There is no Roger Corman

Money: The Root of the Problem

We tend to think of making art as picking up a tool and just doing it, which is an ideal. That can work in painting or writing. But film is a whole different thing. or is it? You can pick up a camera and start shooting. The problem there is that the complexity of film will bring you to a point where you find out you aren't prepared. Perhaps you get into editing and find the lighting isn't working or an actor doesn't fit. So the next time you take more care with casting and getting a good DP and a good grip. That's basically the process of leaning to make films.

David Lynch

However, even highly experienced and seasoned directors and producers complain about the distribution end of things. They can't earn enough money with their films to move on to the next one. Directors like Lynch, Spielberg, Soderberg or Coppola have made statements to this effect. If they can't do it, what are your chances? We're missing an element from the start that we can never get right, and that is knowing what is required to make the film sell.

Roger Corman

It's too bad we just can't all collaborate with professional courtesy on each others films instead of paying each others rates. That's what we did in film school. Some of us carry that over into the business world. In the heyday of Coppola coming out of UCLA joined by Lucas and film school colleagues at USC, those guys had it down. Although Roger Corman was around to give them salaries. Since then a lot of film school grads try to emulate that model. But like a bad marriage, you find out your former classmates aren't right for you. And then there's the fact that we can't really get by in this world without money. To fund a film before you pick up that paint brush, you need a lot of money.

Even huge studios with business and marketing expertise cannot be assured of seeing a film production break even. But we all know all this. We know that no one knows anything. And so we make wine on the side or cut an ear off or die penniless.

The Solution

What we need to do is get the money worked out before we pick up the paint brush. That means we have to make art that will sell. The key to this is the word "art" not the word "sell." The art has to have a mass appeal. We will sell it for only a $2 to $8 rental or maybe a $5 to $25 purchase. We have to sell a huge volume to make out. We can't just make a movie that appeals to ourselves or even a circle of 10,000 like minded people. We need to appeal to half a million or more.

Alternatively we could sell at higher prices. Assuming an audience of 10,000 people will buy our film, we need to sell copies at $100 each to cover a $1 million budget. $50 for a $500K budget and so on. At $5 each we can cover a $50K budget. But only if 10,000 spend $5 each to see our film. And at that budget we get paid nothing. What does it cost a cast and crew to live? Maybe $20K each at the poverty level. You get it.

Obviously we need that half a million people to want to buy our movie. Though government subsidies or grants could work too, except there are 500,000 filmmakers in the world. We'd have to end war to do that.

The number one reason why you can't make a living at this in this world is because you don't make movies that attract a half million people. But that's just the tip of the iceberg, because attracting them is a whole science in itself, which is why we need distributors to market films.

Distribution and Marketing

Sex sells: Marketing image of Sharon Stone in

Joe Eszterhas' Basic Instinct

You may not need to know how to attract a half million people if you can figure out how to attract the right distributors and investors. But they will think they know how to attract the half million and they will look for elements in your film that do that. There are a lot of distributors and investors with varying ideas on what will sell. There are a lot who will sign a deal and you'll never see a penny. You need a film that will make them agree to your terms that give you enough money to cover your costs, and in advance of going into production.

You can go with conventional wisdom with the right marketable script, probably about a contract killer, or a serial rapist, and with a name cast. Or maybe you could prove that people want to see your film by signing them up with your own marketing campaign, like crowdfunding or social networks. If you have an email list of half a million people who are engaged in your project, and if you can prove that to a distributor, you can probably sign the right deal to get your film funded. 

The sellout

Does that mean you have to compromise your art? Maybe. But isn't it more of an artistic challenge to attract an audience? Wouldn't that prove to people and yourself that you are talented on many levels? Isn't that the key to sustaining a career as a film artist?

All those other technical details about how to go about producing, funding, distribution deals, budgeting, collaboration and so on, are important. But the audience is the top priority. Even without distributors you can sell directly if you have an audience. You need to be in a place where distributors need your film more than you need them. If you're not there you have to keep making films to learn how to get there. Try and try again. It's not the seventies. You aren't Coppola. There is no Roger Corman.

Indie movies that sell have these elements. Scorsese,  Coppola. Lynch and the Coens make indie films that sell along with some that don't. They are in a place where I'd want to be as an indie filmmaker.  

But there's always yet another Sundance movie made for a fortune that no one will buy and no one wants to see except the guys that made it and their small following. Those indie films make money for festivals, equipment manufacturers, and even the cast and crew. $3 billion is spent annually on by filmmakers who rarely ever make a sustainable career of it.  The trick is to make movies that make the filmmaker a living, not everyone else.

NOT ANOTHER SUNDANCE MOVIE
A Tastes Funny Original Trailer

Written by: Molly Fite, Susan Mandel, John Ott, Autumn Proemm & Chris Punsalan
Directed by: Chris Punsalan
Photographed by: Chris Punsalan & Stephen Mader tastesfunny.net

Starring: Molly Fite, Dan Banas, Todd McClintock, Samantha McLoughlin & Lucy McLoughlin.

You're Killing Me

Ted Hope posted about the poor state of indie film distribution, his frustration with deals that pay out so little that screw indie producers, and how he's decided to stop producing. This marks a turning point. I had to respond with this comment:

The main reason indie films have distribution problems has to do with compulsive behavior to take whatever deal you can get. [Distributor-Sales Agent] Lists are good, if they are vetted. There are a lot of unscrupulous players out there. And even with good distributors and sales agents, you have to hold out for the terms you want.

If indie filmmakers keep signing all rights deals, then that becomes the norm. If we give distributors 20% off the gross, or add P&A expenses first, then that becomes the norm. These things kill independent film.

I'm pretty sure that in any other industry, the manufacturer is paid a wholesale price for product. If it's not all sold there may be some return. But you don't see retail outlets deducting advertising costs from sales or taking 20% off the remainder sales gross before the manufacturer sees a dime. No manufacturer would agree to those terms. Why do we?

I'm pissed that the guy who produced 21 Grams doesn't want to produce more films, and because I

think it's the fault of most indie filmmakers who take bad deals. 

Every time a producer signs an all rights deal without a six month performance agreement, or with a back-end 20/80 split after unaccountable P&A (publicity and adverting). they are hurting all of our chances to make a sustainable living with film. Maybe filmmakers need more education.

It's just my opinion (see others here), but filmmakers should always retain rights. For example, sign limited rights for a limited period of time, such as six months for foreign territories (performance agreement), while retaining the right to separate domestic distribution, and direct website and digital. If a distributor can't get you a deal in six months you need to move on to someone else or do it yourself. Films age fast. Some are even more timely than others.

You need foresight when you write a screenplay or start a production. I started filming health care reform protests in 2009. I didn't know anything about health care reform. All I knew was that a lot of people were gathering in the streets to complain about it. And it was completely ignored by the news media.  If there's one thing I hate it's the news media ignoring people.  I will not be ignored.

Out there I learned through interviews what it was all about. My questions were as much for me as for my audience. I was amazed to find doctors and nurses out in the streets in these protests. They were (and are) besides themselves helplessly watching people suffer and die, for lack of health care, at the hands of insurance companies who make insurance unaffordable, or even deny claims when people do have insurance. The statistics are outrageous. 48,000 Americans die every year for lack of health care. This happens in no other industrialized country where health care is considered a human necessity, like food, water, police, fire protection, or the golden military. America ranks 37th in healthcare performance and 51st in healthcare fairness among other countries of the world. Cuba has a more fair system than America does. So this got me passionate enough to see through the making of a feature documentary over the next four years.

But the film was not marketable (as Maureen Cruise, my exec producer, notes here). You could assume that distributors did not want to promote a film counter to the healthcare industries (insurance, pharmaceuticals, cancer, hospitals, medical devices) that comprise one-sixth of the American economy (with a 30% overhead), despite the fact that 16 times the number of Americans killed in 9/11 are effectively killed by these industry lobbies every year. So when I was offered an all rights deal at a 40/60 back end split, if I would change the title of my film, my answer was no deal. They offered better terms. But I didn't like the company, nor three others as well. Never heard of them. No deal is better than a bad deal. Post that to your wall. So I decided I would stick to self distribution on my website and Amazon. Maybe I'll go up on Vimeo.

The point I'm making is that you can't take the first deal that comes along, nor the second, third, fourth, nor any, if they aren't good deals. However, most first time filmmakers jump at bad deals. It is almost unheard of to pay an indie filmmaker upfront for their hard work (especially without stars). In the indie world there are rare cases of the MG (minimum guarantee), which means a distributor will agree to pay a minimum amount of maybe $20K for example (usually a paltry sum like that), for the acquisition of your film. There are also rare cases of pre-sales, which means the distributor finds foreign territories that agree to pay a certain amount (usually totaling between 20% and the more unlikely 70% of your budget) for the acquisition of your film. I wouldn't mind some pre-sales and MGs if I could get them. Add 30% pre-sales to 30% in tax credits and you have funded 60% of your budget before the start of production. With that, you can likely easily find investors to back the rest of your budget. But you'll have to finance that 60%, because you don't get it all back until well after the film is finished. If your budget is under two to five million, you likely have to have private investors do that financing for you. A bank or bond company will not be interested otherwise. Regardless, you have to add around 10%-20% of the financed amount to your budget for interest, plus maybe 2% for a bond. That's the way to get a film financed. Also with pre-sales and a signed on distributor, assuming they are credible, you have built in distribution to your project before you even start. Then after production you move on to the next project instead of spending a year or two to find distribution deals or to self distribute. Nice work if you can get it.


If you can't get pre-sales or MGs, then you are left with the tax incentives (up to 30%) and the rest has to be from private investors. On a low budget film, that's doable. But without the MGs or pre-sales, you don't have skin in the game from any distributor. So I think it becomes more likely you'll see bad deal offers, which you should refuse, or revise the terms of. Of course, your investors may pressure you to take them, because of the false perception that having any distributor is lucrative. There are all kinds of distributors and all kinds of deals. Odds are you'll see nothing at all from them. It's likely you can do better to self distribute, especially with the advancement of internet digital distribution.

Self distribution can include self-theatrical (as with Tugg), and digital platforms like Fandor and Vimeo. There are others that you really need to have an aggregator for, like YouTube, Distrfy, Hulu, Roku, iTunes (which I think includes Vudu), and others. An aggregator is a digital distributor that does not deal with theatrical or other things that traditional distributors do, such as P&A.  Indie Rights is an aggregator (and production company) that will give you some great information even if you don't sign with them. They'll tell you where you can easily distribute on your own as opposed to where you need an aggregator. Distributors have to market your film, which is why they want a take, right off the top, to recoup their expenses. So you have to decide if their services are really worth you and your investors making nothing for you effort. But a lot of indie filmmakers and their investors are star-struck and will sign any deal they can get. Without MGs, pre-sales, or contracts that stipulate VOD, cable, TV or theatrical, distributors can take you for a ride. They can go to the aggregators and keep 20% plus the 20% they pay the aggregator as an expense, plus their possibly non-existent unaccountable P&A, leaving you with nothing. If you go direct to an aggregator, they take a straight 20%. But I would want to have some transparency in their accounting as well.

All these numbers vary by film and with time. Things change. A film with names may be more marketable and draw more interest. Splits and interest charges change. You have to talk to a working sales agent or aggregator that has the pulse of the industry to find out what your film can do, and you should do that before shooting one frame, and before booking one actor.  [More on this process information on Stacey Parks's FilmSpecific and Adam Cultraro's Million Dollar Blueprint]

When most filmmakers take bad deals from distributors they make it bad for all of us. It is now the norm to get an initial offer from a distributor for a 40/60 split after P&A or even nothing. In other words, it is now standard practice in the industry to take indie films from filmmakers for nothing in return.  The reason this happens is because indie filmmakers agree to these deals. We give away our films for free. Our $3 billion indie film industry makes a 2% profit because of our bad star-struck habits. Two years after you make that deal, you're frustrated with the business, bitching about festivals and how you can't get a deal, or if you get a deal, how you can't make any money, and so you quit and become an accountant or you make reality shows or you make wine. You're killing yourselves. You're killing the industry. You're killing me.

You may say, well that's the way the business is. If I don't take that bad deal, I won't get any deal. Good. No deal is better than a bad deal (Peter Broderick).  If no one takes bad deals, bad deals will cease to exist. If you keep taking bad deals then don't whine and moan about how bad the industry is, or how it's a boys club, or how the studios screw you over. They screw you because you agree to let them. Think before you sign. Research. Vett. Get an attorney. Where will you be in two years? Will you pay back your investors. Will you be able to say you made a profitable film? Will you be able to find funding for the next one? Will you spend two years at film markets selling instead of making movies?

Capitalism works by supply and demand. Wait for a good deal. Starve the supply. Create demand. The market can't sell films without films to sell. We see the markets manipulated. But as a filmmaker, you are part of it. You can agree or not agree to deals. The market is what we collectively make it. Every time a filmmaker makes a bad deal it hurts us all. It is better to make your film on the cheap with no intention of distribution or sales. If you need investors tell them, this will not be distributed. No money will result. At least then you are free to make your movie and it will add to your experience and repertoire. It will gain you some respect, colleagues, and contacts. It will be the making of a movie and not the selling of stuff at the market. What am I missing?

Why and How to get a Distribution Deal?

Film Production and Distribution
in one Indie Company

You're an indie filmmaker. You can get by with relatively inexpensive equipment, cast and crew and make movies. I made a short a few years ago for $3K, just for camera, sound, and editing software. Then I used the same stuff to do another one for the cost of feeding the cast and crew, about $500. A few years later I made a feature doc for $3K with some new HD stuff. But you don't need a cast or crew for docs. All you need is a camera, editing software, and great events to attend. However, if you do want a cast and crew, and you don't happen to know film school buddies willing to work for free, you really have to pay them, and you may need locations, props, and so on. So we see budgets more likely starting at $50K to $500K for first time feature director narratives.

If you want your film to be attractive to sales agents and distributors you will likely need some name talent. That will cost you anywhere from $5K to $50K at a minimum for a week of their time, depending on how hard up they are for work. But lately the trend is away from names and towards just really compelling stories. The script has become all important as it should be. With a great script you probably can attract some names anyway, which would add marketing value. Actors will want a killer script before they're willing to work cheaply or for a back end.

This is known as the chicken and egg dance thing that filmmakers do with talent and distributors. If you have a script good enough to attract talent, they (their agents actually) may be interested, but they will likely want to first know that your project is funded. If you had the talent signed on first, you could more easily find investors, or even pre-sales to fund the project, just based on the talent. So you have to be creative. Tell the talent that yes you're funded, which you will be if they are interested after reading the script (but don't tell them all that), assuming your distributor and investors concur. And yet it's not that quite easy.

There are requirements and priorities you have to have in place before talking to talent or distributors.

• The script has to be compelling. 
• You have to have a vetted project. You need a professionally done budget and shooting schedule by an experienced UPM (around $2K to $5K). 
• You need to have a crew lined up (to be paid upon funding). And that crew or production company should have a track record. 
• You also need to register a company (from $400 and up annually), 
• and hire an attorney (around $5K) to review contracts and give your project credibility 
• You need some completed work, short films, or maybe a proof of concept short film or trailer

Whoever looks at your project will want to know that you can actually pull it off (Why should they invest thousands of dollars?). With those things in place you can go to a state film commission to get approved for tax credits, up to 30% or so of your budget. State approval says your project is real to investors and distributors, and you can claim that as a funded part of the budget. Maybe you can get grants or government subsidies, especially outside the US. But the question may remain, is it marketable?

Part of the dance thing is to check with sales agents what talent you have in mind and how marketable they are for your project. If you don't have names, you should have a skilled cast. And this is where things fall apart for me. Because I think that named talent are in demand because of their talent. It's unlikely a cast without names can pull it off as well. But not impossible. Maybe you can find some good actors. You probably need at least a good CD (casting director) to help you do that. And a good CD costs at least $5K, maybe $20K. No, that hot girl you met in college is not that good of an actor.

Here is some in dept information from first hand accounts of this process:

• Distribution Case Studies - Hope for Film
• Distribution advice for 2014 - Stranger than Fiction

I should credit most of my information to Stacey Parks and Adam Cultraro. Although it's general knowledge as well. Stacey is a former sales agent with a website, FilmSpecific.com. Adam is a successful indie producer-director who used the same concepts mentioned above which Stacey discusses and teaches on her website. It's like a grad school in film distribution, considering the huge amount of information she offers. Adam has a series of podcasts on that site (like this one), which are referred to as the Million Dollar Blueprint, where he discusses his own direct experiences doing these things. He was able to sign Tom Sizemore for $5K, I think, since Tom was just out of jail looking for new work (not anymore). Anyway, that is my original source of information and has proven to be solid for others as well. This information also changes from year to year. But this is just the tip of the iceberg of traditional distribution. Digital or self distribution is another thing.  Although, if you go through the traditional route, you'll likely end up with a traditional distribution deal that puts your film out on digital platforms, and if you're lucky and marketable, maybe VOD or cable as well. 

Distributors take around 20% off the gross, and that's after their expenses, which are not necessarily accountable. So you should be sure to include terms in your distribution deals that limit P&A expenses or even better, exclude them completely and let the distributor absorb them.

If the best you can do with traditional distribution is to land digital and DVD sales, it is not worth the trouble. You can do that level of distribution on your own and keep 100% of the gross.  You'd have to do your own marketing. But what kind of marketing will a distributor do for you? It should be way better than what you can do on your own. And I would want a deal to include cable and VOD. You should make sure these things are all in your contract and run it by a trusted attorney. You should assume that you will have to sue to get your share of the gross. In fact, it's common knowledge to assume that any first time filmmaker can expect nothing in terms of money from a distribution deal.

That means the only reason to do it is for exposure and to gain a track record. But will that actually happen? With thousands of digital titles on the market, how will your film be found and noticed. If all you want is to gain experience and recognition, you can do that without traditional distribution and even come out with some profit. The glamor and fame are not likely to happen anyway.

If you have to answer to investors or talent with contract stipulations, you may not have that option. But you should explain to them upfront that direct sales could turn out to be more lucrative than a distribution deal.

FIlm: Business or Art or.....

I read a very disturbing blog on the film industry a few days ago by James Fair (lecturer in Film Technology at Staffordshire University).The thing that made me sick was the site of a corporatist organizational chart. If you're anything like me, the site of these charts makes you want to puke (You may want to put your hand over it).

So here we have a film scholar (as if good filmmaking was ever a scholarly endeavor) telling us that business models are questionable in light of the artistic and creative aspects of filmmaking. Then he goes on to suggest there may be a better model out there, even though this one is working. But the current system isn't working. It never did work. The film industry is having one of its greatest depressions. Even when it was on top, 50% of all industry product never made a profit.

The problem is not that we need a better business model. The problem is that even having a conversation about a business model is absurd, which brings me to David Lynch. When I listen to him talk about the process of making a film, there is no business model or organizational structure. You may say even he has departments run by department heads, which may be true. But in a truly harmonious film production these departments operate as single entities to fulfill their respective tasks, and like our scholar mentions, none of this is ever set in stone.

The problem that 99% of the film industry continues to have is that film is not a business, nor is it purely an art. It's the business of making art, and that means that the art has to come before the business, since you can't sell your art if you don't go about making it first. This may depend on your definition of "art", which is an abstract word much like love. I think of art as stuff that moves people emotionally and even physically. That has absolutely nothing to do with making money in itself. If the moving of people can be achieved then I think the money making potential is there. You don't start out with the idea of having to make money and then come up with art that has that goal. That is not art. Nor should business have as its goal to make money without first having some higher purpose, to fill a need or fix a problem or help society.

Of course, failed American corporatism and its decades of authoritarian conservative ingrained tradition will continue to insist to its dying day that pure business models (regardless of product and with no other goal than money) are the way to go about doing any business, even art. But, like the Roman Empire, blind leading the blind (no one knows anything in Hollywood) kind of thinking is ultimate doom.

Pull out David Lynch's Inland Empire DVD. You do have one right? There, not only will you find David Lynch show you a great quinoa recipe (maybe you eat too much meat to be able to make good films that can sell on their own merit) but you'll also hear him talk about his artistic "business model", which amounts to getting one idea, then getting another idea, and eventually putting these ideas together. But if you were to talk to a good sample of great artists, you'd find that each of them have different ways of doing their art.

Even most indie filmmakers have a model where they come up with a script, and even a cast an crew, and sometimes even make the film before they go about looking for an "executive producer" (since often the only real business aspect of films is the distribution after they're made). They may or may not take notes from that producer. My understanding is that most indie producers act as patrons and seek to fund artists with no expectation of return. That is the traditional model of artistic endeavor around the world.

The one reason that any good films even exist in America, I think, is that there are indie renegades out their like David Lynch and there is also the independent spec screenwriter factor. Screenwriting can be done in a vacuum away from all the failed corporatist bullshit. So in that regard, screenwriters have the ability to be true artists, going about writing in whatever artistic way suits them (as George Lucas did far away from Hollywood). For that reason, we have some great screenplays in existence that Hollywood then gets it's greedy clammy little hands on and plugs into its organizational chart to end up with something resembling art (so long as no dogs are killed).

Another fallacy about the chart above, with the quintessential executive asshole at the top, is that there is no marketing department. Anyone and everyone knows that in the Hollywood studio system marketing is god. They only make films that project (as proven under failed corporatist business formulas) to make money. So we end up with trilogies and sequel after sequel riding on the success of previous success. We see film stories (like Inception) ripped off of other films (like The Matrix) that worked and we see a plethora of remakes that are again remade on a regular ten year schedule, just like regular old white men on Exlax.

Fuck all that.

The Film Distribution Gamble: 9999 to 1

I attended a Film Financing Conference on Saturday and learned what it takes to finance your film.

Money.

But more importantly how to get millions of dollars from perfect strangers to help you make your film.

The answers are actually quite simple, and you don't have to spend the $200 (or $150 for FIND members) for the seminar, nor can you. It's over. But I can tell you everything I learned that you need to know. Though you probably won't take it seriously coming from me, because I don't have the years of experience of the industry panelists of lawyers, producers, casting directors, and distributors represented at the conference.

Anyway these are the elements you need as I understand them:

• A damned good (no make that great) film ( or script. It doesn't have to even be started, just written.)
• A film that has a clearly defined audience
• A film that has a defined audience meaning you didn't just make it for yourself
• Marketable roles
• Marketable roles that name actors will want to play
• A film that is low budget, though that could mean up to $10M now.
• Names
• Credibility - who are you?

OR

• A damned good (no make that great) film.
• Your own money ( to the tune of tens to hundreds of millions)

Doesn't this all sound too familiar? Us high and mighty altruistic indie filmmakers, in service to humanity, don need no steenkin marketable shit, do we?

Well, ah, yeah. We do if we want people, beyond the cast, crew, their friends, and family, to actually see and get something out of our films?

Now you could make that script of yours and it could get seen and even win some festivals. Then you have your world premier, and the cast and crew would be there, and your parents would be there, and you'd be happier than a pig in shit along with all your cast and crew.

Yuk.

But, would you get a distribution deal? The chances as put on the table at the conference are 99.99%, no you won't.

So don't bet the farm on making your film unless you have no problem losing it. You see it worked for Kevin Smith because he had an audience. He had a great film. It was unique. It hit home with people. But did he know who his audience was in advance? Maybe. But that's easy to say in hindsight. He certainly didn't have any distribution or marketing until way after the film was completed and Weinstein decided to pump some cash into marketing and post, something like $300K.

How many filmmakers went out and had similar films targeted (or not) to a similarly undefined audience, but failed?

99.99%.

Getting into a festival is great. Winning there is great. But how about a year or two down the road when you still haven't had a distribution deal? You go straight to DVD and no one ever hears about you or your film again. That sounds so useless. Why even bother going straight to DVD? So you can tell people, "I made a feature and it's on DVD?

Whop-de-doo!

That and the lack of marketing that goes along with it, plus another $4.55, will get you a nice Grandé at Starbucks to celebrate. Then you'll never be heard from again. Why bother? You'd do better to hold out for a deal with marketing, like at least an HBO run. I don't care if no one ever sees it, because they won't anyway.

Still I think it's not wrong, or even a bad thing, that filmmakers don't necessarily have a defined market. Distributors often don't either. They just have the money to make people think they do. One of the conference speakers mentioned that when distributors don't really know what they're doing, or can't define a market, they just lie. They just put out marketing that makes the film seem like something it's not, to get people into the theaters. They'll pick a market and go after it, even if it's the wrong market.

See, a lot of these guys are aware of this stuff and not happy with it either.

Well, No shit. Isn't this the rule and not the exception? So if they don't really know what they're doing and they have to lie about the film content and make like it's for some certain market segment of people, why then do they demand that filmmakers have to figure this out before making a film? I'm talking about those trailers you see that get you all hyped to see a film. Then when you see it, it's a big let down. It's something completely different than what the trailers lead you to think.

When a filmmaker goes to a distributor, what's the first question asked?

Who is your target audience? Where's the market? How can we sell this film?

They want filmmakers to do the legwork for them. Know your audience and you'll have a shot at getting s distribution deal. But it has to be an audience beyond cast, crew, family and friends. The film has to have universality. That's a screenwriting term that means masses of people will relate to the story and want to see it. Sounds reasonable. See, you have to do this part before you make the film, while writing the script. If you have a great film, a great story, but no universality, your film ain't going nowhere.

On the other hand, what is universality? Some think it means having a solid genre. Eht! I don't think so. That's just a smoke screen, a trick to get people in the theaters.

I think universality simply means that people have to relate to the subject. But people are sophisticated and complex. They aren't all 16 year old teenage boys trying to get into their date's pants by taking them to a horror flick that scares them into their arms, the epitome of genre.

No. People can related to those abstract weird unusual concepts, and they wll, if the story is great and the execution is excellent. You need to make a great film. You need to have a great story. Those are really the only two things you need before you start. But you do need them. You can't forsake them for a deadline. You make a film with a half baked script because you want to make the Sundance deadline. That's a waste of everyone's time and money.

So the distributors' and the filmmakers' definitions of universality are very different. Still, that element is necessary.

Now, not only are all these factors at play, but the indie industry is in a downturn. These industry pro guys say this because three major Hollywood indie subsidiaries are folding, the biggest being Warner Independent.

Here's where I really differ with them.

I say any indie company affiliated with a big studio isn't really an indie company, I don't care what's in their name to tell me it is. These companies tried to jump on the indie bandwagon when they saw indies taking off. So yeah, they bought some real indie films at the festivals. But they aren't truly independent. They bought films that they think fit into their predefined marketing strategies. Indie films, good indie films, aren't bound by that narrow definition.

David Lynch is independent. He distributes his own films. If any of these guys were really indie, they'd distribute David Lynch. But they won't touch him. They're too hooked on the whole conservative business model that requires them to make well educated decisions based on marketing factors. Yet, their failure rate is astronomical. Duh. Even the .o1% of films that get distributed films have a very poor rate of success, something like 30% t0 50%. They just don't get it. Guys, the business model you use doesn't work. Do you need to be hit over the head with a sledge hammer to see this?

They still think you have to hit a certain market. Well I guess I agree. It's works in theory. It's just I don't know if they can ever know what that market is in advance, because the film market can rarely be defined before the film finds it after it runs a few weeks and word gets around. Markets are not really sp clearly defined as 18 to 35 year old males or whatever. No, they are dynamic and change with the wind.

This comes back to Goldman's statement that no one in Hollywood knows anything, meaning no one can predict what film, what story, what genre, or what concept will be a hit. Subsequently, they can't accurately define a market or target audience. They can try, and they do, and they fail a lot. They go out of business.

It's the nature of filmmaking. This isn't a widget business. That is, film is art first, business second. You can't market concepts. You can't market art before it's been completed and before you know what it is that you're marketing, and no you don't know what it is. You can't know this stuff until audiences have seen it and decided with their wallets whether it's worthy or not. Because art, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder, not the marketing depatment.

Goldman was right. No one knows anything. It is an unknown. Why can't this fact be accepted. Do they have to be so self centered and pompous to believe that there can't be a thing, like this, that they can't grasp? I'm sorry, but all the experience, MBAs and education in the world will not give you the ability to know or second guess the markets, or see the future. Accept it. Admitting this is the first step.

"Hi, I'm Jon and I'm a filmmaker. "

"Hi Jon."