Shy Filmmaker? Walk It Off, Sugar Britches!

If you've been following Down and Dirty Dv at all, you already know that I am a HUGE proponent and practitioner of self-promotion. It's saddens me greatly that the concept is so misunderstood (even villainized) by so many of my filmmaker and artistic friends.

It actually saddened me to the point that I developed a whole seminar just to teach filmmakers, musicians, writers and artists of the art and craft of self-promotion. I am presenting that very seminar- Self Promotion for Creative Hustlers, for only the second time ever at this weekend's inaugural Urban Media Festival in Austin Texas.

And before the seminar even, we devoted an entire special episode of The Double Down Film Show to the subject of Shameless Self-Promotion.

I just came across a great little article by Rain Dance's Elliot Grove entitled The Film Industry's 5 Self-Promotion Myths that explains the whole issue simply and elegantly:

1. The James Cameron Myth:
   "Self promotion will make me look arrogant."
2. The Princess Myth:
   "If I'm good enough, people will hear about it."
3. The Mates Myth:
   "Others should talk about my accomplishments, not me."
4. The Martyr Myth:
   "People don't understand what I am trying to do"
5. The Head in the Sand Myth:
   "I couldn't talk up my career if a gun was at my head"

Click HERE to read the full article

If you want my specific tips and details on free and low-cost tools and tactics that you can use to build your "brand" (yes you have a brand) and get your projects noticed then you need to get ya butt down to Austin, TX this weekend to the Urban Media Festival where I will be breaking down the shameless art line-by-line and revealing the exact strategies and tools I used to parlay myself from filmmaking obscurity to a best-selling author, guerrilla film guru and sought-after speaker.

If you're shy, time to walk it off Sugar Britches! Filmmakers and artists simply can't afford to be shy. If you bust your ass to make it and no one sees it, what's the point?

(*Bull Horn Photo by looking4poetry)

Guerrilla Film Marketing for Werewolves

My man, Sam Thompson, director of the Slamdance film, "There's a Werewolf in My Attic", who I met briefly at Sundance a few years back just launched a simple fun campaign to promote and sell his newest horror flick "Living Arrangements".

I'm reposting it here because I think it's an excellent case-study in no-budget film marketing, promotion and self-distribution. Making a a film you're proud of is great, but I think it's pretty damn pointless, if you don't also take great pains and efforts to make sure that an audience actually finds and sees it.

As indie filmmakers I think we should all be as saavy as Sam and come up with clever (not necessarily expensive or even overly-time-consuming) ways to get people interested in our projects. Congrats to Sam for fine filmmaking hustle.

Peep Sam's guerrilla marketing approach:












The Trailer for "Living Arrangements":