Hier zijn weer een paar nieuwe tips van Jon Reiss, de man van de workshop 12 mei (en waarvoor je je deze week nog kunt aanmelden!). De tips volgen min of meer het tien-stappen plan dat wij in onze Crash Course bespraken (en binnenkort weer gaan bespreken.) Ben benieuwd naar hoe hij de tips tijdens de workshop gaat uitdiepen.
Jon Reiss’ TOTBO Tip of the Day 8 – Engage Organizations to Promote Your Film
Step 2 of Audience Engagement is: Know WHERE your audience derives information/congregates.
Many niche’s have organizations that support those specific topics and interests. Engage those organizations early in your filmmaking process (as early as conception and prep). It is important to have the proper attitude toward your audience and these organizations. You need to think, “What can I give them?” instead of “What can they do for me?” If you think of the former, the latter will flow. People are very busy. You need to give them an incentive to be involved with you. The film is not enough. How will the film service their organization, their lives and the lives of their members? In turn, they will help you promote your film to your direct audience. This has been used by great effect by documentary filmmakers. Narrative filmmakers need to follow their lead.
Jon Reiss’ TOTBO Tip of the Day 9 – Create a Dynamic Website
Create a dynamic web site and do it long before your film is done. Old-style film web sites are out — blogging and a constant flow of information are in. Blogging and tagging is what the little bots out in cyberspace will recognize and bring you up in the rankings. Thanks to my wonderful friend and web site savior Michael Medaglia and a lot of great blogging by producer Tracy Wares, we were near the top of Google search on “graffiti documentary” even before our world premiere at Tribeca. A great web site also helps you cultivate your niche audience and further allows the theatrical to fuel your DVD release.
Jon Reiss’ TOTBO Tip of the Day 10 Blog
Blogging helps in two ways: First, it drives traffic to your site as you link to new and interesting stories that are related to the subject of your film (For Bomb It, we post news about graffiti around the world.) And second, your blogging activity will help your site’s SEO (search engine optimization). This will result in higher search rankings for your film in relevant categories. What to blog about? Of course you should blog about your film, your filmmaking experiences and your screenings, but you should also consider blogging about subjects that relate to your film and your film’s audience. This will make your project relevant to them on a broader level and keep them coming back to your site. One simple way to come up with information to blog about is to use Google Alerts. We received a weekly Google Alert about “graffiti” and “street art” and select a few top articles to blog about.
I want to know what you think! Comment here or on my blog, or @Jon_Reiss on twitter, or on the TOTBO page. I look forward to hearing from you.
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