Jon Reiss
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Register Now for Free Hundreds of Beavers Distribution Case Study
Next Thursday, October 17, over Zoom at 2:00 PM Eastern, Jon Reiss — a longtime Filmmaker contributor and author of the new and highly recommended (and distribution-focused) 8 Above Substack — and I will be hosting a distribution case study on DIY hit Hundreds of Beavers with producer Kurt Ravenwood. We’re going to investigate how the Hundreds of Beavers became a breakout success that grossed over $500K at the theatrical box office — more than tripling their production budget of $150K. Kurt will reveal how their team identified, mobilized and grew their audience, how they eventized their theatrical release and created […]
by Scott Macaulay on Oct 10, 2024 -
No Small Matter, Part Two: Four Tips on Releasing an Independent Documentary During a Pandemic
Last week, we chronicled the winding but rewarding grassroots impact campaign for our feature documentary on early childhood education, No Small Matter. But we left off at a critical juncture we know many friends and colleagues faced this year — to release or not to release an indie film during a pandemic? Last winter, our team brought on distribution strategist (and this article’s co-author) Jon Reiss to help determine the best way to create a final launch for the film with a theatrical and VOD release to reach beyond our grassroots outreach. With Jon we began working with Abramorama and […]
by Laura Wilson Fallsgraff and Jon Reiss on May 5, 2021 -
No Small Matter: Six Tips for a Successful Grass Roots Release
The past year has thrown everything but the kitchen sink at filmmakers, disrupting distribution timelines, cutting the legs out from under theaters, and depriving our community of opportunities for networking, sales, and press. But there have also been bright spots. While contending with major disappointments this year, many filmmakers have successfully pivoted to unique and impactful releases — models that are worth learning from and iterating on in the years ahead. It’s tempting to reminisce upon the “before COVID” times with rose-colored glasses, but independent filmmakers were struggling to get by long before 2020. Following its completion in 2018, our […]
by Laura Wilson Fallsgraff and Jon Reiss on Apr 22, 2021 -
10 Ways to Advance Your Film’s Story, Outreach and Impact: A Report from the IFP Filmmaker Lab
With all the trauma of this past week, I at least had the good fortune of spending it at the IFP Filmmaker Lab in New York City. Filmmakers and my fellow mentors all showed up Wednesday morning stunned, tired and depressed from watching the election returns all night. Some stayed home but by the middle of the morning nearly all the filmmaking teams had turned up. I say that I was fortunate because one of the things that I love about the labs is that we become a community of support for each other. Even though my morning presentation was […]
by Jon Reiss on Nov 22, 2016 -
Distribution Transparency: Four Filmmakers Reveal Their Numbers, Part Two
Tuesday’s post looked at Neil Berkeley and Judy Chaikin as two filmmakers who wanted to create a theatrical release for their films to boost visibility, increase ancillary value and learn for themselves how to operate in the new hybrid model of distribution and marketing. Today we will look at Paco de Onís from Skylight, the company he runs with creative director Pamela Yates and editorial director Peter Kinoy, and their film/media project Granito Paco de Onís, Skylight and Granito According to de Onís, Skylight is “as much a filmmaking organization as a human rights organization.” Hence their goals are not about monetary gain […]
by Jon Reiss on May 8, 2015 -
Distribution Transparency: Four Filmmakers Reveal Their Distribution Numbers, Part One
Alternative distribution models are no longer the experiment, but are now the norm for the vast majority of filmmakers. However because of a variety of reasons, including not least contract obligations and a fear that exposing numbers may not show the filmmaker in the best light, many filmmakers have been reticent to give out the real numbers from their film’s releases. As a result, for last October’s Getting Real Documentary Conference, held by the International Documentary Association, I wanted to create a panel where the participants were required to reveal the data about the releases of their films. I wanted […]
by Jon Reiss on May 5, 2015 -
Graphic Design: Jon Reiss and Joaquin Baldwin on Bomb It 2
Director Jon Reiss’s sequel to the street art doc Bomb It, Bomb It 2 finds innovative graffiti styles all across the globe, from cities like Tel Aviv to Jakarta. The film’s graphics playfully underscore the themes of the film while orienting viewers to its geography. Jon Reiss, director: We wanted to give a sense of the global scope and far-flung cities that we visited, while also taking Shepard Fairey’s amazing iconic Bomb It image and having it come to life. So I came up with the idea of old-school planes flying around the globe and targeting the cities we went […]
by Randy Astle on Oct 20, 2014 -
43 Takeaways from Sundance Artist Services Day at the IFP Filmmaker Conference
“The most important task is to make great movies,” said Sundance Institute Executive Director Keri Putnam at the start of Thursday’s Artist Services Workshop at IFP’s Filmmaker Conference. “All this talk about audiences is meaningless unless you have something in your heart you want to get out there.” However, Putnam’s comments were not to construe that filmmakers shouldn’t think about the rapidly changing world of distribution, marketing and audience building. As Putnam went on to say, it is “easier, less expensive to make a movie, but no easier to find an audience. There is a volume of movies and a […]
by Scott Macaulay on Sep 22, 2014 -
10 Lessons for Filmmakers from the IFP Narrative Labs
Still the only lab focusing entirely on what happens after rough cut —- from locking picture to devising a distribution strategy — the IFP Narrative Lab concluded its ninth edition last month. When I created the Lab with the IFP almost a decade ago, the idea was simple. A successful career in film is partly based around making mistakes — and then not making those same mistakes again. But first-time filmmakers don’t have prior experience to draw upon, and in today’s hyper-competitive, content-swamped environment, failure is a luxury many of them can’t afford —— especially when that failure is made […]
by Scott Macaulay on Jul 8, 2013 -
IFP Distribution Lab Recap: The Final Frontier
It had been two days since the last day of the IFP Distribution Lab – ending the yearlong 2012 IFP Fellowship for 10 documentaries and 10 narrative films from first-time directors. With two days left in New York, I found myself sitting in a small theater in Brooklyn looking nervously at the backs of heads. A small handful of people had cruised over on this rainy Sunday for a test screening of my first feature documentary, Brave New Wild. Every time a punchline went unheeded, I swigged a Dixie cup full of cheap red wine. It’s very scary to show […]
by Oakley Anderson-Moore on Dec 20, 2012
