Distribution
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How to Create a Profitable VOD Strategy
This distribution case study of American: The Bill Hicks Story has been previously posted at Indiewire, and when it went up, I quickly scanned it and tweeted their link. But now I’ve actually had time to read it carefully, and it’s a very useful document that deserves its own place on the blog. A Powerpoint presentation prepared for a panel at this year’s SXSW moderated by Orly Ravid, the document walks you through the filmmaker’s DIY theatrical and various VOD and digital distribution deals. There are revenue numbers here, and not just for American, but also other movies released by […]
by Scott Macaulay on Mar 25, 2012 -
Scott Glosserman Discusses Gathr and Theatrical On Demand
“Tipping.” “Pulling.” “Gathring.” Yes, a new tech start-up has entered the independent film space, and with it a nomenclature that speaks to its ambition to “democratize” the business of theatrical distribution. Launched by a filmmaker, Scott Glosserman (Behind the Mask), Gathr offers “TOD,” or theatrical-on-demand, an audience-driven process by which fans request (or “pull”) films to local venues by aggregating their interest and pledging their funds in advance via credit card. When enough fans support a screening on a particular day, the film “tips,” and credit cards are charged. Fans get to see films that might never come to their […]
by Scott Macaulay on Mar 9, 2012 -
Director Marius Van Neikerk on My Heart of Darkness
The journey of an international documentary to the United States is an uncertain one. Make its subject a lesser-known foreign war and the post-traumatic effects thereof, and you’ve got what an American agent calls a “hard sell.” My Heart of Darkness, a brooding foray into four veterans’ pasts, has been traveling the international festival circuit since premiering at IDFA in 2010. The years between then and now, where it’s having its U.S. premiere at L.A.’s Pan African Film Festival (PAFF), has been marked by all manner of revelations and misunderstandings—appropriate for a film about the reconciliation of four former enemies […]
by Daniel James Scott on Feb 11, 2012 -
HOW WILL YOU WATCH “RETURN”?
I love seeing movies in the cinema. I love being smaller than the screen, the sounds. I love giant action movies that are meant to overwhelm you with their sensations, and I also love films where the story is about smaller topics in everyday life (which, of course, also overwhelm you with their sensations). I love going to the movies with other people, but I also love going by myself and being a stranger in a crowd. Either way, part of what is sexy about the cinema is feeling yourself brought together with people you don’t know, having a common […]
by Liza Johnson on Feb 8, 2012 -
Ten Lessons on Filmmaking From Director Abel Ferrara
The original King of Indie Abel Ferrara made a stop at Emir Kusturica’s Küstendorf Film and Music Festival this January to screen his latest film 4:44 Last Day on Earth. The Loisaida-set film paints a picture of addiction at the end of the world, starring Willem Dafoe and Shanyn Leigh. Ferrara felt very welcome at Küstendorf, Emir Kusturica’s wooden village high in the mountains of Mokra Gora. “We just kinda have a connection, other than I look like him,” Ferrera told me of the famed Serbian director, minutes before entering a workshop to discuss the film with students who had descended […]
by Ariston Anderson on Feb 6, 2012 -
An Interview With The Invader Director Nicholas Provost
A sort of Taxi Driver set within the world of European immigrant culture, Nicolas Provost’s The Invader is one of the most intriguing and seductive films currently on the festival circuit. It premiered in Venice before screening in Toronto (where the below interview was conducted) and now Rotterdam, and it marks the feature debut of Provost (pictured above), a Belgian video and installation artist whose work has always taken as its subject the way cinema orders images into narrative. The story opens with the camera fixed on the vagina of a beautiful blonde woman, sunbathing nude on a Southern European […]
by Scott Macaulay on Feb 2, 2012 -
13 FILMS PREMIERE DIGITALLY VIA SUNDANCE ARTIST SERVICES
Conflict-of-interest note: As most of you know, I produce films in addition to editing Filmmaker. Others on our team do as well. “By filmmakers, for filmmakers,” our marketing tagline has long been, and I like to think that our experience gives the magazine insight as well as strong bullshit detector. Being aware of my multiple hats, however, I generally exclude projects I produce from the magazine and site. That’s why you’ve never read about films like Off the Black, Saving Face and Raising Victor Vargas in Filmmaker. (Sorry, directors!) But when it comes to the following story of interest to […]
by Scott Macaulay on Jan 20, 2012 -
An Innovative Launch for Joffrey: Mavericks of American Dance
For the past four months, my company Hybrid Cinema has been working on the release of Bob Hercules’s new film Joffrey: Mavericks of American Dance, about the history of the Joffrey ballet. I will be writing a number of posts outlining the unique path that I and my partner on this release, Sheri Candler, have taken to release this documentary about the history of the groundbreaking dance company, The Joffrey Ballet. In my book Think Outside the Box Office and in subsequent blog posts, I have written about the advantages and challenges of launching a film after its world premiere […]
by Jon Reiss on Jan 18, 2012 -
PORTRAIT OF THE ARTIST (ENTREPRENEUR): CORY McABEE
As 2012 dawns and the conversation in the film (and greater artistic) community shifts from ‘DIY’ to the advent of the ‘artist-entrepreneur’, I find myself pondering the meaning of all this in my own career and life, while thinking about one of my most enduring inspirations to go it my own way, my friend Cory McAbee. The bulk of this post was originally drafted in the fall of 2009 right after the release of Cory McAbee’s film, Stingray Sam, and was written simply as a fan of Cory’s work and aesthetic. I was first introduced to Cory’s work when The American Astronaut garnered some […]
by Gregorybayne on Dec 31, 2011 -
MEDIA CURRENT: YOUR TV FUTURE
Internet Video (IV) will play an increasingly important role in the distribution of independent “film.” Even for the few who still shoot, edit and distribute on 16mm or 35mm stock, your future – if only for marketing and promotion — is tied to the digital 1s and 0s that are redefining media and communications. IV distribution is restructuring release “windows” and revenue recoupment. Revenue opportunities through DVD sales are shrinking; the TV market (with the exception of HBO, PBS and some made-fors) is evaporating; international commitments are tougher to snag; and the once higher mark-up on educational sales is a thing […]
by David Rosen on Dec 21, 2011
