6Qs with Todd Sklar of Box Elder

Shot on a shoe-string and self-distributed across the country, Box Elder presents an equally hilarious and poignant look at growing up.  Todd Sklar, the filmmaker,  was kind enough to share with IndieGoGo some of his tactics for promotion, reaching an audience, and using the Internet.

 

  

Q1.  What were the goals for Box Elder?:

Narrative-wise, the goal was to tell a really funny, sincere, coming of age story about Midwestern college life.

Project-wise, the goal was to make the best film we could using only the appropriate amount of resources, and not because of budget constraints - I was originally offered more money than we accepted - but because we didn't wanna make the film anything that it didn't need to be.  For example, we didn't need to shoot on film because we know we'd be screening it digitally on the tour, and we knew that story and setting didn't need lush tones or cinematic atmosphere. We also knew that the film was gonna be heavily dependent on loose natural performances and improv, and there's something about a 35 setup that sort've brings an air of professionalism and importance to a set that we wanted to avoid, as it'd intimidate our actors and stifle the creative energy. That said, we also knew that we'd be bringing the film to a relatively wide audience through the tour, and that it'd be an audience that generally doesn't see independent films, so they probably wouldn't accept our film as a "real" movie if it was just DV footage. So we went w/ a 35 adapter b/c it gave the film the necessary depth of field to make it look and feel like a "real" movie when projected in a theatre. If we weren't gonna be screening the film theatrically or bringing it to a wider audience, I would've shot it on Flip camera's. Every decision from the conception of the story through the design of our DVD was catered around that same process, with our intended audience in mind.

To me, film is purely a storytelling medium, and there's no point in telling a story if you don't have an audience to listen, so it just makes sense to tailor everything you do around your intended audience -- which doesn't have to be the film's intended audience mind you - there's much to be said about a filmmaker who tries to bring a story to people and places that don't necessarily fit it's themes or content. On the other hand, I think a lot of times with independent film, we can error on the side of only telling stories that aren't getting told for that reason alone, and I think that's a little short-sighted, especially if it's not done responsibly in regards to the economics. Everybody would love to make a 5 million dollar movie, but I don't think every story needs 5 million dollars to be told effectively, especially in terms of reaching it's audience.

Q2.  How were you identifying, reaching and building your audience?

For Box Elder, this was easy. We felt like the film's natural audience was going to be an extension of the film's creators and it's characters, so it was really just a matter or identifying people with similar tastes and interests as us and our characters. So on top of the already inherent audience (college students, fans of comedy, dudes with beard, etc), there were all the niche audiences that we targeted by just dissecting what we loved about the project and the characters and related them to people on social level in each market we took the film to.

We looked at reaching them in the same manner by mapping out ways that we'd wanna be reached. i.e, nobody in our camp would ever grab a bullshit flier at a coffee-shop or respond to a mass facebook mssg -- we'd much rather hear about something through a friend or through something we're already interested and involved in, so we'd strive to make really personal connections with our audience and then let them do the work by passing it on to their friends. Or we'd connect with an organization that fit the film or our interests well and then tailor what we were doing to something they were interested in, which was usually aligned with the film/tour because f the similar interests. Marketing a film is really easy when you're only marketing it to people who'll probably like it in a way that meshes with how they already discover content.

Which any film can do really, you just gotta figure out how you'd wanna discover your own film if it was made by someone else, and then apply that to your marketing platform. And you gotta accept that not everyone is gonna love your film. That's step one. Get realistic, get strategic, and get to it. None of this bullshit waiting around for somebody to buy or market your film for you.

As far as audience building goes, it's just an extension of the outreach process - just a matter of staying connected and being involved with people, which is easy to do if your audience generally has the same interests as you because you end up liking the same things and staying connected / audience building quickly becomes hanging out with friends. Which is awesome.

Q3.  What tactics did you use for financing? Any advice?

Well, we shot the film twice, and the first time I used a VC group to fund the project.

When we decided to re-shoot it all, me and my producer believed in it enough that we just put our personal money into it and the rest on credit cards - it made sense financially at the time because the tour served as a realistic point in time when we'd start seeing revenue come back and could start re-couping.

As far as advice goes; don't do what I did. Way too much work. Instead, find a rich kid who wants to be a producer. Tell him that he can be the producer on your film if he finances it. End of story. Richie rich gets his first credit, you get your first film made, everyone's a winner. Or rob a bank. Seriously, nobody ever robs banks anymore. OR, is it that they do but we never hear about it because the only time it's in the news is when people get caught.... and nobodies gettin' caught these days.

In all honesty, from my limited knowledge from bank robbery movies, it seems a lot easier to plan and pull off a small heist than it does to put together financing on a film. Looks like a lot more fun too. P.S. I was watching Rififi earlier tonight. And the shoot-out scene from Heat. And that might've influenced pt. 2 of that scenario.

Q4.  What role does the Internet and social media play in your DIWO (Do-It-With-Others) fund raising or audience-building?

We didn't use the internet at all in our fund-raising strategy, but I'm helping a friend on a film right now and he's using that kickstarter site - you can check his page out here - it seems to be working really well. As far as audience building goes, the Box Elder Facebook and Myspace pages have been pretty integral, and our Youtube page has been incredibly important as well, and those three are the main hubs for our social community, so i'd say we've used the internet quite a bit as far as audience building is concerned.

The internet is also where I first discovered the You're Business Card Sucks guy, and I'm not sure how integral that's been in our audience building, but it's certainly become an important factor in our overall operation, as we still watch it several times a day, and would probably be more effective at doing a lot of things if that video didn't exist.

Q5.  How do you connect your online campaigns with offline fund raising and audience-building?

That's a really good question - I'm not sure we've figured that out yet. Thankfully, with the tour, we have a strong on-line and off-line presence, and we've been able to find the right mix as far as how, when, and where to execute on each, but we haven't found a hybrid model that specifically plays them off each other quite yet. I feel like Lance Weiler and Arin Crumley and a lot of those folks over at theworkbookproject.com would know how to do that - those guys are light years ahead when it comes to this stuff.

Q6.  What is next on your radar?  And where can folks follow your efforts?

There's actually quite a bit on my radar right now - I'm actually having a pretty tough time not drowning in everything to be honest;

For starters, we're knee deep in planning the Fall and Spring tours, and we're trying to bring 40 movies out this time while hitting over a 100 cities and putting on a different screening series in each one - should be daunting, but awesome to say the least.

I'm also producing a bunch of movies right now, some of which we're still trying to get financed, and some of which are moving forward, and it looks like 2 or 3 of them are gonna be going into production at various points this summer, so that'll be interesting to balance while we move into the Fall tour in Sept. - will definitely be a test in time managment.

On top of that, I'm writing a comedy with my good friends James Ponsoldt and Alex Rennie this summer, and also directing another flick later in the year, so I'm trying to keep the creative juices flowing through all of this distribution, marketing, and fund-raising stuff. Would all be a lot easier if someone gave me a bunch of money to be doing this stuff, or if I robbed a bank.

I'm also playing three scrabbles games on Facebook and winning two of them.

As far as following these efforts are concerned, we're working on the new Range Life website right now, so I guess the best place to stay in touch is either via my Facebook or Twitter - would love to connect on both, or either.