Last week, we shared how easy it is to pinpoint the best Film Festivals for your film to enter and how you can make that section practically write itself if you approach it logically.  When we pick our Comps, we go by budget and genre, so we're as close as possible to other films like ours. In that newsletter, we used the movie Beach Rats as an example.

 

What's Our Next Step? 

We stalk the producers and directors of our comp movies. We read EVERYTHING we can about them and their interviews so we can learn from them. 

 

We googled Eliza Hittman, the writer and producer of Beach Rats, and read this great interview. Here's what we learned. 

 

She's done several microbudget movies and even screened one at Sundance, as well as getting theatrical release. So kudos to her!

 

On one of her films she received free location shooting from Planned Parenthood, who also has an arts engagement program, where they connect artists with PP contacts, including their list of celebs who represent PP. 

 

So, if our film were a similar genre, we have part of the roadmap already written for us! And that's just a few sentences from one article. Now we know of just 1 organization that provides soft money, in kind, talent connections AND free publicity just because of our movie's theme! 

 

Now, the second article about Ms. Hittman tells us who distributed Beach Rats! It was released domestically by NEON Rated. Now, we already knew that, because distributor is one of the columns in our database. But let's say it was a comp not in our database - Cha-Ching, we're now starting on our distributors list to contact! Once again, we roll through all our Comparable Films to work smarter, not harder! We follow the path already shown to be successful. Can we add our own finesse to it? Of course! Should we ignore what has worked already? Of course not!

 

We previously told you about the Find Me Distribution Case Study, where the filmmaker partnered with REI along the same lines as Hittman partnering with Planned Parenthood because his film's theme was about the outdoors. 

We always tell you about the gold in learning from other filmmakers successes. And given that this is your passion, it's really not even work - learning from other filmmakers should be a joy for you (it is for us!). 

So start with our Indie Film Database, and use your Comparable Films to guide not just your Revenue Projections, but your Film Festival Plan, Marketing Plan, Audience and Distribution Plans!