Best Sites for Filmmakers to Share Their Work
Being a filmmaker is hard. You put countless hours into your masterpiece and then struggle to get anyone to watch it, critique it, or even acknowledge it online. Luckily there are enough websites and online communities to share your work that with some time spent in front of your keyboard you should be able to expose your work to a wide audience! These are some of the best sites for filmmakers to share their work!
A note first. If you’re trying to get your film in rotation at festivals, you should probably wait a year or two to upload that project and make it available for free. Depending on the festival, uploading your film for free may disqualify you from entry.
Reddit, for those who are unaware, is a website full of countless smaller communities of people who share interests. And there are plenty for filmmakers! In fact, there is a popular one called r/filmmakers. This subreddit covers a lot about making movies and is full of professionals as well as people with just a surface-level interest in filmmaking. However, it’s also a place where filmmakers can promote their work. Reddit is not always the most friendly place for self-promotion, but this community loves to see trailers, screenshots, and posters. It’s not just about promotion, it’s about critiquing and providing constructive feedback. If you do join this community just make sure you give as much as you take.
YouTube
Yeah, obviously you can post your film on YouTube. We don’t need to tell you that. But there is so much more than just posting it and letting it sit – that’s not how you get the views you want. Some very successful film production channels do more than just upload their big projects. They create a brand and additional content. The channel Corridor got big by creating impressive VFX videos, then got even bigger by establishing the Corridor Crew channel. This secondary channel is where the team posts behind-the-scenes vlogs, tutorials, and other extra content. This is a great marketing opportunity that more filmmakers can take advantage of. Providing additional value beyond just your primary productions is critical to building a dedicated audience that keeps your name in mind. YouTube is a fantastic place to build a community like this!
There are also several channels that will accept submissions for short films and post them to their channel so that their established audience can see them. One such channel is Short of the Week.
Vimeo
Vimeo doesn’t get as much traffic as YouTube of course, but it does end up being a better hub for filmmakers. The real goal of posting your movie to Vimeo is to become a Vimeo Staff Pick. This honor is equal to getting a festival award in the eyes of plenty of filmmakers, and will expose your work to a huge audience!
If your film was shown at an Oscar-qualified festival, you can contact [email protected] directly for a chance to have your film featured on Vimeo’s Staff Pick Premieres.
I can already see you rolling your eyes at this one, but hear me out! Viewing your film on a vertical phone screen sounds awful, but it could means thousands of more eyes on your work. An IGTV video can be as long as 60 minutes if uploaded from desktop which means that most short films can go up in one post. You can upload several videos if your movie is longer (which also gives you a chance to build suspense!). You might be surprised by how many people are willing to watch a movie on a phone or tablet. Even if you’d prefer them to watch it in a theater or in a home theater setup. Being active on Instagram also enables you to create additional content and build a community like we mentioned above for YouTube.
Facebook is actually a fantastic place for uploading videos for discovery and sharing. Facebook prioritizes showing content uploaded natively to its platform, so if you upload your entire film to Facebook then you’ll be able get some eyes on it on this social networking platform.
Post.pro
There are plenty of websites where you can upload or submit your work. Some of these websites feature specific films, others are just a repository for you to upload your work. We highlighted Post.pro in a previous article. It is a website where video creators can upload their work and embed it on other websites. It lets filmmakers or website owners customize their video players with custom colors.
Film Shortage
Film Shortage is an example of a website that takes submissions and features the best of the best. These websites have a limited audience compared to YouTube or Vimeo, but anything helps when you’re a filmmaker trying to share your work!
Reelhouse
Reelhouse is a video platform that lets filmmakers upload their content as well as sell or rent their movies. It is both a content hosting platform as well as a discovery site and a way to make money from your work. The website has some highly-praised films on it already so you will be in good company.
