New Post at FilmProfit
“Our Thinking Lately”
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Service Deal, Self-Distribution, Four-walling
We have come a long way from 1971, when the makers of Billy Jack took their orphan film on the road after a succession of studios abandoned it. The box office of the film eventually reached $40 million. It supposedly still ranks as one of the all-time 100 box office hits ( inflation-adjusted).
In the same year was also birthed Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song, a film that was written, directed, produced, edited, starred-in (doing his own stunts, too), scored, and then released by hand by Melvin Van Peebles. Carried from theater to theater, a starved constituency embraced the film, its ideas, its attitude, and its moxie. Who woulda known?
What I mean is, who ever knows? Who actually knows when a film will strike a chord? Both of these films found their success after being rejected by “the man,” the distribution complex. Now, I don’t believe in “them” and “us,” or “the man” and us, but I do believe that innovation happens in garages, no matter the product line. And independent filmmakers are the garage-tinkerers of the film business, making the things that others find hard to believe in, no matter how many times they are shown that “not believing” is a big mistake.
The core of the business is structured on “not believing.”
- Not believing that a film has an audience
- Not believing that home video will do anything but destroy their business (When it really more than doubled it)
- Not believing that anyone could be so silly as to want to watch anything on a phone, for god’s sakes!
- And so on…
And not believing in a film is a convenient way to avoid all the trouble and heartache and work it will take to make any film the success it is capable of being. It takes that leap of faith and then it takes work and marketing money. It is hard for a distributor to acquire your film. They and their investors are wary. So, they might want to dismiss your film more than embrace it, as embracing it means toil and trouble that feels risky to them. So, they build…
Deal Structures That Devalue Your Film (To You)
This is all about access to market. You want it, they have it. They decide if you get it and set the price for that. This analysis of the market structure has no value judgment, but is meant to strip away the fluff from the press releases, the stroking, the hand-holding solicitation, and look at it clearly. The conventional film distribution deal is tilted away from you, the initial rights owner, and toward the acquiring (rights-seeker). In this way:
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If you would like to read more, go to: Our Thinking Lately
Onward and Upward.
Jeffrey Hardy