KAM: One of the big buzz things for Head Trauma–especially for our audience—is how you chose to do the distribution for that. Tell us a little bit about how you did that.
LW: Sure. I went to the Los Angeles Film Festival, the movie had its world premiere there, and I decided I was going to use the festival as a springboard to do the distribution for the film. So instead of going to the festival and going, “Oh, I have a film, I hope somebody buys it”, I went to the festival with a 17-city theatrical distribution in place, where I’d booked all the theaters, I’d worked out the actual theatrical release. And I knew that the theatrical release was going to go all the way up to September 26, when the DVD came out nationwide. So, what I did was use LA as kind of a way to announce those plans and I was definitely, I think, the only filmmaker who was there who wasn’t looking either for distribution or had distribution already. I was the only one going there as a self-distribution kind of tack.
So, I found a small label— ‘cause I had had my own video label before— Stefan and I had a label called Wavelength Releasing. And when we released TLB –because that one was self-distributed—I just kind of decided that, you know, I didn’t want to do the labeling, it was very time-intensive. So I struck a deal with a small label called Heretic Films, and Heretic had the ability to get it out through Ryco, so it could be in retail and rental outlets across the country, and they would take care of the back end. And I struck a very favorable deal what was like a 60/40 dollar one-split and basically, they would handle the back end of the movie on DVD, and then what I brought to the table was a 17-city theatrical release. I bootstrapped that whole release, meaning that there was no investment money for it, there was no money for it. I basically funded it by speaking at various universities and film societies and by selling posters. And I was able to travel all over the country and I actually made money on the other side of it. And the theatrical [release] for me was all about press, reviews, and exposure to help the DVD sales; it wasn’t so much about box office. In the end, I ended up making about $7,000 or so from my take. I did split with all the theaters, 50/50 split…so everybody had the same deal terms.
And that was kind of how I went about and did it. And in the end, [I] came out ahead with the theatrical, took that money, out it into online advertising for the DVD, and the DVD has done very well. Now I’m getting ready to pursue some television and foreign sales, and also some V.O.D. And I was able to reduce the terms of the deal with Heretic, so they have the title for, I think, three years. On average, when a video label will take a title, they’ll try to take it for anywhere between 7-15 years. And in the end, what I’ve been able to do with the movie and the fact that I own it still is the real value. And I think that with the advent of new technology and not knowing what’s coming down the pike, it’s always good to have some degree of control over your own rights. Basically, all the deals now want you to give them digital download rights, and they’ll take those rights, but nobody knows how they’re going to exploit them. So, it’s always good to have an idea of how Rights Management works and to think about what you really want out of the deal, and to have a good attorney, and then not be afraid to challenge whatever the base offer is. I mean, as long as you know you have a good degree of leverage. For me with Heretic, it was a 17-city theatrical release that I put together that was the leverage... [it’s] a deal that’s very much unheard of, you know, a 60/40 dollar one-split is not a common deal, especially with a three-year license period just for DVD.
I have the ability to sell the DVDs on my own site, I can buy them for cost plus a dollar; I also have the ability to do whatever I want to do with digital downloads. So, to me, it’s something that’s really about Rights Management. And I should mention because this is probably something that’s of interest to [your] readership, I was invited to participate in a digital distribution summit in Montreal, where they brought delegates from all over the world… so I put together this project called the Work Book Project, and it’s WorkBookProject.com. And if you get a chance, it’s a free resource for content creators and what it’ll eventually do when it is released next year, will be a download similar to Wikipedia, but you’ll be able to use it anywhere you want, you don’t even have to be online to use it. And it’ll be kind of be an assortment of all different information about making films, from funding all the way through to distribution. So, if you get a chance, you should check it out.
KAM: I will definitely check that out. Did you run into any resistance at all with the theaters when you were setting up this form of distribution or were they pretty supportive of the idea?
LW: I targeted theaters that I thought were going to be like-minded, so I targeted all independent theaters. I was interested in theaters where they would…have digital projection. They had to have some way to play back the movie, whether it be DVD, which I wasn’t a fan of. One thing that happens when you do theatrical is you kinda have to throw away the idea of pristine image, because in reality, theatrical is kind of at the mercy of whatever the gear is that they have. So, we projected anywhere from DVD to –at the high end—HD. And we also made use of this really cool media server that was…HD quality, kind of like a TiVo. …It’s a company called InDex, and you can find them online…They offer a solution where you can basically rent the box, and I think it’s only a couple hundred bucks for a week. So, I had a prototype of it, and I was able to travel with it…it was like a suitcase. So, I could walk into a projection booth, hook it up and…[when] they had the projection where I could hook the sound in properly…I had full HD quality and surround sound. And it looked better than an HD-cam deck. So, I can’t say enough positive things about InDex. [It’s] an amazing company, and it’s definitely very filmmaker-friendly, and a great way for someone to have great resolution when they go out show their movies.
So, in terms of getting the theaters to actually book, I had to do the whole pitch together. I think every aspect of filmmaking…when you approach a business owner and when you approach an audience…there’s an element of…What are the strengths? What are the hooks that you have? How does their business work? You know, from [the] theater’s perspective, what are they interested in? Well, obviously, they’re interested in how they get people in. What are you doing on the marketing side? Do you have any idea of how you’re going to market the film? Who is your audience and how are you going to reach them? So when I pitched the movie as being booked, the pitch was very important at first, because talking to them in their building, you’re trying to build a rapport with them, and then obviously, it all comes down to the movie in the end. They’re going to watch it and see if they want it or not. And I had a lot of other theaters that wanted to show it, I just couldn’t support more than 17, and, as 17 cities go, I had to do it myself. That was a lot of work. But, that was how I did it, I worked it as a pitch, you know, why was the movie of value to them. And I showed an understanding of how their business worked. And that was very valuable, I did that throughout the whole process, for all different facets. I mean, in some ways, that’s…how we have such a great sound mix; we did the mix at Skywalker Ranch. They hooked us up; but that’s also because of the length of the project, and all the assets of the project.
If you go HeadTraumaMovie.com, it’s totally unlike any other film site. It’s an interactive comic with all kinds of weird stuff hidden underneath it. There’s actually two whole hidden sites underneath the site, and it was done as a totally different approach. And when I launched it, it was all about extending the narrative of the movie, it wasn’t about, “Here’s the cast, the crew, and the trailer.” It was about an experience, and this is similar to what the movie will be like. So, if you get a chance, check it out, because I think it’s a great way for people to see what’s being done. Because there’s a whole other side to what I did, where I harness free technology and was able to spread the word, I was able to promote the movie through my MySpace friends, so they could post fliers for me, and doing sticker campaigns before I got to a city. I was able to really harness social networking and the Internet as a way to kind of do grassroots promotions; I mean, I didn’t buy any ads or anything.
