The 5 move strategy to make your film a reality. #73

This week Sue shares a practical process for turning your dream project into a reality. With 15 years of experience in project planning, Sue finds that this system with five big moves can be applied to any project to get it started, planned out, and into reality. 

This system can be applied to projects of any size and can even be used for personal goals.   You can often listen to experts, watch videos and read blogs only to be left scratching your head on how to apply the learning.  You've been taught the what but not the how.  And that's where this episode is different, it's a clear step by step system that when applied, leaves you with a solid plan.

The first step is setting the goal, followed by implementing the five moves to make your film or project a reality. Tune in to gain clear direction on how to plan out your project from start to finish. 

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Transcript

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SPEAKER_01 0:00

Hello filmmakers and fellow creatives. Welcome back to this week's episode of the Moonshine Moonshot Podcast. So this week I want to talk to you about something that's been coming up the last few episodes I've been getting quite a bit of feedback on, and that's how do you make your dream project a reality? So today I'm talking you through a process that I use. It's the five moves that I make on any project to get it started, planned out, and into reality. So I've been doing this type of project development for a very long time now, I think about 15 years. So I've got a fair bit of experience in project planning. So hopefully some of what I'm going to share with you is really useful. Now I'm very aware that you can read many books, listen to podcasts, webinars, masterclasses, all kinds of things, and they'll tell you what to do, but not so much how to do it. So that's what this episode's all about. It's it's a bit more granular, it's a bit more how to do stuff. So stay with me. It's uh not as not as storytelling mode, but much more practical. And I hope that once you've listened to this, you'll you'll have some really clear direction on how to get your project from the very, very start right through to the end and how you can plan out that process. So this is a relatively simple system that I use to achieve pretty much any project, big or small. And uh it's an approach that you can step up as needed. But once you get the basic idea of how to apply this system, you can really apply it to just about anything. It doesn't even have to be a project, it could be something in your personal life, a personal goal that you're trying to achieve. I guess it really is kind of a way of you know goal setting, and that's actually the very, very first step in the five moves to make your film reality. So you've got to set the goal. And you know, how do you set a goal? There's so much out there. You can easily go and find a ton of research on how to achieve your goals. But the very, very basics of it, the very first step is you've got to set the goal, you've got to choose what that goal is. So first you need to do that, and I always think you should start with the end in mind, particularly for a film. And I am sure you have heard the rules around making goals being time-bound and specific. So here's a really good example. I have a film that I have in development at the moment, so the goal for it ultimately with the end in mind is that I want to produce a feature-length impact documentary on breast cancer that highlights the lived experience of women with breast cancer in Australia, and I want to release it in cinemas starting from February 2024. Now I've picked February 2024 because, well, Cancer Day is in February, and I feel like that's a realistic amount of time to get all the steps in place. So it gives me around 18 to 20 months to produce this feature length documentary. So you can hear in that example that I've just given you that the outcome specific. So what's the outcome? A feature-length impact documentary. What's it about? Well, it's about women with breast cancer in Australia and it's time bound. What is the deadline? Well, World Cancer Day, Feb 4, 2024. So it's got all the right attributes in there now. So the next thing is, you know, how do you do that? You've got this is a great goal, but how do you actually do it? So this is where I get into the five big moves to make it happen. And to be honest, I'm just thinking about I don't actually know where I learnt this principle of the five big moves. I read dozens and dozens of books on productivity and time management, and I've studied stage production. I used to be a stage manager, so I'm sure somewhere in all that someone taught me this. So I am just handing it along to you. It is certainly nothing unique to me. It's just a system that I find incredibly useful and it works. So that's why I'm passing it along. So the five moves. So for example, if you're thinking about a feature-length documentary film, what would be the five really big steps you'd need to take? One, develop the concept, two, attach finance or funding, three, make the film, which is all the you know, pre-production, production, post-production. Four, market the film, and five, distribute the film. So these are really, really big broad steps, but it's really a very helpful starting point because now I've got five very clear blocks of things that have to happen to take my film from the idea, ideation right now, what I want to do, develop an impact film on breast cancer for an Australian audience. And now I know what has to happen over the next 18 to 20 months to make that a reality. So, what do you do then? You know, it's one thing to have these big steps, but what do you do then? Well, it's the same theory, it's just breaking it down further. So you drill into each of the five moves and you make more of a plan. So, for example, step one was develop the concept. And so within that, I'll create five moves. For example, it might be researching the topic, finding possible stories, speaking to breast cancer survivors, identifying experts in the field. What other films have been made on this topic? Do some initial filming, including some interviews with experts and women who are breast cancer survivors, and also capture some observational footage because that's going to be really helpful when you get to step two. So you can see what I did there. I've broken down the really big project, Make an Impact documentary, into five steps. And now I'm taking each of those five steps and I'm breaking down within those steps. So if number one was develop the concept, I've just listed off a whole bunch of things that I'd need to do to develop the concept. And then number two would be attach finance, the all-elusive funding. So to get funding, you need a proposal. You'll need a proof of concept teaser, which I find incredibly useful. And that's why I was mentioning in your development, you'd be doing some initial filming with some interviewees, including observational. Then you would grab a list of potential funders. You know, you'd you'd brainstorm film funds, private investors, aligned organizations, anyone you think might be willing to fund into your project. And then you need to network to get contacts to be able to pitch to those organizations and potential funders. And then you need to go and pitch your film to them and hopefully get the funding. Next, step three, make the film. Well, each step of the filmmaking journey would have its own five moves. So you'd have development, you'd have pre-production, you'd have production, you'd have post-production. And if you want more on any of those topics, then the last 70 episodes of this Moonshine Moonshot podcast goes into enormous detail on all of that. So I'm not going to break it all down for you here, but you can certainly find all that information in all the back catalogue of the Moonshine Moonshine Aid Moonshine Moonshot podcast. So dig in. Then you would go into marketing the film, which was step four. So who is the audience? Seriously important. Who is the audience for your film? You've got to figure that out. And if you haven't heard me plug it before, then go and check out Define Your Ideal Audience. It's on the Moonshine Communications Academy website. It's a great course. Definitely help you with how to market your film. Then where do your audience hang out? Create a marketing plan. Create a website and all the social media places that you'll need, an email campaign. And then you get into advertising and PR. So that's step four. Then you've got all those steps within step four. And then you go to step five, distribution. And this is a really important one that deserves a lot of thinking. How are you going to create a distribution plan? Who is your audience? Where are they? Are you going to put your film out theatrically, video on demand, broadcast television, festivals? Is it for online? And then will you self-distribute or are you going to get a distributor? Oh, I was just looking for a place where I could learn everything I need to know to make an amazing film that changes the world. It's such a shame that that place doesn't exist. Oh what? Hang on. It does. Oh, if you're looking for inspiration, ideas, tools, and ways to learn how to make movies that matter, head to Moonshine Communications Academy over at Instagram and all your problems will be solved.

SPEAKER_00 9:19

Warning, results may vary depending on the questions, and success is not guaranteed. Always read the label.

SPEAKER_01 9:26

So as you can hear, and I'm not going to keep drilling down into all of these steps, but the idea is you start with the really big picture. What is it you're ultimately trying to achieve? You set your goal, you make it specific and time-bound. And then when you're working out what the big five steps are to make your project, you write those down. And then within each of those five steps, there's going to be another list of things that need to happen to achieve each step. And you're breaking it down. And then once you've done that, you break it down even further. And you're really getting into the micro detail here now. So, for example, when I was talking about marketing and you need to create a website, well, creating a website is going to have a number of steps in and of itself. And creating social media places is going to have a number of steps within that. But this is a great way to take a really, really huge project and just break it into really manageable chunks. And then once you've done all this, and I would do it in some kind of a spreadsheet or um, you know, you can use something like a Sana or some kind of um tool like that. But honestly, you can just do this in an Excel or numbers document and just line by line and you just break it down and you expand it out and you break it down further. And at the end of this, you're gonna have a pretty expensive, pretty extensive, it could be expensive, but it's gonna be a pretty extensive task list of all the different steps that need to happen. And then you have a plan. And as the renowned quote goes, a goal without a plan is just a dream. So this is how you make your dream a reality. This is the roadmap to creating the plan for your dream project. Now, if you're looking for a little bit more motivation on getting your project made, then jump back to the last week's episode because I think it was number 72. I spoke about music licensing, but I also spoke about how to get your film made. So check that one out as well. And remember, when you're thinking about your project, setting your goal, be really specific and be really time-bound. That is the key to being able to plan out because once you've done all of these five steps and broken down the five steps and broken down the five steps, you can work backwards. You can go, okay, so if I'm putting my film out on 4th of Feb in 2024, where does post-production need to begin to have that deadline met? Where does production then need to happen? Where does development and you can work backwards and it will all be fabulous? And you're going to have a great film and you're going to have an awesome plan, which, you know, I'm a bit of a planning nerd, so that excites me. So what are your five big moves that you need to make to get your project made? Head over to Instagram, send me a DM, and let me know what are those five big moves and what other info do you need to help get your project made. It's been great talking to you again this week. Look forward to speaking to you next week on how to make movies that matter. Thank you for joining me today and every week here on the Moonshine Moonshot podcast. If you're wanting a deeper dive into the topics being discussed on the show, then I would encourage you to head over to Moonshine CommunicationsAcademy.com and sign up for the weekly drop of moonshine via your email. Being on our newsletter community means we can support your filmmaking journey in a more tailored way as well as keeping you up to date with the resources we share on how to make movies that matter and so much more that we deliver inside your inbox every single week. So head over to Moonshine CommunicationsAcademy.com and at the bottom of the homepage you'll see a little box to add your email address and as a thank you for signing up, we'll also send you a bonus ebook to support your messaging. So voila, you'll be on the way to receive all the best content weekly.