With all the DIY filmmaking and distribution hype out there these days, its often still difficult to sell your film to the widest possible audience. This is unfortunately still a fact in all low budget filmmaking. But here are some interesting facts to still consider.
Although still a bit competitive (and after a while a little expensive), film festivals remain the absolute best showcase to broadcast your film and to announce/promote its subsequent DVD release. Dont believe us? See for yourself.
Not many people sell their films at film festivals anymore - even the major ones. However, DIY smash hits like Four Eyed Monsters, Mutual Appreciation, Hannah Takes the Stairs, Four Dead Batteries, Quiet City, Puffy Chair, and Cry Funny Happy (to name a few), all had one thing in common - they started with a film festival screening. A friend of ours, NY-based DIY filmmaker Anthony Grippa, writer/director of the low budget film Running Funny, bypassed all major film festivals for his film's promotion - but he still had the "push" necessary to broadcast his film to more people than just his own blog, website, Youtube, Facebook, and Myspace pages. I have been talking online to Anthony, just to anticipate the possibility of not receiving a major film festival acceptance for our films, to see how he manuevered without the help of the film festival circuit.
I got an interesting answer. He didn't. Although it wasnt a top tier film festival, Running Funny still had the push assistance of The Woods Hole Film Festival, where he managed to also pick up the Emerging Filmmaker Award. This helped boost Anthony's film into more festival screenings, and an increased awareness about his blog, and his website, where fans or attendees (those who were there or who missed it) could still track the film's progress. He then played at the Williamstown Film Festival, and then began to follow up on his wave at his own college screening at Fairleigh Dickinson University in Madison, NJ (not too far from his hometown Hoboken), and then he self screened at Anthology here in NYC.
After educating himself for a DIY DVD push, a funny thing happened. With the benefit of the word of mouth and larger numbered networking features of 2 and 3rd tier film festivals, Grippa managed a DVD release deal with LifeSize Entertainment, who were able to assist Grippa in his DIY DVD release that included deals with Blockbuster, Netflix, Hollywood Video, etc, thus giving his DIY film the best possible push without screening at any major tier one festivals.
Soon afterwards he was able to land a one-week theatrical run at Facets Cinematheque in Chicago beginning on November 21st '08 that led to some great press in major publications that further helped fuel his DIY DVD release. Not bad for a guy who avoided (and was rejected from) major film festivals worldwide.
A lot is made about the internet and its capabilities to market indie films, but less is mentioned about the fact that the films even the purest of film fans can mention by name, have all began their runs, in one way or another, at a film festival, regardless of the tier. Again, this is not ideal nor really fair. But right now, it is the game we are in, until that day when this all changes. For now, I dont see this as a set back or roadblock, but an artistic challenge simply to make better films, or at least make films we feel can unashamedly compete, to some degree, in the low-budget marketplace.
Four eyed monsters never went to SXSW, but opened first at Slamdance, where after not getting a deal, Susan Buice and Arin Crumley began to document their struggle to find distribution, and thus became the legendary web series known as Four Eyed Monsters - the webisode series. Dont take our word for it? Ask them both yourselves if they did not benefit from the initial push of a festival.
These DIY films are so vast, so diverse, so different, yet I find it amazing that most filmmakers that I know about, for the most part, share one thing in common - a film festival screening(s) as an initial push, and especially thereafter their release. We discuss this at length in our film family, and it basically is agreed by all parties involved, that shunning festivals altogether is something none of us wants to do, even while plotting our own DIY distribution possibilities. Again, no one disputes that festivals are not the only game in town, but neither is a release without one.
Another huge part of the filmmaking process is reputation. I have seen people seek certain actors or collaborators that were PERFECT for their stories, only to have to further convince or sell themselves (sometimes unsuccessfully) as working professionals simply because no one could find them on IMDB. I have seen filmmakers get denied vital investment money not simply because they weren't on IMDB, but because there was no record of progress besides their own website and public profile. Not that this is cool by any means; its just another harsh reality of our business. Indieflix wont assist you selling or promoting your film on their site without a prior festival screening of some sort, and the same has been with IMDB (although the process is now evolving on that site).
One of the best analogies I heard was from the lead singer in a band that I am friends with. He said that for him, booking his own show is great because its his own, he can control it, and he may sell a few CDs afterwards. But when he played at SXSW, and other Lollapalooza-like showcase venues, where he gets to play with other bands he has never met, that he got a chance to play for their fans, and gain new ones. He also said that networking was better in those venues because later he would lose a drummer, and knew of a drummer he had met who wanted to alternate to different types of rock besides the band he was playing in. It worked out perfectly for all parties involved. Most importantly, he said he never had so many site visitors until after those venues, and sold more CDs the week after the venue than he had in his entire push, and it took much less time, work, and most of all money. My friend was recently able to quit his day job and play the music he loves full time. He is not rich, nor does he try to be. But he, his band, and their new drummer currently gig regularly in Manhattan.
"Sometimes anti-establishment can be more establishment than not."
- M. T.
We hear ya, man.
http://www.runningfunnymovie.com/
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