For those of you who are unfamiliar, a community screening model is an alternate version of a theatrical where instead of booking theaters across the country. There are so many places with high quality sound systems across the country that it can make a lot of sense to book these secondary locations instead of spending the money to four wall a theater. Since we talked about what a community screening package generally includes, I thought I’d go over what it takes to book those screenings this week.
1. Identify your Target Audience
The Secret utilized community screenings to great effect, as did other documentaries like Food Inc and Forks over knives. This tactic is most commonly utilized by documentary filmmakers, as their films tend to attract dedicated niche audiences with slightly more ease than a narrative film would. That said, if you can build a following for yourself and your film within this niche, there’s no reason that these same sorts of tactics couldn’t work as well.
2. Figure out a communal gathering place for them
If your community has a regular meeting place, such as a church, rec center, yoga studio, or other area that has a large screen that can be used to show movies it can be an extremely effective place to start talking to someone about hosting a film screening.
Even if your film isn’t a faith based film, some unitarian churches may still be worth approaching. The biggest downside to places like Unitarian churches, (or general use area like a rec center) is that they don’t always have the same sort of community built around them that places like churches tend to. 3. Research those community leads lists
Once you find an example community gathering place, you’re going to want to look for similar places around whatever region you’re looking to advertise community screenings to. I wouldn’t generally say to do a screening at more than one location per city, but since you’re not going to close every place you try, I’d consider getting 5-10 per area you wand to screen in.
Keep in mind, You’re living in a large, sprawling city like Los Angeles or Denver. If you are, you might want to consider holding one in different areas of the city. For Denver, you could consider one in LoDo, one in Aurora, one in Cherry Creek, and one in Highland’s Ranch. In LA, you could consider one in DTLA, one in Culver, one in Burbank, one in Santa Monica, and one in Westwood, etc. 4. Create a screening package
I covered this last week, since this blog was likely to come out long. Read it below:
RELATED: How to make a Community Screening Package
5. Generate marketing materials
The marketing materials I’m talking about are for marketing the people who would host the community screening, not those who would attend. The materials for those who would attend will be covered in more detail on the expansion of section 4 next week.
What I mean here are things like a pre-written email that you can plug some names into and send, a brochure on your film and why it would appeal to both your target audience and the people hosting it, a tiered pricing plan for your screenings that ideally start as a revenue share and go up from there. 6. Sell the community Screening package to them.
Finally, it’s time to dial for dollars and reach out to them. If possible, it will help your close rate immensely to send them the brochure in advance, but that can get a bit pricy. You can try sending a cold email, but it’s reasonably likely that you’d end up in more spam filters than would likely be helpful. I know that telemarketing isn’t fun, but it can be extremely useful in terms of actually moving these sorts of packages.
Thanks so much for reading! If all of this sounds like a lot (it is) it’s also a service I offer. Submit your film below and I’ll see if it’s something I can help with. If you’re looking for other great resources, check out my resources packet via the link in the center. If you really liked this content, and want to support it, check out my Patreon below. Thanks, and see you next week! Right below our Sponsors
|
|
|
Reason author low sister scientist. Find every great every. Actually during buy security.
A brochure on your film and why it would appeal to both your target audience and the people hosting it, a tiered pricing plan for your screenings that ideally start as a revenue share and go up from there. Thank you for making this such an awesome post!
The way you introduce every character in your story is so unique. Love that part. PCS ProStaff constantly innovate our approaches to deliver growth to our clients through top-tiered recruiting, staffing and business support practices and solutions. Contact us today at (866) 413-4103 to know more!
The way you introduce every character in your story is so unique. Love that part. At PCS Safety, Inc., our Injury and Illness Prevention Plan Kit will help you prepare and meet the legal requirements. The first step is conducting the OSHA Inspections & Citation Representation, Citation & Appeals. An Injury and Illness Prevention Program, (IIPP) is a basic safety program tailored to business operations. Call us today at (866) 413-4103!
Leave a Reply.
Author
My name is Ben, I'm an Entrepreneur, Producer's Rep, and Author. I'm the founder of Guerrilla Rep Media, Co-Founder/CMO of ProductionNext, and founder of Producer Foundry. Together, the organizations seek to help make filmmaking a more economically sustainable endeavor. I am dysic, I have capitalization issues, and the blogs are often unedited. opinions all my own.
Join my Mailing List for FREE Resources!
My Books
Audiobook Free through Audible.com
Available exclusively through Amazon.com
Archives
May 2020
April 2020
March 2020
February 2020
January 2020
October 2019
September 2019
August 2019
July 2019
June 2019
May 2019
April 2019
March 2019
February 2019
January 2019
December 2018
November 2018
October 2018
September 2018
August 2018
July 2018
June 2018
May 2018
April 2018
March 2018
February 2018
January 2018
July 2017
June 2017
May 2017
April 2017
March 2017
February 2017
October 2016
September 2016
July 2016
June 2016
April 2016
February 2015
August 2014
Categories
All
Affiliates
AFM
Aggregation
Angel Investing
Angel Investment
Audience Engagement
AVOD
Branding
Business Plan
Business Planning
Career Growth
Community
Contracts
Crowdfunding
Data
Deck
Distribution
Distribution Agreements
Distribution Deliverables
Distributors
DVD
Email Marketing
Entertainment
Entrepreneurialism
Executive Summary
Film Budgeting
Film Distribution
Film Festivals
Film Finance
Film Financing
Film Industry
Film Investment
Filmmaking
Film Marketing
Film Markets
Film Money
Financing
First Feature
Genre
Grants
Grantwriting
Hustle
Indiefilm
International
International Sales
Look Book
Markeing
Marketing
Marketing Materials
Packaging
Packaging Documents
Physical Media
PR
Press
Producer's Rep
Publicity
Sales Agency
Sales Agents
Screenplay
Script
Self Distribution
Short Films
Social Media
Staged Financing
Studio
SVOD
Tax Incentives
Technology
Terminology
Transparency
Venture Capital
Waterfalls