Filmmaking Stuff Filmmaking Stuff provides resources for independent filmmakers. The website includes articles on how to take a story idea from script to screen, including articles on scriptwriting, producing, finance, shooting, editing, directing, marketing, distribution and how to build an audience. Filmmaking Stuff also has articles detailing how to make money making movies – including interviews with Hollywood Producers, Directors, writers and other filmmaking professionals.

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The other day on the Film Distribution Group on LinkedIn, I got into a discussion about the wonders of distribber.

I thought some of the points may be useful for your own movie distribution strategy. I have edited and altered the original conversation to keep it anonymous.

Also, in full disclosure, I am sponsored by distribber. This means that I get paid to promote. So do your own due diligence prior to utilizing any services mentioned here.

Here is the film distribution discussion:

Q:  How is MovieSalesTool different than a traditional distribution “middle-man”?

A:  Most traditional “middle-men” lock you into an exclusive deal. So even if the deal turns out to be less than promised, as a filmmaker, you’re stuck. Distribber is non-exclusive. You can leave any time.

Q:  A sales agent only makes money on the back end. With distribber, you pay money upfront?

A:  Correct, each digital marketplace has various fees. Without looking at the FAQ page, I believe iTunes is $1295 for standard def and you get that money back minus $39 dollars if your movie is not accepted. You can also access Hulu for less than $800, which is a great deal for filmmakers. Past that, each outlet, like cable VOD has a separate charge.

Q:  It seems like a lot of services are focused on making money based on a Filmmaker’s desire for distribution.

A:  This is why the distribber model does not take revenue off the backend. It’s a one time, upfront, done deal.

In regards to your comment about services making money – There is a whole independent film history of filmmakers getting royally screwed by traditional DVD distributors who held the keys to the kingdom. Now that distribution sales channels are less discriminatory, I would say that we have entered an era of transparency.

Q:  Many aggregators keep the gatekeeping model alive and well. And because of this, many indies are still shut out from access to popular marketplaces.

A:  Yes. Many traditional distributors are playing aggregators – but it is not the same game. The internet has fragmented traditional, physical retail sales channels. And with companies like distribber, filmmakers now have easy access to the popular marketplaces.

Q:  Amazon allows filmmakers to get into the market, without scraping up the money required by distribber.

A:  In terms of paying money upfront, if that is the only issue – then I have 2 questions:

1. Do you think your movie will make less than the required $1295 on iTunes? If so, then distribber may not be a good fit for the project.
2. Since distribber is owned by IndieGoGo, you could always do a crowdfunding campaign to cover the distribution gap.

Special thanks to my LinkedIn friend Elizabeth for the questions.

Yes filmmakers. The world of distribution has changed. This is an awesome time to make, market and sell movies. If you are looking for a system to help you get into the action, check out The Independent Producer’s Guide To Digital Distribution.

Posted under DISTRIBUTION

Image by Mike Licht, NotionsCapital.com via Flickr

Most filmmakers have no idea how to optimize their movie website. Most filmmakers have no idea what the word optimization means.

As traditional distribution sales channels erode, replaced by various internet marketplaces such as Amazon and iTunes, it has become essential for filmmakers to increase traffic to their website.

The first thing I suggest is to reserve your domain name and get your site hosted at a reputable company. My partner movie site host is a great for this. But there are others too.

Once your site is hosted, I recommend forgetting HTML and instead opting to set up a wordpress site. WordPress is a content management system. The reason why I prefer this type of setup over HTML sites for movies is ease of use. If you know how to send email, you know how to update the content on your website.

Here are examples of wordpress websites for movies:

• Career Courier The Movie
• Toxic Soup Movie
• Special Dead Movie

In all of these movies, you’ll see a very similar theme. The sites are simple. Some people might even argue that they are too simple. But this is incorrect. These sites are designed to optimize conversions. When a visitor comes to the site, we don’t want them to get lost.

Instead, in the case of Special Dead, we want the site to say:

Attention Zombie Fans Seeking Good Zombie Movies!

Special Dead  is a must see movie about zombies attacking a camp…

If you check your stats and see visitors are getting distracted by pages that don’t lead to the sale, you must get rid of those pages, or optimize them to continue the funnel process.

Related articles

• How To Create a Filmmaker Website (filmmakingstuff.com)
• Internet Marketing For Filmmakers (filmmakingstuff.com)
• What is Your Filmmaking Niche? (filmmakingstuff.com)

Posted under DISTRIBUTION

Like it or not, many social networking sites run the risk of going out of vogue. So as a filmmaker, if you are working to build a relationship with your audience – From day one, you will want to migrate your fans off the social networking sites and get them into your own email, mailing list.

For this, I recommend using a reputable third-party email marketing service such as www.AudienceList.com.

In full disclosure, the company does pay me to promote, but it is the company I utilize for my own business.

With this tool, as soon as you sign up for one of their inexpensive accounts, you can easily create ways for your movie fans to connect with you. For an example of how this works, STOP: If you would like over $47 dollars in useful filmmaking tools for FREE, sign up below:

If you just clicked that link, you probably got an email asking you to confirm your subscription. Assuming you clicked, you were then redirected to a “Thank You Page.” And on that page you were able to download all sorts of premium filmmaking tools, for free. This is what legitimate email marketers call the “double-opt-in” process.

While I am obviously utilizing list-building to create a more meaningful relationship with filmmakers (and YOU), this model can be (and should be) applied to your own movie business.

The major difference between email marketing and traditional movie marketing methods is that members of your target audience find you, and give YOU permission to email them. This is important, because unlike traditional movie marketing methods, with email marketing, you will only communicate with people actually interested in your movie.

To make this easy, your audience list is simply a collection of email addresses. Most filmmakers will also collect the person’s first name with the email address so that they can personalize the email. So instead of saying “Hello Zombie Movie Lover”, you can say “Hey, Jason!”

While I usually stick to just collecting a name and email address, www.AudienceList.com also makes it easy to collect information such as the address and phone number of your site visitor. While this extra information may help refine your  marketing strategy – the truth is, most of your movie website visitors will not take time to fill out an extensive opt-in form.

An opt-in form is a little box that asks visitors to provide you with their name and email address. Here is an example:

With services like www.AudienceList.com, as soon as your visitor opts-in, the contact information is added to your database and managed for you, automatically! These subscribers are now part of your “list,” and you can email them with updates, deals and movie festival screening times – to name a few examples.

The other week I gave a talk at the UCLA film school. And someone asked me why I emphasize audience list building so much – So this is important. Given the disruption to traditional distribution sales channels, building an audience list for your movie and your career might be one of the most important decisions you ever make. Why? Because regardless of how the independent movie industry changes, one constant will always hold true. YOU will need to get people to sit down and watch your movie, and hopefully pay you for this privilege. www.AudienceList.com can help you get started.

Posted under DISTRIBUTION

Do you know of any film festivals seeking someone to put on a film festival workshop? If so, please send them a link to this page.

Over the next year, I am hitting the road. I’m going from city to city to spread the word about modern movie distribution tactics and how YOU can benefit. I am doing this because the independent movie market is saturated with competition. And as a result, finding a traditional distribution deal for your movie (that actually pays money) is increasingly challenging.

After failing to garner a traditional distribution deal for my first feature film, I had to figure out how to market and sell my movie through modern internet marketing strategies. The good news is, five years later our movie is still selling!

As a result of this experience, I have developed an easy to follow, step-by-step modern movie distribution presentation. In it, I show independent filmmakers how to maximize movie profits without the middle-man!

If you are interested in seeing me live, forward this article to every film festival director you know. And if you can’t wait to see me, watch the video below:

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“Exceptionally sharp, focused and insightful, Jason Brubaker knows how to squeeze profits out of a film release. When I have to deal with marketing – whether it’s getting a film released or setting up a panel discussion – Jason is on my team. He knows how to do the job and he knows how to explain the process.”

-Norman Berns; Emmy-Award Winning Producer

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“Jason delivered a terrific presentation at The Business of Entertainment IV networking event. His topic was “How to Sell Your Movie Without a Middleman” and featured insights and tips on how students and independent producers can leverage Internet distribution for a profit. Jason was informative and entertaining; and he received excellent reviews from the participants. We will definitely engage Jason again and look forward to more of the same professional and personable observations and advice!”

- Von Johnson

Thank YOU for helping me spread the modern moviemaking movement.

Posted under DISTRIBUTION

With an independent movie market saturated with competition, producing a movie and finding a traditional distribution deal is increasingly challenging. After failing to garner a traditional distribution deal for my first feature, like a lot of filmmakers, I had to establish my own marketing company.  And through the process, I figured out how to market and sell my movie online.

Now, nearly six years later, I’m still cashing checks. In the following video, I provide my 7 step sell your movie system and I also reveal the five most important questions any independent filmmaker should answer before making their movie.

I hope you enjoy the video. Also, if you would like more information on how to sell your movie without the middleman, check out www.HowToSellYourMovie.com

Posted under DISTRIBUTION

Image via Wikipedia

As a filmmaker, you probably know that most prospective investors are business savvy and inevitability, one of their pressing questions will be: “How do you plan to sell this movie and return my investment?”

In the old model of filmmaking, traditional distribution was a lottery. So to answer that question, most filmmakers, especially first time filmmakers said something like this: “Filmmaking is risky. If we are lucky, we will get into Sundance and get a distribution deal.”

Investor: “What? That’s not a business – that’s gambling!”

THE NEW MODEL FILMMAKING (EXAMPLE)

Disclaimer: What I’m about to share is total FICTION and should NOT be used in any business plans you create because I am neither a lawyer or an accountant. And I express my right to free speech as I share this imaginary scenario. 

Filmmaker: Well, in our business, we hold the rights to an outstanding screenplay that taps into a well targeted, genre specific audience. We have budgeted the movie for $100,000 dollars. And given the genre, we do not need star talent. We are keeping the budget low – most folks have agreed to work for a salary, and all have agreed to residual compensation in the back end.

At present, our crowdfunding campaign has allowed us to test the concept. And with sixty days left in the campaign, we have already sourced several hundred donations, giving us $8,000 dollars to pay for our website, marketing and PR.

Upon completion of our movie, the title will available in all the popular marketplaces, including Amazon and iTunes. And as we speak, in addition to crowfunding, we have already contacted our audience list of 20,000 people (from our last movie in a similar genre) who have expressed interest in this upcoming title. Combine this with several partner filmmakers which will roughly expand our audience footprint to well over 250,000 targeted viewers.

So at the time of release, if we project sales at 2% of 250,000 people. This means that 5000 people will download the movie at 9.99… which will be close to 50K minus a 40%  marketplace fee and a 10% commission to our partners – and we should be able to immediately return $25,000.

Each subsequent quarter, we would like to continually re-invest 10% of the revenue into further list building efforts. And we would like to keep 30% for the producer and crew compensation. Which should leave you with a 60% cash dividend, to be paid quarterly. Assuming we can bring in $30,000 per year, in 7 years we will have more than $200,000 in revenue for this title. At that time, $20,000 would have been paid to marketing, $60,000 would have been paid to cast and producers and $120,000 would have been paid to investors.

As soon as we pay back the initial investment, we would like to split our revenue 60/40. In other words, the producers and crew would get 60% and you would continue to get 40%.

Prospective Investor: I see…

Filmmaker: Of course, there is always the small chance that we could get lucky – if we got a 5% return on our initial campaign, and 12,500 people immediately downloaded the movie at $9.99, our revenue will be close to $125,000 – minus expenses. But I need to remind you that this is not likely. And we would still have to pay a commission.

Prospective Investor: Oh. This makes sense.

Fimmaker: Great. Would you like to invest?
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While I have provided a FICTIONAL example of how some filmmakers may decide to navigate this new movie business, my whole point here is this:

It is important to realize that success of a movie is no longer based solely on handing off the movie to some 3rd party distribution company. If you want to make it in this new world of filmmaking, you need to stop waiting for someone else to manage the business aspects of your movie and your career. Instead you now need to take a vested interest in the success of your project.

If you’re helming your movie project, nobody cares about it more than you. But if you aren’t afraid to provide everybody on your team with a bit of ownership too – you’ll soon be surprised to learn that word of mouth spreads a lot quicker when your entire cast and crew has a vested financial interest in the project.

In this regard, when you win, everybody wins!

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Three resources you can grab right now:

1. Fat-free Movie Making ideas for those of you who hate asking permission:
www.FreeFilmmakingBook.com

2. Follow me on Twitter to get cool micro-ideas on how to make your movie now:
www.twitter.com/filmmakingstuff

3. Connect with me on FaceBook so you can tap into my 2000+ Movie Maker connections:
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Filmmaking-Stuff

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DISCLAIMER (again) – I’m a filmmaker – not a lawyer or accountant. I’m expressing my freedom of speech for your entertainment. If you’re still reading this, I want to make it very clear that I made most of those figures up as a fictional EXAMPLE. You’ll have to figure out your own numbers and crunch your own data and make your own relationships with prospective investors. And always speak with a qualified professional before you do anything.

Posted under FILM FINANCING

Earlier this week, Sheri Candler was spreading word of mouth about a test screening of Gary King’s indie film musical:  How Do You Write A Joe Schermann Song. So I did something I haven’t done for awhile – I got out from behind my computer screen to meet and mingle with some new filmmakers face-to-face.

As the lights dimmed and Gary’s movie flickered across the screen, I was reminded of the year I lived in New York City. This was a time when I couch surfed between a sofa and an inflatable air mattress, all the while dreaming that I would someday make movies. Admittedly, maybe these memories were flooding back as a result of Gary’s movie. I mean, the story is based in Manhattan.

During the screening, and afterwards, I realized I have been missing something I haven’t felt for years.

I have forgotten the joy that comes from participating in activities with other folks from the indie filmmaking community. And I also realized that my world of indie filmmaking (once defined and limited by the following filmmaking mantra): save up all summer and buy an Arri BL, scrape together enough money to pay for film and processing, make the movie and PRAY for a distribution deal that makes sense – I’m pleased to say that era of filmmaking is over.

As a result of lower priced production equipment, coupled with new, non-discriminatory distribution, YOU can make, market and sell your movie this year and you don’t need to ask permission. Filmmakers like Gary King epitomize this movement – asking questions like “How do you write a Joe Schermann Song“ starring awesome actress Christina Rose (nice work Christina!)

Past that, there is something else. While the studios are excited about UltraViolet and a new attempt to control their piece of the world wide web, our thriving indie community could care less. Instead of worrying about traditional distribution, modern movie makers are more concerned with their YouTube following – and the size of their growing audience.

As a filmmaker, you are part of movie making history. And you probably don’t know it. But like all artistic and social movements that have come before, you are riding this wave. The question is, will you take advantage of this opportunity – or will you find yet another reason why you can’t make your movie this year?

ALSO:

At the screening, I met close to a dozen people who claimed to have heard of me or knew me from this website. Please give me some time to adjust socially – It’s not every day that people approach me and quote my ideas back to me… But I want you to know I am honored and grateful for your readership.

This is usually the part in the article where I ask you to sign up for my newsletter.

Posted under FILMMAKING

Many filmmakers with an independent movie and no deal make the mistake of forking over their VOD rights to bottom-feeding traditional DVD distribution companies, who promise iTunes and other outlets.

Let me ask you a question. If instead of making movies, you simply wanted to open your own frozen yogurt stand – would you ask permission to sell your yogurt? Why should your independent movie business be any different?

Yet as filmmakers, we have the tendency to fork over our rights based solely on the promise of some crappy distribution deal. Sometimes these deals snag our rights for up to seven years.Why do filmmakers do this?

Because in the old days we have been conditioned to believe that adding a middleman will magically create revenue beyond what the filmmaker could otherwise create on their own. And that’s stupid.

Unless you have a distributor that can source a hungry target audience eager to see your movie, you may be better served to cut out traditional distribution middlemen altogether.

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If you are a filmmaker with a movie, before you give up your filmmaking rights, check out this website: www.MovieDistributionCompany.com

Posted under DISTRIBUTION

Filmmakers often utilize film festivals as a way to get their work seen and hopefully sold. And while acceptance to top-tier festivals is super exciting – the reality is, many filmmakers do not get in.

As a result, many of these semi-dejected filmmakers take a shotgun approach to their festival strategy. They start applying for most every regional and local film festival, everywhere. And aside from outlandish application fees, upon arrival to these festivals – instead of  meeting a bunch of VIP acquisitions executives, most second tier festivals are populated by a bunch of other desperate filmmakers shoving postcards in your face, eagerly advertising their screening times to, well, other filmmakers.

Sometimes this includes free beer. (Most times not.)

While having delusions of distribution grandeur is still part of the film festival fun – with the demise of DVD distribution, and the odds that you won’t get into Sundance – it is vitally important that you create a film festival strategy PLAN B.

What is a film festival strategy PLAN B?

Simply put, if you are serious about making your movie profitable, YOU are now responsible for marketing, promotion and distribution of your movie. And inline with this strategy, you must view regional and second tier festivals as an opportunity to build your audience list. But instead of handing out postcards to other filmmakers, your marketing strategy will be smarter.

Here are five tips on making film festivals relevant to your movie business:

1. Write a press release specific to the festival and then distribute to the local press. This also involves picking up the phone and personally inviting the press to attend your screening. Many festivals will have a press list. You can use this – but I would also advise conducting additional internet searches for other press outlets.
2. Many local towns have a filmmaker community. Reach out to them. If you are traveling, it’s great to have someone to pal around with. The secondary benefit to this is, many of these same people will have relationships with the festival staff – always good to know people on the staff.
3. If the festival allows it, see if you can take several clipboards into your screening. You’ll want to collect the names and email addresses of each viewer and get their permission to email them. Later you will enter this data into your audience list.
4. If your film website does not include a blog component, add one. Then update frequently. Add pictures and video. Let the world know your movie is screening. People like this stuff.
5. And finally, most regional festivals have panel discussions with industry experts. Make sure you attend these. Take your business cards. And then try to build relationships with whomever is on the panel. (And as a side note, if you know anybody looking for a panelist – I suggest inviting Jason Brubaker from Filmmaking Stuff? Just sayin’)

Out of everthing I mentioned, the most important strategy for your movie and your modern moviemaking career is grow your own fan base. This way, when you focus on building your audience list, you stress a lot less about the traditional distribution deal you may or may not have received at one of the notorious festivals.

So yes. Film festivals are still relevant. They offer a great way to source an audience for a minimal marketing investment.

Also, I’d like to thank one of our filmmaking stuff readers named Michael for this question. If you would like to get on the filmmaking stuff VIP list, click here >>

Posted under DISTRIBUTION

If you’re already a seasoned feature filmmaker, take a moment and think back: Do you remember when the idea of making movies seemed like a far away dream?

Do you remember when you first got the idea for your movie? Do you remember Your first day of production? Do you remember your first screening and how well everyone loved your work?

That happened to me with my first feature. Like you, I thought our movie would get into Sundance, play well, build buzz and if we were really lucky, we had hoped the movie would garner us a 3 picture deal. But that didn’t happen.

Sure, we got some offers, but they were not “deals.” (A deal actually pays money!)

So instead of exchanging our movie for an empty promise, we decided to try selling our movie on the internet. Little did I know, this one decision has changed the course of my movie making life. That was five years ago…

And since that time, the internet as evolved. If you’re a filmmaker with a movie, you need to get it selling in all the popular internet marketplaces, including Amazon and iTunes.

You don’t need a middle-man to make this profitable. I am going to show you my internet marketing secrets…

You can check out my “How To Sell Your Movie” system by visiting the website here.

Posted under DISTRIBUTION