Tag: The Way We Get By

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Truly Free Film

Distribution Case Study Masterlist

HopeForFilm Distribution Case Study Masterlist
HopeForFilm Distribution Case Study Masterlist

Okay, I am disappointed. Again.  This is 2013.  It’s not what I thought the future would look like. Don’t get me started, but I did think things would be better for us, and  certainly in the Direct Distribution world.  I thought we knew that we were all in this together.  I thought we knew that if we shared information it would lift us all up higher.  That is why I created this blog after all.  But of course if knowledge and information changed behavior, no one would smoke, eat refined sugar, or have unprotected sex. But I digress… I went looking for all the Distribution Case Studies I could find, and have compiled them for you.  

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Truly Free Film

DIY Chronicles: THE WAY WE GET BY (Part 5 of 5): Going Local Pays Off

In the end, The Way We Get By by far exceeded our expectations. It was an unbelievably rewarding journey during one of the most difficult economic times in our country. We learned to never underestimate the support that can come from that small niche audience every film has. The people of Maine knew our story and wanted to help support our success. In every screening we’ve attended, there has been someone in the audience with a Maine connection there to support us. Going local paid off for us nationally—literally. Maine was a critical factor in making The Way We Get By a national success.

And an amazing blessing for us as well. Leading up to our national broadcast, a group of vendors in Maine decided to throw us an amazing wedding in Maine—-for free. A dream wedding we could never afford. Over 60 wedding vendors from across the state donated their services for our special day.

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Truly Free Film

DIY Chronicles: THE WAY WE GET BY (Part 4 of 5): Minimize Your Loss & Hope For A Greater Payoff In The End

Today’s guest post is from filmmakers Gita Pullapilly and Aron Gaudet.

With film prints in hand, it now changed our game plan. Though we knew likely we’d lose money realizing nationally in theaters, we were banking that the film reviews and national press would bring a greater exposure to our film—and if not help our bottom line—at least help our careers.

In the end, we decided to alter our business plan, aware of the risks, and launched a national theatrical run.

The money we had made in Maine allowed us to bring on International Film Circuit as our distributor for a national release.

 

Our national non-profit partners couldn’t provide any financial support to us, however they shared film and screening information with their members by email, on their websites, and on their social networks. Now it wasn’t just us tweeting something or adding an event to our Facebook fan page to our few thousand followers. It was a large network of organizations reaching hundreds of thousands of people.

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Truly Free Film

DIY Chronicles: THE WAY WE GET BY (Part 3 of 5): Going Local and Maximizing Your Distribution Window

Today’s guest post is the third of five from filmmakers Gita Pullapilly and Aron Gaudet concerning their experience making and distributing THE WAY WE GET BY.

The students at Harvard Business School realistically saw no way for us to do a theatrical run without a significant investment in film prints and print and advertising. But they noted that by leveraging our POV broadcast with a DVD release, we could feasibly make our first real revenue stream. That coupled with a strong educational and community screening plan showed that there was perhaps some hope of making a living. However, they all agreed, it was going to be A LOT of work.

The one date we knew we couldn’t move was our broadcast. The Way We Get By was going to be a common carriage POV Special on Veterans Day (November 11). We knew we had to come up with a strategy to market and promote the film leading up to the broadcast and direct our audiences towards the DVD.

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Truly Free Film

DIY Chronicles: THE WAY WE GET BY (Part 2 of 5): Timing Is Everything

Today’s guest post is the second of five from filmmakers Gita Pullapilly and Aron Gaudet concerning their experience making and distributing THE WAY WE GET BY.

In November, we got a call from POV. We were being picked up for the 2009 season. Around that time, we also found out ITVS LINCS had approved us for funding. With a national television broadcast now in place, we were on the path to reaching our goals.

Now, we had to figure out the festival, theatrical, DVD, digital and online markets. Surely with a broadcast in place, other outlets had to at least be interested?

We started reaching out and calling theatrical and DVD distributors, trying to see if maybe with a television broadcaster in place, they would want to acquire our film. Our eagerness quickly turned to despair as we began to place more calls to distributors.

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Truly Free Film

DIY Chronicles: THE WAY WE GET BY (Part 1 of 5):Finding A Spot In the Line-up

For the past five years, Aron Gaudet and I dedicated our lives to making and distributing our film, The Way We Get By. Our story takes place in Bangor, Maine and profiles three senior citizens, who have dedicated their lives to greeting troops heading off to war and returning home. The story is about finding purpose in your life and the role service plays in helping overcome your own personal obstacles.

 

For our three subjects, greeting troops changed their lives, and in many ways, this film changed our lives—personally and professionally. We want to share with you the journey that we took—to inspire you to find your own business model to extend the life of your film and reach the largest possible audience.

 

FINDING A SPOT IN THE LINE-UP

 

Aron and I had certain goals we wanted to accomplish with our first feature-length project. We wanted to make a quality film and get it in front of an audience, but we also wanted to establish our careers as filmmakers. This meant some of our choices would be made because it was the best move for our film, and some would be made to help our careers.

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