Every festival programmer, journalist, distributor, or potential investor who wants to know more about your film will ask for the same thing: your electronic press kit. A strong film press kit is often the first — and sometimes only — impression your project makes before anyone watches a frame, so it's worth treating as a real deliverable rather than a last-minute scramble.
What an Electronic Press Kit Actually Is
An EPK is a single, organized packet that represents your film to anyone outside your production — festival selection committees, journalists, sales agents, and potential distributors. It's not a trailer and it's not a pitch deck, though it often draws on material from both. Think of it as the reference document someone opens when they need to write about your film, decide whether to program it, or figure out who to contact.
Because it gets used by people who've never seen your production, everything in it needs to stand alone — no inside context required, no assumptions about what the reader already knows.
What a Strong Press Kit Includes
- Synopsis at multiple lengths — a one-line logline, a one-paragraph summary, and a full one-page synopsis. Different outlets and forms need different lengths, and having all three ready means you're never rewriting under deadline pressure.
- Key stills — a curated handful of your strongest, most representative images. A press kit with forty production photos is harder to use than one with eight well-chosen ones.
- A poster — the single image most likely to represent your film in a listing, a program, or a social post.
- Director's statement — why this story, why now, in your own voice.
- Cast and crew bios — focused on relevant credits, not exhaustive résumés.
- Technical specs — runtime, format, language, aspect ratio, sound mix, and any awards or festival selections to date.
- A trailer cut — even a short one gives a reader something to watch, not just read.
- Contact information — a clear point of contact for submissions, press, and distribution inquiries.
Build It From What You Already Have
The mistake most first-time filmmakers make is starting the press kit from a blank page during festival submission season, scrambling for stills and writing bios from memory. But most of the material for a strong press kit already exists earlier in a film's life if you've kept track of it: concept art from pre-production, character and story material from development, cast and crew details from your production paperwork, even key art you developed for a pitch deck.
Reusing what you've already built is both faster and more visually consistent than assembling a new marketing document from scratch — because it's built from the actual story, characters, and visual language of your film rather than generic stock elements.
This is the idea behind The Story Maker's Press Kit (EPK) tool: it designs promotional posters, trailer cuts, and a full electronic press kit built directly from your story and characters, pulling forward concept art and pitch materials you've already generated earlier in the platform instead of asking you to start over.
Organize It So It's Easy to Use
A press kit that's technically complete but poorly organized still frustrates the person reading it. A few practices that make a real difference:
- Lead with the essentials. Logline and poster first, technical specs and full synopsis after. Whoever opens the kit should understand what the film is within ten seconds.
- Name files clearly. "Still_01.jpg" is worse than "FilmTitle_Still_ProtagonistRooftop.jpg" — especially once a journalist has downloaded stills from a dozen other films the same week.
- Keep a single source of truth. Update one master kit rather than maintaining different versions for different festivals — inconsistent specs or bios across versions look unprofessional and create confusion.
- Make it downloadable, not just viewable. A press kit that only lives as a web page is harder for a programmer to file, forward, or print than one they can save as a packet.
When to Build It
Start your press kit as early as pre-production, not the week before your first festival deadline. Concept art, character bios, and a working synopsis are all things you generate naturally earlier in development — capturing them as you go means your EPK is close to complete by the time you actually need it, rather than a rushed project competing with picture lock and sound mix for your attention.
A practical way to think about it: build a first draft of your EPK the moment you have a locked synopsis and key concept art, then update it in passes — once when principal photography wraps, once when you have final stills, and once when your trailer is cut. Each pass is a small task. Doing it all at once, the week of a submission deadline, is a much bigger one.
Common Press Kit Mistakes
A few mistakes show up repeatedly in first-time filmmakers' press kits, and all of them are avoidable:
- Too many stills, not enough curation. Programmers and journalists don't want to sort through fifty images to find the eight that represent the film well. Curate hard.
- A synopsis that reads like a plot summary, not a pitch. A synopsis should make someone want to watch the film, not just describe what happens in it beat by beat.
- Inconsistent branding across materials. If your poster, trailer, and EPK all use different fonts, color treatments, or tone, the film looks less finished than it is — even if the film itself is polished.
- Missing or outdated contact information. A press kit that doesn't clearly state who to contact for a submission, press inquiry, or licensing question is a dead end for anyone who wants to move forward.
- No technical specs. Programmers scheduling a festival slate need runtime, format, and language up front — burying it deep in a document (or leaving it out) creates unnecessary back-and-forth.
Digital Delivery Matters
How you deliver an EPK matters almost as much as what's in it. A single downloadable packet (a linked folder or a PDF with embedded assets) is far more usable for a programmer or journalist working through dozens of submissions than a scattered set of individual links or an email thread of attachments. If you're maintaining a web version of your press kit as well, keep it in sync with the downloadable version — mismatched specs or missing assets between the two versions create confusion at exactly the moment you're trying to make a good impression.
How the EPK Fits Into Your Distribution Plan
A press kit isn't a standalone marketing artifact — it's part of the broader distribution and festival strategy for your film. Once you know which festivals you're targeting and what your theatrical, OTT, or festival plan looks like, your press kit should reflect that: the version you send a genre festival can emphasize different stills than the version you send a distributor. For the bigger picture on sequencing festivals, theatrical windows, and OTT sales, see Film Distribution Explained and The Story Maker's Distribution Plan tool.
Frequently Asked Questions
What's the difference between an EPK and a pitch deck?
A pitch deck is aimed at investors and financiers, built to make the case for funding a project — often before it's shot. An EPK is aimed at festivals, press, and distributors, built to represent a film that already exists (or is close to finished). They can share assets like concept art and key stills, but they serve different audiences at different stages.
How long should an EPK be?
There's no fixed page count, but the goal is completeness without bloat — everything a programmer or journalist needs, nothing that makes them dig for it. A well-organized kit is usually a handful of clearly labeled sections rather than a single long document.
Do I need a finished film to build a press kit?
You can and should start earlier. Synopsis, stills or concept art, cast and crew bios, and a director's statement can all be drafted well before picture lock. What you'll add later is the trailer cut, final stills, and any festival selections or awards.
Can I reuse my press kit across multiple festivals?
Yes — a single well-built master kit is the right foundation. You may tailor the emphasis (which stills lead, which credits are highlighted) for a specific festival's audience, but you shouldn't need to rebuild the kit from scratch for each submission.
Start free with 5,000 credits — no card required. Create your first project and build a press kit that reuses the concept art and story work you've already done.