Tag: Beer Buzz

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Truly Free Film

Beer Buzz #3: Audience Building — The Key to Success Building

By Steven C. Beer

In the marketing and distribution of independent films, the most critical and frequently overlooked key to success is the building of an audience. Whether you pursue traditional or alternate distribution platforms, or a combination thereof, your ability to identify, aggregate and mobilize an audience base directly impacts the prospect of your project’s success. Timing your audience building campaign is crucial. According to Jason Ward of Candy Factory Productions, you must begin to target and recruit your supporters the minute you decide to produce a film. Audience building is a slow and steady process that can take many months, if not years, so a multi-step game plan that evolves over time can serve as an audience building blueprint. Here are some tips I learned while moderating the Audience Building Panel at the New York Lounge at Sundance 2014:

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Truly Free Film

Beer Buzz #2: Philip Seymour Hoffman

By Steven C. Beer

Philip Seymour Hoffman 1967-2014

I received the tragic news about Philip Seymour Hoffman like a punch in the belly.

Unlike most celebrity deaths, the pain has lingered for days and has not diminished in intensity. I cannot remember the last time that friends and colleagues reached out to one another like this to connect and share their profound loss. Hoffman was our hero, a soldier at the vanguard of cinema — and like losing a family member, we are each seeking to find our own way to make sense of it.

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Truly Free Film

Beer Buzz: Strong Bones Discovered in “Fragile” Cinematic Ecosystem

By Steven C. Beer

The state of the independent film business is a hot topic this week following the January 12 Manohla Dargis New York Times piece. The article cautions that an abundance of “lackluster, forgettable and just plain bad” films flooding New York City theaters distracts the entertainment media, overwhelms audiences and threatens to destroy the health of our “already fragile cinematic ecosystem”.  As we head to Park City to attend the Sundance and Slamdance film festivals, Dargis urgently requests that distributors stop buying so many movies. She proposes that we focus on curation, not consumption.

While the article makes some good points, it also raises some critical questions about the condition of the American Independent Cinema. How many films should be produced and released in theaters and on other platforms (cable, internet, broadcast, DVD) each year? Is it possible to have too many films?

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