how to make your short a vimeo sensation? advice?

jenningsp

jenningsp

Well-known member
I was DP on a project that was shot about 6 months ago. and it's finally been edited together. there were a couple of small special effects that took some time. but basically the director/editor is a bit slack.

so it's about 90% done right now... some of the edits need a bit of work and it needs to be re-graded. which would take about a solid week to get done... but it looks like it could take another 6months.... i'm gonna hassle him though :)

i've shot over 50 shorts, some good, a lot bad. this film is the best film i've ever shot. and the only one i feel is truly worth showing people. and i'm a bastard of a critic. it's just as good if not better than any of the other proper shorts featured on vimeo. and it was shot on the 5DMK2 - which as you know helps with being featured on vimeo :) i think they like the camera a little too much :)

anyway, how the F would you go about making this film one of those shorts that gets 50k views? i think we need some sort of game plan? like spam all the forums with new accounts that say "don't know if someone's posted this but it's awesome - LINK" you know those :)

i dunno. any ideas?

and don't give me that "if it truly is good enough, then it'll find it's way" crap. there are hundreds of brilliant shorts on vimeo with only a couple hundred views.
 
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on the flipside, there are a jumble of possible legal issues with videos posted on youtube and vimeo.

is it that you have a copy of the cut so far and want to get it up there for your demo or the whole short?

I think the spam idea is a good one, but wording would be the tricky part, to make it stand out, do you have a strange title for the film? and the searchable words just like with you tube are a sort of tricky way to get tons of people who didn't mean to go to your short, if its good they might stick around and watch anyways, even if they don't watch it all it still counts i beleive.

samm
 
i definitely don't want to put the rough cut up. i'm scared to put anything up yet. coz it might take away from the final piece. i don't want to even post a trailer.

i have cut together a 3min teaser though... i want to show people so badly... but you know... i can't...

i'm just trying to figure out how the director and I and possibly some friends, could theoretically/virally/methodically make it into something big. once the final cut is finished of course :) which is hopefully within a month
 
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ideas so far.

spam every forum known to man kind with official and on a subtler note "unofficial" threads and posts linking to the movie.

also create fake back and forth questions/comments with different accounts and possibly arguments about "tech crap" in the threads to keep them in the top 5 on all sites. this will have a catalytic effect and actually cause real people to start doing the same and become self perpetuating.

"share" the film with all the prominent vimeo peeps and staff and staff's friends.

ad it to the prominent groups. especially the 5DMK2 groups and HD channels.

tag the shi* out of the film.

post some tech information but not too much as to spark questions and discussion.

more? is this evil?
 
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jenningsp said:
spam every forum known to man kind with official and on a subtler note "unofficial" threads and posts linking to the movie.

also create fake back and forth questions/comments with different accounts and possibly arguments about "tech crap" in the threads to keep them in the top 5 on all sites. this will have a catalytic effect and actually cause real people to start doing the same and become self perpetuating.
Click to expand...

Don't be that guy.
 
hahahhah just throwing ideas around man. i don't think i could even be bothered doing that.... but i'm aware people have done it before

cough/ foureyedmonsters... cough.
 
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David Jimerson said:
Don't be that guy.
Click to expand...

And people can tell...

And it takes a LOT of time...

You're setting up multiple accounts to talk to yourself, etc?

During the original trial run of my web series (two episodes), the first one got over 1,000 views in the first couple weeks (on YouTube).

Putting a video on YouTube does NOT mean anything in comparison to Vimeo. Simply putting a video on YouTube, unless it is about kittens, sex or a tutorial will amount no more or less views than if it's on Vimeo.

I got 1,000 views in a couple weeks (and that first episode really wasn't very good). No spamming (I tried over on the Marvel forum, mentioning my video, and the mods immediately took it down -- even if I tried to hide it in a comment somewhere). I didn't try going to sites like this one (except, of course, for this one). I was more about building an audience for the series than I was about getting views, so for me it was about going to my target audience (mostly via facebook).

If the show was still up I'm sure I would have eventually used YouTube's marketing as well, but, for me, Facebook is the holy grail of social networking right now (and probably for the next 5 years), so even though it was just the demo stage I wanted to start building an audience that I would be able to keep for the foreseeable future.

And it worked out pretty well, despite the webseries being on hiatus, from my 1,000 views of the first episode I still have over 250 fans of the series on Facebook (down from a high of 280).

So the question is, what do you want to market? What do you want to brand? I considered branding my site, The Great Independent, but I decided that just like you should form a new LLC for each production, so too should each production have its own fan page. Eventually I might consider doing a Group page (the holy grail on Facebook as you get to actually send private messages to your group en masse with updates), but for now the fan page is enough.

For me a budget on any sort of creative endevour should always be 40% production, 60% marketing. Since I spent essentially nothing on the original demo of the webseries, my marketing budget was 50 bucks. 50 bucks on Facebook gets you about a half million impressions and on about 300,000 unique impressions. A 0.15% pull thru rate is traditional for viral marketing and you can track the various success (or failing) of your ads in the ads manager.

I think I ran ads for something like 3 or 4 days? Can't remember specifically. But I started out with 6 ads and ended with 2 (one male, one female).

You can choose between impressions and click thrus. I like a combination of both, using the click thrus for branding (e.g. creating an ad that has your logo targeted at people who you think will NOT click on it but have thus been "branded" by seeing it), and impressions (which allows innumerable click thrus and should be heavily targeted).

So if you used some really harsh math (e.g. ZERO word of mouth), if 50 bucks gets you, say, 800 views (taking out a couple hundred for due dillegence, posting on forums, friends and family), then 50,000 views would cost you about $1,000.00 -- not too bad, especially if you have a conversion ratio of 4:1 and so end up with on about (50K/4) 12,000 fans of your work who you can then direct market to. And again, that's if NO ONE tells ANYONE else about your product -- which brings us some important points.

Things to consider:

1) Content? That's obviously the most important. Doesn't matter how good of an ad man you are, if your product sucks, you gets no play.

2) What are you selling? For me it's about (eventually) selling DVDs, comic books, T-shirts, etc. 1,000 bucks plus minimal production costs is pretty easy to recoup if I can get a 5% ratio out of 15,000 fans that's around (assuming a 5 dollar profit on any item sold, though that varies) around $11,000. If you made higher profits or gained a more favorable percentage (typical is 10% but I like to cut any average I think is "typical" in half). But for you, are you hoping to sell your services? The short film as a spec for a feature?

Obviously my figures are all extremely unforgiving ("Only a five dollar profit on any merch???" I know), but you have to be that way when addressing marketing. If you over estimate you can get yourself into a heap of finacial troubles.

So, 50 dollars gets you a half million impressions (300,000 unique). With a good add you should see 0.30 (opposed to 0.15 average) which would yield 900 clicks (or, "views" for you). My set up put more pressure on my ads as the click-thru had to first go to the fan page (this is where "actions" come into play which you can also track -- regarding whether or not someone became a fan upon coming to your page).

Easiest estimate - 50 bucks = 800 views.

You then have to assign appropriate monetary value (if any) to those views. Personally I think views hold no intrinsic value and I put them in the "to generate word of mouth", which is a sub category of "branding". So if views are branding, what exactly are you branding, and where can you direct people so that they can then "partner" or "fan/friend" your brand?
 
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i had to read that twice :)

this is actually some really good info for a friend of mine - he's getting into the whole web series thing. i'll have to link him.

but unfortunately i have no product and nothing to sell. and i also have no money.
 
Three words: Dog. On. Skateboard. You got that, you got viral MAGIC :)

What makes things viral is a mystery. But I think there are elements to keep in mind:

Length: It's really hard to make something viral if it takes too much time to watch. People need to be able to watch it at work and pass it on.
Depth of Subject: It has to be easily and instantly graspable. Take a look at SPIN: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oP59tQf_njc It's well done, but the idea is extremely simple and contained. Or look at that EFX guy who got the movie deal for the robot film. Nothing complex, just really amazing looking robots blowing **** up.
Funny helps.

Or just have your baby dribble the Star Spangled Banner, put your dog on a skateboard, or something like that.
 
jenningsp said:
i had to read that twice :)

this is actually some really good info for a friend of mine - he's getting into the whole web series thing. i'll have to link him.

but unfortunately i have no product and nothing to sell. and i also have no money.
Click to expand...

LOL You don't have 50 bucks? Come on, man -- invest in your future! ;)

Nah, but yeah, when your friend gets his series up send me a link. I'm always trying to hook up with other web series creators. Most of them are putting out crap, but for the few who are really interested in creating things specifically for this medium (not just trying to use it as some sort of launching pad) I try my best to hook up with them and lend whatever support I can.

10 years from now TV is going to be passe. The fact that right now creators are free to create and distribute whatever they want however they want to globally for little to no cost is something that we'll probably see disappear sooner than people would like to accept, so the folks who are there pioneering it (The Guild, Webserials, among others) are going to be the grandfathers of the future of probably the most important media created to date. Someday when everyone is paying top dollar for internet space these shows are going to be extremely expensive to produce.

It reminds me of when motion pictures first arrived. No one understood the immense reach and importance of film and so they were literally asking people off the street to be actors, technicians, etc.

Awe. Someday we'll be QUAINT! :D

Ten years from now I think it goes like this:

Big cost to be online. Bigger cost to own space on line. HUGE cost to post video online.

Company offers a service that allows people to go online (like a service provider, but different. They'll actually own space where you can come and visit). Web television will be one of the things people are now paying to see, and only those who are supported by one of these companies (who want to see people paying to come online) will be able to support a web series. An individual will not be able to afford a webseries. So come commercial ads, etc -- and since the provider of the content has control over whether or not you can forward past an ad (unlike with cable television), marketers will continue to flock to web video.

It's the wild west out here right now. Anyone who isn't taking full advantage of the inexpensive marketing and free distribution is cukoo for coco-puffs IMO.
 
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Mark Harris said:
Three words: Dog. On. Skateboard. You got that, you got viral MAGIC :)

What makes things viral is a mystery. But I think there are elements to keep in mind:

Length: It's really hard to make something viral if it takes too much time to watch. People need to be able to watch it at work and pass it on.
Depth of Subject: It has to be easily and instantly graspable. Take a look at SPIN: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oP59tQf_njc It's well done, but the idea is extremely simple and contained. Or look at that EFX guy who got the movie deal for the robot film. Nothing complex, just really amazing looking robots blowing shi* up.
Funny helps.

Or just have your baby dribble the Star Spangled Banner, put your dog on a skateboard, or something like that.
Click to expand...

Yeah, but 50K isn't viral. 50K is an audience.

If you have millions of views and you aren't an established property (or using an established property), you probably posted junk.

As a self-marketing filmmaker viral should only come into play with regards tutorials. Tutorials based on a project you've produced is a great way to get lots of views and a strong following -- and if the DVD you're selling also serves that tutorial audience (e.g. you have a commentary or behind the scenes footage on the DVD), all the better.

I'd stay away from trying to be viral. Some could argue that the bait and switch technique works in some cases (and I'm sure it does), but I wouldn't risk it. I'm not even convinced that a person should put more than one on-going production on a single channel. If you're an actor this might work, but if you're a filmmaker I think you risk losing some of your audience either way. Better off marketing the other channel to your current audience.

But, honestly, I don't think many of us are doing concurrently running productions unless they're little funny random bits.
 
I didn't read most of the thread so excuse me if im repeating.

In my experience, the best way to get traffic for your youtube/vimeo feature is through blogging. If you have a couple of relevant/popular blogs link or embed your media, and assuming your content is of good quality, then you get lots of traffic. spreading the word on forums is one way to do it, but it only goes so far. be sure to add your video to vimeo groups/channels too.
 
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