Artist as Marketer, Part 2

By the way, just to follow up on the Artist as Marketer thread I just posted, this is exactly what we did with our indie film, "Family."

In addition to the film itself, we (meaning the director, and myself as the producer) cut our own trailers, created our own printing artwork and silk screened DVD promos to hand out at the American Film Market, and I built the website myself (figure it out, y'all - plenty of tutorials on the web...).

This led to us selling the film to a reputable sales company, and while I'm not going to argue whether or not it's a *good* movie (I like my first film, Solitude, better), it'll actually make it's money back.

I've worked inside large production companies at the exec level, and can safely say that had "Family" gone through one of those, and/or a large distributor, the movie would never, ever recoup what was spent on it because we'd be paying off overhead forever and a day.

It IS possible to do your marketing and do it well. It just takes some creative thought and a little work - and for all you "creatives" out there, who think you're only responsible for your "vision" of your movie or television show or whatever, you're going to be into a world of hurt when your services are exchanged for those of others who are willing and able to contribute more than just ideas.