Jon Reiss

An interview with Filmmaker/Author Jon Reiss

Here’s an interview posted by shericand on youtube.  We’re gearing up for the release of Think Outside the Box Office on November 16th!!!  Keep checking back on the blog for more details!!!

November 10, 2009

Below I’ve posted an interview with filmmaker Jon Reiss speaking about his new book THINK OUTSIDE THE BOX OFFICE, which is being released on November 16^th.  Jon describes it as the first of its kind, an ultimate guide to film distribution in the digital age for low budget filmmakers. The book includes how to develop unique strategies for projects, prepare budgets, create partnerships with other companies and construct marketing plans. For more information about the book including how to purchase it, check out the video or go to Jon’s blog at www.jonreiss.com/blog.

Jon Reiss Interviewed Regarding THINK OUTSIDE THE BOX OFFICE

DIY-ing Your Film’s Trailer: Do’s and Dont’s for Filmmakers

In the new digital film age and the world of DIY marketing and distribution, we film makers will no longer be handing our dailies off to a marketing agency to cut us the dream trailer. While in the writing, shooting and editing stages, we must think as artists; but after that period, we must become marketing gurus. Check out this entertaining article from Film.com on marketing your film appropriately, starting with the trailer:

Good Trailers vs. Bad Trailers: Where Movie Marketers Go Wrong
Don’t ruin all the good jokes, don’t tell us the entire plot, and whatever you do, don’t spoil the ending!

MaryAnn Johanson, Jun 16, 2009

I feel like Gollum and the One Ring when it comes to film trailers: I loveses them and I hateses them. I’m always eager for a look at the movies I’ll be seeing in a few months, but I’m always terrified that the trailers will ruin the experience of watching those movies. One of the first things I learned as a film critic was how much more enjoyable it is to see a movie with no preconceptions whatsoever about it, and more than once I’ve seen a trailer for the first time after I saw the movie and knew to a certainty that if I’d seen the trailer first, it would have greatly lessened my enjoyment of that movie.

Movie fans know why: Because trailers give away far too much. All the best jokes. (That’s such a standard that when the jokes in the trailer are terrible, it’s a guarantee that the movie will be awful, because if those are the best attempts at humor the film can make … so maybe even bad trailers do offer a valuable service in this respect.) The resolution of the sexual tension between the protagonists. The most surprising of the plot twists. And often, the ending of the film itself … or hints enough that you can guess.

So why bother even seeing the movie at all? Continue reading →