Kent Lamm of Standard Story Company warns that YouTube will BURY your films without this. The this? Your title and thumbnail.
He says:
“Getting your film SEEN in the Age of YouTube is a different game. Your title and thumbnail have a huge effect in how many people will watch your movie. Give your short film or feature its best shot by optimizing your title and thumbnail and planning ahead.”
The Title should be:
- meaningful for your film,
- unique,
- catchy,
- grammatically simple,
- seo-able, and
- have an available domain name.
He admires the way Omeleto titles their films: Logline sentence. | Film Title
He also thinks getting the genre into the title helps.
The Thumbnail should be:
- a compelling image that’s going to get people interested,
- most likely a frame-grabbed close up of the main character,
- but why not get some dedicated stills on set?
My take: This stuff can’t be an afterthought. In fact, I think that after the film title, the film logo and one central image can really help you fine tune the script, narrow the audience and solidify the entertainment promise (probably because I worked as a graphic designer for many years.) Oh, as to the title, you might as well choose from the beginning of the alphabet rather than the bottom half.
The seo-able section was interesting as it contained similar rules for book covers. I am not technologically savvy. I was trained in book illustration when I was 19 when pen & ink, watercolour, and gouache were king. (Won a small scholarship award in Illustration & Design.) Guess I haven’t lost touch because 8 of my posters on Script Revolution are considered ‘tops’ which surprised me, three of which are on my FB cover page. I simply uploaded my own photos – one was a good fluke with one of my cats who photo-bombed it – and tried using a free online program ‘Canva’ which JK introduced me to 2 years ago. Guess this old bird shouldn’t lack confidence and feel so unsure of herself. Dang the imposter syndrome I suffer from. Once again, thank you for pointing the way, Michael. 🙂