Kevin Smith’s success with Clerks was a bona fide “black swan” that came out of nowhere and then changed the face of the independent film industry forever. That level of success, especially given Smith’s resource constraints, is a one-in-a-million occurrence; the exception and definitely not the rule.
You are not a black swan.
The faster you understand that the better off you (and your career) will be. Let’s say you made a movie and it didn’t get into Sundance. Or Slamdance. Or SXSW. Or Tribeca. Now what? You just spent two years bringing your vision to life and nobody seems to care. Rejections keep pouring in from film festivals, you can’t seem to get any traction with a sales agent, and nobody wants to read your follow-up spec script.
Now what?
Truly independent filmmakers are at a significant competitive disadvantage because, while the tools of production and distribution have proliferated, audience bandwidth has withered, resulting in an imbalance between content supply and audience demand, especially for under-the-radar indie films.
“Making something that people want to watch is the most important thing you can do to set yourself apart from everything else…”
This can be a difficult pill to swallow for a lot of independent artists. In addition to being a bit of a downer, it’s also a major barrier to entry. Making and distributing movies may be a lot easier than it used to be, but now almost everyone who wants to is making movies. Or recording albums. Or writing novels. All of which is great, but also makes it harder for anyone to carve out an audience for themselves.
Think of all the films that screen at brand name festivals as the tip of an iceberg. And that iceberg is huge and it goes all the way to the bottom of the ocean and it’s filled with all the other films that barely anybody ever sees. And people spend just as much (maybe even more) to make these films as they do to make the ones at the top of the iceberg, so it’s not a budget thing. It’s a quality thing.
Making something that people want to watch is the most important thing you can do to set yourself apart from everything else. And having a killer strategy in place to ensure it finds its audience is a close second. If you don’t, there won’t be anyone to watch it because they won’t even know it’s available After you spend that much creative capital to produce your work, you can’t allow it to fall through the cracks.
Understanding this landscape can be a significant paradigm shift for many artistic entrepreneurs, regardless of their field, and they’ll often reject the idea at first. I know I did. I fully subscribed to the Kevin Smith model of independent filmmaking. The first-time-at-bat grand slam. That wasn’t the case, though, because I’m not a black swan. And neither are you.
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Brad Wilke is the co-founder of Smarthouse Creative, a publicity and marketing agency serving the independent film industry.
Smarthouse Creative is a marketing agency for independent filmmakers. Whether you’re looking for an overall marketing strategy that marries advertising, social media, and publicity, or just a stand-alone digital ad, social media, or PR plan for your indie film, we can help.
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