Socrates Sarfo
The Young Men Christian Association (YMCA) has held a three-day workshop for film makers on how to effectively market their films to get their monies worth.
The workshop, which formed part of the “Fresh Craft” intercultural training programme for TV series, gave participants the opportunity to learn more about the African landscape of film distribution and the world at large.
The Fresh Craft programme was launched by the German Film and TV Academy Berlin (DFFB) in collaboration with the African Film Schools; MAISHA Film Lab, Uganda and the National Film and Television Institute (NAFTI), Ghana.
It focused on the development, production and marketing of a web series with the participation of students of all fields of study from all three institutions. Participants at the workshop included students and film makers from Germany, Ghana, Uganda and Rwanda, and had previously worked on documentaries and films.
Mr Jurgen Seidler, the Head of the Fresh Craft programme and a lecturer, speaking at the opening of the workshop, said it was an important programme to make students know the kind of market they would be facing and strategize accordingly to distribute their films.
He said this was an intercultural exchange between people from different countries. This is a way of working together to create a kind of new energy for the student film makers.
Mr Seidler said film makers needed to know their audience to give them the right content to enhance their marketing and distribution.
Mr George Bosompim, NAFTI Head of Film Directing, commended Fresh Craft and other sponsors for the initiative, adding, this will ensure that these students do not leave their work on shelves but rather make money out of it.
Mr Cosby Bikpe, a content developer, distributor and facilitator at the workshop, said film makers were facing challenges in the sector because content producers had stuck to one particular mode of content distribution for far too long and there was the need to change.
He said the film market in Ghana had suffered through the digital transformation and producers needed to move with the times. This is the only way to claim back the market.
“This has brought about a fall in the market share to the extent that you do not get people buying Ghanaian content,” he stated.
Mr Bikpe said it was important for a change in the thought process, commodity delivery and processes of film marketing.
He said there was also the need to use different variable medium in film marketing, which is safer and encrypted so that they could get their monies back.