Posted by Agnes Varnum
http://resources.renewmedia.org/2008/09/25/brodericks-new-world-of-distribution/#comment-3977
I’m a bit late in pointing to this, but if you haven’t read it, I’d suggest you do so. Distribution consultant Peter Broderick posted a two-part article on indieWIRE during Independent Film Week that is, in essence, a primer on the changing distribution landscape for independent film. Unlike the rants and raves we’ve been seeing (my own included), Broderick puts forward examples of successes and some very practical information for filmmakers who are trying to figure out what to do with their movie.
Or download a PDF from Broderick’s website.
Here are some of Broderick’s take-away tips about how you should consider approaching distribution:
Be strategic - In the Old World, most filmmakers have reactions not strategies. They chose the best offer from those they receive. It is essential to be proactive in the New World. You need a strategy to navigate it successfully.
Think long term - Be clear about your goals. Are you creating a business around a group of films with common content? Are you building a career as an artist with a core personal audience?
Stay flexible - Implement your strategy stage by stage and modify it as you go. You learn valuable information in every stage that will enable you to improve your plan for the next stage.
Split rights - Retain overall control of your distribution. Take a hybrid approach, dividing certain rights among distributors and retaining the right to do direct sales.
Target audiences - Research, test, and refine your approach to core audiences. Understand who is most responsive to your films, and how to reach them most effectively.
Find partners - Look for national nonprofits, websites, sponsors, and distributors to team up with to bring your film to their members, subscribers, and customers.
Build a team - Find teammates who can help with the website, outreach, fulfillment, theatrical, domestic sales, and foreign sales.
Harness the internet - Use your website to build awareness, develop a mailing list, attract user-contributed content, and make direct sales. Design a compelling site that will have a life of its own.
Be creative - Avoid formulaic distribution ruts. Apply the same creativity to distribution as production. It is often harder to bring a movie into the world than to produce it. An innovative approach to distribution can make all the difference.
Make distribution happen - Design a distribution strategy and find the distributors, partners, and teammates to help you implement it.
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Tags: DVD, home video, self-distribution, theatrical
One Response
Mitchell Block
September 28th, 2008 at 2:05 pm
1Note: This is a corrected version of the previous posting.
In reading Peter’s postings, I don’t think there is a “there” there. While these ideas can work for an occasional film, they don’t work for most independent film.
It doesn’t solve the problem that are inherent in most of the independent docs and fiction features. They are not commercial. People don’t want to see most of them. They have no hooks to use in marketing them. It’s not old v new but rather commercial v non-commercial v marginally commercial.
As soon as it’s evident the work will sell, people will buy it, if the filmmaker has the resources, or better yet, can get the resources then the film can go out. “Man on a Wire” v “Taxi to the Dark Side” or any number of other difficult to sell Oscar winning/Sundance Award winners.
Based on our experience it takes at least a half million dollars to launch even a small film–from making the 35mm prints and digital versions, setting up press screenings in NY and LA, doing the print campaign, the one sheet, etc.
Wonderful but difficult to sell films with a half-million dollars to launch them need a theatrical gross of $1.5 mil. or more just to break even.
“Man on a Wire” is headed for a multi-million dollar gross thanks to the excellent work of Magnolia. Even if Think could pour more funding into “Taxi” would it have done better? How much money can one make selling several hundred thousand DVDs even if they are sold off the filmmaker’s site?
Peter’s models don’t address the changes in how media is being used and how the mostly marginal works that are produced can make a decent (or any) return.
We have far to many works chasing the gold rings, the Sundance annual statistics of growing entries shows the continued disconnect between the real market and the “let’s make a film” indie film community. It’s such a shame that so many works are getting lost and so many funders are never going to be whole.
Mitchell Block
http://www.directcinema.com