In 2007, filmmakers Cora Olson & Jennifer Dubin wrapped up their first Present Pictures film GOOD DICK. Their collaboration lead to Sundance premiere in 2008, which they parlayed into a successful self-distribution effort that continues today.
GOOD DICK is a modern love story about a troubled, reclusive young woman and the persistent video clerk who draws her out of her claustrophobic world by starting up a unique courtship with her. The film stars Jason Ritter, Tom Arnold, Martin Starr & Marianna Palka.
From their "What Does Good Dick Mean to You" campaign to their social networking strategy, learn what has helped Cora & Jennifer make GOOD DICK a success.
Q1. What were your goals for Good Dick?
First off, our goal was to make a great movie for as little money as possible. We worked with two fantastic producing partners to make it happen: the innovative and inspired writer/director/actress Marianna Palka and actor Jason Ritter, who is an incredible force of nature. The four of us became a very tight, strong unit through the process of making this $200K film and taking it to Sundance, an experience that empowered us and made us feel capable of handling the daunting, yet thrilling process of self-distribution. Once we embarked on the release, our goal became to reach as many people as possible with the film, make our money back, and prove that this model can work. Check us out at www.gooddickthefilm.com Q2. How are you identifying, reaching and building your audience?
Any way we can. We were very fortunate to catch the attention of a brilliant interactive television marketing company early on called Brightline iTV, who executed a very successful campaign that put our trailer and a 15 minute featurette on IFC and Sundance Channels, as well as their online and Video-On-Demand platforms, garnering several hundred thousands hits in a matter of weeks. We got our trailer up on Apple iTunes, which also helped. Our website gets strong traffic, and is linked to our profiles on Facebook, MySpace and Bebo. We also traveled to all seven cities where we released the film theatrically and did in person Q & A’s, gathering up our audiences’ email addresses and encouraging them to participate in our ‘What Does Good Dick Mean to You?’ campaign by sending in short videos, poems, artwork, etc letting us know how the film impacted them, and what they think the title means. It was important for us to engage our fans directly and create a dialogue with them. We continue to accept festival invitations, as they offer further opportunity to interact with our audience, and build new fans, awareness and local press. We are also booking a college tour and are excited for Marianna and Jason to continue the discussion about this film and our process with young people across the country. Our DVD will be released into the mainstream retail marketplace this summer, on Showtime in August, and we are currently on Video-On-Demand in 50 million homes nation wide. The availability of the film through these venues helps us to broaden our reach and continue to build fans.
Q3. What tactics did you use for financing? Any advice?
We were very fortunate to have one extremely supportive investor, who believed in the film from Day 1 and got excited by our plan to make the movie on the cheap. Then at Sundance, we were able to sell the UK rights for half of our films’ budget and that helped remove some of the pressure to accept the lowball offers for the US rights. When we began to hatch our plan for self-distribution, it was our original investor who stepped up and supplied the additional capital we needed to execute the release. As far as general financing goes, it is all about finding someone or someones who believe in the filmmaker and want to get behind them and the project. We all know movies are risky, although in today’s economy, we’ve seen firsthand that there are no totally ‘safe’ investments any more. So it is really about finding people who can afford this type of investment and are excited to support a filmmaker. From there, it is your job as the producer or writer or director or even actor, to make sure that every penny is spent wisely and that you have a solid plan to make a great movie, finish it professionally, and get it out there to your audience so you can make your investor his or her or their money back.
Q4. What role does the Internet and social media play in your DIWO (Do-It-With-Others) fundraising or audience-building efforts?
The web plays a huge role for us in getting awareness of the movie out to audiences. In the case of GOOD DICK, we didn’t use the internet to raise funds but we have used it for marketing, promotions, publicity and social networking. Through the social networks, we can keep our fans informed of what is happening with the title and the filmmakers, and as much as possible we want to make the fans a part of the process, bringing them into a direct conversation with us and the director. We rely on the internet since we don’t have the deep pockets of traditional film distributors. It allows us to reach more people and spend less money getting the word out there.
Q5. How do you connect your online campaigns with offline fundraising and audience-building?
The web is only one piece of the puzzle. In person appearances and more traditional press like print, radio and tv stories/interviews help as well. We try to have someone from the film at any festival screening of the movie to give audiences a personal connection to the project. We’ve met so many incredible people who have shared their stories with us, told us why the film resonated for them, and this has been one of the most rewarding parts of the process. We always invite people we meet at screenings and events to contribute to our online campaign “What Does GOOD DICK Mean To You?” and keep in touch with us via our website and blogging.
6. What is next on your radar? And where can folks follow your efforts?
Present Pictures is developing several film projects, spanning a range of genres and budget sizes, and working with talented filmmakers to get their voices heard. We are working on a heartwarming family comedy called THE PERFECT FAMILY, which Anne Renton will direct this summer. We are putting together the drama FOREVER, with director Tatia Pilieva and the summer comedy THE ALAMO with comedy group Almost Mediocre. We’re executive producing the eco-family movie FUTURE WEATHER from filmmaker Jenny Deller. And we’ll be shooting an incredible web series quite soon called SOUND OF MY VOICE. We’ve had a successful experience distributing GOOD DICK ourselves and are interested in branching out into that area, building community for filmmakers, and figuring out ways to help others get their own films out there. We are building our company website and soon you’ll be able to track what we’re up to at www.presentpictures.net
Congrats to the IndieGoGo team for all that they’ve been able to create. It’s folks like these who are helping keep the spirit of independent film alive, and support a new direction for the industry. Thank you!
Presented by the Producer's Guild of America, the Produced By Conference is the first of its kind - a gathering of top producer talent to discuss the future of film finance, production, marketing and distribution. IndieGoGo will be there discussing DIWO (Do-It-With-Others) Filmmaking alongside Hollywood's most successful. Hope you can join what should be quite a dynamic panel. Financing Independent Film As funding sources are shrinking, producers continue to look for creative ways to fund their projects. Our panel of seasoned producers, sales agents, attorneys and financiers will discuss a number of possible strategies to fund and shoot new projects in a shifting economic environment.
The Produced By Conference, presented by the Producers Guild of America, unites the producing world. For the first time ever, emerging artists can gain unprecedented access to the greatest minds in film, television, and new media.
Check out the video below to learn more. Video includes interviews with Marshall Herskovitz (Blood Diamond, Last
Samurai, Traffic, thirtysomething), Gale Anne Hurd (The Terminator, The
Incredible Hulk) and Mark Gordon (2012, Grey's Anatomy, Criminal Minds,
Army Wives)
In Hollywood on June 4th? Stop by my next panel at the Hollywood Black Film Festival's Infotainment Conference. We'll be discussing film financing techniques: new and old.
Panel Discussion: Where Internet and Film Collide - a discussion about film funding, promotion, and distribution
Panelists include Christopher Roberts
(The Believer, Up With Me), Gary Hustwit (Helvetica, Objectified), Noah Harlan (Tehilim), and Scott Kirsner (Cinematech, Variety, Author - "Fans, Friends & Followers") as moderator.
IndieGoGo Screening, panel, and party to be announced soon for #IWNY Internet Week NY1:53 PM May 20thfrom web
Every #IndieGoGo film has a Facebook page (in the IndieGoGo app) where fans can endorse/contribute right on Facebook http://bit.ly/14nWKU12:53 PM May 20thfrom web
Cannes signals new industry model...Distributors moving into production. Trend to Private equity v. debt. http://bit.ly/Sm1QP #indiegogo4:29 PM May 22ndfrom web
John Sloss: "The job of the indie distributor is to build awareness for nothing." Now filmmakers can do it. http://bit.ly/tuIRu #indiegogo2:56 AM May 21stfrom web
John
Sloss: "most important marketing tools for an indie film are the
filmmaker & actors and their willingness to promote" #indiegogo2:54 AM May 21stfrom web
RT @GoGoSlava IndieGoGo Screening, panel, and party to be announced soon for #IWNY Internet Week NY2:38 AM May 21stfrom web
"The Deconsolidation of the Studios... How equity partners [and fan funders! - IndieGoGo] are true partners in film http://bit.ly/7sKzh11:31 PM May 20thfrom web
Crowdsourced Fashion Fun...Takeaway for filmmakers: invite your fans to share ideas... poster design maybe? http://bit.ly/jsgSg #indiegogo5:34 PM May 20thfrom web
Every #IndieGoGo film has a Facebook page (in the IndieGoGo app) where fans can endorse/contribute right on Facebook http://bit.ly/14nWKU2:19 AM May 20thfrom web
Congratulations! You have succeeded in making a video, and have successfully uploaded it to one of many fine online video hosting sites. That, for some of us, may feel like an achievement in itself.
But let’s get real for a second: So what?
It only counts if people see it.
Be it a short documentary, an indie animation, a video blog or even a slide show of your niece’s 3rd birthday party (and we sincerely hope it’s not the latter), there are tons of ways that you can maximize your audience and help turn your video into a viral hit.
This is a 5-part weekly blog series that will provide an introduction on how to best get eyeballs to your content. Simple.
Once you’ve uploaded it, your video lives on what is often called an item page, or a video page.
Item page functionality varies from site to site, but always houses the video file in the video player. It also houses embed code, a direct link url, a description of your video and the video’s tags. The item page is also the place where your friends or haters will come to leave snarky comments, rate your video, leave webcam feedback, post mash-ups, post fan art, and post links to relevant websites.
Video pages are also often organized into topics, playlists, channels or other grouping systems. The tags that you add when you upload the video file can in some cases become topic subjects, but in most instances, you can also manually add tags later. In some cases, on Vimeo, for instance, in addition to adding tags, you can search their channels and add your video. By adding your video to channels, people interested in a given topic will have a higher chance of seeing your video when browsing the site.
II. Explaining basic video page functionality
Rating buttons:The rating buttons are the buttons your viewers can click on that will get your video higher or lower ratings. Pretty simple. They also often affect your placement on playlists, and can allow for greater potential for visibility.
‘Embed’ codes:The embed code is what allows you to post your video to your profile on social networking sites like Facebook, Myspace, etc. They can usually be found near or on the video player, or in a ‘menu’ section right beneath the video player.
Tags:The more tags you add to your video, the higher the chances people will find it. Be creative. A video about cats can be tagged, for instance, to many more words than just ‘cat’ (to wit: furry, pets, housepets, tabby, felines, tomcat, purring, meowing, allergy, woman’s best friend). These tags also help you with SEO (search engine optimization), allowing your video to pop up when someone does a web search for a given term. The temptation might be to tag the video to such hot-button topics as Britney Spears or whatnot, but resist. Dishonesty gives your content a bad rap, and it will make you look unprofessional.
Share button:When you click a share button, it will take you to a series of links that you can use to help your friends to find the video, or - oftentimes - ways to post it right away to Facebook, Digg, Bebo, Myspace and other sites.
Favorite Button:This allows viewers to favorite your video, in other words to bookmark it for future viewing. The more favorites you have, the better your video is doing.
Easy, right? Consider yourself oriented to your video’s online home.
Next week: The first steps towards becoming a viral superstar
Marshall Herskovitz is the President of the Producers Guild of America and the longtime creative partner of Edward Zwick. Marshall has produced an acclaimed list of films and TV series including: “Legends of the Fall”, “Traffic”, “I Am Sam”, “The Last Samurai”, “Blood Diamond”, “thirtysomething”, “My So-Called Life”, and “Once and Again.” He also directed “Jack the Bear” and “Dangerous Beauty”.
In 2007 Herskovitz migrated to the Internet with “quarterlife”, the ground-breaking online series and social network dedicated to artistic, activist twentysomethings. Less than a year after launch, the fast-growing website www.quarterlife.com has become an international destination with members in 60 countries, and the series has become the third most successful scripted program in Internet history.
Herskovitz is a longtime environmentalist, having served on the board of several organizations dedicated to preserving America’s precious natural resources. He is also a founding member of the 1Sky campaign.
* * * * *
GoGoSlava and I sat down with Marshall to discuss Quarterlife, Marshall's next big project - the Produced By Conference, and all the tips, tactics and techniques Marshall has learned from straddling the worlds of Hollywood and digital entertainment. We documented it all on video. Enjoy IndieGoGo's latest 6Q with Marshall Herskovitz.
Q1. Tell us about Quarterlife- your online series and social network? (~6 min)
Q2. How did you identify, target and build your audience for Quarterlife? (~1.5 min)
Q3. What role did the internet play in Quarterlife's growth? (~1 min)
Q4. Given your traditional and online experience, what marketing and promotional tactics would you recommend nowadays? (~2 min)
RT @AllenChou - good data: Avg Non-Theatrical documentary DVD price in 1998 = $27.47. 2008 = $23.48. source-DVD release report #indiegogo12:32 AM May 14thfrom web
Why not use your chosen artform-story-to build your own brand: "Engaging Through Storytelling Overview" http://tinyurl.com/dl53wl #indiegogo5:23 PM May 17thfrom web
Filmmakers:
don't forget YOUR story in the pursuit of telling another. Finding fans
for your film starts with fans of you. #indiegogo5:21 PM May 17thfrom web
TiECon
panel a wrap. Entr. lessons that resonated: Fire fast... Stealth is
silly... Good mktg can't make up for lousy product... #indiegogo10:52 PM May 15thfrom txt
On TiEcon 2009 panel w/ Heidi Roizen, Sukhinder Cassidy & Robin Tomb Fri - "Rules for Renegades." Discount: http://bit.ly/xBoGf #indiegogo4:06 PM May 13thfrom web
Veteran tech media journalist and Cinematech blogger, Scott Kirsner has brought a new book to market about building audiences. Fans, Friends, and Followers embraces IndieGoGo's DIWO (Do-It-With-Others) model across industries. Find a 35 page preview here.
To support the book, Scott shared with IndieGoGo a few extra nuggets of insight including an exclusive audio interview with Robert Greenwald and some audience building case studies and tactics:
What are two or three case studies you would like to highlight from the book?
Well, Robert Greenwald was really one of the pioneers of trying to use his fan base for funding, with "Iraq for Sale." I spoke to him for the book about how he's using individual donations now, along with bigger corporate contributions. He's also doing a lot of work with shorter Internet videos, which may eventually develop into full-length documentaries. He posts them on YouTube. He had a really great quote about video on the Internet: "The audience votes with their ‘forward’ button. If they see a video that they think has something to say, they forward it. All the money in the world and all the king’s horses can’t get them to do that."
And I also feature Timo Vuorensola in the book, who has done some really great stuff with collaborative, or "crowd-sourced" sci-fi filmmaking. He has found people to score his movies, or contribute visual effects shots, over the Web, and even did some online fund-raising for his next project, "Iron Sky." He says in the book: "Those who will survive all of these big changes in the filmmaking industry are those who know how to activate the community – in production, in distribution, in PR, in everything."
What are three best practices/tactics to build audiences that you would like to share with the reader?
1. Give people a way to participate. A fan base is much more engaged if you don't just treat them as "consumers" of your "product." IndieGoGo, obviously, is a great platform for this.
2. As you're making the movie, think about places where your target audience congregates online. Those may be blogs, Facebook groups, online forums. Build relationships with the people who run or manage those communities, so that they can help you spread the word when you have a finished film -- or need some help along the way. You don't have to build your own audience from scratch.
3. Build a fan database, and ideally collect info about where people live. One of the most important assets for filmmakers is a list of fan e-mail addresses... and some information about where people live, so that you can get in touch when you're playing film festivals, speaking in their area, or screening your film. In the book, I talk about some of the good tools for doing this -- and I've put most of that material up on a wiki that's free and that anyone can add to, at http://powertools.wikispaces.com
