Building an audience for your short film

January 1, 2020May 15, 2020
by Snoovies Team

After countless hours of screenwriting, storyboarding, shooting and editing it is done! You now have your own mini movie that you’re super proud of. Maybe it got screened at a couple of film festivals, or maybe you’re not really the festival type and just want it to be seen by as many people as possible. So you put it up on YouTube. And on Vimeo. And then you wait for the thousands of views that will inevitably appear. And a month later, you’re still at 10 views. Now what??

Well sadly there are millions of videos competing for those eyeballs. Just being on the two main video sites is not enough. You somehow need to drive traffic from other websites to your video.

Step 1 is keywords. What have you put in your description and title? Try to find out what searches are trending on YouTube and then see if any are in some way related to your story. That will already help the likelihood of someone discovering your film. Beware of ‘keyword-stuffing’ though. Only use the words that truly relate to your film and use them in a way that they still make up a normal and concise title and description. You can use the ‘tag’ field to add additional keywords that are suitable for your content.

Step 2 is imagery. Does your cover art resonate when it comes up in a long list of other videos? Try to use imagery that would make someone want to see more, just a title with a nice font won’t cut it. Ideally it would be a shot of a climactic moment in the film, or one of your actors showing a strong emotion.

Step 3 is all about sharing your film on as many platforms and blogs out there. There are dozens of websites and apps out there that have already put in the work to build the audience you’re looking for. You’ll likely be competing with a lot less other films on their platforms compared to YouTube and Vimeo.

We at Snoovies focus solely on quality short films, and you’d benefit from the fact that outside of featuring your film we would also dedicate a full section to you: the filmmaker. We give you a platform to share the process behind the film and any other projects you would like to promote. And we do all this non-exclusively, free of charge. You can submit your film to us here.

If you’re looking for exposure outside of mobile devices, a platform you could consider to promote your work on desktops and laptops is shortoftheweek.com. Similar to Snoovies, they focus solely on short films and have additional editorial around the film makers.

Sometimes it might take a while for views to take off. But the magic of short films is that they never really ‘expire’. Just leave them up online, keep plugging and slowly but surely the views will grow. Success favours the determined. Those that know they have a great product and stand behind it long before the rest of the world picks up on it. We’ve got your back.

Film Production

5 Tips on writing your first screenplay

December 1, 2019May 15, 2020
by Snoovies Team

You’ve decided to make your first short film. Congratulations! You are embarking on an exciting journey and your life will never be the same ;). We salute you! To get you started, here are some tips to make sure your new venture is a success:

Less is More

When you first start writing, a common mistake is to end up with a script having dozens of pages. You’re letting out all that creative energy. It’s good to just let everything out that comes to mind, but when it comes down to the product you actually want to film, it is best to keep it short. We’d recommend no more than 10 minutes. Why?

First of all, viewers can easily disconnect if they feel the story isn’t progressing. In comparison to feature films, your viewers will give you a very limited concentration span.

Second, some festivals are less likely to include you in their line-up if your film is longer, as it will take up a bigger slot in their programming.

Prefer Visuals over Text

Have you ever heard the term ‘exposition’? Exposition is a literary device used to introduce background information about events, settings, characters, or other elements of a work to the audience. For instance: a character explains that they’re sad because they had a bad childhood. First time writers often try to explain all their ideas in dialogue between the actors. It is however a lot more powerful to try to explain events and ideas visually, that’s the true power of film.

Try to evoke the response you want in cinematography: sometimes an image of a leaf blowing in the wind is more powerful than any heartfelt monologue.

Keep it Practical

You might have a brilliant idea of an epic fantasy battle in the vein of Game of Thrones. We get it. We would absolutely LOVE to feature a short like that on Snoovies app. Do however keep in mind that Game of Thrones was shot with an average budget of 15 million per episode. Creating 6 Minutes of Game of Thrones will cost you 1 million.

It is important to keep practicalities in mind. How easy will it be to shoot the scene you have in mind? Will it require permits, stunts, CGI, costumes? A simple dialogue with two people in a park can already take hours to get ‘right’, so don’t make things too difficult for yourself when you’re just getting started.

Nothing is more important than the Story

At Snoovies we often get submissions from filmmakers that have a strong track record in visual effects and/or cinematography. Yet we’ve rejected some of the most beautiful works we’ve ever seen. Why?

As we said above, good filmmakers prefer visuals over text. However, some take it too far and end up with 15 minutes of beautiful shots, while nothing is actually happening. That is something you don’t want.

Every story requires a clear beginning, middle and end. There has to be an obstacle, a climax that fundamentally changes the protagonist’s life in the 10 minutes you are working with. You’ll see that even with suboptimal cinematography, a strong story that moves audiences will always win hearts.

Learn from the work of others

Everything great came from great things that preceded it. You don’t have to reinvent the wheel. In order to make a good short film, it is important that you watch a lot of short films. Learn what works and what doesn’t from viewing as many shorts as you can.

Browse through the different ‘moods’ in our app, and make sure you tap ‘learn more about the filmmakers’ on every short you watch. See the obstacles other filmmakers faced, and how they got to where they are. Many filmmakers even share their social media information in our app, and wouldn’t mind at all being reached out to for tips and tricks on how to make a great film.

Concluding

So there you have it. You now have all you need to smash it. You’ll be great. We can’t wait to see the outcome. Once you’ve finished your film and done your festival rounds, make sure you submit it to us. We’d probably love to feature it alongside the other great mini movies we have. Good luck!

Category: Film Production