Independents gather to discuss distribution strategies

By Sarah Sluis
FJI correspondent Doris Toumarkine reports on a panel on independent film distribution strategies, sponsored by HSBC, SnagFilms and IndieWIRE.

Last week's inaugural evening of wine, cheese and insiders' observations at a New York independent film community gathering raised spirits and awareness but also left up in the air some unanswered questions that will surely be addressed in subsequent sessions.

"Ask the Experts: Strategizing Film Fests & Distribution Today," organized by HSBC and SnagFilms and its must-read IndieWIRE website, began with a low-key pep talk from Sony Pictures Classics co-president Tom Bernard, followed by panel discussions addressing some aspects of festivals and distribution strategies. A brief Q&A followed but failed to elevate the discussion.

The session, which borrowed from the Independent Feature Project's time-honored efforts, was more make-up course than rigorous drill-down into the current or future state of specialty cinema and its challenges.

A harbinger of good things to come, the event introduced HSBC and IndieWIRE's partnership in the new Filmmaker Toolkit Series, comprising similar indie-themed industry evenings to follow and online tools for filmmakers at the IndieWIRE website.

Attendees, panelists and organizers schmoozed and fueled up at the reception before tackling the promised issues: navigating the festival circuit and securing distribution deals. Not as abundant as the reception's cheese cubes, valuable takeaway tips and nuggets of information were in short supply, as so much seemed aimed at newbies in the audience. But the August 11 gabfest was an impressive gathering in terms of those like Bernard who came to share.

A packed auditorium at HSBC's midtown headquarters listened as a number of participants from the nervous playing fields of distribution, production, direction, public relations and festivals shared views about that now proverbial falling or not-falling "sky." The celestial metaphor, or course, was coined only a few short years ago by former Miramax and Warner Independent Pictures exec Mark Gill to denote the digitally and technologically shaken state of the independent sector.

While storm clouds reportedly darken the sky over Gill's latest venture, event participants betrayed no negative notions of the state of things: no sky is falling and, on the contrary, there's hope ahead. Even that "light at the end of the tunnel" metaphor popped up. Sales agent Josh Braun of Submarine spoke about the tiny film Tiny Furniture, which he sold to IFC, the voracious acquirer of so many indie titles.

In spite of Magnolia Pictures' Tom Quinn's pronouncement that "it's a terrible business," there was a largely upbeat vibe in the air regarding the independent sector. But breathing that air was also that proverbial and largely ignored elephant in the room, meaning the brutal but unaddressed topic of "Who the Heck Is Making Money Today and How?" which never tainted the lightweight discussions, even as titles like Bubble, Tiny Furniture, Children of Invention and others were referenced. Most frustrating was the lack of more concrete examples of what's working today and what isn't.

(With the ABCs of the indie world shared during this inaugural event, IndieWIRE co-founder and editor-in-chief Eugene Hernandez, who moderated the discussions with IndieWIRE managing editor Brian Brooks, told FJI that subsequent Toolkit evenings would get more into the nitty-gritty business of the indie sector.)

In introductory remarks, Bernard, who kicked off the discussion that several panels would continue, talked about the "empowered filmmaker" and what he/she must do in the new digital era. The mantra, according to Bernard, is for filmmakers to do the research themselves, that they are the ones who control the destiny of their films and cannot be dependent on anybody else to get their films into the marketplace.

He advised filmmakers to research all potential partners like distributors, publicists, lawyers and sales agents. These latter, he warned, might take too big a chunk of future profits, so let the seller/filmmaker beware of who he/she does deals with.

Flashing back into what seems like ancient movie history, Bernard referenced the millions of dollars the Blair Witch Project filmmakers lost to lawyers and agents. He asked rhetorically: "But should you be giving away anywhere between five and 15 percent of the lifetime profits from your film for free legal work and a sales strategy that usually is comprised of screening your film at a festival, getting all the buyers in a room and seeing who can come up with the most money?"

To underscore his point of filmmakers doing their homework, Bernard handed out a list of more than 60 U.S. theatrical distributors, including a smattering of Bollywood and service-deal companies. He urged the many industry groups like the IFP or DGA to help with this empowerment by providing other useful information. Filmmakers must also answer important questions regarding which time of year is best to release their work and to which theatres. (Bernard's complete speech is available on Indiewire.com.)

Later as a panelist, Bernard reminded that, these days especially, thought must be given to the many platforms available for films and what revenues each might generate. While every distribution outlet is valid, he said, the theatrical window "opens a lot of doors" to and provides a five-year cycle for the many releases (cable, DVD, hotels, etc.) to follow.

The trend of certain film fests getting into the distribution game took a drubbing on the "Strategizing Film Festivals" panel. Cinetic Rights Management's Matt Dentler, formerly atop Austin's SXSW, was especially critical. "The two worlds are very different," he said, and the festivals should be at "arm's length" from distribution because "what works at festivals isn't necessarily what works in the marketplace." Sundance, with YouTube; SXSW with IFC and iTunes; and the Tribeca Film Festival, which set up its own distribution pipeline for titles it had selected for its festival, were cited as crossing this cinematic China Wall. Bottom line, said Dentler, is that it's just no good when festivals are cutting checks back to the filmmakers this way.

But an even more interesting bottom line was revealed when the panel called for a vote of those in the audience who bothered to watch any of these festival films through their distribution channels. Not a hand went up.

Festivals continue, of course, to serve a valuable purpose as marketing tools or even as venues for a film's only chance for a "theatrical" (actually, big-screen) release, said PMK-BNC's Marian Koltai-Levine. Panelists disagreed on whether filmmakers should submit rough cuts and works-in-progress to fests. Women in Films' serial fest-goer Debra Zimmerman voted no, while Rose Kuo, festival programmer and recent big hire at The Film Society of Lincoln Center, opined that, depending on the festival, presenting an unfinished work can be a good thing. Just getting a film looked at and getting knowledgeable feedback can be valuable.

Producer Mynette Louie, whose Children of Invention played about 50 festivals, shared that "a good chunk of change" was made from all the fees her film received from so many festivals paying just for the right to present the film. The fest exposure also helped increase sales for the film's DVDs.

There was plenty of old news. We again heard that while acceptance at first-tier film fests (Toronto, Sundance, Cannes, etc.) is the Holy Grail, second-tier and select regional fests can afford filmmakers a much better chance to be found by scouts (yes, distribs infiltrate the smaller events) and even get some publicity (there are few big films to monopolize the attention). You don't need a doctorate in probability to figure that one out. Nor did news that the odds are staggering for Sundance acceptance knock any socks off.

Documentary filmmaker Sandi Dubowski (Trembling Before G-D, Budrus) underscored the importance of bringing partners to a film and reminded that nonprofits�their name notwithstanding�can lead to significant sources of funding. What filmmakers today have to ask, he said, is: "How do we flip our world?"

In terms of getting the word out about a project, there's a delicate balance, the panel agreed: While it's important not to oversaturate the market with information about a film, filmmakers need to "annoy" people a bit.

French world-sales agent Sebastien Chesneau of Paris-based Rezo generated some enthusiasm with his pitch to attending filmmakers to discuss their films with Rezo in order to learn how various international territories might respond. Citing the popularity of directors like Jim Jarmusch and Woody Allen overseas, Bernard seconded this focus on foreign markets and advised filmmakers to hold back international rights from their domestic distributors.

When the continuing plague of piracy entered the conversation, SnagFilms CEO Rick Allen got a laugh when he said that SnagFilms, via its VOD service, has come up with a foolproof anti-piracy model: making the viewing free. From Allen, the crowd also heard that well-worn supplication to tell "powerful stories," especially as there is now access to a global audience.

Other participating speakers and panelists adding sizzle and prestige if not always useful takeaways to the HBSC/IndieWIRE evening included Emerging Pictures' Ira Deutchman, who observed that it's a "healthy" sign that the studios are getting out of the indie business. IFC Entertainment's Arianna Bocco shared that IFC's four-year-old VOD model "has worked successfully," but only whetted appetites for examples that weren't forthcoming.

Magnolia's Tom Quinn offered that Bubble, the company's first DVD/theatrical day-and-date experiment several years back, "wouldn't work today," but there was no comment on how it even worked back then (although the notion was floated back then that the quirky Soderbergh indie actually was profitable).

One unintended insight gleaned from the evening was the revelation that many at the event weren't aware that there are more theatrical screens available today for specialized product than in years past and that some circuits have even branded these screens dedicated to indies. Audience reaction to news of this availability and a reception conversation with a SnagFilms exec made this clear. Future Toolkit events might want to explore how filmmakers could possibly (miraculously?) exploit this largesse and even learn what might be those miracles for longer runs on theatre screens.

Maybe it's big-city myopia regarding that vast stretch of Flyover America, but there's responsibility somewhere (on exhibitor shoulders?) to get the word out to indies and film fans alike that theatre screens are there for the smaller films.

With its impressive turnout and well-coordinated discussions, the evening did suggest that Toolkit events to follow, as Hernandez promised, will burrow down more deeply into the many issues important to all sides of the indie business.

Discussions, for instance, might focus on which of the more selective fests require world premieres or have similar restrictions regarding submissions. And what might be some real-world examples of truly profitable films initially made available on Web/VOD/DVD prior to theatrical or day-and-date with theatrical but that returned investments and actually worked financially for both filmmakers and distribs (when not self-distributed)?

And in this crazy super-saturated new media world of so much, so often and available anywhere, especially when it comes to e-mail, social networking and Internet content, is there a way to quantify how well sites like Twitter, Facebook and YouTube work in terms of getting the right attention for a film? And what might be other new forms of viral marketing as a way of getting the word out on a little film to pre-sell it or build awareness, especially when there's little or no marketing budget?

Providing the evening with a discreet whiff of dissent was vet distributor Richard Lorber, who, from the floor during the Q&A, observed (actually groused) that the event had largely been a pitch to first-time filmmakers and that the distributors represented weren't true indies because they were either owned by theatres or the studios. Take that, Sony Pictures Classics, Magnolia, etc.

Privately, a first-time indie director (but not a first-time filmmaker) whose feature is now in edit and who previously produced a strong title for Warner Home Video weighed in on the event to FJI: "It was all kind of basic stuff that I already knew. But it was really good to see so many players and to now be able to put names to faces so that I have more of a potential entry point. But I don't really think I learned anything new, though this gives me more confidence in my instincts [about the business]."

Her most important takeaway was how encouraging the panel was about the marketplace, that there is still a market for small indie films and that "it's no harder than before." She was also grateful to be reminded that finding a distributor isn't necessarily hard, but making money is.

And there's also some newfound confidence that more of her calls will be taken. All in all, this initial and successful HSBC/Snag/IndieWIRE evening assured that events to follow will provide more to chew on (cheese cubes aside).