Film Courage: Can you take us through the sponsorship process?
Zeke Zelker, Writer/Director/Producer of the transmedia project BILLBOARD: Sure.
Film Courage: I’m sure each one was different.
You said you had 6 sponsors?
Zeke: No, 6 revenue streams.
We have at least 9 sponsors.
Okay so sponsorship is different than product placement.
Product placement you basically want to have company X in your your film and so you have
to clear it to be able to have their IP, their trademark, their logo in your film.
But if you’re good at it you can get a lot of free stuff out of it.
I’ve had directors that I’ve worked with in the past challenge me.
“Can you get me this?
Can you get me that?”
And generally oftentimes I can get them crazy stuff but it’s a matter of knowing how to
do it.
You have to know what you’re asking for and you need to give them a reason why you’re
asking for it and you need to make sure you have your contracts buttoned up and everything
else as well.
Now in terms of sponsorship it’s a matter of making sure that they know there’s going
to be an audience for your project and so that’s one reason why you build audience
early on and with that being said you have to make the sponsor as comfortable with the
project as possible and be very transparent about what you are doing.
Brands do not like when you bash their brand obviously.
That’s not going to work.
I mean we’ve even had brands say that they have to be the protagonist not the antagonist.
So it gets to be a little bit tricky on certain things.
But the sponsorship process is creating a deck, you knowing where and how their identity
is going to be seen what their activation are going to be above and beyond just the
picture itself in terms of are there going to be live events?
Are there going to be premieres?
Is there going to be anywhere where they could attach themselves to.
You’ve got to provide all of these packages for the sponsors and so it’s work.
It’s a lot of work to be able to get but we were able to raise…oh gosh?
About 20% of our budget from sponsorship.
Film Courage: Wow and how are you choosing which sponsors to approach?
Zeke: Research and what I want I guess you would say.
For BILLBOARD I first went to location businesses because we wanted to feel authentic and so
it only made sense for us to show off local businesses.
And then after that w green screened the billboards in the film so we can actually change out
them all.
If we go to India we can actually change out the billboards to Hindi, French the same sort
of thing.
Again just thinking like an entrepreneur, thinking like a business person.
We did that so the brands could then see the content so they would okay it.
So that was another reason to, to try to mitigate as much risk as possible.
Film Courage: So you find some brands that you think will be a good fit and you’re
calling them?
Are you sending an email?
Zeke: I always call first and then it’s tracking down the right person you need to
speaking to because every company is different.
With some of them it’s a brand manager, with some of them it’s the CMO, some of
them they have a sponsorship coordinator, some of them they are movie development people.
Some companies use an outside party.
Like I think it’s Tier 3 and a bunch of other ones that we use as a clearinghouse
for things so you have to talk to them.
It’s a lot of leg work but I’ve been doing it for so many years that this one gentleman
that was a junior in college that wanted to intern for me during the summer and I’m
like this is what you’re going to be doing and he’s like how am I going to do that?
“I’m like I’m going to teach you and I’ll tell you what I need to do.”
And he would come back to me with questions all the time.
And by the end of the summer he was hired by any movie studio because you’re scrappy.
Film Courage: Once you’ve already established who the brand manager is maybe you’ve had
a phone call or made this initial contact, you are sending a pitch deck?
Zeke: You send a deck and then you try and show how their brand is going to be seen with
the content.
Film Courage: And then how much time do you give them to look it over?
What’s protocol?
Zeke: A week and then you start badgering them.
Film Courage: A week, okay.
And then you start calling?
Zeke: And then you start negotiating.
Everything is so different.
I could have had some major brans on our billboards.
They didn’t necessarily want to give me money but they would have given it in trade
out of exposure and I walked away from those deals.
Film Courage: Why?
Zeke: Because I thought my project had more value and I don’t know…in retrospect I
wish I would have for two of them quite honestly.
But I made the wrong decision straight up I don’t know what else to say?
Because I could have done some fun things and at the same time it might have limited
us from other things but another thing was did I want them to be a part of the project?
Deep down inside (what they’re selling) did I want them to be a part of it?
And so that was kind of like a gut call that I made.
Film Courage: Right because that’s going to live on in your film so you don’t feel
right about that, that makes sense.
Zeke: I’m not telling you who it was.
Film Courage: No that’s okay, I wasn’t going to ask.
But now my mind is going to all different places.
Zeke: You see so you have to have integrity.
Even though you are an entrepreneur think about the business side of the film business
you still have to have integrity and vision.
And that’s the thing you can’t sell out because if you sell out what are you going
to do next.
Film Courage: That’s so…you know it’s funny because I just watched this documentary
on The Clash (it was on the day that Joe Strummer passed away 16 years ago) and I was looking
at all the comments and they were like “They sold out!
They’re champagne socialists, etc.”
But who wouldn’t want to go to a higher level?
I get frustrated with the whole sell out notion.
That’s a very “indie argument.”
Because there’s commercial, there’s indie, there’s the integrity of the creativity.
Zeke: It’s funny because I don’t look at it as selling out.
I think it’s a different way of discovering your pain as an artist.
Become I think all artists are trying to overcome some kind of pain so that they can be understood.
I know I am.
So I’m only really speaking to my own experience.
But you give The Clash as an example and I wouldn’t say they sold out.
I’d say they figured out a different way to display their pain.
They did have success (meteoric success mind you) in a form that wasn’t even a form yet
(a music form) . You could say the Sex Pistols before them .
Film Courage: Did they get as much radio play as The Clash did?
Zeke: No.
No.
I mean The Clash went international, not just in the UK.
But at the same time it I just think who doesn’t like champagne?
Film Courage: You don’t have to be a socialist to like champagne.
I’m just repeating what a commenter wrote underneath the video.
Those are someone else’s words not mine.
Mind you I don’t think they sold out but it’s just so fascinating that whole argument.
And I know in certain genres that’s a very touchy subject (selling out) whether it’s
punk rock or whatever style.
Zeke: Well you know it’s funny because as a punker we had those people who we would
call posers.
Those people who thought they were and wanted to be but weren’t true.
Film Courage: I’ve heard the term before!
Zeke: I’ve got friends who are artists and actors and musicians who feel like they sold
out.
And I’m like what the heck does that mean?
That they actually had some commercial success and you don’t and you’re jealous?