September 9, 2009 69 Comments

Who Does Ray Need to Reach

What if you’re Ray Schlogel, and you’ve spent your last dollar producing an independent movie, For Love & Stacie, but it’s just not hitting? Ray’s got a twitter account, and a facebook account, and he’s all over the social web, but nothing happened. He’s sure tried.

The movie is a documentary-style film about Mike, a filmmaker, who is dumped by Stacie, his actress girlfriend. Instead of sending flowers or chocolates or the like, Mike decides to shoot a film for her. Along the way, Mike makes some discoveries of his own, and we come away with some interesting thoughts, too. You can watch it all here.

So, here’s my question for you: YOU can watch this flick. He put it online: For Love & Stacie. WHO should watch this flick? Who do you know that would check it out and want to move Ray to the next level?

Could YOU help Ray? Could you pass this on to someone? See how this could be an interesting project?

What do you think?

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http://twitter.com/RaySchlogel Raymond Schlogel

Not sure how to go about doing that but I'd give my last nickle for 90k views! Congrats on that!
http://wenchadmin.wordpress.com/ deannamcneil

I only know one screenwriter, so I tweeted this to him. If anyone would know, @neilochka will have some ideas! Let's see what happens!
http://twitter.com/tyr Dustin Luther

Well, we should chat because I'm currently setting up a series of facebook community interviews with directors, actors, etc. of independent movies on Spinnio… To date, almost all of the events have had strong built-in communities (Alexa Vega among teens, The Cove among environmentalist, Humpday b/c of the Sundance buzz, The Stoning b/c it came out the week after the Iran elections, etc.), so the events have pretty much attracted big audiences on their own. However, my thought is that if I set up a series of 10 events each featuring someone passionate about their independent movie, then even movies without a huge natural following will be able to help each other generate buzz. If you're interested, follow me on twitter and I'll DM you with details as I get them.
michaelcalienes

hey ray — followed you on twitter — never late to the party :) will shoot you an email over at your place.
http://twitter.com/RaySchlogel Raymond Schlogel

Followed ya twenty mins ago! I'm totally down for anything, would love to partake and would be absolutely grateful for the opportunity. Ask and I'm there
http://detroit.fwix.com Jamie Favreau

Very good question.

I think this comes down to what we talked about when I was doing my #journchat Live and I wanted you to be apart of it.

Does a person just have a bunch of followers but NO real influence? Can an influencer not have any influence when it comes to something which is not interesting to his group?
kat brogan

i'm surprised that people backed away from social media being a good venue for promotion
isn't this about using non-traditional marketing?
in the past XYZ worked to get the word out
but come on people
this isn't about the movie itself

can you hack?
experiment?
brainstorm?
connect?
it works much better as a group than saying
“he should come up with more ideas.”
or
“this movie isn't interesting to me”

i think this is a great thing to play with

“Make it work!”
not “How is it not working?”
not 'Can you?”
not ” Gosh guys do you like the movie?”

for love of god people
go play!!
http://www.1918.com/ 1918

Hey Ray and Chris…

First, I think the movie looks funny, and will watch it with my wife this weekend.

But beyond that, why shouldn't we all be trying to stretch a little to see if we can make something happen in the social space that has an impact on one man's life for the better.

I can't imagine anyone who honestly can't think of one person who could help Ray. Maybe it's your kid in college who might love watching the movie, or your quirky sister's friend who is all artsy, or the guy at your work who is always looking for something to invest in.

Maybe they won't like the idea's that Ray's pitching, but maybe they will. The best thing we can do is help the connection get made, after that life takes over.

I agree with Kat – lets find out if we're up to the challenge.
http://chrisbrogan.com Chris Brogan

Definitely another way to solve for it. The question is, who's going to step up and do? : )
http://twitter.com/RaySchlogel Raymond Schlogel

Wow, thanks Kat, really touched by your post. I can say with all honesty that I've gotten some great feedback from those who have actually watched the movie despite the screencap, graphics, whatever. For those who watched the whole thing you know it is “different”, that's part of what makes it a tough sell through traditional means. Even the description has to be somewhat vague for it to work as it was intended.

My hope with social media or going viral is that most things that go viral dont always require a description. Its a simple “Hey, this is funny/great/hilarious/neat go watch it”. It doesn't always have a lengthy description or much else, people will often just go watch for themselves based on someone else's praise or recommendation. If people just press play and watch For Love & Stacie generally speaking the response is even BETTER than I had hoped for.

I don't want to get defensive, everyone here has so generous in their time just to read and post. My goal with releasing it wasn't to get donations or raise money or anything other than to get my work seen, pray that it goes viral, and that that might help me raise my profile as so often viral videos do for their creators. As I say in the blog, things have been bad, being self employed as a director/shooter/editor has been rough the last few months and its been a struggle to keep my head above water. Insult to injury was that, what I felt was one of my greatest achievements to date (self funding and making a feature length movie) was completely under the radar. And to be honest if it wasnt for the amazing feedback I got from the screening and fests it was in it wouldn't have bothered me as much. If everyone that saw it thought it was horrible, well, I think I would have been more willing to lick my wounds and go home and try again. But every review was good, audiences seemed to love it. So I thought, well, maybe I wont make money but if I just put it out there and people watch they would be willing to tell others to do so.

Anyway, obviously I don't know what I'm doing, been grasping at straws ever since I made it. Truly hope that some here will be willing to take the time to watch and see for themselves whether or not it's worth it.

Thanks Kat for the post, meant so much.

- Ray
http://twitter.com/RaySchlogel Raymond Schlogel

Thanks for thinking on it and really look forward to hearing your thoughts after you get to see it!
http://twitter.com/IceCreamMelts Nnamdi Osuagwu

I like this exercise and I like the concept of the “one man band”. Here is my take:

1. It is not about how good or bad your film may or may not be. I think it is about identifying an interested audience and going directly after them. Maybe bloggers that cover relationship topics.

2. I think that you should create a brand around your film project. For example, I have written a few books. Each book project has an associated interactive blog. Yes it will be great to sell books, but there are site visitors that posted blog entries because they were interested in the topic not because they read the book. This helps spread brand awareness and can result in a potential sale.

3. Another idea is to make the project personal to regular people by hitting the streets and getting their “For Love&Stacie” Stories and posting them on Youtube and your site.
4. You obviously have enough talent to produce a film. Sign up for sites like eHow.com and write articles on producing film and use “For Love& Stacie” as an example. Interested readers will then watch your film as a case study.

5. Last but not least, comment on film blogs, give an interesting perspective and help others whenever you can.

Basically, I’m taking my own advice for my upcoming book, ““Facebook Addiction: The Life and Times of Social Networking Addicts.” Check it out http://www.TheFacebookAddiction.com

Good Luck with your project.

-Nnamdi
http://figmentations.blogspot.com figmentations

Here's a few comments that I can offer. Let me start by saying that I came across Chris' post on Facebook, and since I checked it out in the evening when I had nothing much else going on, it was a good time for me to see what it was all about. (On a short side note: I'm a casual blogger who has realized that social media hasn't been the magic bullet to an easy traffic that it sometimes seems it can be, so, I'm equally curious about both the social media aspects of this as well as the actual film itself.)

Also, I'm writing this a few days after watching the film, so, please know that it did stick in my mind for some reason. :) Anyway, I think that the tricky thing about promoting this film is the necessary “no spoiler alert”….you really do have to watch the whole film to get the true effect. Maybe play more on the unexpected ending part….I was curious about “where's he going with this” and “how's this going to end?”. Yet I see, too, that for those not interested in the “issue” per se, they might not come away appreciating time spent on a topic that wouldn't have interested them from the get-go.) This is more than a love story. After the fact, it's interesting how the ending can seem predictable even though it was surprising at the time. I liked the trailer, I thought it was an accurate representation of the film.

Instead of this movie being viewed as just “entertainment”, it would be great to have a post-viewing discussion group about it.

The “reality” aspects of this film are particularly intriguing. I think this work is a great “business card” and I would definitely recommend Ray to anyone looking for a filmmaker…I don't have to love the topic he covered to see he can do good work. My only suggestion would be to maybe edit it down some…curious thing, though, whenever I fast forwarded a bit, I'd always have to rewind to catch up on what I missed.

Hope these comments help a bit. Sorry that I don't have an appropriate network to recommend it to. It seems that the only filmmakers I know are in the same boat as Ray, trying to get noticed, too. Best of luck to you, Ray, and to all struggling artists. (And definitely keep us posted on any new work you have coming out, Ray.)
http://twitter.com/RaySchlogel Raymond Schlogel

Wanted to post a brief update. I have yet to follow through on many of the suggestions, not that they weren't taken to heart. Believe when I say I'm willing to try most everything. I have done some more graphic work, changed the thumbnail on the movie itself hoping that maybe the new image combined with the some quotes and praise from reviews may convince people to give it a chance. I also added a description of the movie to the top of the blog. By the feedback here it was clear to me that many wanted to know a bit more about the film itself instead of just the blog that said “why” I posted but not a lot about “what” I had posted.

I also got a domain name that now points directly to that blog. http://www.forloveandstacie.com

The WordPress link was just to long and difficult for people. If it ever picks up steam and I find the resources I may try to get a full site for it but at present this will have to suffice.

I do want to thank everyone here for taking the time to comment. I do still hold out hope that some of you that weren't inspired to click Play and actually watch it may find a moment of inspiration to give it a try. I'm sure most are already tired of me asking for help spreading it around so I'll not ask you for that, but you just watching it for your own entertainment would mean the world.

Thanks so much Chris for taking a risk by posting this. I am more than touched by both you and your readers willingness to try to roust up some support and guild me in the right direction. Not least of all Bob Andelman, aka Mr Media (@andelman) for having me on his show yesterday DIRECTLY as a result of your post here. If anyone wants to they can give it a listen here: http://tinyurl.com/mavxks

Thanks everyone, crossing my fingers I can still make this work and trying hard to implement many of your suggestions, I'm not giving up yet!

- Ray
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Sorry if you didn't enjoy it, I'm sure not for everyone. I just say that in check and in some smaller fests may have found it a great response. That said, I fully acknowledge and respect your opinion and appreciate you taking the time to view and send messages.

Who Does Ray Need to Reach

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