Here Is The Ultimate Guide To Distributing A Short Film On The Internet
As we’ve discussed in the past, conventional wisdom about distributing a short film on the internet is to keep a film offline until its festival run is completed. That strategy might have made sense a decade ago, but it’s a recipe for failure in today’s social media-driven online environment.
But what’s the alternative?
Short of the Week, a website that specializes in distributing online shorts, published today what we consider to be the definitive resource on publishing a film online in 2018. The core concept of the piece is “Be Everywhere All At Once,” a strategy that advises to distribute a film on as many different online platforms as possible, and to compress the time between a film’s festival and online premieres (or possibly, even do it all at once).
The piece is based on the input of hundreds of filmmakers that Short of the Week has interviewed and surveyed over the past year to understand what works and what doesn’t work about releasing a short film today. The core concepts in “Be Everywhere All At Once” are as follows:
- Create a online + festival strategy. Submit your film to online outlets early.
- Secure your premiere with a top tier festival or online site.
- Find partners—connect with curators to reach their audiences.
- Don’t prioritize money—it’ll likely hurt your exposure.
- Don’t sign away exclusivity—hang on to your right to ‘be everywhere’.
- Go cross platform and get your film everywhere.
- Internationalize your film with subtitles to reach even further.
- Compress your release window over days/weeks rather than months/years.
- Launch, engage and recalibrate during the week of your release.
- Be prepared to pitch your next idea or project.
The piece goes in-depth on all the above concepts and more. Read the whole thing…it’s packed with great insights.
