Producer Blog

Thoughts from an indie producer.

[elly-hiddlesherloki]

[producerby]

American Film Market - Business

Why go to AFM?  So you can do business.  Everyone there is there because they're looking to expand their copanies.  It's not just Filmmakers looking for handouts either.  There are A LOT of representatives for foreign territotries, distributors, exibitors, and pretty much any sort of company you can image.  it's so worth going just for that.  I've gotten a distribution deal at the AFM, and I'm far from the only one who has.

[producerby]

The American Film Market - Why 1

As promised, today I'll be giving you 5 reasons to go to the American Film Market.  The first and most important is Networking.  You'd be amazed who you can meet at the AFM.  I met Malcolm McDowell there last year.  Unless you've been there or to a similar convention there's no way you can really understand exactly how many industry people go and exactly the sort of contacts you can make there.

[producerby]

Back at it - American Film Market

Hello Followers, Sorry for my prolonged absense, I went to a family wedding and caught my death on the plane back.  I'm going to try to make sure I put at least one post up per day now, so make sure to hit that follow button! In any case, I've been working my butt off trying to get my film financed.  I also just got the Los Angeles Territory for the Institute for International Film Finance.  So given that I need to book many a speaker today, I'm only going to have this single post.  Tomorrow, however, I'm going to give you 5 reasons that every American Film Producer should start going to the American Film Market, and going every year.  Wednesday, I'll give you 5 things to do to prepare for the AFM. Best, Ben

[producerby]

Big Money Helps Too

I know I said Nike won't be likely to fund your film or give you money, but if you do some digging, you can get in touch with their advertising department.  As long as you're professional, it doesn't hurt to ask.  The worst that will happen is that they'll hang up on you.  Rejection is never fun, but it is part of the job.  Don't be afraid to contact the big money, who knows, you might get lucky.

[producerby]

Know What you're asking for

Make sure not to ask for something that there is no way the company can provide.  Don't ask the mom and pop general store for 100,000 dollars, they don't have it.  Maybe ask them to donate some sandwhiches for a spot in the credits.  Approaching restauraunts can be an excellent way to cut your budget as well, if one restaraunt does some craft services at cost, then you've just provided a high quality meal for your crew for very little money.  Don't think that product placement needs to have a dollar amount attached, in the indie world, any help makes you look better and more attractive to investors.

[producerby]

Product placement and you - keep it local

Try local companies first, depending on where you live this could mean small businesses all the way up to relatively large corporations.  I live in San Francisco, so I'm approaching two local coffee chains about product placement, as well as the large chain Peets Coffee for a film I'm working on, as in a sense they're all local.  Many companies have pride in their communities, so they're an easier sell, and still help cut your budget.

[producerby]

Product Placement and you

Hello Readers,

The last couple days have been all about good and bad product placement, which is good to learn from, but honestly most of us indie filmmakers need to figure out more practical uses for getting product placement.

Honestly, most indies aren't going to be able to get Nike to fund their movie.  There's just not enough of a guarantee for distribution to make the advertising expenditure a good risk.  What you can do with big companies is get them to donate product, and thus lower your budget and/or raise your production value. I'm going to post a total of three easy steps throughout the day, as per usual, they'll be every two hours, so stay tuned!

[producerby]

Good Product Placement - Demolition Man

Demolition Man is quite honestly not a great movie.  That said, it is my all-time favorite example of Product Placement in a film.  There are two ways they use to sneak in an ungodly amount of product placement.  At least in my opinion, they both are extremely effective and do not detract from the story.  The first is the fact that in the futuristic "euotopia" the most popular radio station plays what they call "mini tunes."  these tunes are revived classics from the 40s to the early 90s, and were used to sell product.  In other words, the people in this society listen to commercial jingles just for fun.  It serves the purpose of making the futuristic society look completely lame, the audience gets a laugh, and the producers have endless opportunities to raise the very high budget by selling ad space within the film.  In my opinion, everyone wins and it's a great bit of producer script writing. The other example from demolition man is the fact that Taco Bell won the franchise wars, and is thus the only restaraunt in the world.   Essentially, every restaraunt, no matter what it is, is Taco Bell.  They even have gourmet establishments with live piano music (Yes, mini tunes) and a dance floor.  There is much we producers can learn from this film, at least in terms of product placement.

[producerby]

Good Product Placement - Minority Report

Since we had several examples of standard product placement done badly yesterday, I thought it would be wise to include an example of more standard product placement done well.  Spielberg's Minority Report fits that bill quite well.  There are several reasons the product placement in this film is very very well done, foremost among them is that since it's a Sci-Fi possible future piece, all of the brands that are used in the piece get to have a cool futuristic face lift. This can range from cool looking Aquafina Holographic billboards all the way to spiffy ultra futuristic cars and holographic greeters at the gap who scan your retnas and tell you what you bought the last time you came to the store.

The product placement partnerships in this film work in tandem to create a hyper realistic possible future scenerio, as well as make all the products in the film look incredibly cool and attractive to potential customers watching the film.  It is the essence of by the book product placement done well, and should be studied by anyone who really wants to learn about product placement.

[producerby]

Good Product Placement - Kung Pow!

Kung Pow! is quite honestly an extremely cheesy movie.  That said, it has it's moments.  One of the most memorable being a scene involving Product Placement.

The scene involves the main character walking to a campsite carrying a bag of Taco Bell singing "Taco Bell! Taco Bell!  Product Placement for Taco Bell!" and proceeding to gorge on a burrito.  his cohorts chime in with things like "Tasty Taquito," and "Mucho Burrito!" This example is extremely meta, but it works and it's very memorable.

[producerby]

Good Product Placement - American Dad

As we did yesterday, we're going to start off with an example from TV.  This scene is from the American Dad Episod Black Mysetry Month.  It takes place in a burger king, and Steve (the son in the show) asks why they are having the conversation in a burger king.  Stan (the Dad) replies something along the lines of the "Because the economics of Television have changed Son, now eat your Whopper."  Then goes on to say some sort of sales pitch for the fast food conglomorate.

Burger King is very well known for innovation in Product Placement.  It's very interesting to see how frequently they turn up in all sorts of films, TV, and pretty much anywhere.

[producerby]

Good Product Placement - The Greatest Movie Ever Sold

Good Morrow Readers, and happy Tuesday! As promised, today is all about good product placement films, scenes and analysis.  Any Conversation about good product placement should include this film.  It's from the director of Super Size Me, and I'll let it speak for itself in the trailer linked below.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5jXReCaZ5Ts

The reason this film works for me is that it is precisely as meta as the name makes it out to be.  It's a documentary about product placement financed by product placement.  Kudos to Mr. Spurlock for thinking of such a wonderful concept.  You'll find a recurring theme in the films I've chosen to highlight as good product placement is that while they may call attention to themselves in said product placement, they do it in a very creative way that actually enhances the viewing expierience and makes me want to buy a product.  So as always, there will be a post every two hours and a recap tomorrow morning. 

[producerby]

Bad Product Placement - The Book of Eli

Honestly, there's quite a lot I don't like about this movie.  I thought the plot was rather lame, the idea behind it was blatent pandering to the Christian demographic, and the storytelling was mediocre at best.  That said, the thing that REALLY stuck out about it was the use of product placement.  There are two scenes in particular that come to mind when I think back on the terrible product placement in this film.  The first is a decrepit street mall that just coincidentally has the J Crew sign still completely intact and an undue amount of focus is paid to it.  The second is when a group of merceneries brings back a bunch of Oprah Magazines and lays them on the table for their boss. They just happened to be laid out in a way that all their names and logos are prominently displayed.  The implication is clear.

The theme of this film is that this post-apocolyptic society can only be saved by The Bible and Christian beliefs, and that use of the bible by the wrong hands could be used to enslave the populace with fear based upon taking sections of the bible out of context.  To me, the fact that there is quite a lot of blatent corporate advertising in this film runs completely counter to the message this film hopes to convey, and that is the problem with the product placement in this film, and the reason it is one of the worst examples of product placement I can think of. 

[producerby]

Bad Product Placement - Iron Man

When i think bad product placement, this scene always comes to my mind.  It's an example of business impeding on creative storytelling in a film, and in the end it really only serves to knock me out of the movie and dtract from it.  On the whole, I quite like Iron Man.  Apart from The Avengers, it's my favorite Marvel film to date.  However there is one scene in which product placement noticably detracts from the film. 

SPOILER ALERT!!!!!!

You were warned.  Right around the 30-45 minute mark in the film when Tony (Downey Jr.) gets back to the US after breaking out of his Terrorist Prison Cell, he says he needs two things.  The first is a burger, the second is a press conference.  I think that sort of mindset really sets up his character and works very well in the film.  The problem is that Multi Billioanaire Tony Stark would not want a Burger from Burger King after 6 months in prison!  I could have bought Red Robin, or even In and Out.  But no way in hell would he have accepted Burger King.  If it were really happening, he'd have gotten a burger from a primo bistro in LA, since that's where the conference was being held anyway.

[producerby]

Bad Product Placement - Heroes

I know this is a commonly sited complaint that was also made known by Morgan Spurlock in The Greatest Movie Ever Sold, but there is one scene from an episode of heroes in season two in which the Cheerleader character is given the keys to the car as a present from her father.  There's one long shot in which a slow dolly moves across the front of the car, almost as if it was just a commercial for that car make.  It's a circumstance which completely takes us out of the show, and when I watched it I thought we had just taken another commercial break.  This is a prime example of product placement done badly.

[producerby]

Product Placement - The Good, The Bad, and The Useful.

Hello Readers,

One very valid method of financing your film is via product Placement.  There are countless examples of it in media, and over the next three days, I'll be writing about it ad nausium.  Today, I'm going to list some of the examples I've noticed of product placement done badly, tomorrow I'll be posting some of the examples of it that I believe have been done well, and then Wednesday, I'll list how an indie filmmaker can use product placement for their purposes, even if they can't get millions of dollars from Nike or similarly large companies.