Many filmmakers expect to win the Sundance lottery and skip learning distribution. Jerome Courshon explains three landmines to avoid in your movie.
Many filmmakers think they’ll “win the lottery” and get into Sundance—and then win it again with a big deal at Sundance—so they don’t bother to learn about distribution and what it takes for most films to get into the marketplace successfully.
Don’t get me wrong. Confidence is one of the most important assets for a Producer or Director to have. We just tend to take it a bit too far, until we get that dose of reality that making a good movie and getting it to market is not a piece of cake.
So learn about distribution now. Don’t wait. Understand the landscape for movies & documentaries, what all your options are, and how to maximize the revenues for your film. If you think just putting your movie online at iTunes is going to make you rich… think again. You’ve completed your movie—great! Now you’re probably on the hunt for a distribution deal. You’re perhaps thinking about festivals, or you’re calling friends for recommendations. And getting lots of advice, from your next door neighbor to your aunt.
Unless you’ve been down this road before—and possibly several times—there are three serious mistakes that independent Producers & Directors make in their distribution journeys. Can you avoid these? Bottom line is, don’t believe all the chatter out there. Most of it is just that— chatter. Yes, the journey you are on is a challenging one. Be confident yet humble, acknowledge what you don’t know (because in truth, no one knows everything), and when people tell you some “facts”… just realize this is their reality, not necessarily yours. If you can do this, you will successfully avoid several landmines in front of you.
Believing the Bull
Here’s another truth about distribution: Most everyone who speaks about it, is either: a) parroting something they heard or read—which frequently is not true—although they speak it as though it’s the truth; b) don’t really know what they’re talking about; or c) has an agenda to get you to believe something.
Want some examples? “Indie film is dead.” “The sky is falling for indie film.” “DVD is dead.” The first two of these statements were spoken in 2008 by a well-known person in the film industry during the start of the recession. Did indie film die? Of course not. But these words spoken by this man ricocheted everywhere, and did a great disservice to people.
The third phrase (“DVD is dead”) has been written about all over the place; after all, it’s a great story for the media as they love to speak and write about doom & gloom. Is DVD/Blu-ray dead? Of course not. (Not yet at least.) It’s still one of the two largest revenue generating markets of the film industry, standing at $10.3 Billion this past year.
Very little time passes between each time I hear a Producer tell me that their Director doesn’t know much about distribution, but is insisting on doing it his/her way… and then I later hear about the horrible mistakes made. Or vice versa, where the Producer is insisting on a particular path, only to hear the Director tell me later a fatal mistake was made.
Here’s the truth: Stubbornness and unwillingness to examine the ‘game’ of distribution is a top killer of completed movies and documentaries. There are a number of major markets for your film: Theatrical, Cable/Satellite/ Telco VOD, DVD/Blu-ray, Internet VOD, Television, and Foreign Sales. Be sure that you (or the decision maker) fully understands these markets—and if they don’t, educate them! The destiny of your movie depends on it.
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