Welcome to media and monuments podcast presented by women in film and video in Washington, DC media and monuments is conversations featuring industry pros, speaking on a wide range of topics of interest. Two medium makers with is the premier women's media organization in the mid Atlantic region. Thank you for joining us on media and monuments.

I'm your host Tara Jabari. In this episode, we share a brief retrospective about our monthly webinars presented on the first Wednesday of every month. Wednesday one good evening, everybody. So tonight I'm just going to go over some of the basics of producing one-on-one from an independent filmmakers perspective.

So the starting point for assessing income tax is gross income. Welcome to our Wednesday one. We are so. During a pandemic. If you're covered by the ADA, you can still ask employees. If they're experiencing symptoms of the pandemic virus. I was able to get out of Dodge with my camera originals, but cutting.

It was a nightmare. Cheryl is the senior mixer and founder at outhouse audio. And my department would produce all the behind the scenes and the making of movies. All right. Well, I want to thank everybody for tonight. These webinars seek to gain insights from professionals currently in the field in January of 2021, we spoke about wonder woman, 1984, which filmed in Northern Virginia and downtown Washington, DC local crew and casts were a part of bringing this movie to life.

And we spoke with some of those involved. Here is an audio clip from that Wednesday one. It was amazing. Um, actually just being there and watching it with. Yeah. I talked to fellow crew people and we were just in awe of the wire work alone where, uh, we were just mutually. I mean, and these are seasoned crew people who are just not impressed by anything.

And we were just an ox. We thought, oh wait, I thought this was all green screened. She's actually flying in the air with wires. Are you kidding me? It was, it was just absolutely amazing to watch. It was as if we were being paid to just be schooled and some of these high technical aspects of filmmaking. At what point do the local crew get notified?

And then what does  do to sort of let the production know that, Hey, we've got crew, you know, don't bring crew in from out of town. Well, I had talked to them. Um, by phone, the fall, before that they were talking about coming in and asking us about crew and then actually met with them. I think it was February of the year they came in.

So what was that night? 18 now. And, um, so we had been having conversations about crews, uh, all along, uh, as soon as they were in or ready to be in. Got information out to the members. We ended up with over 200 local crew on the show, as well as the people who were traveling with the show. Um, I w I was surprised I was running the numbers the other day, um, that it was really that many cause there was about 12 weeks of builds and prep on that mall because.

Getting down to the minutia of, you know, it was building this storefronts, building partway deep into the stores, unless they were actually going to shoot further into it. Then set dressing came in and had to dress all those. And you really, I watched the movie. You don't even see a lot of the amount of work that went into that, that, that you all being there.

So in watching that if, if you've ever watched house of cards, there's actually sconces and lighting fixtures and other things. And it's like, you've seen it before because it was on house of cards. It was just a monster job. Like I said, it was about 12 weeks, I think, worth of prep. And then the shooting, the rigging, you mentioned that the stunt people did was incredible.

Um, and it was kind of funny to go to the ER there on the day she was doing one of the big swing down where she probably spent more time hanging three stories up, waiting to shoot. Then they did actually doing the stunt. Uh, but it was really amazing. It was a great opportunity for a lot of, uh, people to get work.

Not only people who've been doing it for years and years, but a lot of new people got opportunities and came into the union and are now working on shift. Like a dope sick or swagger or walking dead, or we're about to start an HBO project, uh, in Baltimore. So a lot of those people have got getting those kinds of opportunities, but they got their start on that because of the so massive

other months included talks on the basis of producing how to use drones for recreational and commercial. Use a panel on sound production. How to create a top ranked podcast and tips on health and safety measures to protect your crew. We finished the year with a panel of seasoned producers that provided clear ways to promote your projects so that it stands out in a content heavy digital world.

The panel had Michelle Delino a publicist and video producer, who is a whiff past president and current with advisory board members since 2016. Also on the panel was John GaN, a film producer and director whose latest documentary is miss Elma. Thomas, a life in color about the often overlooked DC-based black woman artist.

And finally, Sheila James Scott, whose expertise includes producing and writing for CBS evening news and CSPAN, as well as launching the nationally syndicated news magazine program. Matter of fact, with Solidad. Listen to this excerpt from their panel discussion.

Welcome everyone. I'm Melissa Houghton, the executive director of women in film and video. And I've really been looking forward to tonight's program because if you know me, I've told you before you need to start promoting your project before it's finished, I'm really thrilled to have with us tonight, Michelle Delina.

Sheila Jess Scott and John GaN who really cover the range from broadcast to the attrical documentary and narrative. Hi everyone. My name is Michelle Delino and I started doing promotions for films very early in my career. I was fortunate. I worked for HBO in their RNF promotions department was my first job out of college.

And, um, my department would produce. All the behind the scenes and the making of movies that we knew were going to be on HBO. And we were invited on the set to produce the EPKs. So I started my career learning how to promote a theatrical or a documentary and all the elements that went into that. So I then started producing and now I'm doing PR and marketing and kind of doing a little bit of everything.

And I'll talk a little bit more about that and how we were, did some really creative ways of promoting this project. Um, and they're looking for distribution. So they hired me to do PR for the whistleblowers, uh, film festival, which happened in DC and Sheila pass it off to you. A huge part of my career has been involved in doing television news.

So I've been on the receiving end of being picked. And I worked at CBS news. I worked with, uh, matter of fact, was solid out of Brian and her's television. I worked with the local Fox affiliate and I'm still doing a little bit of news, but I feel like that I have something to contribute to this conversation because it seems to me that sometimes people are oblivious how to pitch.

And so being from the, uh, pitched person that's being pitched seat, I think that I can contribute to the conversation. I'm John GaN. I am a filmmaker. Uh, I used to run the DC shorts film festival. And for the past 20 years, I've been consulting with film festivals around the country. I've seen hundreds and hundreds of thousands of films a year and read and download hundreds of EPKs that I need to evaluate for programming purposes, plaster.

I produced a short documentary called bus, all the Thomas, the light, the color, which is played about 26 festivals. First, I want to talk about EPKs and the point of view of a film programmer and someone who has to go through these in order to select images and text for websites and catalogs and marketing.

Um, I can't tell you. I can't. I can hear you. I would say about 85% of the EPKs I see are unusable. Um, either the, uh, photos are the production stills are just poor choices. They're not, there's nothing action involved. There's nothing of interest to them that a reader would stop the screen as they're scrolling and go, Ooh, what is it?

Um, cause this is what it is now. It's about what you can S w you want people to stop as they're scrolling down their screen, the copy has to be pristine. It has to be, everything has to be spelled correctly. The grammar has to be right. The tone has to be point. And I can't tell you how many I read of these that I read the description of the film.

And then I watched the film and it's like two completely different things. And I tell filmmakers this all the time. Perhaps the person to write your EPK is not you. It is someone you're bringing in, who is not related to the project who can see it for what it is and not for what you think it is. Um, cause I, I can't tell you how many log lines, how many descriptions I had to rewrite hundreds, if not thousands, uh, Screenshots.

I had to take off a films themselves as opposed to using the PK photos because they just weren't usable or weren't of interest. Um, so I really stress it is you're putting your EPK together. It is critical that it is the information you want to put forward in the best light, uh, and something that's interest.

Now I'm going to follow up on that because John is exactly right. Because whether you are sending to a film festival, you're trying to get media coverage. You're trying to, uh, you know, you're trying to get some press for your project. And let me tell you, the bottom line is don't make me work. I am so busy.

I don't have time to look through your sloppy website to try to figure out what the heck you're trying to tell me. And you are so right about that, honestly. You know, it even starts with, you're sending a pitch to the media. It starts with the slug. You know, we get thousands and thousands of emails every single day.

And I have to look through your slug. I'm going to read your slug. It has got to capture, capture my identity for me to even open up that email. And then if I don't like your title, I'm just not going back. I would also advise it. If you know, you're in contact with the media and you know, someone's interested in yourself and you have lots of extra things that might not be in your EPK, but stuff that's available to them.

We have a bunch of 42nd to two minute clips that didn't make the film, but are interesting on their own that are available for me. Make sure that whatever you have for the press has rights clearance for the press. I know with the film I just did. There were images that I could use in the trailer, but I can't use other media.

And so we made sure that the stuff that is available for media, everything is cleared in advance. I was about to say the same thing. Make sure you have clearances because in the documentary that I'm working on, there are a lot of news clips. And so you have to be very careful because there are rights for it.

But I also want to also reiterate the importance of while you're filming your documentary to really shoot a lot of behind the scenes stuff with the director and the shot with the producer and the shot with the cast, with the crew. So you have stories to build as you're trying to promote your film for social media, especially.

You really need some fresh eyes on your project to do the promotional part for it because a publicist will go a long way. I know how my work, uh, working with filmmakers and authors and that has really helped them. And I think that you have to look at that as being in your budget budget for it. And as John was saying before budget for ads, and as you're working on your project, think promotions, think how it will be promoted and include some people in it that are influencers that have strong followers and someone who can tie into the film that can help you promote.

I think that the, this whole conversation really points to the importance of the community, um, which is why with, is an existence in the first place too. We all know how important the organization is, but, um, it's okay to not have the answer. It's okay to reach out. And there, there are no stupid questions about.

Sometimes we're so close to our project. We don't see the big picture when other people are thinking so glaring, but they don't want to upset you or feel like that they want to insult you or whatever. When really, sometimes you just need somebody, you need an editor, you need somebody to just say, you know what?

This is great, but you need to do this. So, and don't take it personally. Thank you so much. The expertise we had on tonight's call was just awesome. We hope you enjoy it. This retrospective on Wednesday, one webinars, they have been very useful and educational to our members and guests, and we are excited for what, 2020 twos, Wednesday one webinars will bring.

You can find out the full schedule on our calendar@whiff.org, w I F v.org. And there will be a link in this episodes notes as well. Thank you for listening to media and monuments, a service of women in film and video in Washington, DC. Please remember to review, rate and subscribe wherever you listen to this podcast.

For more information about width, please visit our website at w I F as in Frank, V as in victor.org.