As filmmakers we all dream. We dream big that our next film is going to be: the best, the biggest, the most awesome and will take us to the various red carpets, and events far as the Oscars ceremony.

Well, I love that dream, and I have had it since I was seven. However, our current reality is a bit crowded with content and requires us, the creatives, who dream big to put clever plans and strategies in place to make our work more visible to the audience.

When I was in film school, we didn’t talk about the audience, apart from the cliche statement that every film is made for someone else and every film has a different audience. Duh, even my 9-year old son knows that. What we didn’t learn about is how to find that audience, how to connect to them, and how to turn our audience into raving fans. In film school, we were all told that to sell a film, we all needed sales agents.

I know that this is not strictly a blog about the audience but what I want to talk about has a lot to do with the audience (without whom sales agents can’t sell films) and finding your raving fans.

Luckily for us, the independent filmmakers, the times have changed significantly, and sales agents are not as needed as they used to. Of course, for a filmmaker’s ego to say that they have a sales agent is fantastic. It gives us validation that we are for real and our movie is too. But are the sales agents going to do the best job representing our film?

During the film markets, sales agents have catalogues of hundreds of films and often sell them in bundles. Do you want your film, you baby, you treasure that you worked on for so long to be sold in a bundle without any special treatment, any promotion and marketing?
It is heartbreaking.

What if I told you that:

1. You don’t have to break your heart.
2. You don’t have to give your film away.
3. You don’t have to chase the sales agents at every festival you attend but can attend festivals and have fun.

You need to become your own sales agent, market and promote your film, and find the audience and raving fans for your work that will stay with you no matter what. All A-list movie stars and film directors have those. And, yes, sales is part of their job description now too.

To find those fans, you need to create fresh, engaging and SEO friendly content, collect emails from people who come to visit your website and in general be a kind and nice person ‘cos Karma is a bitch and is going to catch up with you if your attitude stinks.

Don’t waste years waiting around for a miracle to happen as I did. Take charge of your career and blossom. I’m not saying it is going to be easy, but at least you won’t feel helpless, depressed and finally decided to give up on your dream because nothing is happening to you.
You are your sale agent now, so the sky is the limit.

While you are here, you might also be interested in Creative Distribution.