On Tuesday, August 17th, grantees from both The Fledgling Fund and Chicken & Egg Pictures gathered at our office with the following questions in mind:
What is the role of
non-profit or for-profit partners in the audience engagement phase of a social
issue film?
What are the criteria you look for when choosing those partners?
What are the expectations of those partners? And of the film team?
How do you approach those partners to communicate the kind of relationship you are looking for?
What are examples of successful partnerships or partnerships that could have been improved? Why?
Here are some of the most important highlights from the filmmakers' conversation:
- It is a common
misconception that you have to get partners on board early, it will be
hard for both them and you to be able to commit early - them because they
aren't familiar with film and need to see a more finished product, and you
because you are still figuring out your narrative and don't want to bow to
outside pressures. You can and should, however, get potential partners
interested and start the bonding process/discussion early.
- Pick organizations that
are a little more neutral, they will be aware of groups on either
side of your argument that you should bring in. It can harm your film to
partner with an organization that has a strong affiliation one way or
another.
- Films are a great tool
for organizations, but they don't have the resources to handle your film on top of their busy workload. You have to give them a
template that they can work with that will use as little of their
resources as possible.
- In approaching your
outreach agenda, be aware of creating extra work for yourselves simply because you
are being offered funding for it. It seems alluring because you can use some of the money for other pressing things, but an ill-formed product and
badly budgeted time can be more harmful to your project and mission in the
long run. Creating universal viewers guides are key and a one-page with bullet points
is preferable.
- How to get partners
excited and on board when you are ready to launch? Organize a screening -
a "sneak peek" - before the official release/festival premiere. Make sure
you have a diverse screening set so that excitement and discussion is generated.
- In general, partners do
not share email lists.
- A great way to leverage
your partners to support your theatrical run and gather press attention is to
have your partners co-sponsor or program different nights of your run so
they are each event-driven and will pull in ticket sales.
- To ensure you have
something that works for all of your different partners, it is a good idea to
create a DVD that has 3 or 4 different scenes with discussion points built
around each segment.
Some
interesting questions that arose:
Q:
When should you show potential partners your film?
A:
There were two schools of thought on this: 1. Show excerpts of the film early
to get them invested, 2. Show them the finished project with an audience so they understand the full emotional pull of the film. Showing people too early is risky
because the urge for them to contribute editorial input is too strong.
Q:
Do you offer DVDs free to partners or do you have a package?
A:
You should try to get a grant/generous donor that will cover the DVD
expenses and maybe even the travel expenses to support taking the film to
partner screenings. If you can get a good educational run this will help
off-set some of these costs as universities, and some schools have a
budget for this. Be sure to have your DVD available to buy at screenings, as a
tidy sum can be earned this way over the course of a year. You might even want
to offer free DVDs to your partners with the caveat that they will share with
you the attendance email list and perhaps even a questionnaire so you can gauge
impact - a clever way of ensuring this is by "selling" them the film but then
reimbursing them once they return the email list and questionnaire. You can
then use the questionnaire to pull great quotes from to further your audience
engagement campaign and fundraising.
At
the end of the event, everyone contributed thoughts as to what the next
"informal conversation" subject should be:
- Navigating the broadcasting
arena.
- What next? How to move on to
the next film.
- New distribution models.
- The nuts and bolts of a
community screening tour.
- How to measure impact.
- Budgeting. The real one vs.
the one you apply to funders with.
Filmmakers
in attendance: Julia Bacha - Budrus,
Yael Luttwak - My Favorite
Neo-Conservative, Malika Zouhali-Worrall - Call Me Kuchu, Roger Weisberg - No
Tomorrow, Rebecca Haimowitz - Made in
India, Jenifer McShane - Mothers of
Bedford
Mona Nicoara - Our School, Amelia Green-Dove
- The Recruiter and Watchers of the Sky, Joe Wilson and Dean
Hamer - Out in the Silence, Ann Kim -
Match Plus, Marty Syjuco - Give Up Tomorrow
This
event generated a conversation from the expertise and
experiences of those in the room, but the information
should not be considered universal to all films, filmmakers and organizations.
We welcome your experiences and comments here. Keep coming back for more!
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