An Example of Getting the most exposure for your films
A year earlier, Jason and I released our short film that won festivals prizes, The Thomas Beale Cipher on the internet. As with many other filmmakers I had to make the question about when and how long to put the film online. After 8 months in the festival circuit I finally decided that it was the right the right time. What happened? What lesson did we learn from it? A lot it is revealed.
Initial Background
The Thomas Beale Cipher was not my first film but, with just 11 minutes long It's also my biggest and longest-running. The process of making the animated action-adventure movie lasted 18 months and included the cast and crew comprising twenty actors. In spring 2013, the film debuted in front of a massive public of over 300 people at Seattle, at the Seattle International Film Festival. In the subsequent 8 months it screened at different events (large as well as small) winning a few of awards during the course of its existence.
As I watched, I experienced a twinge of guilt. I applauded the bravery of the online film that were featured on Short of the Week, yet I was reluctant to upload my own short film online. To be honest, I wasn't sure of how to go about it, and I was worried that an error could cause the same way as an idea myself and many others gave a lot of effort to. We knew that we could not just upload it to YouTube and hope for most effective results. We needed an action strategy. We set about creating an outline.
The Launch Plan
Simple. Get as many people to go to the theater as fast as you can in order to gain momentum. This meant doing a variety of things:
- Go . It has a larger community of filmmakers than YouTube which could be able to reach more users, yet it will also it is able to attract only the most relevant viewers, those that are more likely to recommend the website to other people.
- Upload early. Upload the film in the early hours of Monday the morning (12AM EST) so that the film has an entire 24 hours to increase views and be current throughout the entire week.
- Get the team involved. Make sure everyone involved in the film is aware of the idea and that they share it on their social networks. If you can get 8-10 people to share the film on Twitter and Facebook (even even if nobody individually is Mr. popular) it is possible to get thousands of views, which may suffice to bring the film into a critical number of people.
- Find key important influencers. Email a few significant news articles and blogs that would be interested in either the topic or technique. One of the most crucial things to consider is writing an email that is effective. Since we are the editors of websites that has a "submit" button, we know how to catch an editor's eye. Send a professional-looking email that contains a concise description, a compelling argument on the reasons why the film is worth viewing, a concise review of the film's creator, and a quality picture. Let media know that it is easy to make changes and then publish without further contact from you.
- Keep working to improve it. All day, during the week, should you have to, continue reaching for people that you meet.
The Version
The film was released on Monday, and then continued to promote it all week. We started with what we felt was the film's strongest asset--the visual aesthetic--and began by targeting the people we knew--Motionographer, Staff Picks, and a few dozen others. Beaming from that initial great success, we continued ask us, "What's intriguing about this film? and who could we market it to?' We reached out to various tech-related blogs and got included in Gizmodo, BoingBoing, and other publications. The more media attention we got that I received, the more likely I was to conduct interviews with big publishing houses like Fast Company and Wired. Below is a list of people that were concerned they saw the results:
- The 24th day of Monday at 12 AM. Posted the film on
- The 24th day of Mondays, 12 noon, Motionographer and Staff Selections
- Wednesday 26th: BoingBoing, Gizmodo, MetaFilter
- Wednesday 27th: The Daily What
- On the 28th day of Friday: Fast Co. Interview, Fubiz
- On Monday, the 31st of October The next Monday, 31st of March: Wired
The flow of traffic over the initial two weeks (yellow = Loads, green = Plays)
The Results
We've followed the field of online movies over the past five years. We're aware that great films don't always get great numbers, but our results from the initial two weeks of the campaign were far beyond the most optimistic of expectations.
- 170,000 views
- 1300+ blog comments/blog reviews
- 5000+ shares on Facebook
- 2000 Tweets
Then, how will it Compare with Our Festival Run?
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