Elliot Grove
Company: Raindance Film Festival
Website: www.raindance.co.uk
About the speaker
Elliot has worked as a scenic artist on 68 feature films and over 700 commercials in his native Toronto.
He moved to London in the late 1980's and thirteen years ago launched the Raindance Film Festival, a festival devoted to independent filmmaking and its emerging talent.
Elliot is proud of the fact that last year's Raindance line-up included 84 independent features and 200 shorts from 40 countries. Elliot wrote, produced and directed 1997's feature, Table 5, for just over £200. He also lectures on screenwriting and filmmaking throughout the UK and Europe, and in 1992 set up the training division of Raindance.
In 1998, Elliot founded The British Independent Film Awards. He has two books published, and his novel THE BANDIT QUEEN, illustrated by Dave McKean, is scheduled for publication in 2008.
Elliot firmly believes that success in the moviemaking business is a simple matter of demystifying the process of breaking into the film industry and allowing individual talent to prosper.
What was talked about
Filmmaking is really about marketing and publicity. This is the dirty little secret of Hollywood. They don't make films - they make Movies - a film with marketing and hype attached to it. Then the 40p bit of plastic in a shop, called a DVD has merit and value far in excess of the actual piece of palstic we all know costs nearly nothing. And we line up and pay through the noses for it - because of the content.
The top tips
Let me explain the difference between Advertising, Marketing and Publicity:
Advertising and Marketing are really expensive. Buying all that ad space. Publicity can be really inexpensive.
Here's advertising: You go to a party, see a gorgeous girl across the room, you go up to her and say: "I'm great in bed. Why don't you take me home tonight."
Here's marketing: You're at a party and you spot a gorgeous girl. You get your mate to go up to her and say: "See that guy over there? He's really great in bed. Why don't you take him home tonight?"
Here's publicity: You're at a party, hanging around, when all of a sudden, the most gorgeous girl comes up to you and says "I hear you're really good in bed. Can I take you home tonight?"
Of course its not quite that simple, but successful media players employ the relatively cheap tools of publicity to create a buzz.
Like the Blair Witch Project did.
Like Howies is doing.
Downloads
Next speaker: Jon Matthews