30 seconds to a successful film: How to make a compelling movie trailer
The other day I wrote about The 9 things you need to do if you really want to be a film maker. The very last item, Making a Bad Ass Trailer, may be most important item on the list. In fact, despite my continuing mantra of finish the film that I keep harping on, making a bad ass trailer may actually be more important than finishing the film itself. The reason I say this is I’ve had friends get work, or offers of investment purely off of a really awesome trailer for films that were not yet even finished.
A trailer only needs to be 30 seconds. There has to be at least 30 seconds of really awesome stuff in the hours and hours of footage you shot. Make everyone want to see your movie. Make the movie seem larger than life. If someone sees your movie and is disappointed because they had high expectations from the trailer…so what! At least they saw your movie. You can accomplish this by doing the following:
- Study other trailers - Watch the trailers of big movies. What makes you want to see a movie? Think about it…its just a 30 second advertisement. What makes you want to see a movie in those thirty seconds? What immediately turns you off?
- Sell the sizzle - Put the really cool shots in the trailer. Put the really cool lines of dialog. Do not explain the plot. People in marketing always say, “Sell the sizzle, not the steak”. The sizzle is the really cool stuff that makes your movie look awesome. The steak is the plot. All you want is for people to kinda get the gist of what is going on.
- Build curiosity - I’ve talked about this in a previous article: The cloverfield method of marketing. Lets say in your movie a witch casts some crazy spell that awakens a giant evil crocodile that comes out of the lake and attacks some campers. The trailer should basically be cool shots of a witch doing a creepy thing and some campers being attacked by something. You are telling your audience, “Something attacks some kids, and its scary”. That’s all they need to know. Furthermore, the less they know the more it builds curiosity. I definitely would not show the crocodile, or give any hints as to the fact that its a crocodile attacking. You want the audience to ask “What is attacking them? What is that witch doing?” If they ask those questions, then the only way to have them answered is to see the movie.
Remember, there is nothing more important to your filmmaking career than getting the most people possible to want to see your film. You must convince your target audience that your movie is worth investing their valuable time (and hopefully their valuable money). There is no better vehicle to do this than a really great trailer.
The Cloverfield method of film marketing
by Matt · Leave a Comment
The movie Cloverfield did astoundingly well this weekend. On my other site, ourCloverfield Review has been receiving tons of hits over the past few weeks, so it wasn’t a bit surprise for me to see it at Number 1 this weekend. But what can we, as filmmakers learn from the way Cloverfield built its marketing campaign, in order to better market our own movies?
Cloverfield was by no means a low budget movie. However, it contained most of the negative traits that distributors tend to say hurts the sales of low budget movies. It had no major stars, shaky poor camera work (intentional of course), a TV director making his feature film debut, and all of it shot on HD video. In terms of the way ‘the industry’ values things, the only thing it had going for it was the backing of J.J. Abrams.
But at the end of the day the industry experts opinions don’t mean a thing when the box office numbers come rolling in. In that regards, Cloverfield, delivered big time with over 41 million. Considering January is typically a slow time at the box office, that figure is pretty impressive for an opening weekend.
So what made it so popular? Clearly, it’s intricate viral marketing campaign is what built the buzz to get people to the theaters. I think that most filmmakers have already got that one figured out. But what I want to discuss here is not so much how Cloverfield’s viral marketing campaign works, but rather why it works.
The answer to that question is simple: Curiosity. Human curiosity is one of the largest motivating factors that cause people to act. In fact, some researchers put curiosity on par with hunger or thirst, as a driving factor. You could say that curiosity is quite literally the hunger or thirst for knowledge.
Those of you who were very interested in Cloverfield can probably attest to the fact that you quiet literally feel the need to know. What does the monster look like? Where did it come from? You feel an overwhelming need to have these issues settled, and sometimes even translates into a physical sensation of emptiness in the pit of your stomach. Curiosity is that powerful.
Upon seeing the success of Cloverfield, it reminded me of another movie: The Matrix. I know for most of you film geeks (like me) the subsequent sequels to The Matrix have left a pretty bad taste in your mouth. Ignore that for a second, and try to think back to the very first trailer you saw for The Matrix. Keanu Reeves leaping high into the air, dodging bullets, a very unusual cybergoth looking atmosphere, and then everything goes black with just a website name: www.whatisthematrix.com and the words “What is the Matrix?”
That one statement piqued enough curiosity to propel the movie to the number one spot on its opening weekend and to this day it has made $171 million dollars, not counting its sequels and merchandising.
Fortunately, for horror and science fiction curiosity are easy to build, because people are naturally curious about these subjects. So how do we generate curiosity for our own movies?
Making people curious
- Show less - In the trailer or on the website, never show the killer, the monster, or whatever we are supposed to fear, hate or fight. Just make sure people know its really scary.
- Less talking in the trailer - Dialog spoken in your trailer should be very esoteric, and give very little of the plot away.
Good: I never imagined something like this could happen.
Bad:I can’t believe you killed him! - Create curiosity invoking websites - Rather than build a website that ‘explains’ your movie, build a website in the “universe” of your movie. For example, instead of a website that tells about your zombie movie, write a daily blog from the point of view of a character constantly running away from zombies. Reveal very little about the movie itself, but reveal new aspects of the world in which your movie takes place. This keeps the curiosity alive for the movie, while getting people deeper involved in the mystery of just what is happening.
Film Finance and Distribution - Keep on keeping on.
by Matt · Leave a Comment
Today’s post is going to be something a bit more on the inspirational side rather than being purely technical (and secretly I’m also testing something on the backend…shhh…don’t tell anyone). Nearly any venture, any idea, any product…or anything…works at least some of the time. Specifically, what am I getting at? Fund raising…
I’m sure most of you are trying to raise funds for an independent film, and it seems impossible. It’s just too hard…everyone says no. But indie films get financed every year. What are you doing wrong?
Probably nothing. The secret lies in knowing that everything works…some of the time. So, if you are asking for money to make a film, someone will say yes. It’s about percentages and ratios of success. Lets throw out an arbitrary number, such as 0.5%. Lets say if you ask people who can afford to finance a film to give you money, 0.5% of the time you will succeed. Seems pretty dismal doesn’t it? It’s not.
Robert Kiyosaki, author of the famous Rich Dad Series (a set of books I highly recommend) was once asked, “How can you recommend people start their own business when 9 out of 10 businesses fail”. His response, “If that is true, then I will start 10 businesses.”
So by the same token, if only one out of every 200 people you ask will finance your film …then ask 200 people.
This is much the same logic we use in the world of web promotion. For example, my other website Killer Film has some pretty high server costs, which we pay for through advertising. We get paid when someone clicks on one of our ads. Generally, only about 2% of people actually click on an ad. Do we waste our time trying to make more people click on our ads? No, we can’t control if people want what our advertisers are selling. So instead, we focus on growing our traffic. More people means more clicks.
Those of you who have a film already produced should also take note of this principle. Finding distribution is hard, and its easy to get disheartened if you get turned down the first time you visit a market like AFM. However, I’ve had friends take the same film back to AFM for two years with no luck. Then finally, they take it the third year and sell multiple territories, and completely pay back their investors.
You can’t predict everything that can happen. Maybe your potential investor just lost a ton in the market. Maybe the distributor just filled up their roster for this year five minutes before you walked in. Or maybe you’ll show up at just the perfect time and find an investor who just sold off a huge property and needs to move some money before he’s hit with a huge tax bill. You can’t predict what happens with a single person you speak with…but it averages out such that perseverance eventually breeds success.
On a crazy side note: Bizarre as it might sound, things that seem completely impossible are often possible…just very unlikely. It is entirely possible that you could drop a pencil onto a desk, and have it fall completely through the desk, passing completely through solid matter. In quantum mechanics a phenomena called, “tunneling” has been show to occur where a solid object passes through another solid object. You’d probably have to drop the pencil a few quadrillion times before it happened…but eventually it would happen, probably right after you win the lottery.
Self Distribution for your film
by Matt · Leave a Comment
You’re a DIY filmmaker. An independent. You’re won’t let anyone tell you how to make your film. So why are you going to let the distributors tell you how to sell your film? Or what if you’ve already tried the traditional distribution route, and no distributors are interested. Maybe its time to think about self distribution. After all, films such as My Big Fat Greek Wedding made literally millions… Read more