u/ShadowwNyx

I’m not talking about movies like Martyrs, The Sadness, A Serbian Film, etc. Not movies that are made to be disturbing. Movies that just scared the crap out of you despite it not necessarily scaring other people.

For me it’s The Fourth Kind. The movie gave me nightmares for months each time that I watched it and honestly, I don’t think I’ll ever watch it again. It’s not classically disturbing, I don’t think there’s even any gore in it, but dear god, it scared the damn pants off of me.

Hey y’all! I’m wondering if anyone has had success promoting their short films on YouTube and has any tips or strategies I might be overlooking!

Unfortunately, this film has been a bit of a festival flop, which is disappointing, but I was also very strategic about my submissions and only submitted to 12 festivals (partly due to budget constraints). Hindsight is 20/20, but at this point, I really just want to do everything I can to find this film its audience!

I’m premiering my horror short on YouTube this Thursday, and so far, I’ve been:
Instagram: Posting Stories, Reels featuring the trailer, and regular posts.
TikTok: Posted the trailer and a video of me talking about the film.
Facebook groups: Trying to find horror groups that allow self-promotion, since most seem to prohibit it.
Reddit: Posted in the r / horror self-promotion thread, but I’ve found that most filmmaking and horror subreddits don’t allow much self-promotion either.
Facebook event: Created an event for the YouTube premiere and invited my Facebook friends.

Other than running Meta ads, is there anything else I should be doing? How are you finding audiences for your short films, especially when you’re releasing them online independently?

Would love to hear what’s worked for you! I’m especially interested in strategies for reaching people who don’t already follow you. Thanks!!

I’ve considered submitting it to Alter but that’s more money I’d have to spend after an already very exhausted budget and since it was such a festival flop now I feel like it won’t make it on there either….

Hi everyone! I’m super new to the Amazon Influencer Program, and I’ve been struggling to figure out what the rules actually are around using music in videos.

I’ve recently set up a TikTok Shop as well, and Amazon seems to be way stricter about music. I uploaded a product video to Amazon that used royalty-free, commercially usable music, and Amazon automatically muted the entire audio track. My assumption is that the automated moderation just detects music and doesn’t really care where it came from or whether you actually have a license to use it.

TikTok Shop seems a little different. From what I understand, TikTok is at least somewhat better at recognizing whether music is commercially cleared/allowed or not? Maybe it’s just a better automated system, or maybe it’s the fact that TikTok is a more music related platform.

What I’m struggling with in general is that I really prefer making aesthetic, B-roll-heavy videos set to music rather than talking to camera. I’m not really a talking-to-camera person, and I also don’t love the feeling of making super sales-y content. I initially got into TikTok Shop because I thought I could make pretty, natural product videos that fit into the type of content I already make.

But after realizing how limited the TikTok Shop product selection is for the things I actually use, I thought Amazon would be a much better fit. Now I’m wondering if I’ve basically created a problem for myself because Amazon seems to make the type of videos I want to create much harder. 😂

So I have a few questions for people who have been doing this longer:

1. Does anyone successfully make aesthetic Amazon Influencer videos without talking to camera? Or is that basically impossible to get approved?
2. Is there actually a way to use royalty-free music on Amazon if you have the appropriate commercial license? Or does Amazon’s moderation basically just mute anything that detects as music?
3. If I switch to voiceovers, is quiet background music still a no-go even if the music is genuinely royalty-free/commercially licensed? Or is there some type of music/license that Amazon will accept?

I can definitely do voiceover, and that will probably be my next experiment, but honestly, voiceover without any background music feels really hollow to me and I hate it. I’m wondering if there’s a way around that, or if I just need to accept that Amazon + music = dead end.

Would love to hear from anyone who makes more cinematic/aesthetic product content rather than traditional talking-head reviews. I’m trying to figure out whether I need to completely change my content style or if there’s a way to make my existing style work within Amazon’s rules!

I know that Zepbound is currently the only approved sleep apnea GLP-1. However, this Zepbound is killing me. Gave me horrible stomach issues when I switched to 5mg. Then I got the worst depression I’ve had in many years. I have zero desire to do much anymore. And now all of the sudden, my skin is itchy all over and I’m like tearing up my legs scratching them at the moment.

I also have diagnosed sleep apnea and my weight is definitely a factor. I used to take WeGovy for a year back when Medi-Cal approved GLP-1s for weight loss. It was great. I didn’t have any issues until I went up to the higher doses so I just went back down and I was fine again.

The Zepbound so far has been nothing like it. I lost the initial weight faster but now I’m just miserable. I definitely can’t afford with Govee by itself and I’m really not interested in the pill because I just don’t think it’s gonna work the same plus it’s still expensive.

So I’m just wondering… Has anybody who was not successful at taking Zepbound been able to get insurance to cover Wegovy or something else in cases of moderate sleep apnea? I’m guessing the answer is probably no, but I just wanted to reach out and see if anyone has done this.

It really sucks that they haven’t done the same studies on Wegovy because I’m sure that they would yield the same results if the sleep apnea is weight related….

Hey! Can any editors give me some feedback on the first draft of a horror trailer?

I’ve got a first draft of the trailer for my short film. I’d love to get some feedback on the pacing, editing, graphics on screen, etc.

Any feedback from editors or specifically people who edit trailers would be amazing. I’m not really an editor myself but this was a no budget project and I did a few trailer for my other films so I just decided to throw something together myself.

The composer of the film will be doing the final music, so I’ve just got temp music in there for now and I couldn’t get it to full exactly match up but I did my best.

I’m submitting this film to a couple festivals so I’d like the trailer for that, plus it will live on my YouTube page. Since I can’t post the film yet due to festival submissions I want to release something in the meantime. I want it to represent the quality of the film and not look way off sooooo I’d love some feedback on how to make it the best I can make it! DM me if you want the unlisted link! Thank you!!

I’ve got a first draft of the trailer for my short film. I’d love to get some feedback from editors on the pacing, editing, graphics on screen, etc.

Any feedback from editors or specifically people who edit trailers would be amazing. I’m not an editor myself but this was a no budget project and I did a few trailer for my other films so I just decided to throw something together myself.

The composer of the film will be doing the final music, so I’ve just got temp music in there for now and I couldn’t get it to full exactly match up but I did my best.

I’m submitting this film to a couple festivals so I’d like the trailer for that, plus it will live on my YouTube page. Since I can’t post the film yet due to festival submissions I want to release something in the meantime. I want it to represent the quality of the film and not look way off sooooo I’d love some feedback on how to make it the best I can make it! DM me if you want the unlisted link! Thank you!!