As you know, The Way We Get By will be having its Los Angeles premiere from August 14-20 at Laemmle's Music Hall in Beverly Hills. As with New York City, I've been busy with grassroots outreach to make sure that the people who would love The Way We Get By are aware of the venue and screening times. With all of the press we've been getting, from The New York Times, to national NPR, and countless television interviews, one would think that word about The Way We Get By would have already spread like wildfire all the way to the West Coast. This is not necessarily the case, however. And trust me when I say that if you ever make your own amazing film, you can never do too much grassroots outreach.
So how do you get an audience to come see your film when you're 3,000 miles away from them? It's not like New York City where I can just show up and hand out fliers (yes, I did this for four days all across NYC). The key is to be meticulous, creative, and persistent. First, I compiled a 12-page list of every veterans group, military recruiting station, aging association, and volunteer organization within a 30-mile radius of the movie theatre (I was like Tommy Lee Jones in The Fugitive-- our audience would not escape!). Next, myself and our new intern, CJ, began calling and emailing each place on our list.
New intern CJ charming L.A. by phone.
The film, because it's such a great story (shameless plug), turned out to be an easy sell over the phone. Calling the military recruiting stations was especially rewarding as time and time again, the soldier on the other side had either heard of the Maine Troop Greeters, or had experienced them himself. I suppose that's the benefit of making a movie about three people who've already been met by almost one million American troops from across the country. And that's what's so great about this human story: that coming to a movie theatre can reconnect you with the strangers who cared enough to give you a hero's send off to war and welcome you back home as a respected veteran when you returned.
And in case you haven't heard, we've even had a few celebs talking about the film, with Alyssa Milano and Milo Ventimiglia from the TV show Heroes supporting the film on Twitter! I definitely believe that with the combined grassroots efforts of myself, CJ, and our new celebrity friends, Los Angeles is going to be a major sucess! Buy your tickets now while they're still hot: Laemmle Music Hall ticket info
Jessica Barnthouse
Associate Producer
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