Marketing Strategy and Movie Distribution Plans

It’s too easy to neglect having a marketing strategy and movie distribution plan when producing on an indie film budget. Producers are focused on fleshing out a tight screenplay, hiring cast and crew while keeping track of every dollar they spend. Studio budget movies hire goliath companies to develop a marketing strategy and movie distribution plan for their latest blockbuster.

Indie filmmakers have to get creative with their marketing strategy and movie distribution plan so their creative hard work doesn’t just disappear after it’s done. I’ve been learning a lot of good stuff by following what other filmmakers are doing to market a movie in order to make film distribution money.

One movie with a sexually driven theme created artwork and an attention grabbing marketing package that included condoms with the name of the film printed on them. I read they stood out at film festivals with this creative approach. There are also rare indie produced movies that are so damn entertaining they secure meaningful movie distribution without a strong marketing strategy to promote them.

But why take the gamble that your movie will be one of the rare ones? Thinking about a marketing strategy and movie distribution plan early as possible is what successful indie producers do. I don’t read entertainment industry trades like The Hollywood Reporter or Variety because they don’t have information based off the real life indie cinema scene.

I’ve been turning to blogs more and more that are ran by indie producers and filmmakers that share what marketing strategies and movie distribution plans have worked for them. I really like reading Indie Slate Magazine and MovieMaker Magazine because they spend time focusing on the business of indie filmmaking not just the creative part of the process.

Creating an online buzz for an indie feature is one of the most effective ways to market a movie without having to spend money you don’t have. It only takes personal time to run a movie blog, Twitter account, Facebook page, Google +1 and other popular social networking outlets. Crowd funding for indie movies has really shown that people do respond to online marketing. The effort to keep a movie blog fresh and stay connected with people pays off in the end. Building interest for a movie online is the way to go.

Having an idea of what the movie distribution plan is going to be will depend on what you want as a producer. Are you going to self-distribute or look to land a distribution deal with a company?

Movie self-distribution makes financial sense for smaller budget indie films. Self-distribution allows the creators to keep control of the rights to their movie. Less money has to be made from direct sales to make a real profit from a movie because there aren’t distribution fees and percentages taken out by a distributor. Many filmmakers have made money for their film investors and themselves from their work through self-distribution combined with an aggressive online marketing push they do themselves.

Landing a movie distribution deal normally offers greater exposure and more people see a movie that is released by a film distribution company worldwide than a self-distributed titled. Movie distributors that cater to releasing indie films usually don’t put together a big marketing strategy. They have relationships with film buyers all over the world that receive their catalog of available titles or see what they have at film markets.

Avoid a past mistake I made by sitting back after signing a distribution deal expecting the distributor to market the hell out of the title. It’s important to still have a workable marketing strategy after you sign a movie distribution agreement. You’ll have to check with the distributor to see what you can and can’t do to market your movie online. But overall it’s a win-win for both parties in exposure and film sales.

We Are The Strange HD 720p (2of2) This is for all the people who requested an HD version or a version without subs… I give you both as my Xmas gift to you! ^ ^ BestesT, M doTs Original version of my animated feature film “We are the Strange” 94 minutes : Presented in Str8nime Get the 2 DVD set here! www.filmbaby.com or here www.amazon.com All other language versions here www.youtube.com Accolades and awards: Sundance Film Festival Official Selection 2007 Golden Prize “Most Groundbreaking Film” Fantasia Film Festival Montreal 2007 Silver Prize “Best Animated Film” Fantasia Film Festival Montreal 2007 “Best Feature Film” HDFEST 2007 Director Selected “25 new faces of independent film” Filmmaker Magazine 2007 M dot Strange Film SkooL www.youtube.com Talk to other weirdo’s at the We are The Strange forum wearethestrange.aceboard.com Contact me…. Hello@wearethestrange.com http Thanks for the fan art everyone!
Video Rating: 4 / 5

Question by The Sheriff is a-near!: Does this help explain the quality of MSNBC news reporting?
MSNBC Retracts False Palin Story;

AP

Thursday, November 13, 2008
NEW YORK — MSNBC was the victim of a hoax when it reported that an adviser to John McCain had identified himself as the source of an embarrassing story about former vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin, the network said Wednesday.

David Shuster, an anchor for the cable news network, said on air Monday that Martin Eisenstadt, a McCain policy adviser, had come forth and identified himself as the source of a FOX News Channel story saying Palin had mistakenly believed Africa was a country instead of a continent.

Eisenstadt identifies himself on a blog as a senior fellow at the Harding Institute for Freedom and Democracy. Yet neither he nor the institute exist; each is part of a hoax dreamed up by a filmmaker named Eitan Gorlin and his partner, Dan Mirvish, the New York Times reported Wednesday.

The Eisenstadt claim had mistakenly been delivered to Shuster by a producer and was used in a political discussion Monday afternoon, MSNBC said.

“The story was not properly vetted and should not have made air,” said Jeremy Gaines, network spokesman. “We recognized the error almost immediately and ran a correction on air within minutes.”

Gaines told the Times that someone in the network’s newsroom had presumed the information solid because it was passed along in an e-mail from a colleague.

The hoax was limited to the identity of the source in the story about Palin — not the FOX News story itself. While Palin has denied that she mistook Africa for a country, the veracity of that report was not put in question by the revelation that Eisenstadt is a phony.

Eisenstadt’s “work” had been quoted and debunked before. The Huffington Post said it had cited Eisenstadt in July on a story regarding the Hilton family and McCain.

Among the other victims were political blogs for the Los Angeles Times and The New Republic, each of which referenced false material from Eisenstadt’s blog.

And in July, Jonathan Stein of Mother Jones magazine blogged an item about Eisenstadt speaking on Iraqi television about a casino in Baghdad’s “Green Zone.”

Stein later realized he’d been had.

“Kudos to the inventor of this whole thing,” Stein wrote. “My only consolation is that if I had as much time on my hands as he clearly does, I probably would have figured this out and saved myself a fair amount of embarrassment.”

http://elections.foxnews.com/2008/11/13/msnbc-retracts-false-palin-story-duped/
******

Note, libs, its from the AP (a source you trust), Fox only repeated it.

Best answer:

Answer by His Divine Shadow
I saw this on the AP wire on Yahoo! yesterday too.

This isn’t the first time MSNBC has had to retract a story, and it won’t be the last.

What do you think? Answer below!

Nassau, Bahamas – The 2009 Bahamas International Film Festival opened with the Bahamian film "Children of God" on December 11th and closed with the award winning film, Precious, which was also a premiere screening for The Bahamas on December 17th. The Bahamas Weekly brings you video coverage and interviews on the red carpet with a star of the film, Bahamas' own Lenny Kravitz; the Precious screenplay writer, Geoffrey Fletcher; Jason Guerrasio, Managing Editor of Filmmaker Magazine; and the Founder and Executive Director of BIFF, Leslie Vanderpool. Kravitz, who had his acting debut in Precious came in from the Bahamas' island of Eleuthera where he has a home and is presently working on his next album, Negrophilia. In this interview he speaks about how the opportunity to act in Precious came up, as well he shares wonderful sentiments about life in The Bahamas. Kravitz will be the lead in Daniel's next film. Geoffrey Fletcher, who flew in on a moment's notice when Lee Daniels' decided he could not attend, explains in his interview how the book "Push" came to him from Daniels and how he felt turning it into a screenplay and seeing all the success of the film with the multi-awards and Golden Globe nominations. The video ends with Leslie Vanderpool explaining how she was able to secure Precious as BIFF's closing night film. Watch the Trailer for Precious See photos and related article on the Precious screening in The Bahamas The …