Below is the second of two excerpts from Filmmaking, the Hard Way by Josh Folan. A cynical case study of the feature film production of All God’s Creatures, Filmmaking, the Hard Way puts low budget filmmaking under the microscope by analyzing the process of making a film from top to bottom.
So all the blood, sweat and tears that have went into making this film of yours has just careened into the brick wall of an offer for a distribution deal? That’s it! We’ve done it! The Holy Grail of a small independent film is within our grasp! Get my mom on the phone while I pick out what shade of laser red Lamborghini I’m gonna buy, where do I sign?!?!
Hold your horses, cowboy. A PDF contract in your inbox that you don’t really understand is no reason to get mom on the horn. Assuming you’ve already done your homework and you know whether the company is worth their salt based on an aggregate opinion of filmmakers they have worked with, past and present, there are still a number of factors that need to be weighed and negotiated before jumping on board with a distributor. Major deal points you need to be concerned with at this level are listed below, and by “this level” I mean you need to understand a micro-budget feature with no large talent draw has virtually no profit potential in a theatrical release, and that the old filmmaker adage that theatrical play will drive ancillary sales is also a pipe dream. We’re talking DVD, television and VOD dollars here, you dreamer, you.
:: Term. The low side you’ll likely find here is seven years, standards fall anywhere in between there and ten years, and perpetuity is not out of the question. Whatever the length you settle on, understand it’s going to be a long time and that you will have to work with this company (barring their bankruptcy – not uncommon in the distribution industry) and, more importantly, the people running it for the life of the contract. Tensions tend to arise in even the best of filmmaker-distributor dynamics, so if you don’t like who you’re dealing with from the get-go, you’ll really hate them when all that red starts rolling in on those quarterly statements.
:: Territory. The world is divided up into a slew of distribution territories, and you don’t necessarily need to sign them all away on any one deal. The most simplistic of divisions on a US deal is domestic and foreign, the combined of which is termed worldwide. What’s appropriate for you and your film is dependent on your situation. If your film, for any number of potential reasons (cast, producer relationships, subject matter), has strong prospects in a particular territory, it might be wise to negotiate that out of a worldwide deal offer.
