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Conversing with Dana LoPiccolo-Giles, Pg. 3

MF: One of the easiest ways to see how successful a distribution option can be is to look at the filmmakers who have utilized it before you. Do you have a significant success story you’d be able to share with us?

DP: Yes! We have many. Here are a few highlights. Please let us know if you would like further details on any of these members.

  1. Labrador Pictures – Dave Barry’s Complete Guide to Guys
    In 2005, Labrador pictures turned Dave Barry's laugh-out-loud book, "Dave Barry's Complete Guide to Guys" into a motion picture. Once the film was ready for release, CustomFlix offered Labrador Pictures a quick and easy solution for distribution with DVD on Demand. Based on the buzz they built through self-distribution with CustomFlix and selling on Amazon.com, Labrador pictures secured a great deal with Monarch Home Video one of the oldest independent distributors of home video, landing "Guide to Guys" in all of the major retail outlets including Blockbuster, Hollywood Video, and Netflix.


  2. Haskel Wexler – Who Needs Sleep?
    After a 19-hour day on the set, assistant cameraman Brent Hershman crashed his car and died when he fell asleep at the wheel. Following his death, two-time Oscar-winning cinematographer Haskell Wexler wrote, directed, and filmed his documentary “Who Needs Sleep?” to create awareness of labor practices in the motion picture industry. After a successful premiere at the 2006 Sundance Film Festival, the documentary received universal praise, but no commercial interest. Determined to create support for the need to bring about change, Wexler used CustomFlix, the leader in DVD on Demand services, to distribute his film. His DVD has continued to be a top seller through CustomFlix DVD on Demand.


  3. Joel Harper – You on a Diet
    Prior to November 2006, Dr. Mehmet C. Oz and Dr. Michael F. Roizen were preparing to introduce America to the latest diet phenomenon and what would become two top selling companion products on Amazon.com – the No. 1 sales ranked book "You On a Diet: The Owner's Manual for Waist Management" and the No. 7 sales ranked DVD “You on a Diet Workout.” The "You" doctors were looking for a way to enhance their waist management concept, losing weight and waist, with an accompanying workout DVD, realizing that consumers value and often purchase companion, mixed-media products. So the duo teamed with celebrity trainer Joel Harper, who turned to CustomFlix to fulfill anticipated demand for his DVD.


  4. Matt Gannon & Michael Sarner – In the Crease
    In October 2006 Matt Gannon and Michael Sarner, finished directing their first independent film, "In the Crease", depicting the inspiring, true story of one young hockey team's journey to becoming national champions and the life-altering impact the sport had on the team’s diverse players and their families. In an effort to reach a worldwide audience, Gannon and Sarner chose to bring the film directly to the DVD market with CustomFlix DVD on Demand. In less than two months of becoming available for pre-order on Amazon.com, "In the Crease" became Amazon.com's No. 1 Top Selling Sports DVD and reached No. 35 in sales rank on Amazon.com's Top Sellers list for DVDs.

MF: What does CustomFlix do to help market the films in its catalog?

DP: Given the incredibly broad range of titles in our service, we can’t do effective direct marketing of specific titles. Instead, our goal is to provide the platform and tools for our members to be successful.

All films in the CustomFlix catalog can be sold on Amazon.. Amazon.com offers discovery and recommendation features that help the tens of millions of Amazon.com customers connect to the content they want. We’ve seen many of our members increase their sales by making their titles available through Amazon.com.

We have found that our members usually know their audience better than anyone else, which helps them take the lead in promoting their own titles. CustomFlix Members can promote their titles in all sorts of ways – some have teamed up with national organizations to get the word out to organization members, while others have created co-branded products recognizing that consumers often value and frequently purchase mixed media products. Some have even been lucky enough to be featured on Oprah!

MF: Companies like yours represent an avenue of distribution that a lot of filmmakers don't know is available to them. A lot of movies get produced and are never made available to the public. What do you think the technical innovations of the internet, broadband, and digital filmmaking might hold for the future of microbudget filmmakers, and how does CustomFlix fit into that future?

DP: This is an exciting time to be a filmmaker. The tools and technologies have come a long way in a short time, and the future undoubtedly holds many advances that will make it even easier for filmmakers to realize their creative vision.

A fascinating convergence we’re seeing is high def and digital projection. High def is finally real and accessible. Even a few years ago, it was hard to imagine that filmmakers would be able to create near-film quality movies with affordable HD cams and software. Digital projection has the potential to unlock small-scale theatrical release for indie filmmakers. HD projectors coupled with HD-DVD and Blu-ray Disc are turning home theaters into micro-cinemas. CustomFlix has announced Disc on Demand support for both new HD formats. Put it all together and getting your film onto a big screen gets radically easier.

The other exciting trend is online video 2.0. The founders of CustomFlix (who also founded Terran Interactive, Inc.) were deeply involved with streaming media back in the Web 1.0 days -- CustomFlix is a direct attempt to overcome the short-comings of the first generation of streaming. In the past, customers were generally unwilling to pay for online movies, but we’re pleased to see that trend changing with the recent wave of paid video download services. Podcasts are also changing the ease with which filmmakers can share their works with the global community.

MF: Thanks so much for  chatting with us.  Your company is definitely helping to change the face of Ultra-Indie film distribution!

Mike Flanagan is an award-winning writer, director and editor of four feature films, including the critically acclaimed horror film ABSENTIA. Based in Los Angeles, Mike has also worked as a professional television editor for over a decade, helming programming for Discovery, Bravo, A&E, and other networks. He is currently in pre-production on his fifth feature film, OCULUS, a feature version of his award-winning short.

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