Film Soup: How to Get Anything in Hollywood Made as an Indie Filmmaker.
I never wanted to do marketing & PR, all I wanted to do was make films & TV. Now it's one of the most valuable things I bring to the table as a working filmmaker. I call my strategy FILM SOUP.
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This week’s newsletter touches on something I’ve struggled with for a while: I never wanted to work in Marketing and PR. All I wanted to do was make movies.
Now, I’m convinced it’s the ticket to success. I hope many of you can benefit from my shared experiences in this week’s newsletter as you develop your own projects and bring them out into the world using my strategy I call FILM SOUP.
This week’s newsletter is going hopefully help you figure out how to market your OWN projects and help you emulate some of the successes I’ve had using this strategy.
But first… a brief catch-up
Apologies to all for the absence in writing a new newsletter. I’ve found myself in the very fortunate position of working with some incredible clients and filmmakers at the moment who need and deserve my full attention as their films were hitting VOD this month. I’m also wrapping up my filmmakers’ campaigns who screened at this year’s Dances with Films Film Festival (congratulations guys!).
To make up for it, I’ll be doing this free public post and three paid posts by the end of the month to catch up and offering $50 off a one-hour consulting session with code FILMSOUP.
Plus, I’m wrapping up distribution deals for not only two really awesome clients of mine but… for my own film.
So please stay tuned for some big news (trust me, you’re going to want to follow along) and if you want to check out some of the amazing PR we’ve generated for DARUMA so far, take a look here.
There’s some really exciting things about to happen and I can’t wait to share the news. Indie filmmakers, you’re going to want to watch the campaign for this movie unfold in real time. Trust me.
(Click to watch the film’s promo reel with press!)
So again, apologies for the delay but it’s been a BUSY summer so far which is an incredible welcome as compared to last year.
I find that the upside to being busy at the moment is outweighing the negatives because last year was so bad for so many of us due to the strikes and downsizing in the industry. And this sentiment kind of segues beautifully into the theme of this week’s post…
Film Soup: My Strategy for Getting a Film Made
For those who don’t know the story of Stone Soup, here it is.
Once upon a time, there was a weary Traveler who came upon a village. Starving, they asked the residents of the village to give them food, but everyone turned them away. So the resourceful Traveler went to the river, built a small fire and began boiling water in their empty cooking pot.
Soon, a Villager came by and asked what they were making. “Magic Soup,” the Traveler replied. The Villager asked if they could try it, to which the Traveler agreed, but said that the soup would be much better with some herbs.
The Villager eagerly contributed the herbs and waited for the soup to be done. Another Villager came by and also inquired as to what the two were doing: the Traveler told the same story but this time mentioned that the soup would be much better if some carrots could added.
This continued for a while as more and more villagers became interested in the growing spectacle and each one contributed something the “magic soup” so that by the time the meal was ready, each of the individual contributions both large and small in scale, made an incredible meal for everyone to share. Voila: Stone Soup.
Making Your Own Film Soup
The analogy here is pretty clear: on your own, you may have nothing but a pot or a rock or some water. But when you add ingredients (ie - people, elements, or ideas), you get something pretty incredible. The same is true for making a film or a project.
Since most people aren’t going to be impressed with just a rock (ie - your idea), so you’re going to have to do something more. And the “more” is going to vary from project to project. But you still need to dig deep and use the resources you already have, no matter what they are. And trust me: you have them whether you know it or not.
Giving Yourself the Green Light
I came up with the analogy of Stone Soup (aka Film Soup) when I set out to publish my kid’s book, Sleepy Toes.
The book was the very first project I ever set out to seriously make, and I ended up selling it unagented to Scholastic which is almost unheard of. Believe it or not, it’s almost harder to sell a children’s book than it is to make a movie - seriously.
But before the book was sold to Scholastic, I had tried unsuccessfully to get it published for years. So I decided to make a “package” for the book to make it more interesting and appealing. This became my first foray into making what I now refer to as Film Soup (aka Stone Soup).
As part of the “stone soup” package I put together for the book, I made a website, hired a musician to create a lullaby to underscore an actor reading the text of the book on CD that was included in all my press kits, created a book teaser trailer and debuted the book at a prestigious book fair as well as created buzz for it on social media.
All of this was on my own and for a VERY low cost.
It was only AFTER I had done ALL of that work, that publishers began to see the value in the book and THEN it was sold. But my work wasn’t done.
I was stunned to learn that the only real marketing the book would get would be an announcement in Kirkus Reviews and Publisher’s Weekly: the marketing and PR was still going to be up to me (indie filmmakers - does this sound familiar?) And this was in 2015, too. So the idea that creatives need to own their marketing is not a new phenomenon.
But as a nascent author, I made the mistake of thinking that “well, if I sold one book I can sell another one and be lazy about the marketing of it” because now I’m a published author. But guess what? I haven’t sold another book (not yet, anyways) because I hadn’t had yet figured this out.
Of course I’ve written other things (kids books, a novel and dozens of screenplays!) and I’ve been hired to write for other people (I sold seven magazine articles last year and have been hired to write four feature films this year for a small production company I work with).
So how come those other things I wrote didn’t get made or published? Clearly my work doesn’t suck and there’s value in it. So what gives?
Yes, that’s true… but the real value isn’t in the idea (ie the stone)… it’s in the execution of the idea (ie the Soup).
The Value is in the Execution of the Idea
What I hadn’t realized and struggled to realize for a while was that the publisher (like film distributors) were looking for ME to bring THEM the audience and the ideas on how to launch it into the marketplace.
So when it came time for me to put together my most ambitious project, DARUMA (a full length feature film), I made SURE to reverse engineer the film and thought about the marketing of the movie FIRST with all the ingredients we’d need to make an incredible… film soup.
Now, we’re in a fantastic position and while I can’t divulge too many details right now, I will tell you that the trap most filmmakers fall into is thinking that they can take their hands off the wheel once they finish filming their projects.
Nope. So sorry - that’s not how it works. You’re going to have to dig deep and work on the project much longer than you thought.
Making Your Own Film Soup
Making you own Film Soup is going to be contingent on pulling ALL of the pieces of your life together with the resources you already have and those of your team. It’s going to be different for every project and every filmmaker and you need to know that it’s going to take time and you might not have all the answers readily available.
But I hope this post inspires you to start thinking about your own ingredients for success and inspires you to make the recipe for your own Film Soup.
And if you don’t know how to do it, that’s okay!
I’d love to work with you: I make my services available either on a retainer basis or a one off consulting basis and can help you figure out your unique path.
Recently I donated an hour long consulting session to my friend's school auction to raise money for their after-school program. A budding writer/producer bid on the session & won. Here's what she had to say.
"Working with Kelli was a dream; she took my scattered ideas and organized them into a clear strategy that has me going into this next phase of my project with confidence and enthusiasm." - Eve Sturges, podcaster and creator of It’s All Relative.
I’m offering $50 off a one hour session with me with code FILMSOUP at checkout.
This session can be used any time from now through the end of the year.
In our session we will cover EVERYTHING. I’ll give you feedback, ideas, advice, traps to avoid and more. It’s my hope that your time with me will save you a ton of money and heartache down the line. I work with clients at ALL stages of production or development in multiple verticals: film, publishing, tech, fundraising, small business start ups and more. You benefit from my lived experience in ALL of these fields and you leave being armed with knowledge and insight to move forward from a position of strength and clarity.
Ready to get your project going in 2024?
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