Dave Cool Talks Indie Continued
Dave Cool (that really is his name) a fellow entrepreneur and owner of Stand Alone Records, set out to dispel the myth with his independently released documentary, “What is Indie?” Here is more from a recent interview with him.
Catch up with Part 1.
> Did you stick to the budget?
I didn’t go over the maximum that I wanted to spend, but looking back I
probably could’ve saved some money in certain places, especially with travel
costs. New York City can be expensive!
> Did you seek outside funding? Why/Why not?
Surprisingly, no. Here in Canada there are actually a lot of grant programs
to get funding, but the project always seemed to fall through the cracks
with their criteria, so I just funded it all on my own credit. I had some
people offer to invest cash, but there’s always strings attached with that
and I wanted to retain complete control over the project.
> How have you been marketing it?
I formed a lot of strategic partnerships with companies in the indie music
industry, so those have been great for marketing the film, essentially
through contests, giveaways, special promotions etc.
Most of the marketing so far has been online through the film’s website and
MySpace, but the other aspect has been getting screenings at music
conferences and film festivals, as well as in bars and clubs around North
America.
> What has been your most successful tactic?
It’s a toss up between offering to giveaway the film on DVD each month to a
new mailing list subscriber (which has attracted hundreds of new
subscribers) and offering to let people host their own screenings of the
film, which has also done really well.
> If you could do it all again what would you change?
Ah yes, the hindsight question. Well, one thing I would’ve changed would be
to not tell anyone they were going to be in the film until after it was edited!
Cutting people out was by far the hardest part of the process.
Check out whatisindiemovie.com
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