Feedback please! mySpace, Screener DVD: Flatland The Movie

Ladd

Ladd

Hey Everyone -

As many may know from another thread, which I can now not find, I've been dabbling in a mySpace marketing campaign for my animated feature film "Flatland." The plan was to make a profile for the movie, and each of the characters in the film. The characters would respond "in character" in a cute way, leaving comments and sending messages as if they actually existed - in a tongue-in-cheek manner.

After about a week of modest effort, I have managed to gather roughly 10,000 unique "friends" for all the characters and the movie. The campaign consisted of myself and my crew (er, wifey) sending out friend requests to people we thought likely to have read the book that the movie is based on, or would be intrigued by the movie's concept. We sent out about 200-300 friend requests per day. Several characters have broken the 1000 mark.

I gave the campaign a rest for a day and still am getting about 1 or 2 friend requests per hour, per character. Some of this is spammed friends, but a lot arenot, based upon some of the comments and messages that the characters get. "Loved the book!" "When's the movie coming out?"

So my plan is this.

1) Take a month (or two or three) to wrap the film up.
2) Have the crew (er, wifey) continue the campaign in earnest while I do so.
3) Sell a "pre-distribution collector's item screener DVD" of the movie to people online, announcing it to the friends when it's available.

I plan on burning the DVD's myself, using printable DVD's (for a nice professional look), etc. Costs for me would be about $2 a DVD. Would plan on selling it for, say, $10.00.

One thing I am wondering about - is there a good company I can use to get a decent shopping cart system to sell the DVD, that will take credit cards, paypal, etc., so I don't have to mess with that end of it?

Thanks! Feedback and holes in the plan would be much appreciated.
 
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Thanks Knightly. Unfortunately mySpace is no panacea for the big bucks. Was hoping that there was something out there that could be. Metacafe. Atomfilms, YouTube aren't really it either - the research I've done on both makes me feel as if they have too many drawbacks for it to be profitable for the feature film maker to get involved in.

Metacafe has a lot of issues, mostly technical, in their producer's program.

Atoms films is too fractured and is losing its inertia.

YouTube is waaay too factured....

I don't know, anyone have any thoughts on those as marketing channels?
 
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Ladd - you touched on a point that has always interested me as I try to figure out new ways to reach people interested in buying my movies.
Ladd said:
Would I buy anything from a fellow mySpace user? The answer is no.
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As filmmakers ourselves, it seems we would naturally be buying films from other filmmakers like us - films made by no name directors, starring no name actors.

But we don't.

At least not any any significant level. How many movies like that did you buy last year? ----pause as you calculate-----

Not very many. Me either. Our fellow filmmakers aren't the audience. So what is our market? Who do we hope will buy our movies?
 
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Who do we hope will buy our movies?
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As I hang my head in shame, I confess that I don't make movies that are expected to compete with "When Harry met Sally", or "Second Hand Lions" -- a couple of my favorites. I make movies that appeal to niche/fetish groups and I market them accordingly. My DVD sales revenue for January is just over $300 so far. I sold just under $2000 in DVD in 2006. Nobody's getting rich here, but it justifies the equipment costs. I think if I were actually making and marketing movies full time, I'd at least be in the $10K/year range ... not enough to make ends meet. For me, it's always going to be a mix of work-for-hire, and independent production.
I am probably just a pessimist, or a pragmatist, or both, but I believe you must identify your audience, find out what they want, and what they're not getting in mainstream movies, then tailor your product accordingly.
Before anyone attacks me on artistic integrity, please understand that's not what this is about. This is about paying for the equipment, and making enough money that the IRS will let me claim all of those expenses on my tax return. I don't expect to make money, when I'm doing something that is strictly for creative expression. I do believe that my creative vision goes into everything I make, but in the end, a business venture is for the purpose of making money, and a creative venture is for my own self expression. The two seldom come together.
 
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directorik said:
Ladd - you touched on a point that has always interested me as I try to figure out new ways to reach people interested in buying my movies.

As filmmakers ourselves, it seems we would naturally be buying films from other filmmakers like us - films made by no name directors, starring no name actors.

But we don't.

At least not any any significant level. How many movies like that did you buy last year? ----pause as you calculate-----

Not very many. Me either. Our fellow filmmakers aren't the audience. So what is our market? Who do we hope will buy our movies?
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Marketing to other filmmakers was never my intent. They're few and far between. But to back up a moment...

I think there are only two things a movie needs to achieve success. 1) A hook - which can come in many forms - a name actor, rave reviews, cool sfx, strange style like "Blair Witch", whatever - and 2) the marketing power to get that hook to the audience. That can be through advertising or it can be footwork. Press releases, paid banners, etc. You've got to have both 1 & 2 to get that intended audience person to plunk down their cash.

My film's hook - such as it is - is that is adapted from a well known book. Which indicates my intended audience: people who've heard of or read the book. But, with no financing, I am left stuck on number 2, marketing the hook, except to go the usual routes - film festivals, press releases, and the like. Which I suppose I am going to have to do.

It would be great to avoid all of that and somehow market straight to the world without spending a lot of money. I'm investigating a couple of avenues in this regards and will report back if any of them bear fruit.
 
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oakstreetphotovideo said:
As I hang my head in shame...
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Heck, I wouldn't feel any shame. For what it's worth, I don't expect any indie filmmakers to buy my film, and I certainly don't feel that they are obligated to purchase my work simply because we're colleagues. I'd much rather have 10,000 or 20,000 sales to the general public. If my intended audience were indies, I'd be making "how to" videos on animation or editing or guerrilla filmmaking, etc. I'd be mildly dissapointed that someone from the forum didn't buy then, but I wouldn't be surprised since most indies are time rich and cash poor.

The only reason I placed my DVD as an item on the Indie forum, in fact, was on the off-chance that a distributor was cruising around looking around for new property... not to sell to my fellow indie posters.
 
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Actually, I'd like to buy a copy of everyone's movie from this forum, because I am sincerely interested in what everyone is doing, and I'd like to ask questions about how they did certain shots, etc. I don't have a good reason not to buy a copy of everyone's DVD, except that I've always got some other priority staring me in the face that distracts me from those "fun to do" things. Hell, I'm not sure I'd find time to watch them, if I did buy them.

Time is always my biggest constraint. There is never enough time to do all the things I want to do.
 
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I'll be getting a copy as soon as I've paid up all the bills from my last shoot. Kinda tapped atm, but Flatland is on the list.
smiley_pac.gif


No opinion on the MySpace thing, or other marketing ideas.
 
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Zensteve said:
I'll be getting a copy as soon as I've paid up all the bills from my last shoot. Kinda tapped atm, but Flatland is on the list.
smiley_pac.gif
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Awesome! I hope you'll like it.

I've been also thinking that this may be the harbringer of new things in the indie world. I think feature films are going to go the way of the novel - eventually technology will allow anyone to make a film, just as anyone can write and publish a novel today at relatively little expense. Already has - look at me with "Flatland." It then is just a matter of skill and talent, not money or business savvy or who you know.

So you'll have an exponential increase in product - already sort of happening with YouTube, I-tunes, all that. And then, with the fractured marketing world - negating the effectivness of television advertising and even of the press - it will be make it nearly impossible to advertise effectively for any big-budget Hollywood films.

I give it four or five years, tops, before everything's washed away.

If I'm not mistaken, Lucas cited these reasons for his decision to drop out of the feature world altogether because of the fractured marketing world expenses. He thinks it'll be all about television series - getting an audience hooked on the series and watching all of the episodes in various media - DVD, internet, etc. I'm not so certain if that's a winner of a concept or not. We'll see.

If the issue of micro-marketing for the indie film can be solved, it may open up a new financial world for all filmmakers; if not, it may relegate all filmmakers to the dustbin of the novelist, toiling away in a basement somewhere in relative obscurity, with only the occasional "blockbuster" coming out. But that blockbuster will be something wholly different in scale than what we've got now.

I think we're talking 10,000 or 20,000 units sold over the course of a year, for maybe ten or fifteen years. As opposed to hundreds of millions of dollars over the course of a year or two.

Almost like studying dinosaurs and their extinction. I think we've passed the "big dinosaur" stage in the film world and are now transitioning into the "small furry mammals" stage. Lightweight, inexpensive, warm blooded. And far less spectacular than a T-Rex.

We already see this happening to the music industry in a big way. Concert sales down. Record sales down. They blame it on downloads and piracy, but no - it's fractured marketing.

So maybe it's of small comfort to think that while we may not be T-Rexes, by gum, the T-Rexes ain't gonna be around much longer...
 
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I have been using Fark.com to get news stories for a while, and just realized they have a classified section.

It's a rotating thing like a local cable company, but for $40 you get 7 days exposure, a feedback forum, and a load of potential viewers. They claim 10,000,000 people will be looking, but who knows how accurate that is.

Here's the details. http://www.fark.com/farq/classifiedad.shtml
I'm going to give it a whirl for some non video stuff, might be worth a look!

Neil
 
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Ladd said:
So maybe it's of small comfort to think that while we may not be T-Rexes, by gum, the T-Rexes ain't gonna be around much longer...
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I really like the T-Rexes. As a devil's advocate here, I'd like to point out that the folks who end up making GOOD watchable stuff have bunches of experience and time/money to dedicate to this pursuit. The movie goer (myself included) wants to watch spectacle on the screen and hork down butter drenched popcorn. Spectacle takes money...That much money takes a studio. As long as they can find a meal, the T-Rexes will remain the dominant species. Right now, they are better hunters than we are...we gets nuts and berries for now...(looks in mirror) mostly nuts.
 
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Have you tried a YouTube clip? Like a viral sort of thing. Perhaps a funny short scene from the film.

I wish clive weren't away on business or he could give a better idea for viral marketing. But I've always thought the right clip on YouTube could gather a lot of interest.

Poke
 
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knightly said:
I really like the T-Rexes. As a devil's advocate here, I'd like to point out that the folks who end up making GOOD watchable stuff have bunches of experience and time/money to dedicate to this pursuit. The movie goer (myself included) wants to watch spectacle on the screen and hork down butter drenched popcorn. Spectacle takes money...That much money takes a studio. As long as they can find a meal, the T-Rexes will remain the dominant species. Right now, they are better hunters than we are...we gets nuts and berries for now...(looks in mirror) mostly nuts.
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Ha! Well, I have to admit I like the T's too. I'd rather be one myself. Which makes their imminent extinction a rather sad thng... but perhaps technology will find a way to cure the marketing issues in time to preserve their DNA. And allow the mammals to come down out of the trees and partake in the feast.

I am working on a youtube and a metacafe campaign as well. But it strikes me that with so much fracturing, it'll be difficult to use either to good effect. Sort of like spitting in the sea... the only way to get noticed in all the turbulence is to be aggressive, which can expose you to accusations of spamming.
 
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You may be underestimating the number of people you can reach on the "fragmented" internet. If you can get 2 million people to see your promotion (a small number on the internet), and you can convert 1% of those to customers (a rather low conversion factor), you'll sell 2000 copies. Take that money, and put some of it back into targeted advertising, and you'll sell another 5000. If you have low overhead, you could net $10/copy. That may not be enough money to interest T-rex, but it gets my attention.

I'm not saying "think small", I'm saying you may have to leverage early sales to expand future sales. You must be more hands-on, and iterative than the T-rex who just launches a media campaign some time before the release.
 
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oakstreetphotovideo said:
You may be underestimating the number of people you can reach on the "fragmented" internet. If you can get 2 million people to see your promotion (a small number on the internet), and you can convert 1% of those to customers (a rather low conversion factor), you'll sell 2000 copies. Take that money, and put some of it back into targeted advertising, and you'll sell another 5000. If you have low overhead, you could net $10/copy. That may not be enough money to interest T-rex, but it gets my attention.

I'm not saying "think small", I'm saying you may have to leverage early sales to expand future sales. You must be more hands-on, and iterative than the T-rex who just launches a media campaign some time before the release.
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I agree totally with your numbers vis-a-vis conversion of 1% etc. Certainly gets my attention, too. The issue I believe that all indies are struggling with is the initial postulate "if" number of two million. Where does one get those two million eye balls without an ad budget or marketing budget - and without becoming a spammer? That's the question.

Yes, perhaps viral videos are the answer, or press releases, or a combination of all of these strategies... we'll see. I'm trying them all and I have hopes that they will work.

But what does it mean for the T-Rex? These channels all rely upon chance - chance that internet users will forward your viral video, chance that the press and bloggers will report on it, etc. Eventually that will be all that's left to do. And I think it makes those investors that fund T-rexes very, very nervous...

But not me.
 
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I've seen conversion rates as high as 10%, when I've drawn traffic from carefully selected sites. There is always a tradeoff between getting massive numbers of hits, or being more surgical. My point was mostly that the internet is a great opportunity, and it should not be minimalized, just because it's highly diverse. The potential audience in the U.S. alone is well over 80 million (I don't have recent figures, I'd guess over 100 million by now, but 80 million is a very conservative number). If you could reach 10% of the U.S. audience, you'd make most marketing people cry with envy.

Let me just bring this home. I would not be able to make my living the way I do, or life my life the way I do, if it weren't for the internet. The internet is the solution. It's diversity and fragmentation are another challenge for us, but I wouldn't want it any other way.
 
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oakstreetphotovideo said:
I've seen conversion rates as high as 10%, when I've drawn traffic from carefully selected sites. There is always a tradeoff between getting massive numbers of hits, or being more surgical. My point was mostly that the internet is a great opportunity, and it should not be minimalized, just because it's highly diverse. The potential audience in the U.S. alone is well over 80 million (I don't have recent figures, I'd guess over 100 million by now, but 80 million is a very conservative number). If you could reach 10% of the U.S. audience, you'd make most marketing people cry with envy.

Let me just bring this home. I would not be able to make my living the way I do, or life my life the way I do, if it weren't for the internet. The internet is the solution. It's diversity and fragmentation are another challenge for us, but I wouldn't want it any other way.
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Oh I agree, same here! And you make some great points. Let's see how my next phase goes. Maybe I'll hit some of the numbers you're talking about.
 
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