"Don’t Call Back" is a microbudget feature being shot this week in London. The filmmakers managed to raise slightly more than their goal budget (of £20,000) via crowdfunding. Theirs is a pretty cut-down version of crowdfunding, but it met their goal, so that’s worth commendation.
They’ve kept it simple with all funds considered ‘donations’ (no need to worry about diving up proceeds), and entitling donors to a range of minor benefits:
- £10 you’ll get a Special Thanks in the credits;
- £50 pounds you also get to be an extra, and either two tickets to the film Premier or the Wrap Party;
- £100 pounds you get the above plus tickets to both the Premier and the Wrap Party;
- More than £100 pounds you get a shared logo credit in the opening titles.
They’ve managed to get a bit of mainstream press, including an interview on BBC news. Their particular media ‘angle’ is that many of the young filmmakers are from troubled backgrounds, they met on the Prince’s Trust ‘Get Into Digital Media’ Course, and decided to join together to make a feature film.
It has all happened very quickly, with them doing the course this time last year, and planning Don’t Call Back only within the last six months. Their primary goal is for them to get experience making a feature, rather than spend years knocking on industry doors.
What they’ve done well:
- Established a shooting date from day one, which lends credibility regarding their seriousness.
- Met their funding goal on time.
- Made clear benefits donors would receive.
- Appealed to businesses by offering branding in return for larger sums.
- Had an angle that gained mainstream media attention
- Workable website with links to press, and prompt response to queries.
- Youtube interviews with each participant, telling why this film experience is important to them
- Share buttons to make it easy to post to facebook, delicious, twitter.
- Use of Twitter, Facebook and Youtube for social media marketing
- In addition to taking donations online, they had ‘flash mob’ money collections in busy London areas and used Ebay to sell additional logo space in the titles.
What could be improved
The haste in which this has come together means they have focused purely on the nuts and bolts of making a film, without a marketing or monetisation strategy in place. They plan to work this out after the shoot.
While this meets their stated goal, of getting experience making a feature film, it is a missed opportunity to fully capitalise on the film’s potential and understand what makes the business tick.
So, I’m going to sketch out a rough potential plan for them here – if you have any ideas, please submit them in the comments, and I’ll make sure they hear about it. Bearing in mind that they are shooting this week...
During Production & Post onwards
1. Keep the donors up to date. Email, social media networks, text messages – these can all be used effectively to let them know key happenings, make them feel valued, and it doesn’t take too much effort on a filmmakers part. The more involved donors are, the more they will work to spread the word along their own networks.
2. Get ‘behind the scenes’ footage for immediate upload to the Youtube channel, website, and social media.
3. Each day, one key person take 15 minutes out to make a status update on their own personal Facebook, Twitter, social media networks. Best if this is a different person each day, in rotation, getting maximum reach without repetition to the same people.
4. Keep a laptop (or web enabled phonewith internet connection on set - many additional people will voluntarily update their social networks in their break – even get Extras in on the act. Make photos & links handy to them, so they can send a photo to their friends and family of themselves ‘on set’, spreading the word.
5. Recontact all the media who ran the story already, giving them an update with new behind-the-scenes footage and photos, encouraging them to run a second story. This is a success story – the filmmakers raised the £20,000 to make the film, and are really doing it!
6. As soon as there’s enough film footage, cut together a teaser trailer (may just be 15 seconds). Release this across your networks. (And don’t forget to include the website address on it!)
7. Put a button on the website for people to register their desire to see the film. This will harness email addresses to keep them updated on the film, and additional information can be gathered such as their location that will help to plan screenings.
8. When using social media, remember not to just plug Don’t Call Back. It’s all about give and take – be supportive of other people in your networks, taking a moment to plug their projects as well, and get actively involved in discussion. This way people will like you, and not feel ‘used’.
9. I’m guessing that the £20,000 budget didn’t include anything for marketing or festivals. So the filmmakers need to work out how much more they need to raise, and begin a second donation appeal. This time the benefits will be different:
- £10 for a special thanks on the DVD
- £25 for presale a Special Edition DVD (signed by your team), plus the above.
- £50 for a nicely designed “Don’t Call Back” t-shirt, plus the above.
- £100 for a logo on the DVD, plus the above
- £1000 for either a 30 second advertisement OR a 1 minute interview discussing involvement to go on the DVD.
(n.b. I have no idea how much £’s are worth in real terms, so the above figures might need some tweaking to suit UK economy).
There needs to be a deadline on this deal, so that the DVD isn’t held up by the extras.
The Distribution Plan
Okay, now we get to the iffy bit. The content and quality of the film will determine different distribution strategies.
As this has been pulled together quickly, with inexperienced filmmakers, on a tiny budget of £20,000, it probably won’t be high quality cinema. Filmmakers need to be realistic about who their target audience is. There is a market for B grade fare, but you will miss it if you try to sell your film as mainstream (and vice versa).
The following is a tool box of options:
a) The Paranomal Activity model
(Good movie but, due to its low budget, unlikely to gain proper distribution).
- Submit to relevant film festivals that are about the idea rather than the production values.
- Film the audience reaction at the Premier as well as test and preview screenings.
- At these screenings have laptops connected to the internet and encourage viewers to post their thoughts to Twitter, Facebook, etc, as they leave the cinema.
- Upload audience reactions and comments to your network.
- Encourage people to register their interest on the website, citing that you won’t be able to release the film properly without enough votes.
- Release this material to mainstream media as well as online media.
[This strategy gained Paranomal Activity 1 million people voting to see the film, as a result they got a mass release, and made a killing at the box office].
b) Niche audience model
(The film will please a small cult film audience, but not of mainstream appeal).
- Identify your audience! Find out who is likely to enjoy your film, and get them to a test screening.
- Enter the film into niche film festivals that are relevant to your audience.
- Gain a niche film distributor (if you can).
- Follow points 2& 3 of Paranormal Activity, making sure that your test audience is filled with your niche audience.
- Sell the film online through a print-on-demand service like Amazon.
- Get involved in the niche community, hanging out on online forums, discussing similar movies, with a link in your signature to Don’t Call Back.
- Open an online store to sell merchandise to your hard core fans – t-shirts, mugs, posters, film prints, etc. This can be set up easily with a print-on-demand service like CafePress or Zazzle.
- When marketing, focus on the story behind the film, the people, what the filmmakers have achieved in their personal lives by making this feature film.
- Edit the behind the scenes material into a documentary that follows the filmmakers’ journies, from troubled youth to filmmakers. Don’t be shy here – admit mistakes made, the challenges, the real guts of it – both in their personal lives, as well as on-set. Successful documentaries that came out of unsuccessful feature films include Lost in La Mancha, Burden of Dreams, American Movie and Making Venus.
- Seek out festivals and art house cinemas that will screen this as a double bill, the doco and the feature together as a special event, perhaps with a Q&A with the filmmakers.
- Sell the DVD, with both documentary and feature film, through a print-on-demand service like Amazon.
- Get involved in online filmmaking communities, discussing what you learnt, mistakes you made, offering advice to other young filmmakers, and occasionally referencing or linking back to your film.
- See if the BBC or another TV channel is interested in broadcasting the documentary (they also distribute to a lot of other countries, they may help you sell into further territories). Also look into educational sales – schools and universities may be able to use it within their curriculum as an example of young people having a go.
- Consider releasing one or both films online for free download, or cut into episodes and release one section a week on Youtube to build audience over time. This will help films get to a broader international audience. If just a proportion of these viewers chooses to buy the DVD edition (or other merchandise), it may add up to more than if there’d been a tiny traditional paying audience.
Hi Luci,
ReplyDeleteI would add in the production section the need for HIGH quality stills of the action. Well, as you said, it depends on how the film will come out ultimately. If they are really considering distribution and PR, they will need good shots of the action. If their story ends up being more on their exploits as filmmakers, they need crew shots, behind the scenes stuff. So take plenty of both. NOT with a cellphone camera! They need quality, in focus, well lit, well compositioned shots. So many people forget this. Equally needed are good video interviews, not just shot on a Flip camera.
My thoughts are that this is just an exercise. Very rare that a first film by first time filmmakers on 20K is going to actually be distributed outside of their core fanbase. I know you can point to Paranormal Activity and the like, but really you shouldn't. They were such flukes that you can't really call them models.
I like your idea of milking their experience as filmmakers from troubled backgrounds. There are plenty of other outlets besides BBC to get that story on. Try online publications specializing in filmmaking, online radio and podcasts. They should already be socializing online with filmmaker sites and getting known in the filmmaker community.Everyone wants to be covered by the traditional media and that is sooo difficult when online publications are updated sometimes hourly, specialize in audiences their content might resonate with and are hungry for content. And they are so much easier to deal with than a traditional journalist. BBC promised to follow up, based on that video, so I would definitely try. But think of online media too.
I would strongly encourage each of them to be building their personal brand now if they are thinking of making this their occupation. Participate in Twitter, FB and any other social network where like minded filmmakers congregate to share ideas and experience. Do it even without a project. In fact, especially without one so the temptation to only promote the project and not themselves is not overwhelming.
They could just consider distributing it freely as a calling card. Their film is paid for so no one to pay back. This could just be an example film to use to build up their portfolio. I worry that they may be too caught up in the money they can make instead of looking at it as a form of expression and experience. There are many filmmakers working today that do it not for the money, but for the love, the compulsion to tell a story. If they are only in it to make money and a career, they might be advised to seek other work. It is fine to make money, but it shouldn't be expected out of filmmaking. It is a difficult industry. And this is their first one.
It says on their website they only raised £2k.
ReplyDeleteAlso from some of their early stills it is a seasoned DOP and some bob-a-job director's names on the clapper board. Me thinks this a scheme of self promotion