Thank you for your latest blog entries! I really appreciate those of you who took Candler’s list as an opportunity to unpack further to-do’s in your marketing plans.
Everyone in this course is in different places with their thesis projects and has taken different classes in the program thus far. Not everything we do or discuss in this course is going to ring relevant for everyone. None of the materials we are looking at are specifically aimed at no budget, graduate film students. I think I took it for granted that everyone understood this context, but let’s highlight it now -
Media industries, on all levels, are constantly changing, especially for folks like us on the guerrilla level, with no money, trying to make something new and interesting. What is more important than raw information about distribution is the ability to research and adapt to current cultural climates, platforms, audiences, etc.
When I was assigned this class, I took the resources I knew of on this topic and built the schedule and assignments around them. The idea is to expose everyone to some popular thoughts and practices about distribution (namely, from some people who are talking and engaging the topic currently). But the most important goal of this course is to provoke research, thought, and written materials specific to the distribution of each of your thesis projects. This cannot happen if materials are flippantly discredited and assignments are treated as busy work.
As graduate-level students, I expect everyone to engage with the materials in a thoughtful way. At the very least, I hope you will try to tailor each assignment in a way that is meaningful to you and achieves our intended learning outcomes. Even if you feel the content being provided is not challenging or relevant or in line with your ideological outlook, you can at least use the opportunity to write out/work through issues with your project OR do research into your own ideas on the subject matter.
It goes without saying that not all aspects of all articles will specifically apply to you and your thesis project. So let's make the most of this course and stop dwelling on it.
NOW ON WITH WEEK 3!
WEEK 3: Social Media Survey/Marketing Continued!
Keeping in mind that some of you took Marketing and don’t need a social media primer or review, I have created two options for this week’s blog assignment. As mentioned, if anything you are writing feels redundant or not relevant, you need to adjust what you are writing about and find something more productive to say.
If you haven’t worked out a lot of your social media strategy or want to brush up on how to use these sites more effectively, do the Social Media Survey assignment that follows. IF NOT, stay tuned for the Option B: ELECTRONIC PRESS PACKAGE ASSIGNMENT.
EVERYONE MUST CHOOSE OPTION A OR B TO POST ABOUT BEFORE NEXT WEEK.
OPTION A: SOCIAL MEDIA SURVEY - DUE MONDAY, SEPT. 9, 2013 by 6pm
The Film Collaborative website is an amazing resource for current materials on indie content distribution. If you have not checked out the links to the right, including their
Distropedia, I encourage you to do so! You’ll find a lot of good resources there.
This week, I would like to utilize a series of articles from the Film Collaborative on the use of social media for your thesis projects. Keeping in mind that these article are geared towards professional independent productions, I hope you’ll find some good advice and information about the use of social media platforms.
The following 2, very short articles cover a basic mind set for social media use and common myths about these practices:
Read the two above articles and choose one additional article, for the site most relevant to your marketing plans:
In your next blog post, please answer the following questions, citing information from the above articles:
1. Identify a personal weakness in your usage of social media. It can be specific to your film project or a more general issue. How will you address and correct this issue? List some short term and long term goals for this mission.
2. After reading a third article of your choice from this series: either Facebook, YouTube, or Twitter - outline a plan for how you will utilize that media outlet in your own project, as a tool for distribution specifically. If you haven't blogged about it yet, include any marketing you have already done on the site and what you will do in the next 1 to 2 years, using that site.
If you have already addressed #2 in a previous blog post, please provide 2 samples of marketing content you are/have/will use for the site. This can be a film poster, a log line, stills, and anything else you may have used (or plan to use) for your project on facebook, twitter, or youtube.
OPTION B to follow shortly....
No comments:
Post a Comment