Film Courage: What are three key points every filmmaker should know about getting a movie
made?
Jeff Deverett, Film Producer, Entrepreneur, Writer, Director: I would say Point Number
1 - and this is remember I’m talking about a filmmaker who has the intention to make
money to sell their film because if their intention is just to create a movie that is
artistic that they want to finish and put on their shelf and enjoy that’s not what
I’m talking about.
So if we’re talking about somebody who makes a movie with the intention of making a profit
on it (selling it and hopefully making a profit) the first thing they should do they have to
think about who they are going to sell it to, who the audience is, who they are making
the movie for, that’s number one.
Number two is…so number one is identifying the audience.
Number two is - how are they going to market to that audience?
So now they know what audience they want to get to but how are they going to get there?
What publicity campaign, what social media campaign, whatever are they going to use to
get to that audience?
Now you might be thinking to yourself you asked me about making a movie and I’m talking
about selling a movie.
I honestly believe that if you want to make money with your movie as I would say for any
busy or any product (not just a movie), you’ve got to be thinking about your audience and
how to market them before you even make your movie.
And then number three would be - how to deploy your funds as effectively as possible so you’re
getting as we talked about before the most of your money on screen.
So you’re making the best product possible.
Don’t waste your time and make a crappy product, you’ll regret it and it won’t
sell.
So make something that you’re going to be proud of that you feel like you’re going
to have a shot to sell but before you do that make sure you know who you’re making it
for and you have an avenue to get to them whether it be through a distributor or through
your own means or through your own friends or whatever marketing you’re going to do.
Now I tell people this, this is where indie filmmakers really, really struggle with what
I am about to say and this is what I say to them.
I say when you’re budgeting for movie make sure that if you want to be successful, if
you’re going to spend $500,000 on making your movie, spend at least…at least $300,000
on marketing it.
You have to have between 60 and 100% of your production budget you also have to have for
a marketing budget and they say that’s crazy.
How are we going to do that?
We can hardly raise enough money to make the movie.
How are we going to raise money to market the movie?
And I say if you want to have a shot, like if you want to compare yourself to Hollywood
movies and studio movies look at what they do.
I mean every single movie they put out has a gigantic marketing budget.
In some cases it’s the production budget and the marketing budget are the same even
on 50 million dollar movie.
The marketing budget might be more actually.
That’s what makes it successful because studios understand that it’s one thing to
make a great movie but it’s nothing unless you can get it in front of an audience and
you have to advertise it to them.
Indie filmmakers don’t necessarily do that.
So remember the two things that I led with were know who your audience is and make sure
you have the wherewithal to get to them which usually involves resources so make sure that
when you’re budgeting you tuck a big chunk of money aside for marketing.
That’s funny I’ve listen to a lot of your webcasts here and a lot of filmmakers talk
about it and they talk about make sure you have enough money and most people say “Make
sure you have enough money for post-production.”
And I listen to those and I say “Are you kidding me?”
Like post-production is part of making the movie, you actually went and shot a film and
didn’t think about post-production?
That’s crazy.
To me it’s crazy, like I would never do that.
I would never go into production without having enough money to finish the movie because what’s
the point of that.
Secondly some people who are a little further along say “Make sure you have enough for
delivery.”
Because it’s expensive to deliver.
You know there are elements you have to do to deliver.
I also say of course you have to deliver.
That’s part of the production budget.
But how many indie filmmakers ever say make sure you have enough to market?
And it’s painful to say that, that’s actually painful because if you have an extra quarter
of a million dollars and you’re sitting and you know it’s tucked away there for
marketing, you’re inclined to spend it on the movie.
I’ll make a way better movie if I have quarter of a million dollars more think of how I could
spend it, think of how good the movie could be but then you’ve got nothing left to market
it with.
So no matter how good a movie you’ve made, you can’t market it.
Now here is what you’ll ask me and here is what everybody says but that’s the distributors
job to market it, it’s not my job to market it, it’s the distributor.
So I’m going to get a distributor and they’re going to spend a quarter of a million dollars
to market it.
That’s what they do and I say maybe.
That means first of all you’ve got to get lucky and get a distributor.
Secondly there aren’t too many distributors these days that are going to spend a quarter
of a million dollars marketing an indie movie.
So if you really, really want to get behind your movie and you really believe in it and
you want to have a shot at getting it successful tuck that money aside, raise extra money,
and tell your investors.
They will actually respect that.
They will respect the fact that you’re actually thinking about marketing as much as you’re
thinking about production.
Tuck it aside and if you do get a distributor, if you do get lucky and get a good distributor
have them deploy those resources on your behalf so that they have a war chest to help get
the movie out.
It’s only going to be to your benefit.
There are some tricks on how to make that happen so that they don’t beat you and take
fees on your own money and take costs and all that kind of stuff.
We will have to talk about that at some point.
So don’t just throw it in their laps because they will spend it and you won’t get any
return on it.
And the other thing is if you don’t get a distributor, you may have to self-distribute
and if you’re going to self-distribute you need to have some resources to do that with.
It’s not good enough to throw out just a crappy social media campaign these days.
It’s too crowded out there.
Nobody is going to see it.
You have to spend some money.
Film Courage: Well what about cream rises to the top.
So if I get it on one of these streaming services, I don’t need to.
Don’t worry, it will be suggested.
Jeff: That’s the typical thing if I get it on a streaming service.
Do you know what the odds are of getting it on a streaming service?
That would be like if I get into Sundance then a big company will see it and I will…let’s
talk about Sundance.
That’s okay, that’s like the streaming company.
It’s the same type of deal, right?
Getting an indie movie into Sundance now is almost impossible.
I mean the acceptance rate is so low.
It’s like getting accepted to UCLA for college students.
Like 114,000 applications and 3,000 spots.
It’s extremely, extremely low.
So the chances of you getting accepted into Sundance with your indie film are very, very
low.
But let’s say you’re one of the lucky ones and you actually do get it in, all right.
That’s not enough because the next thing you have to do is you have to get a screening
time, it’s about getting the screening where buyers will actually come.
So I am using Sundance because it’s one of the major festivals and we know that there
are lots of acquisition executives and movie buyers who could make a difference, who could
make your movie but it has to be seen.
You have to spend a fortune, you have to hire a publicist.
First of all, you have to hopefully get a good screening time.
If it’s nine in the morning and there are parties the night before, nobody is coming
to your screening.
You gave to get an afternoon and I mean that’s hard to do, right?
You’ve got to get lucky with that.
Now you get that so now you’ve gotten lucky twice.
You have to hire a publicity team and a promotion team, you can’t just assume people are going
to come.
Somebody has got to be talking it up.
That costs a lot of money to hire those people especially at Sundance where it’s super
competitive and where it’s hard to get the attention of the buyers because they only
want to see the big movies.
So that’s…when I say a lot of money that could be anywhere from $5,000 to $10,000 minimum,
minimum.
Not to mention you have to be at Sundance and spend money to be there and all of that
kind of stuff.
So now you get the buyers there.
Likely your publicity person will say you have to have a party because afterwards you
have to entertain them and they have to schmooze with you and blah, blah, blah, blah.
There’s another $10,000 to $20,000 maybe down the toilet but this is what you’re
competing with.
This is what studios do so it’s not like everybody says “I’ll get into Sundance
and I’ll be set.”
And then you’ve got to hope that somebody is in a good mood and liked your champagne
and it was expensive enough that they want to make you an offer.
So there is a lot that goes into it.
Same with the streaming service, what you think you pick up the phone and call Netflix
and say "I just made a great film” “That’s great, send it over.”
It doesn’t work that way.
You could wait years and years and years before anybody even sees it or you can get lucky
but I don’t depend on luck.
Question for the Viewers:
What are your thoughts on spending 40% of your budget on marketing?