HELP!! I am going to Cannes! What do I do now ???????

I

ironwolf

New member
Hi,

THANK YOU for all the helpful information everyone supplied to my previous request for help. We have decided NOT to allow ITN Distribution to take $2500 and 25% of our video for a few square inches on their table at Cannes.

We have decided to take the advise of one of our DVX contributors and pay a visit there ourselves.

But what do I do now?

I am clueless about the business end of the film industry.

We pay our money and get a 10 X 10 booth. I know I need beautiful business cards, an 8 1/2 X 11 color sell sheet and a large 4 fy by 8 ft poster of the cover.

And as many give away screener copies as we can carry.

So I am looking for a distributor.

But these are EXPERTS that have heard every line and seen every trick.
And some of them are sharks. Really big sharks.

How do I tell the sharks?

How do I dress?

How do I act?

HELP!!

Signed

ironwolf
President - Totally Confused Inc.
 
Are you going to MIPTV? I was at MIPCOM this past fall... so if that's what you're seeking advice on I can post my thoughts.
 
I'm gonna assume you're headed to MIPTV.

Cannes is like rodeo drive, at least where the palais is. People tend to wear proper business attire to MIP, but you will see people in everything, including jeans and t-shirts. However, I don't recommend that approach. Get a nice suit. Wear a tie. (I did not wear a tie, but my distributor was handling sales. I was mostly bumming around attending conferences and checking out booths).

Start scheduling your meetings now. If you have rented a booth and/or bought your badge you should quickly start getting e-mails from other folks who want to set up meetings. Go through the database (available on the web site) and start contacting the people you want to deal with.

In my experience you don't have to be really concerned about "the sharks" at this point. The way it is working for me is you make your contacts and give out your screeners at MIPTV, use the next few months to follow up, and seal your deals a bit later down the road or even at MIPCOM this fall.

I don't recall seeing any booth with only a single movie being offered. Is that what you are doing? It's likely you'll get stuck in some side wing out of the main traffic areas, so definitely make your meetings and give people a reason to come to see you.

Don't put your screeners out for everyone to take. They won't last the first day. Only give them to your potential buyers. Definitely put out the sell sheets. YOU NEED TO PLAY YOUR TRAILER! If there were booths without A/V equipment playing trailers on continuous loop, I couldn't tell you who they were... it's a broadcast convention, and you can't broadcast a sell sheet. Entice the people wandering around to stop and check out your product. You can probably rent this equipment in France, but make arrangements before you get there. Load-in/Load-out is kind of crazy and you'll want to plan ahead to survive the chaos. Booths get REALLY fancy. The studios basically have miniature office buildings, and other folks go for the "wow" factor... so the LEAST you can do is get a nice big screen to play your trailer on.

Give away water or something. I love the booths giving away bottled water. Gets hot in the palais and food/water isn't cheap unless you leave. Leaving is a pain because of all the security and bag searches.

I'm sure I've left a ton of stuff out... if you have more questions just ask.
 
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