This is a special mid week episode of the Video StudentGuy podcast. Thursday night we had a special topic presentation by Franco Sacchi, a filmmaker and instructor at CDIA. He presented his documentary, American Eunuch, as an example of how to create a documentary.
The class covered every step of the production process beginning with finding the idea, preproduction, the shoot, post and promotion. Check out IFP.org for help marketing your film.
Franco briefly referred to the Long Tail marketing concept which I try to explain in a nutshell. This was a term popularized by Chris Anderson of Wired and he went on to write a book about it as well. He also has a blog on it. I believe this business model has significant impact on all content producers and will continue to gain mind-share over the next several years.
Everything about the film should be rolled up into a website for promotional purposes. Include budget, proposal and treatment to demonstrate your organizational skills. You should contrast the earlier American Eunuch site to the more current This is Nollywood website to see how he is using the web to create buzz about his movies. Nollywood is a documentary about the growing film industry in Nigeria. That film is currently in post.
Towards the end of the show I present a few of my thoughts about the movie. Keep in mind I only saw a portion of the film. All the same I give it a thumbs up. I close out with some production notes about this podcast.
Chapter Titles
- 00:08 This Week
- 01:25 Franco Sacchi
- 01:50 Costs
- 03:44 Find the story
- 06:31 Preproduction
- 07:41 The Shoot
- 08:43 Post
- 10:03 Promotion
- 11:40 The Long Tail
- 13:36 Websites
- 15:23 Film Commentary
- 18:10 Close - Production Notes
