A Case Study on Getting Exposure for your Film
The year before, Jason and I released our short film that won festival awards, The Thomas Beale Cipher, to the wild web. As with many other filmmakers I was wrestling with the decision of when and how to make the film available online. After 8 months on the festival circuit, I decided it was time. What transpired? What lessons did we take away? A lot it is revealed.
First Background
The Thomas Beale Cipher was not my first feature however, at just 11 minutes long, it's by far my most ambitious. The film's production of the animated action-adventure movie lasted 18 months, with a crew and cast with a total of 20 actors. In the spring of 2013, the film debuted in front of a massive audience of 300+ locals in the Seattle International Film Festival. In the subsequent 8 months it continued to show at various festivals (large and small) picking up a handful of prizes during the course of its run.
While I was watching, I experienced a twinge of guilt. I applauded the bravery of online films on Short of the Week, yet I was reluctant to upload my own short film online. Truthfully, I was unsure of the best way to do it and was worried that an error could end up in disaster for an idea that me and other people gave so much to. We knew that we could not just put it on YouTube and pray for the greatest results. It was time to have a plan. We knuckled down to create a plan.
The Launch Plan
Simple. Find as many people who watch the movie as fast as possible to build up momentum. That meant doing several things:
- Go . It has a greater filmmakers' community than YouTube that could reach many more people, but attract the right viewers--those who are more likely to forward the site on to other people.
- Upload early. Upload the film in the early hours of Monday morning (12AM EST) so that the film has an entire 24 hours to gain views and stay relevant all week.
- Engage the team. Make sure everyone involved in the film is aware of the concept, and share it with their social networks. With even 8-10 people sharing on Twitter and Facebook (even even if nobody individually is Mr. Popular) it's possible to reach over 1000 views that could be enough to get the film into a critical number of people.
- Find key influencers. Email a few important news and blogs who are interested in the subject or the technique. The most important thing to consider is writing an effective email. As curators of a site with a "submit" button, we know how to grab an editor's attention. Send a professional-looking email that includes a tight description, an enlightening statement about why the film merits seeing, a short description of the filmmaker, and a quality picture. Make it easy for media to turn around and publish without further contact from you.
- Continue to work on it. All day, throughout the week, if you need to--continue in reaching out to people you meet.
The Release
We released the film on Monday morning and continued to promote it all week. We started with what we felt was the film's strongest asset--the visual aesthetic--and began by targeting the people we knew--Motionographer, Staff Picks, and a few dozen others. Beaming from that initial great success, we continued ask ourselves, 'What's interesting about the film? and who could we market it to?' We reached out to various tech blogs, and were featured in Gizmodo, BoingBoing, and many others. The more attention we received, the I began to take interviews with major publishers such as Fast Company and Wired. Below is a list of the people who took notice when and how that affected numbers:
- The 24th of Monday, at 12AM. Posted the film on
- The 24th Monday, 12 noon Motionographer and Staff Selections
- Wednesday 26th: BoingBoing, Gizmodo, MetaFilter
- Thursday 27th: The Daily What
- The 28th of Friday: Fast Co. Interview, Fubiz
- On Monday, the 31st of October The next Monday, 31st of March: Wired
The traffic in the first two weeks (yellow = Loads, green = Plays)
The Results
We've been following the world of online films for the last 5 years. We know that good films don't always get great numbers, but our results from the initial two weeks were beyond our most optimistic expectations.
- 170,000 views
- 1300+ blog reviews/mentions
- 5000+ shares on Facebook
- 2000 Tweets
Then, how does it Compare to Our Festival Run?
