The movie looks great in its lo-fi simplicity, but what interests me even more is how the filmmakers are approaching distribution.

In the wake of The Nines, I’ve written several times about how getting a movie made is substantially easier than getting a movie seen. The mythical Sundance experience — fierce bidding wars to land the next indie smash — are over. Most films don’t sell, and the few that do struggle to reach even a tiny audience.

Some filmmakers like Todd Sklar have opted to self-distribute, essentially taking the indie band approach and touring theaters around the country. That’s great if you enjoy being in a van.

The Mornings team is doing what I would try: skipping theatrical altogether. The day after the premiere, you can download their film or get the DVD. You can even buy a piece of the set, or buy the filmmakers lunch.

They’re not going to make a lot of money, but my hunch is they will be able to get a lot more people to see their movie this way. That should be the main goal of any indie.

John Gatins made a good point today about his work and his job. “His work” is writing, and “his job” is all the attendant meetings and drama it takes to get his work on the screen. It’s a helpful distinction, one I often make between the craft of screenwriting (the words on the page) and the profession of screenwriting (making a living at it).

As part of a partnership with YouTube, a crew has been shooting interviews and behind-the-scenes stuff with the filmmakers. I’ll be putting up those links as they come.

In my post-mortem on The Nines, I wrote that the business model of selling your indie at Sundance for theatrical release was largely mythology. The numbers are stacked against you, and have only gotten worse.

According to Stern:

An astonishing 9,293 films were submitted to Sundance last year. Of those nearly 10,000, only 218 were screened. Of the lucky handful to get bought, so far only three have been released theatrically.

From January through May 2008 … the number of indies that grossed over $1 million dollars went from 16 to six. Less than half.

Fewer indies are making it to the big screen, and fewer of those movies are earning money. And video isn’t the savior it once was. DVD and TV deals are smaller, when you can even get them.

Stern acknowledges that changes in the distribution system — particularly the rise of streaming video — may help out in the next few years. Right now, Netflix is like an infinite video store, but once it becomes possible to monetize each viewing of a movie, there’s suddenly value to being one of its 10,000 movies.

Provided they actually pay us for our content in appropriate ways, these are the once and future friends of independent film.

But to his credit, Stern won’t let filmmakers themselves off the hook. In mythologizing the struggling writer/director auteur, we’ve created a genre of movies that are built to fail. Quoting Patrick Goldstein from the LA Times, Stern notes:

“The real problem with the indie business isn’t quality, but discipline. We have a generation of filmmakers who feel entitled to make personal films… and a generation of executives who’ve been willing to essentially use specialty films as a loss-leader to launch their division or win awards. If people in the indie world want to start making money again, they have to start treating their investment like a truly precious natural resource, not like Monopoly money. Discipline is not antithetical to art.”

That’s an idea I’ve been trying to reconcile while up here at the labs.

My friend Howard Rodman often says, “The point of studio development is to take a script only you could have written and turn it into something anyone could have written.” I’m keenly aware that our goal as writers and advisors is to make projects more unique and specific.

Yet the fact that we can say a script “feels like a Sundance movie” belies this intent. It’s shorthand for challenging, quirky, maddening and (if we’re being honest) non-commercial. We want these movies to exist. But we need to be honest about their prospects.

Stern argues that filmmakers need to keep their audience in mind from a project’s initial conception — even if that audience isn’t a typical mainstream audience.

I was blown away when I found out that the #32 film on the all-time documentary box-office list is a little 2005 film I’d never heard of, called “The Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill.” (It’s about wild parrots living on Telegraph Hill, by the way.) Can you imagine how tiny the market sliver is of people willing to take a night out to go see this peculiar-sounding film?

Well, the filmmaker did imagine them. Rather thoughtfully, in fact. And then proceeded to use viral marketing to rally those people into the theater, by making the film an event for every bird-lover on God’s green Earth.

Audubon Society members. Bird-watching clubs. Breeders. Veterinarians. Humane Societies. Feather-fancier magazine subscribers. There are a lot of people out there who really love birds. And I think every last one of them went to this movie.

Every filmmaker would like her movie to break out of its niche and gain wider exposure and acceptance. But Stern’s point is apt: figure out your base, and develop a marketing plan that succeeds even if it never goes beyond that. If this sounds more like planning a small business than planning a movie, that’s sort of the point.

I wouldn’t make another indie the way I did The Nines. I’d figure out how I was going to make money before figuring out how to get money.

There is more to Stern’s speech, which is certainly worth a read.

I’ve written about previous sessions, and the overall experience is remarkably consistent year-to-year. The projects change, but the work is largely the same — helping writers (mostly writer/directors) get their scripts into their best shape before shooting.

I learn a lot from the fellows and their projects — many of them are international, and focus on stories and situations I would never otherwise encounter. But I pick up a lot from the other advisors as well. I quoted one of them on Twitter yesterday:

“Writing is betraying the people you love to impress people you’ll never meet.”

That was Chris McQuarrie, re-quoting an advisor from several years ago.

When writers give notes, they can often articulate issues in ways that feel more like poetry than problems. Etgar Keret felt one script had a bunch of sticks very cleverly holding up the roof, but what it really needed was a central pillar to support the weight. Susannah Grant wanted to help that same writer find a taproot to drink from. Both clever ways of expressing an idea that you wouldn’t get from a producer.

To the degree there’s a formula to the labs, it’s that sense of literary philanthropy. Not only are the notes you get here more thoughtful than a producer’s, they’re also genuinely disinterested and agenda-free.

Visit itunes.com/Sundance to check out trailers and download. (Link opens in iTunes store.)

I’m happy to see shorts featured this way, and hope it expands to features in coming years. I would have absolutely done it for The Nines. By offering movies for a limited window, Sundance and Apple can give exposure to films and filmmakers far beyond Park City, Utah.

It’s a smart implementation of the festival’s mission.

I’ve written several times about my festival experience with The Nines, and how the classic paradigm of how indie films get bought and distributed is almost a myth. Most Sundance movies don’t sell, and many of the sales aren’t profitable for either side. We remember the exceptions, the break-out hits, but those are more elusive than we think:

Last year’s most-ballyhooed Sundance sales found no glory at the domestic box office: Focus Features’ $10 million worldwide acquisition “Hamlet 2,” Searchlights $5 million “Choke,” Overture’s $3.5 million “Henry Poole Is Here,” Paramount Vantage’s $1 million-$2 million “American Teen,” and two Sony Pictures Classics pickups, ‘The Wackness” and ‘Baghead” (which were bought for under $1 million).

Hamlet 2 was easily the most commercial, but it made $5 million. You can understand why buyers are gun-shy, and why indie financiers are hard to find.

So what should a Sundance filmmaker expect?

A great audience, smart questions and very cold weather. Like The Nines, some movies will find distribution after the festival, but more and more filmmakers will need to be looking for alternative ways to get their movies out into the world. But I suspect the festival itself will be more enjoyable than it has been for years, with more focus on the movies and less on the deals.

Also, feel free to hype it in this thread.

Others had different plans and questions. And while I didn’t have any new answers, I wanted to share some of what’s going on.

First up: Splinter, which looks to be a straightforward and stylish creature horror movie. Director Toby Wilkins made the film for Magnolia Pictures, which is distributing it theatrically and via HD on demand. (In fact, the on-demand version is available right now.)

Here’s the trailer:

While it won’t be getting a big theatrical push — and there’s no point expanding it after Halloween — I bet this will do reasonably well for everyone involved. Horror fans are fairly easy to reach through genre sites and publications, and the mix of theatrical and video-on-demand creates a national release in advance of the DVD. Wilkins and writer Ian Shorr (a USC grad) will get more exposure than many horror filmmakers, who often find themselves hitting a few festivals before the movie eventually comes out on DVD, nearly forgotten from its earlier hype.

But will they get any more money? Hard to say. Since Magnolia has a relationship with HDNet, where they can theoretically show the movie as much as they want, is there the same motivation to squeeze every cent out of video, both in the U.S. and overseas? Time will tell. I was very hands-off with The Nines when it came to international video, which is part of the reason the DVD just came out last month in Australia. ¹

Another filmmaker I spoke with was Jacob Medjuck, whose film Summerhood has gotten a steady string of festival awards. It’s a summer camp comedy with John Cusack and Christopher McDonald, but it’s the little kid who (appropriately) seems to be the potential break-out star. You can see the trailer here.²

Jacob is trying to figure out what to do next in terms of distribution. Whereas Splinter was an easy sell based on genre, Summerhood is what we call “execution-dependent.” That is, in order to be worth something, Summerhood has to be better-than-good; Splinter just has to be competent. (For the record, I haven’t seen either movie.)

In a perfect world, Summerhood would sell to a distributor like Fox Searchlight, who could make it the next Juno. Or at least the next Waitress. But if that hasn’t happened yet, I would take all offers seriously, even if they’re really for TV and video rights. If a Magnolia-like company wants to do a day-and-date video/theatrical experiment, consider it. If iTunes gets an indie program going, try that.

Jacob wisely asked how he should be proportioning his time between working for his movie and working for his career. In truth, he should probably be splitting it 50/50 — but doing it with such intensity that it’s 100/100. He can probably get into 40 more film festivals this year, and if he has the inclination, he should. Festivals are probably his best bet for getting people to see his work on the big screen, and his persistence will lead to some good contacts along the way.

Both Toby and Jacob are evidently blog-readers, so I’m hoping they’ll jump in to answer any questions or comments that come up.

1. Ballast director Lance Hammer dropped out of a [similar-sounding deal with IFC](http://www.indiewire.com/biz/2008/07/ballast_steadie.html) when the dollars involved were just too low, ultimately choosing to self-distribute. But Magnolia apparently invested in Splinter from the start, so their investment is likely quite a bit higher.
2. Note to all indie filmmakers: embrace embedding for your trailers.

I recently wrote and directed a low-budget feature that played at a film festival in Los Angeles. A producer was at the screening, loved the movie, and subsequently got me in touch with several large distributors and top-five agencies who then proceeded to blow my phone up for the next couple of days. She suggested I send out screeners to them, which I did. I even dropped off a screener to an agency I was set to have a meeting with, only to have them cancel the next morning “unexpectedly.” Then I started getting passes, which has snowballed.

It has been a couple of weeks now and it doesn’t look like I was able to strike while the iron was hot. I feel like I’m back to square one. My goals for this movie are to get a small distribution deal with DVD and maybe VOD with a mid-size company that knows how to deal with low-budget movies. My goals for my career are to write and direct my own projects, while supplementing that work with rewrite and punch-up jobs.

Based on the information I gave you, can you tell me: a) what I did wrong so that, should I be in this situation again, I can do better next time, and b) what I should do now to accomplish those goals?

– James
writer/diector, Eastern College

You really didn’t do anything wrong, other than let your expectations get built up too high by one guy. Believe me, I understand how it happens: it’s great when people like your work. It’s exciting when they describe a possible future with meetings and projects and enough money to stop living like a college student.

Enthusiasm is a sugar rush. You really feel it when it’s over.

My friend Aaron Lindenthaler had a film at the same festival (Dances with Films), and while I haven’t gotten the full post-mortem on his experience, I suspect he found a lot of the same reactions. A good response at a festival is gratifying, but it doesn’t translate particularly well to the larger business.

Looking at your trailer, the movie feels like a scrappy college comedy, not unlike Box Elder, the film Todd Sklar wrote about a couple of weeks ago. It’s absolutely valid terrain for a movie, and no one’s allowed to say that there are too many of them. But there are enough scrappy indie college movies that it’s hard to stand out from the pack, and harder still to convince an agency or distributor that you’re worth the investment.

I don’t know how many meetings you had, or how they went, but you were probably meeting with people in their 30’s or 40’s, whereas you’re likely early 20’s, still fresh from the college experience. Your peers are working in agency mailrooms. And they’re who you really want to see your film, because in two years they’ll be junior agents, and you’ll be one of their clients. So if you have any more meetings, try to talk with the guys getting you your Diet Coke. They’re as hungry to make it as you are.

In terms of distribution, I don’t know how realistic it is to be making money off of it. Don’t let that stop you from going after distributors who specialize in indie DVDs and/or VOD — but don’t pin all your hopes on it.

The better goal is to get it in front of as many eyes as possible in your target audience. Todd Sklar and crew are traveling around the country like an indie band, which sounds exhausting. But maybe you can piggyback on someone else’s travel. Does the music in your movie come from a popular local band? Then give away DVDs at their shows. And I wouldn’t panic about it leaking online. Much worse things could happen. In fact, at a certain point you might just want to keep a link to the torrent on your film’s site. ¹

Based on its current trajectory, your movie probably won’t end up in Blockbuster. That’s okay. You can likely get it carried by Netflix, which is better in the long tail world.

And beyond that, focus on what’s next. Don’t dwell on what-mighta-beens. The iron was never that hot, and while you’re at square one, you didn’t get sent any further back. You made a movie. Get the most you can out of it, then get cracking on doing the next project.

1. Another option: I’d be tempted to find some prolific and well-regarded torrenter and anonymously tip him to where he could find a Quicktime file sitting unguarded on a server. You’ll get better exposure if it comes from someone with pirate cred.

They basically treated their indie film like an indie band, going gig to gig and selling out of the back of their car. It worked, more or less, but it demanded an amazing amount of chutzpah and commitment, which not all filmmakers are going to be able to muster.

While I was at the labs, I was in the midst of making a low budget feature, which I’ve now completed, and also self-distributed throughout 34 markets.

Along with some of my cast and crew, I accompanied the film on the road for 3 months in order to help market the film in each city. We basically set the whole thing up like a band would do for a tour, supplementing the screenings with intensive grass-roots marketing and also using social networking sites to create a viral buzz prior to our arrival.

Our entire model was conceived around the concept of using the theatrical release as a tool for the ancillary benefits it can provide: building a fan-base for future projects, acting as a platform and catalyst for DVD and download releases, and providing a ton of press exposure and validation for the film to name a few.

As such, our overall goal for the tour was to break even. We felt that if we could sustain the touring of the film for the entire 3 and half month tour, the real reward would be the opportunities that would develop by maintaining the film’s limited theatrical life for as long as possible, and in as many different places as possible. I compare it a lot to when companies will build a brand, in order to create a name for themselves amongst their target audience, or when a politician will it the road to raise awareness of his campaign.

In the end, we sold a little over 9,600 tickets, as well as 800+ DVDs, despite only having them available at the last 11 screenings.

We split our ticket sales directly with the theatres, and used niche-oriented marketing to keep promotional costs down, and in the end, we grossed around $32,000 theatrically. After factoring in all the expenses, we found ourselves with a profit near $11,000. As a result, we’ll be touring again in the fall & spring, while also bringing a handful of other films with us in an attempt to make this a repeatable and sustainable distribution model.

You can check out more info on the film here; www.boxeldermovie.com. Plus there’s more verbiage on the aforementioned self-distribution stuff if you’re intrigued. We’re creating a postmortem document similar to your blog post in regards to the tour.

Again, excellent post and viewpoint on the matter, and thanks again for all that you do.

For starters, many in the P2P world were all too happy to declare victory over, well, logic. (The Nines Director: Forget Sundance, Use P2P Instead). That’s incorrect on a lot of levels.

In the article, I said that leaking a copy online at the right moment would have certainly increased awareness, and might have helped sales of tickets, DVDs and paid downloads. Notice that I really am talking about sales — that antiquated notion where people pay for things. My thesis is that if you make it at least as easy to obtain something legally as illegally, a fair number of potential users are happy to pay for it.

And I said nothing approaching, “Forget Sundance.” I said that Sundance buzz is annoying and meaningless, but that doesn’t mean the festival is irrelevant. Quite the contrary. Film festivals are public events in which thousands of people come together to watch challenging, independent film. The failure of arthouse distribution for indies makes festivals even more essential, because without film festivals, most of these movies would never screen before an audience.

Sundance is the Grauman’s Chinese Theater of festivals — you really do want to premiere there, to reach the biggest number of eyeballs at once. For two weeks each year, the American media pretends to give a shit about non-blockbusters. People stand in line to see documentaries, and Parker Posey is considered a star. It’s Fantasyland. So you trudge up and down the snow-covered streets, visiting all the different outlets and pimping your movie.

But wait. Didn’t I say the buzz is useless?

I think it is, at least as a component of the traditional bought-at-Sundance, released-six-months-later cycle. But if you could shorten that, and get those buzz-worthy movies from Park City in front of audiences worldwide in two weeks, I think you’d find some real success. Studios do this all the time with their quasi-indies, premiering them at a festival as a launch pad. We did it with Go in 1999.

Would it be difficult to go from Sundance to worldwide in two weeks? Absolutely. The lead time on a commercial DVD is still six weeks or more. But pay-per-view, iTunes and Netflix online have a lot more flexibility. All the legal work (clearances and contracts) would be a scramble. But we absolutely could have done it with The Nines.

Where does that leave theatrical?

I don’t know. My hunch is that for indies, the arthouse circuit is best left to special events and filmmaker Q&A’s. The Academy has rules about how long a film has to play in theaters in order to be eligible for awards, so for certain films, that may be a factor. But what readers outside Los Angeles may not realize is that many of the award-contender movies are sent to voters on DVD before they’re playing theaters.

Other small notes:

• You can disagree with me about whether Once tanked. I loved the movie, and felt it could have and should have made a lot more. Its low budget is ultimately irrelevant, because the real money was spent on marketing.

• A Sundance award-winner from this year, Ballast, dropped its deal with IFC and will self-distribute. The director gives a lot of good insight about why, and just how low the dollar figures are. If I were in his shoes, I might have done the same thing. With The Nines, we had Ryan Reynolds and Hope Davis, who were big enough names to generate some minimums. Without any stars, it’s tough to shake out more money.

• Also notable is that Ballast was to be distributed through IFC’s First Take program, which debuts movies simultaneously in theaters and by video-on-demand, much like 2929’s HDNet Films program. It seems like the right idea, so I’m curious whether the business model will work.

• The Sundance folks are adamant that it’s a festival, not a market. Redford himself has said, “We have to remind people of who we are and what we’re about…[W]hen buyers are coming in and looking at the guide (for commercial product), I don’t care about what’s commercial. I think we should leave that to the mainstream.”

Coming back to one of the key ideas in the original article, I’d stress that the real measure of success for an indie film’s release is how many people saw it. Festivals let people see your movie. So do theatrical, DVD, pay-per-view, TV and yes, piracy. Finding the right combination these elements is the challenge. I don’t think I have the answer, but I can safely say it’s not what we did on The Nines.