How To Title a Film so it SELLS
They say don’t judge a book by its cover, so you’d think it should follow that you shouldn’t judge a film by its title. You would think wrong. Title is a hugely important part of your film marketing, and it should be something you think about from the very beginning, not simply as an afterthought. So here’s how to go about creating a title that will stick.
Short
Brevity is key when it comes to titles. You don’t want more than one or two words. If it starts with A or a number, that can be better as some cataloging systems in various parts of the world still primarily use Alphatical Sorting. This is less important than it used to be, as most of the major players have algorithms that take a lot more into account when recommending a film. Altough if you look at films from the early 2010s, you’ll notice a disproportionate amount that start with a number, A, or B. This is why.
The reason you want it to be short is that shot can be easier to remember, and easier to make an impact with. This leads me to the next point.
Accurate to the film
The title of the film definitely needs to reflect the film itself, otherwise it’s not going to ring true to anyone who watches the film, which will end poorly for you. More in the blog below
Related: The SINGLE most important thing in your Movie Marketing
Punchy
Being punchy is about being memorable. Think about the difference between A Song of Ice and Fire and Game of Thrones. Game of Thrones the same general intellectual property, fewer words, much more punchy and much more memorable. Although A Song of Ice and Fire is also a thematically relevant title, Game of Thrones is much easier to latch on to.
It’s got to be Memorable
There’s a strong chance that if you and your distributor are doing your marketing and publicity right, a potential customer will have heard of your film prior to whenever they come across the ability to watch the film. Here are some Examples
Zombie with a Shotgun
Snakes on a Plane
Kiss Kiss Bang Bang
These are all genre examples I could think of off the top of my head, but there are lots of other things that make your title memorable. Comment some of your favorites and I might include them in the YouTube Port.
If the title is memorable, they’re more likely to move to the next step in the independent film purchase process. More below.
Related: The independent film purchase process
Unique (or at least highly unusual) for SEO.
Rising above the vast amount of noise due to the glut of content created in the indiefilm world is crucial to success. Good SEO is key to that. If people hear about your movie, you don’t want it to be hard to find. As such, you should be thinking about how to best differentiate yourself from the slew of content out there, and choosing an unusual title is part of that.
It doesn’t need to be unique, we’re not talking about exclusivity and trademarks here. It does, however need to be more discoverable than a film with a title like Peter Pan that’s made multiple times every single year.
When we released The Devil’s restaurant, it was as a result of a change from “The Restaurant” primarily for SEO and memorability purposes.
Easy to spell
If people keep misspelling your title, it will make it harder to index and harder to find. I’ll admit I’m a hypocrite on this one. “Guerrilla” is extremely hard to spell. That said, I made the mistake so you don’t have to, and you might see some more corrections I’m making on that soon.
Be Careful of Double-Entendres
Titles with double meanings can be great, but if it’s not something you intended it can be extremely bad. Examples off the top of my head could be Snatch, Fire Down Below, or Free Willy. Great titles, terrible for immature jerks who blog.
Expect the title to change for the international releases
A lot of movie marketing tends to change depending on what country the film is being released in. This is especially true for the title. One film I represented came to me as Paralyitic, then was distributed internationally as Still Alive, and marketed domestically as Narco Hitman. Another was Luna De Cigarres in South America, Cicada Moon in the US (Originally), and Filthy Luck internationally.
Also, yes. Your distributor has the right to change the title. The best way to avoid them doing it is to give them no reason to.
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