Last week I asked you to choose which online course you wanted.

And the results are in.

Overwhelmingly you chose wanted us to create a six-lesson crash course on Crowdfunding Your Film In 90 Days. You can expect to earn $5k to $20k depending on how much action you take from these lessons alone. (btw, I’ve earned over $600k from one campaign using the lessons I’m gonna show you)

It’s 100% free, and you can join to get the full course here.

Today, I wanna quickly talk about why few people respect your work as much as they should. Plus what to do about it.

The harsh reality is you may spend hundreds of hours putting your blood and sweat into a film — only to have people watch it for 5 seconds before moving onto “CRAZY ANIMAL FAILS GONE WRONG ZOMG!”

In the early days of indiefilmTO I made the mistake of not teaching my audience what went into the creation of our work.

What do I mean by “not teaching”?

I would send out a podcast that my team and I spent 30 hours on, plus an email we spent 20 hours on, and just say “Hey… I hope you enjoy this!… Bye!”

Then I would wonder why my engagement was low… Urgh… I want to kill my former self.

Contrast that to now, where I get 20+ emails a day of people telling me how much indiefilmTO has meant to them PLUS strangers emailing me about my feature film weeks after they saw it.

Yes our material has gotten better (you should always be improving), but I also started telling my audience what went into creating indiefilmTO’s material.

And whenever my feature film would screen, we’d make a point of telling the audience a story about what went into the film.

That’s right. We didn’t tell people the story of the film, but instead we told a story about the film. This is what I call “Content vs. Context.”

The content of your film is everything inside it: the story, the lighting, the characters, etc. This is where most people pitch from. “We have a great story!” Okay… so does 10,000 other films… “But you won’t believe the acting!” Better than an Oscar winning movie I can watch on Netflix with three clicks?

The context of your film is everything around it: how you made it, your personal story, the social climate now, how this ties into your audience’s pains, etc. This is what separates your film from every other film.

Which do you think will get more interest?

Well, there are 8 techniques to talk about the context of your film. Today I’m revealing one of them: The Sweat Sandwich. You want the audience to know what blood and sweat went into making your work so they won’t want to hit that door faster than me after a horrible love making session.

(coincidentally, a horrible love making session feels like you’re in a sweat sandwich)

Curt’s “Sweat Sandwich” Technique

Step 1 – Show The Sweat (3 sentences max): Whether it’s a film, an article you’re writing, or even just telling people about what you do for a living, let people know the journey of what you went through. Even if you’re giving it to them for FREE.

What most people don’t understand is that these days even “free” needs to be sold.

Make sure that it doesn’t come across as whining. “Man, I spent like 50 hours on this one title sequence and no one’s watching it.” Please NO! I’ll find you and personally slap you.

Step 2 – Tell Them Your “Ask” (1 sentence max): This is what’s called a “Call To Action” in marketing, but I hate traditional marketing so let’s make it simple.

Just tell them (don’t ask) to watch your video, or read your article, or tell them what you do for a living (if that’s what you want them to know). The reason to not “ask” is because there’s no need to once you complete the third step…

Step 3 – Add Value (2 sentences max): Think about what the person in front of you desires (besides a night alone with you, you sexy mofo!) and genuinely give what adds value to them.

For example, if you’re showing your title sequence to a filmmaker, it’s likely that other filmmaker wants to improve their craft too. Below is a successful example from one of our students.

     Hey, I really sucked at making titles before and so I would look up tutorials and even downloaded Cinema 4D instead of After Effects but it would STILL look like a student film. I read so many forums and it hit me! I made just four tiny tweaks and finally came up with a template that I think is pretty high quality. [here she’s showing the sweat in the form of a journey]

     It took two weeks non-stop so pretend every second is worth $20 :), you can take a look for yourself *includes link*. [she showed a bit more sweat, added a small joke, and a gentle ask].

     I can even show you how I did it afterwards. [here she’s adding value on top of everything, completing the sandwich]

When we screen my feature, we always talk about:

• the context of how it went from pre-production to premiere at TIFF Lightbox in just 90 days [showing the sweat]
• then we say “Enjoy the film” [telling the ask]
• then we say “Oh, and at the end, there’s a panel on Mental Health where you can ask any question you want to the filmmaker or a mental health professional” [adding value to our specific audience].

YOUR ACTION STEP

Think of two things:

1. The latest project you completed that you’re proud of.
2. The latest project you’re currently working on.

Use the Sweat Sandwich Technique to get people interested in it then hit reply and let me know your results.

Talk to you Tuesday,

– Curt

PS: In a few weeks I’ll be writing about my personal successes and failures in film (with actual numbers). A lot of people boast about the success of their films but never talk about specific concrete action steps or numbers.

I want to show you exact numbers from my film’s launches: the good and the bad. Make sure to join indiefilmTO for free to get that info.