Case study #1: Documentary, pitched by Senain Kheshgi
This documentary is about the case of the 10 Muslim student alliance kids at U.C. Irvine who protested/heckled the Israeli Ambassador at a speech in 2010 and were charged with federal offenses.

Budget: $575,000 (about half equity, the rest non-repayable grants and foundations).
Needs: About $100,000 to finish film.
Distribution: Has a $45,000 deal from TV broadcaster… who also wants first right of refusal on VOD/digital distribution. Unclear whether those are subscription VOD rights or ad-supported VOD rights, or if they can be negotiated.
Status: The film is in rough cut.

Josh Braun
Giving up TV rights too soon for too little money in the US is not advisable A 52-minute TV-version is key; without it, you lose opportunities. Selling for $45,000 and not carving our key digits rights is a bad idea, as it severely limits sales potential and theatrical investment. You can do multiple subscription VOD deals, so as the lines blur between TV and Internet platforms, it will likely be harder to carve out rights. The key to preselling TV is that the sale should amount to at least 50% of the budget.

Indiewire.com | Read the Full Article

VIA: Scott Kirsner

…PARK CITY, Utah — The starkest picture to emerge from the opening days of this year’s Sundance Film Festival may be of an independent film business forced to stretch in untested directions because its old distribution model no longer works.

Standard operating procedure over the years at Sundance, the cinematic bazaar now under way in this resort town, has been simple: show your film and hope it plays well enough to attract a theatrical distributor or, if the movie is particularly small and arty, a video-on-demand deal.

If no deal happens — and this is where more than 75 percent of Sundance offerings landed last year — you go home and try Internet downloads, DVD and foreign television sales.

But even that risky blueprint is being redrafted. With more art-house theaters closing and most of the big studios no longer interested in distributing specialty films, a theatrical release is becoming increasingly hard to secure. So some filmmakers are trying to turn that system on its head, using Sundance not just as a sales tool but also as a platform for immediate digital delivery.

— New York Times | Read The Full Article

On January 13, 2009 exhibitors, bookers, filmmakers, producers met to discuss common issues and share resources.

Description:
In today’s brutal marketplace, filmmakers and distributors are forced to think outside the box. From DIY theatrical to multiplatform releases and viral marketing, there are as many new strategies today as there are successful films. Join us as we showcase films capitalizing on the newest opportunities, as well as the distribution companies articulating the clearest visions.

Panelists:
Lance Hammer (‘Ballast’), Matt Dentler: Cinetic Rights Management, Connie White: Balcony Releasing/member of the Sundance Arthouse Project, Christian Gaines: Director of Festivals – Withoutabox (a division of IMDb), MJ Peckos: Mitropoulos Films, Cora Olson: (‘Good Dick’), Steven Raphael: Required Viewing.

VIA: CinemaTech (thanks)

Part One:

Part Two:

…Distribution companies shutting down (or seemingly on the rocks). New technologies seeming to arrive on a daily basis. With all the fast and furious changes in the independent film world, it’s become necessary to take a somewhat yearly look at the state of our union and to question whether we are abiding by an old, outmoded system.

— AJ Schnack | Read The Full Article

…When “Bottle Shock” played at the Sundance Film Festival in January, it appeared to possess that mix so tantalizing to well-heeled indie distributors.

It had a name cast, including Bill Pullman and Alan Rickman. The director came with a track record and a critically acclaimed short film. And the story, about a small American winery that triumphed over its French competitors in a blind tasting in 1976 and changed the world’s view of California wine, was an accessible one for audiences who flocked to “Sideways” a few years back.

But “Bottle Shock” found no love among distributors in Park City, Utah. So the director, Randall Miller, is opening the film himself next week in 12 cities. With their hopes for conventional movie deals increasingly dead on arrival, more and more indie filmmakers are opting for a do-it-yourself model: self-distribution, once the route of the desperate, reckless or defiant, has become an increasingly attractive option for movies otherwise deprived of theatrical exhibition. “Ballast,” “Wicked Lake,” “The Singing Revolution” and “Last Stop for Paul” are among the indies currently or recently taking the maverick route.

— The New York Times | Read The Full Article

…There are lots of ways to criticize his logic. For starters, most Sundance movies are way under $10 million. Many are under a million. And he seems to omit a figure for how many indie films are getting a theatrical release now as opposed to three years ago.

We need to ask, “Failure for whom?” Even a movie that doesn’t earn its budget back will likely make money for its distributors, once you factor in video and TV sales. More crucially, a good indie film generates future work for its stars and filmmakers. So there’s a lot of success to be found in that 99.9% failure.

All that said, he’s kind of right.

— John August | Read The Full Article

Based on my observations, the biggest mistake independent filmmakers make is not having a realistic strategy for the sale and distribution of their film. Plenty focus on raising money and the many physical aspects of producing their film, which are all extremely important, but they don’t give enough thought to how they will present their film to the marketplace. Saying that your plan is to get into Sundance and score a distribution deal does not constitute a realistic plan, because that’s what everyone says and the sobering truth is that will only be true for maybe a dozen films in any given year. We were lucky enough to have that happen on NAPOLEON DYNAMITE, but we did our homework and had contingency plans if Sundance didn’t work out. The selling of a film is a very complex ordeal that involves processing a lot of information and you’re competing against literally thousands of other films to catch a distributor’s attention. That’s the bad news. The good news is that it’s not rocket science and the fact that you’re reading this and attending this forum means that you’re already far ahead of the curve simply by learning more about it.

Here some things that I’ve learned:

1. MAKE THE BEST FILM YOU CAN. This is totally obvious, but you’d be surprised how many people lose sight of that. You need to make something that’s worth buying before you can sell it.

2. FILM FESTIVALS. The best way to present your film is usually on the festival circuit especially if you’re a new undiscovered filmmaker. You should attend whatever festivals you can because they are fun and you can learn a lot by just watching and getting use to the hectic environment. Look at what film festivals you would like to attend and make a priority list based on the submission deadlines. The big acquisition festivals are obviously Toronto, Sundance, and SXSW, but there are many other awesome ones. Use your list as a checklist so that if you don’t get into Sundance, you’ve already thought about what your plan B,C, D, etc is.

3. ASSEMBLE A TEAM. You should never sell your film yourself. Do yourself a favor and score a producer’s rep and a lawyer. There are several top reps around town and they are constantly looking for projects. If you get accepted into Sundance, I guarantee that they’ll be calling you constantly. They should be purely commission based (around 10%) and a good rep will never ask for money upfront. A publicist is also important only if you’re in one of the best festivals so that your film is not lost in the shuffle.

4. SCREEN YOUR FILM VERY SELECTIVELY. The biggest ace that you have as an independent filmmaker is that you can largely control who sees your film and when. It’s human nature that people want something more when they can’t have it. Use this to your advantage. Don’t let distributors see the film before it premieres. Tell them that it won’t be completed until just before its premiere. We did this out of necessity on NAPOLEON DYNAMITE and it worked to very much to our advantage. The base case scenario is to show to the film to a room full of different distributors for the first time at once and forcing them to act quickly or risk losing it to someone else.

5. DON’T OVERHYPE. Your first instinct is probably to tell everyone who will listen about how awesome your film is, but you shouldn’t. If you just hype without a plan it will likely backfire on you. This town is all about expectations and word of mouth travels fast and by the time your film actually screens people might have such high expectations that any film would be a disappointment. Your goal should be to set the lowest possible expectations, but still get the right distributors’ butts in your screening.

6. TIME IS USUALLY NOT ON YOUR SIDE. If you’re lucky and you get two or more distributors fighting for your film, you usually should not wait too long to make a decision or get too greedy. As quickly as a bidding war heats up, it can die out even quicker. Every situation is different, but the old cliché of strike while the iron is hot is often the way to go.

There’s plenty more advice (and probably better) out there and these are just some thoughts that stick out to me at the moment. The best advice I can give is just to educate yourself the as much as you can on this topic and talk to as many people as you can with any experience in selling and releasing films. This forum should be a great foundation, so don’t waste it. You’ll have personal access to many industry players that would usually be next to impossible to get a meeting with. There’s nothing better than face time to get your foot in the door. Like I said earlier, the fact that you’re already thinking seriously about a plan of how to sell your film puts you in a better place than a lot of indie filmmakers.