My advice to any filmmaker has always been that Behind the Scenes should be included in the beginning stages of budgeting the film.  Major motion pictures hire a team of experts to produce, shoot and edit the EPK. It should be no different for a low-budget independent film. Although there may not be money in the budget for a team, there should be an experienced group of 2 or 3 people in charge of the Behind the Scenes. The job of producing the EPK should not be assigned to an enthusiastic PA or actor with a minor role. Shooting and editing the “making of” a film is a documentary. And like a documentary, it has to have a story and explore character relationships. To hold the audience’s interest it should also contain some dramatic conflict as well as some light hearten humor. It takes an experienced producer to capture the footage and ask the questions needed to tell the story. On more than one occasion Lindsey has said that “how the movies get made is often times better than the actual movies themselves.”

For small independent films, including a behind the scenes can help sell the film to a distributor. It not only aids in promoting the film, but being able to include the Behind the Scenes in the EPK package can also increase sales of the DVD.

The key is to start working on the Behind the Scenes before principle photography begins. Because as with most documentaries, it’s difficult to try to recapture an emotion or an incident that happened during the filming. Although some interviews with the cast and crew are shot after the film has wrapped, the on-set interviews with the actors, while they’re still in costume with the set in the background are the most intriguing.

Some films are making their behind the scenes doc available online and as shorts on cable, like HBO’s First Look. But they are also including extra content that’s not available anywhere else on the DVD and Blu-Ray. The movie trailer is designed to get people interested in going to see the movie, while the Behind the Scenes can help sell in a slightly different way, by getting audiences to connect with the cast and crew both before and after they have seen the film.

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I worked as the EPK producer, camera and editor on “The Christian Fury”, a short zombie film earlier this month. This was the 3rd film where the character of the Christian Fury appeared in a Buckley Brothers Production. Even though it was a low budget film, they shot with the RED digital cinema camera. After talking with the director, we decided to take a non-traditional interview style. Instead of sitting down with the cast and crew under controlled circumstances, I hooked up a shotgun mic on the JVC GY-HM100U and caught them between shots. I discovered that they were a more relaxed on camera. Here’s a clip from the behind the scenes doc with the director, Vincent Buckley and the 1st AD, Justin Lothrop.

The most exciting part of producing EPKs for me is getting the stories that occur Behind the Scenes of film and music. Sometimes people interchange the terms Behind the Scenes and EPK, but actually the BTS and the “Making of” is just one part of the kit. The Electronic Press Kit for a film can also contain the trailer, video clips of scenes from the film, interviews with key cast and crew, a synopsis of the film, a list of credits and publicity contact info.

More and more EPKs are going online. Independent filmmakers and recording artist are using social networking sites such as YouTube, Facebook and MySpace to promote themselves. This not only cuts down costs such as DVD production and duplication, but it also provides a “green” method of distribution. Provided of course that they used “recycled bits”.

It is also important that the EPKs are produced, shot and edited by skilled personnel. In some cases, the film producer or director will assign the job of shooting the behind the scenes to a production assistant or an intern on the set who has little or no knowledge of how a video camera works or who don’t understand how to find and construct a story.

This blog will share not only my experiences as an EPK Producer, but also include insight from other professionals who are producing, shooting, editing and appearing in EPKs.

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