There is one final lesson to consider as you strategize about a potential career in the film industry. This lesson involves the necessity of aggressively taking the initiative to propel yourself in whatever direction you wish to go, rather than waiting for circumstances or others to do it for you. You also need to keep your mind open to opportunities that may not be your first choice but get your foot in the door. For example, one of the authors of this book got his big break by obtaining a position in accounting at a major animation studio and was able to quickly move over to the production side. You have already expanded your skills in this course. Beyond that, you will need to gather particular tools that will promote yourself and your work, and lure not only employment but also an audience.
Darren Aronofsky maintains a personal website where he can keep colleagues and fans up to date on his newest projects.
In Chapter 14 you learned about defining and learning from your audience. With digital technology and social media communication tools, you can also start building an audience for your work right now, even before you are a professional filmmaker who has sold, exhibited, or officially distributed (at least through formal industry channels) something. Thus, even as you continue to pursue your filmmaking education, you may begin plotting your strategy for what comes next. Creating tools and using them effectively right now, and onward into your career, will give you a platform on which to base your filmmaking endeavors.
What tools do we mean? What components will make up your platform? The following elements, when combined, are a great start for your personal platform:
YOUR REEL SELLS YOU
Make sure your reel reflects not only your filmmaking skills but also your personality. If you enjoy humor, include humor. If you like color or loud music, try those things. Don’t shy away from being who you are—you, after all, are the person you are selling with the reel. But don’t include any profanity, nudity, graphic music, or extreme violence—even if you go in for such things, such elements will merely distract your viewer from the filmmaking skills you are trying to promote.
Demo Reel A demo reel is a video reel you create that showcases your finest work, edited and presented to highlight whatever aspect of your talents you want to emphasize. (See Action Steps: Creating a Demo Reel, below.) The reel is a tool designed to maximize your chances to impress the folks you are distributing it to. Therefore, it is more than worthwhile to spend the time necessary to cut it together effectively; you may also want to consider making multiple versions, or different reels altogether, if you are pursuing different types of work in various sectors of the industry. For example, a design-dominated reel won’t be much help if you are pursuing a cinematography job, and vice versa. It is convenient to have an online version available for people to easily access, but remember to always make sure that it is, in fact, accessible; that the link works; and that the video looks good when viewed on all browsers, mobile devices, and laptops.
Creating a Demo Reel
The basic technical skills you have learned in this course are more than enough to give you the tools and ability you need to construct a sharp demo reel, but you still need specific goals for the reel and a plan for executing them. By “goals,” we mean: At whom are you targeting the reel? What kind of impression are you trying to make, and what kind of work are you trying to land with it? Obviously, your focus will be different depending on what kind of work you are pursuing. Here are some general guidelines for the elements you choose, how you put them together, and the philosophy you take in constructing the reel.
KNOW YOUR SEO
Master the art of search engine optimization to stay in control of your online identity, including using relevant keywords in blog-post titles, lead paragraphs, and metadata tags to ensure good search engine results; using #hashtags on keywords to make sure your social media posts are searchable; and sharing useful information in social media postings on topics people are likely to be searching for.
Website Similarly, even as a student, with the availability of a host of cheap or free web-building tools, there is no reason you shouldn’t have an attractive website to promote your filmmaking endeavors and interests. Your demo reel, following the same parameters we have described, can be present on it, along with still photos of you, images from your work, behind-the-scenes images of you and your colleagues at work, your résumé, references, your blog, and links to your social media. (See Business Smarts: Build Your Online Platform, below.)
Social Media The website can also be an essential tool in helping build your audience. Assuming you use social media adeptly, you can easily drive people interested in you, your work, or the topics you cover to your site, where they can learn more about you and your filmmaking capabilities. So keep it updated, active, and attractive at all times—it is a public representation of you and what you want people to think about you.
Along those lines, when you make a film, enter a festival, win an award, get an internship, take photos at an event, network with someone interesting, and so on, promote these endeavors on Tumblr, Vine, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and elsewhere, and make sure you train yourself to use these and all other popular platforms to push out your messaging to people who follow you, your work, or the subjects you are interested in. The massive impact of social media cannot be overstated, and artists and filmmakers of all stripes—from the internationally famous to people just like you—now use it daily to promote their work and messages. You should use it routinely and, by doing so, as your career grows, so will a general familiarity with you and your work among your followers, who, as you now know, will eventually evolve into your audience.
CRITIQUE REELS
Go online and seek out some readily available demo reels, or examine a classmate’s or a friend’s reel. Find one you think has potential or substance, and take some time to review it critically. Then, write down a formal critique of what you reviewed. What does the reel say about the individual’s personality and filmmaking abilities? Would you hire that person based on the work you see? What were the strongest areas of work, and the areas that need improvement? Offer some constructive feedback, and incorporate that feedback as you seek to create your own reel going forward.
From this course and the work you will pursue next, you will have the skills to create interesting and attractive work and get your message out—with or without traditional distribution. All you really need is the interest and determination to do so. If you have it, then now is the time to get started.
What are you waiting for?
In Chapter 14, we touched on the importance of promoting a movie once it is made, and how online tools can serve that agenda. Earlier in this chapter, we emphasized the usefulness of incorporating web-based tools and social media into the foundation of the general promotional platform you will use to sell yourself and your work to prospective employers, collaborators, financiers, audiences, and followers. Indeed, this should be a living, organic, online platform that you use to sell yourself, beyond any single project. This is important not just because it is a good way to show off your creativity and filmmaking skills but also because it is simply good business. You can reach thousands of eyeballs with few, if any, marketing dollars to spend, no publicist, and little experience or contacts in the film world. The Internet, after all, is a unique and powerful tool that allows you to do creative and marketing work simultaneously, and distribute it widely with minimal resources.
Obviously, much of this involves mastering the delicate art of search engine optimization (SEO), so that your online materials can be easily searched for and located by people interested in you, your work, or the topics you are dealing with. (See the Tip we offer on effective SEO techniques.) But those SEO efforts won’t amount to much if you don’t have strategically effective material online to begin with. Here are some pointers regarding your online endeavors: