Social Media
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“‘I Have My Real-life Self and My Online-Self, Just Like Everybody Else'”: Liza Mandelup on Teenage Social Media Stars and Her Hulu-Premiering Doc, Jawline
“I’m telling you guys,” says 16-year-old Austyn Tester, sitting in a leather computer chair and speaking into his Macbook’s webcam. The otherwise bleak, wood-panelled room he sits in is completely taken over by soft lighting equipment; the camera pans from his perfectly coiffed hair down to his dirty socks and stained carpet. “If you’ve got a dream, you’ve got to chase it. Don’t let anyone’s opinions affect you.” In director Liza Mandelup’s feature doc debut, Jawline, Austyn speaks to himself as much as he does to the gaggle of teen girls that are watching him live-stream his motivational speech. He […]
by Natalia Keogan on Aug 23, 2019 -
Strategies for Sharing
“I’m the only one of these directors with a @twitter account. Am I doing it wrong?!” tweeted, tongue-in-cheek, Moonlight helmer Barry Jenkins last November. Good question: Jenkins had just been announced as one of the Best Director nominees for the Film Independent Spirit Awards (the others were Andrea Arnold, for American Honey; Pablo Larraín, for Jackie; Jeff Nichols, for Loving; and Kelly Reichardt, for Certain Women), and among such esteemed company he was the sole denizen of the Twittersphere. Was Jenkins boosting his chances during awards season by maintaining an active presence on Twitter? Or does a social media identity […]
by Stephen Garrett on Jan 18, 2017 -
Letterboxd, the Social Network for Cinephiles, Finally Has an iPhone App
Film fans, film journalists and all varieties of film lovers post reviews and get into passionate debates about their favorite films on Facebook, Twitter and other social networks. But Letterboxd is the only social network exclusively for sharing film reviews and recommendations. With the introduction of an iPhone app, the popular social network from New Zealand has just become an even more essential resource. For newbies, when you log into the free service, you’ll be asked “what are you watching?” and then invited to keep a film diary and create and share lists of your favorite films. Follow people and you can see which films […]
by Paula Bernstein on Mar 16, 2016 -
Learning Not to Share: The Benefits and Pitfalls of Social Media for Independent Films
Mynette Louie, president of Gamechanger Films, recently had a problem. She caught a stand-in on set not only taking photos of her film’s star, whose contract had specific photo approvals in place, but posting the photos to Facebook. “I told him to delete them from his Facebook, then I went through his phone and deleted all the photos he took on set.” Traditionally, producers, marketing departments and publicists labor over key stills and publicity images, methodically crafting a film’s identity in careful, strategic installments. This practice continues today, but can quickly be subverted by a tweet, post or status update. […]
by John Van Wyck on Jan 20, 2016 -
Seven Tips on How to Utilize Your Audience from Peter Broderick
The IFP Independent Filmmaker Conference’s “Blitz Wisdom” panels are quick, TED-like talks from filmmakers and folks in the industry discussing their projects and/or offering tips and pointers. During Monday’s “Blitz Wisdom” session with Peter Broderick, President of Paradigm Consulting (helping filmmakers develop distribution and social media strategies), we learned some great tips on how maintaining a relationship with your audience after they’ve left the theater can help you develop a sustainable model of revenue. Here are Broderick’s seven key ways your audience can be utilized to help your independent project: 1. Direct Funding – Once you’ve identified your audience and have their […]
by Katie Carman-Lehach on Sep 18, 2013 -
Seven Ways to Fail at Promoting Your Film Online (Broken Record Edition)
Since repetition in the form of rote memorization is a major element of education, I’m not going to apologize for this, one of my periodic rants on the ways in which filmmakers (and, sometimes, their publicists) fail in the promotion of their films online and through social media. I’m sure that over the years I’ve posted every one of these points before, as have other writers on our site, like Jon Reiss. But, based on my encounters with filmmakers, their films, and their websites these past few weeks, these are worth repeating. Want to decrease press interest and the size […]
by Scott Macaulay on Feb 17, 2013 -
PERSONAL DEMOCRACY
The Internet is transforming social life and the political landscape. The growing pallet of digital media content-production technologies and social networking distribution sites, like Facebook, Twitter and Tumblr, is redefining the meaning of “democracy” and an individual’s ability to participate in the political process. The annual Personal Democracy Forum (PDF) is a geek and political-wonk fest, a 21st century Woodstock – without the drugs, rain and rock ‘n’ roll – and this year’s gathering was no exception. This is a momentous election year, with a day of reckoning coming in November. The nation is living through what Nobel Prize-winning economist […]
by David Rosen on Jun 14, 2012 -
DIGITAL RESUME WRITING AND THE PMD
I remember when I was a teenager sitting down with my dad and doing my resume. My father had left a 30-year government job to move into consulting and the corporate sector, and he was sending out a lot of them. I modeled mine after his. There were headings down the left side — a short-term “Goal,” experience, education, and my interests — and all the info was succinct, tabbed, bullet-pointed. It fit on one page. I haven’t done a resume in years. In film, the narrative bio is used more often. Or, an iMDb page suffices. But, after reading […]
by Scott Macaulay on Sep 3, 2011 -
Is Our Indie Scene too Marketing Obsessed?
Too enthralled by the latest social media craze? Those are the questions posed by producer Mike Ryan (Junebug, Life During Wartime, 40 Shades of Blue) in his essay in the new issue of Filmmaker, which you can read online now. From his piece: Developing content and nurturing auteurs should be our top concern, not figuring out distribution models or revenue schemes. The whole purpose of independent film is to make films that aren’t prefabricated to hit a target audience of someone else’s devising. In fact, it’s that kind of market-centric thinking that puffed up the bubble with derivative films; it’s […]
by Scott Macaulay on Apr 19, 2010
