Tag: distribution

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Truly Free Film

Rachel Gordon on “Tapping into Educational Distribution”

For Indie Film to thrive, a producer must consider all revenue streams from the beginning. Of course not every project, is applicable to every opportunity, but nonetheless, you want a box to check for each. The Educational Market is one platform that goes unchecked for many filmmakers. Let’s change that!

Filmmaker, and expert on this field, Rachel Gordon graciously offered to share what she knows of this field with you.

I began working with non-theatrical distribution at the National Film Board of Canada over 10 years ago. As a filmmaker, the experience of finding new markets for films that were under an hour, and even animated, was exhilarating as I’d worked on so many films that would never see the inside of a theater.

Educational distribution is broadly defined as any usage of media that is not consumed in a traditional theater, or home video setting. Examples include, but are not limited to: classrooms – both K-12 and colleges, museums, non-profit/advocacy groups, etc. It is not an exact science, and it often takes longer to start seeing returns than people have patience for. If you stick with it long enough, though, you’ll connect directly with an invested audience that will keep up with your projects.

So discussed here is how to make your film an educational tool, no matter what its length or genre, and hopefully pay a few bills in the process. This should not be relied on as your only form of income. Academic environments take longer because people plan courses ahead of time so expect this outreach process to take a minimum of 6 months, up to a year, to hit solidly.

Technical preparation:

1. During DVD creation, provide chapters of your film that are 5-7 minutes long. Don’t randomly pick the timing, use whole thought segments.

2. Disability accessibility features such as closed (or open) captioning and audio description may seem like “extras” but are becoming more necessary as state agencies and educational facilities adopt ADA (American with Disabilities Act) specifications into law.

3. Study guides are highly useful, as your way of helping any audience understand what they are supposed to get out of watching your film. Educators appreciate these as they often lack preparation time and energy.

4. Be prepared to process orders in any way that is convenient for your customers – including check, purchase order, credit card. If you make it hard to buy or use your film, people will lose patience and not ask for help.

5. Be flexible about how the content gets delivered. Current options include DVD, streaming, digital download, closed-circuit/institutional television, and the right for media to be accessed from a central server.

6. Be creative with photos and artwork. DVD covers should include pictures, synopsis, and quotes. If you hand someone a clear case, it’s going to look bland, uninteresting, and less reliable as an educational source.

At the beginning, you want to get some copies out to organizations that have like-minded ideals. Reach out to them and be prepared to send them review copies with such questions as:

How would you use the film?
Who do you think should see this?
What social action goals does this film serve?

Every time a copy of your film leaves your hands, see who it went to and note what type of organization they are coming from. Write them thanking them for support and seek their feedback to build on.

It’s also important to send review copies to the top educational publications – almost every media librarian in the country subscribes to them – university and public libraries alike – and they also peer-review the materials. Give about 3-6 months time for them to get to it. These publications include (but again, aren’t limited to): Video Librarian, Educational Media Reviews Online, Library Journal.

There are academic studies dedicated to any subject you can think of, and they all use media as a tool with which to engage their students because they realize that students are consuming online video content. The academic world extends beyond the classroom to include conferences, publications, and professional development.

It is, and seems like, a long process, but what you get from all of this work are people who do come back and want to continue to use your media to help with their programming. What is also amazing is how positive and supportive educational environments are. Librarians who use and promote your work respect copyright issues, talk on a variety of listservs about content that they find helpful, and are generally quick to respond and answer questions about what is going on in their worlds.

Rachel Gordon is a New York based independent filmmaker and consultant who started Energized Films to help other filmmakers, and distributors, expand the audience of their media into receptive homes in academic, non-profit, and other specialty markets. She’s currently developing a comedic feature about feminine fear of commitment, making a documentary about homeopathy, and speaking to film schools about the importance of teaching distribution to students.

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Truly Free Film

Brendan Fletcher on “An Indie Process in a Conventional System?” Part 3

Today, Brendan Fletcher continues his tales of being a MAD BASTARD as much as the civilized world permits.

4. DISTRIBUTION

Now we were a wild, indie film within another system – the distribution system. But here it began to work for us – we had the bite of an indie, backed up by the experience and muscle of the Transmission strategists and the Paramount sales team. They understood the film, they loved it, and they backed it.

True to the original vision, it was the music and our raw non-actors that continued to be our point of difference, even when it came to the marketing campaign. We built much of the media around the story of the non-actors who turned their lives around by being involved in the movie. And we hosted a sell-out “live event tour” right around Australia before the theatrical release — where we screened the film then the Pigram Brothers and Alex Lloyd performed songs from the movie. It created a fantastic focus for media and a great word-of-mouth “buzz”.

The movie opened on nearly 30 screens here in Australia on May 5 and is now in its sixth week of theatrical release.

The final vindication has been the critical and audience response. Reviews in Variety, Hollywood Reporter, AICN and Screen International all mention the raw authenticity, the rich sense of place and strong performances by the “real” cast and the unique use of music as defining elements of the film. And so many audience members have written/talked to me about the uplifting feeling they have when they leave the cinema knowing the real people’s stories have weaved in and out of the characters they play. Wow — maybe this thing has actually worked?

5. LOOKING BACK?

When it’s all done and dusted, Mad Bastards has done exactly what I hoped a first film could do. It is unique in its voice, while also telling a powerful emotional story. We landed Sundance – and there’s few ways better than that to announce yourself to the world as a first time film maker.

Would I have made a “better” film if I stuck to my plan of a tiny crew, a digital shoot and a lived-in, community process back in 2001? Maybe … I don’t know. It would have probably been more rough and radical – but that doesn’t necessarily mean better. Those seven aching years of development in the “system” drove me crazy, but they did make me a better film maker. That time allowed me to write the less mature films out of my system, rather than actually make them.

If I did make the film back then, I probably would have made MORE films since, whereas I have now only made one. But then again, maybe I would still be repaying the loans I’d taken out to finance my indie dream.

There are rules and systems in place all over the industry for good reason. Exciting new ways of doing EVERYTHING are opening up in every aspect of movie-making and distribution – and so they should. But mess with the formula at your own risk. Play the risk, sure, but understand which way you are going and what you are sacrificing by going that way. And if you are going to do things differently, make sure everyone is on that same page with you right down to the last detail – every crew member, financier and distribution exec from the get-go.

A first-time film maker is in a vulnerable position because you don’t want to rock the boat in case the whole thing suddenly falls over. But you need to be clear and strong about what you will and won’t compromise, and accept the hand that those choices then deal you. What got my knickers in a knot was trying to please everyone — both the hard-nosed system bosses AND the requirements of my own unorthodox process.

I must acknowledge our good-hearted investors. All of them. No one was quite sure what exactly they were buying into, but hats off to them for signing on and sticking with us … we are all proud of what we made, and all the wiser for making it.

To see for yourself, Mad Bastards is available right now on IFC’s V-O-D network and keep an eye our for a limited theatrical run across the States in the coming months, and a November DVD release. It is in theatres now – Miami this week, more to be announced.

— Brendan Fletcher.
Brendan is currently working with Writer/Producer Train Houston on the Jeff Buckley pic “A Pure Drop“.

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Truly Free Film

A Public Discussion On THE FUTURE OF FILM With You, Me (Ted Hope), & Brian Newman

Brian Newman and I are headed towards the Czech Republic this holiday weekend in order to have a very public discussion on The Future Of Film with the filmmakers and audiences at the Karlovy Vary Film Festival. Yet, you too can join in even if you can’t make your way to this wonderful festival. Neither Brian nor I are great fans of panel discussions these days; they fail to mine the great knowledge or passions of the community. So in contemplating how to get something done in the time we have allotted, Brian and I decided it would be good to get the conversation started a bit early. Below, Brian and I put together a focus on what we think are the key factors shaping the greatest and necessary change to the way films are made and consumed. What’s your opinion?

The Future of Film – Joint Article by Brian Newman & Ted Hope

Prognostications about the future of film have been pretty easy to come by lately – it will be digital, it will be everywhere, it will be 3D, it will be expensive – but while everyone talks about the changes to come, very few people are actively addressing these changes head on. We believe “the future” is already upon us, and there are five key trends to address.

As we put our thoughts out there for you to consider, ask yourself: “are these the trends that will most effect content, production, and consumption?”. Did we leave something out? Is one not important? Is something else more important? Join the conversation and let us know below.

Similarly, these five suggestions may be the preeminent factors in shaping the next few years, but the real question is always “how?” As creators, facilitators, and consumers, what must we do to confront these issues? Are there models and best practices already emerging? Have there already been noble failures and/or arrogant efforts attempting to address these factors? What would a vision look like that might address these key elements? We all must share our thoughts, our hopes, our failures, along with what we learned from our successes if we are going to build something new, something that truly works for everyone.

1. Super-abundance:
Historically, the film business has been built on the model of scarcity. It was expensive to make, distribute and exhibit (or broadcast) films, and it was equally expensive to learn the craft. Our entire business model and assumptions about what works and what doesn’t were built on this idea of scarcity, but digital has changed all of that.

We now live in a world of super-abundance. Thousands of film school students graduate annually, joining tens of thousands of self-taught others, many of whom are far better than amateurs. According to our talks with festival submission services, somewhere near 40,000 unique films are submitted to film festivals globally each year. As an audience member, we now have access not just to the films playing on television and at the theater, but to the entire history of cinema through services such as Netflix, Mubi and LoveFilm. We can experience the global cinema of 1968 better than an audience member who lived in 1968 could, and these films are now competitors for our viewing attention versus the newest films from today. 1968 was a pretty good year for film, it’s tough to decide to watch something new instead.

In a world of superabundance, you have to do a lot more to stand out from the crowd. Luckily, technology is also giving us tools to do this, engage with audiences more directly and develop new creative business practices to raise the attention level on our projects.

2. New Audience Demands:
The audience didn’t use to have a lot of choice in what it saw, but now that choice is plentiful and we’ve entered an attention economy. Audiences now have access to mobile devices that connect them not just to one another, but to the content they choose, immediately and engagingly. Weened on social networks, instant messaging, gaming and touch screens, the audience now not only expects, but demands an interactive, participatory experience.

While many an audience member is content to sit back and relax in front of the television or movie screen, a significant portion of the audience expects and wants more. For some this means engagement through transmedia – using the full range of platform possibilities to interact with a story not just in film, but through games, ARG, graphic novels, webisodes or other experiences. At minimum it means being in touch with your audience, giving them the means to engage socially around a film, even if that’s just more easily sharing a link or a trailer, or engaging in a dialogue on Twitter or Facebook.

Some argue that artists shouldn’t be marketers, but this is a false dichotomy that actually only serves middle-men, distancing the artist from their most valuable asset (aside from their story-telling abilities), their fan base. Engaging one’s audience doesn’t mean just marketing. In fact, marketing doesn’t work, whereas real conversation, or meaningful exchanges does.

In addition, the audience is now global, diverse, young and niche. It demands its content to reflect these realities. Younger creators are addressing these changes, through the content they make, but the industry must do more to address these new realities and incorporate these new voices.

3. Audience Aggregation:
In the past, we had to spend ridiculous amounts of money to find, build and engage an audience. And we did it, from scratch, again and again each time we had a new movie. Thousands of dollars were spent telling Lars Von Trier fans about his new film, but then we let that audience member disappear again, and spent more thousands finding them for the next film. We now have the ability to engage directly with our fan base, be it for an artist, a genre or the output of an entire country. We can aggregate this audience, keep them engaged and more easily communicate with them about what’s new or what’s next. Unfortunately, however, much of the value in this audience connection/data is accruing only to social networks and platforms and not to the industry, or more importantly, the artists.
4. Investor Realities:
While public subsidy remains a vital strength of the industry outside of the US, the current economic and political climate is putting strains on such support and more producers are having to look fresh, or more strongly, to private investors. Up until now, however, it has been the rare investor who sees much of a return, and with the global market for art, foreign and indie films declining (in terms of acquisition dollars), this situation is worsening. To maintain a healthy industry we must build and support a sustainable investor class. The old model of financing one-off productions, limited rights ownership and closely guarding (or even hiding) the numbers needs to change to a system of slate financing, more horizontal ownership of the means of production and distribution and more open sharing of financial data. This is technologically easy to do now, but it will require a sea-change in our thinking about openness to ensure implementation.

5. A New model for Paradigmatic Change:
All of this points to building a model for real, systemic change in the near future. Bold visions for a new model are needed, before someone from outside the film industry, in the tech community for example, launches this disruption for us. Entrepreneurial business leaders need to put forth new projects. Government agencies need to increase and shift funding to support these endeavors and traditional gatekeepers need to embrace these changes.

Experimentation requires limiting risk. Risk is usually defined in the film business by the size of budget. A devotion thus to micro-budget films should also stimulate experimentation on how they are released. Experimentation also requires an analysis of the results. Presently, the film business only likes to discuss its successes, but we need to get over the stigma of “failure” and recognize the brave and selfless qualities inherent in it so we all can learn and stop the repetition of processes that don’t work. Experimentation is also a process; it is not a series of one-offs like the film business is today. We need to demystify the process from top to bottom and encourage sharing of data as well as technique. A commitment to a series of films is an experiment – one film is not. Experimentation requires opening one self up beyond a safe environment. The film business has remained a fairly hermetically sealed world. We need to collaborate with other industries, and form alliances that benefit them as well as us. New technological tools can help audiences discover work, allow artists to create work in new ways, and enable entrepreneurs to better distribute this work.

We’d like to open the discussion to others. Let us know in the comments here whether you agree with any or all of this, whether you have other ideas for addressing the future of the field, and even your strong disagreements.

If you’ll be attending the Karlovy Vary Film Festival, we invite you to also email us at industry@kviff.com to be considered for a slot during the panel. Slots will be delegated by a festival representative at their discretion. Selected responders will have three minutes to put forth their ideas, questions and/or statements during the festival panel. We’ll try to respond our best, and open it up to the audience for more input. We look forward to hearing from you.

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Truly Free Film

Guest Post: Orly Ravid “Stop Waiting for Godot & Distribute Your Movie Now Dang Darn It!”

Orly Ravid had some good advice for us all before Cannes. Now that another festival is over, she’s got some more critical advice for all with a film made, in process, or contemplating existence.

Orly looks at what gives films “value” to distributors, but points out that those are not the only factors, and with a little effort and willingness to take it into your own hands, there’s good business to be had. There’s one key rule though: Don’t Wait For Godot. Film is a perishable good.

WAITING FOR GODOT – “To wait endlessly, and in futility, for something to happen.”

In future posts, we intend to track the progress and releases of the films that did deals at Sundance. And we also will track deals and respective progress related to other fests such as Tribeca and Cannes (which seemed to be largely a SundanceSelects play with an occasional TWC and Magnolia deal and a few others coming.). But for now, I want to address a phenomenon that I keep seeing and strongly feel needs to change.

Filmmakers are approaching us with films that had their festival run a year or even two years ago, OR, a film that did not have the benefit of an A-list festival selection, or maybe not even a B-list festival run, or is even more than two years old. I guess they assume that deals are still out there for their films and they are holding off on moving into the market until those deals are struck.

Film sales happen (when they happen) more often than not, for these reasons (I am speaking to filmmakers in America and trying to sell films in and/or from America):

1. FESTIVALS & AWARDS& REVIEWS: The film has the good fortune of being an official selection of a prestigious name film festival (and attended by or at least tracked by industry). By virtue of being an official selection, the festival brand helps the film’s brand and perceived value of that film to potential buyers. Also, publicity that actually occurs as a result of being part of the festival helps the film get noticed and attain perceived value to potential buyers. Winning prizes helps (especially Audience Awards) and getting great reviews help in attracting potential buyers.

2. The value (actual value of a deal that can be done) starts to go down after a festival premiere. Meaning, films that don’t sell at festivals or do not start negotiations at or close to the festival’s start or end date, go down in price. The perception in the market is the length of time between a festival premiere and settling on a distribution deal indicates the amount of value the film has. If there is a long passage of time, the price goes down accordingly and the likelihood of getting any deal fades. of course this depends to a greater or lesser degree on who is selling and who wants to buy and what their motivation is. But usually, prices go down in direct proportion with the passage of time.

3. CAST: The film has cast that increases the perceived value. And if #2 is accompanied by #1, all the better. This is not a cast of unknowns or a cast of former notable talent.

4. GENRE / DEMOGRAPHIC APPEAL / NICHES: Genre appeal, including horror, sci fi, western films often sell better than dramas; docs sell better than mockumentaries, often not always. Hot topic or big concept / trend topic documentaries or documentaries involving key niches or names often sell than more obscure or more personal documentaries, of course there are always rare exceptions. Best not to bank on your film being one of those. Films appealing to specific large enough demographics seem more “valuable” than those that don’t seem to have any specific appeal. Broad comedies can sell but highly depend on notable cast and when they don’t have the cast, it’s almost always the case that they need a big festival to create the buzz that gives them the commercial push. Foreign sales are not attractive for American-centric stories unless they are studio films, genre films, and/or have the cast or had/will have a big l theatrical release.

5. THEATRICAL: A small US theatrical can help usually only if the reviews really were strong and the film has some commercial appeal or at least niche appeal (and there are distributors catering to that niche if it’s not more broadly commercial). Theatrical in the US can’t hurt foreign sales but a tiny US theatrical can also have no impact on foreign sales whatsoever if the film is perceived as too American and does not feel either commercial enough for other territories to compete with all the world cinema or does not fit into niches for which there are buyers (if it’s not broadly commercial enough). Or the film can fit in to the niche but the niche is also glutted so competition is stiff. For Broadcast sales, sometimes it is simply a matter of programming and timing luck; the film fits what the stations are looking for.

We all know there’s no guarantee of a sale and sometimes even when a sale occurs, it’s not necessarily a great one. Even at the top A-list fests, many films do not “sell” so even for those filmmakers a strategy of building community around your film WAY AHEAD of your first public exhibition / premiere is wise, because this way, even if you are afraid of or counseled not to start any distribution in tandem with that premiere or necessarily soon following it, and even if you think you have a shot at the big deal, or a deal and that is what you want above all things.. even then, all that community building will do is increase the perceived value of your film. And guess what? If that deal never comes, or if the offers suck (which you may be more scrutinizing of and careful about when you do the math based on your acquired ability to distribute directly to the fans), you will always have that back up plan.

Many filmmakers come to us with thousands of even tens of thousands of Facebook and Twitter fans, lots of traffic to their site, an email list started and even good reviews of their film if it played smaller fests or if their genre was reviewed by niche film sites and this has all happened months ago or even a year ago or even two, and they are waiting for a DEAL, I have to say, DON’T WAIT. * You already have a deal*, direct to the fans of the film, the ones you have been connecting with and getting the attention of for all this time. Let them see it/buy it and stop waiting! They’ve been waiting and if you make them wait too long, they will either wander off in frustration or they may feel no other alternative but to view the film via P2P networks for free or get a DVD via E-bay that a journalist or programming staffer is selling for extra lunch money.

In short, and yes this blog is short compared to the usual (whew), don’t wait for Godot. There is nothing this marketplace is signaling that merits the wait. Broadcast sales are a different matter, you have a doc, or Latino-interest film, or gay film, or genre film, or even film with some cast.. a TV deal can MAYBE be done but still, there’s all the rest YOU should be doing sooner than later, or working with people who can help you do it if you don’t know how. This includes DVD and Digital off your site, it includes all the key digital platforms and it even includes hybrid theatrical / events and other public performance of the film (educational and/or commercial). And if your films has legs, you can carve out deals and DIY and work it all out. But if you just sit on your film and wait you are risking losing everything and I have to ask you, based on what? What information are you working with? Part of your distribution plan should include how long will wait before you start distribution? What is your path to sales? Plan A, B and C and how can you plan for all of those? It is no longer enough to hope for distribution and sit and wait.

Filmmakers, don’t hate the messenger… I say this with love and as someone who embraces deal making as much as I do DIY. ☺ You must have a plan of action early in your process.

Here’s an example of a filmmaker who we think did it right, and he worked with Peter Broderick:

http://www.peterbroderick.com/distributionbulletins/files/47cea5ca884d84a0e1ed01f23ef06d3d-16.html

And we’ll have other examples and even more details in our forthcoming digital case study book entitled SELLING YOUR MOVIE WITHOUT SELLING YOUR SOUL: Case Studies in Hybrid, DIY, P2P Independent Film Distribution (co-authored by The Film Collaborative, Jon Reiss, and Sheri Candler). Until then, stop waiting and get moving toward bringing your film to its audience.

— Orly Ravid

Orly Ravid has worked in film acquisitions / sales / direct distribution and festival programming for the last twelve years since moving to Los Angeles from home town Manhattan. In January 2010, Orly founded The Film Collaborative (TFC), the first non-profit devoted to film distribution of independent cinema. Orly runs TFC w/ her business partner, co-exec director Jeffrey Winter.

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Truly Free Film

Guest Post by Ross Howden: “How Do You Sell A Film That’s Being Given Away?”

The most important thing for filmmakers is to have an audience. Survival (aka Economic Returns) probably falls next on the list. Using the available tools to distribute and aggregate, are these two pursuits compatible?

I just got back from a very successful Cannes (hence, my inability to post for the last couple days — my apologies!). Among my pleasures there was hosting a Producers Roundtable. I was fortunate enough to have a great group to discuss the state of film with, and among them was producer Ross Howden, who is doing something truly bold with his latest film, The Tunnel. And it is working well. I am excited that he is now sharing his experience with the rest of us. Read on!

A few days before leaving Australia for Cannes, I agreed to sell Australia’s first crowd funded feature film: The Tunnel (www.thetunnelmovie.net). In another first, the film is legally being given away on BitTorrent the week of the Festival.
The Tunnel is a compelling thriller/horror about a female reporter who takes a crew down to the deserted tunnel system beneath Sydney to investigate why homeless people are disappearing. My business, ScreenLaunch (www.screenlaunch.com) is an Australian sales/distribution/production company that specialises in low budget features and innovative distribution models. This particular model was very innovative, even by our standards.

On the plane over I was asked “So how do you sell a film that is being given away?” It’s a good question – one I’m in the process of answering.

A friend once told me the secret to selling is to first find out what the buyers want. We already knew people wanted to see the film – the audience had paid for its production. Co-producers/writers Enzo Tedeschi and Julian Harvey developed the “135K Project” model, raising the film’s budget of $135,000 by selling each frame for $1. This acted as a great way to finance the film and gave a chance of profit share for less than the price of a lottery ticket – with greater odds of success.

So the audience wanted the film. And logic dictates that’s what buyers would be looking for – a film that has an audience. But there is an inherent risk in this model – won’t people just download the torrent version? In Australia, the traditional distribution channels took a different view. Transmission/Paramount bought the DVD, and Showtime bought the Television rights. The special extra footage on the DVD and the ease of a TV on demand purchase was valuable to them despite the fact it was being given away.

Armed with this good pedigree of attached local distributors, we hit the Cannes sales booths and a round-robin of meetings.

The first lesson we learned was that the film is not being “given away.” We found the best way to explain things was that all rights are available but only ‘non-exclusive’ internet rights are available. Part of the deal with the crowd financing model is that those inclined can download the film legally for free. The producers were clear that this was a promise to their investors that they were not going to break. And they haven’t. It is released on Thursday, 19th May.

But it seems the Cannes market is not so forgiving of alternative online distribution. One of our salespeople got this crude response from a Cannes sales agent: “buying a film that has been released on BitTorrent is like going to a brothel and paying for a hooker that is giving services out for free.” Oddly, we’ve found that many other sales agents particularly from companies promoting a multiplatform interest didn’t actually know what BitTorrent was. Others acted if we had sworn at them and went looking for the skull and cross bones above our heads.

The response was curious, if not a little disappointing in a market that prides itself for the breadth of its thinking. We all know that the models are changing; surely there would be greater interest in at least exploring the options around new distribution models?

We certainly don’t support piracy or want to get involved in “windows wars.” We just want people to see our film. And, we’re keen to start moving closer to a distribution model that embraces new audience habits and choices – before those habits become so overwhelming that it’s a game of catch up with the crowd.

Many buyers liked that the film was finished yet they didn’t have time to watch it. Some wanted DVD screeners to view later (or toss in the bin when reducing their luggage weight.) The producers didn’t want us to hand out screeners of the film, which some buyers found ironic given they could download it on Thursday. (Assuming they knew how!)

We concluded some buyers might think we have something to hide – or that the movie had problems. We knew the film was great, so we decided to screen the film in a theatre. And now we are busy handing out invites to buyers for a film that we believe can easily be as big as District 9 and Blair Witch (perhaps better as something actually happens!)

Tuesday night, 17th May at 8pm, The Tunnel, the first film legally released BitTorrent film associated with a major studio screens for sales in the Palais at Cannes. I already have post-screening meetings booked to discuss a sale, so the minds may be opening. Is this a small step towards the distribution model of the future? We will know on Wednesday.

How do you sell a film that is being given away? My answer? Make sure it’s a good one, and stay open to the wisdom of the crowd.

Download the film now at: http://vodo.net/assets/torrents/The.Tunnel.2011.720p.x264-VODO.torrent

Contextual Links to sites:
http://www.bittorrent.com
http://vodo.net/thetunnel

— Ross Howden

Dr Ross Howden is founder and Director of ScreenLaunch – a sales, distribution and marketing company for innovative digital screen content. Prior to establishing ScreenLaunch in 2010, Ross spent fifteen years in the entertainment industry as a film producer, sales representative and entertainment technologist.

BREAKING NEWS!:
The Tunnel just got a month of theatrical screenings in Sydney at Hoyts the main theatrical chain — a rarity for Australian independents. The BitTorrent release also got a great article in Cannes Market magazine: http://www.lefilmfrancais.com/cannesmarketnews/cmn7/index.html

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Truly Free Film

Guest Post by Jon Fougner: Cinema Profitability Part 3

This is Part 3 of Jon Fougner’s guest series on Cinema Profitablility – today he focuses on the channels:


Channels


Do the Big 3 have channel strategies? The vast majority of their tickets are sold either at the box office or via 1 of the 2 online brokers: Comcast’s Fandango with 9mm monthly uniques (used by Regal and Cinemark, plus the legacy business of AMC’s Loews) and AOL-related MovieTickets.com with 3mm monthly uniques (used by AMC ex Loews, plus some legacy business from theaters now owned by Regal). My Gmail is chockobloc of order confirmations from both of these brokers. And yet, I’ve never as a result received targeted e-mail marketing from either of them nor the Big 3 whose inventory (among others) they represent. What a missed opportunity to share anticipated, personal, and relevant marketing! Instead, apparently indifferent to its own brand, Fandango indefatigably pushes irrelevant co-marketing offers (“Get your free credit report and credit score in seconds”), exit pop-ups and all. My inference is that the Big 3 have failed to negotiate an e-mail marketing partnership with their brokers, who, left to their own devices, have strayed off into unsavory lead generation rather than fishing where the (cinephilic) fish are.



This doesn’t make sense. The brokers are in a weak negotiating position, since they need at least to show the Big 3’s showtimes (as they currently do) to appear comprehensive to users. The Big 3 should get out of exclusives with the brokers so they can use them but simultaneously rep their own inventory online, as the airlines do. This would take a bit of SEO, so consumers find their O&O sites when they search on movie titles. The Big 3 tend to invest as consortia, but it’s time for a go-it-alone adventure here.



Website optimization is a separate topic I’ll touch on later, but while on the subject of online ticketing interfaces (whether 3rd party or O&O): there’s no excuse for missing out on free social marketing tools. For instance, implementing Facebook Connect could make it easy for a customer to broadcast his ticket purchase to all his friends, at no cost to the ticketing site. Better yet, when he arrived on the site, he could see which friends were going to which screenings of which movies. Movie-going, after all, is social.



Once a Big 3 player builds its own ticketing site, it should build an affiliate program, giving away most of the service fee as commission. Fandango runs an affiliate program through Commission Junction; its paltry $0.10 per ticket commission pales in comparison to that of leading programs such as Amazon Associates on both a %-of-revenue and a %-of-gross-margin basis, because Fandango knows it has only 1 competitor, whose affiliate program appears to be private. The main partners of such a program would be film sites, the websites of newspapers and local TV news programs, and the long tail of cinephile amateur bloggers. Critics tend to prefer highbrow (think New York Film Festival) and middlebrow (think Oscars) films to mainstream Hollywood fare, so a potential consequence of such a program is the emergence of a viable top-to-bottom marketing funnel whose lack heretofore (along with the expenses of physical prints) accounts for the paucity of “art” films in Big 3 houses.



END OF PART Three Tomorrow: Marketing

— Jon Fougner

Jon leads local product marketing and monetization at Facebook, working with the advertising engineers and product managers to build products for local businesses, ranging from restaurants to movie theaters.

Categories
Truly Free Film

Guest Post: Ava DuVernay “What Color is Indie?”

Back in January I heard of Ava DuVernay for the first time when the NYTimes ran a story on her new distro initiative. I thought “wow, there’s a good idea, that can be replicated in many forms.” It lifted my spirits, but then the assault of super-abundance of everything pulled my attention elsewhere. Recently, my attention got pulled back when a Twitter conversation turned it to the overtly white male dominance of the “indie scene”. Fortunately, I was put in touch with Ava, and she guest posts today with some of experiences in DIWO distribution.

My name is Ava DuVernay and I just completed a 7-week theatrical release of my film I WILL FOLLOW in 20 major US cities, including NY and LA, without studio or corporate backing and no formal P&A. The release was accomplished through AFFRM, a black film distribution collective that I founded. Have you heard of us?


I may incorrectly assume that most of Ted’s readers have never heard of AFFRM, or I WILL FOLLOW, or the excellent black film orgs that make up the African-American Film Festival Releasing Movement — for which AFFRM stands.

Why do I think that? Because we haven’t cracked that American indie establishment circle. You know, the Tribeca-Indiewire-IFP-FilmIndependent-SXSW-Lincoln Center of it all. The gate-keepers to the mainstream indie treasures. We haven’t had their attention. So we might’ve slipped by you.

It’s weird. Some new group pulls off an $11,235 per screen full-run simultaneously in multiple cities with absolutely no formal P&A, no four-walling, no touring, no service deal on their first try, and enterprising filmmakers and film pros don’t want the skinny on how? Maybe you just hadn’t heard. We’ve had full features in NY Times, LA Times, CNN, NPR and USA Today, but not one inquiry from the many DIY, DIWO, new distribution panel programmers or experts? The circle is tight.

With AFFRM, we sought to take the DIWO approach a step further, to give it infrastructure and branding. To align like-minded regional black film organizations and push them to go beyond their existing mission, to a renewed vision with national reach. It worked. Like, really worked. And we’re anxious to share what we learned, and to learn from others. But if you only get your news, views and film picks from the circle, you don’t know about us – and others like us.

My point is… you’re missing stuff. Many lovely films, many talented filmmakers and maybe a new idea to add to the discussion on how to move film distribution forward without corporate permission. I’ve been astonished by how many black filmmakers and film pros have approached us in the last few weeks about how we did what we did. Several dozen. And further astonished by how many of my non-black counterparts have approached. Zero.

Makes me think, what color is indie? I mean, what does it take to be of color and truly considered authentic American indie? To have done something seen as meaningful to the circle of the American independent film establishment, both artistically and as a business model. Like, if I don’t participate in what a good pal calls “white people festivals”… am I indie enough? Do you take my film as seriously because I chose to world premiere at Urbanworld in NY instead of submitting to Tribeca? If I don’t run my film through the labs or diversity initiatives of a recognized institution… do I not have that cool indie cred you need to see my movie with its beautiful black cast? I wonder.

I understand wanting your indie film product of color vetted through the proper channels. I get it. But just be aware that that is what you’re doing. Be aware that your indie is handpicked by a select few. And be clear that your indie is very white boy in view. Not a bad thing. White boys like all kinds of cool stuff – other white boys, white girls and the occasional thing of color that speaks to their sensibilities as white boys. But be real, that’s limited.

It limits you from hearing new marketing and distribution ideas, meeting filmmakers and experiencing films outside of this establishment construct, outside of the circle. You’re missing some good new stuff and ignoring success stories from many folks of color (See: I Will Follow or Mooz-Lum) or are by folks who are just downright colorful (See: Audrey Ewell’s Until The Light Takes Us and Bob Ray’s Total Badass). It’s not progressive. And it isn’t what I feel most people who love, support and live indie film really want. I don’t think its purposeful hateration. I think its just this lull of curation and prestige and, to be quite honest, laziness. Whatever it is… its affecting the whole business. And its far from positive.

If these statements makes you proclaim that I’m trippin’ and “there IS no circle”– then I’m happy that I’m not talking to you. Really am. Thrilled, in fact. And I invite you to see my film about a grieving black woman shot in Topanga Canyon that Roger Ebert called “one of the best films he’s seen about the death of a loved one.” You’re just my kind of audience member.

If on the other hand, these statements coax you to admit that you haven’t gone to a non-establishment fest or seen a film not featured in Filmmaker Magazine in years, then I invite you to step outside and take a look. Be like a couple of folks at Sundance Institute who’ve reached out to us to share and compare notes. Or the folks that head up RiverRun where I was invited to sit on the jury a few weeks back. Those RiverRun people take their mission of inclusion seriously, working to connect with the black community in Winston-Salem by leaping out of theoretical planning meetings and into bold action. They presented a special festival panel at the local historically black college this year, on which I was pleased to participate. I wondered if it was the first foray of a non-ethnic film festival at an HBCU? First I’m aware of. It was super impressive. And its what we all need to be thinking about.

Bottom line: It would benefit us all to be conversing and connecting. It’s not too late to break the boundaries of what you think this thing called indie should be, should look like. For instance, I dig that Indiewire, after years of really poor connection with black independent cinema at large, has wooed the wonderful team at ShadowandAct.com to be part of its blog network. It’s a step in the right direction for iW amidst an ongoing, challenging lack of coverage of black fests and black and brown indies on the main site.

This post is not meant to be a ball buster but a spirited call-to-action. There are new ideas, new paths for distribution, new films and filmmakers you’re missing if you only look from inside. There are riches in the niches. Both monetary and cosmic. Heck, you love indie film! You care about its future! So why not step outside and look around? Its nice out.

Here’s the opening weekend video of the thousands and thousands and thousands of people who came out to AFFRM’s inaugural release for I WILL FOLLOW in March. Quite a spectacle that you may not have seen or heard about. But now… you know.

Thanks for the invite, Ted.

— Ava DuVernay

VIDEO: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GOiuV6uYvas

Ava DuVernay is a filmmaker and film distributor from Los Angeles, California.  Her Twitter is @AVADVA. More on AFFRM at www.affrm.com. More on I WILL FOLLOW at www.iwillfollowfilm.com.