HBFF attendees get tips on how to Market their Indie Film on a Shoe String Budget

Los Angeles, CA - June 4, 2007 - Independent film makers attending the 9th Annual Hollywood Black Film Festival (HBFF) learned low cost marketing tips from celebrity manager and brand awareness / marketing expert, Charles Belk. As president and chief branding officer of Charles Belk Management, Charles Belk and his team help up and coming actors and filmmakers to create brand awareness for themselves and their films. He, along with a high profile panel of other industry experts, shared strategic and tactical information about "Position Your Film for Success" with the panel attendees.

Several of the marketing tips shared with the audience by Charles Belk included ways to utilize bloggers and social networking sites to help market an indie film and how filmmakers can easily involve their cast in creating buzz and word of mouth marketing. Belk stated that, "one of the greatest asset for a filmmaker of a low-budget film to gain awareness of their film is to utilize their cast members. You should always make photo stills and video clips available to each cast member to entice, engage and empower them to market the film. An up and coming actor would love to be able to send a photo or video clip from the film to their family and friends by email, or post on their Facebook page."

The Positioning Your Film for Success panel also included discussion by the panel of the importance of marketing and packaging a film, positioning, traditional versus non-traditional tactics (e.g, guerrilla marketing), and how to build a buzz and maximize the chances of selling a film. Other panel experts included, Cassandra Butcher - VP, Publicity at Fox Searchlight, Stu Pollard of Pollard Consulting, and David Acosta of Vur,v Inc. The panel was moderated by Kelly Turner of Vurv, Inc.

The panel was part of the HBFF's Infotainment Conference '08. The Infotainment Conference, programmed by Faye Tillery of Mandalay Entertainment, includes over 20 panels during a five day period. For more information, visit http://www.hbff.org.

For more information, please contact:
Margaret Merriweather
Charles Belk Management
mmerriweather@charlesbelk.com
or call (323) 282-7878

About Charles Belk Management
Charles Belk Management (http://www.charlesbelk.com) is a Los Angeles based entertainment agency that offers artist and film brand development & awareness and artist management. Services include a complete "branding experience" for independent films and up & coming and established recording artists, music producers, actors, models, comedians, directors, on-air personalities and professional athletes.

This release was published on openPR.