Tanya Kersey | Hollywood Career Strategist | Hollywood Career Coach | Entertainment Industry Consultant | Hollywood Career Resources

In 2007, a promis­ing film­maker, Jon Reiss, released Bomb It, an explo­sive doc­u­men­tary inves­ti­gat­ing the con­tro­ver­sial art form of graf­fiti. Despite it’s impres­sive film fes­ti­val run and crit­i­cal praise, the film failed to land a dis­tri­b­u­tion deal. Deter­mined to take Bomb It as far as it could go, Reiss decided to go the route of self-distribution. With the infor­ma­tion he learned from this under­tak­ing, he wrote Think Out­side The Box Office: The Ulti­mate Guide to Film Dis­tri­b­u­tion and Mar­ket­ing for The Dig­i­tal Era.

On June 21^st, 2010, Jon Reiss stopped by Inside Urban Hol­ly­wood to dis­cuss with Tanya and Tiffini, the tips and tricks pre­sented in his book, how mar­ket­ing and dis­tri­b­u­tion have changed due to the new dig­i­tal land­scape, and how film­mak­ers can take advan­tage of it.

Reiss stated film­mak­ers often under­es­ti­mate the impor­tance of dis­tri­b­u­tion and mar­ket­ing. Both aspects should be weaved through­out each phase of the film­mak­ing process, instead of only once the film is ready to be released.

He argued, mar­ket­ing and dis­tri­b­u­tion have become such a huge task for inde­pen­dent film­mak­ers, that a spe­cial per­son should be hired dis­tinc­tively for those tasks dur­ing the devel­op­ment stage. He coined the new posi­tion Pro­ducer of Mar­ket­ing and Dis­tri­b­u­tion, a per­son who over­sees both aspects from the devel­op­ment phase to the end life of the film.

Reiss also stated that this is a great time for film­mak­ers. With the emer­gence of cross media, film­mak­ers have a wide vari­ety of ways to get their con­tent out and mar­ket their films. Dur­ing the edit­ing of Bomb It, Reiss took all the unused footage and cre­ated a web series with the sole pur­pose of pro­mo­tion. He said film­mak­ers must be clever and cre­ative if they plan to go down this avenue.

If you have a great char­ac­ter with lit­tle screen time, cre­ate a web series for that character.

When think­ing about how to mar­ket your extra mate­r­ial, think about your audi­ence. Every film has an audi­ence. It’s just a mat­ter of find­ing the audi­ence inter­ested in the sub­ject of your film and get­ting them involved.

To hear Reiss also dis­cuss Dig­i­tal vs. Tra­di­tional Mar­ket­ing, Film Fes­ti­val Strate­gies, and how film­mak­ers can part­ner up to lighten the load of dis­tri­b­u­tion and mar­ket­ing, lis­ten to the episode of Inside Urban Hol­ly­wood below.

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