May 2008

Continuing in the distribution/exhibition vain, this week saw Nick Leese, an independent film publicist who runs his own film marketing company, Organic Marketing, come along to discuss where marketing fits into the producing puzzle. Nick began by talking about the importance of thinking about marketing from day one of the producing process. We discussed how from the beginning it is important to market the film amongst the trade press and how it is an idea to keep a production diary as it may come in useful for marketing down the line and how to try doing some pre-production marketing in trade press with the talent that is already attached to generate some early excitement about the project and help with financing and pre-sales. We then spoke about publicity and marketing during physical production from stills photographers and unit publicists to the creation of the ultimate marketing tool – the EPK (electronic press kit) – a compilation of talent interviews, behind the scenes footage, deleted scenes etc. that often forms the second disk in a DVD box set. Nick went into some really useful details and tips about unit publicity and creating brilliant EPK’s, including costings in budget, photography set up, production diaries from all HOD’s and how to make for interesting audio/visual interview material. He went on to speak about the basic P&A that is often required by the sales agent, for example a poster and a teaser/trailer for the film, and how to handle the costs of these. Nick finally discussed with the group distribution marketing and how to prepare a marketing strategy which covers all key elements of a strong marketing campaign leading up to the film’s release, including costs and timings for the different elements. It was a brilliant session which gave real insight into this essential yet often neglected part of the production process and has given me lots to think about in terms of the marketing potential for my own project.

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Gabriel Tupinamba

(One-Year Practical Filmmaking) has seen great success this year with both films he made on his course. And The Colours... appeared at the Cannes Short Film Corner and both shorts have been screened at other festivals including the Digital Festival in Florence, Evil City in New York, and Sapporo Film Market in Tokyo.