We recently connected with Marc Ferman and have shared our conversation below.
Marc, appreciate you joining us today. We’d love to have you retell us the story behind how you came up with the idea for your business, I think our audience would really enjoy hearing the backstory.
For a few years, I had been attending film festivals that were out-of-state. One thing I had noticed was that there were all these great independent genre films that were not getting any attention in Florida. At the time, VOD was still pretty young and there weren’t a million streaming services available. One of the great things about watching these films at a festival, was the shared experience with an audience. Horror can be great at home, but it is so much better in a large dark theater, There is also nothing like hearing a reaction from the audience. In 2015 while attending a festival in Texas, I recognized Igor at one of the midnight horror screenings. I knew he worked at the Miami Jewish Film Festival, but didn’t know he was a horror fan as well. After the festival, which was during March, I reached out to him and asked him what he thought about doing a mini horror festival in Miami, featuring some of these really awesome genre films and he loved the idea. With basically a budget of $500 for our first year, we teamed up with O Cinema (which was located in Wynwood at the time) and hosted a four night, four feature film festival that wound up being a great success. As the years followed, the festival grew bigger with more films, taking place over more days.
Marc, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?
Movies have always been my big love. It’s just a passion of mine. All types of films, not just genre. However, before launching Popcorn Frights, I worked all types of jobs. As a young man, I basically had done all types of work. I worked in restaurants, retail, self storage and even security. In my 20’s I worked in music promotions. I promoted albums via street team work and also hustled mixtapes back in the day. My experience in promoting came in quite handy when it came to spreading the word about Popcorn Frights. Promoting music and film is very similar, however the way we promote has definitely changed thanks to social media. For a few years prior to Popcorn Frights, I had been hosting my own monthly repertory film series which was called Popcorn Nights. After we launched Popcorn Frights, I changed the name to The Film Junkies to avoid any confusion. I was able to take some of what I learned promoting The Film Junkies (a still on-going non-horror film series) and apply it to the horror festival.
One of the things that I believe sets Popcorn Frights apart from other festivals is that Igor and I do this out of the love for the genre and money is not the motivation, as we do not take any money for ourselves from the fest. We each have full time jobs apart from Popcorn Frights. When you truly love doing something, the people that attend your events can tell.
How did you put together the initial capital you needed to start your business?
As I mentioned before, when we started Popcorn Frights, I didn’t have much money in the bank. I had about $500 that I could afford to put in and hope to recoup that investment after our first festival. We weren’t worried about making a profit, as most new businesses don’t make a profit during their first year. Thankfully, a four film fesitval, didn’t have much of an overhead. Back in 2015 you could get more for your money on social media ads as well.
We often hear about learning lessons – but just as important is unlearning lessons. Have you ever had to unlearn a lesson?
When it comes to promoting, when I worked in music, street team promoting was all about going out, handing out flyers and swag, putting up posters in record stores and all of that. While a level of grass roots promoting is still important, much of it has gone digital and had to learn to get the most out of that way of informing fans of what we had coming up.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.popcornfrights.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/popcornfrights/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/popcornfrights
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/PopcornFrights
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCUlRJYzvKPLCOxLGdcKiqPQ/featured