I'm guilty of all of this with Ramona. In part because, as an experiential learner, I didn't understand a lot of this until I did it. Now that I've done it, I want to do it differently with my next film. But who *IS* the audience for a love story? I don't know who the target audience is, apart from romantics. My biggest takeaway from Ramona was 1) raise WAY more money for marketing up front and be open with investors that this would come up (Imagine if we still had a PR budget to promote Kinema screenings!) and 2) start building distribution in pre-production.
Yes! Hell yeah! Say it louder for the folks in the back! Also, thank you for reminding me of jake's "romance & affordability" platform, I'm obsessed and immediately adopting it.
You simply can't compare the approach of documentaries to Scripted films. Because documentaries already have a built in target group to focus on. Just like horror films have their own built in audiences
A scripted non horror film will simply not have the same grassroots theatrical responsecas documentaries and genre specific films.
I hear you. Docs may have a more obvious target audience, and this way of working has been common in documentary distribution for a while.
But I think the core principle applies to scripted too: the work is in growing an audience and creating demand for your film while you have the rights to it. The traditional model doesn't encourage that or give you time for it. That's true for both scripted and documentary.
I think we'll start to see more scripted films take this approach. "Hundreds of Beavers" is one of the most well-known scripted non-horror examples. I expect more to follow.
Love this! I'm curious if anyone has great or good or just 'watch out!' non-traditional distribution case studies for fiction (or non-fiction) shorts? A challenging category in and of itself....
I'm guilty of all of this with Ramona. In part because, as an experiential learner, I didn't understand a lot of this until I did it. Now that I've done it, I want to do it differently with my next film. But who *IS* the audience for a love story? I don't know who the target audience is, apart from romantics. My biggest takeaway from Ramona was 1) raise WAY more money for marketing up front and be open with investors that this would come up (Imagine if we still had a PR budget to promote Kinema screenings!) and 2) start building distribution in pre-production.
Thank you for putting this talk together - I love an organized gantt inspired schedule to help us see the brass tacks!
Me too. I need a visual aid. I'm glad that was helpful.
Yay. Thx for the recap and slides of your great talk.
Yes! Hell yeah! Say it louder for the folks in the back! Also, thank you for reminding me of jake's "romance & affordability" platform, I'm obsessed and immediately adopting it.
Rightttt. I was very moved by him! #chickentenders
You simply can't compare the approach of documentaries to Scripted films. Because documentaries already have a built in target group to focus on. Just like horror films have their own built in audiences
A scripted non horror film will simply not have the same grassroots theatrical responsecas documentaries and genre specific films.
I hear you. Docs may have a more obvious target audience, and this way of working has been common in documentary distribution for a while.
But I think the core principle applies to scripted too: the work is in growing an audience and creating demand for your film while you have the rights to it. The traditional model doesn't encourage that or give you time for it. That's true for both scripted and documentary.
I think we'll start to see more scripted films take this approach. "Hundreds of Beavers" is one of the most well-known scripted non-horror examples. I expect more to follow.
Brilliant 💥”Grow your audience” 🎯
Love this! I'm curious if anyone has great or good or just 'watch out!' non-traditional distribution case studies for fiction (or non-fiction) shorts? A challenging category in and of itself....
I've written one: https://kinemahq.substack.com/p/how-a-short-film-is-building-a-movement
Thank you so much!