Distribution
Filmmaking - Distribution
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Infographic of Sundance Sales from 2011 to 2013
The Sundance sale. The turning point of the festival for more than just the expected filmmakers and distributors can, at times, be an inscrutable transaction. Is X the best fit for Y? Is X really worth Z amount? Does X’s release in W mean Y’s jockeying for awards season? And so on and so forth. In honor of the inaugural issue of their magazine, Bright Ideas, Seed&Spark teamed with Accurat to present a data visualization of Sundance sales from 2011 to 2013. The exhaustive infographic demonstrates, above all, that there are no guarantees in translating Sundance buzz to the box […]
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Giving Good Press: Advice for First-Time Interviewees
For some, it is what they’ve been waiting for, a dream come true, a chance to finally make good on years of lonely work. For others, it is a terrifying minefield of certain humiliation. It is: TALKING ABOUT YOUR FILM. A theoretical dream come true – finally, someone wants to hear me talk about my film! Giving Good Press is a fine art, and, in some cases, a blood sport. The blog machine, the Twittersphere, the critic ratings, the Gray Ladies of print reviews — at a film festival, perhaps for the first time, directors are expected to satisfy their […]
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Lionsgate and CNN Films Buy Dinosaur 13 in First Doc Pickup of Sundance 2014
Dinosaur 13, the opening night film in the doc competition section, just became the first non-fiction acquisition of the 2014 Sundance Film Festival. In a deal brokered by the film’s sales agent, Josh Braun of Submarine, Lionsgate and CNN Films bought North American rights for the buzz doc, which chronicles the real-life drama following the discovery in 1990 of the remains of “Sue,” the largest and most complete Tyrannosaurus Rex ever found. Dinosaur 13 will play theatrically through Lionsgate before having a TV premiere through CNN. The beautifully shot Dinosaur 13 had a lot of interest going into the fest, but […]
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Vimeo to Team with Crowdfunding Platforms
It’s a busy 10 days for news breaks as Sundance is now officially underway. To start things off, Vimeo has just announced its partnership with crowdfunding platforms Indiegogo, Kickstarter and Seed&Spark, in a program that will allow them to cherry pick projects that have raised at least $10,000 for an exclusive digital premiere window on Vimeo on Demand. In exchange, the filmmakers will receive free Vimeo Pro accounts and access to a $500,000 Audience Development Fund to aid in project promotion. This announcement comes on the heals of Vimeo’s acquisition of 13 TIFF titles that will stream exclusively on VoD […]
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Columbia Professor Tim Wu Responds to Manohla Dargis’s “Too Many Movies” Argument
Credit Manohla Dargis for kicking up a big discussion about the intertwined economics and cultural worth of independent film with her much-debated “As Indies Explode, An Appeal for Sanity” published in the New York Times. While her plea to distributors to stop buying so many movies struck Sundance-bound hopefuls as, well, a little mean, others are viewing her commentary in different ways. The latest is Columbia professor and journalist Tim Wu, who has penned a New Yorker response, “More is More in Independent Film.” “Dargis is wrong,” he flat-out writes, “making lots of films to yield a few hits is […]
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Vimeo on Demand Announces 13 TIFF Acquisitions
Shortly before the 2013 Toronto International Film Festival, Vimeo issued an offer to attending filmmakers. Let us have exclusive digital rights to your film for 30 days via our distribution platform, Vimeo on Demand, and we’ll give you a $10,000 advance. After that window — or until we recoup the $10,000, whichever comes first — we’ll provide our standard 90/10 revenue split, and you’re free to take your film elsewhere. I remember thinking it was a bold move, ripe for the “best of both worlds” scenario so many modern independent filmmakers desire. But would anyone be game? Turns out, more than […]
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What’s Ego Got to Do With It? At Sundance’s Arthouse Convergence, Ira Deutchman Imagines the Future of Specialty Exhibition
Just delivered in Utah at Sundance’s pre-festival 2014 Arthouse Convergence — where specialty exhibitors gather to discuss and debate trends, developments and threats to their collective business model — Ira Deutchman’s keynote is a witty and forward-thinking speech that looks to the past to consider reshaping the future. In his opening, Deutchman cites two truths he learned early on in his career: First, I learned that Business is dominated by people who are driven, sometimes myopic, and willing to do almost anything to succeed. The second thing I learned is that the Film Business, specifically, is driven more by ego […]
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Pickups for Gondry’s Mood Indigo, Berninger’s Mistaken for Strangers and Carbone’s Hide Your Smiling Faces
In a busy Monday for acquisitions, Michel Gondry’s romance Mood Indigo, Tom Berninger’s doc on The National, Mistaken for Strangers, and Daniel Patrick Carbone’s indie favorite Hide Your Smiling Faces all found homes with theatrical distributors. Drafthouse Films snapped up Indigo, which stars Audrey Tatou and Romain Duris and has a certain Amelie vibe to it. The film premiered at Karlovy Vary last year rather than one of the big fall fests, so it’s maybe not surprising that an emerging distributor like Drafthouse has picked up the film rather than a bigger and more established outfits. Drafthouse boss Tim League said of the purchase, “Not since Amelie have […]
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Manohla Dargis to Indie Distributors: Be More Discriminating
In advance of Sundance, the unofficial birthplace of the annual independent film calendar, Manohla Dargis has something to ask of the attending distributors: “stop buying so many movies.” Or at least, stop offering so many theatrical deals. “It’s hard to see how American independent cinema can sustain itself if it continues to focus on consumption rather than curation,” she writes. “There are, bluntly, too many lackluster, forgettable and just plain bad movies pouring into theaters, distracting the entertainment media and, more important, overwhelming the audience.” Her claim comes from a kind-hearted place. She ventures that the wonderfully singular Computer Chess could […]
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Thom Powers Curates Distribution Advice for Filmmakers
Toronto International Film Festival and Stranger than Fiction programmer Thom Powers is well known for his curation of documentary film, but with the New Year he’s offering something more: documentary film distribution guidance. For filmmakers entering the festival circuit, his “Distribution Advice for 2014” is a must read. In a detailed intro, Powers discusses various distribution options, ranging from traditional to hybrid to DIY strategies. Then, he gathers specific advice from filmmakers, journalists, producers, publicists and sales agent. Below are three of those recommendations, and check out the entire post at the link to read many more. DAN COGAN (CO-FOUNDER, […]
