Most filmmakers with completed films which i meet seem to talk constantly about obtaining a distribution deal from a big company or getting an international telemarketer. They appear to consider this may be the only way to move their careers forward. This is understandable especially after you have sacrificed, scrimped, begged and saved to create their film. It is only natural they would look and expect the established sales agent or distribution company who they hope and pray will buy their film for international distribution.
All I can say about this is that, IT’S WAKE UP TIME!
In most cases the established telemarketer or distribution company won’t come along making all their dreams come true. It simply won’t happen. The main reason being is that you will find too many films in the marketplace; many more compared to present distribution system because it exists can accommodate. The system as it stands can’t even handle a small percentage of these. Combine this using the fact that the main film distribution companies also own the majority of the major cinema screen chains and since they are doing, they’re naturally going to put the films they’ve invested in already onto those screens first. Where does that leave the independent filmmaker?
It leaves them in the same place it left the hip hop producers and rap record companies 30 years ago, when no self respecting radio station would even play rap records. So what did these rap/hip hop music makers do? They popularized the streets using their cassette tapes and sold them out of the back of their cars directly to their audience or they took laundry carts with rickety wheels in one record shop to another and sold a few here and there until people began to become popular. They gave parties and sold their records directly to their audience.
I know of what I speak because I had been among those rap record producers having a rickety laundry cart walking the streets of New York within the 1980′s at the beginning of the rap music phenomenon, long before it became a phenomenon. In those days the rap producers and record companies were little guys trying to get their foot into the door from the music business as well as the independent record distributors were nervous about handling their rap labels. I recall in 1980 finding yourself in home of a young guy named Tom Silverman who was then running his newly formed company Tommy Boy Records from his kitchen table. I stood there watching him argue on the telephone having a local record distributor who wanted to hold up payments on records already sold, for 90 days since the distributor did not have faith within this type of music. Tommy Boy Records subsequently signed artists like De La Soul and Queen Latifah and was a major force within the rap business through the 90′s and was distributed and then bought out by Warner Brothers for multi- millions.
The spirit of the music am strong that these rap music makers decided they were not prepared to allow the powers that be to kill them off and I think this is the time for filmmakers to appear in history and take a leaf in the book of those early rap music making pioneers.
Three decades on, filmmakers have been in far better shape compared to those early hip hop music makers were, for that simple reason that then there is no internet. When i see it, the web is the New Filmmaking Frontier and as filmmakers you will find doors available to us that have never been open before.
I see filmmakers like pioneers crossing the American frontier in the 1800′s moving over the great plains headed towards a brand new place and a new destiny. Yeah I know… I heard all the arguments of the usual understanding before. Nobody sell films on the web because everybody on the net wants everything free of charge, yadah yadah yadah… Well guess what? Thirty five years ago the traditional wisdom argued that individuals would not purchase cable TV when they could get TV free of charge. You see what time did to that particular argument, right? I only say there are numerous methods to monetize your films and you can lead the way in which as a pioneer rather than let the powers that be dictate your future as a filmmaker.
Big companies have always looked towards the small companies to exhibit them the way forward. Which hasn’t changed. By their very nature and because of the pressure to produce quarterly profits big media companies are conservative and don’t want to take risks. Therefore innovation for them isn’t and never has been a priority. When something is made with a business and delay pills work in the marketplace, they just purchase it making it bigger. Then one big company starts to stick to the other big company until it might be what’s considered the norm. Just like rap music or even the martial arts genre movies, they were started by the small guys. And so i say you can monetize your films, no matter what the voices of conventional wisdom say.
Just to illustrate I simply made a deal for just one of my independent films. Believe it or not, I chose to make this deal with an ebook company. After i wrote the script for that film, I also wrote an accompanying book. After i sold the ebook, I also sold the film to become downloaded along with the ebook. How much money does it make? I have no idea. However i do know which i have two advantages from the beginning. I get 60% more from my percentage on the sale of the ebook than I’d with a traditional book company and 80% more than would be provided by a traditional film telemarketer. Also I do not need to bother about a sales agent saying they couldn’t sell within this or that territory because now I do not need to bother about territorial rights because I’m able to market and sell all over the world from one internet location. And if a foreign distributor should wish to accomplish business for a local cinema or perhaps a chain of cinemas they are able to contact me directly. The end result is that I have to sell 1 / 3 as much to create twice as much money as with traditional sources. What this means is I’m able to pay my investors back and create enough confidence to go back to that investor in addition to attract new investors for future film projects. Plus I additionally know exactly how much has been spent for promotion.
Therefore the question now becomes, can one get my product promoted around if I were having a traditional sales agent or book company. My response is yes. For one thing I’m able to now afford to mount an internet campaign and concentrate directly on my product, which helps both the ebook company in addition to myself by driving sales to my website. Traditional companies appear to only pump money into products they consider the favourites to win. What this means is any creation that is projected to produce only medium level sales is going to be left to whither and die around the vine. The film and book companies unfortunately followed the ‘winner takes all’ mentality that arrived to vogue as the entertainment companies consolidated and became corporate giants in the 1980′s. This mentality wiped out the artist development component of their companies as well as lots of alternative less mass market films and left smaller budget independent films produced by filmmakers like John Cassevetes or Horton Foote, or B movies made by popular by producers like Roger Corman unlikely to get distribution unless it is was on DVD.
That does not mean several won’t get lucky. Sure, there was “Paranormal Activity.” It was acquired by Steven Spielberg and became a hit. But, that was like striking the lottery… it won’t happen every day and you will count those occasions on one hand. Most of the independent filmmakers I understand are struggling to survive on a project to project basis. However it needn’t be like this. You are able to change the way things are being done and begin a trend by looking at your products in different ways and thinking creatively about putting your product in to the market at all necessary.
