You’ve slaved away on set for umpteen hours, weeks have morphed into months, you’re taping your eyelids open like Alex from Clockwork Orange just to stay awake but you power through because you believe in the project and all your blood, sweat and tears must surely pay off as you wrap! Think again.

A huge amount of Australian films go unrecognized due to poor or a complete lack of marketing, especially independent features, which tend to fall by the wayside due to their low budget nature.

This article was originally published on the Metro Screen Blog as a guest piece by AnyCameraWillDo.com. You can see the original post here.

Here at AnyCameraWillDo.com, we endeavor to elevate the popularity and boost awareness for these less/un-advertised films, via our articles or ‘filmmaker talk’ events, but a film needs much more than a few websites spreading the good word. You need to shout from the rooftops.

Marketing your film should be in EVERY crew’s game plan from the get-go. So check out our 6 top tips for marketing your film and take heed!

1. Take lots of Photos & Video (Don’t forget video).

We love seeing Behind The Scenes (BTS) content, but don’t just limit your focus to the camera team. There’s a million-and-one jobs on a film set, we want to see all of you guys ‘n’ gals in action.

Take loads of BTS photos, but don’t forget video. Films are a visual medium, so whip out your smart phone or handy-cam and roll on some of the production getting made. Grab your cast and crew for 30 second ‘on-the-spot’ interviews. Snippets and sound bites are great for social media.

Get screen grabs from your film and headshots of your actors and crew. They don’t have to be amazing, but we want to know who we’re talking about when we talk about the people who made your film.

2. Make kickass Posters.

Nothing screams ‘official’ and catches the eye like a wicked poster. This is essential.

Make it a decent size, and create a thumbnail as well. If you look at most websites, you will notice the prevalence of banners or ‘headers’. Make sure you have a banner as well as a poster and your banner is composed nicely and your title is readable and clear.

3. Have a detailed Press Kit.

Another essential. A press kit is simply an easily accessible collection of info, photos and video that further promotes your film and creates a talking point for your audience. Your best bet is to put all this info on your film’s website.

If you don’t have a website, create a Facebook page. You can also create a Dropbox folder or Google drive folder. If applicable, you want to provide media interviews, FAQ & media tour videos (These are just interviews with the main players in your production talking about the experience).

4. Be Organized.

Have media ready. Have it organized. Have it available. Make a Dropbox folder or Google drive folder that you can share. Fill it with all your film stuff in organized sub folders so you can send it to anyone who wants to know about your film.

Don’t password anything. You want your audience to have access and be able to view your content. That includes trailers, BTS, interviews anything.

5. You need a Trailer!

Your trailer is one of the first things people are going to see when they jump online and start searching for your film. Make it engaging, exciting and most importantly coherent. Reel in your audience in under 2 minutes, you have a better shot at keeping them hooked for 90. And don’t put actors or any crew names on it unless they are actually a draw card.

Upload it on Youtube & Vimeo, and make the Vimeo version downloadable. Put a low res and high res copy in your dropbox folder.

6. All the Websites!!!

Go online and fill in all the info you can about your film, especially on IMDB. That includes your technical info, what camera, aspect ratio, all that. People love technical info. So fill out all the IMDB info you can. Put a trailer on Vimeo & Youtube and put your blurb here as well, along with links to your site and the IMDB page for the film. Vimeo content should be downloadable so anyone can download it and put it online in the fashion they like, be it a montage or just with their logo in the corner before their video of them talking about your film.

Finally.

Finally you should tell people about your film, talk about your film,Make it easy for people to talk about your film. Your film tells a story, so should you tell the story of making the film. People are interested, so feed that interest. If you made mistakes, we want to know. If you had a great time, tell us about it. If you fought long and hard and almost didn’t finish, let us know about all the grisly details and the giddy highs. Help your audience find and discover more about your film.

If your free on the 22nd of April come along to our 2nd ever Film Makers Talk where director Marc Furmie and cinematographer Kieran Fowler will be talking about making the feature film Terminus and writer/director Tim Boyle will be there talking about his film The Half Dead.