HD For Indies

celluloid eyes: an open letter to indy/low-budget filmmakers

A nice open letter to the indie community on how to promote your indie film, but more specifically (and importantly), how to help the press to promote your film.

How are you going to get any buzz if there is no website, no online trailer, no nice stills that easy to find? No plot summaries, no bios about the director/writer/actors/DP/whoever is important to promoting your film.

She singles out the site for Jumping Off Bridges as a good example of how to do it right -

It's easy to navigate, and all the information a potential viewer or film critic might want is easy to find. The site includes a press kit PDF, a list of credits, a summary of the story ... even iTunes links to music from the movie.


They got it mostly right (probably due to Stacy I'll bet!), with a few quibbles - high res stills were embedded in the PDF, not freestanding downloadables, but other than that they give press folks, who are always rushed, underpaid and on deadline, good info fast and well organized, and the press will love you for that. Jumping Off Bridges isn't exactly a grab-you-by-the-throat film - it's about a family dealing with the suicide of the mom after a child dies years before. Yuck - heavy stuff, not something folks are necessarily going to volunteer to go see. So all the more reason that they needed, and have, a good website to give reasons why you'd want to know about the film, and info about the film, etc.

I find I am MUCH more likely to go see a film if I have a personal connection or info of any sort about it - if I meet someone involved at a film festival, I'll go see their film. If I've seen the trailer, I'm at least five times more likely to go see it. Etc.

Anyway, read it/learn it/love it/live it.

-mike

(and thanks to Melissa for pointing this out to me! : ) )