Ira Glass on promoting 'Sleepwalk With Me'

Rachel Dodes, interviewing Ira Glass for the Wall Street Journal's Speakeasy blog as Sundance film Sleepwalk with Me comes to theaters:

Could you talk about the challenges of opening an indie film?

It came out of the distributor explaining to us that with this sized indie film everything depends on how you do the first weekend. You just open in one theater traditionally. And you need to kill at that theater because up until then you are a completely unproven product in the market. So other theaters need to see that you did well in order to book you. Mike’s feeling is, “It’s only like 200-something seats and it’s only this many shows, like, we should be able to sell that out.” Mike will perform at a 2,000-seat venue in New York. When we do a “This American Life” show again, it’s easy for us to fill 1,500 seats in New York or L.A. or Chicago. So, it didn’t seem that hard. The people at IFC are still like, “Well, we’ll see.” So we made the video to let the audience know we will be there, and please show up. It’s been an interesting business problem, figuring out how do we harness the audience and the marketing power of the radio show to get people to come out to the movie.

Not every indie film will have the relative star power of Ira Glass behind their film, but I like the fact that Glass and Birbiglia don't rest on their laurels. They've been beating the drum relentlessly for this film, including a tongue-in-cheek boycott video from Joss Whedon, who facetiously views Sleepwalk as a threat to The Avengers. Every producer and director should work this hard to promote their films, even if they aren't friends with the creator of Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

Why do festival-winning films fare so middlingly at the boxoffice?

Shawn Levy, writing for OregonLive.com:

In fact, it turns out that few films that win even the most prestigious prizes at the most prestigious film festivals ever become true box office sensations.  Consider these Sundance-winning titles:  “Like Crazy” (2011), “Frozen River” (2008), “Sangre de Mi Sangre” (aka “Padre Nuestro”) (2007), “Quinceañera” (2006), “Forty Shades of Blue” (2005), “Primer” (2004), “American Splendor” (2003), and “Personal Velocity” (2002).  It’s an estimable list, with some real treats and a couple of Oscar nominations in the bunch.  But the eight films made a total of $14,980,000 -- combined.  Boxoffice success is surely not a sign of quality, but it seems that films that get such a huge boost from America’s premiere festival ought to do better, no?

I am shocked, shocked to discover that festival programmers and audiences don't represent the general moviegoing public.

Fantastic Fest founder Tim League speaks @Google

Film festival organizers and filmmakers should understand the Alamo Drafthouse philosophy – in an industry where theater attendance is declining, the Alamo is reliably doing great business. Not only that, this theater chain is expanding into film festivals, distribution, and merchandising.

Should I Stay or Should I Go: The Rise of Cinema-on-Demand

Fest programmer Stephen Jannise, writing for the Austin Film Festival blog:

As far as we have come with on-demand movies, and as comfortable as most people have become with viewing films at home, the allure of the movie theater is still not lost on a majority of filmmakers.  Playing in an actual cinema remains the ultimate dream, but the low costs and accessibility of VOD are so appealing to studios and distributors that this dream is even less likely to come true.

I think we'll see roughly as many indie features make it to screen as we ever have – for those films "worthy" of a big screen release, there is a definite correlation between a good run at the cinema and subsequent home video sales. However, with more indie films getting picked up for VOD distribution, the overall percentage of films that have theatrical distribution before they are made available to home audiences will shrink.

Zellner Brothers Fill Idiosyncratic Niche at Sundance

Christopher Kelly for the New York Times:

Then there’s the story of David and Nathan Zellner, filmmaker siblings from Austin, who prove that starry-eyed Sundance still embraces deeply idiosyncratic work made on a shoestring budget. After screening some of their short films at the festival, the filmmakers introduced their eccentric debut feature, “Goliath,” there in 2008. A comedy about an aimless thirtysomething (played by David) whose life begins to come unglued after his cat goes missing, “Goliath” received encouraging reviews and eventually secured a video-on-demand and DVD release through IFC Films.

But the brothers didn’t immediately book one-way tickets to Los Angeles. Instead, they chose to remain in Austin, where they continued to make shorts and direct music videos for their favorite local bands.

Sundance offers distribution "safety net" for its alumni

John Anderson at the New York Times:

a wormhole has opened up between Sundance Past and the Online Present. Through it, films seemingly lost in time — or swallowed up by the gaping maw of bad distribution deals, or no distribution deals — might find commercial redemption.

Thanks to a recent arrangement between the Sundance Institute, which operates the festival, and the Manhattan distributor New Video, six Web homes — Amazon, Hulu, Netflix, iTunes, YouTube and SundanceNOW — are making Mr. Noonan’s movie, and any other eligible Sundance film, available for streaming online. The option is open to every film ever shown at the festival, or brought to a Sundance lab, or given a Sundance grant. Filmmakers don’t surrender their rights. They (17 so far, with thousands of potential participants) can opt to go with any or all of the half-dozen sites. They have, in essence, a guaranteed means of distribution.

Read Sundance Offer New Video Streaming for Films - NYTimes.com.

Louis C.K. self-distributes standup special

Peter Kafka at AllThingsD covers the recent release of Louis C.K.'s standup concert directly from the comedian's web site.

The new twist here is the way his experiment changes video “windows” — which determine when shows and movies show up on different outlets. By going direct-to-fanfirst, C.K. doesn’t shut off his chance to end up working the Big Media Companies he says he doesn’t want to work with. He’s just making them wait. So the people who really love him can get it right away, and he can capture almost all of that value in the transaction.

Kafka points out that there's plenty of room for traditional distributors to get in on the action after the first "fan-only" release:

Let’s say, for argument’s sake, that a million people pony up for the concert — basically, that is, everyone who watches his (great) show on News Corp.’s FX channel. (News Corp. owns this site, too.)

That’s a wildly optimistic estimate, and it will still be a fraction of the people that HBO, which has some 28 million subscribers, can reach. You can fault Big Media for a lot of things, but it remains pretty good at rounding up Big Audiences.

Filmmakers looking for validation in the DIY distribution model need look no further – the more experiments like this that we see, the more likely it is that distributors will look seriously at filmmakers who prove their worth by finding their own audience first and building a platform for bigger things later. While distributors have traditionally viewed DIY distributed films as damaged goods (perceiving the sales already out the door as missed opportunities for them), the model of building on previous success may become more common. Let's hope so.

Does Exclusive Content Matter?

Ashkan Karbasfrooshan at mediapost.com, writing about online video distributors like Hulu and Netflix:

Now don’t get me wrong, while content is king, monarchies are no longer in vogue; indeed the distributors have the power. Any producer that doesn’t “get this” is living in the past. But to ensure that advertisers keep the system running, distributors need to please viewers. To do that, you have to give viewers the content that they want when they want it.

The lesson is that producers are still paying the price for giving away too much, too easily, too fast. That kind of reputation is hard to shake. But once they realize they can have the upper hand if they play the game right -- then maybe, just maybe, they can get the diamond they deserve.

Read Does Exclusive Content Matter?.

(Via Amy Letourneau.)

Tribeca and Sundance Film Festivals Plan Big Growth - NYTimes.com

The New York Times on rumored plans by Tribeca and Sundance festivals to increase their distribution efforts:

Tribeca plans on Monday to announce a significant expansion of its fledgling movie releasing arm, Tribeca Film, which was founded last year as a test in releasing movies both digitally and in theaters. Tribeca Film plans to increase its annual output to 26 pictures, up from 11.

So of the roughly 5000 feature films that get made each year, fifteen more will have greater hope of seeing distribution. Let's be generous and assume that 500 of those films (the top ten percent) are actually worth watching. A plan for an additional fifteen seems like a drop in the bucket. Not that I'm criticizing Tribeca (or Sundance, who declined to comment for the article) for making the effort, but the problem seems larger than that.

Personally I'm more and more of the opinion that Ted Hope's fears are true: that the explosion of independent film (enabled by ever-cheaper movie making technology) has created an endless series of first-time hobby filmmakers. The career filmmakers will still emerge, but it will be harder and harder to distinguish who they are until later in their lives, and it will be harder for them to hang on through the onslaught of hobbyists who make one film and then decide that independent film is too hard.

I was also amused by the reporter's definition of the festival world, which seems to encompass only the top ten or twenty festivals nationally. In particular I chortled at the assertion that Sundance is unlike other festivals in that is a non-profit (most fests are non-profit) and that SXSW is "in the minority" in not having a department dedicated to distributing films that play at the festival. The festival directors I know are mostly busy figuring out how their events will survive from year to year to worry too much about what happens to the films afterwards. Not that they wouldn't love to help more, but distribution beyond the festival bounds isn't really in the mission statement of the vast majority of film fests.

Watch Twitter and the indie film blogs for much discussion about what this means to indie filmmakers (as a species, not much) and possibly a resurgence of the old "festivals should give filmmakers a cut of the ticket revenue" idea, something I wrote about back in 2008.

In short – it's always nice to see big festivals try new things, but a new model of compensation to flimmakers for their work is unlikely to be the result.

Drive-In Theater Sees Revival In Illinois

A fun story from NPR about the resurgence in popularity of a drive-in theater in Illinois. Having survived the onslaught of home video, the theater has become a social hub for local families. The result? They're knocking down an abandoned cineplex to add a third screen.

The takeaway for filmmakers: there are all kinds of ways to watch movies, and therefore all kinds of ways to get your movie seen. You just need to find the hook that makes your screening an event.

Read (or listen to) Drive-In Theater Sees Revival In Illinois.

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Photo credit: Wools.

Planet Money: We See Angelina's Bottom Line

Planet Money is one of the best podcasts out there, and in this episode they strike close to our collective heart: the accounting involved with film distribution. This should be required listening for every filmmaker looking for distribution for their film. After hearing this, it should be no surprise that independent filmmakers are routinely screwed out of their share of a film's proceeds by creative accounting similar to what the studios use. It's fascinating, terrifying stuff.

There's this weird thing in the movie business: Almost all movies lose money. Except they don't, really.

On today's Planet Money, Edward Jay Epstein, the author of a recent book called The Hollywood Economist, explains the business of movies.

As a case study, he walks us through the numbers for "Gone In 60 Seconds." (It starred Angelina Jolie and Nicolas Cage. They stole cars. Don't pretend like you don't remember it.)

The movie grossed $240 million at the box office. And, after you take out all the costs and fees and everything associated with the movie, it lost $212 million.

This is the part of Hollywood accounting that is, essentially, fiction. Disney, which produced the movie, did not lose that money.

Listen to Planet Money: We See Angelina's Bottom Line.

Edward Burns on festivals and digital distribution

Q. After your experience with "Purple Violets,” which was released exclusively on iTunes, did that sour you on the prospects of digital distribution?

A. For us, Purple Violets didn't have the highest profile. I don't know how well it did for the financiers. The problem I've had the last couple years is, you make these films, you get released in New York and L.A., and then you're going to platform from there. A lot of times you don't get beyond the second platform. But I've always had the ability to get pretty decent publicity for my films. You have, let's say, people in St. Louis and Kansas City and Cincinnati who might see Selma Blair on Conan talking about the film, get really excited for it, and then it doesn't get to that city. And by the time it comes out on DVD, they've forgotten about seeing Selma Blair and getting excited. What the iTunes thing enabled, in the moment when you have your greatest heat, publicity-wise, everybody who's into your film can access your film. For the small movies, that's probably the model that makes the most sense.

via artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com

Edward Burns on festivals and digital distribution

Q. After your experience with Purple Violets, which was released exclusively on iTunes, did that sour you on the prospects of digital distribution?

A. For us, Purple Violets didn't have the highest profile. I don't know how well it did for the financiers. The problem I've had the last couple years is, you make these films, you get released in New York and L.A., and then you're going to platform from there. A lot of times you don't get beyond the second platform. But I've always had the ability to get pretty decent publicity for my films. You have, let's say, people in St. Louis and Kansas City and Cincinnati who might see Selma Blair on Conan talking about the film, get really excited for it, and then it doesn't get to that city. And by the time it comes out on DVD, they've forgotten about seeing Selma Blair and getting excited. What the iTunes thing enabled, in the moment when you have your greatest heat, publicity-wise, everybody who's into your film can access your film. For the small movies, that's probably the model that makes the most sense.

via artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com

YouTube quietly expands online rental store

According to a YouTube spokesperson via email, “When we announced YouTube Rentals in January we said we would be creating a destination after more partners joined the program. To date, we have nearly 500 partners that have joined our Rental program.

via newteevee.com

YouTube's online rental concept was introduced at the Sundance Film Festival in January and it looks like their model of presenting films currently running the festival circuit will continue. For example, you can rent Metropia (which has played extensively in Europe, at Fantastic Fest, and is now playing at Tribeca) on YouTube for $5.99.

Selling your film - when is the best time?

My argument here is really with the notion that a premiere at a major festival is your point of maximal awareness. It’s not, never has been and never will be, unless such festivals do a lot of re-visioning of what they are and how they operate. It’s truly a sign of the self-absorption of the entire industry that they can think this is remotely true.

via springboardmedia.blogspot.com

Brian Newman follows up this past weekend's "The Conversation" conference with some thoughts on fest premieres and building awareness for your film.

Saskia Wilson-Brown on the (not) changing role of film festivals

I think we’re assigning and bemoaning this dwindling commercial purpose to small festivals retro-actively in light of a perceived dearth of distribution deals – a dearth which, again, is only really relevant to festivals that were the hosting space for sales in the first place, and entirely irrelevant to the continued purpose of the small festivals who saw no such activity in their meeting rooms. Most annoyingly perhaps, small festivals gamely play along, trotting out their one or two success stories as bait for a system that never functioned for them or their filmmakers in the first place.

via saskiawilsonbrown.com

This is the first of five thoughts Saskia intends to post on the subject of festivals as they relate to distribution – I can't wait to read the other four.

OpenIndie Hopes to Bring Theaters within Filmmakers' Reach

Eric Kohn's article in indieWIRE explores a new startup concept from Arin Crumley and Kieran Masterton.

OpenIndie.com will allow filmmakers to input their e-mail lists and discover locations with high audience demand. The grassroots strategy allows movies to reach their intended audiences with a community-based approach. Because the site is open-sourced, anyone can enter a location into the site and figure out the level of interest for specific movies.

Read DIY With a Little Help: OpenIndie Hopes to Bring Theaters within Filmmakers' Reach.

The Kickstarter page for OpenIndie has an explanatory video and a donation button.

Twitter, File Sharing and Pink Slime

Brian Chirls on Jake Abraham's Tweet This.

What this is really about is taking advantage of Twitter and other communication tools to play a major part in the global conversation about your work. (If there isn’t one, you need to start it.) Piracy on Canal St. happened before the Internet, and illegal downloading happened before Twitter. As Abraham acknowledged, you can’t stop it. Beyond pointers to free downloads, people are going to be saying lots of things about your film that you don’t like, including bad reviews, off-brand descriptions of your work and possibly even lies or personal attacks. The power of the Internet is that you can be in on it. You can know it’s happening, you can respond to it and you can preempt it.

Read Twitter, File Sharing and Pink Slime.

Yet another DIY film distribution article - NY Times

In anticipation of the upcoming Toronto Film Festival, the New York Times regurgitates what every filmmaker with an undistributed picture already knows:

The glory days of independent film, when hot young directors like Steven Soderbergh and Mr. Tarantino had studio executives tangled in fierce bidding wars at Sundance and other celebrity-studded festivals, are now barely a speck in the rearview mirror. And something new, something much odder, has taken their place.

Here is how it used to work: aspiring filmmakers playing the cool auteur in hopes of attracting the eye of a Hollywood power broker.

Here is the new way: filmmakers doing it themselves — paying for their own distribution, marketing films through social networking sites and Twitter blasts, putting their work up free on the Web to build a reputation, cozying up to concierges at luxury hotels in film festival cities to get them to whisper into the right ears.

Nothing new here but it's always nice when the major news outlets turn their attention to independent film and the problems we're facing now.

Web Series: 4 Things to Ask Yourself Before Starting

From the blog of Felicia Day. Apart from being adorable and talented, Felicia is pretty smart. She's been around the block a few times with the whole "original web series" thing which, at the end of the day, is the same as independent filmmaking. All four of these questions apply just as much to your indie doc feature as they do to her web series about online role-playing gamers.

The internet isn’t TV: It’s 20 million channels rather than 200. If you can’t sit down and easily identify what kind of person will like your show and name 5 places that person might go to on the internet, you will have a hard time getting the word out, no matter how good it is.

Read Web Series: 4 Things to Ask Yourself Before Starting on Felicia Day's blog.