SF Cutters, Create More, and Big Brains for Rent present:

Session 1:
Growing Your Production or Post Production Business in Any
Economic Climate
Morning Session: 9:30am - 12:30p

If youʼve been paying attention to your business lately, youʼll know customers think cheaper equipment should lead to cheaper production. Thereʼs always seems to be some ʻkid in a basementʼ underbidding your projects at every turn and many traditional sources of production revenue are simply drying up.

These trends were already happening but the advent of an economic downturn has accelerated the change. Meanwhile, the Internet has radically changed communication and brought us powerful new tools for communicating with new and curent customers.

This is the New Now - the new business reality - with new opportunities and new ways of growing your business, whatever the economic conditions. Get used to living in a world where change is the new constant - where most of the rules of engagement in business, with customers and wthe wider world - are constantly changing. If youʼve stayed in the production or postproduction business for more than a few years, youʼve already weathered significant change.

There are new opportunities and new ways of growing your business, whatever the economic conditions.

Topics to be discussed:

Using social media, blogging tips,

Using Google Analytics,search engine optimization,

Becoming a great salesperson and being more persuasive,

Cutting costs and how to work smarter by producing more cheaply,

Getting paid faster, and understanding the value of owning your content.

Testimonial:

""The New Now" doesn't say to lower your prices! It tells you how to sell solutions, not your services. It even investigates the opportunities working distantly.

The Internet has certainly made this possible. It's the wave of the future too I believe."

- KenStone.net

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Lunch on your own

2:00pm 

Special Presentation from the dvds of

Film Specific's Going Global Boot Camp

Thanks to Stacey Parks and Film Specific

Check out all the resources, events, and publications for purchase or subscription for independent film distribution:

http://www.filmspecific.com/

Film Specific events:

http://www.filmspecific.com/public/899.cfm

Take what you learn today and dive deeper.

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Session 2:

How To Grow and Monetize an Audience for Your Independent
Production
Afternoon Session: 2p - 5p

Since the advent of low cost production equipment almost any project can find a suitable budget. However distribution has not been democratized to the same degree.

Learn how others have built substantial and profitable audiences for their independent film and video projects and successfully monetized the audience.

Learn the common themes and how you can apply them to any independent production.

In the first part of the seminar you'll learn from the experience of others:

When to start building an audience

How to identify and reach your "core audience"

How to 'Connect with Fans"

How to create and use your evangelists

The role of the production blog and how to build out your production website

How to get your website found in search engines

How to use modern PR techniques

Having built an audience it's time to monetize by:

Learning how CwF + RtB = profits

Monetizing free content (and even piracy)

Examining the six most common monetizing strategies and how they apply to independent projects

Learn which strategies have been the most effective for other projects.

All the information is liberally backed with case studies.

Testimonials:

"On this occasion his topic was "Growing An Audience for your Indy Production." Phillip pointed out that a major paradigm shift has taken place. Where once distribution (as well as advertising, promotion and building an audience for that distribution) was the job of a distributor or a network, it now falls to the filmmaker or content creator. Hodgetts presented case histories of creative and successful
self-distribution, talked about piracy, blogging, using the internet and tribal marketing, among others."

- John Coleman at MediaBootCamp, San Diego

About Philip Hodgetts
Philip Hodgetts is an expert and consultant in digital production and post-production workflows, encoding, web applications, digital delivery and technology innovation. He is the President and CEO of Open Television Network, a company dedicated to making "podcasting" a professional service.

He remains President of Intelligent Assistance, Inc - a systems and technology developer - and one of the "Big Brains" of "Big Brains for Rent" consultancy. He is an experienced trainer and has written extensively online across a range of topics.

He is the co-creator of “Assisted Editing” and an expert on metadata-based postproduciton workflows.

Philip is the author of "The HD Survival Handbook"; "Awesome Titles with FCS" and "The New Now: How to grow your production or postproduction business in a changed and changing world".

He has presented at many conferences and seminars including Keynote addresses for the New York DV Show; Academy of Television Arts and Sciences' NEXT TV symposium in 2006; and the 2007 Podcast
Summit at NAB as well as presented at Streaming Media East and West; NAB Post|Production, Seybold among others.

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Seminar Raffle Sponsors include:

Pixelflow - 2 $100 gift certificates

Pond5 - 2 $100 gift certificates

Books from Focal Press

Books from Peachpit Press

Books from Oreilly Press

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Discounts for SF Cutters:

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