Self Distribution advice?

W

wescotte

Member
I've just recently completed work on my first feature length film called The Amateur Monster Movie. It's a comedy/horror similar in style to Shaun of the Dead. We had a few offers for distribution early on with direct to DVD companies. I don't know the name/details of the offers but I was told they weren't that great and we had to give up certain levels of control. Anyway, after a year on the festival circuit it was decided our best course of action was to do self distribution.

So we authored our DVD and started taking orders with friends, family, and anybody following our Facebook page. We were able to do enough in presales to pay for our DVDs to be printed and have plenty extra to sell. So we decided in order to get more people to see the film we'd release it free online. The idea was just to get the largest amount of people possible to see the film and hoping those who really enjoyed it might be interested in purchasing a DVD copy loaded with bonus features. The other hope was building a larger audience who might be willing to support future projects as we have a second film in post right now and a third in preproduction. So having a large fan base from a film released for free might help build momentum for future releases and if we need to ever fund raise for future projects.

You can watch the film on Vimeo and Youtube as well as download it via torrent from The Pirate Bay.

So, I guess what I'm asking is does anybody have any general advice for how to promote this film? Any self distribution advice? Or even just stories of your experiences with distribution.

Do you feel our web site look professional enough to you to purchase a DVD from? What do you think of the price? Any suggestions besides PayPal?

We've been contacting all sorts of online publications (very large and very small) to do reviews both and haven't really been able to get any results... Can you guys recommend any specific reviewers to contact? Or methods for contacting them? If it's really a spend money to make money kind of thing? Any general advice on how to do this effectively?

Because we don't really have an advertising budget we have really focused on word of mouth type advertising through social media.. Facebook, Reddit, Fark, 4Chan, etc... But if you guys have any suggestions of any kind I'm all ears. I guess we're all surprised at how difficult it is to get people to watch your film even when it's free to watch online. So, any advice would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks
Eric Wescott
 
I know you seem set on self-distribution and you're doing all the usual things, but sometimes a bit of professional advice may help. Do you have a film distributor in your area? If you have, and haven't already, it would be a good idea to contact them. They don't just do cinema - they have a whole range of ways to get your film into the market and probably would be interested in talking.
 
Rainer said:
I know you seem set on self-distribution and you're doing all the usual things, but sometimes a bit of professional advice may help. Do you have a film distributor in your area? If you have, and haven't already, it would be a good idea to contact them. They don't just do cinema - they have a whole range of ways to get your film into the market and probably would be interested in talking.
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I personally haven't done much research in that area but the writer/director (Kyle) was working with an entertainment lawyer on a regular basis. I believe they investigated several possibilities and he wasn't convinced they were worth doing. Our film is already out in the world via Youtube, Vimeo and torrents so I think at this point there is no real going back. Really, at this point we're just trying to find the best ways to get it out in the world and use it as a stepping stone for future projects.
 
I think a good place to go to get some serious distribution information would be filmspecific.com It is a paid site but you could sign up for just a month and read or download all of the resources. Congrats on making the film. Would you be willing to share some background info? Equipment used, lessons learned, what you edited with, etc? Thanks so much!
 
Microfilmmaker is an online magazine that will review anything you send them (although i believe theres a small fee...$25 or $50 or something). Just be warned, they are not gentle. If there are flaws in your movie they will be commented upon in typical snarkily brutal film critic style.
 
Josh Bass said:
Microfilmmaker is an online magazine that will review anything you send them (although i believe theres a small fee...$25 or $50 or something). Just be warned, they are not gentle. If there are flaws in your movie they will be commented upon in typical snarkily brutal film critic style.
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This is exactly what I was looking for. We've submitted for reviews to quite a few sites.. Most are either to big to care or too small to really influence anybody. I'm starting to think the mid size ones that charge a small few might be the way to go. I haven't actually done any just yet because of money reasons but I'm going to give them a shot. Know any others off the top of your head?

I have a good amount of statistics from Google Analytics for our website and Youtube/Vimeo stats. So I can actually track how effective our spending is now. It's pretty strange just how different the numbers are from Youtube to Vimeo. Vimeo has less views but probably a 5:1 complete watch advantage compared to Youtube. I wish the reporting was the same.. Youtube only gives you total time spent watching but never mentions if somebody watched the entire thing. Vimeo logs who watched the whole thing but doesn't tell total minutes watched. So it's kinda hard to really compare the two.
 
prexdealer said:
I think a good place to go to get some serious distribution information would be filmspecific.com It is a paid site but you could sign up for just a month and read or download all of the resources. Congrats on making the film. Would you be willing to share some background info? Equipment used, lessons learned, what you edited with, etc? Thanks so much!
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You can see a ton of production stills on our Facebook page. The equipment evolved over time as we got more experienced and gained access to better equipment through school and made more local contacts.

Camera: Canon Vixia HV30. Two of our crew owned it so it was kinda the easiest camera to get access to. We considered the XHA1 through school but it would have been difficult to get access to it 20 weekends in a row since they had such limited quantities.

Sound: Started out with a cheap shotgun gaff taped to a broom stick into a cheap mixer running directly into the camera. The second year of filming we were using Sound Devices 722 record and Sennhiesier MKH60 shotgun and a few Sony wireless lavs UWP-C1. You can see in day 54 of the production stills we were forced to gaff tape a mic to a friggin tree branch because our reservation for a boom pole got poo pooed up last minute and we had to improvise.

Lights: Started with clamp lights and work lights. Eventually moved on to Lowel Omni's, Atman 650s, Kino Flos

The film was edited on Final Cut Pro 7, graded in color and mixed in FCP and SoundTrack Pro. Shake and After Effects for VFX work. I was the assistant editor, editor, post mixer and did some visual effects. So I learned an absolute s*%tload about workflow and everything in between. It was quite the task to develop a workflow that let us share work between several people in several different locations.

I think we ended up shooting just under 60 full days over the course of Summer 2009 and 2010... It was originally set to be 40ish days in Summer 2009 but due to weather, inexperience, and the ability for cast to cancel on short notice made us run behind. We halted production and waited until Spring. Then the main actress decided she didn't want to finish the film with only two days of shooting left. So we rescheduled and were prepared to make it happen in a single day. She went back and forth about finishing but in the end she just quit responding to us all together. So we were forced to recast and re-shoot all her scenes again... It's quite a long story but you can get a decent overview from my conversation with Kevin Smith. Since we re-shot much of the film a lot of the older footage didn't match up well. It just looked bad in comparison because we learned so much since then. So we ended up re-shooting quite a bit more than what we had to just to give some continuity to the film.

It took us about 18 months to shoot the film with around 60 shooting days in all. Our original editor was too busy to really work on the film. He kept saying he wanted to do it and did a little bit here and there but eventually a year later we (Kyle and myself) had to take on the task because progress was moving just too slowly and only mabe 5 scenes were even assembled Eventually school was taking it's toll and we just didn't have the time to finish it ourselves. So we ended up paying a few guys to spend about a month fine tuning everything because we couldn't have gotten it done for the Jan 1 2011 premiere. They did all the sound design, VFXs, graded, and fine tuning of the edit and handled legal issues. We had a great screening with just over 700 people attending and then we started submitting to festivals.

After school ended for the semester I picked it up again and Kyle and myself decided to fine tuned the edit over the course of like six months and was able to chop almost 15 minutes off the film. We had somebody else redo the grade and I redid the audio mixing and put the entire film through a noise reduction process. Then we sent out to a few more festivals and school picked up again and it kinda slowed down. Then we authored the DVD and bonus features over the course of another 3-6 months. Which brings us to today.. About four years after we started production on the film.

Lots of talented people joined on to help out at the beginning but very few stuck with it until the end. It's really great to find a group of dedicated people to work with so long and really finish a project. I still can't quite believe we pulled it off given so many problems. Overall it was an incredibly rewarding process and invaluable in teaching me so much so quickly. We just shot our second feature this past summer (in post now) and did it in like 14 days. Looking back it's crazy that we were able to keep everybody together for so long without being able to pay them. I don't think I'd attempt to do it again unless I really trusted everybody involved and being able to pay those I didn't. It was just such a large project over such a long time period that I can't believe we finished it at all. I'm sure I put at least 4000 man hours into the project myself over the almost four years we worked on it.
 
Sorry, don't know any other review sites like that. After they tore my SHORT film a three-page-long new anus (didn't know a film could have an anus, did you? Well, mine does now. And How.), I decided that was it for trying to get reviews. I realize with features being an actual saleable commodity, it's a different story and you can really benefit from sort of press/publicity. I feel you on trying to get anyone to care, at all, as well. It's very tough for me to get even people I regularly see to give a crap about my projects, so good luck.
 
Josh Bass said:
Sorry, don't know any other review sites like that. After they tore my SHORT film a three-page-long new anus (didn't know a film could have an anus, did you? Well, mine does now. And How.), I decided that was it for trying to get reviews. I realize with features being an actual saleable commodity, it's a different story and you can really benefit from sort of press/publicity. I feel you on trying to get anyone to care, at all, as well. It's very tough for me to get even people I regularly see to give a crap about my projects, so good luck.
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I feel your pain. Right now we're getting closer to just making films in a manor that we can afford to pay for ourselves and don't worry about profit. The limitations of that kinda suck but as technology improves it's getting less and less an issue.

I'm pretty confident in 10-20 years you'll be able to make what was a big budget action film for 10s of thousands instead of tens of millions. Which then means just about any other story can be done as a hobby for next to nothing as long as you have dedicated people. The future is bright for film makers!
 
wescotte said:
I'm pretty confident in 10-20 years you'll be able to make what was a big budget action film for 10s of thousands instead of tens of millions. Which then means just about any other story can be done as a hobby for next to nothing as long as you have dedicated people. The future is bright for film makers!
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I agree - but there will be a glut of movies, even moreso than now. Getting recognized admist all the crap will be even harder. The advent of better cameras has meant that film festivals now get thousands of more submissions than they did 10 years ago. Even getting into a low tier festival is like winning a lotto - and then when you go, there's maybe 10 people in the audience. You could have the greatest effects and best script ever, but getting it the recognition it deserves will become even more difficult in the future.
 
The issue with distribution is making sure you understand the difference between delivery and marketing. For several years now there have been platforms in place for low cost delivery of content starting with Amazon's DVD service, etc. Today there is Vimeo, YouTube, GigaPlex and a handful of digital delivery platforms catered to short and long form content. That is actually the easy part. Studios and such, or the most part are not just about delivery, but large marketing machines to let the world know that something is available and entice you out of your money. That is a whole industry unto itself and JoeC mentions, becomes more challenging daily with the onslaught of either good or bad material being made at all levels. There is only so much time in a viewer's day, and deciding why they should spend money and watch your content versus someone's else's becomes your job. And it takes time, a lot of time. Most filmmakers rather move on to their next project that take the time to grow an audience, curate their content, and stick with it over a period of years in some cases. It's like raising kids.

Combine that with all the social media outlets now available, it should be easy right? But the noise level just keeps going up - even facebook has challenges keeping itself relevant and it is one of the current pillars of social media. I have seen contracts with some low end distributors where the filmmaker still has the to do the heavy lifting with marketing, key art, fulfillment, etc, where I really have to ask what they are bringing to the table for their rather large share of the revenue stream.

And it's not like getting a sales agent and sales to distributors is an easy answer either. I made a decent (by my standards) film several years ago for a total of $8,000 plus two years of mine and other talented people's time. Was able to get a good sales agent, and over the next 2 years they made deals into 5 foreign territories. The largest one in Japan for $25K. But I have yet to see even a dime once all the dust settles from any of those deals as there is always costs associated with deals that are under the cap in the contract, and I always seem to be "this close" but still has not happened. The creative bookeeping of distribution is one that is always discussed in Hollywood. It still seems to be the case, that get the most money up front, never expect to see anything from a back end deal, and budget for that. So I continue to make films, but I am not making a living at producing and owning content, I make a living in other ways in the same industry.

It's sad, but somewhat true the saying that goes: "there's a lot of first time filmmakers, very few second ones."

We do it for the love of creation.


Michael
 
wescotte said:
I'm pretty confident in 10-20 years you'll be able to make what was a big budget action film for 10s of thousands instead of tens of millions. Which then means just about any other story can be done as a hobby for next to nothing as long as you have dedicated people. The future is bright for film makers!
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This has been the case for decades, with every technology, even film. It got cheaper (16mm, S8) and the cameras got smaller. In the big picture it's all relative. What has changed in the past 5 years is the ability to create an image that is on par with 35mm film. But I have seen more films using these digital cinema cameras that forget that there is more to it than pixel resolution. Wide range exposure does not replace "lighting" and shallow depth of field is a storytelling technique like the choice between a CU and MCU in how you want the audience to interact with the story at that moment in time. And for the most part, the below the line costs for productions has been the same or slightly lower over the years other than the large tentpole VFX driven type productions (and see what is happening to the VFX community right now). Most of the costs are above the line - and that doesn't really change based on what camera or editing system being used.

And I agree that being surrounded by dedicated and talented people helps, filmmaking is one of the most collaborative art forms that exist - but each of those dedicated talented people would like to make a living at it too. So while you may get them once to work for free or very low, it usually doesn't happen twice. If it's a hobby it's one thing - if it's a living, it's another.

Michael
 
MichaelP said:
Studios and such, or the most part are not just about delivery, but large marketing machines to let the world know that something is available and entice you out of your money. That is a whole industry unto itself and JoeC mentions, becomes more challenging daily with the onslaught of either good or bad material being made at all levels. There is only so much time in a viewer's day, and deciding why they should spend money and watch your content versus someone's else's becomes your job. And it takes time, a lot of time. Most filmmakers rather move on to their next project that take the time to grow an audience, curate their content, and stick with it over a period of years in some cases. It's like raising kids.
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It's mind blowing that films with wide theatrical release often match and exceed their costs to make the film just on advertising alone! But, that's what they have to do to ensure people see the films. I totally agree with you about the time it takes to grow an audience. It's so much more labor intensive than you think and can be the least enjoyable part of the process for most.

It's really hard for an indy film to justify matching/exceeding their budget for so many reasons. One, it's hard enough to raise the funds to make the money in the first place and the only thing worse than promoting a film is the process to raise money to make it in the first place. Also, it's easy to fall into the "I made a good movie, it should advertise itself" trap. We all want our films to go out into the festival circuit and be fought over and backed with real money. Yes, it happens all the time to a few great films but they are the exception. For everbody else it's a grind because the shear volume of filming being made.

And it's not like getting a sales agent and sales to distributors is an easy answer either. I made a decent (by my standards) film several years ago for a total of $8,000 plus two years of mine and other talented people's time. Was able to get a good sales agent, and over the next 2 years they made deals into 5 foreign territories. The largest one in Japan for $25K. But I have yet to see even a dime once all the dust settles from any of those deals as there is always costs associated with deals that are under the cap in the contract, and I always seem to be "this close" but still has not happened.
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This was one of the main reasons why we decided to self distribute. We knew it was going to be hard to promote the film but we were going to have to do it anyway because very little time and money would be spent on our film even with any distribution deal. Sure, we'd probably sell more physical DVDs but we wouldn't see any of that money unless it exceeded their expectations which doesn't happen because they don't spend the money to promote the films nor can they when they release so many. By far the most attractive path was to use like distribber and get it on major digital distribution channels like Netflix, Amazon, iTunes, etc... But there is a decent cost to do it and you still have to advertise your own product. They're not going to do it and the chances of a viewer stumbling over your film is slim.

We decided to go the spend the least amount of money route which was take preorders in order to pay for our DVD printing run. Then toss it on Youtube/Vimeo for free (well Vimeo plus wasn't free but damn close) and just grind it out. If we manage to sell enough DVDs we can actually start to make some decent money. We're not talking millions in sales but just a few thousand and we start to see decent returns. So, it's possible but it definitely takes more effort than most people think even if you have a great product. I really wish we could find people interested and willing to do the marketing because like you said most filmmakers don't like this part.

It's sad, but somewhat true the saying that goes: "there's a lot of first time filmmakers, very few second ones."
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Agree 100%. We have our second film in post right now and three in prerpoduction. So we're doing it... I just hope we can sustain it and get to a point where we can produce a film every year or every other year and the marketing ceases to take more time and money than actually producing the film itself. But, that's probably a pipe dream because Hollywood hasn't even figured that part out yet.

It's possible to make movies as a hobby and fund the production all on your own. Most people have to work for free but it can be done. It's just such a labor intense process it's hard to keep doing it just for the love of it sometimes but the future looks brighter. We can do so much so cheaply now and it's only going to get better.
 
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MichaelP said:
This has been the case for decades, with every technology, even film. It got cheaper (16mm, S8) and the cameras got smaller. In the big picture it's all relative. What has changed in the past 5 years is the ability to create an image that is on par with 35mm film. But I have seen more films using these digital cinema cameras that forget that there is more to it than pixel resolution. Wide range exposure does not replace "lighting" and shallow depth of field is a storytelling technique like the choice between a CU and MCU in how you want the audience to interact with the story at that moment in time.
Michael
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I'm assuming that the future of film making will be motion capture + photorealistic CG. Once we get past a few of these hurdles you will be able to do/modifiy everything in post. At that point talent will be surpassed by dedication. A small crew willing to put in the work will be able to produce a film that looks like it has the same production value as the most talented of film makers. Once we can achieve that it hopefully story will be king again instead of eye candy and those lucky enough to be backed by large promotional campaigns. I see this being a reality in 10-20 years for Hollywood and independent films being able to compete with them very shortly after.
 
Music, writing, art... they all have significantly lower barriers of entry than filmmaking but even for them the internet and self distribution has not leveled the playing field between those with large financial backing (like a studio, label or publisher) and those without. There are of course indie success stories but they are not the norm. Since '98/'99 I've been hearing how the major labels were dead and bands would all self-fund and self-release their own music directly to fans yet it's 2013 and while the model has expanded some the major labels are still the major labels.

As flimmakers we've had 'good enough' technology for around a decade and when everyone and their brother has access to good enough tech and everyone and their brother has access to streaming, global distribution methods (some revenue generating, some not) the problem shifts from "How to do I get my movie made?" to "How do I get my movie viewed?". Distributors and audiences are getting flooded with record amounts of content which makes it that much harder for diamonds in the rough to stand out and be recognized. The amount of time the average person spends watching movies is dwarfed by the increasing growing amount of video content out there and that ratio is only going to continue to grow.


-Andrew
 
Not to get arty farty, but I would like to think that one of the things people like about TV/movies, animation aside obviously, is the fact that you're watching PEOPLE do things (except for the thriving donkey porn genre), and if it's all mo-cap/CGI, I think something gets lost. I think, no matter how good, you're gonna lose something when it's computer graphics instead of actual humans. Maybe for your "Transformers" type movie that works, I don't really see people flocking to see the CGI version of [insert name of indie film about old man dying of cancer and reflecting on his life] or "Parks and Rec"/Breaking Bad/etc. (TV shows).
 
adkimery said:
Music, writing, art... they all have significantly lower barriers of entry than filmmaking but even for them the internet and self distribution has not leveled the playing field between those with large financial backing (like a studio, label or publisher) and those without. There are of course indie success stories but they are not the norm. Since '98/'99 I've been hearing how the major labels were dead and bands would all self-fund and self-release their own music directly to fans yet it's 2013 and while the model has expanded some the major labels are still the major labels.
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Really good point... While we are saturating the market with films I think we have several advantages those other mediums don't... As you stated the barrier for entry is larger so it's harder to saturate the market to the same degree as other mediums. Yes, Youtube has an insane amount of content but it's a whole other world from making a feature length film than it is doing Youtube videos or even shorts.

Filmmaking requires a level of organization, planning, and collaboration that makes solving these issues more natural. While a band may take a year to cut an album I just can't see the same level of problem solving going into it. Yes, it takes collaboration to make an album but it's more manageable because you can directly interact with all the parties. With film it's just too large scale for one person to manage. Everyone has to do their job and trust each other that it gets done. I think it's this level of organization and trust that will help pave the way for distribution models that other art forms just were't capable of making happen.
 
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