I am in post-production on my latest documentary film, Scum of the Earth, a film about the unintended consequences of current legislation on sex offenders who have been released from prison.
To begin to create buzz about the upcoming release of the film, I will plan an event that will create the illusion of success (actually, it may be more than just an illusion).
The film will be entered in all film festivals in the St. Petersburg, Tampa, and Sarasota areas. The film was produced at a trailer park in St. Pete, so interest will be exceptionally high. The trailer park is well-known (and abhorred) in the area by the public. The film will also be entered in the Florida Film Festival in Orlando because we live here and have had previous films in that festival.
The sex offenders are not allowed to travel outside of the county in which they reside; however, we know offenders that live in the counties where the festivals take place. We will recruit offenders and non-offenders to hand out flyers and hold signs encouraging people to see the film. Those offenders will be present at the screening of the film at the festivals, and they will be available for Q & A following the screenings.
Many of the families of offenders are very politically active and will volunteer to help with the promotion of the film during the festivals.
To get press, we will recruit others who protest sex offenders living in the area. We can do this easily by notifying local organizations that fight to keep sex offenders from living in their neighborhoods. This may likely be a heated or even physically violent confrontation between anti-sex offender people and the sex offenders themselves and their families and friends.
We will film this event and post it on the website. It will likely get press because of the subject matter. Often you see protesters marching against sex offenders, but rarely (if ever) do you find offenders at these protests. This will be extremely newsworthy.
Many state agencies will have an interest in the film. The Pinellas County Sheriff's Office is featured in the film, so I expect many of the officers from that county and others nearby will attend. Social service agencies, therapists, families of offenders, attorneys and many other groups will be notified of the screening repeatedly for the month prior to each screening.
Local governments officials who are charged with enacting local ordinances prohibiting where sex offenders can live will also be notified of the screenings.
To get press, I will contact Roger Moore, the movie reviewer at the Orlando Sentinel. He gave exceptionally high ratings to our previous film, and the Sentinel ran a full page story about it. When we began filming Scum, the Sentinel assigned a reporter to cover the story in St. Pete at the park. The primary offenders in the film were featured, and there was a spotlight on the fact that the filmmakers were from Orlando. I will also contact the reporter as she said she would like to do another story when the film is ready to be released.
There is little doubt in my mind that we will sell out in each theater. Selling out will create an illusion of success that will hopefully bring even more attention to the film and the subject matter.
