The Art of Film Funding
Discover the secrets to funding and creating successful indie films with The Art of Film Funding Podcast. Join Carole Dean, President of From the Heart Productions and author of The Art of Film Funding, and Heather Lenz, director of the award-winning documentary Kusama-Infinity, as they chat with top film industry pros. Get practical insider tips on crowdfunding, pitching, saving on budgets, marketing, hybrid distribution, and the latest in A.I. filmmaking. Whether you’re funding your first project or navigating new trends, this podcast has everything you need to succeed. Subscribe and let’s get your film funded!
The Art of Film Funding
Monetizing Your Movie's Website: Strategies for Filmmakers
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SPEAKER_03Hi and welcome to the Art of Film Funding. I'm your co-host, Claire Papan, along with Carol Dean, author of the best-selling book, The Art of Film Funding. Carol is also the founder and president of From the Heart Productions and the host of this show. Our very special guest today is Adam Hayes. He is a multidisciplinary creative and business developer, working primarily with filmmakers, artists, authors, transformational teachers, and nonprofit organizations. He's worked with From the Heart Productions for over a decade, helping the organization and its clients with pitch decks, design, editing, film, and event production, website development, marketing, crowdfunding course design, and fundraising. Adam manages several programs for From the Heart clients, including our Largo AI reports and our Grant Advanced Donor Research System, and designed our new fiscal sponsorship dashboard. He also designed ALRA fundraising pages and provides a plethora of support to filmmakers. Adam graduated Suma cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa from UCLA's honors program with a degree in psychology and holds a master's degree in spiritual psychology from the University of Santa Monica. He also runs a thriving heart-centered counseling practice in Seattle. And Carol, you are very lucky to have such a talent as Adam with you.
SPEAKER_01Yes, I know, Claire. All of us know. Thank you very much, Adam, for joining us today.
SPEAKER_05Thank you so much for having me here, Carol. I'm very excited to be here.
SPEAKER_01Well, great, because the purpose for the interview is for independent filmmakers to learn how to focus on monetizing their websites from the very beginning. So once you know you want to build a website, the next thing is how can you make money on your website? And that's what we want to cover today, Adam. So let's get started with uh how important is it for an independent filmmaker to have a website in the first place?
SPEAKER_05Uh I I think it's absolutely essential at this point. Um, if you're doing it independently or a small studio, it it's all following uh falling to you. So it's really an invaluable tool, not only for getting your film out there and for selling your film, but for your fundraising and creating the extended business around your film for generating income. If you wind up like selling your film to a major streamer or studio or distributor, they own the rights, then they might want to do their own website or just have a have a page on their directory website, or they may not want to have one at all, depending on their strategy. But if you're doing it yourself, you've got to have a website. And the real benefit is that it's a 24-hour uh automated storefront from your film that can reach a global market. So when you're not sleeping, when you're when you're sleeping, when you're not working, your website is still doing the work for you. And very often it's the first place people are gonna come. Um if they hear the name of your film out in the wild, if they see a post on social media or somewhere, they're gonna want to come back to your website to learn more.
SPEAKER_01Exactly. And you have to be there with something great to show them. Uh well said, okay. And besides, uh the names you see for crowdfunding, uh, for even peer-to-peer funding, it's the email addresses that bring in the most money. And so when people come to your website, if you can give them something, I'm sure we'll get into this, to encourage them to leave their name, then you really can build a good database. So let's go get into the next thing, which is how uh does the website uh relate to your film and social media and what with the main purpose of the film website? Let's go with that.
SPEAKER_05Sure. Um well what I love about websites for filmmakers in particular is that the purpose of the website can actually change depending on where you're at in the life of your film. So you might have different purposes for your website if you're in development, if you're in pre-production, production, post-production, if you're fundraising, you know, during your release when you're actively trying to sell and market the film, and even years or sometimes decades after the film is released, um, where the website becomes the home for the legacy of the film and the movement around it, um, and kind of the extended universe of the film that can go on for years and years and years. Um you can you can optimize it and you can make changes to support whatever your main objective is at that time. So that might be raising money, it might be finding management, it might be selling your film, showing your trailer, finding a distributor, any number of things. Um, and the real benefit is it's giving you direct contact and direct access to your customers and control over your own sales. Um, the other real benefit is that the website is going to allow you to build credibility and visibility that you can then leverage to monetize your other service or monet uh other services or monetize the film in other ways. It allows you to establish yourself as a public figure or an expert or authority in the subject matter, um, and that can lead to speaking engagements or teaching engage engagements or any number of other services that you can offer, and we're going to talk about a lot of that.
SPEAKER_01Oh, this is really a good uh purpose because filmmakers, you know, the average time for a documentary is six years. So documentary as well as feature filmmakers spend a lot of time researching, prepping, getting to know their material, and they become experts almost in their uh information. So the authority figure is really an important situation because they're the carrier of so much information, and I can understand what you're saying. Having a website would allow you to show all of that knowledge that really uh want you want to share anyway, because you need to find the people who are interested in that subject matter, right?
SPEAKER_05Absolutely.
SPEAKER_01So the website relates to your film and social media and the other assets, right?
SPEAKER_05Yeah, I've all I've always tried to teach that you want to think of your website as the home for the extended ecosystem of your film. So you have your film, but then you have everything else that comes, you know, downstream and offshoots from your film. Essentially the um interconnected extended universe of your film, like the Marvel Cinematic Universe for your film. So you have your social media, you have uh various multimedia content that could be video clips, podcasts, blogs, print material, any number of things. You have your mailing list, of course, um, your marketing materials, your outreach campaigns, your crowdfunding campaign, um, your merchandise and products and services. You might have events, you might have courses, workshops, um, you might have other platforms that you're using to generate income or visibility, like your Patreon or Substack for blogging, you have your IMDB listing, all of these leading back to the website. Um, and then of course you have the film itself and the website being the main tool for marketing that, but also typically at the end of the film, before the credits, um, you're gonna direct people to a link on your website with a very specific call to action, and that's the way that they take the next steps, join the movement, you know, sign up for the service, that that comes at the end of the film. The next step is going back to the website, um, and vice versa. So the website is then leading um your client do all of those offerings that are external to the website or or related to the website.
SPEAKER_01Right. Exactly. Well, uh you know, if you take um forks over knives, that was a documentary that was a uh teaching people plant-based food. But what happened was that that website uh started bringing people to uh to who were interested in that, and then they expanded laterally and they put recipes, they now they're doing cooking classes, and I think there's something like three hundred dollars to take a cooking class. So they took an idea for a film and people really responded to it, but they went to their website for more information, just like you're saying, and the website kept kept them uh busy and it turned into a moneymaker uh b with all of the lateral products that they added, Adam. So that's just to say it they made money off of their website.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, you read my mind, Carol. That was actually one of the ones I was gonna present as a case study um later on. I think that so you you just did that whole part for me, which is perfect. Um I really think that is the best example. And then checking out the website recently, it's actually kind of challenging to find the information about the film because the business and the movement has gone so far beyond the film, it's just one little page that you kind of have to search for to find the original film info now. Um and that page is actually very well designed, so that's that's a good model uh for someone building their own site or a landing page, but it it's just gone so far beyond the scope of the film, and they're making millions and millions of dollars. I couldn't find the exact number, but estimated something like ten million dollars in revenue up to um through cooking classes, through recipes, through selling food products, um, through courses, through memberships, through everything you can possibly think of. They've created an entire business and movement around the film that has gone far beyond the scope of the film.
SPEAKER_01And it's amazing what they did. They're a way shower for all of us. Uh because uh working with documentary and featured filmmakers, I find sometimes it's easy for me, I've been here so long, to see they have a business that uh besides the film, it's a natural lateral expansion. And they are so close to the film they don't recognize the entrepreneurial possibilities. So everyone really needs to look at their film thinking, who's my market and how do I expand from here? Uh so what you've done is really important. So uh what platform do you recommend right now people use for web design?
SPEAKER_05Um I I pretty much only exclusively design in WordPress at this point. It's definitely harder to use for someone that's just learning web design, but it's by far the best platform. It has the highest ceiling. There's thousands and thousands of third-party integrations that you can do with it. Um so there's really no limit to what you can do with those sites. Um someone just told me that if you go to like HBO's or Netflix's back end, it's actually just a WordPress site, same kind that I'm editing, just a you know, very complex, large-scale one. Um so I I really, really only exclusively recommend WordPress. I I will occasionally use Squarespace if someone um requests it and it works okay, it's easier to use, it's more user-friendly, um, but it kind of looks a little blocky and outdated. And I I can tell a Squarespace site, you know, a second after coming to the site, and it just has a certain aesthetic that to me looks a little outdated, but you can certainly build a perfectly functional site with it. I definitely do not recommend um using Wix or GoDaddy's uh website builder or really any other platform. They're just not very well designed. I would r really recommend just using WordPress, and there are lots of good visual drag and drop designers now that make it function much more like one of the you know more user-friendly websites where you can just drag pre-made blocks and images, and it's it's not as hard to put together. Um I wanted to go go back to what we were talking about about forks over knives, um, about how they extended you know far beyond the scope of the film to generate their business. So I I always encourage people to think of their film as a business. And I'm not talking necessarily about like selling the film or the production budget or those those kind of financials. I'm talking about how you can use the the film to create additional income streams and basically build a successful business using your film as an asset that can go for years and years and years. Um building up your website, you know, generating the visibility and credibility and the value of your film through the site, and then using that to leverage um leverage the credibility and visibility to generate additional income sources using products, services, um, and some other methods that we'll talk about. And then synergistically, these offerings then help to increase the visibility and the value of your film. So it's really a win-win.
SPEAKER_01Yes, it sounds like it. And I read somewhere that you should always um buy your website name for a minimum of a year, but preferably two years, three years, because Google pays attention to that. Uh and that it matters to Google, because if they think your website's going to expire in s in 30, 60 days or in a few months, they may not give you the traffic.
SPEAKER_05That's very true. There's also a pretty predatory business model of people watching out for domains expiring. So if you build a, you know, financially successful site and then let your domain expire, someone could buy it back and buy it and sell it back to you for a ridiculous amount of money. That really does happen. And I've also just seen people lose everything because they forgot to set it on automatically renewing or forgot to renew.
SPEAKER_01Yes. Uh that happened to me ages ago. I had a website, my name, and uh the host I had someone handling everything for me and they forgot. And then I got an email from someone offering it back uh twenty seven hundred dollars. So I just let it go. Yeah. So you yes, this is really important. Um, okay, so l first of all, how can people reach you, Adam? What's your email?
SPEAKER_05Uh it's just my name. It's Adam D. Hayes, and that's H-E-Y-E-S at gmail.com. Adam Dhayes at gmail.com. And then I actually just built a website uh in one day yesterday getting ready for this podcast um that has all my services and work samples laid out, and that's adamhaesdesign.com.
SPEAKER_01Wonderful. Adamhaysdesign.com. Okay. So getting back to websites, what are the best practices for filmmakers to keep in mind?
SPEAKER_05Sure. Um well I think quality is really important for the website because in a lot of cases it's gonna be the first exposure that someone has to your film. So in the same way that if you watch a trailer and the trailer's terrible, you're probably not gonna be very interested in seeing the film. It's not gonna give you a big vote of confidence in someone's ability to create a feature film if they can't even create a good quality trailer. Um so it's the same for the website if you can't be trusted to do, you know, this small-scale production design job and have a website that looks good. How is anyone gonna trust you with, you know, potentially multi-million dollar film or to create an entire film, you know, independently? So it really is a reflection uh of your overall work and quality and your artistry. And if you don't have the capabilities to have a professional and exceptional website, um it's gonna be very hard that people are gonna trust you to make an incredible film or want to go on to see the film. It's just that first, you know, microsecond uh judgment that people make when they first come to the site. It's a thumbs up or thumbs down of whether it's something that appeals to them, looks good or not. Um I really think unless you're incredibly technically savvy or have web design or a lot of design experience, it's really best to hire someone uh professional to do it in the same way that you wouldn't have, you know, someone who never hold a camera, held a camera, uh, film your movie. It's the same for your website. You want someone who's who knows what they're doing, and particularly someone who understands the film industry as well.
SPEAKER_01Most important. Most important Adam. In terms of what's we're we are visuals. The people in the uh film area are visuals in their kinesthetics mostly. There's a whole group that are audible, but the majority fall into visual and kinesthetic. So they look at a website and within five seconds, eight seconds, it's a ge it's yes or a no. Um and then when they see a trailer, the audience all um all over the world, people are much more educated on films than they've ever been because of the streamers and uh because they were all locked in and watch movies during COVID. So if your trailer isn't as equal to some of the uh film trailers, then y they're going to dislike it immediately and not think you're talented. So that it's a huge bar for independent filmmakers that they have to really create a good website and a compelling trailer. Right?
SPEAKER_05That's very true. Yeah, the design and aesthetics are really important. Um, particularly you want to create something that in some way is giving a preview of the style and the cinematic quality of the film. So you're actually really showing off your skills as a filmmaker and an artist through your website design. Um, with that said, you want to go with just modern design conventions, so you know, certain fonts and styles and color schemes uh are more readily accepted now, uh, more common now that match the theme of your film. If um if there's a way to capture like the energy of your film, like if you're making a comedy movie, you might want to make a website that has some comedy in it. If you're making a horror film, you might want to have a website that you know has has elements of horror in it, um, etc. Beyond that, you just want to make sure it's really easy to use and to navigate. Um, it it really needs to be a seamless and intuitive user experience. If someone doesn't know where to go or know what to do, they're just gonna bounce off um pretty quickly. And same thing goes for any payment processing that you have. That that experience needs to be really streamlined and easy for people. If they run into issues or they can't figure out how to make the payment, you're just gonna lose that um that client. Um very important, obviously, nowadays is mobile responsiveness. Um, the vast majority of people now are going to be looking at this website on your film, or excuse me, on their phone. So it can't be an afterthought. It has to be designed with mobile responsiveness in mind. Um, like what you're saying about it being a visual medium, you want the site to be really image-rich. Um, so you want it to be visually stunning and emotionally impactful. You can tell a story with the images where you don't necessarily need a ton of words or information. People might get the essence of the film just from looking at the images. Um, in general, the top of your website is going to be the most important, what I'd call like digital real estate. So that's that should be optimized for your most important call to action, which might be to watch the trailer or sell the film or to donate. Use that top part of the screen before people need to scroll down for your most important content.
SPEAKER_01Um other than that, Adam, that is that is your key issue. What do you want me to do? This is what that's my question. You know, filmmakers drive me to do. your website and say take a look okay so I get on the website and and it doesn't say what they want.
SPEAKER_05I I need you to tell me click here watch my trailer go here make a donation um here join my newsletter become part of my tribe tell me what to do right that's the first thing that's right yeah you're you're creating a curated experience for the visitor so you're laying out the path and then guiding them along uh the primary calls to action that you want them to take so you want those calls to action to be really clear and prominent whether that's to donate or watch the trailer or join the mailing list um and then lead them seamlessly through that process where they're not just left to their own devices or or getting lost.
SPEAKER_01That's a good website. But listen what you're talking about uh on fonts and design scheme the point is that that's a business in itself. Uh when you design the dashboard for From the Heart, which put all of our benefits in one place, I d uh the moment I opened it it was like a piece of art. I got so taken by the colors and the fonts and I felt so guided. I felt comfortable oh goody I wasn't um afraid. Some some websites there's so much that you don't know what do I do. But this um shot uh surprised me and taught me how important understanding of fonts and colors and schemes that is a special talent that many filmmakers just don't have even though they're highly talented but this is something you have to give to someone else to do, right?
SPEAKER_05Yeah that's right and there's just there's a thousand different things that people are picking up on subconsciously when they come to a site. So you really want someone who understands how all that works together.
SPEAKER_01The psychology of it all. Because people make decisions quickly uh and they're irreversible. Once they make 'em they stick with it. I don't like this website, I don't like this idea, or I do. They um uh Moravian at at UCLA has done a lot of studies on this and this is also important when you're pitching a film. It's how you uh deliver your pitch but it's also how you deliver your website because you're not even there to defend it. They they're there on their own. They're gonna make their own decisions. So understanding the psychology of the audience and the people that are coming to your site and being ready to direct them and and to uh impress them with your art and your abilities that's a lot to do, right?
SPEAKER_05That's right. Yep.
SPEAKER_01Well said but this is what is needed all right well let's go on what uh should filmmakers include on their site what do you think?
SPEAKER_05Sure um just real quick I want to mention that also search engine optimization is important um at least to do on a very basic level um so that your film is findable on Google if someone types in the name of your film or you know a rough approximation of that hopefully that's going to be the first or one of the first things that comes up you don't necessarily need to invest in like really extensive search engine optimization unless you're really trying to capture a certain search term. Like if someone was making uh a film about Marilyn Monroe they might want to invest in SEO for like Marilyn Monroe documentary because that's something people might type in just because they're curious and then hopefully it leads back to their film. So if you have a subject matter that's you know more iconic or that can be optimized for certain really important keywords it might be worth it to invest in some SEO otherwise just cover the base the basics really you want to just have very uh keyword rich content and be creating a lot of new content um so adding a lot of blogs and that's continually adding new keywords um that come up in search and also telling Google that your website is active and relevant and giving people a reason to keep coming back which is going to drive up the SEO in terms of what to include on the site just the bare minimum I would say for a basic you know informational slash marketing based site for a film you want to have your clear call to action very prominent at the top so donate join the mailing list watch the trailer buy the film whatever that is one thing I recommend is putting a bar um that's anchored to the top of your website that has that call to action it's a a little complex to do but most uh programs have a way to do that that's not not too difficult so that when you're scrolling down the website that button to complete the call of action is always visible no matter where you are are on the site you can click one button and donate or or watch the film. You want to include probably yeah in that top part yeah have your trailer or if you're selling the film or you can do both some have like watch the trailer and then if you like that then you can buy the film. Your log line and synopsis obviously information about your cast your characters um and your crew if you have any testimonials or film festival awards or any kind of accolades you want to highlight information if there's any cause or movement associated with your film or any other companies or organizations that you're working with your donation information you may want to have a copy or you know some some version of your crowdfunding campaign that maybe you have on a Lyra or Seed and Spark or something like that. You may want to have a dedicated page on your site that's driving people to those specific campaign pages or kind of a copy of that. And of course want to have have your mailing list sign up and at the very least your contact form contact info some other things you might consider including if you want to go above and beyond would be like news about your film, about the development, the production, how's everything going if you want to provide any additional background or context or history of the film you can add a social media feed or copy your social media content onto the site so that that's one kind of easy way that you can keep coming back and there's there's new content every time you come back because it's automatically pulling from your social media pages. Your multimedia content yeah it's a useful tool. Any uh blogs videos any other multimedia content you have um your event calendar if you're doing screenings or community events um any products or merch uh services that you have for sale if you have a community that you know you want to have the site be the home base for communication about the subject matter you might consider putting like a message board um on the site or even some kind of membership portal um maybe the opportunity to create profiles for people that really want to be a part of it and then just any additional resources that you have that you want to direct people to wow that's incredible what a great site that would be wonderful well uh then how can filmmakers use their site to sell their film because now let's say they've got all of this on there and they're past uh they're they've already produced it now they want to sell it uh would you then make it available for downloads or how would you do that? Yeah absolutely I want to talk about um the online sales and then I want to talk about just the overall monetization and um other strategies for that so in terms of um direct sales you can certainly sell your films as digital downloads or streaming um you know on demand or rentals um there is still a you know ever-shrinking market for DVDs but that's that's still a thing that you can offer there's other models um for being able to watch that some people do like a donate to what to watch models so donate whatever you can um there's been some cases where those have actually outperformed ones that have had fixed or standard pricing of people are feeling generous um and then in regards to um selling the film one thing to remember is that you don't necessarily have to sell it all a carte so you know you have a film that you're gonna sell a digital download of for let's say five dollars well there's a lot more value that you can add to that if you create packages and bundles so for five dollars maybe you get the film but for$50 you know you get the gold VIP package that includes the film and it also includes the free companion PDF um ebook or access to a course or a class or some kind of exclusive footage or you know a director's a cut a director's cut or extended version of the film or some kind of exclusive access um to the film that goes in be above and beyond just purchasing purchasing the film a la carte.
SPEAKER_01So you might have great let's talk about that Adam because that's really important. I've seen it sometimes where uh for documentaries particularly they get such important long engaging interviews and they only use maybe five or ten percent of the interview in the film. So having the ability to sell the entire interview with some of the top people in your film is is a brilliant idea to take the long interviews and maybe include three of those along with your download of the film and that's really worth fifty dollars if you've got doctors and lawyers talking right that's absolutely right yeah all of all of your footage is valuable and you can continue to make supplementary footage as well um even after the film is released.
SPEAKER_05So it's it's one thing you know you need to sell thousands and thousands of single screeners um to get by if you're just selling them a la carte but if you're doing the bundles well now you actually have a a a viable business model and that can get into you know premium offerings as well a a five dollar video sale could wind up in into being a thousand dollar you know exclusive course sale or workshop or mastermind group or something like that. Wonderful that's brilliant that is taking it to the heights yes good job please go on Adam this is so wonderful terrific yeah just also um related to direct sales um so you can always upsell someone during the process you know they agree to pay the five dollars to stream the film but before they check out then you have another screen that's um upselling them either on the bundle or an additional option you know add the ebook for another ten dollars something like that um there's also programs that you can use um if someone bounces off during the checkout process that they're automatically gonna get an email um to follow up with them perhaps to offer like some kind of special discount well they didn't they didn't want to buy the film for five dollars maybe they'll buy it for three dollars or they can get the$50 package for$25. So you never want to let anyone fall through the cracks. Other things to think about are are doing pre-sales that you can pre-sell screeners of the film uh digitally before the film is even released maybe even before it's completed post-production um to build up that money to fund your filmmaking and release process you can do pre-sales um another another thing that's I've seen people do that's effective is releasing essentially re-releasing new versions of the film uh year after year or every f every few years with updated content so you may sell the film in 2024 you know for five dollars but then you release the updated version in 25 2025 and can sell that um again because there's new content um and of course everything needs to be you know it needs to be worth it you can't just do it for the sake of doing it but I've I've seen uh projects do that over the course of ten years you know they start with the original version of the film and particularly if there's a a cause that's related to a you know global crisis or active event that information's constantly changing and they continuously need to add to the film um to address the changes that are happening in the world and that's a brand new product exactly and I'll t I saw that happen with one of my filmmakers.
SPEAKER_01She made a film about uh the um Gardner museum the theft of some very wealthy uh well very expensive art and she was financed by a s a TV station but she had to make their film so she gave them a short license like three years I think the film came back to her and Adam she changed it all around to her artistic design and re-released it with a different name and made a fortune and then she she resold it. She just rebranded it and resold it. So yes you can do that. And and speaking about features um what's so hot is behind the scenes what's going on. So if if you're making a feature and you do some interviews and you are there to capture some um shooting scenes that you might put into the uh into some extra footage where the actors are talking about how difficult that was or how much fun it was or whatever. So taking us behind the scenes with the feature that extra content can take you from the five to the fifty don't you think? I absolutely yes um there's so many ideas from what you're saying for filmmakers to make more money on their films. This is great.
SPEAKER_05So when I was working with ground operations many years ago about sustainable farming for veterans, you know she was selling the film for five or ten dollars or whatever it was at the time but a lot of the funding that was coming in was from selling to veteran organizations and sustainable farming groups for I think either a hundred or a hundred and fifty dollars for the educational license. Yes that's the key isn't it getting that before you ever go to a streamer right yep that's great good information well I've never heard so many great ideas at one so um and how do filmmakers drive traffic to the website um uh regular promotion with social media and your marketing campaigns um regularly updating it with blogs with videos um promotions other offerings definitely make sure it's optimized for SEO at least on a very basic level um posting backlinks on other websites or directory listing so you know IMDB if you have filmmaking groups that you're a part of um interest groups that are related to your film get them to post backlinks to your site and all of that's going to drive traffic and and um search engine rankings as well building your email list is really really key um partnering with other influencers that may have built-in existing networks that would be interested in your film so that you don't have to do a lot of that led legwork in the audience building you can form a partnership with the person or an organization that already has that built-in network um and leverage that um and there's always paid advertising as well yes and I saw one filmmaker who uh while he was making a documentary he s uh would send some footage to uh editors that he knew some were still in school saying if if you will take this footage and make me a two-minute trailer uh I'll promote you as the editor so they did it for free and he used these two minute three minute clips to drive people to his website and then he offered them a um their name on the film for a certain amount of money and he raised ninety thousand dollars that way because he had a great website.
SPEAKER_01So yes uh and I said well how can you your trail your film must go on forever if you have all those people with the one name at a time. Uh no no he said I put thirty names on a card. And I said but who could who's gonna be able to pick out the name? He said it doesn't matter Carol. When they like the subject matter they want to be part of the film. It doesn't matter if you can read the name my name is on that film is all they care about. And it works for him.
SPEAKER_05I think it's a great idea totally um and that kind of affiliate marketing or you know forming partnerships or sponsorships was another thing I want to talk about. So using your film and the visibility of your website um to leverage being able to form partnerships with related brands or sponsors um influencers organization to market or promote their products um and services so the there's a number of ways you can do this um you know there's banner ads that are like pay per click if someone wants to put an ad on your site um and you know there's there's reasons to do that and reasons not to but you you can get paid for every time someone clicks on that or potentially goes to the next site and purchase a product you could get commission off of that there's ways to set up affiliate programs like that um you might also just be able to get in kind support so if you're if your film is the main um you know marketing vehicle for a particular organization or movement then they're incentivized to want to be promoted on your website and in kind they might provide financial support maybe they'll give you film gear or services or locations or discount or just mutual promotion.
SPEAKER_01Right.
SPEAKER_05Those are brilliant ideas on the shoulders of giants especially if you're starting from scratch finding ways to tap into those existing audience spaces and provide another level of service from them such that they're being funneled through your site and also benefiting your partners. Yes because major or major corporations are major organizations that have your audience is a key to expanding your audience and having a market ready for your film when it's finished and we call that um sponsorships yeah with uh other companies a strategic sponsorship is what you want well all of this is incredible and and so uh tell us again how we can reach you and what your name of your website is sure it's um my email is adamdhayes at gmail dot com and Hayes is spelled h-e-y-es adamdhayes at gmail.com and the new website is adamhaesdesign.com Adam you've just done a splendid job and encourage us and exciting us on all the ways
SPEAKER_01we can use our website to make money, to uh to make our careers. I mean you can build a career or you can build a business around your film with a good website. So just share any closing ideas you have.
SPEAKER_05Please. Uh I just want to touch really quickly on two more possible ways to monetize your site and then we can wrap it up. The first thing people usually think of is your merchandise, which can be a great way to bring in additional revenue. So obviously like branded clothing posters objects related to the film is what most people think of but your merch can also be digital merchandise. You might have a soundtrack you might have a companion ebook or some kind of exclusive digital comment uh content um or you could potentially sell your script or sign photos or props or any kind of item that's specific to the film and the more unique the better the more uniquely related it is to the film the more value that it has over something you know more generic and I also want to just touch quickly on creating membership portals so this is kind of complementary to those bundles but another model is to is to do monthly subscriptions um for deeper access to your site so you know someone might be willing to pay$25 or$50 a month to join a membership on your site and then that's coming in month after month in order to access exclusive content or to get some kind of VIP access to the filmmaker. It might be your BTS footage or you know previously unseen footage memorabilia from the production you might have different membership tiers so you might do that bronze silver gold thing and have different values for different tiers um and you know this is this is what Patreon does and that's a a very good model for people to make money who want to do um podcasting but you can also do it on your website um complementary um and and to a larger degree patreon's just one part of that wow you can put Patreon uh you can um connect that to your website right Patreon well yeah I mean you can certainly advertise your Patreon um on your website I I believe there's ways to like embed it directly on the site but what I'm saying is that you might have your Patreon that's you know specifically for your podcast um you know maybe they get a bonus podcast every month uh if they're Patreon subscribers but on your website you know maybe you sell a package that includes the Patreon membership and you know a number of other things like your behind the scenes footage and exclusive content and that kind of thing. So they can they can work hand in hand.
SPEAKER_01Of course it I wouldn't have thought of that.
SPEAKER_05That's brilliant Thank you that's pretty much it. I wanted to give a plug for people to check out the new fiscal sponsorship dashboard uh on the From the Heart website if they haven't done that yet. Um I I put that together. It's w dot from the heartproductions dot com slash dashboard and um that contains all the next steps, all the resources, all of the different offerings and courses and classes that we have all in one place to really empower people's fundraising uh campaigns and the production.
SPEAKER_01There's a lot of free classes on there that we give. Right, Adam? That's all in there. So uh it's a lot of fun. What you created was brilliant and uh the most important thing for most filmmakers is education on how to raise money. So we have that on crowdfunding, uh fun film funding parties, making an ask um producing how to produce your film, all of those things and many of those are free to our sponsored filmmakers. But thank you you did a fabulous job and that's a very good idea to check that out so they can see uh fonts, color, theme, all of that is represented quite well.
SPEAKER_05Absolutely and if anyone does need any help with the website or anything else I offer a 20% or more discount uh for all of my services to From the Heart filmmakers.
SPEAKER_03I'm pretty much exclusively working with From the Heart filmmakers at this point which I'm thrilled about so beyond websites I also do pitch decks I set up the Alyra fundraising campaigns and other platforms like Seed and Spark or Kickstarter I do movie posters um OneSheets any other film related design copywriting and editing uh crowdfunding videos editing and trailers online course design uh film and event production and also uh handle the Largo AI script analysis and uh grantor database program that we offer I know it's amazing to hear all of that I know that you do a lot but when you put it together it's shocking at him I've tried to go with the the Swiss Army knife model for for my offering so hopefully there's something for everyone yes I think there is it's wonderful uh I'm so lucky to get to work with you it's a lot of fun likewise thank you so Claire thank you very much for hosting the show yeah thank you if I may I would like to very quickly say that um also um uh Adam's email address and website address are in the description of the show on the blog talk page here so just uh go there if you didn't get a chance to jot it down it'll be there for you thank you Claire that's perfect okay Adam we'll be talking to you in the future thank you so much for this thank you so much both of you have a terrific day okay bye for now thank you Claire bye see you well everyone everyone now in its second edition Carol Dean's popular book The Art of Film Funding has 12 new chapters to cover all areas of film financing and how to avoid expensive pitfalls. Learn how to start with an idea and end with a trailer how to make an ask for money create your story structure and your trailer legal advice fair use successful crowdfunding how to ask for music rights and what insurance you can't shoot without available on Amazon under Carol Dean and at FromTheheartproductions.com I want to remind our listeners that David Raikland is a brilliant and talented award-winning musician who scores films and can compose music for a trio or for a full orchestra David is a very good friend to the independent filmmaker and comes highly recommended by From the Heart Production. If you need music to help tell your story please contact him at davidrakeln.com that's davidraikl.com and Carol and I want to thank you for tuning in to the Art of Film Funding. Please visit our website at From theheartproductions.com You can also find us on Facebook and Twitter.
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