Problem

The Disposable Film Festival ran from 2008 to 2018, with the singular goal of encouraging people to get their work off their personal screens and show it off on the silver screen.

Our two-sided audience consisted of creators and attendees. While the end result of the screening program was highly curated, we opened submissions up to the larger audience. But reaching them was difficult because the audience was small.

Solution

By foraging partnerships with film schools and Vimeo along with garnering press in relevant outlets like Movie Maker Magazine, we slowly began to get traction amongst our target audience of creators.

On the attendee side, we saw instant interest that continued to build over the years. Our main night sold out every year at the Castro Theater and workshops throughout the week were well-attended.

To drive interest, I partnered with our creative Rebecca Bortman and Katie Rumford of Selman Design to develop eye-catching posters, social, and swag that captured the concept of “disposable film” throughout each concept.

Results

• 100s of submissions every year from creators around the world.

• Email list of 5,000+.

• 100% attendance every year at the Castro Theater in San Francisco.

• Partnership with HBO that took on one of the winners.

• Partnership with Virgin America that ran our programming for in-flight entertainment.