» Posts Tagged ‘distribution’
Three Steps For 21st-Century Independent Filmmaking Success
This is a guest post by Jason Brubaker, author of the new book Filmmaking Stuff: How to make, market and sell your movie without the middle-man.
Independent filmmaking has changed a lot in the decade since I started my career. It sounds silly now, but back when I started, there was this collective belief that if you made your movie, you would sell it at Sundance and live happily ever after. Perpetuated by sensational headlines touting the successes of Ed Burns, Kevin Smith and Robert Rodriguez, Sundance Fever became a full-blown epidemic resulting in maxed out credit cards, angry investors and film festival rejection.
Even if you were one of the few filmmakers fortunate enough to make a movie and have an amazing festival run, it soon became apparent that you were nobody unless you could reach the marketplace. And because there were thousands of poorly produced titles flooding the festival circuit, distribution became discriminatory, abusive and monopolistic. As a consequence, many filmmakers settled for crappy distribution deals. At least getting something felt better than nothing.
Or so we thought… More »
On Feb 1, 2008 Mark Cuban posted to his blog about a far-fetched, impossible-to-execute marketing concept that he desperately wanted film studios to adopt, in order to leverage the value of free giveaways to combat the crumbling theatrical marketplace. Digital was exploding, distribution was becoming a fractured nightmare, and studios were scrambling to adapt.
The idea was staggeringly simple: give away the film’s soundtrack for free. More »
Does your video have a million views? Do you consistently draw large audiences? This past Thursday, YouTube announced it would throw out old criteria and let anyone with eligible content join the YouTube Partner Program, if they so wished (and are in the list of 20 approved countries). How does this make it more likely that you can make a few bucks off your short? And how does this announcement play into YouTube’s larger strategy? Read on: More »
Back in December, Louis C.K. did the unthinkable for a major comedian with an HBO special and his own television show on FX: he bankrolled the filming of his own comedy show and then distributed it online for only $5, with absolutely no restrictions. For big stars, that type of DIY distribution has historically been equivalent to selling DVDs out of the back of your car. It’s now starting to catch on with major celebrity talent who are sick of dealing with the gatekeepers and want to release their own products, in whatever fashion they desire, directly to fans for a reasonable price. Now Aziz Ansari is getting in on the action with the release of his own comedy special. More »
Quentin Tarantino’s Pulp Fiction has no shortage of memorable lines and scenes. Harvey Keitel’s character Winston Wolfe is particularly quotable, and he does exactly what independent filmmakers have to do hundreds of times on a daily basis: solve problems. IndieWire has a great post detailing 9 reasons why the actions of ‘The Wolf’ are applicable to independent filmmaking. More »
We’ve covered DIY Days a little before, mainly because our own Koo was one of the speakers at the recent New York event. DIY Days for those who don’t know is basically a gathering of creatives and focuses on the future of media and sustainability for those who create it. This presentation from Henry Jenkins was recorded at DIY Days in Los Angeles back in October, 2011. More »
If you’ve ever thought about, or have been in the process of distributing an independent film, you know that it’s an absolute nightmare, and whether it’s theaters or distributors, almost no one wants to give you a straight answer about actual numbers and how well comparable films might have performed. It takes a lot for a distributor to finally give up numbers, but yesterday at a SXSW panel, Gravitas Ventures did just that. They delivered with a case study, and some other films and their distribution numbers. More »
We live in interesting times when it comes to content creation and distribution. Whether it’s movies being simultaneously released for a fee and free, or using web apps for content delivery, creators are experimenting with ways in which they can maximize both exposure for their films as well as returns for their investors. Amanda Lin Costa gives an overview of some of the main new types of digital distribution, from iTunes to VOD, and the experience filmmakers have had with them — both the good and the bad. Great food for thought for anyone considering their project’s digital distribution options: More »
I’ve been keeping tabs on HTML5 video for my future transmedia project 3rd Rail, as HTML5 will almost certainly replace Flash video as the primary method of consuming online video… eventually. However, where we are right now is that Adobe is sunsetting Flash video but HTML5 is still in its infancy. Long Tail Video has released a very useful “state of HTML5″ report, and it’s very enlightening for anyone wondering what you can and can’t do with HTML5 video today. Let’s also embed some HTML5 videos right here and see if they work correctly in your browser: More »
Among the many news stories that I missed recently, comedian Louis CK’s self-released Live at the Beacon Theater video might be the story that I feel the most remiss about missing. Louis is not only one of the funniest men alive, he’s also a writer/director/producer/editor (you may know his show on FX, which he not only writes and stars in, but also edited the entire second season himself). Louis recently shared some of his thoughts on the hot button topic of Final Cut Pro (X) (included below), but the larger story is that his self-produced, self-distributed downloadable video has raised over $1 million, and he’s been completely transparent about where that money is going (much of which is to charity). Here’s a sample of the routine, which includes NSFW language/subject matter: More »
If You Hope to Have Your Film Distributed, Get These Free Documents from the Tribeca Film Institute Now
Last month I had the opportunity to attend the Tribeca Film Institute’s excellent Distribution 101 panel here in NYC. The panelists from HBO and Tribeca Films shared a lot of valuable information about deliverables — i.e., if your film is acquired, you do not simply send over the movie itself, but also need to have a cornucopia of legal documents ready, including photo releases, chain of title, music cue sheet, and an errors & omissions policy. Above and beyond the info on the panel, attendees were handed a nifty USB flash drive, which contained a number of very useful documents and templates. Now TFI has released these documents free; if you hope to have a film acquired by a distributor one day, do not miss your chance to grab these files now. More »
When I originally wrote, “Google TV is what independent filmmakers have been waiting for,” in retrospect I forgot the “is” at the beginning of the sentence and the question mark at the end. So far the answer to that question has been, admittedly and unfortunately, a resounding “no” — so much so that, despite being sent a Google TV by Google (in part because of writing that article), I still haven’t set it up. But when it comes to independent film distribution, the TV is the final frontier, and whether or not Google TV version 1 made an impact, version 2 is currently rolling out this week and looks to improve things significantly. Oh, and rumors are flying that Apple is apparently getting into the TV game for real (the current Apple TV is nothing more than a hobby). More »
'PressPausePlay' is a Free and Timely Feature Film on Art and Technology
PressPausePlay is a feature-length documentary on “hope, fear, and digital culture” that has been making the festival rounds for a while and is now available gratis on the internet. It’s highly recommended viewing at any price — you can buy it for $14.99 on iTunes or rent it for $3.99 on Amazon
Prescreen and FilmDIY are New Players in the Independent Digital Distribution Space
If VOD is the future of film distribution and Netflix isn’t paying indies much, we’d all better hope for some new — and successful — players in the digital film distribution space. Dynamo Player was one of the first out of the gate, and Distrify looks great. Amazon VOD and YouTube Rentals are also players, or you could always try to build your own VOD portal. Now there are two more options; here are the video pitches from newcomers FilmDIY and Prescreen: More »
This is a guest post by filmmaker/author Jon Reiss, whose brand new co-authored book Selling Your Film Without Selling Your Soul is 100% free (until the end of September) and 100% essential reading for filmmakers. Seriously: do not miss this book.
Two years ago I wrote a book Think Outside the Box Office which is a nuts and bolts guide to direct distribution and marketing for films that I wish I had when I released my feature Bomb It (about graffiti and street art all over the world). Last week marked the launch of Selling Your Film Without Selling Your Soul (SYFWSYS) a book that I wrote with Sheri Candler and The Film Collaborative – which is available for free digitally until October 1 and also available in paperback. SYFWSYS includes marketing and crowdfunding strategies, distribution spends, community building and detailed ancillary and digital distribution numbers for the following films: Ride The Divide, The Cosmonaut, The Best and The Brightest, Sita Sings the Blues, Note by Note, Bass Ackwards, Adventures of Power, American: The Bill Hicks Story, Undertow, For the Bible Tells Me So, and the webseries PioneerOne. What follows is an excerpt from one of my chapters in the book about the release of a film Ride the Divide. More »
There’s a nice article at Deadline about Todd Wagner, who cofounded Magnolia Pictures with Mark Cuban (also pictured). Wagner, who says Magnolia is not for sale (despite testing the waters earlier this year), shared some numbers regarding Magnolia’s films and their success on VOD. Not to get ahead of myself, but when you’re spending every waking moment thinking about your film, you also tend to think about distribution in a theoretical way. Man-child would be a great day-and-date VOD candidate, and not just in the cable TV world but also in the Amazon, iTunes rental, Dynamo player kind of world. Here’s Wagner on VOD for independent films — which in Magnolia’s case oftentimes brought in several times more than did theatrical — and how it’s just getting started: More »
When Netflix recently raised prices and separated out their DVD-by-mail and streaming pricing, there was a minor revolt among users. So many cancelled their service, in fact, that Netflix’s stock took a 15% hit. Still, I don’t think anyone saw this coming: from now on, Netflix will only offer streaming titles. If you still want DVDs by mail, they’re going to come from a new brand: Qwikster. Wow. Here’s the announcement: More »
Media futurist Gerg Leonhard’s presentation at DES may not concern filmmakers in the sense that he’s talking about how to make movies in the future. But he is talking about the way media will be distributed and consumed going forward. You can look at this presentation a couple of ways: “none of this has anything to do with being a DIY filmmaker” — or, in the era of the artist-entrepeneur, all of this has to do with being a DIY filmmaker (as both a content creator and a distributor). I think it’s worth a watch: More »
Selling Your Film Without Selling Your Soul is a free, awesome-looking eBook coming in September from some heavy-hitters in the indie film scene. The book is a series of case studies that “dive deep into the real numbers and real details of independent film distribution,” and will be released free in September during Independent Film Week here in New York — when I’ll be taking meetings about my first feature film, Man-child. You may have heard of it? I just launched a Kickstarter campaign and I’m counting on your support! How’s that for an example of selling my film without selling my soul?!? Check out the book’s video trailer: More »
Today saw the iTunes-exclusive album release of Watch the Throne, a collaboration between rap megastars Kanye West and Jay-Z. What does this have to do with independent filmmaking? Good question. Regardless of what kind of music you listen to, I think there are some lessons to be learned from the career arc of Kanye West, as well as the digital-first distribution strategy the duo employed for today’s album release. Caution: this post is not going to win any awards for organization or brevity. I’m going to ramble on here: More »
.gif)
shaun wilson: If kickstarter expanded to being a world wide opportunity not just for US … Crowdinvesting is Now Legal in the U.S., but Kickstarter Isn't Interested …
James: I believe Kickstarter is smart, anyone who has followed finance even brief… Crowdinvesting is Now Legal in the U.S., but Kickstarter Isn't Interested …
Guillaume: Is it me or the video for the Largest Short Documentary contest ever has b… Focus Forward Filmmaker Challenge Offering Largest Short Documentary Prize…
Rev. Benjamin: All that make-sense stuff aside... it's probably just plain fun to put a s… New Camera, Old Canon K35 Lenses: Some Thoughts on Buying Old Optics (Inst…
Peter: Kickstarter historically hands its competitor a must-have business plan. B… Crowdinvesting is Now Legal in the U.S., but Kickstarter Isn't Interested …