How many people will watch your film once you make them aware of it? 1 in 100 roughly 1 in 10 in your demographic But 1 in 100 generally speaking
10% will be people you know well or have have met (predominantly been people outside the UK).
If you do something similar to what we did to promote your film (dressing up as robots); say 10,000 people see you walking around, Only around 200 will actively seek out the site you advertise, and only 100 of those will actually buy the film.
So on average It’s roughly 1 in 100 people that, once aware of your film, will pay to see it. 1%?!? It’s a daunting figure. One which is often unspoken of. But you needn’t be daunted by this, instead you should take away from this that you simply need to make sure you’re reaching more people constantly, and doing so creatively.
What you should consider is how many people see adverts to films such as the average summer blockbuster, compared to the amount of people who actually go and see it. Everyone, my Nan included knows about films like these – through advertising, mentions on various TV programs, print reviews, etc. But only around 10% aware of bigger films actually pay to see them.
Say a film makes $100m, and a ticket is roughly $10. That’s roughly ten million people who’ve paid to go see it. When you consider how many people there are in the world, and how many people are aware of films of this sort, the figures seem less daunting. The idea is simply to reach as many people as possible, knowing only a fraction will actually see it. Big studio execs, advertising agencies, and filmmakers all know this, it’s time you did too. Your motivation to continue to reach more and more people should come from this fact. Simply put, you always need to do more!
Added to this, I feel I need to point out that there’s an alarming degree of apathy towards other independent filmmakers by independent filmmakers. I’d say roughly 5% support the work of other people. A lot of people (myself included a few years back) just want people to see their film. They couldn’t care less about other people’s films. Theirs is the best, the most important, the only film in the world. We need to support each other! We need to put the word out about each others’ projects, pay to see each others’ projects and actively support each other, for the simple reason that we don’t have giant advertising agencies doing all the work for us, we have to do it ourselves, when frankly we can’t. We need each other! If you’re wondering why no-one wants to pay for or see your film, ask yourself when was the last time you paid to see the work of another independent filmmaker? It’s time for change!
More Figures:
– 63% of viewers from social media sites – 18% from local press/creative advertising (in the street) – 12% word of mouth, from those who have seen it – 7% from people we know/have met before – Over 80% of people still prefer to buy a DVD, rather than downloading or watching online, despite having to pay international postage.
