Here is our groups Post Mort! It's a bit of a doozy, but all the info is here!
Introduction
Free Samples is the story about a college dropout, with the worst hangover imaginable, who is forced to work in a food truck for a day. To really understand the film, our group lived that life. We got into contact with multiple food trucks, Popsicle stands, frozen yogurt joints, and more, to help us market the film and the festival. After recruiting an artisan popsicle stand and a location in Ivanhoe Village, Alex, Kyle and Austin proceeded to get the worst hangovers imaginable. We then went to work at the stand. We created a series of T-shirt designs. We professionally printed a handful at a local printer. We then made a series of shirts DIY, using stencils and spray paint. And finally, we made handouts. With all of these tools, we spent days at Ivanhoe Village and throughout Winter Park promoting the film.
Film Synopsis
Team Members & Duties
weekend of festival, secured artist to design stencils for the shirt, contacted local food trucks and
venues for possible promotion activity, promoted the film during film festival, participated in
blog activity, took photos during festival.
Austin - After Alex made the design for the shirts, I looked into having them printed. I looked into multiple companies and settled on the local Big Top printer near UCF. I had them printed and then looked into making more shirts for cheaper to hand out to people. After Kyle got the supplies and had the stencils made, I spray painted the shirts. Along with Kyle, I spent a day at the popsicle stand handing out flyers and informing people about the film and the festival overall. The week of the festival, I also spent multiple days at the Enzian, handing out flyers to festival goers in between screenings.
Alex - I was the Main blogger, took care of the majority of the blog updates, and created/managed the blog overall. Also designed the flyers for us to handout, and go them cut and printed. Along with the other two guys I did street work standing out with the Popsicle cart and hitting up the theaters a bit to help promote the film.
Marketing Plan: Old vs. Results
Marketing Plan:
Postcard pitch: Life doesn’t stop for the broken hearted.
Psychographics:
- College age/Young adult (18-24): Kids our age can easily relate to it:
- -Ice cream/yogurt shops in the UCF/Winter Park area. Join forces with these shops togive out free sample cards.-Food trucks-especially dessert trucks.-Teal’s Ice Cream shop/Contact Scottie Campbell for promotion-Plastic/Aluminum bottle openers/coasters(Bars in WP/UCF)
- Parents of college kids (35yrs~55yrs): Their kids are going through the same situations/thoughts.
- Hipsters: Hipster areas(Milk District)
- Law School dropouts/Barry Law School
- High School Film/TV Pro clubs
- Human Experience fanatics
- Use Sheena Fowler and Amy for help
- Art walk @ Eola
Results:
-Reached out to local food trucks in hopes of booking some for the festival weekend.
-Contacted Winter Park Village and Washburn Imports to set up potential Food truck/cart spots.
Washburn was the only one that came through and helped out.
-Were in contact with few other food trucks, i.e. Sweet City Gelato and Pop Craft Pops-Pop
Crafts was only one that came through. We promoted the film in front of Washburn Imports in
Ivanhoe Village Saturday April, 6th and 7th. We handed out flyers to the customers of the village
as we spread the word.
-Starting on Monday the 8th we handed out free samples of individually wrapped candy
to hopeful audience members. We also spent time at the Enzian talking with movie goers
convincing them to see the film. We continued this strategy throughout the week.
-We had Antique Jade t-shirts made with the films logo on the front and the cast on the back. We
also created a stencil to spray paint a logo and some of the credits on blank white t-shirts. They
didn’t come out so well so we gave some to our friends to spread the word. We also used them as
a promotional tool during the Pop-Craft promotion weekend.
-We targeted the more bohemian/indie crowd in Ivanhoe Village
-Our film was about half full on Monday the 8th at Winter Park Village and the Frida the 12th
screener was about ¾ full at the Enzian.
Media Contacts
Email: volusiapops@gmail.com
Phone: (386) 547-2000
-Washburn Imports: Paul
Phone: (407) 228-4403
Address: Ivanhoe Village location-1800 N. Orange Ave., Orlando, Fl 32804
-Sweet City Gelato: Monika Tyler
Email: sweetcitygelato@gmail.com
Phone: (407) 489-5916
Calendar (With Collateral Artwork & Festival Photos)
Things started out a little slow for us, especially since our Director never contacted us. We didn't have much to go on at first, but here's a calendar of all of our meetings in list form.
March 4th: We all met up discussed basic ideas. Very brief and simple meeting.
Link: http://seeframples.blogspot.com/2013/03/first-update.html
March 18th: This was the first real day of meeting, we had all pre-concieved a bunch of ideas. Kyle and Alex met up today, with Austin unable to make it because of work. We discussed the handouts and ice cream possibilities.
Link: http://seeframples.blogspot.com/2013/03/march-18th.html
March 19th: Similar to March 18th, but this time Kyle and Austin met up and Alex had to work. They narrowed down some vendors to contact and this is the first day we found out our film's showtimes.
Link: http://seeframples.blogspot.com/2013/03/march-19th.html
March 20th: We established contact with two vendors, Pop Craft Pops and Sweet City Gelato and Alex designed the handout flyer.
March 22nd: This was our first time meeting solo with Charles, Alex and Austin went in to meet with him as Kyle was out of town for a wedding. Charles recommended a few good ideas to us, and let us know we needed to keep up with our blog more, and let us know we needed a good tagline to yell at people.
March 24th: We worked on getting in touch with the two food truck vendors about dates and locations. We also uploaded our films trailer on the blog.
Link: http://seeframples.blogspot.com/2013/03/march-24.html
Austin also made a post about our progress with the custom t-shirts.
Link: http://seeframples.blogspot.com/2013/03/merch.html
March 25th: We met up and discussed the design for the t-shirts. We also tried contacting Winter Park Village to see about putting a food truck on their property, namely Sweet City Gelato who seemed the most interested in helping us.
March 27th: Regal rejected our proposal, and we weren't sure where to go with sweet city gelato. We did get a stencil designed for T-shirts to spray paint.
April 1&2nd: We had a falling out with Sweet City Gelato, which was unfortunate, but luckily we made contact with Pop Craft Pop who were excited to work with us as well. We also got a quote on the flyer handouts we designed.
Austin also received our nicer custom t-shirts from Big Top.
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April 4th: We went to the Spot on campus and got our flyer printed out. We also recieved our badges for the film festival in class on this day. We had set up dates with Pop Craft to get a cart out in Ivanhoe village to help promote the film.
April 6th: Our first day out and about promoting. Austin had to work this day, but Kyle was out with the Pop Craft rep Kim at 1pm and Alex joined him at 2:30pm. Kyle had to leave at 4pm and Alex stayed with Kim until 6pm. Kim was great and definitely a big help.
The shirts we spray painted didn't turn out too great, so we really didn't end up using them.
April 7th: Same deal as April 6th, only this time Alex had to work. Austin met up with Kim at 1pm and Kyle joined him shortly there after.
April 8th: This was our first showing day! Kyle and Alex went out to promote at the Enzian first and then headed over to Regal Winter Park. We bought an assortment of candy to hand out to people, and that seemed to go pretty well. The showing wasn't sold out, but we did decently. The Daily City also instagrammed our info!
April 9th&10th: Alex had to work both these nights unfortunately, but Kyle and Austin did what they could to hang around the theaters and promote.
April 11th: This night was the filmmaker welcoming party. Alex had to work but Austin and Kyle showed up and got to hang out with Tippi Hedren. They were also surprised when Jay Gammill, our director randomly showed up!
April 12th: Our last showing Day, we all hung out at The enzian and schmoozed around with filmmakers and film goers. Jay Gammill was there and we got a chance to talk to him for a bit about the film and life etc... Tippi Hedren also showed up to view the film! We got a picture with her as well afterward. The theater was decently full, a little better than monday probably due to Ms. Hedren's appearance.
Community Project
Our Community Project was centered on the Pop-Craft Pops Cart. The owner of the cart, Kim,
didn’t charge us at all since she’s a major supporter of the arts. We set up the cart in front of
Washburn Imports. We were there for about 4-5 hours on both days of Saturday the 6th and
Sunday the 7th. Our goal was to spread word about not only our film, but about the film festival
as well. We educated people on the importance and effect of the Enzian’s presence in Central
Florida. It was a great experience interacting with the locals and gaining a perspective on their
knowledge and appreciation for students and their involvement in the arts.
Filmmaker Review
There's not a whole lot to say here. Unfortunately we were never able to get in contact with our director Jay Gammill. When we did see Jay at the festival, which was a surprise in itself, we didn't bring up anything about why he didn't get back with us, as we didn't want to make it awkward. However we do understand why he might not have contacted us, it's not normal for a a group of college kids to try and ask if it's cool that they promote your film for free. That or he just looked it over and didn't know what to make of it and ignored it. It would have been cool to have an open channel with Jay from the get go, but we're ultimately glad we got to meet him and that he liked the stuff we came up with. He seemed appreciative of our work. It's easy for us to say that if we were in his shoes we'd have contacted us for free promotion, but honestly that's probably easier to say from our perspective. But still we would have loved to have had contact the entire time.
