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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.

“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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We sat with an industry expert in film to take a closer look at how the above the line and below the line budget works in the film industry and tv industry.

“When the film is getting made, the producer will work with and help to assemble a team that will help to execute it,” explains Janet Grillo. “So, when we look at a budget, there’s a top sheet budget, which is a thick document, 26-30 pages of real detailed, thoughtful estimation of the costs, from development all the way through to distribution.”

There’s a top sheet, which is usually one or two pages, that’s summarizing what those costs are. On the top sheet, imagine a sheet and imagine a line. There’s an above the line, and then there’s below the line.

The costs above the line on the top sheet of the budget, are everything to do with the ideation, creation, and envisionment of the project before cameras roll. Think of above the line as before cameras roll, explains Janet.

“Below the line is when you’re ready to make the damn thing,” says Janet. “It’s getting the cameras rolling. So what’s going to be above the line? Your writer, your director, the cost of the intellectual property, meaning the screenplays, is it based on a book, a magazine, a comic strip, is it a remake, that’s the intellectual property and all the costs of developing that into a screenplay.”

The people involved with doing that are the director, the writer, yourself, the producer, and some other producing partners that you might have, they are above the line.

And sometimes stars. If to get the film funded, you’ve got some big market value actors, they’re going to be above the line as well, says Janet.

Below the line is going to be everybody else. That includes the cinematographer, camera crew, and everybody involved with handling the equipment to the lighting, the gaffers, all the teams that put the equipment in place, the production design. All the people who work on building the sets, costumes, the people involved with wardrobe, creating the look and making the costumes and dressing the actors, all of the people involved with hair and makeup. All of the people who work on the making of the film.

KIMBERLY ALEAH: As a content creator, data is one of the most powerful tools that you have at your disposal. Ultimately, when you make something, you want to make sure that you’re getting it out in front of as many different eyes as possible. What I do when making a piece of content from a creative standpoint, is always start with the fact that we need a hook. We need something that’s going to add something different to the larger cultural conversation. This is because when you’re on the internet, there’s unfortunately a lot of other stuff to compete with.

Once I have that hook that we’ve used from pre production, production, editing, all the way through the development process, we have to figure out where we’re going to put it. This is when data comes into play, because data allows you to profile your audiences. That can look like a number of things.

For one, you want to find out when people are consuming content. Are people consuming content on Monday, Wednesdays, and Fridays at noon? Are people consuming content on Tuesdays and Thursdays at 6:00 PM?

Another thing you want to ask yourself is – what is my target audience? Am I going for school age children? In which case, maybe I want to publish stuff before the school day starts at 8:00 or after the school day is over at 3:00? Is my audience younger professionals? In that case I might want to wait until they get off from work. Is my audience more based in New York than LA? What does that day look like for them?

Just asking all the different questions about who an audience is, what type of content they want to consume, when they want to consume it, and then lastly, on what device, is important to effectively reaching them.

Are they consuming content on a smartphone? Are they consuming the content on a desktop computer?

Across different age demographics, you’ll find that for the 13 to 18 window, a lot of that is vertical video. When you’re a creator, it might incline you to consider shaping your piece so that it plays a little bit more aesthetically for a phone.

It’s just thinking about all the different questions of who the audience is, what time they consume their content, where they are consuming their content, and lastly the ideal duration. Duration is one of the most powerful aspects of data because it lets you know that not only is an audience engaging with content, but they’re sticking with it. They’re watching for more than three to five minutes. They’re watching the full 12 to 15 minutes.

This is where you find your strongest audiences, because you’ve made something that they find interesting. If you’re already starting with something on your phone, and you’re doing it with a group of diverse individuals, and throwing it into this larger ecosystem, it’s not only going to inspire other people to share your work, but it’s also going to inspire you to create new things that you didn’t think of originally.

And so for me, I love smartphones, which are very on brand for millennials. It really is one of those things that you have as a tool in your pocket to tell stories instantaneously. When we talk about these larger social movements that are happening, there’s a reason that a lot of the stimulus, a lot of the incidents that start those movements were recorded on phones.

They’re so much more accessible. They just let everyone have an immediate voice that doesn’t have to be mitigated by a traditional development room, a traditional studio process. A lot of the bureaucracy gets skipped, and a lot of the content making gets put first.

What does the future of cinema hold? I have often been beaten up over the last 10 years. Therefore, I’ll be very shy to say what I ought to say. You know my guess. I can tell you what I hope it will be, because we’re witnessing a television take over, streaming services take over the theater business unless you’re a big tent-pole movie.
We need to think about what we want for the theater industry in the future. The streaming television industry is booming because they produce great and digestible content, a user-friendly format, great funding, and plenty of resources. These factors negatively impact the film and television industry, which makes it difficult for traditional theaters to sustain their industry in the future.
I believe in the theater. I believe in human nature working as a society. However, we must employ the mentality of a ritualistic temple to maintain human nature in society. I refer to it as a temple because many of us don’t attend a physical church or a temple anymore.
We need to go to the movie theater. I’m not hallucinating. We, as a group, go to a place, preferably a dark house. We’ll speak freely, a heart-to-heart communication so that we enter an abstract world, forgetting reality. But you get down to the truth. I think that’s something. When you walk out, life is different. You are inspired.
It’s more than entertainment—it’s spiritual as well. I don’t see how you can get the same effect sitting at home watching television, going to the bathroom, and resume watching. It’s different. I think of the ritualistic event presented in a black box, where you’re sitting as a group, as a congregation. I think from day one in the cave; the cavemen spoke of how to hunt lions over a campfire. People become absorbed into storytelling and togetherness.
I still believe in the theater. However, I think it needs an upgrade. It’s hard to compete with television. If you want people to schlep into a big place, but have safety issues, then at some point it will cease to be. I don’t know how much theater can survive. Everybody’s going through a difficult time.
My thoughts are immersive, so we can experience with a group of people. You’re inside a movie instead of watching it from outside. The movie has its own language, 2D film, whatever, but it’s something bigger than life, with fine quality. Like when I was young, and I’d see a Hollywood make a movie.
No matter what they do, we go see it. You have a choice in this. Those days are probably harder to get back. It’ll be taken away by television, and unfortunately, sometimes iPhones. But in theater, you must make something good, very special. And some of them will be immersive.

“When talking about film history, you have to begin to think about what cinema is at its core. Cinema or motion pictures is an image that moves,” Alrick Brown explains.”
“As soon as man could see, he started interpreting stories, looking at the stars, differentiating shapes of objects, naming constellations. As soon as a kid could, they probably were drawing images with sticks and dirt.”
Early cave dwellers used image paintings in caves to communicate. Later, the Egyptians used hieroglyphics to tell their stories and preserve histories.
Those symbols and images were a prelude to film’s beginnings.
Over a century ago, the Lumiere brothers and Thomas Edison’s company, experimented and found ways to make images move, creating motion pictures.
Gomez-Rejon’s film tells how film history and Edison, others are joined by history
“I made a film recently called The Current War: The Director’s Cut. I wanted to show how filmmaking and electricity were invented at the same time,” comments Alfonso Gomez-Rejon.
It started in the 1870s with beautiful studies in film motion by Eadweard Muybridge. They were done, I think, with twelve cameras. That evolved into William Dixon and Edison working together on the kinetograph and kinetoscope.
Next came, the Black Maria, Edison’s film production, considered to be the first film company. Remember, at this time in history film was still a novelty. But then we see it progress. The Lumiere brothers (Auguste and Louis Lumière) have the first kind of commercial film screening.
Georges Méliès starts doing narrative storytelling, but it’s still very theatrical with a fixed camera.
“Everything evolves again with Edwin S. Porter’s, The Great Train Robbery. This film, with its illusion of uninterrupted time caused by innovative (for the time) camera cuts and pans, is like the beginning of modern film language, or film vocabulary,” states Gomez-Rejon.
It’s fascinating to see their work and how it’s been interpreted by film industry types throughout the ages. Certainly, these films spoke to me.
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“Fundamentals” means understanding the basics. For filmmakers, that means understanding where film has come from. Film is only a little more than 100 years old, but it includes literature, photography, drama, theater, dance, and music, all rolled into one art form. It’s a very powerful tool.

If you want to be successful in this field, it’s important to know what’s come before. When you stand on the shoulders of those giants, you yourself can become a giant in the field. Knowing the history of film will teach you what works and what doesn’t work, and that will make you a better filmmaker.

For instance, if you want to pitch a story, you might reference a film. Sometimes, these references can help you communicate an idea to somebody else.

Sometimes it’s hard because you don’t want to sound derivative, because hopefully you’re moving the medium by doing some original work or interpreting. It depends on what kind of filmmaker you are.

Still, you can connect to previous films to develop your style. Someone who expresses themselves with a camera should learn from previous films, just like an author would want to know literature to see how other voices interpreted certain feelings. When you make these connections, you can find a kindred spirit in a ghost of the past.

It’s sad that people in this industry don’t love history as much as they should, because we are artists. There’s always a struggle between art and commerce, but it is important to know everyone that came before.

There’s always something beautiful to learn from film history. Consider the originators of the montage, colors in film, Avant Garde film, documentaries, and music. They’re all telling a story. By looking back, you can move forward and stay current. You’ll hear new voices, learn from them, and be humbled by them.