The NYU Production Lab is crowdfunding $10,000 to support its experiential learning opportunities, which bring together students from varied disciplines to contribute to a film’s marketing and distribution strategy, festival campaign, sales positioning, audience engagement, and release. In turn, students engaged in these experiential learning opportunities gain valuable insight and access to the industry in which they intend to build their careers.
First time feature filmmakers have the skills, the network, and the vision to make a great film but often find themselves in post-production with a whole new set of challenges to tackle: getting into a festival, arranging publicity for their premiere, engaging an audience who will support their first film and be looking forward to their second, and making a distribution deal that makes sense for the film and for the filmmaker’s career. These are daunting tasks for most first time filmmakers and, without the proper support, guidance, and people-power, filmmakers can find themselves in a position to make largely uninformed, reactive decisions about the value of their film, its true audience, and its release plan that don’t benefit the film, its investors, or the filmmaker.
Last year, students participating in the Stern Signature Project as marketing and distribution strategists for CRONIES helped the film identify its target audience, created programming around its NYC premiere in December to incentivize theater attendance, partnered with a PhD candidate at the Annenberg Center at UCLA to create an academically-rigorous discussion guide for the film, and licensed the film to universities across the country. The team’s findings and innovative efforts in the release of CRONIES were presented as part of the 90-Minute Film School Program at SXSW.
The NYU Production Lab, together with the Stern Signature Projects, pairs filmmakers with MBA students who are pursuing careers in entertainment, media, and technology to develop and execute the proactive, filmmaker-focused marketing and distribution strategies that can position a film for success in the marketplace. The collaboration between filmmaker and MBA students provides the filmmaker invaluable insight into film release strategies and a dedicated sounding board when considering sales and distribution offers, and it provides MBA students with the unique opportunity to work directly with a filmmaker, conduct research and create innovative strategies, and execute real sales positioning, marketing, and distribution plans. The effect of this collaboration is exponential: the filmmaker launches a film and embarks on his or her career with a new network of talented strategists; the MBA team discovers new passions, develops and exercises new skills, and gains truly marketable and transferable experience in the film industry. The NYU Production Lab views film as a catalyst of interdisciplinary collaboration that can be the foundation of meaningful communities and the beginning of many different careers.
In the 2016-2017 academic year, the NYU Production Lab has endeavors to further support the filmmakers and students engaged in its experiential learning opportunities by raising $10,000 to be used to amplify the students marketing & distribution efforts. A $10,000 budget will afford students the opportunity to further invest in a project’s release plan – including student-driven publicity and promotion – and the management of this budget will add an essential experiential learning component to the project.
Receive a social media shout out and special thanks on our web site! (Please include your name so we can thank you properly!)
Receive a PDF of the Production Labs independent distribution best practices
Receive a private screening of an NYU Production Lab-supported film of your choice for you and 10 friends at the Production Lab (+popcorn!)
1-hour marketing and distribution consultation for your film at the Production Lab
A homemade dinner for you and the filmmaker, hosted by John Tintori!
2 film festival screening tickets and after party invitation (where applicable; film and festival options to follow)