Week 2 - 2024
Intro
The first 2 weeks back have been wonderful so far. Feeling positive energy from my team and our clients, having done a serious amount of pre-planning for Q1. It really goes to show that the planning phases of any project (which is why we spend so much time working on strategy) is crucial. It makes the delivery phase so much easier! A few highlights from the start of the year (a few of our projects are still not public, but we will be sharing the news soon!):
Jamie was in town from North Carolina for a planning week
Jamie Webb is our new Film Sales Manager, working under Jess Reilly (International Sales & Acquisitions Manager). He currently lives in North Carolina, but as he is originally from the UK, he was in town for Christmas. We added a week of travel to spend time in our London office so we could do some detailed planning on sales targets for the year. This included a revamped non-theatrical strategy, updating our sales website, and planning market attendance at Berlinale and beyond. As most of our clients and partners weren’t fully back in the office until Mon 9th Jan, it felt like we had gained a window of opportunity to get everything in order for the new year.
Coaching session with a previous employee
As mentioned in my previous blog, I keep in touch with most of my previous team who have gone on to new opportunities. I try to build mentorship and coaching into each working day - this helps them improve their performance and means that I can effectively delegate tasks more easily, knowing the person has increased confidence. When someone moves on to a new role, I keep an open door for those kinds of conversations in case they need support navigating their new path. I talked through promotion opportunities with one of my previous team members and we did an exercise to articulate all of the new skills that they had acquired and how they could effectively present that to their current (or new) employers. It was wonderful to see how much this person had grown in confidence and the amount of new skills they had gained. I find these conversations extremely motivating for both parties, and I’m excited to see what they do next!
Planning call with the Centre for Media and Social Impact (CMSI)
We have collaborated with CMSI on several initiatives and I adore working with Caty Borum and her colleague David Conrad. We are preparing for the launch of a new set of industry tools and this was our first check-in on the strategy + timeline. We presented a suggested timeline of marketing activations (including keynote presentations, and potential webinar opportunities) to engage the key stakeholders in this work. Caty always brings beaming enthusiasm and great notes on our outlines. We are looking to launch this programme later in Q1, bringing new research into the field of social impact storytelling. We really value these kinds of opportunities where we can support our industry colleagues in sharing the important work that they are doing.
A shout-out on behalf of CMSI - Registration is open for Story Movements 2024! Get your tickets, save the date & spread the word. Don’t miss this year's convening March 7-8 at Planet Word in Washington D.C. Story Movements is a biennial convening hosted by the Center for Media and Social Impact at American University’s School of Communication, which brings together storytellers, comedians, journalists, philanthropists, entertainment industry executives, and social justice activists to celebrate the power of culture and narrative in building a just future.
Hosted a 5hr virtual lab for CPH:Dox
I was invited by my longstanding colleague Mark Atkins to host a virtual lab for CPH:Dox to help prepare the cohort of mentees pushing the boundaries of the documentary form. The session explored the impact & audience engagement strategy for each project. It’s imperative at the start of every project that you understand what you are making, but most importantly who you are hoping to experience it and where. Creating an audience engagement plan, which covers target audience segmentations, objectives, release strategies and more will ensure your project is a success. The specific areas that we explored included:
Issue Context
Framing & Positioning
Impact Objectives
Target Audiences
Timeline
Success Metrics
By the end of the session, it was clear that the attendees had a renewed sense of energy about their exhibition and marketing opportunities. The cohort will be pitching their projects live to decision-makers at CPH:Dox in March, and I hope that they include this new framing as part of their pitches! Funders, distributors and exhibitors and always keen to hear about the project, but most crucially who will want to watch/experience it, and where. For anyone pitching, always try to include some information about your intended target audience strategy.
