If you regularly read anything I post, you’ll see a repeated theme of really stupid business practices of the film industry from the fantasy value SAG puts on their union talent to any number of ridiculously inept decisions “experts in charge” like to make that are sure to self-destruct their own projects.
The latest example of this came out of a discussion I had with a very knowledgeable individual of which I hope we can work together in the future, regarding the concept of studio backed projects. Now if a studio is dumping 100’s of millions of dollars into a project, they can pretty much do what they want. If they are investing in a low budget feature under $2M, should they stick to the same criteria of marketing that film as they would deploy as with a big budget project?
Their logic being that if you advertise or post material about the project, you are ruining the surprise for the audience and by the time the film is released, everyone will already have seen your film and not want to go see it in the theaters, if they even manage to get it into a minimum 1,300 screens out of the 39,000 screens across America. If you do try and garner buzz and excitement for your film, they can charge you with breach of contract and order you to pay back their investment as well as refusing to distribute your film. That seems a little harsh for trying to tell the general public about your work.
So let’s do the numbers on this. The standard turnaround time for a film, not counting all the pre-production negotiations that have nothing to do with the film, is consistently quoted as 18 months from first day of principle shooting to the release date. If your film is under a $2M budget, chances are you are fortunate enough to find SAG talent that has either been off the public radar for awhile or is relatively new to the public experiencing their work. So 18 months multiplied by30 days come out to 540 days. Divide that by the runtime of your film, say 90 minutes, and for that 540 days you could release 6 minutes of your film everyday in order for the general public to have seen your entire movie. Trailers and interviews normally don’t run longer that 3 minutes tops so what are studios afraid of? To them it’s better to wait until 3 months before the release to come up with some marketing campaign that has no guarantees as to how many people it will reach or has any accountability to how many people even saw their marketing efforts in the first place. Of course if a movie fails to attract a crowd, it’s not their fault. They have invoices of what they spent and they don’t owe you any kind of refund for their failure. It’s the investors’ fault for not pumping more money into advertising that has proven time and time again over the last 10 years that their marketing model doesn’t work anymore… but pay them anyway because they are the “experts.”
Some of you may be overjoyed that you have a deal with anybody and I don’t blame you. Just be careful that you aren’t signing a cul de sac deal that will suck up all of your resources without giving you a favorable outcome and will only leave you at the bottom of a dry well without a rope to climb out of. they hole they dug for you.
What are your thoughts on this? Are you handcuffed, hands free, or hands on? The difference could cost you millions.
I don't think a studio should to market a low budget feature under $2M the same way they do with a big-budget project, Philip David Lee. I think it would be a waste of money.
"Their logic being that if you advertise or post material about the project, you are ruining the surprise for the audience and by the time the film is released, everyone will already have seen your film and not want to go see it in the theaters, if they even manage to get it into a minimum 1,300 screens out of the 39,000 screens across America." I see their point, and I agree with it if they give too much about a movie away. If I see trailers, ads, and posts that give too much away, I might skip watching the movie or just wait until it's on streaming. I like short trailers. Sometimes I'll turn off a long trailer halfway or so. I've seen lots and lots of people complain that studios and companies give too much away with trailers, ads, and posts.