Pap and Sons - What I Learned from Marcus

Marcus Markou, the film's writer, director and distributor, made me realise that genuinely good films can be successful, despite a small budget, as long as the available resources are used correctly. Marcus didn't have a lot of money to distribute his film compared to Hollywood titles. He was competing against films that had multi-million dollar budgets on his release weekend. Despite this, his film was the second most popular film for that weekend (or something like that) and it was successful because he used his resources well.

He knew who his target audience was and he knew how to target them. He used his money to get Greeks involved and interested in the film. Instead of buying advert spaces on buses and bus stops all over london, he used his money to get the word out at Greek churches, handed out flyers in greek areas and had adverts on Greek radio stations.

This all meant that when the film was released, depsite comparatively spending nothing on distribution, his film was more successful than many big-budget films. Basically, he was resourceful, he knew what he needed to do to make the film popular and he precisely targeted his audience. Well played Marcus.