A 'sell sheet' (also called a 'one sheet') is a film/video licensing industry term for summary publicity. 'Sell Sheet Sampler' is a continuing feature on our blog where we showcase fascinating clips, which, while part of a digital sell sheet, are of interest to a large audience.

Wonderful trailer from a wonderful documentary taking a personable yet clear-eyed view of suburbia.


Click here for the Sell Sheet for
'Radiant City' - Distributed by The National Film Board of Canada

A 'sell sheet' (also called a 'one sheet') is a film/video licensing industry term for summary publicity. 'Sell Sheet Sampler' is a continuing feature on our blog where we showcase fascinating clips, which, while part of a digital sell sheet, are of interest to a large audience.

The greatest minds in the world have thrown in their two cents on the topics, now it’s time for the kids to chime in.

In this remarkably funny and heartwarming clip from the NFB, we get to hear what children have to say about the great beyond.


Click here for the Sell Sheet for
'Kids Talking About Death' - Distributed by The National Film Board of Canada

The situation between longtime frenemies the Geeks and Hollywood heat up in 2008.  Never before has a Hollywood slate catered so vigorously to the tastes of filmgoers of the comic con, fantasy, and sci-fi set. Sure, the geeks are bad on downloading movies (they’re downloading some right now) but they are also an audience: a real live film audience that goes to the theaters and will pay money just to see how badly Hollywood has screwed up their favourite franchise.  Even better, their extracurricular hobbies, such as blogging like mad about films that interest them, have basically acted as a template for how Hollywood has come to understand online marketing.

So here’s to you geeks and here’s to Hollywood.

Let’s take a look at some of the upcoming big geek films with breakdowns, ratings, and embedded trailers!

Continue reading
"‘Geek Films’ Dominate Hollywood Slate in 2008: But Will Any of Them Be Any Good?"

How do you look at the film industry and discover new needs and niches? How do you create innovative fare that will find an audience? And how do you turn your first indie feature into an online phenomenon? In this interview, Chris Elston of Three Blind Artists shares his expertise, experience, and insights into these and other questions.

3BA is dedicated to becoming the go-to company for family and commercial-friendly fare, but are doing it outside of the mainstream. Putting the indie ethos of tenacity, integrity, community, and vision to work, 3BA recently completed its first feature, Shelter. A character drama set in a bomb shelter on the eve of apocalypse, Shelter is already generating internet buzz with its intriguing trailer. With a sophomore effort already well under way, and almost a dozen equally buzz-worthy projects in the pipeline, things are looking bright for this family-run enterprise.

Click here for the One Sheet for
'Shelter' - Produced by Three Blind Artists

Continue reading
"Three Blind Artists: How The Indie Ethos Can Change Commercial Filmmaking for the Better"

Making an independent film is a huge project, and conventional wisdom has it that you: shoot your film, cut your film and then, after that’s all done, you try to sell your film. However, marketing your film should begin during the production phase. But who has the time? That’s just it— you don’t.

So...find some people who do. Marketing is a priority, but it should not be your priority. You need to beg, borrow and trade favors to find a few key people who can stay on top of your marketing needs while your film is in production. Ideally, you want to make the entire production process a marketing process too. Below are a list of five key things you do not want to forget to do, or better yet, that you do not want to forget to find someone else to do for you.

Continue reading
"Indie Filmmakers Looking for Film Buyers: 5 Reasons Why It’s Never Too Early To Start Marketing"

So, you have an indie film and you want to find distribution.

Never have so many options for distribution been available; never has it been so confusing to decide what is right for you and your film. The industry is experiencing a transitional moment; everyone knows online downloads are the future, but nobody knows exactly how it will play out. As well, distribution has gone online too, offering a plethora of choices for the indie filmmaker and producer. What to do, what to do.

This article is the first of a 5-part series that looks at all of the avenues open to you as a filmmaker and distributor. We’ll offer some tips on how to find your film a home.

Regardless of your film’s ultimate destination, your goal is to find a license buyer for your film. Who are film buyers? We’re talking about broadcast TV (cable, satellite, and terrestrial), home DVD companies, VOD service providers, and mobile content providers.

Let’s start this series by examining the psychology of this rare and overworked professional. Here are five things you should know about Film Buyers and 5 tips for putting the best face of your film forward.

Continue reading
"Looking for Film Buyers? 5 steps to secure distribution for your indie film"

We’ve already talked about the history and meaning of ‘sweding’ and we took a quick look at the marketing campaign intent on slipping New Line Cinema’s brand into Webster’s dictionary. But what about videos!

Here are my favourite sweded videos for your delectation. Believe me, after watching the critical amount (4 or 5), it’s the real oddballs that win you over.

Die Hard

and Ghost

I give it to these guys if only for the sing-along soundtrack—nice touch.

See the Sweding YouTube channel here.

On paper it sounds like the sort of viral marketing campaign that would take the genre to the next level, the sort of marketing campaign that would become an overnight superstar of the blog-o-sphere. Yet somehow, Be Kind Rewind’s invitation to 'swede' your own film, a la Jack Black, has met with a surprisingly tepid online response. Perhaps the campaign simply started too late to get its Inter-web legs in shape and find an online following; perhaps the fact that the contest segment of it (submit Sweded videos for prizes) is only open to the UK and Ireland has stalled the growth of a trend.

Apparently coined by Michel Gondry, the term 'sweding' is the practice of remaking a film with a whole lot of love and no resources (you can read about a Brief History of 'Sweding' here). Is the concept of 'sweding' meaningful enough to achieve any lasting cultural significance? It's been a while since we've seen a marketing campaign ambitious enough to try and cash in on coining a phrase. Does it pay off for Be Kind Rewind?

The film opens this Friday and both the film's website and its You Tube channel are still low on entries, although the last two weeks have picked up. The larger problem may simply be that with few exceptions the DIY swedes lack the humor and pizzazz or just the outright weirdness that would demand repeat views and sharing.

Overall, the campaign has seemed a bit fuzzy and out of focus. More of a damp drizzle than internet storm, one wonders about the audience being targeted here. Michel Gondry fans are too shy to seek exposure; and Jack Black fans are too lazy. In some respects, like the film itself, the marketing campaign is a brilliant idea executed with sagging spirit. If nothing else, swedsters may pick up on the potential fun of sweding and continue to build the You Tube channel in time to make a larger impact alongside the film’s DVD release.

It remains to be seen if independent filmmakers can swede this marketing campaign for their own purposes.

Swe·ding (swee'ding) 1. verb. To express your love for something by imitating it in a way that is obviously an imitation. Especially the act of a fan remaking a beloved film with no budget. 2. noun. A marketing campaign from New Line Cinema for the Michel Gondry directed film Be Kind Rewind.

Alison at IFC Blog was kind enough to help us get the word's origins straight:


Gondry's film is about a couple of hapless VHS Video Store clerks who have to swede the inventory of their store in order to keep product on the shelves after a massive tape demagnetization mishap. The film has taken sweding one step further by using the sweding practice in all aspects of the film’s viral marketing campaign: Gondry swedes the film's own trailers, Youtube users are invited to swede scenes of their film favs on Be Kind Rewind's YouTube channel, and the film’s website stages a breakdown of the Internet and quickly swedes a site.

Sweding is basically remaking with no dollars. With a lot of love, duct tape, and well, that's about it. The joy of sweding is the gap between the lack of resources available to the sweder and the sweder's tremendous love for what is being sweded. Anyone can pay tribute with a budget; sweding is paying tribute despite the fact you don’t have a budget. That's true love.

While Gondry might be the first to put a name to this phenomenon, the practice has been around for awhile, and, if the New Line Cinema marketing team has their way, it will reach critical mass in 2008. Who are some notable sweding pioneers? Keep reading...

Continue reading
"Viral Film Marketing: A Brief History Of ‘Sweding’"

Adam Yauch of the Beastie Boys is launching an indie film distribution and sales company called Oscilloscope Pictures.  He has brought in ThinkFilm VP David Fenkel to run things, and David Berger from ThinkFilm is also on board. Bergel and Fenkel know film and over the last few years Thinkfilm has been the company to watch in indie film. The group will be looking to pick up documentary and fiction films from the fest circuit, as well as provide finishing funding.

The down side is Yauch wants to make this happen without any outside financing; he is looking for deals where the filmmakers can “share” the risk. What this means is not exactly clear; but anyone who doesn’t mind a low MG and a DIY ethic should look out for these guys.

Link: The Hollywood Reporter

A 'sell sheet' (also called a 'one sheet') is a film/video licensing industry term for summary publicity. 'Sell Sheet Sampler' is a continuing feature on our blog where we showcase fascinating clips, which, while part of a digital sell sheet, are of interest to a large audience.

"With anorexia you feel too fat. With this I feel too skinny." Extremely interesting glimpse into teenage boys obsessed by body building. In this candid clip we catch an unusual glimpse into the problem of body-image for teenage males, and learn how simple the decision can be to take steroids.

Click here for the Sell Sheet for
'Shredded' - Distributed by The National Film Board of Canada

Congratulations to our development team! Those tireless and cheerful wizards of code have managed to add one more new IPEX TV feature before the holiday break, one we know you’re really going to like. 

Registered buyers and sellers can now import all or some of their contacts from Outlook 2004/2007 and Outlook Express directly into their IPEX TV account.  A few simple-to-follow steps, and you can have your complete sales list at your finger tips.  Need to prepare for a tradeshow?  Blast digital sell sheets, including trailers, to your entire contact list with just a few clicks.  Maybe you’re a buyer and you want to inform multiple members of your team about some great new titles you’ve found. Perfectly formatted IPEX TV e-mails: easy on the eyes, easy to send, a pleasure to receive.

Feel free to contact us at support@ipextv.tv if you have any questions about this new service, or if you would like a tour of the system.

It’s been an exciting and eye-opening 2007 here at IPEX TV and we’re all looking forward to an even more rewarding 2008.  The web industry moves very fast, so you cover a lot of ground when you want to stay up in front.  We’ve come a long way in one short year and we want to thank our colleagues, partners, friends, and families for their support.

What’s ahead? Our platform has matured into the most robust and user friendly film and video content marketplace on the web.  We are looking forward to working even closer with all of our colleagues and clients to help meet head-on the uncertain but exciting changes our industry faces. Production, delivery, marketing, artwork, distribution, and licensing: everything is changing; everywhere there are new opportunities.

5 New Year’s Resolutions

1. Bring you the best and most cost effective film and video content marketing services in the industry.

2. Do more to help our clients understand how the traditional meets the cutting edge.

3. Keep developing new digital tools to serve you better.

4. Bring our community even more news and commentary about film festivals around the world.

5. Help even more independent producers access the licensing industry.

There. That should keep us busy.

All the best from all of us here at IPEX TV. 

Have a successful, inspiring, and rewarding 2008!

E-mail marketing is tough. A study by Forrester research shows that while 83% of companies attempt e-marketing less than 5% are successful.  What’s the secret?

There’s no secret, per se, but film and video distributors targeting license buyers need to be informed about all the potential pitfalls.  A good e-mail marketing campaign demands research, strategy, patience, a smooth follow-up process, and a little high-tech. It’s hard to know where to begin, and it’s natural to be afraid of making a major mistake and alienating your potential buyers.

On the other hand, a good e-mail campaign has proven time and again to be the most cost-effective way to market, and in the film and video licensing industry, it’s becoming a standard and expected practice.  Take some time to analyze what needs to be done, let your creativity and passion for your material inform what you do, and you will reach the film/video license buyers who are searching for the kind of content you offer.

To help get you started, we’ve put together a list of five easy-to-make e-mail marketing mistakes.

Continue reading
"Five Common E-mail Marketing Mistakes That Film Distributors and Producers Need to Avoid"

When most people talk about Search Engine Optimization (SEO) they tend to talk about getting more traffic to their website.  Everyone wants more traffic.  Right?

If you are like most film and video distributors, you care less about volume of traffic and much more about quality of traffic.  The goal is to get the right people visiting your site.  Can SEO do that for you?

Search Engine Optimization is about helping people who want to find your site, find your site.  Optimize your site properly, target keywords intimately related to your business, and the high quality traffic will come.

By making a few technical improvements to your site right now, you can help search engines like Google and Yahoo understand and ‘respect’ what your site offers and then pass the good word on to the thousands of film and video license buyers who use search engines every business day. 

Maybe a buyer only remembers a few words about a title they saw on the back of one of your sell sheets.  Good SEO practice makes it possible for license buyers to find you using even the sketchiest keywords.

We’ve put together a checklist of nine very basic things you can do today to make sure your website is search engine friendly.  Give your site an SEO tune-up, work hard posting keyword rich content, and you will be amazed how fast you can ‘own’ a set of keywords related to a film/video content category or genre.  This means that whenever, or wherever, a buyer searches for content related to your business, they’ll find their way to your website.

This checklist is just as essential for film and video distributors as it is for indie producers and film festivals wanting to boost their exposure.  Everyone can benefit from these best practices.

Continue reading
"Film/Video Distributors and Producers: Make Sure You Know These Nine SEO Recommendations"