Tag Archives: film festivals

New Film Distribution Models – 7 Ideas

20 Friday Jan 2017

Posted by in Release

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I’ve talked to a number of filmmaker friends who feel that the distribution phase of a film – even more so than fundraising – is the most challenging part of the process. Yes, it’s extremely competitive to get the attention of sales agents and, in turn, distributors. But even passing that hurdle leaves hard questions: is my distributor telling the truth about these numbers? Are they paying on time? Are they using their leverage on my film or for a different film on their roster? Are they being smart about how they are marketing my film?

So I thought I would swing for the fences and suggest ideas – some quite radical and others common sense – for the future of film distribution with the hope that one or two of these ideas might empower you in the distribution phase of your film. I’ve based my suggestions on the business plan of my first feature film Guys Reading Poems, brainstorming sessions for the new feature Inside-Out, Outside-In as well as conversations with lots of my filmmaker friends about films they’ve sold or distributed.

So if you’re an indie filmmaker looking for distribution options, consider this:

  1. Start a film group, with the intent to buy or build a movie theatre as an extension of your work. I see so many working theatre groups, many of whom own or operate their own small theatre very successfully. I think it’s largely just cultural heritage that actors and content creators feel comfortable with theatre groups, but so much less so with film groups. But I think that in 20 years, every actor will be thinking about which film group they want to join the way we used to think about trying to find a theatre group. And if there’s not a great film group in your area, start one yourself. Bonus: if you can find a way – as a film group – to own and operate a small cinema, it will provide a lot of leverage for you in talks with distributors and sales agents. This is true not only because you can provide a theatrical run for the film you’ve made, but also because you’ll be able to more cheaply provide them a rental space for their other titles. Now, all of a sudden, you look like someone they want to know….
  2. Make three movies instead of one. Making one feature film and finishing it is an incredible accomplishment, but having only one film leaves you vulnerable at the negotiating table with sales agents and distributors. Once you sign the paperwork, what leverage do you have? None, really. So it’s only their integrity and sense of professionalism that will get you paid at that point (and some distributors have more integrity than others….). But by making more than one movie – even holding one or two in the pipeline – you have leverage because assuming you deliver three quality films, they will want the second one…and the third one. So you can use that as a negotiating tactic. And they might be more forthcoming with statements and payments because you now can contest problems with three titles they own, not just one.
  3. Sell a product. Major studios greenlight films, in part, because of the merchandising opportunities that a film might provide. They think of each film as a profit center, not a work of art. Independent filmmakers (myself included) tend to make a film because it’s a story they want to tell and it feels a bit like whoring out your own child to think about the movie as a profit center. And yet, it’s possible to brainstorm products that could go with your film and why shouldn’t you? You’re spending three to four years making this film so why not have something organic that goes with your film to sell? You might end up making more money off this related product than the film itself. That product also might affect how you distribute the film. Perhaps the consumer gets a copy of your film when they buy your product or purchasing the product provides a coupon for the product, etc.
  4. Identify your audience early, then join that community. This isn’t rocket science, but if your film appeals to specific groups, go be part of that group to lay the groundwork for your film’s eventual release. If your target market includes married women with kids in their 40s and you’re a single gay guy in your 20s, then you better go out there and meet some married moms! Former Speaker of the House Tip O’Neill famously said, “All politics is local.” A similar sentiment applies to building an audience for your film. The Hollywood glamour machine does a good job of building the illusion that films become hits because of magic. But if you’re an indie filmmaker, you can’t afford to be fooled by the magical thinking that your film will somehow win over audiences because….destiny. The reality on the ground is that you are forced into becoming a politician to sell your film to the groups that are willing to buy it (and, yes, your inner purist artist will rebel from that ‘politician’ label, but try to convince your inner artist to get over it). If you’re not on the ground mixing and mingling with your target audience, why should they trust you enough to watch your work? How do they know you accurately reflected their lives? If you don’t intimately know people in your target audience, who will your brand ambassadors be? If you can show sales agents and distributors that you have credibility with one of the big target audiences of your film, that will be helpful and just plain smart.
  5. Cross platforms. Be thinking about how your film can be reinvented across many platforms – and select three or four that are powerful to drive folks to you. You can’t just keep sharing the trailer all day long and hope for the best. So think about how you can reinvent your film’s content in a way that would appeal to the users of Twitter. If that platform doesn’t work for you, fine. Then, how can it be reinvented and repackaged for Instagram or YouTube or Snapchat or on and on. It goes back to the concept of making three movies instead of one. You are really never making one singular movie. You’re making an experience that goes across platforms, with the feature film the most intense part of that experience.
  6. Roll the dice and plan for your film to get a major pick-up deal at Sundance or Cannes. Of course, there is a school of thought that says to only focus on the quality of your film, then go sell your film at Sundance and let a distributor deal with all this “political and networking bullshit” that you don’t want to do. Fair enough. Go for it. Just know your odds going in. This year, Sundance had upwards of 15,000 films submitted for around 250 slots. And I think that the interpersonal politics at film festivals is even more pronounced now than 15 years ago because of changes to the distribution model. Even powerhouse distributors are feeling the pinch of fewer dvd sales and an uncertain market and are highly motivated to buttress their films with credentials like Sundance. So, some pretty heavy hitters are out there calling festival programmers to lobby for their film to get one of those slots. That’s not to say that these festivals don’t consider new work from less established filmmakers, they do. But politics is a factor – and I would argue a bigger factor now than ten years ago because the uncertainty in the market motivates the power players to exercise as much power as they can while they still have it.
  7. Forever Theatrical/Films as Precious Art Objects. With piracy of films online so problematic, I could imagine a day when major filmmakers rebel and refuse to allow their films to be released online at all. It’s so very annoying to see your film ripped off and some low grade version of it circulating the internet that I’ve heard at least one indie filmmaker say that he wants to turn his films into sculptures, more or less. He makes a film. It has a festival, then a theatrical run, then he sells 100 encrypted copies of the film to high-end art collectors. Every now and then, he reintroduces the film in a new theatrical run, but it never goes online and never becomes available as a dvd or bluray. This filmmaker felt this was the only approach that held a future for indie artists because it actually allows us to value our work in the same category as others working in the fine arts. Now admittedly, I heard this idea at a late-night party when everybody had been drinking, but you know what? Who knows what the future may bring?

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Hunter Lee Hughes is a filmmaker and actor living and working in Los Angeles and the founder of Fatelink. His current feature film Guys Reading Poems is touring film festivals and this blog is dedicated to the process of making his second feature film, “Inside-Out, Outside-In.” If you enjoy the blog, please support our team by following us on Facebook, Twitter (@Fatelink) or Instagram (@Fatelink).

 

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Top Five Smart and Stupid Things I did Producing my Short Film

17 Tuesday Apr 2012

Posted by in Development

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As I continue to develop my feature film script and prepare for the craziness of development/pre-production/production etc., it’s sometimes helpful to look back and remember the lessons of the past.  After all, that’s why I learned them, right? And perhaps no other project taught me more than ‘Winner Takes All,’ for which I juggled duties as writer, producer and lead actor (power to the hyphenates!!!).

‘Winner Takes All‘ was shot in December, 2009, took a year and a half to edit (eventually clocking in at 17 minutes) and premiered at the Atlanta Film Festival in April, 2011.  It went on to gain acceptance into ten international film festivals and secured distribution through Guest House Films’ dark-themed collection called, ‘Black Briefs.’  Ever the perfectionist, at one point, I wanted the film to get into Sundance, 50+ film festivals, win an Oscar, take over the world and make me a mega filmmaker/actor hyphenate.  However, once reality set in and my ego faced the stark truth that there are thousands of shorts made every year (and hundreds and hundreds of really good ones….), I became satisfied with what we accomplished. But more than the outer accomplishments were the valuable lessons learned about what we did both right and wrong.  I’ll start with the stupid side.

Five Stupid Things I Did Producing ‘Winner Takes All’

1.  Underestimating the importance of the ‘smaller’ departments.  One horrendous day on the set, we went into overtime.  This is pretty much death for an indie short because we had to shell out extra money for our cast and crew and order a second meal. Although we had to do it, the overtime was completely avoidable….had we only paid more attention to two departments – costumes and make-up.  Why did we go into overtime? One of our lead actors could not find the suede pants established as so critical for his character and we did not have anyone from the costume department on hand to organize the clothes and make sure the actors had all their outfits as needed.  We figured, ‘Hey we only have four actors and each actor only has one outfit.  We don’t need a wardrobe department on set.’  The costume (which was eventually found tucked away in a second bathroom no one knew was there) took three hours to find. By that time, the camera crew had to change the lighting set-up they had planned, re-light and flip around to get another character’s coverage. (Another lesson – if you think actors will be responsible for their own costumes, you are wrong). Making matters worse, this was also the day our make-up artist arrived two-and-a-half hours late.  We didn’t have a rolodex of other make-up artists available and because she was the ONLY one in her department, we simply had to wait.  We spent SO much time organizing the camera crew, the equipment, the insurance, the permit, the meals that we neglected to remember just how important these ‘small’ departments are on a film set.  And boy did it cost us overtime dollars.  On a film set, there are no ‘small’ departments.

2.  Not investing in a cash box.  We ended up having more than $300 stolen from a rehearsal and later had to work double-time to track down all the receipts from people in all different departments, from craft services to production design.  I truly believe the theft and the receipt hassle would’ve been solved had we invested from the beginning in a small cash box with a sign-in/sign-out sheet for all the petty cash.  When you give people cash, they tend to just think of it as money in their pocket.  When they are forced to sign-out for the cash they receive and know they’ll have to sign-in once more with receipts to accompany the change, they take it seriously.  A fifteen dollar cash box would’ve saved time and money on our production.

3.  Applying to film festivals with a rough cut.  Sometimes you are told that film festivals are used to rough cuts, that they can see past any audio/color correction problems. Maybe if you’re Woody Allen or Terrence Malick.  If you’re newer to the festival circuit, I would never, ever apply with any sort of rough cut.  Why? With ‘Winner Takes All,’ we applied to a big festival that was sort of “shooting for the stars” with a rough cut and didn’t get in.  Later on, once we had a finished version, we applied to another festival that I thought was the PERFECT fit for our film.  Guess what?  We still didn’t get in. Of course, there could be a million reasons why but I couldn’t help but notice that the main programmer of the “shooting for the stars” festival was the SAME PERSON that later declined our finished version for the “Perfect Fit” festival.  I truly believe the person may’ve thought they saw the film once in a rough cut form and didn’t need to see it again, robbing us of a chance to make a great first impression with the finished piece. Remember, these festival programmers don’t just work for one festival.  They work for several and once they see your film, they’ve seen it.  So make sure they don’t first see it as a rough cut.

4.  Not Having a Plan to Manage Stress.  As a filmmaking hyphenate, you will face an extraordinary amount of stress and unexpected stress should be factored into a plan to take care of yourself emotionally, physically and spiritually during the process.  Three days before production started, my wallet was stolen, which included the company credit card to which all our equipment, insurance and expenses were charged. My identification was gone. Everything. On top of learning lines, organizing equipment and dealing with all sorts of new people and personalities, this sent me over the top with stress and some of it was avoidable. If I could do it again, I would pre-plan a massage just before production. By the time I shot my webseries, I knew that I would take the first twenty minutes of every lunch break to meditate and take quiet time no matter how many of the cast and crew members wanted to talk.  Have some fun distractions like an iPhone game or app that helps you unwind and make a plan to play it, even if you don’t feel like it in the moment.  Or if you have a romantic partner, let them know you might need some mindless nookie one night of the production just to have some stress release.  And let any romantic interest know up front that for the length of the shoot, you won’t be available to emotionally caretake or solve anything sticky in your relationship.  It’s just too much to ask of yourself.  In indie filmmaking, stress always takes a toll and it’s part of the beast you must face, but manageable stress feels a lot different to the body than unmanageable stress.

5.  Not understanding the difference between an editor and a post-production supervisor. Our first editor was a close friend of mine who had won an Emmy for her editing on a reality television show. She was highly qualified to edit the film based not only on her television work, but on her narrative work in the past.  However, she was not used to dealing with workflow issues.  In her office, the footage just appeared in her editing suite and she went to work and did a fantastic job. We were basically expecting her to serve not only as an editor, but also as a post-production supervisor.  This was especially unreasonable since we were dealing with Red footage, which at that time was considered a super-beast to deal with in Post. She eventually left the project because of other family and career obligations, but we got the message and hired a post-production supervisor (who ironically enough, ended up being our editor). But still, we should’ve had a post-production supervisor from day one to help establish the post workflow, especially knowing the difficulty of dealing with Red footage. It would have saved us heartache and made for a happier editor.  So be aware of who your editor is and if you’re going to expect them to function as a post-production supervisor, that should be clear with them and – unless they’re you’re bestie or doing a huge favor – they should be compensated and credited extra for performing more than one function.

Okay, so there are the stupid things I did. Here are the smart ones:

1. Hiring a director that shared my values about acting and the creative process. I desperately wanted to learn how to direct, but I intuitively knew that writing, producing and acting was more than enough to handle on my first outing of this scale. We had a number of choices in terms of who to choose as director, but we went with Camille Carida, a smart decision. She shared the most important values you can share as creative collaborators – a similar emphasis on what is important about the lives of human beings and how they are to be explored in an artistic venture.

2. Hiring with balance in terms of other key collaborators.  As a producer, I wanted Camille to feel comfortable with her d.p., but I also wanted to highlight choices that balanced out her strengths and weaknesses.  She was strong in creating performances and understanding and executing the theatricality of the piece.  The eventual d.p. John Matysiak has an uber-cool, perfectionist approach to the visuals which balanced out Camille being newer to shotmaking.  We tried to echo this balance throughout our hiring process.  We are excited to take chances with newer people in some departments, but would not take newer people for EVERY department.

3. Investing in High Production Value.  I saw ‘Winner Takes All’ as my own version of film school and spent quite a bit of money doing it.  Because there are so many shorts being produced and so many shorts competing for slots in festivals, I mitigated my risk in terms of inexperience with spending money for high production value.  I don’t recommend this strategy for every new producer.  And in truth, I had produced two uber-low-budget shorts that I didn’t feel comfortable submitting to festivals. But I don’t regret spending the money on high production value for ‘Winner Takes All.’  It helped give us an edge in competing for those slots – our high production value is still noted by almost everyone who sees the film. And it helps the film stand out as an enduring calling card. Since I learned so much on ‘Winner Takes All,’ I didn’t feel the need to invest in high production value as much the next time around but for this first big effort, it was crucial.

4. Selecting a film with one location. Our film took place entirely in a theater, which gave some much needed stability to our shoot. My producing partner Elizabeth Gordon and I considered producing a different short film, but we decided that the film with only one location would be a good hedge against our relative inexperience as film producers.  Turns out, we were right.  Between the wallet being stolen and all the other problems that came up, we desperately needed something steady and secure. The fact that everyone could show up to the same location, park in the same lot and keep the equipment in the same place was a very needed boost of stability. Plus, we got a number of different looks within the theatre — on stage, in the audience, in the light booth – so we still managed to do pretty well in terms of visual variety.

5. Going for it with Alec Mapa.  We really wanted someone amazing to play Simon. After a bit of a process bouncing ideas with Camille, Elizabeth and our casting director David S. Zimmerman, we felt strongly that Alec Mapa would be an amazing choice for the piece (and he was). In the LGBT world, Alec is definitely a celebrity and not someone that I knew personally. However, David did have friends from his time living in San Francisco that knew Alec. David arranged for them to approach Alec, who gave the go-ahead for us to call his agent. Then, we simply offered him the part. I wasn’t even sure of the protocol for doing something like that, but just got through it, with a little help. It worked. Within a day, Alec’s agent requested the script. Within two days, we made a deal and he came onboard the project. Alec’s terrific performance brought a lot of value to our film to the degree that other filmmakers approached me and asked me how we landed him. The answer was really surprisingly simple – we asked.

Okay, so those were some smart and stupid things I did producing ‘Winner Takes All.’  In the next week, I’ll take you even further back to show you some stupid/smart things I learned producing two plays and also investigate some stupid/smart things I did directing my first project.

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Hunter Lee Hughes is a filmmaker living and working in Los Angeles and the founder of Fatelink. His current feature film Guys Reading Poems is touring film festivals and this blog is dedicated to the process of making his second feature film, “Inside-Out, Outside-In.” If you enjoy the blog, please support our team by following us on Facebook, Twitter (@Fatelink) or Instagram (@Fatelink).