J. Horton, Filmmaker/Youtuber/Podcaster: From the very, very beginning of any project now
one of my first thoughts is who is the audience for this and where do I find them?
Film Courage: Jay, you have a video that you did maybe a year or so ago entitled
Top Five Reasons Your Indie Film is Failing. We took the liberty of writing down your excellent
tips and we're hoping to have you read them? Maybe we can start with five first?
Jay: Okay yeah so Five Reasons Your Indie Film is Failing. Number five: You are pushing your
movie in all the wrong places. This is what I’m talking about here is when you have a certain
genre of film like you need to specifically find that audience right and I find a lot of
people what I see over and over like when I wrote this comment I was specifically thinking about
filmmakers that were promoting their movies and filmmaking groups because like you'll see this all
the time like you have all these filmmaking groups and they're like hey go check out my movie to all
the other filmmakers and the filmmakers aren't necessarily your target audience if your movie
is about filmmaking maybe that's right but for the most part like no that's don't promote there
like that's not filmmakers are not going to drive that the viewership or you know people shotgun out
their promotion so they're like let's let's do the exact same post on Facebook because on Twitter
has on instagram as on LinkedIn and all of these social media platforms are very different in the
type of material that gets traction so like for example like on the documentaries I like I do very
well promoting on Facebook in Facebook groups that are specific to that subject matter and on Twitter
like Twitter with hashtags that are targeted towards that target audience but like LinkedIn
kind of okay for documentaries but not so much but like you you should concentrate on
what you're comfortable with like for example I've spent the most time on Facebook so like I'm pretty
good at writing a post that's going to engage people on Facebook so that's where I concentrate
a lot of my promotion and like like I'm not as good at Twitter so I don't concentrate on Twitter
as much I'll put post there but I don't spend an overt amount of time on it but and I don't like
or I discovered Pinterest a lot of people say like Pinterest is a waste of time but like I've gotten
a lot of really good video views there so I find just keep your keep your promotion targeted to the
right audience it's number five what about a subreddit let's suppose your documentary
is on something that's medical related or whatever if there was a subreddit on that subscribe on that
yeah what I've found with Reddit so I do do a little promotion on Reddit but I find in general
reddit's not great for direct promotion like you have to be really sly with your promotion on
Reddit because there are like some Facebook groups there's rules but like Facebook it's it's really
easy to circumvent them like Reddit I've had I've been banned from many threads for throwing a link
in something like you have to engage with people on a more personal level there and by doing that
sometimes you can get some interest in your stuff but just like direct promotion I've not
had much luck sure there's too many people that are yeah ready to come at you yeah that makes
sense okay number four number four you've picked too broad of you've picked too broad of a genre
so this is like I'm making a horror movie right and like that's it that's your genre that's who
you're targeting horror is a super broad I'm not saying don't do a horror movie but I'm saying
there are sub genres of horror so what is your sub genre are you a monster movie or is it a
siege movie is it a combination of the two what I'm finding recently is that amalgamations and
combining sub-genres is really cool so like the movie I'm getting ready to do it's a monster movie
but it's also a siege picture it has a little bit of a crime element to it and pinching those
together but when people are just like I'm making a drama where do you promote a drama where do you
promote a general drama movie now what's that drama about is it about a small business owner
what type of business is that owner own is there a community around that kind of small business
like you don't necessarily have to create a project around your your marketing like hey
I'm going to create this like double sub genre no you're making a drama movie but
you don't think of it in general terms you think of it in specific terms what what what's the race
of the people is this or is this people of color is it lgbtq or is it just is it white folk and who
are you marketing to from the beginning so like I find narrowing that down really early on
and knowing what your project is and how to get to those people is how you market successfully
an indie film okay let's suppose it's a mumble core college film early 20s relationship movie
so I would the first first thing I would do is look at so if they're straight or the sexual
orientation I would look at that you would be you if you're doing a drama movie these days
my piece of advice is find an underserved market not to exploit it but to shine light on it to
because one one one subgenre that's doing really well like on 2b these days is like a black based
female focused like romance with maybe a slight crime tinge to it and like 10 years ago those
movies were flown you couldn't you couldn't make hardly anything on them now they're they're doing
really well because it's an underserved market so or if your mumblecore thing is it about is the
main character a musician let's just say they're a musician so what type of music is it target those
types of fans or if they're a baker what kind of baker is it what kind of cook or culinary skill
find find things in the movie that are a strong enough element in the movie that you can market
around it like to garner interest because it's really the biggest mistake I see filmmakers
making over and over with their marketing is they're it's just it's so general I'm i'm making
I just made this drama movie and here it is here's my trailer you have to give people a little bit
more than that there has to be something that they can connect to that they're gonna
have interest in that post to even engage with it great point that's very true okay number
three your overall marketing is ineffective so I honestly don't remember exactly what I
was saying with that one but I think what I was getting at is like you're you're just being too
like generic in your marketing you're like here like here's my movie check it out how
many filmmakers do you see on social media here's my movie check it out let me know what you think
like who who who does that except for like your very like good friends or your mom who
who is going to comment on that unless it's to just tear you down and chastise you for making
a generic post so that in general I think people look at marketing like they just don't understand
that it's about engaging people about getting their interest about intriguing them asking a
question like you'll see over and over on my posts like I'll promote my youtube channel a
lot in filmmaking groups but I always phrase all of my posts has a question if I do a video about
how to how to distribute an indie film my question will be what are some of your experiences
distributing your independent films here's mine and that will create engagement or if it's
say you're doing a comedy movie about a about a startup and you're going to start into some
startup groups and you're like what what are some what are some of the challenges that you had
starting up like your startup right and you start getting some and you don't even post about the
movie and you start getting some comments on that and then within there you start dropping
in like oh I just I did this movie about it here it is and that is another way to gain
some engagement in some of those groups sure and then it turns out you made silicon valley yeah
yeah yeah and you make and you make you make friends this way it's like networking I mean
going back to like crowdfunding like that's all about connecting with people it's not everybody
says it's about asking for money it's not about asking for money it's about connecting with people
and and you are giving them something for their money whether that's directly roi
worth it is a different story but you are you are providing something that they want right and with
each update you get to root as a group for the project totally number two is my favorite you
didn't think about the audience before making it you made the film for you and not them yeah this
is my this is like my my mantra this has become my mantra like over the last probably four years
like I when I started my career I made movies that I wanted to make and absolutely no thought of of
where is this going to play who is the audience for it who's going to watch it how much are
they going gonna pay for it like what what's it gonna do I'm just I just wanna make this because
this is what I wanna do and I think a lot of filmmakers start with this mindset and I'm not
I'm not saying that this is like an evil mindset I'm saying you you have to balance it with a
with a marketing mind like the the days of a filmmaker like richard linklater one of them
coming in doing a movie and just blowing up like I'm not saying it never happens but it's happening
less and less and less so like when we make a movie we do got to think about who is who is
this for even at the very beginning when you're writing the script like like who is this for
what is the genre what is the sub genre what are elements within that genre that people are
looking for and I'm not talking about doing a like cookie cutter list and hitting all
those points in your movie sometimes you subvert those expectations but you have to be aware of it
like what do they want and if you don't give it to them are they going to engage with your movie
so from from the very very beginning of any project now like I'm one of my first thoughts
is who is the audience for this and where do I find them because if you have no clue
then you either need to go back to the drawing board or like reverse engineer your marketing
early to to figure it out if you're doing a horror movie you're doing a a horror movie
siege pitcher with with a hispanic cast and you don't know where to find your audience
you need to start thinking about where to find your audience as soon as possible
who do you think slacker was for at that time I think slacker at that time was 4
18 it was for gen x young artists of I mean like I wanted to be a filmmaker and I was into it
but there there was just there was I think it really spoke to that generation and if if I was
doing something like that now like slacker I would definitely be targeting like I would target some
filmmaking groups for that movie because because it is but I would also be looking outside that
musician's artist it had her there was one of them was a poet it's been so long since I've seen
it but the different characters were in a lot of different up-and-coming low income there wasn't a
lot of rich characters in that so like I would be looking at like and that's another thing like if
you're doing targeted ads on Facebook for example like you can kind of you can target by education
level and by income as much as as much info as they have and I think that those things are are
important sure and a lot of conspiracy theory talk too was in that film which oh yeah yeah
yeah that's another I totally forgot about that actually yeah the conspiracy theory and there's
so many conspiracy things right now like right now if actually that would be so it right now is
just off the cuff like advice like you you want to do a little like drama movie something like that
have some character that's super into conspiracy theories and tie them directly into some stuff
that's going on and you will you will have people to push that as long as you like if you're doing
something like that like don't make fun of them don't exploit them like like even if you don't
believe it or you think it's total bull like let them have their voice that way like that audience
won't completely turn on you I mean of course you do that within your own moral boundaries don't
broadcast something that you don't believe in or you thinks are moral but if it's not then go
for it great and last but not least number one yeah yeah the number one reason that
the indie films don't make money is it's just not good and and I'm not saying that all indie films
are not good here but and I'm not saying that it's always the reason but we have to be honest with
ourselves when a movie finishes when we like we finish it it's in the can we got it edited
how did it turn out like how far is this movie gonna go like how much effort do I put into it and
I'm not saying just a man in your movie and forget it if it doesn't turn out like I fully believe you
should release everything you make like release it put it out even if you put it out under another
name put it out like I have never not finished a movie and I don't have a lot of I don't have a lot
of sympathy for people that finish something and don't put it out like like cl they're put it out
there's so much effort that went into it there are people there are people that want it to be seen
like get it out there but I think what happens most of the time is filmmakers just don't have
the the distance or the I don't know the maturity or hindsight to say hey this
didn't turn out exactly how I wanted it so they think it's their perfect baby but maybe it's not
or or maybe it is good but it's just because you make a good movie or a fine enough movie it's not
entitled to make money like no no platform owes you for it to perform the audience
doesn't owe you to watch it you have to you have to get them in and if you fail at that
that's that's it it's not going to perform and sometimes I think a lot of movies come into the
market and people haven't paid attention to the other four things and maybe technically the movie
is fine like like it looks good it's in focus it's got good production value performances are okay
but they ignored the audience they made their little personal film and it has it didn't deliver
anything that an audience wants or needs and it it doesn't do well I think number one would
be the toughest to really be honest about with yourself because there's kind of two camps of
people one everything they do is amazing and two everything they do they think is crap yeah and
I think both people are going to have a hard time seeing their film for what it is it is you're 100
right and I and I sat here and I just went on this whole spiel about it but I myself struggled
with that for a long time I made when I made rise of the undead my first movie and I I'll
say it right here the movie is not good and but it it took me a few years to to be able to to
see it because like I was always rationalizing it well this is cool or this worked or and then it's
not doing well it's not resonating I'm like why why why it said eventually I ca I think about two
years like of it being out I was I was able to sit down and really say what this this wasn't good and
then why wasn't it good and honestly like it it wasn't the wasn't the image it wasn't the sound it
wasn't the performances I didn't spend enough time on the story and on the script we made that first
movie and wrote that script to have something to shoot and two years later when I'm like why is
this not great I didn't spend enough time on the script so after that I became really immersed in
like like screenwriting and writing and for a long time if you would ask me I would say I'm a writer
first and then a director and I think that's when my stuff started getting a little bit better
and this was in 2003 yeah that's when we shot it we shot that in 2003 it came out in 2005 and so it
was probably like 2006 or seven where I was like yeah it's not so great and it took me about a year
to edit that movie it was my very first I mean I basically learned how to edit doing that movie.