We’ve been AWOL over the holidays finishing up post-production on our Wild Bill documentary. These activities include prepping captions for distribution, creating key art, and gathering materials for our festival FilmFreeway project page. One of these documents was a first for the team - Electronic Press Kit (EPK). So, to spread the love, we will briefly go over what an EPK includes.
Spoiler alert: The press kit is ostensibly for… well, the “press”. It contains key information about your film, the cast, and the production company’s contact information.
Cover page. Include the movie poster (cropped accordingly) with the title prominently displayed. Underneath the image, you can add run-time, genre, and supported languages. You should also include the director’s name and any relevant contact information.
Description page. After the cover sheet, state your logline followed by the film’s synopsis. The logline briefly describes the film to the reader while the synopsis is copy/pasta food for the reporter. Yes, you are doing his job for him to make it easier to get your news out to the public. It’s recommended to offer different lengths of a synopsis (50, 200, 500 words), so it fits any media gaps the reporter may have. Try to include some production stills to energize the page.
Filmmaker page. I call this section the filmmaker page as it has your bio and breaks down your filmography.
Casting page. Key cast should have a brief bio, head-shot, and list previous work. The remaining cast and crew are listed in full. It’s best to request this as soon as you sign the actor.
FAQ page. I took a Raindance seminar where the speaker said he stole this idea from Quentin Tarantino. Quentin would create a Top 10 frequently asked question page, so the reporters could essentially create an interview look for their article. The benefit is that it allows YOU to craft the message and get what YOU think is important out to the public.
Contact Information. The final page is where I re-list the contact information from the cover page and add social media links. You can also include a Box or G-drive URL where the media can download higher resolution stills for their articles.
The good news is that this does not have to be dynamic content. It should be easy to read (any copy) and have consistent font/font sizes. Remember, this is for the press not to show off your creativity. You can find our press kit along with an example (voice-over) casting call sheet on our “Wild Bill: In Search of Fool’s Gold” FilmFreeway page.
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