Today one of the most anticipated panels for filmmakers in the Tribeca Talks series took place. Moderated by
Hollywood Reporter's Steve Zeitchik with a panel consisting of IFC's Ryan Werner, 42 West's Cynthia Swartz,
Bomb It director Jon Reiss, YouTube's Sara Pollack, Tribeca Enterprises' Geoff Gilmore and Oscilloscope's David Fenkel (pictured above right-left), the group discussed the alternative distribution and marketing models currently on the minds of filmmakers and the industry alike.
Like most panels on this subject no one has the answer on how filmmakers can make money outside of the traditional forms of distribution. YouTube has begun their Screening Room page recently that's showcasing shorts and feature films for free. And though Pollack notes that there have been over 30 million views to the page, filmmakers aren't really seeing much money, if any. Then there's IFC which has been the trailblazer in VOD distribution. Werner says that they moved to the VOD platform and created Festival Direct (which are festival favorite titles they release only on VOD) because they couldn't take chances on some films that they loved on the festival circuit by spending P&A to give it a traditional theatrical release. "It was a response to what we saw at festivals," says Werner of IFC's VOD model. "We couldn't take a chance on them [theatrically] so this was the only way to release them."
Gilmore also noted that a real change is needed on what the industry views as a success. "When
sex, lies was bought everyone would have been happy to make a $2 million gross," he says. "Now everyone wants to have a
Slumdog Millionaire." He says that the "hit-driven" mentality has to be toned down and that the system that has been in place for the last 30 years (theatrical to home video to paid cable) is outdated and that everyone is waiting for that one online model that is profitable. YouTube could soon have the answer.
Pollack told how when Magnolia released Wayne Wang's
The Princess of Nebraska and
A Thousand Years of Good Prayers close to one another in 2008, YouTube premiered
Nebraska and got close to 150,000 views in the first week it went up along with a review from A.O. Scott at the New York Times. But Pollack says that with
Nebraska being online at the same time
A Thousand Years was in theaters it helped bring more attention to
Thousand. So perhaps the best way to use the Web right now is by creating original content for the Web that can help motivate audiences to see a film in a traditional way.
Swartz believes that filmmakers need to think out the marketing even before funding begins on a project. "You can no longer make a film and they say, 'what do I do with it?'" she says. "You have the cultivate an audience before making the movie and have a back up plan if your film doesn't get bought."
Reiss concurs and says that you can make more money selling parts of your film than giving all rights to one company (many of these issues and more can be found in the series of stories Reiss wrote for us in our
Fall '08,
Winter '09 and
Spring '09 issues). He also states that there's still money that can be made in releasing a film theatrically, but you just can't do it the way the studios do. "Often times [when screening
Bomb It] we made most of our money when we did one or two day screenings instead of a week long," he says. "We would do promotion and do the street team thing so people realized after a few days they would never get the chance to see the film so they had to come to the theater."
Though many filmmakers could have taken away a lot of doom and gloom scenarios from the discussion, Reiss put it in a positive prospective. "This is the best time to be a filmmaker because there has never been a time like this where you have all these options to release films."
Labels: Festival Ambassador
# posted by Jason Guerrasio @ 4/28/2009 10:54:00 PM
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