Releasing a film in the time of Covid-19

scorsesefan

scorsesefan

Veteran
I have just finished a documentary feature on the gig economy https://thegigeconomymovie.wordpress.com/ and I would like some ideas about what to do to promote and market the film during these unusual times.

In the past, my films have loosely followed this process: build a grassroots awareness campaign through SM>have a premiere at a local theater/film festival>additional FF/independent cinema screenings (if possible)>release for streaming (Amazon Prime, Vimeo, etc.). My last film followed this route and wound up being a featured doc on Amazon and did really well.

In the time of coronavirus I'm wondering what you guys are doing with your finished films? Are you holding them until they can get a "real" premiere and screenings? What about film festivals? Are you trying to get them on streaming ASAP while people are still isolating at home?

Any advice would be great.

Thanks.
 
What a great documentary topic, especially as the primary folks who benefit from the "gig economy" are the owners of the apps themselves. I don't have advice on distribution, especially as theaters are in such uncharted territory. With so many of us in "gig" situations (for decades before codewriters figured a way to co-opt traditional channels of marketing and customer contact) I would think there is a huge audience and social media should at least get you a toe hold - just keep pushing!!

Good luck - looking forward to seeing the finished documentary. B
 
say_doyster said:
What a great documentary topic, especially as the primary folks who benefit from the "gig economy" are the owners of the apps themselves. I don't have advice on distribution, especially as theaters are in such uncharted territory. With so many of us in "gig" situations (for decades before codewriters figured a way to co-opt traditional channels of marketing and customer contact) I would think there is a huge audience and social media should at least get you a toe hold - just keep pushing!!

Good luck - looking forward to seeing the finished documentary. B
Click to expand...

Thanks. I think it's a timely topic and I'm sure there's a fairly sizeable audience out there. I'll post a link here when I release the film...
 
Having just released my first feature documentary on Friday (about my wife & I's journey with COVID), I will say that Amazon Video Direct is experiencing HUGE delays in publishing - currently 4-12 weeks from submission til it goes live. Not sure if you used a distro/aggregation company with a relationship with Amazon (like Indie Rights) if that would speed up the process or not, but I've scoured the web and everyone is saying 4-12 weeks for their film submissions since this spring for Amazon.

I submitted my film to Amazon two weeks ago and the only communication I've gotten from Amazon was an automated message that my film is being held for content review (I'm guessing because it's about COVID). When I emailed their customer service it took a few days to get an email back, that was literally a copy/paste of my automated message....

However, I will say that everything has gone swimmingly self-distributing through Vimeo On-Demand though.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top