An award-winning producer of one of Scotland's most successful short films Cry For Bobo, has released a free guidebook for anyone looking to get their short film to a wider audience.
Nigel Smith's 70-page graphically-designed booklet, which you can download as a PDF from Scottish Screen, takes a practical look at how short-filmmakers can overcome the notorious obstacles in getting their film out to a wider audience.
Titled You've Got It Made, the booklet offers advice on how to get into film festivals or onto DVD compilations and points the way to existing resources that shorts filmmakers should make use of, such as funding for travel and accommodation expenses.
Smith advises on what to expect of sales agents and makes suggestions on how to use the internet for distribution, adding a note of caution: "as soon as your film is available on the web it becomes of less interest to film festivals, sales agents and DVD compilers."
Perhaps most useful for filmmakers are Smith's personal anecdotes and the sample materials from promoting his own films, such as a promotional budget and a film festival submission letter.
Cry For Bobo, which was one of the three Scottish Screen Tartan Shorts released in 2001, is a surreal tale of a clown who is sent to clown prison for a daring and silly crime. The short film has screened at over 135 film festivals as well as being broadcast on television.
Smith writes: "This cost me (personally) in excess of £5,000 during the first two years of the film’s life, with only around £4,000 returning in the form of festival award cash and sales agent revenue returns. I spent almost a day each week for the first six months, and an evening a week thereafter to help the film on its way."