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Time, as most important thing
  • With all this budget cameras and indi films talks people forget the most important thing.
    Even if you somehow get camera for $1, made film for $1 and promoted it for $1, it is not enough.
    You need much more valuable resource - time. Time people will be spending watching your film. And people do not want to spend their time on things that are not important or that they do not want.

    Look at the chart below.

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    Even if you think that you are competing with other indi guys, you are not.
    You are competing with mass media, TV corporations, your local TV stations and cable networks, major film distributors. And all of them fight for time.

    Via: http://www.bls.gov/tus/charts/

  • 7 Replies sorted by
  • Nothing kills me more than a short or indie film that takes forever to get to the good stuff. For a no name film, you've got 5 minutes tops or I'm clicking off. For a internet short, 30 seconds. Front load the action or drama or comedy, then build up to the meat of the story when people are interested in seeing what happens next.

  • @CRFilms

    I am talking about slightly different thing. Not that you need to catch people fast.
    Using marketing terms, I am talking about potential market size. I don't know why, but most indie guys fail to understand the reason why they can not make money on their stuff. And it is all simple.

  • @Vitaliy_Kiselev I agree with you that most people don't realize they're competing with all of Hollywood and TV and other media. What I'm saying is, because of that, you need to catch people fast and with good content.

  • I find "important" to be very subjective, same as attention span, which of course is pushed a lot lately to be shorter and if we keep going this direction would develop a "insect" view i guess :\

    But the world is wide and there is audience for all these variables.

  • Distributing televisions to a population is one of the most effective forms of birth control. I guess sex falls in the "other leisure activities"... but that's a digression. @CRFilms competing in the attention war is not exactly a solution since it was the escalation of the attention war that got us into this situation in the first place. But looking at these numbers I'd almost rather be an indie filmmaker than a book or magazine publisher.

  • Time spent on PC, Tablet, Phone and TV

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  • This chart says if you're aged 30, you have 240 shots at success, based on 3 month projects. Most feature films take years, so time is running out!

    http://fundersandfounders.com/how-to-never-give-up-becoming-entrepreneur/

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