If you read Part 1 of our Why Publicity Matters series, you would’ve received some tips on why publicity is a vital part of any marketing plan for your Film or TV show and how you can step up your game.
Now that you’ve gotten an overview of how publicity can help, it’s time to focus on how a unit Publicist can help you manage publicity. Producers may do marketing for their films but they often avoid paying for unit publicity. But that’s a critical mistake because it’s a vital component to effectively deliver a movie when it’s sold to a distributor.
When it comes to publicity, you can’t take it all on yourself. Here’s the top 9 reasons on how a unit publicist can help you maximize press coverage for your project.
- A Producer ≠ Publicist
Out of a desire to keep to a budget, a producer may often take on the role of the unit publicist by taking on the Social Media strategy or scrambling around like mad to gather assets together in preparation for a film festival.
Don’t put your producers through that; let them focus on the production. A unit publicist can help you coordinate the photographer, organize set events and interviews, grab quotes, develop the press kit & monitor social media. Without a dedicated unit publicist, productions simply don’t have the time, resources or knowledge to manage it the way it should be done.
- A Unit Publicist Manages Your Assets
Coordinating a film festival is about more than managing the red carpet. It’s also about making sure all the ‘deliverables’ make it to the studio after wrap. These deliverable assets include approved red carpet photos, behind-the-scenes videos and interviews and full press packages that includes production notes and cast/crew biographies. So who’s qualified to do this for you? It should be someone who knows every frame of your film because they’ve lived through it with you. On larger projects, you’ll need a unit publicist to organize behind-the-scenes footage for marketing, entertain VIPs and conduct set tours to get them excited about the project
- A Unit Publicist Crafts Your Image From the Beginning
Having a unit publicist work on crafting the image of the film from the beginning means that anything you hand to a distributor, a festival or the press, reflects the film in the way you want it to be reflected. From the posters and videos to websites and social media, you can have your material positioned & ready EXACTLY the way you want, ready to hand over to key people.
- A Unit Publicist Works Hand in Hand with the Production Stills Photographer
When you’re working with a stills photographer, his or her focus should be on photography: capturing, editing and uploading the best images. You shouldn’t have to worry about whether a photographer also has the expertise and experience in dealing with producers, talent agents, or studios in order to get the perfect shot. This is where the photographer and unit publicist working together as a close team can open doors. The UP will know which shots are priorities because he or she knows what will be important in later marketing efforts and will make sure the photographer gets the perfect shots.
- A Unit Publicist Can Help You Jumpstart Your Social Media Presence
Viral Film campaign for The Dark Knight
Even if you’ve already set up the social media profiles yourself, a publicist can help you prep profile photos, develop an outreach schedule and manage social media assets on set. Behind-the-scenes teasers are becoming more and more popular and being able to offer them to your social media fan base is a huge plus. This means you have an audience in place and ready to go when you go to your first festival or get picked up for distribution.
- Unit Publicists Keep the Production Secure
Unit publicists field any and all inquiries from the press, fans, local community organizations, film commissions etc. Due to his/her relationships with the studio, crew & cast, there is little chance any misinformation could be leaked. Whether you’ve got 15 international journalists making their way to the set to interview eight actors or if the studio is requesting a special photo shoot on the first day of filming, these are the kind of things that a unit publicist has the expertise to gracefully juggle, ensuring that all visitors walk away with exactly the impression you want to convey. Plus with daily access to the production, the unit publicist is able to share interesting stories with any press or VIPs during or following production.
- Unit Publicists Are Invaluable In a Crisis
If a crisis incident arises during filming, you’ll need a unit publicist you can count on to field the phone calls and issue statements. When a studio is involved, the unit publicist is the liaison between the studio and the set, informing them of crisis incidents and press requests particularly when shooting is on a distant location.
- Unit Publicists Have Valuable Intel
Production notes written by a unit publicist that’s been on set the entire time serves quite a few purposes. The information is often picked up by the media, whether it’s for a story about the production or a profile on the director. It’s also the unit publicist’s job to make sure the information is being offered to the right media outlets—the ones that speak directly to the specific audience the filmmakers want to reach. A unit publicist will work to foster those positive relationships during the production.
- A Unit Publicist Can Save You $$ in the Long Run
Unit publicists attach assets such as a cover story, magazine spread, or a segment on national broadcast that can mean millions of dollars in media impressions and increase the value and profile of a film. Ultimately this can help save you money in the long run because a unit publicist can work with a photographer to get that special shot on set easily where it would cost a marketing department thousands of dollars to try and recreate it.
Need more info on how unit publicists can help you market your films and TV shows? Keep it glued here for our post on how a Publicist Can Help You Find an Agent!
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