The Complete Guide to Distributing an Indie Film
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About this ebook
The Complete Guide to Distributing an Indie Film provides a step-by-step guide for setting up distribution for your film. It is designed primarily for independent filmmakers who are distributing their first few films with budgets ranging from under $200,000 to a few million.
It is divided into six sections which include:
- an overview of the distribution process, which describes the many channels for distributing a film, creating a realistic strategy, and approaching and assessing distributors and sales agents.
- creating your printed materials and deliverables, such as creating a poster, screener, trailer, and a complete film in different formats
- publicizing your film, from working with a publicist to doing it yourself; topics covered include creating press releases, a press kit, and a media portfolio, and contacting the media
- entering film festivals, including deciding which festivals to enter, upping your chances of getting in, and increasing your ability to get awards and attention
- arranging for theatrical screenings, from setting up screenings and making deals to building an audience
- making contacts at the AFM, whether you attend or make connections from afar.
The book is drawn from the author’s experiences in distributing and promoting her own feature film, attending festivals and conferences, going to the AFM, helping clients who have set up theatrical screenings, and doing research on recent developments and trends in distribution.
Gini Graham Scott
Gini Graham Scott, Ph.D., CEO of Changemakers Publishing and Writing, is an internationally known writer, speaker, and workshop leader. She has published over 50 books with major publishers on various topics and has written over 3 dozen children's books. Her published children's books include Katy's Bow, Scratches, The Crazy Critters First Visit, and Where's the Avocado? published by Black Rose Writing. She has published 8 children's books through her company Changemakers Kids and is a member of the Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators. She does workshops on self-publishing and creativity. She also helps clients write books as a ghostwriter and self-publish or find publishers and agents. Her websites are www.changemakerspublishgandwriting.com and www.ginigrahamscott.com.
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The Complete Guide to Distributing an Indie Film - Gini Graham Scott
Chapter 1: Finding Distributors for Your Film: What to Expect
I’ve recently started thinking about how to best distribute a film, since I have been looking for distribution for my first feature film: Suicide Party: Save Dave. This book describes what I have learned is the best strategy and what to expect in the offers you get, so you can get the best deal possible, based on what’s realistic for your film. It also draws on input from the director of Suicide Party, who has directed about 20 other feature films, a producer’s rep, a publicist I work with in L.A., and extensive research about distribution from books and the Internet. I’ll discuss both DYI (do your own) distribution if you can’t find a distributor, as well as different tracks to consider in distributing your film through different channels.
First, know the major players in the film distribution space. The ones to contact depend on what your goals are for your film, such as whether you feel you have a film that merits theatrical distribution, or you want to focus on distribution in other markets. These major players include studio distributors, independent distributors, producer’s reps, and sales reps.
The studio distributors are largely out of the picture for independent films, unless you have a big breakthrough at one of the top film festivals where the big distributors go (Sundance, Toronto, and Cannes, and secondarily Tribeca, and maybe Berlin and Venice, plus some distributors go to South by Southwest. Such a film breakthrough requires not only being shown, but also creating an exciting talk or buzz about your film with an advance media build-up. Moreover, if you are aiming for the big festivals, you have to premier there, which means waiting to find out if you are accepted before you can submit to other festivals. However, the likelihood of acceptance is very small unless you have personal connections, since not only do the big festivals select a small number of films from thousands of submissions, but generally the vast majority – perhaps 85-90% -- of those accepted come from personal connections with the festival director or staff, leaving only about 10-15% to be accepted on their own merits. Then if you are accepted, you still have to create that exciting buzz for your film to actually get a deal besides simply showing at a big festival. In short, for most indie filmmakers, a studio distribution deal is unlikely, though possible, should you later develop a great deal of excitement, so the studio distributors want to take a look at your project.
Then, there are the independent distributors, who come in all flavors. There are some who handle theatrical distribution, ranging from those who handle one or two films – generally their own films -- to those handling a half-dozen or more. Many of these distributors will also handle distribution in other channels, such as to home video, cable, and foreign sales. Then there are many distributors who eschew theatrical for distribution in other channels.
Often if you want to seek a theatrical release, you will need a budget for P&A, which means promotion and advertising, along with the costs of any files, DVDs, posters, and local advertising, which you need for each theater, which can add up to $5000-10,000 or more per city, though normally you don’t pay the distributor. Rather, you typically make a split of the income arrangement, which is commonly 35-50%, though more often a 50-50 split, and in some cases, a distributor who wants your film enough will advance the P&A.
Some distributors may additionally ask you to have E&O insurance, which refers to Errors
and Omissions.
Even though your film is already produced, some distributors may still ask for this, just in case, such as one distributor interested in Suicide Party: Save Dave explained to me. Maybe a scene in the film might show a store or company in the background, and they object to the way they are portrayed. So this could trigger a request for a recut of the film or a lawsuit, but your E&O insurance would cover this.
On the other hand, most distributors I spoke to didn’t require this.
While some distributors will ask for worldwide rights, others just want domestic (which includes Canada as well as the U.S.), and some specialize in foreign. So everything is negotiable including what markets a distributor will handle, the percentage split, and how much P&A budget you will need if any.
Another major player is the producer’s rep. This is essentially a middleman who contacts distributors and foreign sales agents on your behalf and negotiates a deal for you. Commonly these reps handle a slate of films for different producers, generally about 5 to 20 other films, depending on the size of the rep’s company. Commonly the rep get 5-10% of the deal, occasionally 15%, depending on what they do. However, the reps should not take any upfront money from you, though some may ask for this. But they should only get an upfront payment if they are doing extra work, such as writing releases and creating posters for you.
According to Ben Yennie, a producer’s rep in San Francisco and the author of The Guerrilla Rep: American Film Market Distribution Success on No Budget, a good producer’s rep can help filmmakers connect with distributors and foreign sales agents, since they have built relationships with them. They can help you get a faster response from them, as well as assess and select the best ones to work with, since they better know the market. They can also evaluate the different offers and handle the negotiations for you, which can result in a better deal for the film. Additionally, they can help you get into the bigger film festivals if they know the director or staff member. However, Yennie cautions that a lot of reps are ineffective and don’t deliver what they promise, so it is important to look at a rep’s track record and expect the rep to give you a realistic assessment of your film’s potential and what the rep can do for you before selecting a rep.
Finally, there is the sales agent, also called the foreign sales agent,
who handles foreign sales. In this case, it can be very valuable to work with such an agent, since he or she will know the distributors, exhibitors, and other channels in the territory covered, and so will be in a better position to make the contact and negotiate any sales than you. While some sales agents may have a network of agents in different countries, others will specialize in selected areas, so you need to learn the areas covered, as well as the channels in which the sales agents wants to pitch your film. In this way, you can make sure you don’t have overlapping exclusive representation by sales agents who are covering the same territories.
So now that you know the major players, the next step is to assess how you want to position and promote your film in different channels, as well as prepare the materials you need to get a distributor or sales agent, and in some cases, a good producer’s rep.
Chapter 2: The Many Channels for Distributing Your Film
Today, there are more channels than ever for distributing your film. Since many distributors specialize in certain channels, you may want to consider dividing up the distribution among different distributors, as long as their territories don’t overlap if you have exclusive deals. In other cases, distributors will ask for all rights in all channels within a certain market, such as domestic (US and Canada), foreign (all countries outside of the U.S. and Canada, or certain countries or regions), or worldwide.
Thus, it can become very confusing to sort through who wants what channels in what territories, besides looking at the range of deals offered in terms of percentage split, types of deliverables required, such as DVDs and digital files, and the amount of money needed from you, if any, for P&A (promotion and advertising), or whether you will get any upfront money on signing the deal (which is generally no if you don’t have any recognizable names in your film).
One way to help sort through the varying offers is to create a matrix where you list the required and desired channels for each distributor, along with the territories required and desired. Your matrix might look something like this:
Across the top: All Channels, Theatrical, Home Video, DVD, and so on.
On the side: Worldwide, Domestic, All Foreign, Latin America, Eastern Europe, Asia, etc.
Then, in each box, list the name of the distributor who has expressed interest in that channel and territory, and note if the distributor requires (R) or desires (D) that channel and territory for the deal. You can also indicate of the distributor wants an exclusive (E) or non-exclusive (N).
As you get expressions of interest from different distributors, you can enter their name in the matrix. Also, review their track record and offers. As you do, you can rate the distributors to create a priority list (such as ranking them from #1 to #5, with the top rank being #1, or rating them from 1 to 10, where the higher the number, the more you like them). Use whichever system you prefer – a ranking or rating system. Then, put that number in the box for each distributor listed, along with whether this channel is required or desired and whether the distributor wants an exclusive or non-exclusive. The result should look something like this for one box: Distributor Smith. #1, R, E; Distributor Jones, #3, D, N.
In making these deals, you will commonly retain the direct sales rights, which means you can sell DVDs from your websites and at screenings, and often you may have the right to sell downloads and streams from your site, unless the distributor wants to restrict such sales. Ideally, it’s best to retain direct sales rights, because you will have a greater profit margin, a faster payment, and don’t have to split your income from these sales with a middleman; you only have to pay the manufacturing and fulfilment costs. Also, by retaining direct sales rights, you can sell other products if you have merchandise associated with your film, such as T-shirts, hats, posters, mugs, soundtrack albums, or a book based on your film. Plus you can sell related products from others that might appeal to your audience, such as books and DVDs, which you buy at wholesale and sell retail. But if you aren’t set up to handle sales and fulfillment yourself, it may not make sense to keep these rights if the distributor wants to do this and give you a share of the proceeds.
According to Peter Broderick, author of The Twelve Principles of Hybrid Distribution,
in a recently published book: Independent’s Guide to Film Distribution, the major channels of domestic and international distribution can be listed as follows:
Domestic: Festivals, Theatrical, Semi-Theatrical and Nontheatrical, Cable VOD, SVOD, Television, Direct DVD, Retail DVD, Direct Digital, Retail Digital, Educational, and Home Video.
International: Festivals, Television, Direct DVD, Retail DVD, Direct Digital, and Retail Digital, and occasionally Theatrical and Educational Distribution.
Splitting up the rights among different distributors handling different markets can be complicated and time consuming when you get a number of offers to consider. But an advantage to splitting the rights is that you can get better distribution when different distributors are especially strong in a particular channel or channels, so you can have another distributor handle those channels where another distributor is weak. Then, too, as Broderick notes, this approach avoids cross-collateralization, whereby the expenses from one area of distribution are applied against revenues from other areas of distribution.
Also, in splitting up rights, decide if there are certain areas where you want to retain the distribution rights, because you feel you can successfully handle that type of distribution on your own, such as contacting the educational market or selling direct DVDs or digital copies from your own website or from a dedicated site for the film.
In assessing the distributors for different channels, find out which channels they handle well by asking about their track record. That can help you decide which distributor would be best in handling a certain channel. Also, as possible limit not only granting an exclusive, but the term of distribution and the level of performance expected, so you can assess how well the distributor is doing with your film during a certain time period (such as 6 months or a year). Then, if the distributor is doing well, great; you can mutually renew the agreement. If not, you are not stuck in an agreement, and you can either end the contract at the end of the term or for non-performance. These agreements can get complicated, so do have an attorney or someone familiar with distribution agreements review them and make suggestions about what to add or