Distribution
Filmmaking - Distribution
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Wide Open or Ajar: Theatrical Windows in the VOD Age
It used to be so simple: Release a movie in theaters and, several months later, it would come to your local video store. Nowadays, each and every film’s release pattern and chosen distribution platforms are—or, at least, should be—idiosyncratic, unique, and specifically tailored. “The first thing you have to ask yourself,” distribution consultant Michael Tuckman says, “is who is your audience, and work backwards from there to figure out what windowing you’re going to do.” If the target audience is a young demographic who spend most of their time on devices, then, according to The Orchard’s Paul Davidson, “a SVOD […]
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Wearing a Sandwich Board to Promote Your Movie: Tips from Bernard and Huey Director Dan Mirvish
There are two types of filmmakers: those who will stand on a street corner wearing a sandwich board to promote their movies, and those who will not. Dan Mirvish is fearlessly in the former category, as evidenced by this video, which finds the Bernard and Huey writer, director and Slamdance co-founder outside the Laemmle Monica hustling passersby to come and see his movie this weekend (and also be passersby in a video about promoting via a sandwich board). Writes Mirvish in an email about promoting via sandwich board: It has some historical context: 22 years ago, I wore a similar […]
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How to Deliver Your Film to a Festival (2018 Edition)
Back in 2015, I wrote an article for Filmmaker on the best practices for delivering an exhibition copy of your film to festivals. In the ensuing two and a half, almost three years, I’ve received a lot of positive feedback, including a few panicked emails from filmmakers submitting their films to a festivals I worked at. Now in 2018, my editors have asked me to update it. Why the update now? Allow me the use of a clumsy and imperfect technical reference to Moore’s law that computing power doubles every eighteen months and the same has happened to available filmmaking […]
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5 Tips for Selling Your Indie Documentary
These days, making a good documentary is not good enough. Finding the right good distributor is as challenging a process as making a film, a reality of the business I’ve learned the hard way. I’ve directed and produced two documentary features, the latter of which, Dealt (about a world-renowned card magician who is blind), quickly sold to IFC/Sundance Selects. It has been a solid success. However, my first film took an entire year to find a buyer. It was a total uphill battle and very humbling. What was the problem? We were so focused on just making a good film […]
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At SXSW, Sundance Shares Columbus Distribution Figures and Offers DIY Distribution Tips
Sundance Institute’s Creative Distribution Initiative released today a case study for one of its inaugural films that premiered at Sundance last year: Columbus, from :: kogonada, who appeared on Filmmaker’s 25 New Faces of Independent Film list. Opening to strong critical acclaim and grossing over $1 million at the U.S. box office, the film is centered around a Korean-born man who finds himself stuck in Columbus, Indiana, where his father is in a coma. In two weeks, an additional case study for Jennifer Brea’s Oscar short-listed doc Unrest will be released. Established in May 2017, the initiative is aimed at […]
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Film Festival Application Process Do’s and Don’ts (Or, How Not to Shoot Yourself In the Foot When Applying to a Film Festival)
So it’s that intense festival time of year again. You’re considering festivals, applying to festivals, maybe excited about the festivals you’ve been accepted to or recalibrating your expectations after unexpected rejection letters. If so, then the following ten do’s and don’ts may be helpful to you. These suggestions are based not only on my own work with clients, but also from some amazing advice from some really knowledgeable folks who I have had the pleasure of being on panels with over this past year: Basil Tsiokis (programmer, Sundance and DOC NYC), Tom Hall (programmer, Montclair Film Festival), Dan Nuxoll (Rooftop Films), […]
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“Your Film Will Always Travel More Than You”: Director Sophie Goyette on Independent Distribution
In 2016, Québécois filmmaker Sophie Goyette’s debut feature, Mes nuits feront écho, won the Bright Future Award at the Rotterdam International Film Festival. A poetic rumination on morality, the fragility of relationships, and the bravery that goes into cultivating human connection, the film flows between very distinct, even seemingly disparate, locales: Québec, Mexico and Asia. Goyette, however, links these places through the journeys of a young musician, Eliane (Eliane Préfontaine), who leaves Canada for Mexico City and ends up teaching piano to the son of a middle-aged man, Romes (Gerardo Trejoluna). Romes soon leaves for Asia with his aged father, […]
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Why Old School Blockbuster VHS Video Cover Art Beats Netflix Thumbnails
Those who remember the days of the neighborhood video store — whether that was, for you, Kim’s Video or Blockbuster — may attribute their fondness for ineffably sleazy horror film VHS cover art to simple nostalgia, but, proposes Entertain the Elk, there’s more to it than that. In this short video he argues that the videobox designers of the day were using the AIDA marketing methods to draw movie fans’s eyeballs to images of bloody knives, hair shaped into a noose and monsters emerging from the toilet. Of note are the piece’s final moments, when he decries the Get Out […]
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Should Filmmakers Tour Their Work Like Bands Tour Their Albums?
Since I started working in film ten years ago I’ve been fascinated by the creative possibilities of distribution. Filmmakers tend to think of releasing their film primarily as homework: the creative work is over and now the boring part begins: booking theaters, organizing print traffic, getting your film onto the right platforms online, generating press, and perhaps toughest of all — convincing anyone out there to actually care about what you made. It can be a boatload of labor, and a lot of it is administrative and connection-based. It’s no wonder that most filmmakers prefer to outsource distribution to companies […]
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After Letting Go: How Walking Away from My First Film Led to Distribution and then Development on my Next
Last November I wrote a piece for Filmmaker about walking away from my debut film. “Just Let Go Already! 12 Takeaways After Making the Microbudget Feature, The Purple Onion” chronicles the five-year process of making my first feature film and sums up whatever wisdom I can impart to anyone making a film. Filmmaking can be likened to many things. It’s rewarding on so many levels. And yet the truth is that what began as a labor of love was becoming a growing burden with no end in sight. Now I’m here to prove why you should keep going anyway. After […]
