@Jon_Reiss Marketing Art – An Oxymoron?
Today’s discussions began with the question of why is it important to identify your audience before you finish your film. I believe there are a number of reasons, but the main ones are:
1. Takes a long time to develop your audience.
2. You can engage your audience to participate in the film process itself.
3. The audience engagement/marketing becomes a more integral part of the film.
It can even take you a while to figure out who your core and niche audiences are.
A number of comments brought up the essential issue of art vs. commerce – if you start marketing to your audience so early in the process, then you have the risk of solely catering to your audience which is contradictory to the creation of art.
I can hear Ted Hope protesting now! Ted especially has vocal in denouncing the old art v commerce divide.
Some of the best art is created without a mind to the marketplace. I get that. Chasing the market often leads to creating banal work. But that thinking is too simplistic now for the supple nature of the market in which many tastes and interests can be served.
Filmmakers have to get beyond that old art v. commerce divide and understand this:
Marketing is what helps you find the audience that already exists for your creation. You don’t need to limit your creativity in order to create a marketing strategy. You need to consider who is interested in your specific creativity. This is your niche (or niches). Your core are the most ardent followers within these niches.
So when asked does the writer, director or producer need to consider the marketplace, I would say most definately the director and producer and in many circumstances – it isn’t terrible for writer’s to think about it as well.
Not to think of how you can write the next “Transformers”, but to think creatively about writing material that mind create new opportunities and new models for discovery in today’s fractured marketplace.
This blog is the first in a series that expand on discussion threads on twitter @Jon_Reiss
Tribeca Film Festival Panel Discussion-
Coming up soon is the Tribeca Talks- Tools of the Trade: Alternative Distribution, Marketing 2.0, and Beyond. There is a fantastic panel including Geoff Gilmore of Tribeca Enterprises, Sara Pollack of YouTube, Cynthia Swartz of 42West, Ryan Werner of Independent Film Channel, Adam Yauch of Oscilloscope, Steven Zeitchik who is the moderator of The Hollywood Reporter, and myself.
We will be going over strategies such as marketing, and digital distribution for short and long term filmmakers. The panel and I will be speaking about what we did with our films, and the key marketing targets to get where you want to be.
The panel discussion will be held on Tuesday, April 28, 2009. If your in the New York area, come check it out!
Web Marketing and DIY Filmmaking Article in Filmmaker Magazine-
Filmmaker Magazine has featured an article that I wrote about DIY web marketing, drawing attention and self distribution for Spring 2009. You should check it out, here is the article.
HOW TO MARKET YOUR DVD ONLINE PART 3
In this installment, Jon Reiss looks at DIY Web marketing.
BY JON REISS
So you’ve authored your DVD and perhaps even replicated it. You’ve found a fulfillment company that you are happy with. Now, how to get people to buy it?
In the last installment of this series, which appeared in the Winter 2009 issue of Filmmaker, I outlined how to maximize your DVD release strategy and before that in the Fall 2008 issue I discussed ways in which filmmakers can get their movies distributed through DIY self-distribution methods and hybrid strategies, all of which are based on my own experience self-distributing my graffiti doc, Bomb It. For filmmakers who are extending this DIY thinking to DVD retail by selling their own discs through a Web site or online store, this article will explore some of the ways you can cost-effectively publicize these releases, draw in potential customers and create revenue for your film.
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