Recently, I was tasked with helping one of our clients understand what independent films were doing to promote their film via their website. At first, I thought “no problem” and began with a simple google search. As you can see, that search didn’t pan out too well – and neither did variations of it. I also tapped some of our secondary research resources, but most of them talked about how much the big studios were spending on websites for Harry Potter 6 and Bruno. I needed the independent film perspective. But even the big independent studio film sites weren’t much help: for example, nearly all the films on Magnolia Pictures’ site were on the same template, and not a very good one at that.
My next direction was more fruitful. I found all the film festivals happening right now and went down their nomination and award list. While many of them don’t have a web presence at all, I was pleasantly surprised to see some neat things that some films are doing to promote themselves, often on what we know is a small budget. Here’s what I found:
Judicious Use of Video
Films like Wah Do Dem engage the visitor immediately with the trailer for the film, using an integrated flash player, vimeo player or even YouTube. Gone are the days where you can find out everything about a movie except for the only thing you’re really interested in – the trailer. Other indie films like Big Fan also put the trailer for the film front and center. I also noticed more films including short videos from the director, teasers and other things you might traditionally see as a DVD extra.
Tying to a Cause
This isn’t so much a trend in film websites as much as it is just something films are thinking about early in the process. Films like Flow and The Cove make “taking action” a big part of the web experience. Often, these are prominently featured on the film site and then link out to a full-blown “activist” site where people can dive much deeper into the issue at hand.
Links to Social Media
This was the big surprise for me. With Flixter’s Movie app on Facebook being one of the most popular (over 17 million active users), you would think that independent films would be all over the social media front. Unfortunately, it’s utilized by only a select few sites. But the ones that are doing it are promoting their social networking links prominently on their homepage. Films like Burma VJ, More Than a Game, and We Are All Precious all take advantage of the power of social media.
So at the end of the process, I was able to help our client understand the space, learn about some of the most effective tactics independent films are using on their websites, and as an extra perk, experienced some websites that did their job – I think I’m going to go see Burma VJ!
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