Alex and I started this project with the idea of making a spiritual documentary that would inspire people to action. We crafted a story we felt many people could relate to and understand that there were answers to the age-old spiritual questions of life, identity, and purpose. Now, we had to develop a strategy to reach our audience.
We planned to sell the film on our website and on websites and catalogues that sold spiritual products. We knew that praise from "experts" would help us sell copies, so our first tactic was to enter film festivals. That is what many aspiring filmmakers spend a lot of time doing.
There are hundreds of film festivals just in the United States and being selected to many of them won't help your film sell at all. Think about it, no one cares if you win an award at the "town-no-one-ever-heard-of International Film Festival." At thirty or forty dollars per entry fee, you can easily spend a thousand dollars entering festivals that won't bring you a dime of revenue. You might enjoy the accolades, and that's fine if that was part of your reason for making a film in the first place. Otherwise, carefully study the festivals before entering and find the ones that would be interested in your work.
Here is a nice article from MovieMaker Magazine about the best festival investments.
Here is an extensive list of festivals from Inside Film Magazine World-Wide film festivals. It's nice because it list entry fees.
Of course, you can also research festivals at WithoutaBox which provides an easy online format for entering many festivals.
Another way to select festivals is to find films similar to yours and see what festivals they entered. For our spiritual documentary, we wound up with a list of twelve festivals we thought would be open to the genre. After a couple hundred dollars in entry fees and many months of waiting, Closer Than Close was rejected by eight festivals. These included one we were invited to submit to, one in which a pre-screener emailed me to say how much he liked the film, and one festival solely for our genre: spiritual film. Ever conscious of the budget, I began to think the festival route was a money pit for our film.
If we couldn't have a festival "offical selection" garland on our DVD cover, then we would seek out endorsements from leaders in the spiritual community. In hindsight, perhaps I should have done this before submitting to festivals. If Oprah says your film is great that might pesuade the folks at the hometown film festival to give you a screen. Regardless, seeking endorsements has been a great experience. Here's what happened.
First, I made a list of my favorite films with the idea of contacting the screenwriters. I looked at films with spiritual themes like: American Beauty, Jacob's Ladder, and Groundhog Day. Next, I looked at my bookshelves and made a list of my favorite spiritual books. I also brainstormed leading figures in the spiritual community: teachers, community leaders, foundation directors, and popular authors. I asked my friends for ideas as well, and received a lot of names I wouldn't have thought of. Finding contact information took a lot of web research and even that lead me down avenues to new contacts. In the end, I had an email list of thirty-six people.
I didn't email them all at once. I'd email four or five, asking them if I could send a copy of the film. Some said no, some didn't reply, and some said "sure." As I received a positive review, I'd add it to the bottom of the email to send to the next batch of potential reviewers. I was amazed by the generosity of some and the forgetfullness of others, but in the end was happy to have a half dozen excellent endorsements of the film.
Endorsements splattered on our DVD cover and website, I sent the film to DiscMakers for replication in December '07. As soon as the DVDs arrive, we'll announce it is for sale to those who've signed up on our website for DVD release notification. Other than this website, we've had film clips and a trailer on YouTube for several months hoping to entice people to sign up to buy the DVD. That's been moderately successful.
With product for sale, we need to increase our efforts to reach individual buyers.
It is now June '08, and I've sold about 200 copies of the DVD -- enough to recoup replication costs, so we've at least stemmed the tide of financial bleeding. I've scoured the web for email addresses and sent hundreds of notices about the film to yoga centers, retreat centers, and various spiritual groups. I built a MySpace page and likewise sent out hundred of friend requests which were really just notices about the film. MySpace has been a disappointment. For hours of work, I think we received one or two DVD orders.
I still have a marketing to-do list that includes: ads in regional alternative papers, contacting catalogs and booksellers, and the Spiritual Cinema Circle. It's clear that I don't enjoy marketing and miss having Alex around to share ideas.
If you have any questions about what we did and how we did it, or any marketing advice, send me an email.