Online Film School Blog

One of the elements of successful film distribution that is often overlooked by independent filmmakers is the publicity photos. If you want to sell your film you need a complete set of high-quality photos that can be used in publicity such as “stills” and posters.

In the time and money constraints of very low budget filmmaking no one takes the time to get out a good digital camera and get all those shots. Still frames from DV or other standard definition video is just too low quality to blow up into publicity stills.

HD is another matter. Individual frames are up to 2 megapixels and may be high quality enough to serve as publicity stills if they are well lit and sharp. Don’t forget to get some still shots with a quality camera but if you don’t have everything you need run through your footage in your editor and export the best and most dramatic frames as still JPGs to supplement your quality stills.

Check out this article for typical film publicity photo requirements.

Tags: film marketing //