It’s called the New York Independent Film and Video Festival, and here’s how it works. You’ll pay a very high submission fee. Your film WILL be accepted, they all are. A representative will contact you, most likely with a British accent, and speak vaguely about how much they LOVE your film at the festival. Any specific questions regarding your film won’t be answered, as they probably haven’t seen it.
They will then explain that they will take you on under their “Distribution Company”, ITN Distribution. This is expensive, to YOU, and they’ll need an answer almost right away. You’ll retain them to take your film to the major film markets in America and overseas. You will pay them for a special marketing booth during the festival.
They will take the check and run, and you will not receive any more information regarding your film. At the festival, you will slowly realize that some of the films surrounding you are so amateur and terrible that this festival is obviously taking anything. Everyone will have a similar story about ITN, and those that paid dreaming of their big studio distribution deal will start to realize their story is far from unique. The audience for the film is comprised of filmmakers, all at the festival to showcase their work. No one else will come.
There are a lot of scams like this out there. You’ll also find them in the form of “Producer’s Reps”, a strange and vague profession that has yet to ever, ever appear on a business card. If it does, be even more wary. These reps are not agents, not managers, but mostly lawyers. Many will request, like a good lawyer would, a retainer to market your film. It usually never goes further, and if it does, the deal usually is through a smaller distributor, offers no advance, and no profit share. ALL of the filmmakers I know who have gone this route have reported, years later, that they never made a dime to speak of. These reps will broker a deal with a small company, and while you may get the film out there, you’ll be lucky to make a cent.
Now, some film festival panels on distribution will talk a lot about the Producer’s Reps and how helpful they are. They can be, for bigger films at Toronto or Cannes. But those “reps” are usually agents, managers, or producers themselves, on films with huge budgets and stars. On the Indie level, you’re lucky if your rep moonlights as an attorney. But don’t hold your breath for money.
Do not abandon all hope.
In recent years a number of self-distribution websites have popped up, varying in services and quality, but a remarkable resource for Indie or Micro-Budget Filmmakers.
I’ve tried most of them. If you’re working with a marketing budget, the best bet in my opinion is to have a bulk run of DVD’s made by a company like DiscMakers. Unlike almost everything else out there, they will create glass-mastered DVDs for you. These are, simply, DVDs mastered professionally. They are not copies, not just DVD-R’s, but the same standard and quality that studio DVD releases are afforded. You can design your own jacket and disc face art, and they will ship you a bulk quantity of your movie ready for distribution.
Some filmmakers have luck selling them directly off of their own websites, others go with services like Film Baby. Film Baby will take your movie and put it up for sale on their site with the rest of their library. They will advertise on other websites, and will even help you acquire a UPC barcode and get the film listed on Amazon.com. They will take a percentage for their efforts, and you will be responsible for keeping up with stock and demand, but this is a fine distribution venue for filmmakers with enough time and cash to handle order fulfillment on their own and pay for a large initial run of discs.
But what if you spent all of your money on the film itself? There’s nothing left, and despite finding a fan base on the festival circuit, no studio came calling to purchase your movie.
In that case, there are companies like IndieFlix. I posted my films on this site. The model is simple; you create your master DVD, fill in an online template for information about the film, and send the master in. Once received, they will handle all orders for your title. There is nothing left for you to do. They will replicate the disc, ship it out, and take their cut.
HOWEVER: their cut is a bit hefty. Granted, they are doing almost all of the leg work, but to sell a feature film on their site for $9.95 means that you will only get about $4.00 per copy sold.
The biggest disappointment was for me when I ordered a copy of one of my films, just to see how it looked. It arrived in a slim jewel case, not a standard one. The DVD art I had designed was nowhere to be seen. The disc was simply a HUGE “IndieFlix” graphic, with the title of my film written across the bottom. On the back, a small still image from my movie sat against the IndieFlix pre-designed background, and a blurb. On this particular disc (though I’m assured this is not the norm) they had mixed up the credits and given the directing credit to another filmmaker.
