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Page 3 of 3 5. Film referencing – relevant films Select ones that attracted a significant audience, and targeted the same primary and secondary groups that you have named for your own film. For each reference, give the title, year of release, and estimated gross (both worldwide and Canadian). One way to estimate the Canadian gross is to visit www.imdb.com(Internet Movie Database), find the U.S. figure (which in fact is the North American figure) and divide it by 10. 6. Hooks – your selling points, one step deeper Imagine you are the executive in charge of marketing for the distribution company: analyze those selling points to determine the factors that would truly hook the intended audience. Now imagine you are trying to convince a journalist, editor or TV producer that their audiences will be interested in your film, so they should write about it, or invite you on-air to talk about it. Now imagine you are writing the tag line for the print ad… Got the idea? Good. Now stop imagining, and start writing! 7. Marketing strategy – preliminary assumptions, not the detailed strategy. Make some preliminary assumptions about the size, scope and pattern of the release. Is it intended as a wide release or platform? Is a festival launch desirable? Is a simultaneous U.S. theatrical release necessary for the success of the film? What is the range of the expected P&A (prints and advertising ) budget? What are the opportunities for special promotions and music tie-ins? To what extent does the strategy rely upon the casting of marquee talent? What are the possibilities for Internet marketing and grassroots efforts? 8. Conclusion – a neat, enthusiastic (but not overly zealous) concluding paragraph Remind the funder of your key points: the film’s highly marketable elements are x, y, and z… the film has elements similar to other successful films such as a, b and c… such films have achieved a box office of $XX in the Canadian market. Speaking of a conclusion, here’s mine. The primary reason a funder (including Telefilm Canada) becomes interested in a project at the development stage is the belief that the film being developed is very likely to be selected for production financing. But funders will only believe this if they also believe that the film will attract a paying audience. Therefore, one of my first observations about funder expectations is also my last: Everyone, at every stage of the project – from outline through to release in all media- must correctly identify the paying audience for the film, and how to attract them to it.  |
