Göran Olsson (director) of The Black Power Mixtape 1967-1975 (Sweden)

Interview with Göran Olsson (director) of The Black Power Mixtape 1967-1975 (Sweden) a feature documentary film that screened in the World Documentary Competition of the Sundance Film Festival 2011 and at the Berlinale Film Festival.

The footage was shot by a group of Swedish journalists whose footage had languished in a basement for 30 years which has been constructed into a mesmerizing journey through the Black Panther activities during that era.

Executive Producer: Mike Smith
Producer/Host: Sue Lawson
Camera/Editor: Bruce Himmelblau

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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