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Welcome back! Scott DuPont, Film Producing 102 here on Expert Village. Product placement.
Let me be real...let me just cut to the chase right here. On your first feature film a lot
of these people have this illusion, okay, that people are going to pay them lots and
lots of money, okay, to have Coca Cola in their movie. They're not! Okay? Now, on a
big movie like Mission Impossible with Tom Cruise and these big name actors or another
movie Deja Vu with Denzel Washington that they have a guaranteed release on "X" number
of screens, "X" number of theaters, that's a different story. No one's going to give
you money if they don't know A) if you're going to finish the film and B) if it's going
to go to theaters and if so, how many screens? So here's a totally different way to approach
product placement. Understand you're not going to, probably not get money. What you can do
is you can contact some of these corporations like Coca Cola or if you have a cell phone,
a Motorola or Samsung cell phone, whatever might want to use. And let them know... they'll
probably go to want to see the script...let them know "hey, we are not looking for money.
If you have some extra products, we'd love to some free product samples but really all
we want to do is we want to show your product in a positive light that fits in this overall
film script." Okay? And that will give you a lot better success. The other thing I can
suggest, especially in a real, real low budget film, is go to some local companies that might
not have national exposure 'cause it's a lot easier to deal with a low, .a smaller company.
You might even get to talk to the owner or the president and say "look. You've got a
real nice gadget over there. You've got a really cool line of clothing. I would love
to put it in our movie and showcase it." And you will have a lot better luck going that
route. So that's pretty much it for this segment. Stay tune to Expert Village, I've got a few
more great segments coming up.
