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Three Things Documentary Filmmakers Can Learn from the Super Bowl

Published on February 8, 2008

by Kasmore Rhedrick

The New York Giants’ victory over the New England Patriots Sunday was, according to Nielsen Media Research, the most-watched Super Bowl, 97.5 million viewers, in television history.

The 43.3 percent of TV homes watching Super Bowl XLII, nearly 10 percent greater than the 34 percent of Americans who claim football as their favorite sport shows that the “big game” has some big lessons to teach documentary and independent filmmakers who desire to get more people to view their films.

The Super Bowl’s ability to excite the public's imagination and gain a sizeable amount of spectators - beyond their core audience base - is to make the event a party, get others involved and to have a presence on different media platforms; these same methods can be applied to increase the number of viewers for your film.


Make it a party (in front of a TV)


My colleague Leah, originally from the UK, in conversation about the Super Bowl said, “I don’t care so much for your football but it’s a good excuse to eat a lot of bad food.”

As independent filmmakers we might not be able to boast the $2.2 billion in sales of HDTVs that the Consumer Electronics Association estimates the Super Bowl spurned last year but we can screen our films outside of the movie houses and into the living rooms across the world.

Make your screening an event by serving food and drinks and get your audience to participate in the tangential aspects of your film. The Super Bowl has betting, licensed merchandise and voting of the MVP. You can engage your audience with the same; maybe not the betting but you can create a unique game or quiz that references the elements in your film, make t-shirts for people to wear at the screening and offer a poll or discussion for your audience to partake in.


Get others involved (in benefiting from your film)


Although much has been made about advertiser’s paying up to 2.7 million for a 30 second commercial it is the stories of how everyday people like nuns and local women and minority business owners who were able to benefit from the Super Bowl that demonstrates the power of this game to attract others to promote the event in their communities. These people have something to gain from the success of the event and will put forth the effort to ensure that it is a positive experience for all who attend.

The hotel and hospitality industry may not be able to benefit from your film but you can find other organizations or individuals who want to get involved and lend a hand in promoting the success of your work. Non profit organizations like Volunteer Match, Idealist and MediaRights can help you to identify the people who care about the issue(s) in your film and who will benefit most by playing a role in the promotion, distribution or screening of your project. Our Outreach Toolkit is a great resource to help you execute grassroots distribution.


Have a presence (on multiple media outlets)


The Super Bowl was viewed on television, heard on the radio, chronicled on the official Super Bowl website, blogged across the blogosphere and reviewed the next day in the headlines and sports pages of most of the nations newspapers. It was the buzz leader in Yahoo! Buzz and, as Brittany Mayne noted in her blog post Corporations and Social Networks, the game and its advertisements dominated the video sharing and social networking websites.

You too can promote your project across media platforms. In addition to blogging and developing an online identity for your film there are other ways to secure your presence on the various media outlets.

You might want to consider writing an op-ed on the subject of your film for a local newspaper, booking yourself as an expert on talk radio, podcasting an interview with the principles in your film and creating a channel on YouTube to post clips and to reach out to other vloggers and journalists. The important thing is to cross-promote your different media platforms and once you capture an audience member - keep them involved and aware of your film.

Often independent filmmakers get frustrated when trying to compete against the big budgets of mainstream media, however, just as corporate media is encroaching on the free and community based spaces of the internet we can steal a bit of their thunder and use the same methods of reaching 97.5 million viewers to help ourselves become a bit more known.