i think marketing isnt the job of indie filmmaker as it needs a big budget. If i am right then why you said this?and if i am wrong then how can i get finance for marketing???
Ah... that's a common misunderstanding which almost everyone makes.
What takes the budget is ADVERTISING... marketing is the process of designing and packaging a product for the market.
So, when I say marketing I mean understanding who I'm going to sell the film too and how my film meets the needs of my customers.
Where a lot of film makers go wrong is in thinking the final audience are their customers... they aren't. A film maker's customers are distributors.
So marketing a film is about knowing that your film as a product is the kind of thing distributors will buy.
Distributors are looking for easy money... a film that will sell lots of units and into lots of territories. The easier you make it for them, the better your chance of selling your movie.
Distributors make their judgments based on buying patterns of customer:
So, for instance, people generally will chose a film they've heard of, over a film they haven't; people chose to watch films by directors they've heard of, over directors they haven't; people chose films based on genre; people chose films which have generated some media attention, over films that didn't get any press... and finally, people choose films on the basis of the movie poster... where all there is, is an image and maybe twenty words.
What this means is, any film maker needs to think about what it is about their film which will attract either press attention... or how their film will be OBVIOUSLY attractive to an audience. It's got to be obvious, because a distributor has to believe instantly that the film can do business.
It's not good enough to just make a good film... because your film's concept is actually more important.
As a rule of thumb, a bad film with a good concept will make more money than a good film with a bad concept.
Of course make a great film, with a fantastic concept and you're laughing.
Where I went wrong was... good film, weak concept, no name cast, no genre.
The problem was I didn't know that until after I'd invested three years and all my money into it... something I could have avoided if I'd tried to design the poster for the film pre-production.
The other part of marketing is market research.
For films this means two things... designing your poster and testing it on everyone you know... and, going to as many "professional" film festivals as possible and talking to people.
You need to talk to distributors and find out what they're really looking for.
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