The Chill distribution platform has been on the rise since the beginning of this year and the company is continuing to improve and evolve their platform. One of these evolutions is Insider Access, a new feature designed to help filmmakers create an exclusive destination for their audience to follow along with a production before the release of a film. It's where all your exclusive content can go, including anything you want to publish direct to boost audience interaction and growth. Get the scoop on Chill's latest after the jump.
Okay, what is Insider Access? It's a hub, a production diary, an outlet for updates and extras to help your audience engage with your project. It's tied in with Chill's distribution platform and comes with the same rich analytics tools. Okay, so why Insider Access over your 'normal' social networks and movie websites? From Chill's IA Q&A:
If you already have a community that exists on another social network, you can use IA as the source of all the content that you feed out to other networks, reducing your need to create content for each platform. We are not advising to stop using the other services, but rather source your content from IA so you’re able to monitor how it performs. Knowledge is power!
A live example of a project using Insider Access is a film called Camp Takota, a goofy back-to-camp comedy. The team behind the project is now breaking all their news from within their Insider Access page and encouraging their fans to lead others back to their eco-system on Chill, as you can see from fans on Tumblr.
Jason Brubaker from Chill gave me a demo of the service last week and it looks really promising. He put it simply:
"What Insider Access allows you to do is source your audience and grow your audience."
In terms of DIY or self-distribution, the trend seems to be in favor of gated content -- the idea of entering your email address in exchange for content. Audiences want content and creators want an easy way to directly contact their audiences. Insider Access is another way to do that. Fans can also plug in their phone numbers if they want to have you contact them via SMS about upcoming screenings, updates and other info.
With Insider Access you get 100% access to the fans that are interested in hearing more about your project. We provide you with extensive data on how they come to your site including age, sex, location, who they are, and how they interact with your content. And when you’re ready to release your project, you have the ability to directly contact your Insider Access supporters.
A film about crowdfunding called Kickstarted also recently joined Chill's Insider Access to let their audience into their production:
As a production diary and a destination utilized to grow your audience after a successful Kickstarter campaign, I think it could be a really smooth transition. A lot depends on your content though -- not all projects really catch on with audiences the way a movie like Camp Takota can, but transitioning to another platform post-Kickstarter is a viable way to maintain your momentum and hopefully build on it.
Currently, Chill is only offering Insider Access for select creators, so email them at creators@chill.com to find out more. Is this something you'd be able to utilize for your film? Let us know what you think in the comments.
Links:
- Insider Access -- Chill Blog
- Chill Banana Picture -- Tumblr
- Hand Chill Picture -- Tumblr
