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A challenge - how would you do this??

by Kezz
14 replies
Hokay here's what I'm trying to do. My partner and I have gotten to know an outstanding up and coming film maker via Twitter. He's currently involved in production of some of the major up coming films starring A-list actors, but what he really wants to do is run his own ship and be putting together his own productions.

To cut a long story short, against all odds he has created a film with next to no budget that is about to knock the socks off anyone who sees it. I exaggerate not when I say that this guy is mere inches away from getting a multi million dollar budget to become the next big film making hit. All he needs is a little "social proof" and given the quality of his film all that requires is a little exposure.

We were previously running a highly popular entertainment news site but have since sold it. This film maker has asked us to write a review for him and we said we would love to but we no longer have a place to publish the review. Until another idea sprang to mind.

Instead of publishing the review ourselves, we thought what if we write a review and set ourselves the challenge of seeing how many different websites we can get the review to appear on. There are two obvious methods I can think of. One is to offer the review as a guest post to entertainment blogs. The other is to use a press release service. But there must more ways than just those two.

So my question is this. If you wanted to distribute a review to as many sites as possible to build exposure for a film maker you believe can be the next big thing - how would you do it?
#challenge #distribution #marketing #press release
  • Profile picture of the author Scott Ames
    Andy Jenkins would be the guy to ask about this. He is a film guy, also one of the StomperNet guys.
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    Success consists of going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm. -Winston Churchill

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  • Profile picture of the author Kezz
    Sounds good, but how would a relative noob like me go about chatting to Andy given that I'm guessing he'd be quite a busy chap?
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    • Profile picture of the author Scott Ames
      He pops in here once in a while. I was hoping he would have a Google alert on his name and he would see that and come give you some pointers.

      Let's try more: Andy Jenkins Andy Jenkins Andy Jenkins Andy Jenkins
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      Success consists of going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm. -Winston Churchill

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  • Profile picture of the author Andy Jenkins
    LOL! Scott, you're a ninja. Kezz, I'm right in the middle of launching "The Video Boss", so I'm kinda crazy right now. After After, lets see if we can hook up.
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    www.AndyJenkinsBlog.com

    "Shakespeare didn't have a word-processor. When we got word-processors, we didn't get Shakespeare"
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  • Profile picture of the author AmyBrown
    Almost as good as talking to Andy Jenkins is watching what he does and how he does it. Promoting a movie would share a lot of characteristics with a product launch.
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    "Test fast, fail fast, adjust fast."
     Tom Peters

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    • Profile picture of the author rosetrees
      Kezz - this isn't a facetious question - is the film a ghost story set in an English country mansion?
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  • Profile picture of the author lcombs
    Web 2.0 As many as possible
    Trailers on all the video hosting sites
    Forums

    http://www.combsinfo.com/linking-overview.jpg
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    https://www.facebook.com/pages/Fresh...55326481208883
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  • Profile picture of the author Kezz
    Hey Andy, thanks for dropping by. All the best for your launch and I'll look forward to chatting with you when you have some time.

    I have an update for you all on this. On a whim we decided to set up a new entertainment site, partly because Darren just loves to write on the subject but also to make it easy for us to plant the seed of distributing this review.

    So now I can show you the review and tell you about the film and the maker. Here's the linky:

    Michael David Lynch's Award Winning Short Sci-Fi Film 'Burden', a Blockbuster Waiting to Happen | Genre Addict

    Probably the most incredible thing about this film was that it was made as a student assignment with a budget of only $5K. The film maker was told that it wasn't possible to do what he wanted within the scope of his assignment and with the resources he had, but somehow he did it anyway.

    Whether you're into short films and sci fi or not I highly recommend watching the featurette embedded in that review to see how much you can achieve when you put your mind to something and don't take "I can't" for an answer.

    The film is only seven and a half minutes long, but I don't think it would even be possible to cram more into that time on that budget. It's a sci fi film, so rosetrees it must be another stellar short film that you are referring to.

    The film itself is currently on a tour of various film festivals around the world and is scooping up awards as it goes. What it really needs is for a studio to see this teaser and back a full production. That's why we want to do what we can to help by spreading this review around as much as we can.

    I'm not sure what the distribution plans are after the film festival circuit is done, but I'll let you all know where you can see it when it becomes available.

    NB MODS: Just as a message to the mods here in case this looks like a promo thread, we are not affiliated with this film in any way and stand to make no financial gain whatsoever from helping.

    This is purely being utterly impressed by someone's creation and just wanting to help them prosper. When you see a person achieve something that everyone told them they couldn't do, it makes you want to see them go even further.
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  • Profile picture of the author Kezz
    Hey by the way I didn't know about Video Boss until Andy's post above. Just watched the first two videos and they are fantastic. Most compelling.
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    • Profile picture of the author AndrewCavanagh
      First you'd need to think through who you want to read the review, work out what keyword phrases they're searching for so you can optimize whatever you do for those phrases.

      Second do more than one review, article etc to give yourself the widest exposure possible.

      Then you can submit to:

      # Online press release sites.

      # Article sites.

      # Websites that do film reviews.

      # Create youtube videos with the reviews.

      # Submit to social bookmarking sites like Digg, propellor etc.

      # Create profiles on squidoo, Facebook and other free social networking sites and put your reviews, articles, embed your video reviews etc there.

      # Consider some viral marketing. Borat is a great example of using youtube viral marketing to generate interest in a movie.

      # And there are many, many other methods...

      Kindest regards,
      Andrew Cavanagh
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      Old School Copy Like This Is BACK & Converting Like Crazy!
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  • Profile picture of the author TylerF
    Get in touch with a reputable PR firm to help with the promotion, perhaps?
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  • Profile picture of the author Kezz
    Hey thanks for the extra suggestions guys, some good food for thought.

    Andrew I especially like the idea of creating a YouTube video out of the review. Maybe I can put some of Andy's video creation techniques to work on this and see how it goes.
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    • Profile picture of the author zackick
      for a fastest way to get web exposure is though youtube, google video, megaupload and much more video site. You do 5-6 review and make sure diferent way and added music there. Then submit to thousand video direktory this can get you 1000-2000 backlink plus traffic that converted to buyer. I not the expert in video as i still newbies and not yet good at making the video. But heee what wrong do it for fun first and then master it.
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