Chris Jones Blog

How to market your film, a free podcast with PR expert Sheri Candler!

During my trip to the PGA Awards a few weeks ago, I hooked up with Sheri Candler, an LA based film marketer. We quickly hit it off and so I recorded a podcast with her, sat in her car of all places (actually it’s a great recording environment).

The podcast is about an hour long and we refer to a couple of press releases in the recording.

(refering to podcast - here is the FIRST RELEASE that I wrote, and for comparison, here is the SECOND RELEASE that Sheri re-wrote for me.)

You can listen via the blog with the player here...

Or click and download the file to play on your own player or add to your ipod here.

Sheri is a GREAT person and a real team player. I am already working on getting her involved in some of my upcoming projects too. Here webiste is http://www.shericandler.com and her email is [email protected]

If you ewnjoy the Podcast, join our newsgroup by adding your email below so that you will get mails when we have new podcasts to listen to… 

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If you have film maker friends who would like these free Podcasts, send ‘em a message to swing by the blog here at www.chrisjonesblog.com

Onwards and upwards!

Chris Jones, Film Maker and Author

www.livingspirit.com
[email protected]

Merry Xmas Podcasts...

As a special Xmas diversion for those of us who get a little bored with the Queens speech, listening to a slightly drunken Uncle Albert tell us the same old stories or have just maxed out on their Wii’s, here is a collection of special film makers podcasts that I put together and released over the past year or so. I will be putting one up on the blog every few days or so… There will be many hours of fun here, and you can download all and keep as MP3’s or you can listen directly here from your browser. If you want more info on our future free podcasts, and other stuff we do, add your email here…

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If you have film maker friends who would like these free Podcasts, send ‘em a special Xmas message to swing by the blog here at www.chrisjonesblog.com

So first off, when I uploaded Distribution Guru Stacey Parks’ seminar last week, I forgot to give the direct links so you can keep the seminar if you like it. So here they are… Each one is about an hour.

Part 1

Part 2

Earlier this year I hosted and evening with Adam Davies who wrote the The Film Finance Handbook… Here’s how we advertised the seminar…

Of all the questions new film makers ask me, the most common is 'where do I get the money?' Well now is your chance to find out what money is out there, who controls the purse strings, and what you need to do to get it

This one night seminar at Ealing Studios is given by Adam Davies, co-author of the brand and spanking new How To Fund Your Film Book, which is hugely expanded from the last edition.

So now you can listen to an edit of the seminar by downloading the link here…

Or by using our player below

Remember to check in again over the next few days for another free Xmas busing podcast.

Onwards and upwards!

Chris Jones, Film Maker and Author

www.livingspirit.com
[email protected]

Writing for Hollywood - Stuart Hazeldine Event

What an incredible seminar we had last night with Stuart Hazeldine. I think it was one of the very best we have ever held. Stuart talked for two hours about being a professional writer for Hollywood. His insights were candid, entertaining, practical and pragmatic, but most of all, extremely inspiring. I am delighted that we made the effort to record the event, and that Stuart was also good enough to allow us to share this recording with the world (it will take us some time to get it tidied and edited, but watch this space). So you will get the chance to hear it all in due course…

There was so much discussed, it’s impossible to get it all in here, but a few points that resonated with me would be…

Stuart loved ‘Blade Runner’, so without any contract, commitment, even any kind of legal clearance, he went ahead and wrote a sequel (he also wrote a spec script for Alien 4). While some may think this a crazy strategy, and while the film never happened, Stuart shared that of all the scripts he ever wrote, that one generated five times more heat in LA. So while he never sold it, it was a great way of getting into the room as a real player.

Stuart also talked about something that is close to my heart too - which is all about getting as close as you can to the completed film on the page, doing all your work upfront so you don’t have to fix it on set or in post. He shared that on the Nic Cage script he just wrote, when he got the green light and the shoot date, that shifted a gear in his mind and he knew he had to tackle all the stuff in the script that was being left for later… In a few weeks time there would be no later! As writers, I think we can lazily hold onto our favourite moments and scenes that will, in fact, get ditched later. So deal with it now. Stuart talked about how he enjoyed taking five pages out of any script and how it almost always improves it. As he said, 80% of work for the 10,000 writers in Hollywood is actually rewriting, where previous writers had been unable to ‘nail it’. That’s a lot of potential work.

As soon as we get chance to get this podcast up, I will let you know - it’s really worth two hours one evening.

Onward and upward!

Chris Jones, Film Maker and Author
www.livingspirit.com
[email protected]

Hollywood podcast goes live

What a week! I have been neck deep in courses and seminars and I am just grabbing five minutes now to write the blog - tonight I am hosting an event with Hollywood Screenwriter Stuart Hazeldine, which I hope will be cracking - it’s a sell out event with 120 people coming!

I have just uploaded a great little podcast I recorded with Andrew Zinnes, about breaking into Hollywood and the seminar that he will be running in May (which I am hosting - more info here). We did this last year and it went down really well, so we again expect a sell out event. Anyway, you can hear the podcast here…

Right, got to work out my questions for Stuart now…

Onward and upward!

Chris Jones, Film Maker and Author
www.livingspirit.com
[email protected]

First Web Designs in....

Right now I feel as busy as I do when I am in actual film production. It’s incredible just how much needs doing for Cannes, for the next project, to sustain all that unpaid work and keep food on the table and a roof over my head!

I have been working on the poster, which is very close now, and on the new website for Gone Fishing. Joe Gardner put together a first crack at the design (click on the pick to see a bigger version) which I like very much. However, I do want to try something completely different too, something that captures the spirit of a summer day, the kind you remember from when you were a kid. That bright and shiny magic. The current design is very well executed, I just don’t want to look too much like all that we are is a fishing movie. Having said all that, we may end up going with this design as it works so well. Let’s see what magic Joe comes up with in the next day or so.

One of the Associate Producers on Gone Fishing, Simon VanDerSpeol, got in touch with me about a documentary on Spitfires that he had made completely off his own back. The story of his journey from small idea to premiere on the History Channel was so interesting, I did a Podcast with him last week. You can see a clip from his doc (which he funded out of his own pocket) and listen to the podcast here. It’s fascinating for anyone into docs.

Chris Jones, Film Maker and Author
www.livingspirit.com
[email protected]

CJ PodCast

I have just done a PodCast interview for a film maker called Matt Morreale, at Yoga Maya Films. We had a good old chat over Skype for about 35 minutes and I hope Matt has been able to cut something useful from my comments. If you want to hear this interview, and Matt has others he is continuously uploading which are also worth listening to, then drop on over to http://www.yogamayafilms.com/podcast (it should be uploaded by now, but if not, look back in a few hours).

If you like it, drop him an email to say so – that will encourage him to interview other film makers and keep the content up to date.

Onward and upoward!

Chris Jones, Film Maker and Author
www.livingspirit.com
[email protected]