As the manager of a group of 10,000 producers, directors and associated industry professionals, one can’t help but notice certain fallacies coming up on a recurring basis. So I’d like to briefly consider the question, what are some of the principal reasons fledgling independent filmmakers fail?
1. BUILDING IT ISN’T ENOUGH While a struggling artist can get by with little more than a canvas or guitar, film requires an enormous investment of time, money and many. “Build it and they will come” just isn’t enough; it’s perhaps the easy part.
Making films is akin to launching a new product. Statistics show that most fail. “All we need is money” isn’t the answer. It requires a marketing plan.
You’re posting interesting content on Twitter every day. You’re blogging. You’re active in other social networks. You’re doing everything that you’ve been told to do. But you’re getting nowhere.
Making a great movie is hard. Marketing a movie might be even harder. There are many good movies every year, but there are far fewer well-marketed ones. The list of people (and studios) who market films successfully year after year is a very elite club.
I’ve been a film publicist for 35 years and have worked on hundreds of movies. Whether a film ended up grossing a hundred thousand or a hundred million, my approach has always been essentially the same.