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Truly Free Film

SEO for Film Part 2: 5 Ways to Use the Power of Search for your Film

By Annelise Larson      

In Part 1 of this series, I looked at how search offers an amazing opportunity to find and connect with your audience. I also mentioned keyword research, which is the first and most fundamental step in search engine optimization, and how it provides information about the words and phrases people are typing into the search engines. If done well, this important SEO step can be used in many ways to help your film. Here are just five of them:  

#1 – Inspiration

Looking for the next great idea? Stuck on several and can’t figure out which one to choose? The data from keyword research can provide you with the spark of an idea that suggests a direction and gets your creative juices flowing. It also allows you to test and compare which ones have the most interest and potential audience. It shouldn’t be the ultimate deciding factor but it can help you be more strategic in your creative choices right from the beginning of a project. Or it can suggest a direction to get your creative juices flowing.

Hope4Film Part 2

#2 – Prove Market Viability

This research includes hard data on how many searches for a particular phrase; in other words its “search market.” It can give you an idea of how big the established audience is for your lead actor, the enthusiasm for the title of the work you are adapting, the current level of interest in the specific topic of your project and other salient facts.

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Issues and Actions

Join Me At The Mill Valley Film Festival Next Weekend

I am headed across The Bay next Saturday to discuss (and surely debate) the State Of Indie. If you promise to go, I promise to work hard to come up with something controversial to rock the socks of the good folk in the audience.  Saturday, Oct. 6th.  11A.

There’s going to be a networking event after so we can keep the conversation going.

Check it out and order tickets here.

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These Are Those Things

“Everything You Could Ever Possibly Need, My Love.”

WHAT DO We HAVE IN OUR POCKETS, directed by Goran Dukic

 

 

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Truly Free Film

Five Years Left To Determine If The Phoenix WILL Rise Or Did The Sky In Fact Fall

Today marks the fifth year anniversary of the talk I did for Film Independent that got me blogging and spreading the Truly Free Film gospel.

Do you know where we are headed?  The following speech is not so much the road map I had five years ago, but my plea to build the team that can then build the highways.  It remains a public works project.  Thanks to all those who are part of the road gang; you know who you are.  

Today (09.27.13) I am delivering a keynote in London for FERA, the EU Directors’ Federation.  It has a similar tone and mission as this one did five years ago. I look forward to sharing it with you soon.  We have made progress, but there still is a long way to go.  We have to understand the past though if we want to see the future.

I can’t talk about the “crisis” of the indie film industry. There is no crisis. The country is in crisis. The economy is in crisis. We, the filmmakers, aren’t in crisis.

The business is changing, but for us –us who are called Indie Filmmakers — that’s good that the business is changing. Filmmaking is an incredible privilege and we need to accept it as such – and accept the full responsibility that comes with that privilege.

The proclamations of Indie Film’s demise are grossly exaggerated. How can there be a “Death Of Indie” when Indie — real Indie, True Indie — has yet to even live?

Yes, there’s a profound paradigm shift, and that shift is the coming of true independence. The hope of this new independence is

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Truly Free Film

How I Gave Up On The Film Industry and Did What I Loved: PART 2

By Jacob Kornbluth (See Part One HERE).

inequality-for-all-poster-600-longSo there I was. I had totally given up on my film career in LA, and gone to live in Berkeley, CA. In trying to put together a fiction film, I had met Robert Reich and become friends with him. Reich and I had started making short videos together, they were successful, and I had begun thinking about how to make a film about what had happened to the American economy and the Middle class. But I had no idea where to start.

The first thing I did was try to get some sense of who was making films in the Bay Area.

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Truly Free Film

Towards A Sustainable Investor Class: A Portfolio Approach

As I mentioned last week, if you have half a brain and STILL want to invest in the film business, you know you need access to quality projects.  But generally speaking there are a few other things you want too.  I think this post subject (TASIC) can become a regular weekly column.  Today we will explore the phrase that should be on every potential film investor’s lips:  a portfolio approach to investment.

Knowledgeable Investors are not going to bet the horse or house on one trick pony.  Wise players want

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Issues and Actions

FILMONOMICS: How to Qualify for General Solicitation Fundraising

By Duncan Cork

The ban on General Solicitation in the US has been lifted!

Filmmakers are now able to advertise their fundraising publicly, so long as they make “reasonable efforts” to ensure that investors financing the film are accredited. This historic day comes with caveats though. So we advise all filmmakers seek out legal counsel before taking advantage of General Solicitation. Here’s what we know…

the-american-jobs-acts-full

The SEC’s rules for Title II of the JOBS Act became law today. This post will address mostly what you can do now. However, the SEC has also suggested further proposed rules which will go into effect another 60 days after the SEC has taken into account comments from the public. These should be considered for the long fundraising periods associated with film financing.

As of today, filmmakers are able to market their fundraising publicly, which means Tweeting, Facebooking, shouting from the rooftops, and taking billboards out on Sunset Boulevard.

However, under Rule 506c (the rule allowing for General Solicitation),filmmakers must make “reasonable efforts” to verify that their investors are “accredited”.