Ways to Promote Your Independent Film

It can never be repeated more that you should be promoting your independent film from the moment you start principal photography. Due to the nature of filmmaking and the fact that it can sometimes take several years to get to principal photography much less getting into the editing room to start post production, all producers of independent films should be thinking of ways to promote and potentially sale their finished film. There are many different ways from which this can be done and all will mean something different for each individual production.

For the Southlan-Films "Halloween" fan film production of "Return of the Sandman," since we could not sale the film (fan films usually depict stories and characters copyrighted by a different company and therefore cannot profit from the final film) marketing it and giving it awareness for the open public became a huge undertaking. As production manager of the film, it was my suggestion to film a day to day "video diary" of the production so that horror fans could see the progress of filming the production and get excited for when it finally had its online release on Halloween night. I produced four segments of the video diary and the documentary short film "Halloween Massacred: The Misadventures of a Fan-Film Revealed!" which had its premiere at the 2009 Blank Stage Shorts Film Festival in Marietta, Georgia. Writer/director Ron McLellen had some of his best reviews on "Return of the Sandman" just two days after its online release and is his #1 viewed film on YouTube . The video diaries, which we posted everywhere, helped tremendously in giving the film a public awareness before its release.

It goes without saying that trailers and teaser trailers help get awareness for a film prior to its release. With the Broken Lighthouse Pictures production of "History of the Vampire," I directed a teaser trailer for the film a year before we actually got into principal photography for the production. The teaser trailer was meant to give potential investors an idea of what to expect from the final film but the trailer ended up getting the interest of a director and a cinematographer for the film. I ended up hiring director Bren Allison and cinematographer Rusty Hale to take over production on the film. They became involved simply by viewing the teaser and they ended up bringing in an entire cast and crew to get the project produced. The teaser trailer also added to the Facebook page and other promotional materials as a means to show what the final product will look like. On the Southlan-Films production "Evil in The Flesh" teaser trailers were created throughout principal photography to give audiences a hint of what was being filmed and to build excitement as new footage was added. There were five teaser trailers released plus a music video depicting scenes from the film.

One of the most important items needed to promote a independent film has to be the press release and production packets. These documents are used to give outside sources awareness for your production and/or help you find a distributor for your film. I created my first press release for the Southlan-Films production "Hell's End" which was filmed up in Clayton, Georgia. My press release was instrumental for the Clayton Daily News who came out to the set to get info about the local production company filming in their area. This press release gave them all the general and necessary info that they needed for the write-up. When key production personnel were interviewed, the reporter didn't need to waste time getting the general info about the production because I had provided it all in the release. My release included a synopsis of the film, key personnel and a brief biography, production stills, production notes, director statement, and other info I thought would be beneficial to the image of the production. A nice article was produced by the newspaper which we later included in our own publicity materials. I've done a press release for all my subsequent large productions (in the form of an electronic press release) and it seems to be an invaluable tool.

These are just some of the ways in which I was able to promote several of my productions. In addition, I also produced lobby cards (a practice mostly done only for International release of big studio films), posters, tee-shirts and ball caps, websites, and now Facebook pages (and other networking sites), which have become a huge asset in promoting the awareness for an independent film. The important thing to remember about independent film production is that if you don't promote your film then who will and if not now then when? There is no one right way to promote your film, just try each of them out and see which one works best for your particular production and then stick with it. The hard work will ultimately pay off in the end.