For the last two years, approximately half of the films that played Sundance got picked up for distribution. Yet as Thom Powers pointed out recently, no distribution deal is a heck of a lot better than a bad distribution deal.
Still, knowing how much work is required to directly distribute your film, and in particular the great challenge it is to market your film, filmmakers regularly look to team up with distributors. The dream sort of goes first to write a script, then to make a film, then to get it funded, then finished and in a festival, and finally settling on getting a deal.
Granted there’s a big flaw in the dream as it leaves out making the film well or — dare I say it — great, yet the dream persists. The dream is hobbled still further by ending when the process is still young — we need to care for the film through its entire lifecycle. We need to take greater responsibility for our creative offspring.
And granted, our dream of what a distributor is, can also be a bit of a nightmare; do you really want an all rights distributor crossing the revenues across all the platforms (particularly when there aren’t much in the way of revenues these days as it)? Perhaps it would be best to go a hybrid approach? We can ask to retrain direct sales rights — and they are often granted. Yet, it seems that dream of a one stop shop remains the majority’s fantasy.
As much as I want significant changes to the film infrastructure — and as much as I have to keep reminding myself — I am not here to change people who don’t want to change. Yes, I wonder why people are so slow to change, but it is a bit of personal choice. I wanted to focus on the new era and evolving paradigm when I was at the San Francisco Film Society, but it wasn’t a priority for the organization or membership — so who was I to try to change them? The same holds true with this film community of ours. You have to declare what you want if you ever want someone to give it to you. More likely though, is you are going to have to become the change you want to see (to paraphrase Mr. Gandhi). I write this blog to help contribute to the thought leadership of our community, but when there is little action, I can’t help to grow discouraged. It is up to all of us to make change happen.
The spirt of “business” has supposedly been to give people what they want. If filmmakers want to make distribution deals a priority, shouldn’t film organizations try to make that more of a priority? Filmmakers often even pay membership fees to these organizations. Filmmakers pay application fees to film festivals, and they too are in the business of supporting filmmakers. You’d think it would be easy to find an up-to-date list of distributors on their sites. Search them. Do you find them? I didn’t. It reminds me a bit of the lack of a Distribution Case Study Masterlist. That was something I thought a film support organization would build. Many have several good studies on their sites, but do they have one place that all filmmakers could go to get everything? Nope. I did my best to build a Case Study Masterlist (with a lot of help from all of you). Check it out here — I just updated it (now with links to over 30 case studies!).
Back to the Distributors Masterlist….
I am not looking for a membership fee here. You don’t have to apply to be an accepted reader here. I dream of us building it better together.
I did find a few distributors lists to share with you though.
- Wikipedia has a good list of distributors, and it is by country. But it is still not the information that filmmakers need to understand whom to approach regarding their film and why. Our support organizations can do a better job of giving the film community what it wants. You have to wonder why they are not providing such a list…
- NYC’s Film Forum has a distribution list that provides addresses and phone numbers. But it is really out of date and my distributors are no longer in business.
- The Film Journal’s Distribution Guide is pretty up to date, but without list of what films each company has done.
- The Numbers lets you see Distributors’ reported revenue and market share.
- Here’s an Indie Distributors list (albeit from the Summer 2012) courtesy of the Irish Film Board. http://www.irishfilmboard.ie/files/INDIE%20THEATRICAL%20DISTRIBUTORS%20stripped%20down%207%2012%20(2).pdf … Thank you Irish Film Board. But really , thank you Fiona Ashe -Director @Filmflashe who shared it with me on Twitter in reply to my question.
I just wonder why no film support organization or journal has undertaken a comprehensive distribution list that would include recent films, returns, marketing techniques, platform penetration, social media reach, alliances, and embrace of innovation. That’s what filmmakers would want isn’t it? If I left something out please let me know.
Oh yeah, it’s because all film support organizations are broke. Maybe that’s because filmmakers are not trained to give back. Or maybe that’s because they don’t earn any revenues to give back from. Or maybe that’s because everyone is holding onto an antiquated dream that no longer has any real applicability to the world we live in.
Maybe we can build a great Distributor Master List together. Maybe we can keep it updated annually. I would certainly post it for you.
