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HOW
TO MARKET YOUR FILM:
THE
LONG AND BINDING ROAD
A Tale of Pushing Your Movie After It "Expires"
by
Anup Sugunan
I
started reading the ‘Power of Focus’ – another
excellent book, but ironically I can’t focus because of
the following topic on my mind.
I
was hanging out with a friend the other day. He told me about
a friend of his who is a filmmaker and wanted us to meet. He
had told her that I’m a filmmaker with a movie called
Trade Offs on Netflix and Blockbuster—I corrected
him and stated that it was only on Netflix. He said he had walked
into a Blockbuster and it was sitting on the shelf. I was blown
away! I had really wanted to get it on the shelf at Blockbuster
as it’s the most accessible form of distribution. Netflix
only has a couple of million members in comparision to BB. Then
I immediately thought about my intentions last year of pushing
the film – long after it was made and even sold to the
distributor.
I
worked with publicist Irene
Paigah and let know her that my best move would be to have
Trade Offs on Netflix and Blockbuster – which
would also help the countless number of people who worked on
the movie. Even though it was my first film as an actor and
my acting would probably win me a Raspberry Award, I want to
be able to refer to it. When you can tell a Hollywood executive
or agent that you have a movie sitting on the shelf of a rental
house, you’re way more likely to get calls returned.
Irene
wrote and made follow-up calls to both of the rental companies
as well as the distributor, since the movie was already sold
to them. But it seemed like Irene and I were getting a somewhat
blasé response from both the rental companies. I had
been emailing Netflix & BB periodically requesting it as
well from a customer service direction. Then we exhausted the
possibilities for the time being so we left it. A few months
later I was browsing Netflix and there it was. It was finally
on there. And now it’s on Blockbuster online and some
brick and mortar stores. I’m not sure what other forces
were at work from other people on the film, but for me it didn’t
matter that we started the production of the movie was four
years ago and hit the festival circuit three years ago and it
came out on DVD two years ago at all the Indian grocery stores.
Try telling an exec that they can go pick up the movie at an
Indian grocery store. I just wanted to keep pushing it and pushing
it.
I
learned this lesson of pushing your old movies even when you’re
working on your current ones from my friend Babar – who
was privileged enough to work with the late Pat Morita just
before he passed away. As actors, we can rack up quite a bit
of movies a year, but as writer/director/producers we usually
get one, if that, a year. And if it’s a feature, it’s
a few years for just one.
What
I do when I submit short films to festivals is do a tiny edit
and put the completion date current. I do this because most
film festivals have a two year limit on the production date
– that restriction is nothing more than a vanity issue
as they want the most recent film regardless of quality. I also
started taking dates off of the festival acceptance wreaths
and putting in the film name in its place - see my film
page at www.anup.net for examples. A movie is not milk,
it doesn’t expire.
Happy
Filmmaking,
Anup
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