Distribution

That's great for Arthouse creatives, Geoff Hall! I love watching mainstream films, but Arthouse movies feel more personal and more impactful sometimes.

Maurice Vaughan yes it is, Maurice. It’s kinda my niche too, so it’s now on my radar.

Thanks for sharing!

Great strategy for indie filmmakers, Karen "Kay" Ross!

Awesome story. Should be noted, this was a decade ago. A lot has changed. Many no-name, no-budget filmmakers use to get foreign sales, now they don't and it's dropped on YouTube and Tubi by distributors. Nonetheless, you have to try different things to make money and be positive (and realistic)!

So cool. People need to see this. Karen "Kay" Ross thanks for sharing this.

I’m a big fan of these guys at Show & Tell — talks a lot about docs but very applicable to narrative films. https://show-tell.teachable.com/p/starterprogram

David Santo brother, thank you for sending me this document! Very Helpful. I'll be suing these resources.

Dear Ahi, The films were created in my native language, so I gave them to Swedish public access television stations.

The first movie was filmed in the way it was supposed to. With actors in front of the camera. Here is the trailer.

https://vimeo.com/111783195

When I created the second one, a disaster happened. An emergency solution. Not funny. Definitely not funny. Here is the trailer.

https://vimeo.com/182128117

When I created the third one, a different disaster happened. On with the morph suit again, but this time in front of the chromakey background with a doll. Not funny. Definitely not funny. Here is the trailer.

https://vimeo.com/308083543

Suffering from disasters due to a lack of money is not funny. But one learns from it. And the situation is even worse for those who depend on other people's money.

So learning how to do without money is highly relevant.

About successes. Well, nothing special, but having credits makes it easier to impress upon other people, so i am optimistic.

I recommend this Stage 32 webinar taught by the amazing Kristin Harris on securing distribution for your films: https://www.stage32.com/education?p=8944873079091

Ahi Black It's the first you're hearing of this because filmmakers will very often resent it when a producer wants to test the movie with an audience. So it's not something creatives really encourage. It's something that execs use to determine whether to invest in the marketing. But if you're a serious producer, you have to embrace this aspect of the process because you need to know if the film you wrote and directed rocks or sucks before you spend millions marketing it.

By agency I meant a testing company. Sorry for any confusion. ERM Market Research is pretty well known in the film space. They will take your call even if you're new. As far as distributors go, you can absolutely reach out to them once you have funding in place and are seeking attachments and some idea of the value of the package. But prior to securing equity, I would NOT hit up distributors. It's too early. Without money you have nothing. Literally nothing. A script is nothing. Best not to call anyone until you raise a significant portion of the financing.

Ahi Black my advice for what it’s worth, would be to plan distribution now, before production. Who is your audience? If you don’t know that, then you’ve got a bit of research to do. It’s not private lenders you are looking for, but private investors. However, think about maybe rising development funding via a film funding site like Seed and Spark and then look for equity funding. With development funding you stand a better chance of attracting talent to the film.

All of this process will help you understand more about “where do we go from here?”

Debbie Elicksen $8.1B! WOW! YouTube is definitely a distribution option that advertisers, filmmakers, etc. should use. I watch a lot of videos on there. Short films, web-series, sports highlights, etc.

Yes, but I never show my face on it.

Yeah - the biggest search engine on earth, the most users, the most content... YouTube is a behemoth. And I gotta admit - just dropped everything and switched to YouTube TV and I love it!

Sam Sokolow Shorts is really great for growing a channel. Especially if you create them on TikTok, which makes it so easy to do the one minute. Those videos automatically save to your phone and you can upload to YouTube. Then I go into the YouTube Studio and optimize it with tags, etc., and watch which platform gets the most hits. Sometimes it's YouTube. Sometimes it's TikTok. Since doing this consistently, I've seen my lives and videos get more traction. It's still slow as molasses getting subscribers, though. I think once you get to a certain point, the floodgates open.

Still, like everything else, the content is king. The storyline has to attract the viewer. But also the title. I've been using TubeBuddy to help with tags and titles.

Sam Sokolow I’ll have to check out YTTV Sam. What’s caught your eye, so far?

Geoff Hall "Alpha," "The Death of Robin Hood," "11817," "Encore," "Nuremberg," and "Double Booked."

Nowadays, people care less about names when consuming content and more about just watching good content. Rather than breaking the cycle, which is impossible - why not embrace it. It may open doors for many who would never get looked at.

No big distribution companies care about your film.

Hollywood is all about who knows who.

The most promising avenue for No Name Film Guy could be to showcase your film in markets or big film festivals. These platforms provide exposure and attract industry professionals who could be potential distributors. This strategy can significantly increase your chances of getting noticed and securing a distribution deal.

Monkey Man, a big name, struggled to get distribution, so the producer approached Jordan Peele.

He got them into Universal for theatrical distribution around the Globe, and in return, he got 14% royalty and title credit as a producer without investing a penny.

You can follow in the same footsteps if your movies are too good.

Good luck.

Alan and Stephen,

Thank you for the feedback.

But i guess i should have "clarified" my post.

I am in the same dead-end chaos-loop scenario that 99% of all independent producers are in.

Basically....

No Star attached = No Funding or Distribution to MAKE the movie in the first place.

No Distribution=No Funding to PAY a star to get attached = NO funding to make the film in the first place.

Etc, etc.etc...

There are a BILLION great scripts out there.

But a killer script = toilet paper if you have ZERO connection or funding in the current model.

So my question is....

Are there ANY well funded independent studios that DARE make a medium budget (ie 2-4 million) feature with NO star attached IF the script/story is good enough.

And if so...

How do you get an introduction if they too have layers and layers of gatekeepers.

That is basically what i am asking.

(And probably what EVERY screen writer is asking here in one way or another)

Mark DePonte I understand your predicament. My thoughts, even if you had a 'name' you won't make your budget back, so there is no point in going down that path. The little guy cannot compete with studio level productions. Aim to make someone on a smaller, more attainable scale and don't worry about name talent. Films can be made for next to nothing today. Just got to get creative. Even self-financing micro-budget film vs asking people to fund a project when there is virtually no chance they'll make their money back is the way to go.

Scriptwriter is a bad word in Hollywood unless you know a director.

I have read many scripts for production companies and famous online script companies.

Many are rubbish, but few are good. However, the production company chose a scriptwriter known to them and lost a few million.

So, a marketing script is vital.

Not reporting quarterly numbers won't have an impact on anyone, anything except Netflix.

Thats interesting after so much fuss was being made last year to push streamers to be more transparent overall.

This is partly why the WGA strike was such a smoke and mirrors show. What difference does it make what you negotiate when the other party won't disclose what your script is worth to them? They have zero intention of paying out residuals. Cause writers would be able to figure out exactly how much the platform is earning with their I.P. and rather than risk that disclosure, platforms would rather pay the WGA fines as the "cost of doing business".

I used this company for my case studies in my Budget Challenge for studios to help them save close to $50 Billion USD.

If you would like to see the budget challenge, please communicate with RB and Support. (Filmmakers, Studio and Talent Challenges). On my Stage 32 Wall. One of the biggest examples are Content Write-Offs Tax Incentives. Can save you billions.

Those decisions are why he gets the pay rise.

He is not there to make movies. He is there to facilitate making money, which is done in the movie industry.

Craig D Griffiths is right, Pat Alexander. He's not there as a Creative Executive, he's there to run a corporation which means making money and keeping shareholders happy. By making decisions like axing Batgirl and Coyote vs. Acme to make more money back in the tax write-off, he upset fans and viewers, but likely made the company back more money than they would have in box-office numbers coming out of the strike when fewer people are spending money in theaters. I'm a HUGE Bat-Fam fan and was so excited for the Batgirl movie. But the reality is that he likely made the shareholders very happy with those decisions. Also, the streaming service flubs have been ridiculous, but it's a great example of what happens in the industry when someone new comes in and takes over a sandbox full of toys. HBOMax was already struggling and as the new person in charge, rebranding the service as Max was his way of trying to turn that around and make the service less focused on WB Content that he was acquiring. He wanted it seen as a space for his Discovery content that was merging in. It didn't work perfectly, but he's not the one who chose to name the streaming service HBOMax in the first place, which I always thought was a branding mistake from WB at the start. All of the streaming services are struggling currently and in some ways, Max is doing better than others.

Yeah, Craig D Griffiths, but he's making $49.7MM while a lot of the people who come up with the ideas for the movies and shows and make them are struggling. Ridiculous.

Couldn't agree with you more, Maurice Vaughan. It's ridiculous and gross. But it's also the sad reality of how larger studios operate. These are corporations first and creative entities second.

I think that the quality has dropped a bit and that's made it difficult to get excited about them, Debbie Elicksen. You know that I'm a pretty die-hard comic book geek and even I chose to skip seeing The Marvels in theaters. Instead, I waited to watch it on streaming. I enjoyed it quite a bit and found it pretty fun, but I'm glad I didn't rush out and spend the money to see it right away. I don't think they've run their course, but I think they need some new energy. If it's the same old tired format that anyone can predict, then it's going to feel stale at this point and disappointing to anyone who went out of their way to see it.

Jed Power “The screenplay is horrible…” Okay, Jed you got my attention. Please can you tell me why you think this? I thought considering the genre, it flew straight down the fairway of dystopic stories.

Hi Geoff, Besides being partisan, Dialogue, Characters, locations, etc. were unbelievable!

Jed Power oh, I saw the film with my son and we didn’t think any of those things.

Thats interesting that you felt that way, Jed Power. I haven't had a chance to see it yet but I've been hearing that they went out of their way to make the division within the nation so different from our current political landscape so that it wouldn't be seen as partisan. Such as having Texas and California united in the Civil War.