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“Before you get someone to watch your movie, you’ll need to get their attention,” says Eugene Hernandez. “But everybody’s got so much coming at them on a given day, and you’re trying to get their attention for even 20 seconds.” 

That’s why, Eugene explains, you should put a lot of thought into your press kit. “Because that’s how people are going to remember your film, both before and after they see it,” adds Eugene. “It’s really important to — for lack of a better word — kind of agonize over it. Ask, ‘Does this image represent the film? Is this the image we want other people to remember when they think of our film?”

Eugene also advises filmmakers to take pictures while still on set. Many professionals agree. Eugene has been on and moderated many film festival panels over the past 25 years. “The most common piece of advice is to take good pictures on your set,” he points out. “It sounds logical when you’re not making the movie, but when you are, it’s the easiest thing to forget.”

Think ahead to when your film goes to festivals or distribution. When a company wants to buy your film, they’ll ask for photos. If you don’t have those photos, you can’t recreate your set and costumes from four years ago. As you film, make sure you capture the images that will represent your film in the future.

Some marketing and distribution panels recommend spending money on this process. “Hire a photographer,” says Eugene, “or if you have a friend who’s really good at that, invite them to your set. Have them take pictures while you’re shooting or rehearsing.” Eugene recommends taking some posed photos of the cast, too.

You may not use these photos for years, but they matter. “Those are the images that will fuel the materials you create,” advises Eugene. “Those are the images that you’re going to hand someone on your postcard three years later at a film festival. It’s essential.”

 “Lovebirds came together because I had read this really funny script. It was originally a little bit darker and a little bit edgier, but it was just a really fun script about a couple that could be anybody who was breaking up. They got involved in what they thought was a murder while they were breaking up, and had to deal with their relationship while they had to stay together,” says Tom Lassally. “It was a very funny script and maybe more on the independent side when we first started it. When you’re going for a pairing like this, you’re trying to think, what is a fresh way to pair two great people?”

“I worked with Kumail before on Silicon Valley, and he’s such a gifted comedian and actor,” Lassally continues. “At that point, you would not see him do something like this. Then looking at Issa Rae, who at that point had not done a role like this, and to pair them as a really interesting couple. It was a really special dynamic that made the whole thing come together in a very different way. It was an example of one and one making three. The approach to do a romantic comedy with a African-American woman and a Pakistani lead and not necessarily have to make it about that seemed like a really fresh way to do a movie.”

“We financed it with a terrific company called MRC, and then Paramount stepped in to become our partner to release it. We did a lot of development with them, we worked on it with them, and we went and shot the film in New Orleans. Netflix came in because they liked the movie, but, on a practical level, they had a movie that already had Paramount and MRC spending money on marketing to create awareness for something, and that would be a good thing for Netflix.”

“All of these movies are sitting there. One of the first to be bought by a streamer, maybe even the first, was Lovebirds because they really liked the movie. They loved the cast, but they also knew they had some awareness going into them doing their job, which helped. The movie seemed to have performed well for them. At least people got to see it even though we were disappointed that we didn’t get to see it in theaters.”

How the streaming wars brought new narratives to the marketplace
“I think one of the things audiences we work with look for is a story that hasn’t been told before,” says David Ninh. “I think with everything going on in the film industry, we know that we see a lot of white perspectives. We know we see works from a lot of white male directors. What’s exciting right now is a definite groundswell of support and resources for people of color, for minorities.”
“What’s interesting for producers now is there is a real interest in specificity,” says Tom Lassally. “There’s a real interest in different stories in film and TV. One upside to having so many shows is that to stand out, you’ve got to be really different.
I think that’s been great for business. The industry is now actively looking for unique points of view, quirky characters, different takes on the world, new voices. The TV and film industry is looking for people who have a point of view.
There’s only so many ideas to write about so execution is key. There’s so much interest in all areas.
It’s an exciting time to be a creator
“There’ll be an adjustment at some point in terms of the streaming wars and the film and TV industry. There’s so much,” Lassally notes. “Now that these services are becoming a la carte, requiring subscriptions to multiple streamers, most of America and the rest of the world can’t afford to buy everything they want.”
“So, I do think there will be consolidation. What’s still exciting though is that some uniquely singular stories have been found by massive audiences. I think it’s a very encouraging time for young creators to say, ‘I have a point of view and it might be really different. It might even feel really niche. But if I can execute it well, I can create something.’ There’re many examples of that. So, I look at that as the big positive.”
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 “People love to make movies. People love to watch movies. But how would you start with making a movie? A lot of my students make movies about some emotional experience that happened to them-the first time they fell in love, the first time they broke up with someone, their parents’ divorce, their parents getting remarried for a second time, them discovering something emotionally about themselves, a big event in someone’s life, which is great for the person that it happened to,” Says Thomas Mangan. “But why do I want to watch a story about someone’s first girlfriend or first boyfriend unless, it somehow relates to me?”

“When I encourage my students to pitch, or when you’re pitching any type of project, you have to have a nice hook. It’s really the telling of a joke. It’s a setup of a story.”

“I’m going to tell you something that happened to me,” Mangan continues. ” I didn’t know it at the time, but my first girlfriend was the princess of Monaco. It just so happened she was at camp. I went there, and I met her there. I didn’t know any of this at the time. To my surprise, when her parents came, they were Prince Rainier and Princess Grace.”

That’s how you tell a story about someone falling in love and make it much bigger but somehow relate it to you as a person. To say, you’re not going to believe what happened to me today. I was riding the subway and so-and-so did this and so-and-so did this. If you remember, the big bank robbery that happened, the guy tried to escape by the subway. That’s where I ran into him. If you take a big event story and then somehow make it personal, that’s where the story has resonance as a pitch.

In the independent world, if you’re going to make your first film, your first film should be one of three films. It should be either a quirky comedy, a real relationship movie, not a romantic comedy, or a horror film, slash, thriller film. If you concentrate on one of those, you have the best ability to break out and connect with audiences.

Most audiences want to go to see a movie that they have a human connection with emotionally. If you go to see a movie that scares you, it’s worth the $10 or $20 you paid for it or $7. If you see a movie that makes you laugh and you laugh at that movie, then you feel that the money’s been well spent.

If you ever go to a movie and watch the credits, looking for a producer, you’ll see that there are many different kinds of producers. For example, there’s usually just one director. In a film, there’s usually just one cinematographer. In a film, there’s usually only one person who does craft services. But there can be dozens of producers, because all the roles that a producer is associated with may be broken up into several smaller jobs,” explains David K. Irving.
You have executive producers, producers, co-producers, associate producers, assistant producers. All of them may do overlapping jobs, or many of them may do similar jobs. The only way you can find out what somebody did on a picture is to call somebody from the picture and ask what they did on that particular picture. Whatever their duties are, the producer is very key because, as a director, you want to have a partnership with somebody who will be a buffer between you and the world, to make sure that you, as a director, can do the best job possible.
“In preproduction, the producer is responsible for raising money for the film. Again, the script will be his or her best asset if you can cast any name. People that help put a lot of elements together is called packaging, “Irving states. “Sometimes you presell the films, sometimes you take ideas to festivals and get some upfront money from a foreign distribution. Producers have a number of ways where they can gather all the funds to make sure you have ample money to do a film. Financing is key.”
“In preproduction, the planning, in addition to storyboards and floor plans, includes creating a schedule. The schedule and the budget have to be balanced, as does the schedule has to balance with the script, and the budget has to balance with the script. If you have a script that takes place on the planet Septetus with 55 aliens and spaceships, but you only have $200,000 to make the film, it’s going to be very difficult,” says Irving.
“The opposite is true as well. If you’ve got two characters on a park bench like the movie, I’m Not Rappaport, a $60 million budget would be too much for that film,” Irving explains. “Always finding a balance between the script and the budget is your job as a producer or your job as a director. The same can be said for the schedule.”
A director needs five things to make a film:
1. Adequate resources, which is the budget
2. A great script, which we’ve mentioned already.
3. A fabulous cast
4. A fabulous crew
5. And they need *COUGHS* their health
Once you have all those elements, you can make a film. The producer will help you make sure that all the elements come together.

“The producer’s role can be defined like this: they’re the person who turns the lights on, staying until everybody else has left the room. Then finally, when everyone else is gone, the producer is the one to turn the lights off. The producer is the person(s) responsible for the making of the film from start to finish,” explains Janet Grillo.
“Typically, that involves conceptualizing the movie in some way, either engaging the services of a writer, a director. Sometimes it may involve optioning underlying intellectual property and hiring a writer to adapt it. It may mean finding a project and becoming partners with somebody else, joining another existing production team, or perhaps a writer/director who has already initiated the project.
It’s being part of a collaborative mind that supports the vision of the project—what it’s going to be. It’s figuring out how the team will assemble and then supporting the filmmaker in executing that vision. It’s bringing on required team members.
“As a producer, I would be there from the very start, helping to ideate what the team is envisioning,” says Grillo. “We determine immediately who wants to see this story. Who’s the audience? Is there an audience for this film? This helps us determine the market value, right? Because what gives a project market value is an audience.”
Determining your film’s value
How can you determine what the audience is?
Well, what kind of story is it? What’s the genre? What is the type of audience that typically wants to see this kind of film?
How is it enough like other movies that you can kind of sense its appeal, but different enough that it will draw an audience? We figure the film’s estimated production cost. So, then the question becomes, ‘is it too much? Will it cost more than the perceived market value?’
Market value for a movie is often contingent upon star attachments. So, the next question we try to answer is: ‘how can we get stars attached to a film that will give it this perceived market value and attract funders?’
“The producer is actively part of that ideation, that strategizing. Once market value is determined, we’ll try and identify potential funders. We’ll also look for producing partners, financiers, and distributors,” Grillo explains.
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“There are three main stages of film production,” explains Alrick Brown. “In the film industry, there is the pre-production, the production, and the post. You might think that planning and pre-production are the most important things, and you’re right. But when it comes down to the practical time of filmmaking, people rarely put enough time into the pre-production, getting the script together, the casting, and the location. You do that part right, and your life is much, much smoother in the production.”
On set, the actual shoot may last a day or a couple of days, depending on the length of the script. In Hollywood, it could last anywhere from a month to three months. That part of the process is the meat and the bones. Before you get to the meat and the bones, you’ve got to get the recipe, organize the kitchen, and gather the ingredients so that the cooking process goes smoothly.
Then there’s the post. In the film industry, the post is the last draft of the script. It’s the final version of that script. No matter what you wanted to write or do, you can only edit what you have.
Brown continues, “Looking at the material of what you shot, you say, this is what I have to work with. Did I capture my story? How well have I captured it? You cut it together and have to think about sound design, color correction, ADR, and everything that can help enhance. For new filmmakers, it’s crucial to look at this journey as a holistic experience.”

Let’s take a look at the role critics play in the film industry and how every year they get together to discuss the best films and reward them for their effort.

“Film gets released. Critics write about it. Critics love to champion work that they’re passionate about,” explains Eugene Hernandez. “A group of critics, at the end of the year, meets to say, Ok, what were the films that mattered to us this year?”

Critics watch the most films out of any kind of writer or journalist. They’re like programmers of festivals, the folks that choose the films. Eugene explains that they watch lots and lots of movies. At the end of the year, they sit back and make a list, and they say, well, what was my favorite? What was my favorite film of the year? What was the best performance? What was the best-what had the best costumes or the best editing or the best direction, writing, various categories?

There are several critics groups at the end of the year in December you see a lot of. If you’re aware of it and thinking about it and you do a search on Google at the end of the year and you look for sort of critic’s prizes or best films according to critics or even top 10 lists, you’ll see a lot of that. You’ll see that critics are championing, celebrating, and highlighting the films that they were the most passionate about.

Eugene says that could be a great way to bring more attention to a film as well. A film comes out maybe early in the year or it’s at festivals earlier in the year, and then suddenly at the end of the year, critics are looking at it against all the films they’ve seen, the hundreds of films they’ve watched that whole year. And they’re saying, oh, these are the ones that stick with us, that matter, that is worth giving more attention to.

The awards season -as it’s called for the industry at the end of the year and into the beginning of the new year- is the moment when a lot of these films are celebrated.

“Whether that’s at the Golden Globes in January or at the Oscars later in the winter or early spring, these are the highest-profile awards,” Eugene says. “There are different levels and layers of awards, starting at local film festivals and national, international film festivals, but also continuing to the critic’s groups in the fall and then the higher profile, well-known awards.”

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In the 21st century, the editing process is very different between fiction and nonfiction. For Sam Pollard, the nonfiction editing process depends on whether or not the film contains interviews. “If it’s an interview-based film, I will make sure that the director has transcribed all the interviews, which I can read to make selects,” says Sam.
“Sometimes I just read the interviews. Sometimes I read and watch them at the same time, so I can hear the cadence of the person who’s being interviewed.”

Once Sam makes his selects, he uses a step-by-step system. If the filmmaker has shot B roll or verite footage, Sam starts by watching that. He pulls the things he likes and the things that work in terms of look, feel, and relevance.

From there, Sam determines the film’s structure. He writes down the interviewees’ themes on 3×4 cards. On a poster board, Sam lays out a three-act structure for the film based on those themes. He arranges the cards into these three acts, and that’s how he builds the film.

Of course, Sam’s editing process looks different for films with no interviews. “If it’s just raw footage that’s been shot on location, I’ll just make selects from that footage,” Sam explains. “Instead of using the storyboard structure, I’ll just edit sequence after sequence. Fo example, someone shot me today, getting up and doing my activities. I would just edit that sequence in order.”

After Sam edits his sequences, he starts thinking about the beginning of the film. “How do I want to start this film?” he asks himself. “Do I want to start with Lizzie having the idea? With me getting an email about this program?” Then, Sam moves his sequences into place.

This editing process lets Sam create order and structure. “That’s the way I work with documentaries,” Sam says, “because 90% of documentaries have no scripts.”

There’s a movement right now in the world with streaming and online audiences, and filmmakers who self-distribute their films. These filmmakers figure out how to get their films booked and get them into theaters and do everything themselves. Taking the self-distribution route is completely possible for you, too. It takes a lot of work, but it’s definitely possible.

According to film industry expert David Ninh, “When I think about the role of distributors that we work for, and specifically our distributor and my role, it’s very curatorial.” Distributors look for unique storytelling. They look for whether or not the filmmaker has an interesting voice or an interesting story that they want to tell the world. They look at the film and if it’s going to be relevant and special down the road in their library. Or if it’s going to become a classic, because distributors sometimes compete for films. David adds, “I think that when there is a good film, there’s a lot of interest. A lot of distributors want it for themselves so that they can put their stamp on it and put it out to the world with the filmmaker.”

Those are very striking instances for the filmmaker to figure out the right home for their film, to get the film out to the world, and to figure out who can be the best partner for them to get it out in the widest way possible. Filmmakers need to outline the goals for their films. Some filmmakers just want a lot of money and to sell the film. Some filmmakers are more concerned with getting it out organically and having the theatrical experience by getting it rolled out in as many theaters as possible. The money is secondary to them because it’s more important to build the profile of their film in their career.