Archive for "Box Elder"

Jan 31 7 comments
Box Elder

It’s About Time - Pt. 2
.: by Todd Sklar

As alluded to in my previous post, this was meant as a 2 part correspondence, and this second posting is more-so a list of some things I’ve learned regarding the release and marketing of an independent film:

- You need to have a solid website 5 minutes after you’ve written the script.

- You need to have a solid trailer 5 days after you’ve wrapped shooting.

- You need to release your DVD within 6 weeks of your premiere.

- You need to start making your DVD 6 hours after you’ve made your final cut.

- You need to do your theatrical release within 2-4 weeks of your festival premiere (2 wks allows you to maximize press/buzz, but 4 wks also allows for that buzz to build and grow a bit - whether or not that happens is out of your hands).

- You need to implement a festival premiere into your release platform, and there’s no better/other way to do it than utilizing it as the springboard for your theatrical release. Simply put, there’s a very small, but (arguably) very important audience that simply won’t/can’t pay attention to your film unless you bring it to a festival. I’m not sure if I could’ve gotten Box Elder into a festival, but I am sure that it was silly to tour it for 3 months and have over 10,000 people see it and not have a single piece of press or cred to show for it. Whether or not the festival audience maters is very debatable, and I’ll save my thoughts on that for a later blog, but there’s no question that it can’t hurt to have your premiere at a festival and use that as a launch for your film’s release. ***

- You need to look at the theatrical release as a brand building and audience building campaign and focus on exposure and press secondly. A few really well written articles can a go a long way when used correctly, and getting them linked, sent, or posted in as many places by as many people as possible is A LOT more effective than collecting a catalog of press to showcase to the people you’ve already won over (the reality is that aside from a handful of stragglers here and there, 90% of the people who are gonna read your press anyways are the people who are either seeking it out b/c they’re already interested or are getting it sent to them via the people who are already interested).

- You need to be ready to make your next one before your release this one. They always say that in hollywood people only care about “what’s next” when you meet with them re; a current project or a recent success….. audiences and fans are the same, if not even more fickle and impatient.

- You need to roll with the punches and remember to focus on your planning your work and working your plan. Don’t let anything get in your. Use this guy as an example of how motivated and focused you need to be to avoid letting distractions throw twigs in your bike spokes. ****

- Last but not least, you need sell DVD’s during your theatrical release. Even if you only sell one per night, that’s still one person who now has the ability to promote your film throughout their social network. I cannot tell you how many times we’d be at a screening and someone would come up and say they heard about it because their friend in St. Louis told them about it after they watched their roommates copy during winter break, etc.

Most people (esp. in the biz) will argue that the friend in St. Louis didn’t buy a DVD or a ticket and thus you’ve wasted the opportunity to monetize your potential audience, but most people (ESP. in the biz) are fucking idiots. Releasing a film is not about monetizing your potential audience, it’s about building your potential audience, and the truth of the matter is; if you’ve made a film that’s worth it’s weight, there’s simply nothing bad that can come from people watching it, whether they’ve paid or not.

Relating this concept to food makes it a bit easier to justify - If you started a bakery and it had the absolute best cookies in the country, but no one in the country, let alone your city knew they existed because they hadn’t ever heard of you or you new bakery, the worst thing you could do would be restrict how much and how often people were able to experience those wonderful cookies. Rather, if you simply tried to get them out in as many places and as often as possible and then let the strength of the cookies themselves lead to future revenue, you’d be growing both your business, as well as the overall awareness of your product, and yourself as a baker. *****

That’s called believing in your product, and as a filmmaker, it’s your job to make sure you only work with people who believe in your product, otherwise you’re gonna end up with burnt food at some point along the way.

- I need to get more coffee

More soon,

Todd

*** I lied. It can hurt if the festival is in a market that you plan to screen at later. Independent film audiences are small, and you’re gonna need that ticket revenue when your film plays theatrically later, so beware of festivals that cannibalize a given cities art-house audience. That said, there are plenty of anomalies. Examples include SXSW, which runs in Austin while UT is on spring break, thus leaving a large audience available for a future screening, and True/False in Columbia, MO seems to somehow aid in audience building for it’s films (I lived in Columbia for 6 years and still don’t understand how this works, but for some reason films that play T/F do incredibly well when they come back and play the Ragtag during their theatrical run).

**** This guy would do if the Let’s Paint TV guy is unavailable. Talk about focus.

***** I am eating the most delicious double chocolate cherry cookie right now.

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Jan 30 1 comments
Box Elder

It’s About Time - Pt. 1
.: by Todd Sklar

Comrades,

I’m just now getting caught up on life post-tour, so I’m gonna start this post off with a sincere apology for the lack of participation on my behalf re; this group blog. Not sure how many readers there are out there, nor how many of them give a fuck whether or not I’m posting material, but on the off-chance that a handful do, I wanted to kick things off with my apologies for leaving you hanging on the telephone.

Moving forward, I recently was having a (digital) conversation about the timing of press and marketing with a friend of mine who’s in the process of completing a feature, and I wanted to do a short post summarizing a couple things from our conversation because I realized in the midst of it that most of it was stuff that was at least worth considering for anyone making and/or releasing an independent film.

Since I developed part of my own release platform based on content that I found on this very site, I’ll assume I’m blogging to an “informed audience” and skip a lot of the details and background info simply cover the nuggets - but feel free to shoot me an email if the following evokes questions/comments due to brevity. *

So anyways, the thrust of the dialog was that my aforementioned bro-ham was contemplating when to start implementing blogs and press and all sorts of other goodies into their release platform, and he was mentioning that he wanted to wait until they had a premiere set and then develop a strategy based on that.

As someone who wasn’t smart enough to do that and has seen it from both sides now twice over (two tours equals two releases essentially), I couldn’t agree more with his plans to collect and create content for their release, but withhold putting it out there and implementing the campaign until they can use it all within a tight release schedule.

This sounds like an obvious thing, but for many first time, and even seasoned filmmakers (myself included) the desire to just get stuff out there and start connecting with an audience can be verrrrrrry tempting, and it takes tru maturity to recognize the trouble that jumping the gun can get you into.

Two examples that I witnessed/experienced firsthand were;

1) You jump the gun on building buzz and then lose momentum and interest before it’s time to utilize that buzz (i.e, a theatrical, DVD, or on-line release). With niche content (and face it, every film w/o one or two A-list stars in it is niche content to an extent) it’s incredibly easy to run out of steam during those waiting periods before each release, and then you’ve gotta re-generate that very same interest, as well as new interest when you’re finally ready to move forward.

ex. A film premieres at Sundance to wide acclaim, then gets more acclaim leading up to it’s theatrical release, and then continues to build exposure and attention through it’s release. Big success, except that the filmmaker now has to raise even more attention when it’s time to release the DVD, and at that point, there might not be much else to say about the film, or nearly as many interested listeners.

2) You jump the gun on your release and can’t support it with the necessary content or resources & planning b/c it’s a full time job just maintaining whatever momentum and interest your gaining from the film’s release. This puts you in a constant state of pushing things forward while also continuously going backwards to try and finish building a ship that’s already sailing at full speed.

ex. A filmmaker plots out a theatrical tour in pre-production, then spends months making and then re-making the film, finishing it 4 days before the premiere, and 7 days before the 3 month tour begins. That’s a recipe for disaster, made worse only by the fact that if aid tour goes well, you only have 3 months to build upon that success while re-building your model/platform for a second release. next thing you know, you’re spending your first break in 18 months fixing your website and making a DVD for a film that’s already been screened across the country twice and has already made it’s impression on 90% of the people who will ever know it exists.

P.S. - have you already checked out the new Box Elder website and 2 disc DVD? I thought not.

By creating content and stockpiling it until you’ve developed a strategy and a release schedule, you can easily avoid both of those outcomes. **

More soon,

Todd

* Note: I’m just now getting caught up on emails from as far back as Oct., so please be patient if it takes me forever to reply.

** Note: both of those aforementioned scenarios are under the assumption that the film is good, and can generate enough interest and momentum on it’s own merits, or that it’s filmmaker(s) can at least make up for the film’s shortcomings with savy marketing tactics.

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Dec 29 0 comments
Box Elder, In Memory Of My Father, On The Road With Judas, Registered Sex Offender, TOUR DE FOURS

Tour de Fours: Episode 5
.: by Todd Sklar

As Halloween approaches, witches and goblins cast their best tricks on the boys: a disappearing van, an event-based plan, and some spooky movie screenings at the Sunset 5. Even Brian creates his hairy own ghost.

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Dec 22 0 comments
Box Elder, In Memory Of My Father, On The Road With Judas, Registered Sex Offender, TOUR DE FOURS

Tour de Fours: Episode 4
.: by Todd Sklar

As the tour hits San Francisco, the boys hit the streets harder than ever in an attempt to pack a full house. They look everywhere for a heart, a hand to hold on to, and a face of somebody who needs you. Everywhere Rennie looks, he just finds trouble.

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Dec 16 0 comments
Box Elder, In Memory Of My Father, On The Road With Judas, Registered Sex Offender, TOUR DE FOURS

Tour de Fours: Episode 3
.: by Todd Sklar

The boys are running out of money so they hold an impromptu late night screening and take their profits straight to the bank. The vegas-bank.

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Nov 11 0 comments
Box Elder

If you build it, they will come
.: by Todd Sklar

A great quote from a marginal movie, but more importantly, it’s one of the better examples of how most anything in life can be best explained with a baseball metaphor. I’ve been thinking a lot about baseball lately in regards to this tour, and it’s not just because I bet $50 bucks on the Rays at the start of the season, and we could really use the money from those 85-1 odds (EDIT: I began writing this blog prior to the clock striking 12 for the Rays. That said, we could still use that money, so if anyone made bank on the Phillies, you can donate some of your winnings at www.FightYourDentist.com. Money aside, the reason baseball has been on my mind lately is because I’m on tour right now, and my film, as well as this release strategy owe a lot of America’s favorite pastime.

First and foremost, Box Elder would’ve never been made had it not been for the 2006 Minnesota Twins. I’ve long been a die hard fan of my hometown team, and a lot of the attitude and inspiration that was needed to take the plunge and dedicate my life to making a DIY feature came from watching the way the Twins played the game, and in specific, their turn-around miracle season two years ago.

To give you a little background, the Twins generally have one of the lowest payrolls in baseball, yet they remain competitive each year because they find creative solutions to their problems, and that’s a golden rule for an independent filmmaker. The Twins can’t afford the best players, so they make sure the ones they have play to the best of their ability, and they do so by focusing on fundamentals and practicality, and this is another golden rule for a true independent filmmaker. You’ve got to make the most of your limited resources, so your film’s development, production, and release should be centered around taking advantage of what you have and what makes sense. Fundamentals and practicality over preconceived notions and competitiveness.

Furthermore, when it comes to releasing your film into the world, you generally have even fewer resources, and more competition, which makes it even more important to stick to practicality and common sense instead of trying to copy and compete with the way other films are released. There’s no purpose for an independent filmmaker to buy ad space or hire a marketing team to get the word out about their film. That money, time, and energy can be better spent by figuring out how to connect with your core audience - the people who will want to come see your film, and will jump at the chance to champion it elsewhere and to their social network - and then making sure they not just know about it, but can easily access tools to let others know about it too. By mimicking the way the Twins play small ball (bunting a runner in counts the same as a home run on the scoreboard), you can reach the people who would actually end up seeing your film, and for a lot less money and time.

And another thing about those Minnesota Twins; they make sure to have a good a time when they play the game, which should be another golden rule for filmmakers. Never forget that going to work each day is making a movie. You’re not cleaning up garbage or working on wall street, etc. You’re creating art, and more importantly, you’re getting to do what you’ve always wanted, and appreciating that while you’re doing it goes great lengths I have found. It’s contagious, and it makes up for constantly overworking people, and can often inspire them to over-achieve for you. Which is necessary.

Same goes for releasing films. If you look at telling people about your film as a job, rather than an opportunity to share something with them, the outcome will be similar to any other time you ask a stranger to do something for you (bums usually have better luck). You gotta love what you’re doing in order for other people to be able to love it, and releasing your film, whether it be via a tour like this one or through some other method, should certainly be something you love doing, otherwise why release it? Just because you finished the film doesn’t mean it has to be released. Just because you felt you had a story to tell doesn’t mean it needs to be heard. Think about why you wanted to tell that story and which people would relate to that notion. Those are the people who are gonna be excited when you tell them you made a movie about something they care about. It’s just a matter of finding them and getting in touch.

But where do you find the energy to release and promote your film after you just burned yourself out making it? Two options;

1) Watch Predator http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tt3nbRx6kDQ . A lot.

2) Look to the 2006 Minnesota Twins (or the 2007 Colorado Rockies, or 2008 Tampa Bay Devil Rays). The Twins spent the first half of that season in last place, and then made an attitude based roster change, and subsequently had baseball’s best record down the stretch, earning them the division on the last day of the season. They used the momentum of turning it all around to fuel each winning streak.

As a filmmaker, you’ve got to find momentum and ride it to the end of the line. Pick a strategic launch time/place, and focus all your energy on making that a home run (pardon the pun), and then parlay that into doing the same thing on a smaller level in other places.  Not only will that 1st success keep you motivated, but it will also provide you with a large group of people to support the rest of your release. Plus, just like when you were making a film, you’ll feel more comfortable about how you’re releasing it once you’ve started the process. This is exemplified by a touring model because once you figure out a good worklfow, you really only have to execute and problem-solve to make things work in each subsequent city. Plus you get to apply everything you learned from the last city immediately on the next one. Plus you get to see a lot of Twins games in other stadiums, which, considering the accommodations at the Metrodome in Minneapolis, might be the biggest advantage of the tour.

Todd Sklar watched The 400 Blows. Soon after, his short film Caught Naked in a Public Place screened at a handful of festivals you weren’t at. Late in 2007, he launched Range Life Entertainment, a niche-market oriented distribution company focusing on tour based platform distribution. Most recently, he ate his roommate’s leftover sandwiche without asking, and then read this bio out loud, without pants on. Box Elder is his debut feature film.

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