What are your thoughts on being a filmmaker on Facebook?

F

filmmakerguy

Member
What kind of bugs me is that sometimes it can be lonely. I'm a director and a lot of actors want to add you and they hardly ever post on your wall unless you've cast them in something. I'm friends with hundreds and hundreds of people who never post on my wall.

The actors in your latest projects are always most active on your wall, whereas actors you worked with in the distant past, are less active because you haven't cast them in anything new lately. But what are you supposed to do, keep using the same actors in everything.

Then there is that constant feeling that you are spamming your projects to people who don't really care about them. I really have a one track mind and everything I talk about is usually movie related, film making related, etc. A lot of my actor friends are the same way. It's all movie stuff and motivational quotes and a few joke pictures here and there. I guess I can't complain about that. I just feel sorry for friends who add me outside of the filmmaking stuff who are expecting updates on what I ate for dinner.

The only thing that sometimes keeps me from deleting my personal page is that I have a few fan pages I'm an admin on. Outside of that, sometimes I don't know why I even check the thing so much, I really could care less about what some of these people are doing, just like they could probably care less about what I'm doing. It just seems like such BS.


end of rant
 
Sometimes I feel like I'm part of one giant pyramid advertising scheme. It's like my feed is full of all these ads for all these people trying to land gigs by posting all there updates in hopes someone else will book them in something. Where I'm just adding to it with my project updates in hopes people may one day buy a copy or work with me cause they don't think I suck. It's so weird when you look at it like that.

Maybe filmmakers simply cannot be friends on there? It just turns into a spamathon/self promotion fest.
 
Awwwww, send me your FB link. I'll friend you. Then you can see how political I am outside DVXUser. But be warned........I am not your typical film-maker.
 
I feel you, Brosephuses.

I have about 115 friends. Only about 15 ever actually interact with me in any way. Hardly anyone responds when I message them/post on their walls etc. about my films/screenings. They're not all, not even mostly (maybe half?) filmmaking related. Some are folks I know in the real world, some are random people that requested my e-friendship and I accepted, God knows why. Some are other filmmakers/crew people I know or work with or met at a film fest. I don't eat/breathe/sleep filmmaking in quite the same way as the OP, and in fact day to day I use it to post my strange/offensive/hopefully funny thoughts to whomever on there cares to read.

I also don't send links to new films out to everyone, mostly because many of my movies are offensive in some way, and I either don't know folks well enough, or I know them TOO well, and don't think they'll appreciated it (yeah, why not send the conservative Christian my highly offensive Jewish ninja movie?).

I've actually considered, and am still considering going through and doing a Friend Pogrom, leaving only the most worthy survivors. Hey, it may only be 20 people left, but it'd be 20 people who give a ****.
 
I have yet to find value in Facebook. "giant advertising pyramid" is about right.

Maybe I'm not socialist enough for social media.
 
If only the giant advertising pyramid would actually work to our benefit. I remember the old shampoo commercial (I think that's what it was for) where you tell 2 friends, and they tell 2 friends and so on and so on... All people have to do is like or comment on your link and their friends will see it, but they don't. They'll spread stupid cat videos like wild fire, but something that actually required some effort to produce, most people couldn't be bothered watch, let alone like or forward.

I think the actors are the key though if you want to actively spam your film. Most actors, even unknown theatre types collect far more facebook friends than typical. A few in my circle have over 1000, and they actively spam about what they are doing. They are just much more outgoing than we are.

As for your wall, nobody writes on your wall, they just write about themselves for everyone to see. Cast the actors with lots of 'friends' and make sure they are talking about it when you post a trailer, full short or whatever. If it is compelling enough, I think people should at least be curious to at least a third degree of separation, a friend of a friend. With a typical circle of at least 100, assuming minimal overlap, the third degree has the potential to be close to 1 million. If only it were that easy.
 
I've been on facebook for about a year. For networking with industry professionals, DVX forum is still the place to be, especially if you live and work in north America. I am from Australia, so in that sense, is not that useful, but it's the only place where I can get some educated feedback. Also a great place to learn from others. Facebook is basically a fool's paradise...anything trivial and ridiculous gets attention, and anything cultured or clever gets ignored. If you're business-minded, it can help you play the numbers game I guess... you sent out 1000 offers... somebody is bound to show interest
 
Agree with everyone. Fools paradise. What a perfect description EDV. I think I'll use that if you don't mind. FB to me is the big pyramid too, I suppose with Zucker sitting at the top. At least he's definitely not a miser and signed the Giving Pledge, so good for him I guess. I just haven't found much use in it. Socially, and definitely not business wise. It's this strange form of communication that so many people are attached to. I prefer direct contact through PM's, e-mail and such, or God forbid, face to face. If I need to interact with serious film and video people, it's this site, DVXUser. Others are maybe bigger, and some have been around longer, but this place is it.

I work in broadcasting and commercial production, more than filmmaking, and fear if I post that people will see it and think "income", when in reality I hardly shoot anything these days, and it's all on a very tight budget. And I hate thumping my chest about anything. I also have this thought that today everyone and their brother thinks of themselves as a filmmaker, and a great many of those people are unemployable flakes with far less talent than they think they have, so I don't even use that term anymore, I loathe it actually.
 
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