During this Memorial Day Weekend, SnagFilms is donating $1 per “tweet” or “like” to support the nation’s army who served our country in Iraq and Afghanistan wars. A lot of men and women put their lives on the line every day to preserve our country’s peace and collaborate trying to find the best way to end the war. In this opportunity, social media is the tool to say thanks just by clicking this video.
Well I know I've been lax about writing here, but again that's what happen when a filmmaker decides to start a blog, when he's in production is a little intermittent, but believe me I'm learning so much that I can't wait to share all the experiences with you guys.
For now I want to invite you to watch the teaser of my next feature film, if you like what you see, you can favorite it, rate it, comment on it, that would help us to get some honors on youtube, like #32 Most Viewed video on Film & Animation category, and that would allow us to get featured, driving more people to our teaser and ultimately to our movie.
Charles Choi and Tom Hicks are entrepreneurs with a background in computer engineering, radio and theater.
About a little more than a year ago they launched caachi.com a place that allows independent filmmakers to sell their undistributed films to a wider audience.
Now, what makes caachi different from any other online distributor?, something called the Vidget, a video widget that allows, pretty much everybody to become a sales agent for any good film.
Let's face it, for years we had been watching short films for free on youtube, after some of those films you totally feel that you would be willing to pay something because the film was really good, right?, in the other hand there's a lot of horrible pieces, you feel they owe you money for the waste of time. Now with the Vidget you can avoid those terrible films, you just see which films your friends are supporting, you know your friends' taste, so if they are displaying the Vidget of any particular film is because that film is interesting! you can even ask them if is worth to buy... so you buy it, you loved it and you display the Vidget of that film too. You become part of that filmmaker's audience while you see something that make you happy, everybody wins! Plain and simple, is digital word of mouth or another form of viral marketing. Do you want to know how the Vidget would save independent filmmaking?
In this interview we talked about the future, and the future is to cut the middle man (The Big Distributors) and take the wheel of your success getting directly to your audience, well, caachi is a great way to start building that audience.
The Mini Interview
Scilla Andreen is a mother, a filmmaker, CEO of IndieFlix.com and an
active member of her Seattle community. Yes, in that order, that’s how
I figured she’s a good mother, she put that title first: Mother.
But let’s talk about a broad meaning, we’re talking about a person that
treats every project as a baby, she nurtures it, feeds it, watches it
grow and then feels proud of it. IndieFlix is 4 years old and as Mozart
did, is making the difference since the early years. It’s not only a
distribution company it’s a distribution experience.
She’s very passionate about her life at this moment, she sounds really
happy and she’s decided, along with her partner Carlo Scandiuzzi, to
make IndieFlix the link between the independent filmmaker and their
audience. They recently announced their deal with all the major online
distributors such iTunes, Netflix, Joost, Hulu, Vudu & Tivo.
This is a long interview, almost an hour, but every second is worthy.
We talked about numbers, pay-per-view streaming, DVD Distribution,
Digital Distribution, Non Exclusive Rights and her latest adventure
IndieFest, among many other things.
The Interview.
My favorite quote from the panel was "Technology is no substitute for craft" by Bryan Poyser, the rest of the panel was conformed by Barry Jenkins, Todd Rohal and Melissa Scaramucci, it was moderated by Gabe Wardell, Executive Director of the Atlanta Film Festival.
All the filmmakers agreed that the best way to start is starting! Bryan Jenkins said "Film is like a sport, you need to train to be good, and the only way to train is making films".
Funny how this entry is totally in the same line of yesterday's interview.
Here the highlights of the conference, boost the volume, I was kinda far.
S. Mohen recently graduated from Chapman University, but before academics achievements she graduated as a filmmaker, when I asked her who are you? she said "I am just a regular girl, I love dancing, love to go to the movies and I have a cat, but if I have to define myself, I've to say that I'm a filmmaker".
I don't consider her to be an ordinary girl though, at 20 years old she already made a feature film against all odds, including some teachers at Chapman that said to her, "you cannot do this it's just too ambitious". It took determination, but she recouped her money, she's developing her second feature and she's producing a web series call On the verge. I think the risk was worthy.
She writes about what she knows. After finishing the script of Happy Holidays her friends started encouraging her to do it. 33 days on set over 6 months, a winter break, a summer vacation and $5,000 later she had it in the can. (A winter break and a summer vacation, I'm wondering if the title of the movie comes from doing this).
It took a lot of courage and support from the crew and actors, sometimes they had to bring their own food to the set, sometimes they took advantage of the meals plans at Chapman but the reality is that they confronted every obstacle, they endured they learned and they made a movie. Dillon Morris, director of photography of the film gave me this trivia: All the people involve in this film were under 22 years old. Kudos to them.
Here the interview.
...and if you want to see the film, you can get it here.
Buddhist Filmmaker Sarah Fisher shared her journey of four years to finish Meditate and Destroy about the journey of author of Dharma Punx, Noah Levine whom after a self-destructive adolescence of criminal activity and substance abuse, now teaches the path of Buddhism. A documentary about punk rock, spirituality and inner rebellion.
After reading Noah's book Dharma Punx, she felt that she needed to tell that story, so she contacted him to explore the possibility of doing a documentary about him, his response was "I've a book release party next Friday, bring your camera".
Sarah talks about her struggle as a guerrilla filmmaker and how sometimes you need to have a tough resolve, proving yourself again and again, about her DIY distribution strategy, about her disappointment in the festivals and the new ways of distribution.
Listen the interview right here.
If you want to learn about future screenings or simply support the film (They still need to clear the music rights, and that cost money), there are different ways, you can pick your favorite, through their website, facebook group, myspace page, follow them through twitter
You're broke and can help? not a problem if you go to Meditate and Destroy profile in Our Stage and become a fan of the film, they'll receive $4 and you will receive a free pass to see the movie during the month of September! Learn how to do this properly.
I think the success of Guerrilla Filmmaking (GF) it's always being in the word of mouth, now more than ever you need people committed to your concept, but how you do that? Where to start? GF is an organic process, you can create a blog for your film and make people participate, listen to their feedback, their ideas, make them part of the process, get them involve, then you will premiere your film and all those 1,000 fans will be at the theater the first weekend, for a Guerrilla Filmmaker that's priceless, in all the sense of the word, it means the world for the filmmaker and you don't have to spend a penny!
Enjoy the experts in building audiences in this two videos.
One of the greatest thing about blogging (In my case) is that my blog is my buddy, my companion, it's moody and don't have any organization, it's very organic. You can see what I have been up to any week just reading the topics of every entry. This week I'm researching on Guerrilla Marketing, while I was doing my research I bump into this recommendation "18 couples having sex" and I was mmmm, interesting let's check it out.
You may know at this point that sex sells, if not, ask yourself what are you reading this post if you never entered this blog before?, and if you're a fellow reader how much time took you, since you read the headline to click the video? even better, did you see the video first an now you're reading? Whatever the case might be, enjoy this viral video that shows how if you made something good you can be seen for more then 7 million people. Kudos to the European Film Commission and MEDIA.
There are a lot techniques to do Guerrilla Marketing, so many books, so many blogs, so many people talking about it, but sometimes when you're trying to find real examples it's kinda difficult. I'm more visual than anything else, so I get inspirations from different sources, in this case the images that you're about to see pop up into my email account one morning and I was totally impressed with the concepts.
