When you think of film distribution you think Warner Brothers, Sony, Fox, and Paramount. To get a movie distributed through companies like this, you stand to get your movie viewed by tens of thousands of people at least. You also have a slim to no chance of this happening. The goal of all film makers is to have their film sold and actually make some money back.
With the huge technological boom, not only have film budgets for indy features plummeted, but the distribution possibilities have sky rocketed. With DV and HD format cameras costing under five thousand dollars, no film developing fees and the internet, making a film can be as cheap as fifteen thousand dollars.
Once you've spent thousands of hours planning, shooting and editing your baby, you don't want it to sit on a shelf. Here are my five picks for distribution.
- The Internet is a vast resource. O.K. so what, you know that, right? Wrong. Make a trailer, make a website for your film or production company. Put your trailer up in high definition on your website and on YouTube.com. Make a myspace and a facebook for your film. Make friends. Use StumbledUpon (if you aren't familiar with this google it) and get others to stumble your trailer. This is free advertising and the best kind because it it international and sets great name recognition when you start doing the festival circuit. Which leads me to number 2.
- Film Festivals are inexpensive to enter. If you want your film distributed, it will be through a film festival. If you can get thousands of friends on the internet who enjoyed your trailer or even streaming your feature length film, maybe one hundred will come to the premier at a local film festival. A distributor sees a packed theater of roaring fans, you have a much better chance at distribution. Distributors don't look for their favorite movie, they look for what will sell.
- Most festivals cost but fifty dollars to enter. Take a stab. Try The Big Damn Film Festival. Midwest Independent Film Festival and Muddy Water Film Festival. These are smaller but nowhere near as hard to get a film into as Sundance or Cannes. If nothing else, you meet people and make future connections.
- Software Developers might seem like a crazy facet to explore. BUT many times companies like Apple, Adobe, and Macromedia are looking for people who have made films using their software. If you film has visual heavy parts, great editing or compositing, try looking out for film contest that these developers put on. I once entered a short film into a Macromedia Flash contest and was runner up. Your whole film might not get picked up, but you can score some cash and pull in some royalty checks from their use of the video.
- Online Forums are a great resource. You can put clips up, trailers and production stills. This is a great way to generate buzz and make connections. You'll learn from other indy film makers what they are doing with their films. Build up your friends on there, they will help you. A great one I recommend is dvxuser.com
- Netflix/Amazon/BitTorrent/iTunes are all easy ways to get your film out there. You can submit it to Apple, find a nice agent and get them to help with Amazon and Netflix. Put your film up for download on BitTorrent. If all else fails stream your film 100% free on your website. What do you have to loose? If the film is good people will want to see your next. I'd take one hundred thousand people seeing my movie for free instead of five thousand people buying a dvd. Because when the dvd does get released, you tell the people who've seen it and hopefully they tell their friends. That's great publicity.
Hopefully these tips will help you have the next big indy film, useful pointers on all aspects of pre production to post production to come. Stay Tuned
