Hall of Shame

Shonda Harris vents her feelings

By DTL
Posted February 26, 2022

Just this afternoon, I received an email from an individual whose name I did not recognize:

From: "Shonda Harris" <producer@talentbeyondbeliefstudios.com>
To: "Damian T. Lloyd" <damian.lloyd@gmail.com>
Date: Saturday, February 26, 2022 12:17
Subject: You’re a writer I knew it! Lol

Now I see why you on Facebook messing with me [crying with laughter emoji] your a genius writer. I can barely spell and you getting on me about marketing. I am trying my best lol but you right I’ll do better but I’m not telling the whole story but I got what you saying.

Unfortunately, I don’t remember SH or any interactions with her, so I don’t know how I was “messing with her”. It’s entirely possible that I made a drive-by comment on a post of hers suggesting how she might improve her marketing.

She has gone to the trouble of finding out my email address (not hard to do), rather than sending me a DM on Facebook or even just commenting in reply to my comment, so I infer that this issue matters a lot to her. I hope she feels better having got whatever this is off her chest.

Lessons

Often I see people — newbies and even some experienced Producers — making basic mistakes when promoting themselves and their work.

1) Presentation matters

If you “can barely spell”, then get someone who can spell to proofread your posts before you put them online, and to proofread your pitch deck before you show it to anyone, and to proofread your script before you hand it out.

If you don’t care about the details when you present yourself, why should we believe you’ll care about the details when it comes to making a movie? Everything you say and write and do reflects on your professional credibility.

And you don’t have to do it all yourself! It’s never been so possible to find a skilled Graphic Designer who can prepare a nice Look Book for your project, to help collaborators and investors picture the movie as you do. The discipline of having to describe the visuals so the Designer can capture the images will help you later with your Cinematographer and Production Designer.

Here, SH’s poor writing obscures the point she wants to make. Like, what does her last (run-on) sentence even mean?

2) Always introduce yourself

Surprising as it may be, other people have things like families and friends and jobs and lives. They deal with these things even when I’m not around. These Other People actually continue to exist when they’re “offstage” in the Story of Me.

The chances are also good that we who make (and aspire to make) movies participate in several movie-making Groups on Facebook. We probably post in these Groups and make comments from time to time.

So if you’re contacting someone, especially if that someone is a stranger you may have interacted with in a public forum, don’t rely on them to remember you. Remind them of the context in which they might remember you: “You said in Movie-Making Group that my promotional campaign for my short movie Cliché Drama was bad.” Use specific details to stimulate memory of the interaction; the memory is still there, it just hasn’t been classified and stored long-term.

Why would someone forget something so basic as to introduce themselves? Some of them feel they are pre-fame celebrities and everyone should already know who they are; these people usually aren’t worth the drama of dealing with them.

A lot of the time, it seems to stem from them not realizing that other people don’t know what they know. After all, everyone they know already knows this, right? Well, yeah — but that’s because they’ve been telling everyone about this project for months. If anything, their friends are sick of hearing about it.

The First Commandment of Promotional Posting is this: Thou shalt remember that every post thou makest is someone’s first contact with thee and thy project, and givest them all the information they needst to respond to thine ask.

3) Have a reason for contacting someone

What is your ask? That is, what do you want the readers to do once they’ve read your missive?

If your simple answer is that would would like to invite them to perform anatomically-unlikely actions, you might consider whether that is just your hurt feelings talking, wanting you to hurt back. If that’s the case, your best bet is probably just to let it go. You’re not going to argue them into thinking your movie is good. No, they’re not haters who are jealous. They probably weren’t thinking about you even when they were typing their comment; they were probably reacting to the single post. Not everything needs a response from you. Sometimes you’re better off not caring what other people think.

But if you do want to contact someone, what do you want them to do? If they’ve mischaracterized you, do you want an apology? If they’ve poohpoohed your plans, do you want them to subscribe to your email list for updates so they can see the plans working?

The likeliest reason you’re contacting someone is to ask them to help with your project. Here a surprisingly large number of cases feature the lack of an ask. You approach a potential investor, you explain your project and its needs, and you sort of leave it to them to infer that they should volunteer resources. No! You have to actually ask them: “So what I need from you is a commitment of $10,000 by next Tuesday.” You have to ask!

If you don’t have a reason for contacting someone, you’re wasting both their time and yours.

4) Remember where you’re posting

Almost all newbie creators make the same mistake: They think that posting in movie-making Groups constitutes marketing their movies. But they have fundamentally misunderstood the nature and purpose of these Groups, to their and the Groups’ detriment.

• We are not your audience. We are your colleagues, and sometimes your competitors. Just because we share an interest in making movies doesn’t mean we are all interested in your project. What is your movie about? Who are the people who are interested in that? Where do they hang out? Post there!
• Nobody watches “indie” movies; “indie” is not a genre. If I hate horror movies, I’m not going to watch your horror movie just ’cause it’s “indie”. Rather, people watch horror movies, dramas, comedies, sci fi, action, thriller . . .
• This is not fertile ground for your crowd-funding campaign. Everyone in every Group has a project we can’t afford to make. If we had any money, why would we spend it on your project instead of our own?

But movie-making Groups are excellent places to seek feedback on what you’ve done. Your crowd-funding campaign post in Movie-Makers Group might not bring in many donations, but if you ask for critiques of your campaign then lots’a readers have thoughts about things you might improve, links to resources to help with just what you’re doing, and / or tales of their own successes and missteps to learn from.

Likewise with your movie. Posting a link to your horror movie in movie-making Groups doesn’t count as distribution. If you want viewers, post where horror-movie fans hang out: in the horror-movie-fan Groups, for example. But posting a cut of your movie for critique in movie-making Groups is akin to one of those audience-preview screenings where they take your cellphone and make you fill out a little card. We Minor Moguls and independent creators can’t afford that sort of thing, so the chance to get feedback from actual viewers is gold.

And this is often high-quality feedback, too! Because we are fellow movie-makers, we can offer critiques of greater depth than, “I liked it!” We can point out not only that something isn’t working, but suggest reasons why it isn’t working. Remember again: We are your colleagues.