What’s it take to make it in Hollywood?
A question we get nine times a day.
Turns out, the answer may lie in a post from Zen Master, psychotherapist, and Karate black-belt Mary Jaksch.
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Archive - Break In To Hollywood
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Filmmaking Success: Do You Have This Secret Weapon?
We Want to Make a TV Show with You
Our agents said “you’re crazy.”
Friends said, “don’t do it.”
The lawyer said, “I wouldn’t recommend it, but if you must…”
Well, We Must…
When we wanted to break in to Hollywood, no one would take our calls. We had:
- great video pitches
- unique ideas
- the determination to succeed
It wasn’t enough. We still needed to convince production companies to meet with us and consider teaming up.
For most aspiring filmmakers and TV producers today, that’s still the case. People won’t take your calls.
Starting Now, We’re Taking Your Calls
We’ve decided to try an experiment.
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Kickstarter Success: Tips and Tricks to Launch Your Kickstarter Campaign
By now, you’ve all heard about our Kickstarter for an Oscar® campaign, and if you haven’t, you can learn more here.
Your Kickstarter Campaign
We wanted to collect all the tips, tricks, and resources we’ve put together for you over the first two-thirds of our Kickstarter campaign into one easy to access page.
(We were able to raise over $20,000 in the first 48 hours, broke our goal in just five days and five hours, and are still raising money for our Indie Oscar® Campaign as we speak.)
We’ll add to these over time. Hope these Kickstarter tips and tricks help you raise thousands of dollars for your passion project.
More Facebook Likes and Tweets on Your Campaign
We believe this little tip helped us get 1,810 likes on our Kickstarter campaign…and growing.
Easily Promote Your Kickstarter Project in the Real World
What happens when you want to tell people outside of cyberspace to visit your Kickstarter campaign? Are you really going to give them a link that looks like this:
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/jokeandbiagio/dying-to-do-letterman-kickstarter-for-an-oscar-and
Try spelling that out for someone! Use this tip to make it far easier to raise money in the real world:
Easily promote your Kickstarter Project in the Real World with Redirects.
Facebook Ads for Filmmakers
Here are the real numbers, facts and figures, dollars and cents, on how our Facebook ads for Filmmakers experiment went.
Better Video Updates
Check out this super-duper top secret tip to make your web videos of any kind shine: How to Fake a Multi-Cam Shoot with Just One Camera.
14 Blog Posts That Helped Us Launch Our Kickstarter Campaign
Raising $20,000 in just 48 hours still has us in shock. How’d we do it? Well, listening to what the good people who wrote these blog posts had to say really helped.
Blog posts that helped us launch our Kickstarter campaign.
Free Graphics for Your Kickstarter Campaign
We made some Kickstarter graphics, along with downloadable Photoshop files, After Effects files, and a tutorial. Here’s the video, and you can download all the supprting files on this post from our Dying to do Letterman Kickstarter campaign.
Supporting files available here.
How to Raise More than Your Kickstarter Goal
Stop raising money once you hit your goal? Of course not!
Right now, we’re 130% funded with two weeks to go, and we believe that’s because we took the time to explain to our audience why we were still raising money. Three reasons we changed our Kickstarter video.
Good Luck!
Hope these resources help you achieve great success on your own Kickstarter campaign. More questions, comments, or resouces we should know about?
Leave a comment below!
Karen Everett Knows How To Improve Your Documentary
Karen Everett keeps a fascinating site called New Doc Editing. At first glance you might think it’s just a promotional site to sell her (highly rated) services, but that would be a huge mistake.
Tons of Free Tips
Karen has dedicated herself to the study of story-telling in documentaries, and puts out tons of great, free, useful information week after week in her newsletter (I read every issue) much of which is also on Karen’s blog. Recent topics include:
- How to Conduct Documentary Interviews
- Cut Your Documentary Until it Bleeds
- Leveraging the ‘Big Bash’ Climax
While she does offer many interesting paid courses on documentary structure — both live classes and downloadable videos — Karen Everett does what any great teacher should: she gives away valuable information to those who are just discovering New Doc Editing.
Terrific Resource
When brainstorming for every new show and project we undertake, we have our “go to” list of references to help us consider our potential story structure from every possible angle. Karen’s work has become a valuable reference right up there with that of Robert McKee, Christopher Vogler, and Blake Edwards.
Thinking of making a documentary?
Be sure to check out Karen’s site, New Doc Editing.
Chad Gervich Will Make You Rich, Famous, and Successful in Scripted Television
How’s that for an endorsement?
Now, you might be wondering, “Who the heck is Chad Gervich?” Seeing as, on his own site, Chad asks “Who the hell is Chad?” it seems like a fair question.
Truth be told, Chad is probably the most knowledgable person on the planet about the inner-workings of television, as proven by his best selling book Small Screen, Big Picture.
(That’s NOT an affiliate link, by the way, just our stamp of approval.)
It’s likely the best book on the market about working in TV.
Are we biased?
Maybe. We do fill most of an entire chapter in his book. Chad is also directly responsible for our first show-running gig (a story for another day.)
A Prolific Blogger
If you want to work in TV, you should just buy Chad’s Book. But if you’re not ready to spend the best $10.85 you possibly can on understanding the business of TV, follow Chad on Twitter, then check out these great blog posts Chad’s been generous enough to share with all of us:
- How Do I Get an Agent?
- How Should I Prep a Reality Show Pitch?
- Should I Go to Grad School to Become a TV Writer?
- Does Having an Agent Allow You to Live Outside LA?
- What’s it Take to Greenlight a Serialized Drama?
- Do All Screenwriters Have to Live in LA?
- How Should I Lay Out Episodic Format in a Written Pitch?
Chad’s a Great Teacher, Too
Not just saying that…Chad is a really funny guy, and attending his classes feels like you’re watching a stand-up comedy routine at the Improv, yet somehow still learning. Find out more about his upcoming engagements by following him on Twitter and by checking out this page at Chad’s site.
And of course, if you’re not already doing it, follow us on Twitter, too, and consider getting our Newsletter.
Double Trouble…
We're Joke and Biagio, a husband and wife team making our way in the world of film & TV. Together we run Joke Productions, Inc.
