Back to the orientation.
It was presented by Jonathan Wolf, Executive Vice President of the Independent Film and Television Alliance who organizes the AFM every year. He proceeded to tell us how the IFTA benefits distributors and sales agents and that you cannot become a member of this organization unless you are an accredited company, which it seemed none of us were. However, anyone can download sample contracts from their site, for a fee, which are considered the boilerplates of the industry. Great if you want a boilerplate contract. I guess I started to lose interest right after he proclaimed that using film festivals to present your film should be your route of last resort because the longer you were on the circuit, the more soiled your film becomes in the eyes of a distributor. OK. I was going to be late for my first seminar session in the hotel next door, so I hurried away. I don’t think I missed much.
The first seminar I attended was “No Direction Home: Changing Indie Distribution Strategies” sponsored by BAFTA. I thought this was an interesting conversation given what was going on in the hallways upstairs. Sales agents represent the old way of doing business and this panel represented the new order. On the panel were Mark Burton, President of IndieVest; Ted Mundorff, CEO of Landmark Theaters; Jon Reiss, filmmaker and author; David Shultz, President of Vitagraph Films; and Leslie Urdang, President of Olympus Pictures. It was a lively discussion which pitted some old world thinking from Mundorff and Shultz, who often work together, with new distribution ideas primarily from Reiss. Mundorff told the crowd that even his Truly Indie outlet that provides a four wall type theatrical release in 4 cities will cost $75,000 minimum and if the producer doesn’t have that budget, Landmark really can’t help. When challenged by some that they had theatrical success with Laemmle’s for far less, he remarked “well, that’s Laemmle’s.”
After the panel, I made my way upstairs to walk the hallways. It was pretty quiet with some sales agents having already packed up and left the hotel since many of the buyers were already gone. To read the publications covering the market, sales were made in many territories, but it must have happened in the early part of the festival. I have read that in markets past, the elevators were packed, the halls crowded with people wanting to set up meetings and the lobby was crawling with wannbe’s so that you couldn’t find a chair to sit on, but I didn’t have this problem. Mostly what I did hear from the conversations with the agents was that a film must have a “marketable” cast (meaning pretty close to A list or at least up and comers) and a large seven figure budget to work with in order to pique the interest of buyers at the market. A marketing hook or two and a brilliant story are also key.
I returned to the market on Tuesday for two much anticipated seminars: “The New Rules of Indie Marketing” and “The New Hollywood Movie Studio: New Power for the Indie Filmmaker in the World of New Media and Social Networking.” The new rules seminar featured Ondi Timoner, director of WE LIVE IN PUBLIC, currently playing in theaters domestically and internationally, who talked about the various ways she marketed and promoted her film after winning the Sundance Jury Prize and then receiving distribution offers that were laughable. The essence of the seminar stated the new rules are largely the result of poor offers for distribution, often way below what the budgets were for production and this has emboldened indie filmmakers to seek out ways to reach their audiences on their own.
Timoner said even though she works with an extremely limited budget, she has found support from audience as well as from celebrities such as Ashton Kutcher and Demi Moore on Twitter who drove over 40,000 people to the website after one tweet. Press stories were created just from the phenomenon of using tweet quotes on the film’s poster. WE LIVE IN PUBLIC has screened in only 10 cities besides several film festivals, but has created a stir enough to book 25 city screens in the UK. The film gained special consideration from the Academy for private, online streaming for journalists which was a first for the Academy. Normally, online streaming disqualifies for consideration of an Oscar nomination.
A key point was made that filmmakers must know who their audience is before they start shooting. The audience determines the success. An independent film won’t be embraced by everyone and these films should not try to chase everyone. The studios are in the business of buying a large audience. They buy advertising in bulk, spending millions. Low budget independents do not have that luxury so they must be more creative and selective about how to reach their audience.
The film being made should be on a subject the filmmaker is very familiar with and finding the audience will be simply a matter of tapping into people who hold the same common interests as the filmmaker. Start the conversation with the audience early and keep it going and give them the tools to discuss with others, too. A caution was issued that warned filmmakers not to get too emotionally involved in a story and forget to be smart about their resources and their discipline. They really need to look at the audience first and make sure that the story being told has one, and how big it is and how much money should be spent to reach them with that story. Don’t make a film and hope for the best.
Most importantly, the producer must have seed money set aside for marketing and distribution, even if the plan calls for traditional distribution. There must be a marketing plan because there are many marketing angles to take advantage of during production (stills, early trailers, production videos, interviews etc.) that can only be done during production. Dennis Rice, a panelist and former head of marketing with Disney and UA, said “When money is tight, often marketing and publicity are the first to get tossed out, but this is a huge mistake. Investors will be willing to fund marketing when they know it goes to selling the film. It only protects against investment loss.”
