Today’s guest post is from filmmaker / hybrid DIY distro guru, Jon Reiss.
Over the last several months an argument has arisen within the independent film community as to how much (and whether) filmmakers should focus on the distribution and marketing of their films.
I am rather surprised that there is an argument. I am very surprised that lines have been drawn in the sand, armies joined and deployed. I feel that the discussion to date misses two very important points. First – there is no one kind of independent filmmaker. There is no one kind of filmmaker. Never has, never will be. Thank god. Each person who is involved in independent film has his or her own desires, interests, passions, loves, hates. Each filmmaker has different motivations for making a film. Some want to make a statement, change the world – whether it is social or artistic. Some want to make money. Some want to express an idea or emotion to as many people as possible. Most filmmakers want it all. However if push comes to shove, filmmakers will prioritize what they want from their films. And these desires are different for different filmmakers.
Similarly not everyone in independent film wants to be a director, or a writer-director, or a writer-producer-director. Some filmmakers just want to direct and prefer to collaborate with scriptwriters and producers. Some filmmakers don’t want to direct, but want to be producers, DPs, editors etc.
Second, the debate implies that directors or multi hyphenate writer-director-producers should be primarily responsible for these new tasks. I will always be among those that directors should not be solely charged with the distribution and marketing of their films. As a filmmaker, I know how incredibly difficult this is (especially while making a film) – Frankly one of the reasons this blog post is perhaps a bit late to the debate is that I have been involved with shooting Bomb It 2.
However, I do believe that distribution and marketing should be woven into the filmmaking process just as preproduction planning, casting, scriptwriting, editing, sound mixing are all a part of the filmmaking process.
