One of the most common mistakes of new filmmakers is to disrespect the marketing and PR of their completed work of art. Many times those who make great short films seem to forget (or simply refuse to recognize) the importance of packaging, causing their incredible film fall into darkness shortly after its first stint at a festival or a couple of screenings. But if you are not a marketing genius nor have the pockets of Donald Trump, how can you package your short film?
A couple of easy steps will get you on your way. By making sure your short film is easily found online, and having adequate material to hand to potential distributors, talent hunters or employers you can give yourself a huge advantage. Put simply: You do not need to be a PR guru and walk around with a press kit stapled to your head to draw attention to your short film.
DVD: To some of us this one goes without saying, but you would be surprised to hear how many filmmakers that never bring a DVD with their short film(s) on it when they go outside. Burn your DVD, create a nice menu (easy with today’s software), cover and make sure all your contact details are clearly visible. A nicely packaged DVD is worth its weight in gold, and more.
Website: Creating an online presence for your short film does not need to be complicated, time consuming or expensive. There are different of ways of doing this of course, one of the most recommended and cheapest (quite frankly) is to join a recognized filmmaking community such as
TheSmalls.com. By uploading your film and posting our profile you make your film visible to those who search for it online. Another way is of course to create your own, dedicated website for your short film. You can surely go all out here if you do this, splurge on a fancy design and try to make it look a million dollars – or, you can make it easier for yourself and create a simple webpage that lets your film be in focus. Not a web designer yourself? Not to worry, you don’t need to be today in order to create a simple page. Get a program like
Adobe Contribute CS3 (love this program) and using their template pages (alter colors, images and fonts and you make it your own!!) you are just a few hours away from being available on the web. Or, of course, if you are one of the lucky people who has a friend who can do some online magic – call in a favor. It will be worth your while; having a web presence for your short film is a key element in packaging your work.
Postcards: After you have created your DVD and your website it is time to develop your dedicated print material. While business cards are great, they do not always inspire as much conversation as a nicely designed postcard that displays graphics or images from your short film. Needless to say, the postcard should reflect the other brand you have built around your film and always have our contact details clearly visible. These postcards are easy to carry around, and nice to pull out should someone seem interested in your short film. You can of course also use these cards whenever you are doing a screening someplace, writing personal notes to invite people to come – or as a cover note when submitting material to a producer, network or studio.
Now, there are plenty of other things you can do – like develop nice and colorful stills that convey the mood of your short film, write a backgrounder and bio on yourself (to go on your website) and so on. But the above three steps should give you a first advantage, that you can later keep building from.
Good luck! And don’t hesitate to contact us here at
TheSmalls.com if you’d like us to ad more tips for how fellow filmmakers can package their short films.