Let me workshop your project in real time

We can do better than the advice that's out there

Important question: if you could create magical little portals of discovery, without selling your soul to an algorithm, and grow an audience who was genuinely engaged with all your weird little projects, would you finally get closer to the artistic career you want?

If you’re like me, you may go through fits and starts of energy.

Between working a full time day job, raising two kids under 7 without childcare, and guiding the pre-production on my first feature film, my body becomes a shell by 4pm. I have no brain cells left. By 5pm, Courtney has completely left the building.

But I also have a deep desire to grow an audience who wants to watch my films. I’m desperate for connection. I have so many project ideas and I want a long career full of making them.

I’m guessing that you, like me, have a similar desire: to find your audience, nurture them, and build a sustainable career making work they (and you) love.

And like me, you have been told many times that in order to build that audience you must make yourself seem interesting enough to “follow". So you:

• have to game the algorithm

• must “be consistent”

• divulge every BTS moment you can mine

• have to follow ~t H e S e EXACT s T e P s~¹

My child is currently banging a metal bowl on the floor at 7am, so I’m unable to debunk why the above steps are absolute trash, but just trust me when I tell you: that just ain’t so.

Creating content² does not have to suck the life out of you, and it does not have to feel salesy, and it does not have to be insincere or disingenuous to who you are as an artist.

via Metalabel Community on Are.na

Your content does not have to use a template to be magnetic. But it does benefit from knowing certain principles and being customized to exactly who you are.

Now I’m going to say something you may not agree with, but I truly believe with my entire human body: creating good content to build your audience is a political act.

When non-dependent artists have a clear voice, transcend the algorithm, and go direct to their audience, they are reclaiming their power and directing their career.

They don’t have to perform for the market, they can be unencumbered to create from the freest place in themselves and share their weird little worlds with people who actually want them. This is a revolutionary act—to be yourself.

But I do not have to tell you how much absolute nonsense is out there about how to do this. I’m not even referring to slop, I’m just talking about the trash truck loads of silly advice for artists.

People will sell you templates and hooks, they’ll give you prompts for AI to write your copy, they’ll show you the “exact” formula for conversion. And as someone who has nurtured and grown hundreds of thousands of followers and subscribers for brands, startups, celebrities, and small businesses, I can tell you: there’s no formula.

The thing that converts passive viewers into word-of-mouth career-sustaining fans is a combination of

1) understanding the principles of marketing, and

2) customizing those principles to your truth as an artist.

Truth be told, I wish building an audience was as easy as spitting out an AI answer or implementing a formula, but I’ve literally never seen that happen. Maybe it will someday, but I tell you with my full chest, today is not that day.

At the same time, which non-dependent filmmakers have time to get a degree in marketing? Who has time to push out content in the hopes they get lucky and land on a viral idea?

I spent the last 14 years or so learning how to do all of this. It wasn’t my intentional strategy for my non-dependent filmmaking career, but the universe is wise and it gently nudged me into a series of opportunities to gain the skills and experience I would need to apply to my filmmaking career.

I’ve built marketing campaigns for projects, events, brands, celebs, startups, small businesses, and companies you’ve seen in Vogue, The New York Times, Oprah, Coveteur, NY Mag, and more. So I have seen a lot.

And I want more filmmakers to know what I know, without having to spend 14 years learning (and having your livelihood depend on learning it well).

So that’s why I offer Town Halls.

Town Halls are monthly live calls where I workshop your projects in real time. I’ll present marketing principles you should know and then customize those principles to your specific projects.

Whether you want an overall content strategy or a specific plan for your one film or you really would just like to be Insta-famous (go forth! to each their own!), I will help.

The next Town Hall is on TUESDAY JUNE 30 at 11a PT / 2p ET for paid subs

At Tuesday’s Town Hall, I’ll present a marketing framework for audience growth that paid subscribers can use to create:

• your Substack editorial calendar

• a social media campaign

• an audience for your film before you’re even in pre-production

• a deeper, more meaningful connection with your current audience

• a less stressful content plan that makes you feel like a free spirit instead of feeling beholden to the malignant whims of the tech bro algorithm

And then I’ll take your questions about your exact projects to workshop how to customize this strategy in real time.

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Feeling NonDē curious? Quick Ways to Get Started in the NonDē Film Movement ahead »

1. Subscribe to FilmStack Daily Digest and start getting your analysis and breakdown from thinkers on this platform with independent voices.

2. Try non-dependence one of these 64 ways.

3. Read about the New Film Criticism and subscribe to a swath of amazing film critics who don’t just introduce us to new work, but also help us think and write about films in an altogether fresh, original, personal way. Check out Film Soup Zine run by KLA Media Group and C. C. Simmons who will be reviewing specifically-NonDē films.

4. Join the NonDē 50 Films Project by signing up here and checking out the dashboard here.

5. Start talking about it. Let’s bring these ideas into the conversation. At first people will say we can’t do it. That’s fine, let’s talk about it. Let’s bring these big ideas into the rooms with us.

6. Discuss with your team. Be the leader on your production team and bring non-FilmStack filmmakers into the fold. Share resources and posts with them about how to do things differently.

7. Share about the NonDē Film Movement far and wide. A better world is inevitable if we make it so.

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Read the entire NonDē series:

1. It’s not too late to say you were there when it started

2. You’re invited to the table

3. If you say it, they will come

4. Went to Slamdance, and all I got was renewed faith in the future of film

5. The (not so) hidden agenda of non-dependent film (part 1 of 3)

6. The love of the game is a power move (part 2 of 3)

7. Who gets to speak about the future of film? (part 3 of 3)

1. My eyes can’t roll back far enough.

2. I know it’s a dirty word, but my day job is in marketing strategy so I have a more nuanced take on this than most folks. Child is still banging metal on the floor, so we can get into this later.