Everyone knows there is two major sides to every film, the audio and the video. Without these being properly and delicately made perfect, the film will fail, and all work will mean nothing to the audience.

However, through my experiences as director, cameraman, actor, and editor of many of my short films, I have came to discover a third side of films that must be perfect to connect to the audience. Most everyone knows this third side, but they never think of it as necessary.

This third side is timing and advertising.

Now many people say that because this is not in the video file, it isn’t really a part of the film, rather something extra, which is a total lie. In reality, you must properly tune your timing and advertising with every aspect of your film, or else the film will be ignored, humiliated, or end up being a complete embarrassment to your production team.

If you have not timed a film’s release properly, the film will not get the recognition it deserves. If you create a Christmas special that releases 3 weeks before Christmas, it may not receive the attention of a special released a week before Christmas. Simply put, in the example of YouTube, people will see the video in their subscription box, watch it, then move on. If it is released closer to the 25th, however, they will be more prone to send it on to their friends and share it throughout social platforms. Also, you must make sure to post your video on a great calendar day and time. Thursday evening releases tend to get a lot of views mostly due to the college and high school demographics being more free the next day, rather than just ignoring it and continuing with school work. Timing determines exactly how your audience will respond to seeing your video in their inbox.

Advertising of course, is far more important than timing. If you do not tell people to subscribe, or give them incentive to subscribe, they will not subscribe, they will enjoy your movie and then move on never to see another of your videos again. With hundreds of social sharing networks being used every single second, you have to tell people to Digg, you have to tell people to tweet, you have to tell people to email it to all they know. Without this, you cannot begin a branching. If one person sends it to two people, and those people send the video to two people also, you have seven viewers, rather than only one person if you didn’t advertise it. Of course, with Google AdSense available to everyone, annotations that lead to your channels, video responses, and you having the power of putting in a slide telling people to subscribe, there is NO EXCUSE for complaining about your audience size, because you haven’t tried. Very few videos can become viral without some help, if you can give it that push, your audience will expand, and people will be more tempted by the large view count to send it to everyone they know.

I hope you have enjoyed my article, and begin to put the effort you put into your video and audio, as you do your timing and advertising. I know I am trying harder, but only you can come up with your best recipe for success. Please leave a comment down below… and share this with your friends.