OT: Self Promotion

[Franklin Mcmahon]

Be sure to put the award and award logo on the front page of your website, ensuring that everyone sees it.

The first step with winning an award is to let everyone know, and one of the best ways to let everyone know is to send out a press release. You can probably google for some good examples, and of course the Cow News is a large source of press releases. Look specifically at the ones that fill a page with a simple change or event. Such as “CBA Partners Uses New Sony Camera” or “GFH Productions Adds New Software”. While there are press releases such as “Adobe Announces CS4” there are tons more on small changes made at big companies.

The reason these companies get bigger is they amplify most of what is happening. I have come to find out that no news is too small for a press release, if someone does not know the info, it is news. Writing and distributing press releases is a creative art form, but once you do your first one, it gets easier. Add in some quotes from yourself, info about the awards, etc. There are plenty of examples out there of press releases announcing that a company has won an award.

There are some press release services as well, for usually $99 they will blast your release to everywhere from Yahoo News to Grit (wait..is Grit still around?…)

Writing press releases is also a great way to get comfortable with pimping yourself. If you want to move to a different market, promoting your skills in many avenues is the key.

Frank

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[Rafael Amador]

Also you could put something in your signature in the COW, at least the people around would know.
And also in your web sit: I had a look (Congratulation for your work man. Had you submitted your Demo Reel to the COW?) but I haven’t found any reference to your awards.
Cheers,
rafael

http://www.nagavideo.com

[John Cummings]

Eli-

Sorry, I don’t have any concrete advice for you, but I will say with a reel like that, you shouldn’t have much of a problem. Nice stuff.

Surely with all the DP’s and Directors you know, there must be some good networking opportunities. Every gig I’ve ever had involved networking or keeping in touch with people I’ve met or have known.

I’ve always thought sneaking in the back door is always easier than trying to knock down the front…

J Cummings
Cameralogic/Chicago
cameralogic.tv
HDX-900/HDW-730S/DXC-D50

[Ron Lindeboom]

One way to promote yourself is with the COW’s new Demo Reels section.

We support up to 900 pixel wide videos, up to 100MB in size.

There are some fabulous reels in there and each day the traffic grows in this new addition to the COW.

Here are some great ones that are helping drive the traffic…

reels.creativecow.net

Best regards,

Ron Lindeboom

Creativity is a type of learning process where the teacher and pupil are located in the same individual.

Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away.
– Antoine de Saint Exupéry

[Todd Terry]

No real advice on self-promotion, Eli… but just a couple of comments.

Firstly, your works is absolutely top notch. Those two TCM “31 Days of Oscar” spots have long been my absolute favorite promos… ever. They are just soooo seamlessly crafted, and have such stunning attention to detail. Every time I saw them I saw something new and different and cool… but they never felt cramped or crowded. As I said, they’ve always been my favs, even before I knew who did them.

Secondly, make sure your website is fully accessible. I’m usually on big monitors with wide vistas, but today, I happen to be on a machine with a not-so-huge screen while my normal suite is being re-vamped. I thought your site looked exceptionally cool and clean, but was frustrated by the fact that it was bigger than my screen size, and could not be resized (scaled down) to fit. That left me unable to see some of the info I was trying to read because it was a “no scroll” page and I couldn’t get far enough down (I even tried two different browsers). Finally (duh) I realized it was no-scroll because the entire page was Flash, and was able to click “Show All” in the Flash to be able to see every thing. Not a big deal for me, but I did have to jump through a few hoops and was willing to do so because I was very interested in seeing it. For someone less likely to take the effort, it might could be made easier.

SUPER stuff.

Oh, btw, cinematographers will tell you the “Jaws”-esque dolly/zoom you mentioned in that great Shark Week promo is called a “trombone shot.” Your useless trivia for the day.

T2

__________________________________
Todd Terry
Creative Director
Fantastic Plastic Entertainment, Inc.
fantasticplastic.com

[Larry Melton]

Eli:

I don’t have a lot to add about how to parlay awards into more work. Like you, I tend to assume that people will notice and that will be enough. But of course, it’s not – you have to sell it.

More importantly, let me echo Todd’s kudos here – the TCM promos are as finely crafted as anything I’ve ever seen. I think the best thing about them is that they convey a sense of love and reverence for these films. Even if I was completely unfamiliar with them, I would understand from this promo that these films were important and mattered in people’s lives.

When I see amazing stuff like this, I always want to know more about the process of creating it – it appears to have been a pretty huge undertaking. How many hours of editing? What software did you use to composite? How many days shooting in studio? What was the budget? Maybe you should consider an article for the COW magazine.
I’d pay twice what Ron charges to read that :).

Congrats on the well-deserved recognition. I feel like I won an award just watching this.

Larry Melton
Triangle Productions Inc

[Eli Mavros]

Hi Frank,

Thanks for the advice. Yeah, I should definitely put the award show logo on my page. Maybe I should even have a splash page with them.

I wrote a press release, but I’m not very good at “pimping” myself. I think I would be less embarrassed about it if I was doing business as a company, but I do business under my own name, and I rarely see press releases on places like the cow that is PR for an individual. I know it shouldn’t matter. I also did the project with some friends of mine, and they are in the middle of re-branding themselves and trying to get representation and I don’t want to steal any of their thunder by sending my own press release to the same publications as they are (they did mention me in their own press release).

I do want to do pr for myself though, as I am trying to segue into different editorial work.

Thanks for the advice.

Best,
Eli

Eli Mavros

[Eli Mavros]

Hi Rafael,

I think I submitted my website to the reels section of the cow some months back. Good advice about putting it into my profile. When I wrote this post I had not had a chance to update the website yet, but now there should be reference to the awards.

Thanks for the advice,

Eli

Eli Mavros

[Walter Biscardi]

[Eli Mavros] “I think I would be less embarrassed about it if I was doing business as a company, but I do business under my own name, and I rarely see press releases on places like the cow that is PR for an individual.”

All the more reason to do it. And if you look at Variety and entertainment type of magazines you see press releases or “sudo news stories” all the time about individuals doing this, that and the other.

For what it’s worth, I hate splash pages. If you want to put the logos on your home page and then create a “Recognitions” page, that would be good. I’m completely redesigning my entire site right now and plan to add that as a page.

Walter Biscardi, Jr.
Biscardi Creative Media
HD and SD Production for Broadcast and Independent Productions.

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[Eli Mavros]

Hi John,

I couldn’t agree more about networking. I wouldn’t have gotten where I am so far without networking…I would say about 95% of the work that I do is thru some degree of separation to a friend or co-worker. What I want to do is move out of my comfort zone and work on other types of commercials (narrative and dialogue driven), as well as try my hand at TV and Film. I have found it very difficult to segue into these other territories, but I’m hoping that if I email blast some companies and alert them about my award that maybe they will be willing to take a chance on me even if that is not the type of work I have under my belt. I recently had a trailer company take such a chance on me, and I think they were pleasantly surprised and happy that they did (at least I think so…haha).

Thanks for the advice.

Best,
Eli

Eli Mavros