Distribution
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IN ROTTERDAM, AMERICAN FILMS THAT COULDN’T EXIST ANYWHERE ELSE
After the rush of sales in Park City this year, it seems the entire American cine-punditry is racing to declare this the beginning of a new golden age in American Independent Film. I sure hope they’re right. One wonders if March’s SXSW Film Festival in Austin will continue the trend and finally push that festival into true market status. Nearly 40 films were acquired in Park City and many more that premiered there will surely be acquired in the weeks and months to come. Yet for some of the most daring new American films, the sales rat race at Sundance […]
by Brandon Harris on Feb 4, 2011 -
NEOFLIX CHARGED WITH NOT PAYING FILMMAKERS
Neoflix, a fulfillment house used by many self-distributing independent filmmakers, has fallen severely behind on its payments, say filmmakers and producers who have contracted with the company. Today in a blog post, filmmaker and former Neoflix customer Jon Reiss writes, “I have received reports from a number of filmmakers that they have not been paid by Neoflix for months. Some filmmakers are owed hundreds, thousands and tens of thousands of dollars.” Separately, Filmmaker has also been contacted by filmmakers who say they are owed money by Neoflix. We have been told that discussions with the company throughout the Fall of […]
by Scott Macaulay on Feb 3, 2011 -
IS AMAZON STUDIOS A THREAT? JIM MCKAY AND I DISCUSS
After posting last week about the new Amazon Studios, director Jim McKay and I have had an email discussion about this new crowdsourced development entity. There’s been much criticism — from me but many others around the web — of the minimal protections given writers, who grant Amazon an 18-month free option and the right to have the tech giant’s online community give input to and even rewrite their original work. (Read my earlier post here.) Jim isn’t as alarmist as some about the new venture; his take is rather nuanced. Here’s our conversation, reprinted with permission. McKay: I liked […]
by Scott Macaulay on Nov 23, 2010 -
PERSON OF INTEREST: OFF THE GRID
I’ve met and talked with filmmaker Gregory Bayne at a couple of events, including this past Summer’s The Conversation, and have admired his tough-minded, perspicacious approach to distributing his feature Person of Interest. So, I was happy when he pitched me a series of posts detailing the movie’s current tour. Here is the first introductory piece. — Scott Macaulay Volume 1: There is no system. There is only you. “Listen up, maggots. You are not special. You are not a beautiful or unique snowflake. You’re the same decaying organic matter as everything else.” — Tyler Durden Filmmakers have an interesting […]
by Scott Macaulay on Aug 23, 2010 -
WHAT IF YOUR DISTRIBUTOR DEFAULTS…
Mark Litwak has great excerpt from his book Risky Business on his Entertainment Law Newsletter today dealing with default by distributors. He begins: Many years ago I represented a filmmaker who entered into an agreement with a small home-video distributor. The company had a decent reputation, and since there were no other offers for this $80,000 movie, a deal was struck. The filmmaker was promised a $40,000 advance for U.S. home video rights. The advance was payable in four installments over the course of a year. After the second installment was received, the distributor was acquired. The new owners stopped […]
by Scott Macaulay on Jul 7, 2010 -
CINEMATIC RENDITION
I received this email as a response to this week’s edition of the Filmmaker newsletter. (If you don’t get the newsletter, which contains an Editor’s Letter not appearing on this blog, you can subscribe for free here.) Scott, I always love your weekly newsletter editorials and from your last I know you need a quick, humorous distraction. The new model for film distribution occurred to me today. I’m in a creative headstorm with my editor and since our film is about humanity, the universe, and the space program under the Bush Administration, it all synthesized at once. We kidnap potential […]
by Scott Macaulay on Jun 18, 2010 -
MICHAEL PAUL STEPHENSON, “BEST WORST MOVIE”
The most unlikely act of cultural excavation and redemption, Michael Paul Stephenson’s Best Worst Movie is a hilarious and poignant celebration of not only the communal experience of making and watching movies but the sheer randomness of life itself. The doc is Stephenson’s attempt to find out why a seemingly execrable B-movie he made as a child actor, Troll 2, has garnered a cult following of viewers who not only get off on its badness but also find an odd kind of joy in its screwy storytelling. While Stephenson is present in the film, he smartly chooses as the doc’s […]
by Scott Macaulay on May 12, 2010 -
AMC Announces “AMC Independent”
For a while AMC has been an approachable theater chain for independent filmmakers seeking a direct way to get their films in front of theatrical audiences. Now, the company has announced AMC Independent (“AMCi”), a program that commits screens in 60 AMC venues to independent fare. Most of the films upcoming on the initial AMCi slate are mini-major titles (Please Give, Babies) that I’m sure would have wound up on AMC screens anyway, but the fact that the company has positioned the program they way it has — and the noises they are making about future programming — are encouraging […]
by Scott Macaulay on Apr 23, 2010 -
Is Our Indie Scene too Marketing Obsessed?
Too enthralled by the latest social media craze? Those are the questions posed by producer Mike Ryan (Junebug, Life During Wartime, 40 Shades of Blue) in his essay in the new issue of Filmmaker, which you can read online now. From his piece: Developing content and nurturing auteurs should be our top concern, not figuring out distribution models or revenue schemes. The whole purpose of independent film is to make films that aren’t prefabricated to hit a target audience of someone else’s devising. In fact, it’s that kind of market-centric thinking that puffed up the bubble with derivative films; it’s […]
by Scott Macaulay on Apr 19, 2010 -
STORYTELLING AND TRIBECA’S NEW DISTRIBUTION INITIATIVE
Every Thursday I pen an Editor’s Note that goes out to subscribers of our email newsletter (you can subscribe for free here) that is usually not also posted on the blog. I’m reposting today’s newsletter below because some kind of software glitch stripped out most of the punctuation from the copy as well as certain key words. Apologies if you received it and it was less than elegant. Here it is again: The big news in the independent world this week was Tribeca Enterprise’s announcement that it would launch a “virtual film festival” alongside this Spring’s Tribeca Film Festival event. […]
by Scott Macaulay on Mar 4, 2010
