“A big producer once said to me I would never be a director because I’m too nice”

Greetings from London UK where the Rain is currently dancing on our heads. Hahaha

Katy Van is a new writer/wordsmith I much admire and she came to the Raindance Film festival this year (in secret I might ad) to research the roles (or lack of roles) of women in film director roles. Refreshingly she found that the Raindance average of female directors is double that of Sundance or Tribecca with 14% of our films directed by women. That's still an appallingly low number.

Here's a great blog post she wrote: “A big producer once said to me I would never be a director because I’m too nice”


And what do you feel about this?

The Psychology of Social Media Engagement

This is the first time I have posted here since March - so I hope I am not bending any rules.

I am totally untrained, although I have managed to produce now, 3 features and over 150 short films, and I have also run Raindance Film Festival since 1992. I have realised, in hindsight, that there are some basic things I do - all of which I have begged borrowed or stolen from some fantastic people I have worked with. So I thought I would share them - and you can read them in it's entirety (it's a 5 minute read) here:

Things I Wish I Knew Before I Started Raindance

Isn't hindsight a wonderful thing?

I have taken a couple days off - midweek no less - to try and recharge after a demanding schedule. I haven't ever done this before and it's been a priceless chance to recharge my batteries.

While relaxing and ignoring the emails and SMS messages I realised that there are many things I wish I knew before I started Raindance.

Enjoy.

13 Web Marketing Myths Filmmakers Should Stop Believing

Raindance is launching our video on demand service on Monday - and you can have a sneak preview here: www.raindancereleasing.com

The reason this new service is so important to us is that distribution of independent films is the big bottleneck and the major barrier to new filmmaking talent breaking out.

What I have learned over time at Raindance is the importance of social media and the marketing opportunities the web offers. Sadly many filmmakers are either blissfully unaware of this new opportunity, or are 'too busy' to understand and embrace this important new element in film making and distribution.

As I travel around to the various international Raindance offices I her the same old excuses repeated time and time again.

This is where I come in. Let me explain the 13 Web Marketing Myths Filmmakers Should Stop Believing.

7 Key Trends Filmmakers and Screenwriters Will Embrace In 2014

Way back in the good ole days when I started Raindance ('92 to be precise) we screened on 35mm, bought expensive ads in Timeout and printed and mailed thousands of leaflets.

We don't do any of that now. It's all changed, and many of the changes have happened very rapidly.

The biggest and most profound changes include
- the UK tax structures - currently the most beneficial to film producers anywhere
- transmedia and cross media storytelling
- changes to the internet

I wrote this out in quite a detailed article on the Raindance website. You can read 7 Key Trends Filmmakers and Screenwriters Embrace here

14 Trends Raindance's Filmmakers Will Track In 2014

Isn't it amazing how quickly time flies? Having waited a whole year for the 2013 British Independent film Awards, they have come and gone so quickly that it's as if they didn't happen.

In the Raindance office we joke that the Christmas season officially starts the day after the BIFAs. Looking ahead to the New Year there are a host of new innovations and big game changers that our fabulous intern, Tekle Baroti has put into a succinct and entertaining article so good that I wish I had thought of it.

Whatever your politics or creed, there are indeed 14 Trends Raindance Filmmakers Will follow In 2014

Are British Films Any Good

I hear all the time about how British films lose money, how independent filmmaking is dead, and that British films aren't half as good as the films made on the continent.

But is that true?

One thing that is certain: I and the entire Raindance Film Festival team will be glued to our seats at this Sunday's British Independent Film Awards. Why? Because we think British film is the toast of the continent right now.

For our filmmaking colleagues who couldn't get into the crammed and squashed event we are pleased to announce that the event is telecast from 7:30pm on Sunday December 8th.


Once the BIFAs are over, we are heading back to work sifting through the tons of submissions already arriving for the 22nd Raindance Film Festival.

The Revolution Won't Be Televised!

When this year's Raindance Film Festival launched Britain's first web fest 'way back in September 2013, film industry eyeballs rolled and rolled.

But the success of the webfest, both in terms of audience engagement and content proved to me at least that web series are here to stay. Then just this week Harvey Weinstein announced he was funding a TV series: Ten Commandments for television. Not exactly a web series, but a series that most in America will watch online courtesy of Netflix.

Then out of the blue comes a terrific summary of how and why the web series is going from internet consultant and online researcher, Jo Geaney.

Jo Favoured Raindance Film Festival for a couple months in the autumn of 2013. Read her engaging, informative and amusing article The Revolution Won't Be Televised: 4 Reasons The future Of Filmmaking Is Online.

Raindance has  several interesting events coming up:

Mike Fly's Wed Series Foundation Certificate starts in Toronto on Thursday January 14th. It's 5 nights from 6:30 - 9:30pm

In London, we have two events:
Tanya Laird's Digital Marketing and Cross Media Storytelling on the weekend of January 18/19 2014

And Create and Market Your Webseries on Saturday March 15th from 10:00 - 5pm

Don't miss these great events.

When Viral Marketing Goes Wrong

Sunday morning, December 1st, I was jolted out of my daydream by my sobbing Florida intern Shannon Hemmings breaking the news to me that her favourite actor had just died in a car crash. "Would I like her to write a tribute article for our website?" she asked.

Although I have never been a fan of The Fast & The Furious I did agree, because Shannon was so passionate about it.

At 1:30pm the article arrived, and I shoved it onto our website, sent out a tweet to the @Raindance and posted a short note on Facebook. I totally forgot about it until 7pm when I was doing a sneaky catchup on my emails and noticed that nearly 300 people were looking at the www.raindance.org website.

To cut a long story short, over 125,000 people read Shannon's article over the next 48 hours, crashing our site repeatedly and clogging our emails. All that traffic came from those two postings. I just looked at the page now and it's had over 13,000 Facebook likes. Wow.

While getting traffic to one's website is the goal of every internet marketeer, and an indie filmmaker's wet dream, this one has definately backfired in the busy busy run up to this weekend's British Independent Film Awards (we founded the BIFA's, remember?). Do I wish I had never agreed to this popst. Tyhe better part of three days now with no emails and only a partially operating website.

So, if you are A Paul Walker fan, please do NOT read Shannon's excellent tribute article:
In Memory of Paul Walker: 5 Things You Might Not Have Known. It will stop me from getting emails. And I need them urgently!

And if you want to see what the BIFAs are all about, and want to see James Nesbitt MC the show, you can catch it online, for FREE from 8pm on Sunday December 8th right here.

Film Content Envelopes

What? A film content envelope?

Here's what I mean.

Should you have a film on Youtube, you could go straight out and say "Click on this Youtube link" and hope that people would click on the link and go through to your movies. This is how most poeple try to get someone to look at their work.

There is another way, and that is to create a film content envelope. by that, I mean to create an article and embed the link within the article. You could, for example, write an article called "10 Best Docs Of The Year" and make sure that  your documentary is one of the ones listed.

Of course there is peril attached. Before you can successfully do this, you need to follow the 10 Commandments Of Film Content Envelopes

If Your Job Sucks, Make A Film Instead

I know you need to keep at the dull and boring day job - you've got a landlord, right? Well, according to the latest addition to the Raindance team, Rob Levanthall, there might be an alternative: make movies instead! Even if you don't go to film school.

Whay not take a few minutes out of your stressful day and read what Rob's suggestions are. They might make you laugh too, as well as inform.
Read: Your Job Sucks: Make A Film Instead!

Raindance Filmfestival 2013 Sizzle Reel

This year's festival is nearly a month away - and fading from memory quicker than a handover. I was given this sizzle reel by filmmaker James Arden and it's brought back fresh memories of the 21st Festival this afternoon - and pleasant they are.

I hope you have a spare 63 seconds to watch the 2013 Raindance Film Festival Sizzle Reel, and even better to be the first to comment on YouTube.

Raising Film Dough? 3 Ways To Derisk Your Film's Finance

With the 21st Raindance film Festival done and dusted, and with record breaking crowds and an astonishing 600 filmmakers from 5 continent attending, we learned a lot about filmmaking - often by just hanging out in the lobby of the swanky VUE Piccadilly Cinema.

What were most filmmakers talking about? From Carlos Cuaron (yes the bro of the Famous One) to film producer Julian Assange (yes That One) to filmmakers attending Britain's first Web Fest, the question always was (and is): Where's the movie money.

It get's a whole lot easier to raise money if you can offer potential investors some ways to protect the downside.

Here's a bunch of ways you can de-risk your film's finance:

If I Was Looking for film Work, I'd ...

When I started out in the film business I didn't have any training, I had no film school background and I hadn't been to university. I painted sets for nine years in Toronto, and I was a runner at the BBC here in London for two years during the last year of Monty Python.

But what if I was trying to break in now? What are the 3 most useful jobs, the 3 hardest crew members to crew in today's digital age?

Read my article: The 3 Key Jobs No One Can Fill

Theatrical is Dead - Long Live Theatrical

Jon Reiss is filmmaker (Bomb It, Better Living Through Circuitry), , author (Think Outside the Box Office) and media strategist who works with filmmakers, companies and organizations to help them utilize the most recent techniques of direct film distribution and audience engagement. It was Jon who coined the acronym PMD: Producer of Marketing and Distribution – a term widely used for this new key film industry job.

I have met Jon Reis, author, filmmaker, entrepreneur several times and admire his work. He has carved himself a niche as the go-to person for advice on ‘self distribution’ – a term he and I agree is derogatory. Better to call it distribution. But distribution handled by the filmmakers themselves.

Jon’s current crowdfunding film campaign has just ended successfully. He has written a series of wonderful articles about how filmmakers make money in movies in an age of abundance.

In Theatrical is Dead – Long Live Theatrical, Jon goes through 9 different ideas and techniques to create live events which he sees (as do I) the way forward in 'self distribution.

Filmmakers Stay Cool In Heatwaves - 10 Ways

I have grown to hate the hot weather here in London. A week on consecutive 30+ degree days is enough to make one's blood literally boil.

So here I am - the founder of Europe's largest and oldest film festival, the biggest independent film festival in London - sweating like a circus act.

the it dawned on me - Independent filmmakers stay cool! They are cool!

read 10 Reasons Independent Filmmakers Are Cool

What Filmmakers Can Learn From Tour De France Cyclists

Believe it or not there are 4 important things that filmmakers can learn from the professional cyclists running in this week's Tour de France!

Read them here: Four Things Filmmakers Can Learn From the Tour de France Cyclists

Why I Get Up In The Morning

I am really lucky - I love what I do, and I am always meeting the most wonderful and talented people you could hope to meet.

Every once in a while I am forced to sit down and put some of my thoughts to paper - something I have come to dread. And tonight is no different in that respect - it's a deadline for the rewrite of my Lo To No Budget filmmaking book - a book written 11 years ago now!

Go figure! I had to write a reason of where I think filmmaking is going, and how little ole me (and you) fit in.

Want to read what I came up with? Read My Filmmaker's Manefesto.

7 Simple Ways Filmmakers Can Impress

In the near month since I have returned from the Cannes Film Festival I have wrapped the shoot of Love.Honour.Obey, marked Raindance postgraduate film degree papers, and nearly finished the rewrite of the Lo To No Budget Filmmaking book I wrote ten years ago.

It hit me this damp and cold London June Sunday afternoon that there are some pretty basic ways that filmmakers can make themselves look really good (even if they aren't).

I'm not entirely sure what prompted this thought, or what chain of events conspired to drop this idea into my head.
But here it is:
7 Simple Ways That Filmmakers Can Impress

Cannes Film Festival Kicks Off

On Tuesday about 4pm I get a call from a researcher from the BBC and responded to a series of questions about the relevance of festivals and Cannes in particular. of course i told her that Cannes is by far the largest of the festivals and that the larger breakout festivals like Raindance help filmmakers find distribution. I told her that of the 101 features at Raindance last year, 43 managed to get some form of distribution as a result of their screening at our festival.

She asked me to wait for a minute 9it was five minutes in fact) and then came back to ask if I would be available and willing to go to the Beeb (Auntie as she is affectionately known by Brits) to answer the questions on air.

Being the media groupie I am, I agreed and the next morning showed up at the lavish BBC Centre in Portland Place, duly had makeup and all and was led to a TV studio deep in Aunties bowels.

And then I waited. having been told we had a 8 minute slot, there was something called "Breaking News". Seems like France had just announced that they were in recession. Presenter Aaron Heslehurst kept shouting to the control booth "How long is this report?". we finally got on air for just over 90 seconds. You can see the interview here!