How To Make An Electronic Press Kit For Your Film (EPK)

An Electronic Press Kit is a digital document that has various information and images about your film. It’s a vital piece of marketing for your film when submitting to film festivals and making sure it’s the best it can be is a key piece to getting your film accepted into festivals. So let’s go over all the things that need to be included for an electronic press kit for film including some tips on how you can really make your film EPK shine.
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First up, you want the first page of your EPK to prominently display your film’s title. A good way to do this is by featuring the poster for your film. This way you have your film's title along with some compelling imagery.
Next up you want to include your film’s logline and synopsis. These are key descriptions film festivals will use in marketing materials such as festival handouts and screening details online. Note however that some film festivals might ask for your synopsis to be a specific length or even to provide two or three of varying lengths, so keep this version brief and then provide them with a more lengthy one once you’ve been accepted.
After that, you want to provide technical specs for your film. This includes the title, genre, production year, country of origin, language, run time, screen ratio, and sound format. Again this is super important information for film festival directors, as they will need to know this info to plan out the technical side of screenings as well as program film blocks, so make sure it’s as accurate as possible.
Especially your run time as this is a huge deciding factor for festival directors. Trust me, they will not be happy if you give them a festival screener that’s even 30 seconds longer than what you listed in your EPK.
And pro tip here, also make sure you’re including all these technical specs on your Filmfreeway submission page as this will be the first place festival directors will look.
Next up, make sure you provide bios for the key crew members on your film. These are people like the director, producer, and writer, but if you have other crew members that might have some notoriety, then listing them can help your film’s marketability to film festivals.
Film festivals love it when high brow talent is attached to the films they are screening and they will promote that as much as they can.
And speaking of talent… next make sure you include bios for your actors and actresses. This is usually just your leading characters, but again if you have a name actor in your film that isn’t necessarily a leading character, it’s great to list them here as well as film festivals love love love having celebrities in their films.
Like seriously, they are as obsessed with celebrities as Gen-z is with TikTok. And don’t get me wrong, TikTok is pretty great.
Optionally after your leading cast, you want a quick overview of all the crew involved in the film and it doesn’t hurt to have a phone photo. This isn’t necessarily required but can be a nice touch.
And finally, you want to include some promotional stills for your film. Now note that these are not behind the scenes photos. They should either be slick marketing photos you took for your film or stills pulled from the film. I highly recommend having a combo of both as film festivals will love to use the promo photos for online marketing but will most likely want a still pulled from the film for handouts.
And final pro tip for you, make sure you have fun with it and make it visually appealing. Making your EPK’s look and feel match your film goes a long way and shows your film is the full marketing package.
Now that you’ve seen these film epk examples, your electronic press kit is sure to shine! Or glow I guess… cause it is digital.
*This video contains affiliate links which give me a small commission once clicked on.
#FilmItYourself #ElectronicPressKit #EPK

[@ALARICFILMS]

THANK YOU SO MUCH ASH! GREAT INFO AND INSIGHTS.

[@Film_It_Yourself]

No prob! Thanks for watching. 😊

[@KadeemGotJokes]

Really needed this, thank you!

[@Film_It_Yourself]

No prob! Thanks for watching!

[@kimbertittle4365]

This was so incredibly helpful, as we are totally new to the business of the business. :) Thank you soooo very much!!

[@Film_It_Yourself]

No prob! Happy to help and thanks for watching!

[@denzeleiseb6364]

Valuable content. Thanks.

[@Film_It_Yourself]

Thanks for watching!

[@PARANORMALTV-hu7oc]

Hi Ash, really enjoy your videos. Question: My sales agent requested an EPK, which I will start on soon. However, she said she'd prefer it on Vimeo (where my film screener lives) so my question is, how do we do this with a pdf? Possible or would you merely submit a pdf as an email to people rather then as a video file?

[@Film_It_Yourself]

@@PARANORMALTV-hu7oc hi there! Thanks for watching! I’ve never had anyone request an EPK as a video file. This is a bit odd because the point of the EPK is to give film festivals behind the scenes photos, bios of the cast and crew, and synopsis for the film. I suppose you could include a link to download it in the description of your video, but I’d also clarify with them on what exactly they are looking for. Perhaps what they mean is a behind the scenes video? I usually email the EPK directly to festivals or whoever needs it.

[@PARANORMALTV-hu7oc]

@@Film_It_Yourself Thanks! That's what I was thinking. Perhaps she was thinking we were going to do a behind the scenes thing, but I'm not going that direction. I appreciate your guidance. I've already found one epk template on studio binder but if you have one you'd rec, please link me to it. I look forward to seeing your future content.

[@LuhKaiChannel]

Super helpful! Thank you!

[@Film_It_Yourself]

Glad it was helpful! Thanks for watching!

[@SuzannePaschall]

Hey, Ash - great video! What are your thoughts on having your EPK available also (for other purposes than festivals, maybe?) available on the film website? Or as a link you can send in an email? Or is it best to just attach the PDF to an email when sending out? Is it an expectation that it's on a website also? Thanks for your help!

[@Film_It_Yourself]

Great question! I think all of these are great ideas, especially putting it on a website for your film. It never hurts to get info about your film out there anyway possible!

[@yary29]

I wish o found you before. Lost so much film on festivals. Got into 12 but rejected in some more than that. I'm very disappointed to see they reject films if the submitter isn't a distributor or it has not big name in it. I don't know.

[@Film_It_Yourself]

Hello there and thanks for watching! Sorry to hear you got rejected but getting into 12 is actually pretty good! Also I wouldn’t say they reject films because of those reasons. Most filmmakers don’t already have distribution, they go to film festivals to get that, and most film festivals won’t reject you just because you don’t have a big name in it. Have a big name helps for sure, but I wouldn’t say it’s the defining decision maker. Perhaps for bigger film festivals like Sundance it is, but even then they still program shorts with no name actors. Don’t let that discourage you and instead make sure you have a film festival strategy when applying. This will help your odds of getting in. You can learn more about that with my video here: kzbin.info/www/bejne/pXzLf2lredOCmcU

[@williamdegeest]

Excellent info!

[@Film_It_Yourself]

Thank you and thanks for watching!!

[@matthewcgrammer]

Great video, thank you!

[@Film_It_Yourself]

Thank you for watching!

[@speliotis]

Great info but it fell short for me.... You didnt tell us what software to use to create an Electronic Press Kit?

[@Film_It_Yourself]

Hi Speliotis! Thanks for watching! That’s because you can really use any software. You could use photoshop, illustrator, canva, or whatever graphic design software is your preference. I could recommend one but it might not work for everyone as some are only available on Mac or PC and others cost money while some are free. Use whatever you’re comfortable working in.

[@speliotis]

@@Film_It_Yourself do you have a video that shows how to create this on your favorite software?

[@Film_It_Yourself]

@@speliotis hey there. I don’t because again it’s going to be unique to you and your film. However you can sometimes find templates online from places like Envato Elements or perhaps even Canva. You can search for electronic press kit templates to get a jump start.

[@SJPortelli]

Thanks for this. I already have something but wanted another view of it for a distribtor...

[@Film_It_Yourself]

No prob! Hope this helped!

[@SJPortelli]

@@Film_It_Yourself it did 🙂

[@lindseythornburg6379]

What format do you recommend? Powerpoint?

[@Film_It_Yourself]

Great question. You’ll want the final version to be a PDF so I’d probably recommend Indesign or Photoshop but you could probably use PowerPoint. I just wouldn’t send it to festivals as a PowerPoint.

[@lindseythornburg6379]

Thank you! I was planning on saving as a PDF. Great video - Thanks again.

[@Film_It_Yourself]

No prob! Thanks for watching!