Do It With Others

I want to talk about Do It With Others. Last year, it was Do It Yourself and this year everyone is abuzz with Do It With Others.

I am a big proponent of Do It With Others. I think it's the ideal way to get the most publicity and best results for your film. When there is real collaboration happening, anything is possible. 

But is the real collaboration happening or even possible?

Let's talk about how it could be: 

Producer, Director, Writer, Financier(s), Cast, Crew, Agents, Managers, Assistants, Interns -- all the people who are part of the actual creation of the film. 

Each and every person above worked hard to make the film a reality at the time their specific skills were necessary for the completion of the film. The end product contains their work. And hopefully they are proud of it and they want the film to succeed. So let's say they bring their energy from the beginning of the process to the launch of the film. That's over 100 people telling others about the film and hopefully they tell 2 friends and so on. And that's just the creators of the films.

Then there are the fans, colleagues, friends, family and other filmmakers who can join in the promotion and let's not forget the Sales Agents, Producer Reps, Publicists, Production Attorneys, Theater Venues, Film Festivals, Journalists, etc. 

But, and tell me if you have found this to be true as well, too often a film is made and the 100 people who worked on the film have moved on to the next project that is currently exhausting them and paying their mortgages and bills. And suddenly that initial 100 has dropped significantly to a handful of people from the group of creators promoting the project. 

And then the fans, colleagues, friends, family and other filmmakers are distracted by their own commitments and life in general. They're excited about the project and they want to it to be a success. But life gets in the way and their own projects take priority. And the film flops.

So how can Do It With Others work if no one is really making it a priority to Do It With Others? We need to make a commitment to help one another. All of us do. And I believe the more we help one another, the more we help ourselves and our projects. Are we willing to go that extra mile to help others besides ourselves? It's the only way DIWO will work.