Creating a Press Kit - Page 1
| Author: | elliot |
| Date: | Sat, 15/07/2006 - 13:12 |
| Category: | Filmmaking > Promotion |
Creating the Sizzle
Like other elements in the filmmaking process, you must develop a publicity strategy. Your film can suffer irreparable damage with the wrong publicity plan.
This is the most important element of the filmmaking process, and ironically, the one most often overlooked by new filmmakers. If you hire the best cinematographer, screenwriter and actors in the world to work for you, they will make you a film: eight thousand feet of celluloid with absolutely no marketable value. You cannot sell a film. You can only sell a movie. You turn a film into a movie by using publicity to create a buzz, or hype for your film. Additionally, publicity will attract acquisition executives to your movie.
Creating A Press Kit For £1,500
The single most effective tool in creating publicity is a press kit. A press kit is used to send details of the film to journalists and acquisitions executives. Creating a press kit is made simpler by following these basic steps:
Step 1 Create a Folder
A stationer will sell stock folders with flaps in which newspaper clippings and press releases can be organised. Ultra low budget press kits use stock folders from stationers with self-adhesive labels on which the name of the production company is printed. Self-adhesive labels went out with Margaret Thatcher. A better alternative is to get a printer to emboss the folder with the title of your film. Acquisitions executives are notoriously snobbish. The flip- side is that they are easily impressed, and you would be amazed what the effect of a little bit of gold embossing can do for your press kit.
For the low budget press kit you will need to buy one hundred folders. A normal film might send out a thousand or more press kits – beyond the reach of lo-to-no budgets. Through skilful manipulation, you aim to create the impression that you have mailed a thousand press kits to international executives and journalists, and so create the impression that your film is hot.
