JON REISS: "We've Been Here Before, But This Time We Can Escape"
MARKET MONDAY #10
TRANSCRIPT:
Making a film is fifty percent of filmmaking. I’ve been saying this for a while. So the other fifty percent is connecting your film to an audience. This process should start at inception. Ted also said, you guys are already embracing this because it will make the process more fun, more interesting, and it’ll make your distribution marketing easier if you start this process in inception.
I’m really shocked that this is happening. I have a distribution lab where I teach filmmakers how to do distribution marketing over six months. Six of the fiction projects in the fiction section of the lab are at the script stage, so I think we’re actually starting to move on where filmmakers are thinking about this too late.
Basically, if you’re thinking about this in the festival process, you’re really thinking too late.
So, budget for distribution and marketing and inception. This basically is that fifty percent of your money and resources should be going into making your film, and fifty percent of your money and resources should be going into distributing and marketing your film, because that’s how hard distribution and marketing is.
It takes that much work. You should be thinking about budgeting for it and also crewing it so that you’re not doing it alone.
One of the most important things and actually is something I’ve been thinking about over the last number of years, which is: find an underserved audience and serve them authentically.
Most of the unicorns that you see that are out there – like The Librarians, which we just released, is kind of a unicorn. It’s like in a hundred and sixty theaters. It’s a social issue documentary. Even Hundreds of Beavers, I would say, is serving an underserved audience.
If you want to make money or really achieve your goals, find an underserved audience and serve them.
Know what value you provide your audience. Besides just knowing your audience and knowing how your audience consumes media. I would say that this trumps all of them. You all are all egotistical filmmakers, I know it, so you all think that you’re making a great film and that’s the service to the audience. It’s not enough, okay? It’s not enough to engage with them uniquely and authentically as a creator of art.
So how do people authentically connect with you? That’s how you provide them value – authentic value – about your process, what your interests are, etc.. This is not just for each project, but this is to create a long term audience that you can carry throughout your process.
Where does your audience receive recommendations? This is essentially marketing. And you can strategize marketing like, ‘oh, I’m going to reach out to all these people in this way’, but you should think about it from your audience’s perspective. How does that audience hear about things? How does the audience that you want to communicate with hear about things? That should be guiding your marketing. Your audience connection, and then connect with your audience authentically.
This is kind of like a no brainer. And if you’re not doing this. Why are you here?
Only make films without thinking about your audience if you’re willing to lose all the money and time you have invested in it.
How does your audience consume media? This is also essentially distribution, right? You want to think about how different audiences consume media in different ways. Like some audiences will want to go to theaters. Some audiences won’t. Some audiences want to buy merch. Other audiences won’t. So think about what makes sense for your project and also for your audience. This basically falls into essentially what I call event theatrical, which is festivals, the conventional theatrical community screenings, any kind of screening you can possibly do. Digital, which is broadcast and DoD. Educational, which is a hybrid. And then the fourth category for me is merge.
Owned media which goes to what you control and what you create. Again it goes to how are you creating value for your audience then shared media which is partnerships, social media and organic social and influencers. Then earned media, which is press but more important than press these days is audience reviews. Getting your audience to talk about your project, I would say, is as important as traditional press, if not more important. And the last is, because we’re all broke, paid media. You have the least amount of money for paid media. So that’s why I identified the first three.
Okay, now I only have two, so three done that and then 13. What happened? What happened with the slide deck? 13 oh my God. Ted took out 13.
PMD or any variation of it, which is the producer of marketing and distribution, which I invented in my book. You can call it a distribution producer, or you can call it a distribution coordinator, call it anything. But think of having a crew, people for your film and pay them and credit them as you credit everyone else. I’ve said once before, fire DP and hire a PMD because you should be able to shoot your own film. But if you can’t do marketing, hire someone to do it.
Art is not a zero sum game. Work in and embrace community. I think especially now in the political and economic system we’re in, community is that much more important, which is why I’m a huge fan of event theatrical. But also making films and community is important. There’s been a lot written about collectives I highly recommend. It’s really hard to work on your own as a filmmaker.