INTRODUCTION

In general, short films in the US serve the very narrow function of being a pay-to-play work sample for emerging talent. They mostly get distributed amongst industry insiders for the “currency” of prestige, rarely so much as break even let alone turn a profit, and are not typically spread amongst the general public as cultural artifacts unto themselves. While I did want Bros Before to be that professional work sample for me, I also knew the project had the potential to gain somewhat of a cult following since it would resonate with my hyper specific demographic that doesn’t much narrative film made for us.

OVERALL STRATEGY

I decided that my distribution goals were 1. Have a genuine cultural impact amongst my trans peers and 2. Advance my career/profile as a filmmaker. Since these are both pretty abstract, I created the more concrete goal of having as many people as possible watch my movie. I also made some anti-goals, things that are tempting to pursue but ultimately end up being distractions or deterrents from what I really wanted. I decided I would NOT prioritize 1. Making money* or 2. Making it “exclusive” to view the film.

*I have made maybe like half the budget back from screening fees and will happily accept money, I just don’t let it be the deciding factor in any decision making.

As an artist, it’s easy to feel like you’ve made something incredible that the whole world should be begging you to see and should be paying for the privilege of experiencing. Though a part of me does feel that way, when I take a step back from my ego I have to acknowledge that nobody is going to automatically care about some random guy’s self-produced short film with all unknown talent. Audience attention is a precious resource, especially in the digital age. In reality, people watching my film is a gift THEY are giving to ME and not the other way around. 

With this framework in mind, here’s what I did:

STEP ONE: MAKE A GOOD FILM.

This is obviously a huge endeavor which I don’t want to understate, but for the purposes of this blog post about distribution I’m just gonna mostly gloss over this part. The film is good and I know it and that was a necessary prerequisite for having a successful distribution campaign. The one thing I do want to highlight about this is that I did create the film knowing exactly who the target audience was, which certainly helped with outreach. It also provided a guiding light in the production process, as I leaned heavily into niche jokes and references I knew only certain people would get. 

STEP TWO: FILM FESTIVALS 

This is also a whole other can of worms I could write about for days but if you want a good primer I’d recommend this article titled Are Film Festivals a Scam? which was written by my on-again-off-again boss, who has taught me a huge chunk of the lessons undergirding my decisions to go about things in the way I have. At the risk of spoiling the article, the answer to the question of whether they’re a scam is…yes and no. They are often scams, and usually submissions fees are scams, but festivals can also be incredibly beneficial and it’s difficult to fully escape their significance in the film distribution landscape.

So in order to maximize my festival strategy, I attached several professional mentors to the project. They helped me strategize where to submit and secure fee waivers at places they had screened in the past. I also sent dozens of cold emails with waiver inquiries to other festivals I thought might be a good fit with a personal appeal about why they should consider my film. I spent a few hundred dollars on certain festival submissions very sparingly and strategically.

In this initial run, I reached out to over a hundred festivals, submitted to around 60, and was accepted to 11. Later on I was able to double the number of screenings from organic spread.

STEP THREE: LEAK THE FILM 

Traditionally, films are kept off of online platforms during their festival runs in order to drive audiences to go see them in person. Most festivals mandate this, though it remains to be seen whether it’s the most effective tactic. Either way, I decided to use the festival run and all its manufactured exclusivity to create buzz. 

Whenever I had a festival acceptance, I made a unique web graphic and shared it on social media. Sometimes these graphics helped drive audiences to the festival both in-person and virtually but mostly what they did is spread awareness and a sense of legitimacy amongst my online following (as well as grow my follower count). Whenever I posted about festivals, I would always get a few DMs from people who couldn’t access the film through the festival because of either geography or finances. I sent every single one of these people a private link to view the film with the promise that they either post about it on social media or review it on Letterboxd in exchange. After a certain point I started following up every festival promo tweet with an invitation to DM me for a screener.

I also did a version of this IRL. I showed the film to a bunch of my friends in Chicago at a private screening party and in small group hangouts. As a result, a lot of random people would come up to me at parties and events saying they had heard about the film and wanted to watch it. Whenever this happened I would also get them to follow me on social media and send them a private link as well. 

At some point during this step I got interviewed by my local juggalo reporter Micco Caporale for the Chicago Reader. The article didn’t really correlate with any specific event I was promoting but it got me more followers and I was able to pull quotes from it anytime I needed to. 

STEP FOUR: LOCAL PREMIERE 

My original plan had been to locally premiere at a Chicago festival but it got rejected from all of the ones I submitted to. I was super annoyed at first but honestly this ended up being a HUGE blessing in disguise because instead of my film being buried in some random shorts block I got to throw my own premiere and make it all about my vision (slay). Through relationships I had built in the local film scene over the past few years, I ended up being the recipient of a grant where I got to plan and produce an evening at Facets theater in co-production with Full Spectrum Features and keep the box office revenue. I decided to curate a feature-length collection of shorts that I thought went well with my film and split the revenue with the other artists. I added a reception with booze, art vendors, and a photo booth. I promoted the event really hard for months and got it to sell out. This obviously got a lot of new people to watch my film, but it also boosted my profile as a curator and has directly or indirectly led to a lot of future opportunities. 

STEP FIVE: PRESS AND PREP FOR ONLINE DROP 

I had always known I wanted my film to be free online eventually, but I didn’t want it to get lost in the shuffle of endless aspiring filmmakers on Vimeo. One day, I came across a call for submissions for transmasculine moving image work for a new London-based platform called The Otherness Archive. It seemed like a match made in heaven! I submitted my film only to find out that the curator had already heard about Bros Before and had been planning on reaching out to me. 

I responded again and suggested we coordinate the drop of their new platform with the online release of my film in order to double the hype. We made a joint press release and sent out a bunch of press inquiries to a list of journalists we created by researching people who wrote about similar projects in the past. We ended up getting 4 or 5 articles apiece (a lot of the journalists decided to interview both of us but turn them into separate stories). 

STEP FIVE AND A HALF: ONLINE DROP RELEASE PARTY 

It had been 6 months since my local premiere and I’m extra so I decided to do another screening party to celebrate the online release. I curated a different feature-length lineup of shorts to go along with Bros Before, this time comprised of all pieces that were hosted on the Otherness Archive. Around 150 people showed up, with I think only minimal overlap with the audience who had been at Facets previously. 

STEP SIX: ACTUAL ONLINE DROP 

I did a big social media campaign in anticipation of the online drop, and photos from the in-person screening event also doubled as online promotion. I made big posts at times when I had a couple hours free to monitor what people were saying, respond, and repost in order to keep the engagement sustained. This is the part that’s probably most legible from the outside, but I think it’s important to emphasize how late in the process this came and how much groundwork I had already laid in order to make this successful.

STEP SEVEN: MAINTENANCE 

This part isn’t strictly chronological, but basically once I had a certain amount of hype and momentum I started getting people reaching out to me about screenings and festivals. Throughout the whole distribution process I was constantly monitoring what people were saying about it online, fielding screening requests, and just generally making social media posts about it even when nothing specific was happening just to keep people’s attention. Even though I’m now focusing most of my efforts on other projects, I’m still getting screening requests for Bros Before and I still periodically remind people that it’s available to stream for free online through straight ahead promo and organic content that references the film. Consider this blog post part of step seven. 

CONCLUSION

Every single thing I did to promote my film rests on two foundations that long proceeded this particular project: my career/network in the film industry and my social media following. These are both things I have been building for the better part of a decade knowing that I wanted to leverage them for my own art one day. Even though a lot of the things I described are kind of tedious and involve spreadsheets, it’s ultimately all quite interesting and exciting to me. I truly believed in both my film specifically and the fact that short films in general can be culturally significant. I absolutely would not have had the patience to do all this for something I felt lukewarm about. Finally, I wanted to emphasize that while my film appears very popular from some angles, it was actually not really embraced by most festivals or industry insiders. I kept pushing through lots of rejection because I believed in it and knew that my community did too. It’s not beloved because it has universal appeal, but rather because it knows who its niche audience is and caters to them unapologetically. Ironically, many of the same people who initially brushed it off have turned around and become impressed by the following I was able to create. Go figure!

Anyway, if you watched the movie and enjoyed it, no matter who or where you are, I really appreciate you. Thanks for your precious attention ❤