Once upon a time in the 1980s, I made 16mm short films. My first film, Louise Smells a Rat, was made from recutting snippets of other peoples' films and borrowing a song. The total budget, just over $1,000, went to lab fees.
In those days, I'd finish a film, put it in a "jiffy" bag, and send it off to a film festival. This was how you got noticed, and if you were really lucky, got some press. The brass ring, never assured, was a distribution deal with a major company.
Today, thanks to the Internet, I've short-circuited this process -- and transformed my work and my life.
When I sent my first film off, I held my breath, and I got very lucky. Louise Smells a Rat was invited to the New York Film Festival and was mentioned in the press.
In an effort to begin to make money, I determined to make a feature film, and did that for $77,000 (How to Be Louise). It was invited to the Sundance Festival and the Berlin Film Festival. International distribution seemed very likely.
In the first 10 minutes of one of the Berlin screenings, the bulb blew in the projector, and at least one critical taste-maker got up and walked out. The distributors did not line up. The festival launchpad dream totally fizzled.
It was back to the drawing board. I was going to write a feature film script distributors would find irresistible.
Seventeen years and thousands of drafts later, it occurred to me that the Internet could save me from my life plan. To get a potential audience of millions, all I'd need is broadband, a consumer video camera, and some $3 tapes. And with venues like YouTube demanding short films, and some people even making a living from them, I saw a new light. Hey, maybe I could be a miniaturist, after all.
My 17-years-in-the-making script fell to the knife. What am I doing, I wondered aloud, gutting my script of its juiciest moments and throwing them up on YouTube for free? Am I nuts?
Bob Berney, who distributed My Big Fat Greek Wedding and Passion of the Christ, told me it sounded like a good idea: "You'll get buzz." Another sage announced, "If it's good, you can give it away and still make money." And still another said, "Make something that has an audience, and a business plan will follow."
Well, at least peace of mind has followed. I can snarl at "powerful" people. I can even spend an entire party with my back to the crowd, bent over the hors d'oeuvres.
I hadn't realized that my filmic need for a movie star to "attach" to my script, or my quest for a producer with access to financing, had warped my social life for years. Whenever I met someone, my mind raced to who they knew, if they'd be willing to help me, and, most urgently, how I could start a conversation with them when I felt so desperate and fraudulent.
Recent articles report that people are making six figures doing what I'm doing, if they're succeeding with the "outreach." I haven't mastered viral marketing, but there is an immediate audience for my work, and the rest is up to me.
I kiss our modem with gratitude. Who wants to make work, in any medium, that goes into a drawer?
Today, the Internet offers the potential to get to any and everyone -- if you make good work and can figure out how to promote it online.
— Anne Flournoy makes film and video. She is a Guggenheim Fellow and is currently producing The Louise Log, a comedy series on YouTube about the challenges of marriage, motherhood, and all of life – as narrated by an overactive inner voice.
An interesting series of films, enjoyed them! It looks like you've found some ways to promote your work well, as nearly a thousand viewers have looked at each of the YouTube video postings.
Although not an expert on video promotion myself, it would seem a lot of success of those read about in the press may be due to luck, and being in the right place at the right time. There's so many projects on the internet now, it's just a matter of putting in the hours to promote, and hope that it's seen by the right person.
Just keep doing what you love and the rewards will come sooner or later.
Well, using social networks is basically using what we now call internet, no special place you need to go; no need for another 'interweb'.
The blog idea gives you the option to add commentaries to your post, and also have a two-way communication with your audience. The problem about it is that you need a blog that people know of, or you'll have the same problem than with YouTube - millions and millions of people posting, without any real form of distinction.
Using tools like Facebook, MySpace is also being used to help promote films and shorts. Not so long ago I received an invitation from Intel and Dell to help them create a mass animation. The name of the project is "Live Music" and you can read more about it here.
Anne, I really do not know about English speaking space, but I think it's just the same- how we learn about interesting videos: either somebody post it in his/her own blog and crosspost somewhere else, and then copypaste, copypaste...or just send you an interesting link
What social networks is concerned, I am not sure how to use it, but it is a great resource for any promotion- there were several posts in Internet Evolution about marketing potential of facebook and other social networks. I am not very good at it, the only thing I know is that the Internet is a great resource and if you find your "know how", the world will be yours:)))
Thank you Mashka. Maybe you could explain in some detail the ways that one can cross-post and use the social networking tools to promote videos on the internet. Thanks for the other references.
on one hand, if you have an opportunity to send your movies to the "real movie festival' you are in a better position than thousands of people who download their films on the Internet. You have better chances to be noticed.I don't know if you read a book by Robert Rodriguez " A rebel without a crew". He told about his way to the top. On the other hand, when Rodriguez started there wasn't the Internet:))).
I know at least two guys who shooted their simple and quite unprofessional videos and downloaded them on youtube, so they became pretty popular without any promotion. I guess you know such stories as well Crossposting is the main tool:) of promotion.Chris Chrocker is a good example :))). Social networks is another tool.
The most important - to have something really special, a zest. that makes your movie not just a good movie,-there are a lot good stuff on the Internet, but it has to be really something
Hello Mashka, Well from your bio information, you're probably more savvy about this than I am. Most of my 'step 2' suggestions are in my previous response. (I haven't gotten to step 3) My 'step 1' was the old 'start where you are'-- and these are pretty obvious actions which you have undoubtedly thought of: what I did was to send the link to the newly posted video to everyone on my mailing list, took cards made up at the copy shop on hard card 'paper' (and cut up on a paper cutter there) with the link, a name/title to Google, and something like SHORT FUN FILMS and handed them out at parties, school/industry gatherings, to waitresses, sales people who sold me something, I was shameless (and to tell the truth, in this regard, I still am). The making up the cards myself was an economy measure and because I'm impatient and wanted them immediately. It turned out to be important because it allowed me to improve the card with each new video upload and I didn't hand out all that many cards per video. I've heard that writing to editor@youtube.com and requesting that they feature your video has worked for other people...this has not worked for me. I'll keep thinking and maybe write a blog on the subject as it is, as far as I can tell, the critical one. Thanks for bringing it up.
I am really interested what are the ways of promoting movies on the Internet.I mean, there are a lot of talented movie makers who use the Internet as an arena for their first presentation.Unfortunatelly, most of them won't be noticed.Are there any means to increase the chance that your work will be chosen by audience.Good Luck!
One other source I just learned about for getting the numbers of viewers up, The Digital Marketer's podcasts on itunes. In a series called Quick and Dirty Tricks they're some devoted to how to use social networking, Twitter, etc. most effectively to get clicks/attention/whatever you want from the internet. And you're probably aware of the textbook success story of Susan Buice and Arin Crumley and their podcasts-turned-feature FOUR-EYED MONSTER.
First about Johnny Ventura. At the time, I lived on Mott Street near Bleecker. There were a lot of men from the Dominican Republic who played cards at tables on the sidewalk and listened only to that sort of music. It seemed perfect for the soundtrack and I was happily surprised that Mr. Ventura was wiling to meet me at his record company's office on 10th Ave and give me permission to use the song.
As far as making money, hey, why not. I'm not crazy about ads embedded in or flashing around short videos so am trying to figure out another way to go. Two strategies that seem possible but not without more time and effort: 1) sell to or produce for a website that features webisodes (nerve.com, IFC, etc) 2) sell video downloads and/or dvds off my own website along with other paraphenalia (t-shirts, posters, etc). Both of these ideas are helped by a substantial fan base and the second one requires it. I read somewhere that Lisa Nova said she spent 40 hours a week on 'outreach' to get where she is. My problem is that I'd rather be making more episodes than doing the work of building up the fan base. Two excellent resources for figuring this out which are PACKED with ideas for how to get the work out there and drive up the clicks are Lance Weiler's http://www.workbookproject.com and Peter Broderick's
http://www.peterbroderick.com site, especially the Bulletins and the Writing. Though both Peter and Lance come from film and target some of their strategies to the longer form of a feature, a lot is applicable to shorts.
I am so surprised that you used my fellow countrymen Johnny Ventura's music for the Louise Smells a Rat short.
The log's seemed very interesting, saw a couple of them. Are you planning on maybe putting ads in them? do you have any plans of making money out of them?
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M2M: Rise of the Machines? Not Yet David Weldon In the 1970 science fiction thriller Colossus: The Forbin Project, two giant supercomputers from the United States and Soviet Union secretly join forces to take control of the collective nuclear might of the two countries. In the film, the two machines discover each other's existence, communicate back-and-forth, share their collective data, and cut their human creators out of the process. It is the ultimate example of machine-to-machine communications, or M2M. CLICK FOR MORE
M2M: Rise of the Machines? Not Yet David Weldon In the 1970 science fiction thriller Colossus: The Forbin Project, two giant supercomputers from the United States and Soviet Union secretly join forces to take control of the collective nuclear might of the two countries. In the film, the two machines discover each other's existence, communicate back-and-forth, share their collective data, and cut their human creators out of the process. It is the ultimate example of machine-to-machine communications, or M2M. CLICK FOR MORE
M2M: Rise of the Machines? Not Yet David Weldon In the 1970 science fiction thriller Colossus: The Forbin Project, two giant supercomputers from the United States and Soviet Union secretly join forces to take control of the collective nuclear might of the two countries. In the film, the two machines discover each other's existence, communicate back-and-forth, share their collective data, and cut their human creators out of the process. It is the ultimate example of machine-to-machine communications, or M2M. CLICK FOR MORE
M2M: Rise of the Machines? Not Yet David Weldon In the 1970 science fiction thriller Colossus: The Forbin Project, two giant supercomputers from the United States and Soviet Union secretly join forces to take control of the collective nuclear might of the two countries. In the film, the two machines discover each other's existence, communicate back-and-forth, share their collective data, and cut their human creators out of the process. It is the ultimate example of machine-to-machine communications, or M2M. CLICK FOR MORE
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