passion Project.
Image originally from the Filmmaker's Process
How to market your indie film ...
As you'll hear in this podcast episode, I break down the steps that Jamie and Lucy could implement to better market their indie film.
You'll hear us discuss things like:
- Pitch - Refine your one sentence explanation for your film even after you've completed the movie
- Theme - How the theme of your movie will become your marketing message
- Taglines - How aligning your movie marketing tagline with your overall marketing message is crucial
- Instagram Marketing - Why thumbnails are the new movie poster
- No movie stars - How do you market an indie film when you have no movie stars?
- Disruptive marketing - Why disruptive marketing doesn't work online
- And much more ...
How to market your indie film ...
As you'll hear in the podcast episode, getting clear on what your story is about will reveal to you how to go about your marketing strategy.
In the case of "Time of the Season", it's a dark comedy set within a family reunion. The current tagline Jamie has been using reads as follows:
One big toxic family. One day. Relationships unravel into farcical catastrophe.
Another approach would be to relate it more to the viewer, in this case, we explored changing it to something like:
Every family has secrets. What if those secrets are exposed ... on the same day? Chaos. Comedy. Catastrophe.
The difference between the two approaches is by removing the adjective, "toxic family" and stating "every family" it helps relate it to the viewer on a personal level. No one wants to watch a movie about a toxic family, because that viewer's family might be toxic as well.
But by stating "every family" you're inviting the audience to say, "Yes, I know, my family is whacked".
Then by following up with a question, "What if ..." The use of "What if ..." is one the easiest tricks to draw someone into your story. Hollywood pitch masters use this technique all the time. Try implementing it into your pitch.
This is just one example of things that we dig into with this podcast episode.
Enjoy listening!
EERRGGHH!!!
I finished my film ...
But now what?
You're in luck!
This FREE video series can help.
Was this post helpful?
If you've found value in this post, please share it!
Follow Film Trooper at ...
- Facebook: Film Trooper
- Twitter: @filmtrooper
- YouTube: Film Trooper
- Podcast: Film Trooper
About Scott McMahon
Scott McMahon is a Fellow Film Trooper at Film Trooper, a website for helping filmmakers attain filmmaking freedom. Scott recently made a feature film for $500 with no crew called, The Cube. Want to know what equipment was used to make that film? Grab a FREE gift at www.FREEGEARGUIDE.com
