SUNDANCE MASTER CLASS RECAP: BUILDING YOUR ONLINE PRESENCE FOR FILMMAKERS

Amie Simon
Smarthouse Indie Film Marketing & Publicity
2 min readJun 22, 2022

Earlier this year Team Smarthouse’s Ryan Davis and Amie Simon were honored to present a three-hour online Master Class for Sundance Collab, discussing the basic elements of a digital marketing strategy for filmmakers- where to start, ways to improve, how to identify and establish digital persona goals, and how to achieve them. Filmmakers Bao Tran and Al’n Duong also partnered up with us to talk about the ways they used social media to build an audience for their film, THE PAPER TIGERS.

During the Master Class, we broke down the basic elements of a digital marketing strategy for filmmakers, including tips and examples showing how to effectively build an online presence for your current project — and beyond. Bao and Al’n discussed the grassroots strategy and out-of-the-box content tactics they used to build a loyal, engaged audience for their film.

Topics we covered included digital marketing strategy essentials and basic steps for independent creators; effective ways to talk about yourself, your creative practice, and your vision; and tips for building (manageable) social media channels.

We also created a “Building Your Own Online Presence” worksheet to help filmmakers identify their audience and worked through it live with Filmmaker Ashley Maria. You can download that sheet for your own use here!

Here are some basics elements to plan for in order to establish your online presence:

  • A good bio
  • A solid demo reel
  • IMDb Pro listing
  • A basic website
  • (Manageable) social media channels

Want to learn more? You can still stream our Sundance Collab Master Class on demand with your membership! Click here to watch.

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Amie Simon
Smarthouse Indie Film Marketing & Publicity

Director of Marketing @teamsmarthouse // film-obsessed writer & editor @3imaginarygirls // horror film lover // social media fangirl // pop culture believer