Shame, Fame and the Publicity Game

A crystal sync motor could keep your movie from resembling a badly-dubbed chopsockie flick

by Jack Watson | Published April 14, 1995

Clint Howard in Ice Cream Man due for release in March.

Publicists, along with distributors, are the link between a film's completion and a successful run in theaters. MovieMaker gathered three publicists from Los Angeles to participate in a Q&A.

THE PANEL: DOUG LINDEMANN, COTTRELL/LINDEMANN, Years of experience: 7, Films publicized: Gas Food, Lodging, My Own Private Idaho, One False Move, (as producer) Bar Girls

LENNY SHER, PRA, Years of experience: 27, Films recently publicized: Ice Cream Man

DEBORAH SIMMRIN, ROSEN AND CO., Years of experience: 10, Films publicized: Love & A 45, Benefit of the Doubt, Separate Lives

Keith Bearden (MM): What does a publicist do?

Lenny: The basic job is to translate what is interesting and newsworthy on behalf of a film or client and communicate it to various audiences. It's to keep that name out there, to keep what they call "top of mind visibility."

MM: When a good film doesn't get seen, is it strictly a matter of ineffective marketing and publicity?

Deborah: It can be, but we live in such an information glutted time, that small films with unknown actors and directors have a really hard time competing for space with higher profile projects. A good publicist can beat the trees till kingdom come, and still not get people interested. And then it's up to the enthusiasm of critics and film festivals to really propel you outwards.

Lenny: When a film doesn't do well, it's because the film is either no good or wasn't promoted properly. Simple as that. I think people can basically tell a good or bad film when they see it.

MM: What percentage of a successful releaseis dependent on publicity?

Lenny: It varies from case to case. It's part of a mix—advertising in newspapers and TV, interviews in small and big magazines, critical response and just plain old word of mouth. We haven't found a substitute for people just telling their friends or people at work that they saw a good movie last night. I think word of mouth is ultimately the most important factor. That's what made a film like sex, lies and videotape, which cost a couple hundred thousand, gross 20 or 30 million dollars.

Clint Howard stars in Norman Epstein's Ice Cream Man.

Deborah: I don't think sex, lies and videotape was marketed especially well, it just happened to address something that a lot of people thought was provocative at that time. A lot of it is luck. You can make a film with current subject matter, but by the time it gets released it's not current anymore. If that happens, the audience just won't be there.

MM: The recent list of successful independent features have all had a strong publicity "hook." El Mariachi was shot silent for $7, 000 by a guy who earned the money being a guinea pig for drug testing. Clerks was made by a convenience store clerk in the store where he worked. Go Fish was the first movie by and about 20-something lesbians. Does an independent film need that press angle to succeed?

Deborah: Yeah, it's up to the publicist to come up with each film's special aspect. There are some great films out there that don't have that hook, and it makes my job really difficult. Love and a .45 got lumped into all these "killer" movies like Killing Zoe, Natural Born Killers and Pulp Fiction. It was my job to try to differentiate it from them.

Doug: Yes. You have to provide the antithesis of the standard "Sharon Stone being paid five million dollars to show her what?" stories. But really, you can't treat those films you mentioned as homemade movies anymore because they've been picked up by distributors with multi-million dollar publicity machines propelling them. Miramax, which released Clerks, is part of Disney. Also, El Mariachi isn't a $7,000 movie when it goes to a 35mm blow-up for $50,000, and a title shoot which cost $200,000 dollars. These distributors hide behind the humble integrity of these little films, yet all the while clutching a bag of gold coins.

MM: What are the challenges of dealing with an independent film?

Lenny: The challenge is money—you have less money to spend on doing what you do. You have to be extra careful to find the target audience on that film. With Ice Cream Man, we are targeting the audience of horror and B-movie fans. We've got a lot of really good pictures with special effects, and we have kind of a campy cast that movie fans will get a kick out of. Magazines like Fangoria reach a quarter of a million people. That's very effective advertising for almost no money.

Keanu Reeves and River Phoenix in My Own Private Idaho.

Doug: You have to find the edge. You have to make it stand apart from the pack. What you have going against you is you're running in the face of some very powerful media conglomerates that own the TV stations and magazines, and have their own major studio product to promote and protect. [Fox owner] Rupert Murdoch owns Premiere and Time/Warner owns People, Entertainment Weekly, HBO and MTV—they're trying to own the opportunities for exposure and criticism of their film and music product. Fortunately, journalists can't be bought, and they have a healthy disrespect for studio product. The advantage independents have is that you're giving journalists and editors unmined territory to explore. Those people are dying to cover something new and exclusive, so you have to play to those people.

In a way independent cinema is still very pure. If it's no good, it won't get publicized. It has to deliver. A big studio film is like McDonald's or Campbell's soup. It may not be great but people know what they're getting when they buy it. That's their angle to get people in the theater. A small film has got to have a reason for its existence and some angle to captivate the imagination of the public and pull it away from seeing the John Grisham film down the street. A lot of indie films don't make it because there is nothing extraordinary about them; many just don't need to be made. A lot of;really crappy films- get made. Only about 300 films a;year get theatrical distribution out of about 2000 English language films made every year. Maybe 1 in 10 get into the theater; 9 out of 10 go nowhere. And they can't even get onto;video these days.

MM: Should independent filmmakers think about publicity before, during or after making their film?

Doug: Because film;an econimically motivated art form, and because there are certain fiscal responsibilities a filmmaker must face up to, they better have a grasp of the publicity value of the film from the outset. If you're going to make some morose, self-obsessed, experimental angst-ridden piece of independent cinema, don't bother! Yeah, there may be some artistic value to it, but you are probably throwing your money into the wind. A lot of films are unnecessary. I hate to say it. You may think you're an unrecognized genius, but film is not a medium that you can afford to go unrecognized in. A little film costs as much as a big house. Filmmakers should ask themselves, "why does my film need to exist? What void does it fill? Has someone else done exactly what I'm trying to do?" If so, save your money and tell people to go watch that other person's film.

MM: What gets people into the theater?

Deborah: People go to movies that they can relate to on some level. It's our job to help convey a film's universal theme. General audiences go into theaters and say, "Speak to us," and that's why demographics exist so we can decide who a film is speaking to...

Doug: What gets people to go seeindependent film is that it has something new to say and it says it in an effective way. Something important, something of interest, something appealing—and it's our job to get that message out, we and the critics. One False Move had a second life after it quickly faded from theaters solely on the basis of support from Siskel & Ebert and the other critics who followed their lead, saying what an overlooked gem it was. It began playing theaters a second time, with much better results.

MM: What should you look for in choosing a publicist?

Doug: Someone who understands the film, and is not afraid to work hard. They may have never done publicity before, but with the right understanding and a lot of energy they could still be very effective.

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