Sundance Narratives 2013-how did they fare in release?
Sundance narrative films are the ones that get the bulk of the media attention; their star power or discovery or indie cred frequently send some of these gems into financial success. But last year’s majority resulted in distributors overpaying for titles, titles going for next to nothing, or even failing to secure distribution. Frequently, the filmmakers and/or the distributors were in the red.
For all the talk of the slower fest this year, there are now 10 films that have secured seven figure deals. Last year’s fest had 14 or 15 (one has conflicting dollar amounts in reports). While this year’s deals are nowhere near the $9.75 Mil paid for The Way Way Back, it does suggest a healthier marketplace with sane sales prices. With that in mind, let’s take a look at how last year’s slate performed. Over 80% secured domestic distribution.
photo credit Punk Toad
AWARDS POWER FOR US DRAMATIC
Last year’s US Dramatic award winners were also the top indie box office performers.
The highest grossing competition film, Fruitvale Station, won the Audience and Grand Jury awards. Though it failed to get an Oscar nomination, TWC managed a healthy $16 Mil + theatrically. That is notably better than the previous year’s jury winner Beasts of the Southern Wild.
The second highest grossing film from the US Dramatic section was The Spectacular Now. A24 which has tailored itself to films for younger demos (VERY VERY BOLD MOVE given how hard it can be to reach the under 25 audience for indies). The $1.5 Mil acquisition grossed $6.85 Mil theatrically.
Roadside Attractions snagged the Waldo Salt Screenwriting Award Winner In A World, which surprised many with a gross of just under $3 Mil. Afternoon Delight, which won last year’s Directing Award, made $174k with Film Arcade doing the theatrical and Cinedigm handling digital. Shane Carruth’s self-distributed Upstream Color won a special jury prize for sound. The film is the highest grossing DIY release from last year’s festival with a total of $444k and a very healthy iTunes total, however, it is likely that Gravitas Ventures pushed Sound City into the ultimate #1 spot. Never under-estimate the power of a music doc. Mother of George and Ain’t them Bodies Saint’s shared the cinematography prize. Mother Of George was Oscilloscope’s highest grossing release last year at over $157k and Ain’t Them Bodies Saints made $371K under the direction of IFC. That total is arguably a disappointment with all of the hype surrounding the film, stellar critical praise and the seven figure acquisition price.
In contrast, the films that did not win awards had very mixed results. Many of these films (award winners included) had $1-8 Million production budgets and, in fact, most failed to recoup from their initial distribution deals. Perhaps their investors will see money back eventually.
The non-award-winners include C.O.G. and Concussion. Both finished with around $50k theatrically. Focus World/Screen Media can’t be happy with the performance of C.O.G., the first David Sedaris short story turned into a film. Concussion was day and date release and Radius TWC has said the film was a top performer on digital platforms. Without publicly available data, we have to take their word for it. Meanwhile, Kill Your Darlings just barely passed the $1 Mil mark for SPC, who paid around $2 Mil for the film. They acquired a number of other territories and the film will obviously be stronger on digital platforms. It is the second year in a row that SPC acquired a film featuring a younger cast, then held onto it to screen 8 months later at Toronto International Film Festival and failed to earn back ½ of their acquisitions cost in theatrical release. The strategy of waiting to launch out of TIFF and going for the younger American audience clearly isn’t working for them and should be rethought. I personally think it’s a mix of both. In this day and age, I can think of very few reasons where waiting 8 months between festivals makes any sense.
Also underperforming to the acquisitions price was SPC’s Austenland. It has grossed $2.15 Mil in the US and is the highest grossing non award winning US Dramatic film. However SPC paid $4.5 Mil in partnership with SPWA. The additional territories and better digital viewing could possibly pull the film to break even, still well below what one wants from that kind of high profile buy.
Far on the other side of the spectrum are the D.O.A.’s The Lifeguard and Emanuel and the Truth About Fishes. The former released by Screen Media and the latter by Tribeca Film and Well Go USA. In both cases, bad reviews clearly harmed these films which both had semi-marketable casts. Even with solid digital revenue, both films, which were likely acquired for under six figures, can be called flops. The same can be said for Magnolia’s Touchy Feely which managed $36k, not even 1/15th of Lynn Shelton’s Humpday. The 35% enthusiasm rating on Rotten Tomatoes indicates how the film was received.
CBS Films acquired Kings of Summer (originally called Toy’s Attic). Though they stated in their original acquisitions announcement that the film would open wide, it never did, so one has to assume they tried to cut their losses and the $1.315 Mil it made theatrical was nowhere near what they were anticipating. The film has much of the same demo as The Spectacular Now, but with none of the star power or awards profile attention.
WORLD DRAMATIC FAILURE
75% of the World Dramatic slate lacks domestic distribution as of this post. The other three films include one yet to be released (despite it winning an Award at Sundance and being UK’s Oscar submission (Metro Manila), one that failed to crack $15k (Il Futuro) and one modest performing success. Crystal Fairy is the only world dramatic film to have any kind of traction in the US. The Day one selection made $192k theatrically in the care of IFC.
NEXT STRUGGLES
Unlike when Sleepwalk With Me became a hit for IFC, 2013’s NEXT crop of films were largely modest to middling performers. A Teacher failed to crack $10k in the hands of Oscilloscope, Pit Stop (which TFC handled for festival distribution) went to DVD/Digital with Wolfe, Milkshake and Newlyweeds barely made a whimper with Phase 4. Audience Award Winner, This is Martin Bonner couldn’t pass $15k and Strand Releasing’s I Used to be Darker stopped short of $25k. Blue Caprice fell just short of $100k for IFC/Sudance Selects. At one point, it was in 36 theaters. For a film that received such a nice marketing push, it is safe to call it an underperformer at the box office, even more so with its low seven figure acquisitions price which didn’t finalize until March after the festival.
I have already written about Escape From Tomorrow and it’s self financed theatrical/digital performance with Producer’s Distribution Agency. The film has failed to make back its budget through the combined total, and that doesn’t factor in any P&A spent or revenue splits. The one real bright spot is Computer Chess. Kino Lorber had one of its best theatrical runs for a narrative film, solid festival exposure and wisely kept the film in the press and turned down an offer from TIFF that would have made them take a break. The film quietly passed the $100k mark which, given its no-name cast, low fi production values, and vintage style, is quite an accomplishment.
MIDNIGHT SLACKS
While genre films consistently perform better on VOD/Digital, the theatrical realities of last year’s midnight slate is nothing short of a total flop. The Rambler (Anchor Bay), Hell Baby (Millennium), Ass Backwards (Gravitas Ventures), In Fear (Anchor Bay), Magic Magic (Sony Pictures Worldwide) wound up going direct to DVD/Digital, grossing under $10k theatrically, or not reporting box office totals at all. V/H/S 2 barely passed $21k in the hands of Magnolia, a far cry from how it’s predecessor did. Again these films often performed quite well digitally, but for the festival that launched the Saw franchise, none of the entries really made a dent.
We Are What We Are (EOne) is the only Midnight film to pass $50k. Kink, which The Film Collaborative is handling for festivals, was just acquired by MPI Media. Virtually Heroes has yet to make a deal.
PREMIERE FLOPS
Sweetwater, Big Sur, and Charlie Countryman all failed to make a dent at the box office and were either DIY or their distributor did not report the acquisitions price. Each had some form of star power and must be huge disappointments for their financiers. The Look of Love also failed to register theatrically for IFC. The film was Day/Date and if any company can make money back on the digital it would be them. But it’s far from what one wants to see for a seven figure acquisition.
PREMIERE BIG DEALS
Don Jon was bought for $4 Mil by Relativity Media with a $25 Mil P&A. The film has failed to gross $25 Mil at the box office though it is the highest grossing film from last year’s fest. Likely it will barely break even. The Way Way Back was the highest selling direct acquisition at the fest, bought for an estimated $9.75 mil for North American rights and several other territories, but the P&A is unknown. The film exceeded $21 Mil making it ultimately a modest performer for Fox Searchlight though it far outshined previous acquisitions, Stoker and The East, which they acquired pre-fest and neither of which managed over $2.5 Mil.
SPC snagged Before Midnight and the film is the highest grossing of the trilogy with slightly over $8 Mil. It also was just nominated for an Oscar. Closing night film jOBS, on the other hand, only saw a 27% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes, has a Razzie Award nod and their self financed release with Open Road failed to recoup their costs. Worldwide, the film has grossed almost $36 mil likely on the strength of the Ashton Kutcher name.
We’re anxious to see how this year’s crop performs in release. Already, one World Documentary film, Sepideh Reaching for the Stars, has launched simultaneously with its US premiere on iTunes in the US and Canada, which is a first.
Bryan Glick January 24th, 2014
Posted In: Distribution, Film Festivals, Theatrical
Tags: A Teacher, A24, Ain't Them Bodies Saints, Anchor Bay, Ass Backwards, Austenland, Before Midnight, Big Sur, Blue Caprice, C.O.G. Concussion, CBS Films, Charlie Countryman, Cinedigm, Computer Chess, Crystal Fairy, Don Jon, Emanuel and the Fishes, EOne, Escape from Tomorrow, Fox Searchlight, Fruitvale Station, Gravitas Ventures, Hell Baby, I Used to be Darker, IFC Films, Il Futuro, In A World, In Fear, jOBS, Kill Your Darlings, Kings of Summer, Kink, Kino Lorber, Magic, Magnolia, Metro Manila, Milkshake, Millennium, Mother of George, MPI Media, Newlyweeds, NEXT, Open Road, Oscilloscope, Pit Stop, Producer's Distribution Agency, Radius TWC, Relativity Media, Roadside Attractions, sales prices, Sepideh Reaching for the Stars, Sony Picture Classics, Sound City, Sundance narrative films, Sweetwater, The Lifeguard, The Look of Love, The Rambler, The Spectacular Now, The Way, This is Martin Bonner, Touchy Feely, Tribeca Film, Upstream Color, V/H/S 2, Virtually Heroes, Way Back, We are what we are, Well Go
Sundance docs 2013-how did they fare in release?
It’s a new year, Oscar Campaigning is in full swing and that must mean one thing….Sundance is upon us!
There is no doubt that Sundance is the best launching pad for documentaries in the US if not the world. 10 of the 15 Oscar Shortlisted Docs premiered at Sundance, including the highest grossing doc of the year, 20 Feet from Stardom. Furthermore almost 90% of all docs had some form of domestic distribution secured.
There has been a lot of chatter about the recent New York Times article talking about too many films entering into a shrinking marketplace. I am usually quite the pessimist and cynic, but in this instance it is one of the best things that could have happened for film. THERE IS NO EXCUSE NOT TO HAVE DISTRIBUTION.
I REPEAT…
THERE IS NO EXCUSE NOT TO HAVE DISTRIBUTION. Looking at the films from last year’s festival, it becomes clear that the options are endless. And many films have combined approaches for their DIY. Netflix is distributing the audience award winner, The Square starting January 17. The film had a small DIY theatrical with the help of Participant Media, but that’s not the end of it. When it debuts on Netflix, it will also be available on GATHR only expanding the film’s reach.
With all this said, every filmmaker should be making distribution plans from the beginning. Put money aside to cover a festival premiere (publicist, lodging, travel, prints, etc) and for the strong possibility of a self financed release. Perhaps you’ll never have to use it. But it is better to be prepared.
Now with my rant out of the way, here’s a look at how the film’s from last year’s festival fared in distribution.
EVERY SINGLE US DOCUMENTARY and DOCUMENTARY PREMIERE selection had some form of domestic distribution, but multiple world doc films have yet to line something up in the States.
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DOCUMENTARY WINNERS
TV DOCS (HBO, SHOWTIME, CNN):
HBO acquired TV rights to or produced 7 documentaries from last year’s festival.
Gideon’s Army, Life According to Sam (whose subject passed away this week), Manhunt, and Valentine Road all world premiered in the US Documentary Competition. The Crash Reel and Which Way is the Front Line From Here? The Life and Time of Tim Hetherington screened as documentary premieres and the network acquired world doc entry Pussy Riot – A Punk Prayer for $1,000,000.
Not only does the network connect these films with far more viewers than they could reasonably expect in a theatrical release, but these films are also some of the critical favorites. Four of the seven films are on the Oscar shortlist for documentaries and a fifth won an Emmy.
HBO is not the only TV player in town.
Showtime aired History of the Eagles Part One and The World According To Dick Cheney which were both in the Documentary Premieres section. The Eagles Doc was also an Emmy Award Winner.
CNN Films partnered with Magnolia on Blackfish. The film has been seen by over 20,000,000 people worldwide and grossed north of $2,000,000 in the US. It made the Oscar Shortlist and has been cited as a key reason Sea World’s revenue is down over 30% this year. The acquisition was for $1,000,000, split between the network and Magnolia and certainly profitable for the latter. The company also had Pandora’s Promise which grossed $66k theatrically, but got hundreds of thousands more views on the TV screen via the broadcaster.
MUSIC DOCS
Three of the five highest grossing Sundance docs from last year were about singers/musicians (3 of the top 5 were also sold by Submarine and 4 of the top 5 were distributed by Radius-TWC or Magnolia) Clearly, they are resonating with a larger audience and the top players in documentaries recognize this. What’s truly impressive though is two of these films were day and date releases.
Sound City was a self financed release and dominated iTunes while also grossing over $400,000 in the care of Variance Releasing. While Variance handled the theatrical release of Sound City and Dave Grohl and his team did their own direct distribution through VHX, Gravitas Ventures handled the traditional VOD release of the film both in North America and internationally, including on iTunes. The film has grossed north of 7 figures on VOD since Gravitas Ventures launched it almost a year ago. Muscle Shoals has managed just under $700,000 with Magnolia at the helm, but theirs is a traditional distribution situation and the acquisition amount was not stated. Twenty Feet From Stardom also had a traditional release and has grossed just under $5 million and is RADIUS-TWC highest grossing film to date. The film, acquired for just over a $1 million, is also a top performer digitally and has been selling well internationally.
SELF FINANCED IS POPULAR
Over 25% of Sundance 2013 docs pursued some form of self-distribution.
Running From Crazy, Blood Brother, The Square, God Loves Uganda, American Promise, Linsanity, When I Walk, Sound City, Pandora’s Promise and the yet to be released Citizen Koch all went for self financed theatricals.
Linsanity and Citizen Koch both raised over $100,000 on Kickstarter for their theatrical releases. Linsanity has made $299,408 in cinemas. This more than justifies the DIY campaign and assuming they didn’t pour extra money into the release would net them just over $100,000 before digital and other ancillary are factored in.
The Square, which is the first Netflix Documentary pick up, had a small Oscar Qualifying run that turned into a little bit more and helped the film make the shortlist. It has grossed over $50,000 to date. That threshold was also exceeded by fellow shortlist film God Loves Uganda. Variance is releasing God Loves Uganda and should either film make the final Oscar cut you can expect additional revenue. That said, neither release appears to be profitable on its own. Variance said a few years ago they wouldn’t do a release for under $20,000 and cinemas do take a large chunk of revenues. Add the cost of Oscar Campaigning and the absence of the Netflix deal and God Loves Uganda clearly needs the Oscar nomination to boost its bottom line for digital (It will air on PBS later this year).
Running From Crazy quietly earned $33k, When I Walk did not report totals and Blood Brother has grossed over $50,000, but all through TUGG screenings. Blood Brother’s total is at once impressive and instantly disappointing. The film won the audience and grand jury awards, but failed to generate major buyer interest. ITVS has TV and Cinedigm has digital rights, but the film has become one of the lower grossing performer’s for a major festival award winner. At the same time, it screened at festivals left and right and, while skipping week long engagements, has screened at churches and small towns around the country. It may ultimately reach $100,000 via TUGG.
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DOCUMENTARY UNDERPERFORMERS
While Sundance continues to push for a lot of political docs, they are far from the best performers at the box office. After Tiller is a great film, but hardly a Friday night date movie. Festival revenue has provided a boost for the Oscilloscope release, but with under $70k in theatrical and a solid push for Oscar (it was not shortlisted) feels like a disappointment. Similarly award winners The Square and Blood Brother also are far from the top of the pack at the box office.
Meanwhile, over 1/3 of the World Doc films have nothing lined up for the States and Fire in the Blood is the lowest grossing Sundance Doc from last year that reported box office totals. It still has made about $20k and much of it from TUGG.
Other underperformers include Cutie and the Boxer, which was not day and date, and The Summit, which was one of the biggest doc deals at low 7 figures from Sundance Selects, but failed to pass $300k theatrically. Compared to films like Dirty Wars (IFC) which pulled in $371, 245 and Inequality for All (Radius-TWC) grossing $1.1 million, the buy was a bust.
Next week, we’ll take a look at how the narrative films from Sundance 2013 fared in release.
Bryan Glick January 15th, 2014
Posted In: Distribution, DIY, Film Festivals, Theatrical
Tags: 20 Feet From Stardom, After Tiller, American Promise, Blackfish, Blood Brother, Citizen Koch, CNN, Cutie and the Boxer, Dirty Wars, Fire in the Blood, Gathr, Gideon's Army, God Loves Uganda, HBO, HIstory of the Eagles Part One, Inequality for All, Kickstarter, Life According to Sam, Linsanity, Magnolia, Manhunt, Muscle Shoals, Netflix, Oscar short list, Pandora's Promise, Pussy Riot, Running from Crazy, Showtime, Sound City, Sundance Film Festival, The Crash Reel, The Square, The Summit, The World According to Dick Cheney, theatrical releases, Tugg, Valentine Road, When I Walk, Which Way is the Front Line From Here?
Developing Key Art as your film enters the festival circuit
How much to spend on developing key art, and when to spend that money, is one of the many important decisions a filmmaker has to make. Yet like many aspects of the filmmaking process, there is no one-size-fits-all standard. When we were discussing the prospect of my writing this post, one of my colleagues at TFC remarked that for a film that costs, say, $250K to make, a $10-20K or more spend on developing key art (and mind you, this is separate from a marketing budget where you have to pay to get that key art out into the world, and separate still from designing and maintaining a web site) is not unreasonable, assuming one wanted to hire a top agency. Other filmmakers get someone they know to do it for free, if for no other reason than they are out of funds. Most micro-budget indie filmmakers will undoubtedly fall in between these two polar extremes in terms of what they will end up paying, but in the end, what you produce, and when you produce it, is a decision that should not be rushed or taken lightly.
Most filmmakers would agree that good key art is essential…it can be the factor that decides whether somebody will click further to watch your trailer, or move on to another film. If it is carried over to your website effectively, it should inspire confidence in your brand. Good key art can endure and even come to possess an iconic existence of its own that will represent with your film for years or even decades to come.
But good key alone is probably not going to work miracles. If your trailer, website, official reviews, or word of mouth is disappointing, or if insufficient marketing prevents people from even knowing that your film is out there, hiring a top creative film and spending that $10-20K at the expense of everything else doesn’t make any sense. So while key art is too important to take short cuts on, its value won’t be fully realized if the rest of your budget cannot support it.
So let’s say, for the sake of argument, that you don’t have that 10-20K or more lying around for key art. Now, I have worked with dozens of filmmakers to either design (or consult with and/or assist them in developing) their key art. When I have an initial discussion with a filmmaker, I can tell right away which clients probably don’t even have $1K to devote to their the key art. How? Because the first question they ask me (after they see samples of my work) is how much I would charge to produce a poster.
This question always surprises me, especially when it comes from filmmakers for whom this is not their first film, because it reminds me that filmmakers often do not ask the right questions when producing key art.
For example, how can I give them a quote without knowing what shape is their art in, how much time it is going to take to get up to speed about the film…watch it, discuss it, understand it, determine what is possible based on the art that they have, come up with several different directions and mock them up, fail a few times until we come up with something we like, and then go through several refinement stages, figure out printing, cost, logistics? And this doesn’t include mocking each possible direction to pixel-perfection, uprezzing, retouching, or producing style sheets or ancillary artwork, like a top agency would do.
Not appropriately accounting for key art development (and overall marketing strategy) as a line item in their film budgets forces filmmakers into a situation whereby they can only order the services that will fit their budget, rather than coming from a place of asking what will be best for their projects.
So we go through this dance of whittling away steps to cut costs, and in the end, I provide only a range based on an hourly rate, with phases built in, so we can periodically access if we are going over our budget range. This way, how many hoops I jump through will ultimately be up to the filmmaker as we move through the collaborative process.
Another important thing to remember is that you can’t always determine the cost of developing a piece of key art just by looking at it. Oftentimes, the prevailing concept itself might not look all that expensive to produce, but you never know how many twists and turns were required for the creative team to reach that final product.
So, how can a filmmaker get back to asking the right questions?
Producing key art is about ideas and talent, good photography, and a solid understanding of one’s film and how it fits into the marketplace.
It’s also about patience.
This is a scenario we have seen more than a few times: let’s say your film gets into Sundance or Slamdance or Berlin or SXSW and you are racing to finish your film. You haven’t budgeted all that much for key art in the first place, but you feel like you need something to show at the festival. You have a website, but it’s the one that’s been up since your crowdfunding campaign, and it’s not all that pretty. What should you do?
Certainly, there is no one right answer. We have seen filmmakers produce amazing things in a very short amount of time. On the other hand, we have seen other filmmakers really fail miserably, and actually do their film a disservice by making too many decisions too quickly.
But let’s say your first instinct it to produce a poster. Your second instinct should be to make sure your first instinct is correct.
DO YOU EVEN NEED A FULL-SIZE POSTER?
Posters are, technically speaking, quite hard to produce if you don’t have the right art. I’m talking about resolution.
Last year, I wrote a series called Rethinking your Key Art Game Plan, where I discussed the technical requirements for producing a standard 27×40 (or 27×39) inch poster. In particular, I noted how pulling stills from a 1920x1080px master isn’t going to produce enough resolution for a poster, unless you are going for a grainy or blown-out look. These days, more and more filmmakers are working with 4K cameras, which helps quite a bit in this area.
Yet while using 1920×1080 stills to promote your film may not be ideal for a poster, they are perfect for other uses. For example, you can produce 4×6 postcards or a great website background. These might actually reach more people throughout the festival as a whole than a poster that merely hangs for a few hours in a marquee lightbox on the day of your screening.
Title Treatments
Create a proper title treatment using a vector-based program such as Adobe Illustrator, turn it into an Outline shape (rather than editable lines of type), and save it as an .eps file so it can be reproduced consistently.
(If you didn’t catch all of that last part, just convey to your designer. If your designer doesn’t get it either, hire a new designer.)
Another dilemma we’ve seen filmmakers run into is that they only have very limited still photography at the time they enter the film festival circuit, and don’t have the time or budget to do a photo shoot. Rather than force these images into a full-size poster that you have mixed feelings about, it might be better to take frame grabs from your film and produce something that’s 1440x2100px (the size needed for iTunes…VOD art generally needs to be 2:3 proprotions) and that you are satisfied with. This size would also be OK for a 4×6 postcard. You can worry about a 27×40 poster later.
Alternatively, many filmmakers simply brand a few press images from the film with their title. Work with a designer to create a great Title Treatment (the design of the title of your film) and brand the film that way, so there will be consistency when you do swing back to the key art.
SHORT-TERM OR LONG-TERM KEY ART
But let’s say you do have the art to do a full-size poster. There’s still a question of whether you design for the short term or the long term. More and more films are being released digitally without much theatrical play. Moreover, what you produce for a theatrical may not even be suitable for VOD. A panel at IFP last fall addressed this exact question, and there was apparently much disagreement:
“This panel drove home several completely contradictory messages, all in the space of one engaging hour. The first was that now you need more art than ever, to keep your audience engaged through daily social media updates both before and after your film is released. The second was that films should adhere to the same few images, so that they become recognizable brand markers. What’s a filmmaker to do?
[…]
Another catch-22 discussed during the panel was VOD vs. theatrical art. As much as it benefits a film to project a singular identity, it’s rare for a single design to suit both purposes well.
The experience of viewing a poster inside a lightbox at the theater is very different from the experience of browsing titles on Netflix, and key art must adjust accordingly. Besides the obvious (smaller space, bigger images) the VOD art typically focuses more on celebrity, genre, and easily conveyed aspects of the storytelling.”
They provided the following graphic as an example of the differences between theatrical art and key art for VOD.
Sawyer Studios Theatrical vs. VOD Digital Art Slide
It is quite clear that the some of the theatrical posters do not work very well for VOD. But I am not convinced that at least some of the VOD posters here could not have worked for theatrical (apart from the fact that a few of ones for VOD are just plain bad). These days, even as one is doing a theatrical, the same poster can be seen all over the Internet, and perhaps on postcards too. So whatever you produce, you should think about how the image looks when it is viewed at a variety of sizes, and pay special attention to the iTunes size and the Netflix size.
Perhaps the designers of the theatrical posters in this graphic did not consider this when they were designing. (Or perhaps a marketing team came along and wanted something else for VOD.) The point is, think as far ahead as possible and aim towards producing key art that will work for both theatrical and for VOD. Because if it does need to be redesigned, there’s a good chance that you will be the one paying for it, one way or another.
THE HIDDEN COST OF USING POSTERS ON THE FILM FESTIVAL CIRCUIT
Many of you know that TFC also offers Festival Distribution as one of our services. We get asked all the time for posters. Sometimes three, or five, are requested. But we generally do not send them for every festival. Here’s why:
Digital Printing
Printing fewer than 15 posters
We have used Uprinting in the past and recommend them for one-off digital printing.
So let’s say your film gets into Sundance or Slamdance and you need to print a few posters. You can get 3 posters printed and sent directly to the festival for $80. That’s not going to break the bank. But if you commit to doing that for every festival thereafter, you must be prepared to lose at least $40 (the cost of 1 to print and ship) of your festival fee each time you book somewhere.
If you are thinking that you can simply print a bunch of posters and send to festivals yourself, there also a few things to remember. First, poster tubes cost money (although Fedex will supply their own packaging, but their shipping rates are expensive), and when all is said and done, mailing them yourself doesn’t cost all that much less than having a printer ship directly. Believe me, I’ve tried.
Offset Printing
Printing more than 100 posters
America’s Printer has always done a great job for us with 4 color printing, and can even ship them individually for you.
In terms of printing, you also may not want to order too many at once (for example, you can have them printed in 4-color offset printing in quantities from 100-1000, which will cost $600-$800 ) because you will undoubtedly want to add additional laurels (for art house films) or awards or even quotes to the one sheet as you get further into the festival circuit. Printing too many will lock you into something you may not wish to use forever. But printing as few as 30 digitally will cost as much as printing 500 using an offset printer, so there’s a bit of a “doughnut hole” here.
And many filmmakers just don’t have that much loose cash to spend.
Our recommendation is to only get a large quantity of posters made if you have a theatrical. In the meantime, you may want to limit the festivals to which you have posters sent to Industry festivals where buyers are present. For the other festivals, supply them with a link to the hi-res version of your one-sheet: many festivals will print on their own. This is especially helpful for international festivals. They may not print larger as large as 27×40, but at least the cost comes out of their budget, not yours.
TIPS ON LANDING ON THE RIGHT CONCEPT
I was asked to write this article to address the question of how one decides on the best visual representation for one’s film. In other words, what should you put in your poster?
The short answer is, there is not just one answer. You can ask 5 different people and they might each tell you something slightly different. But let me try to break it down with a few tips.
- Whatever you do, it should be polished and look like some thought was put into it. You would think that I’d be setting the bar a little higher as the first tip. But no. If someone whose film were premiering at a A- or B- list festival showed me the their poster, and it looked like the VOD poster for Arthur Newman or The English Teacher in the graphic above, I would tell them to either scrap it and start over, or to leave it at home.
- Know your marketing strategy before you start designing. I could write a blog just on this topic. More than one, actually. The number one problem that filmmakers have in this regard is that they are too close to their own film. So first, it’s important to talk to your team, and to others outside your team (shameless plug alert: also a perfectly good thing to talk about when you are consulting with TFC via one of our membership packages) about where your film fits into the market and who is going to be buying it…literally…which distributors, which niche market. If you feel that your film has crossover potential to a second niche audience, find a way to cater to both, but don’t dilute the message to serve two masters. Make sure you have the art to support whatever strategy you come up with. A designer can help you evaluate this, but this whole process might have to be repeated if the art comes up short. The task is for buyers to see the market potential. If you feel like a concept “cheapens” your film, don’t dismiss it completely until you’ve talked to somebody who can give you some perspective. Take your time and don’t rush. Build your brand thoughtfully. You are making key art to sell your film, not so you can hang a cool poster in your office.
- Hire a real designer. Don’t just get someone who knows Photoshop to do it for you for free. Make sure there is budget for this before you make your film. Ditto a web designer. Get someone who knows the industry. Someone who will watch your film and discuss ideas at length and who can at least talk through several directions with you before committing. Loop this person into the market strategy discussions.
- Your art should stand out but not be too obscure. What do I mean by this? Two tests: (1) Get a reality check—before you brainstorm, take a look at the artwork in the Criterion Collection. This is an example of what NOT to do. These films are mostly classics that are being rebranded in a pretty pretentious way. It’s fine for them. But not for you. You do not want to make a poster like this. Maybe some day. Not now. (2) Take the key art that your designer mocks up and paste it in a screen shot of the iTunes Store in the “Independent” genre (or a more specific genre in the store). Make it look like it were in the store already. How does it stand up? Would you notice it? Is the title completely readable? Would anyone recognize that *one* slightly recognizable star you have in your film at this size?
- Look at existing key art in the genres your film is attempting to target. Grab these poster images off the web, and give those to your designer as a reference. For certain type of films, it’s OK to be reductive. Others, you’ll want to be more original. For example, for docs and horror, go for originality and/or quirkiness. For foreign language narrative films set in exotic locales, go for scenic beauty plus audience identification with the protagonists. For LGBT films, go for sex or edge. For non-LGBT narrative films, put the most famous actor you have on the poster. For comedies: it better be amusing. For romance: it better be romantic. For thriller: it better thrill. Some of this seems obvious, but it also can be a lot easier said than done. There is no one right way, but there are many wrong ways. It’s important that you know what those are.
- Make a great trailer to go with your art. Hooking them with a poster does no good if the trailer they watch right afterward underwhelms. Think about your niche when producing this trailer. Think about how your poster gives folks a preview of what they will see in the trailer, and then exceed their expectations. Produce a trailer that’s PG. You can also produce another one that’s not, but you will need one that has no nudity, curses, drugs or sex toys for digial platforms. So now you’ve been warned. Encorporate your Title Treatment into the trailer to tie in your branding.
Another reason to take your time with your key art: use it as a way to get your audience involved. Maybe they haven’t heard from you since your Kickstarter campaign. Maybe you’ll pick up some Facebook fans at your first couple of festival screenings. Why not find a creative way to create a dialogue with the people who are supporting you?
As I stated at the beginning of this post, you will encounter a lot of opinions out there along the way. And “success” when it comes to key art is nearly impossible to measure objectively…is your campaign successful if people like it (even if they don’t really love your film)? If a buyer ends up using it? If your film does well in the marketplace? While there are many films that industry peeps can point to and credit key art for that film’s success, the vast majority of films will not fall into this category. Nor will they be offered a 7-figure deal from a major studio at Sundance. In the end, though, one of the toughest transitions a filmmaker has to make is the switch from proud parent to business person. Put yourself in the mindset of someone who knows nothing about your film: does the key art you produced really make people want to see your film? And will they even remember your brand when the time comes when they actually can see it? Everything else, as they say, is crap.
David Averbach January 8th, 2014
Posted In: Key Art
Tags: artwork costs, Film Festivals, hiring a designer, iTunes, key art, Netflix, postcards, poster sizes, posters, The Film Collaborative, theatrical vs VOD, title treatment
A feature film about male hula dancers enjoys niche success
Written by Keo Woolford, edited by Jeffrey Winter
EDITORS NOTE: Anyone who has read the TFC blog or heard us speak in public knows that strategies for monetizing independent film through audience engagement, focused niche marketing, grassroots outreach and DIY/hybrid release techniques are the tenets of what we teach and preach. Too many filmmakers get lost in the dream that their film should be seen by everyone, so they forget to identify and target (or they willfully ignore) the core demographic for their film.
Every once in a while, however, a film comes along that grows organically from a community, and through careful nurturing by the filmmakers, manages to excite true buzz in its core audience. TFC member film THE HAUMANA, a 2013 film about a high school boy’s hula troupe by filmmaker/actor/hula dancer Keo Woolford, is a perfect model for this kind of niche DIY strategy, born from genuine community spirit.
This month on the blog, we have been advising those headed into the Winter and Spring festivals. If you still haven’t identified the core audience of your film, this post should give you something to think about.
As an actor, I’ve lived and worked in London, New York and Los Angeles. Wherever I go, I take my culture and home with me. I am a proud hula dancer and I would get a little defensive when people would flap their hands at me or ask me, “Where’s your hoop?” It was amazing to me how little people knew about hula and that men even danced hula. This perspective was coming from intelligent and esteemed circles of people, including educators at the University level.
I was blessed to have been commissioned to write and perform a one-man show, directed by Roberta Uno and supported by other sympathetic people and organizations in New York that would expose the struggle of holding on to tradition in post-modern Hawai`i, far from the misconception and misrepresentation of our culture in the global mass media. The show toured for about three years across the United States and also to Manila. Inevitably, audience members would ask if I was going to make a movie about this.
Seed planted.
Cut to a few years later, in between acting gigs, and the conception of the screenplay was born. I originally wrote the lead role for myself. But as time for production crept up, I knew it was my responsibility to oversee the project to keep my vision intact.
The screenplay and film were created for the culture I feel so proud to be a part of; the hula community, both in Hawai`i and outside of Hawai`i. It was also for the local Hawai`i population and the diaspora of Hawaiians and former residents of Hawai`i who still maintain a strong connection to their home and for the people who want to know a little bit more about our culture. It was a goal of mine to show this side of our culture from an insider’s perspective versus someone’s “idea” of what our culture is about. At the same time, I wanted to entertain the audience and not be didactic or documentary about the approach.
I won’t say too much about the budget except that this would be considered a micro-budget feature. I put up most of the money and my best friend helped me raise the bulk of the rest by getting friends to invest for producer points. We did an Indiegogo campaign, which raised a couple of thousand extra. More than anything, though, it was the generosity of the community, crew and cast that kept our budget so low. Everyone worked for reduced or base rates, and the rest of the resources, work, time and talents were enthusiastically “donated.”
This was my first venture in such an undertaking. I have no college or film school degree, and no previous experience in writing, directing or producing such a project. I just had the burning passion to show the world a little more about our culture and assumed the hula and Hawaiian community at home and at large felt the same way about seeing something like that. Therefore, although I didn’t think about it much at first, I always knew that there was a core audience I could draw on, and hoped this film would speak to them.
My initial idea was to get into all the big festivals. Deadlines were coming up quickly and I sent them unfinished versions of the film (which I will never, ever, ever do again, even if they say they accept unfinished submissions). One by one, I was denied. I didn’t mind so much. It drove me to make the film better and gave me that much more time to finish my film the way I wanted. And in the end, I realized I needed every extra minute.
Finally, a programmer named Anderson Le who works for both the Hawaii International Film Festival and Los Angeles Asian-Pacific Film Festival approached me about submitting to these two festivals [editor’s note: Hawaii International (HIFF) and LAAPFF are unquestionably two of the most important showcases for Asian/Asian-American/Pacific Islander film in North America. HIFF also includes many other kinds of cinema as well, but is particularly well known as a “gateway to Asia.” It is important to remember that many “niche” films may find better premieres in specialty festivals than in the large, generic ones.] At that point, I had really become gun shy about submitting an unfinished cut, but ended up giving him the latest version to screen. This time proved to be a charm.
THE HAUMANA was accepted into both festivals and ended up winning the Audience Award at both festivals. It made history at HIFF by being only the second film to ever sell out the 1400-seat Hawaii Theatre (the first was Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon) and it was HIFF’s Official Closing Night Film. We also won a Special Jury Prize for Best First Feature from LAAPFF. Since then, it has played in a handful of other film festivals and won another Audience Award at the Philadelphia Asian Film Festival and was nominated for Best Film and Best Ensemble at the Orlando Film Festival.
With the support of these festivals, the word of mouth has spread quickly. From the success we garnered at HIFF, the film was picked up for a run at a small theatrical cinema on O`ahu, where the opening weekend gross was around $10,000. It just completed it’s 9th week at the theater. It is also available On-Demand to all Hawai`i residents
The parent company of the theater in O’ahu (Pearlridge Consolidated) was so enthusiastic about the numbers that they also invited the film to open at a theater they own in New York City, the well-known Village East Cinema. I originally assumed they wanted it for a single screening, but then they told me they wanted it for a one-week limited engagement! And then it was extended for a second week! I don’t have the grosses at the moment, but hope they will give them to me soon.
In addition, the film has also been playing a combination of four-wall screenings and Gathr screenings across the county, selling out the majority of the screenings where the average net is approximately $1500-$2000 per four-wall event.
The strategy has been simple. Hit the core target audience of the film and let the word of mouth carry it even further. Wherever the film has played, the word of mouth has been incredibly strong. The community is passionate about their culture and hungry for work that represents them in a positive and authentic light. I know this, because I am one of them. I have the same passion and hunger for my culture.
Most of the marketing has come from social media. I’m almost embarrassed to say that I didn’t start a Facebook page until about a year after we wrapped principle photography! But once I realized the power of social media, I went all in and I am amazed at how quickly the word spread about the film through Facebook alone. I also have a dear friend, Tracy Larrua, who is my PR person. She has been extremely hardworking and effective in getting the news out about the film into TV and press in various forms. And I had a trailer made as a teaser and then as a 30-second TV spot that played Hawai’i for 5 weeks, which has also been well-received on YouTube.
Through Facebook, I had been getting many inquiries on our page about screenings in a bunch of locations around the world. I did some research on four-walling and once the film made it’s Hawai`i premiere, I wanted to get it out to as many places as I could. The handful of festivals the film was invited to didn’t reach many areas the inquiries were coming from, so I put up a page on our website that allowed anyone who wanted to set up a screening or fundraiser event to contact us to arrange one.
The emails flooded in. Most were from Hālau (hula schools) around the country who wanted to use the film as a fundraiser to raise awareness about hula and our culture. There are several thousand hula schools across the U.S. alone, and these have been an invaluable resource for four-walled community screenings of the film. In general for fundraisers, we split the cost of the theater and then split the revenue from ticket sales. The average costs of the theaters have been about $850. The average net from the screenings has been about $1200. [Editor’s note: on an earlier film TFC worked on, another Hawaii-themed film called PRINCESS KAIULANI, we also used the Halau network for word-of mouth outreach. You can get a taste of what that network looks like at http://www.mele.com/resources/hula.html. It was easily found via Google. It is worth noting that many niche films have some sort of network like this that can be identified, although certainly not always as loyal as this one!]
I was also very fortunate to have a grant from the Ford Foundation pay for the flights and accommodations for the screenings when my travel wasn’t paid. Now we are signed with Gathr, a Theatrical On-Demand company that arranges screenings anywhere in the country. I still do the fundraiser model for the groups that still want to do those.
As of this writing, I plan to continue to do Gathr and fundraiser/four-wall screenings across the country and then pursue a similar model in Japan and Mexico where the hula communities are even larger than in the United States. I have been getting requests on our website and Facebook page from around the world about the film and hope to reach them somehow as well. A DVD release is planned sometime in the middle of 2014 for the States, after we get the word out a little bit more through the screenings and grassroots tour. There are a couple of other festivals that the film will play in as well.
In the beginning, I was just hoping the film would get into a couple of festivals. And now I am traveling to so many places and seeing how people are affected by the film. It has turned out to be so much more than I had expected in so many ways. I am continually humbled and overwhelmed by the response of the film and am so grateful for every experience it has brought me.
EDITOR’S POSTSCRIPT: We posted this blog not to try and trick anyone into thinking that ALL indie films can find niche success in this manner – of course not all films lend themselves to this kind of passionate niche marketing. But rather THE HAUMANA serves as a mirror that all films should at least take a long look into, asking yourself the all-important question….who is the audience for my film?
Jeffrey Winter December 30th, 2013
Posted In: Distribution, Film Festivals, Marketing
Tags: Gathr, grassroots outreach, Halau, Hawai'i, Hawaii International Film Festival, hula, indiegogo, Jeffrey Winter, Keo Woolford, Los Angeles Asian-Pacific Film Festival, niche audience, The Film Collaborative, The Haumana, word of mouth
Considerations before starting distribution
Written by Orly Ravid and Sheri Candler
Now that the line up for feature films screening in Park City has been announced and the Berlinale is starting to reveal its selections, let’s turn our attention to the potential publicity and sales opportunities that await these films.
For those with lower budget, no-notable-names-involved films heading to Park City this January, we understand the excitement and hopefulness of the distribution offers you believe your film will attract, but we also want to implore you to be aware that not every film selected for a Park City screening will receive a significant distribution offer. There are a many other opportunities, perhaps BETTER opportunities, for your film to reach a global (not just domestic) audience, but if you aren’t prepared for both scenarios, the future of your film could be bleak.
For any other filmmaker whose film is NOT heading to Park City, this post will be vital.
Have you been a responsible filmmaker?
What does this mean? Time and again we at The Film Collaborative see filmmakers willingly, enthusiastically going into debt, either raising money from investors or credit cards or second mortgages (eek!) in order to bring their stories to life. But being a responsible filmmaker means before you started production, you clearly and realistically understood the market for your film. When you expect your film to: get TV sales, international sales, a decent Netflix fee, a theatrical release, a cable VOD/digital release, do you understand the decision making process involved in the buying of films for release? Do you understand how many middlemen may stand in the money chain before you get your share of the money to pay back financing? Was any research on this conducted BEFORE the production started? With the amount of information on sites like The Film Collaborative, MovieMaker, Filmmaker Magazine, IndieWire and hundreds of blogs online, there is no longer an excuse for not knowing the answers to most of these questions well before a production starts. This research is now your responsibility once you’ve taken investors’ money (even if the investor is yourself) and you want to pursue your distribution options. Always find out about middlemen before closing a deal, even for sales from a sales agent’s or distributor’s website, there may be middlemen involved that take a hefty chunk that reduces yours.
Where does your film fit in the marketplace?
Top festivals like Sundance, Berlin, Cannes, Toronto give a film the start of a pedigree, but if your film doesn’t have that, significant distribution offers from outside companies will be limited. Don’t compare the prospects for your film to previous films on its content or tone alone. If your film doesn’t have prestige, or names, or similar publicity coverage or a verifiable fanbase, it won’t have the same footprint in the market.
Your distribution strategy may be informed by the size of your email database, the size of the social media following of the film and its cast/crew, web traffic numbers and visitor locations from your website analytics, and the active word of mouth and publicity mentions happening around it. These are the elements that should help gauge your expectations about your film’s impact as well as its profitability. Guess what the impact is if you don’t have these things or they are small? Yeah…
Understand the difference between a Digital Aggregator and a Distributor?
Distributors take exclusive ownership of your film for an agreed upon time. Aggregators have direct relationships with digital platforms and often do not take an ownership stake. Sometimes distributors also have direct relationships with digital platforms, and so they themselves can also serve as an aggregator of sorts. However, sometimes it is necessary for a distributor to work with outside aggregators to access digital platforms.
Do understand that the digital platform takes a first dollar percentage from the gross revenue (typically 30%), then aggregators get to recoup their fees and expenses from what is passed through them, but there are some that only take a flat fee upfront and pass the rest of the revenue back. Then distributors will recoup any of their expenses and their fee percentage, then comes sales agents with their expenses and fees. And finally, the filmmaker will get his or her share. Many filmmakers and film investors do not understand this and wonder why money doesn’t flow back into their pockets just a few months after initial release. You guys are in the back of the line so hopefully, if you signed a distribution agreement, you received a nice advance payment. Think how many cuts are coming out of that $5.99 consumer rental price? How many thousands will you have to sell to see some money coming in?
Windowing.
If you do decide to release on your own, knowing how release windows work within the industry is beneficial. Though the time to sequence through each release window is getting shorter, you still need to pay attention to which sales window you open when, especially in the digital space. Anyone who has ever had a Netflix account knows that, as a consumer, you would rather watch a film using the Netflix subscription you have already paid for rather than shell out more cash to buy or rent a stream of the latest movies. But from a filmmaker/distributor’s perspective, this initial Transactional VOD (TVOD) window maximizes profits because, unlike a flat licensing fee deal from Netflix, the film gets a percentage of every transactional VOD purchase. So if you release your film on Netflix or another subscription service (SVOD) right away without being paid a significant fee for exclusivity, you are essentially giving the milk away. And when that happens, you can expect to see transactional purchases (a.k.a. demand for the cow) decrease.
Furthermore, subscription sites like Netflix will likely use numbers from transactional purchases to inform, at least in part, their decision as to whether or not to make an offer on a film in the first place. In other words, showing sales data, showing you have a real audience behind your film, is a key ingredient to getting on any platform where you need to ask permission to be on it. Netflix is not as interested in licensing independent film content as it once was. It is likely that if your film is not a strong performer theatrically, or via other transactional VOD sites, it may not garner a significant Netflix licensing fee or they may refuse to take it onto the platform.
Also be aware that some TV licensing will be contingent on holding back subscription releases for a period of time. If you think your film is a contender for a broadcast license, you may want to hold off on a subscription release until you’ve exhausted that avenue. Just don’t wait too long or the awareness you have raised for your film will die out.
Direct distribution from your website
Your website and social channels are global in their reach. Unless you are paid handsomely for all worldwide distribution rights to your film, your North American distributor should not run the channels where you connect with your audience; the audience you have spent months or years on your own to build and hope to continue to build. These channels can be used to sell access to your film far more profitably for you than going through several middlemen.
Many low budget American films are not good candidates for international sales because the audience worldwide isn’t going to be big enough to appeal to various international distributors. Rather than give your rights to a sales agent for years just to see what they can do, think seriously about selling to global audiences from your own website and from sites such as Vimeo, Youtube, and iTunes. In agreements we make with distributors for our members, we negotiate the ability to sell worldwide to audiences directly off of a website without geo-blocking unsold territories. If you are negotiating agreements with other distributors, the right to sell directly can be extremely beneficial to carve out. If you do happen to sell your film in certain international territories, it is wise to also make sure you do not distribute on your site in a way that will conflict with any worldwide street dates and any other distribution holdbacks or windowing that may be required per your distribution contract.
You can sell DVDs, merchandise, downloads and streaming off your own site with the added benefit of collecting contact email addresses for use throughout your filmmaking career. Above all, don’t hold out for distribution opportunities that may not come when publicity and marketing is happening. So many times we are contacted by filmmakers who insist on spending a year or more on the festival circuit with no significant distribution offers in sight and they are wasting their revenue potential by holding back on their own distribution efforts. You can play festivals AND sell your films at the same time. Many regional fests no longer have a policy against films with digital distribution in place. When the publicity and awareness is happening, that’s the time to release.
Festival distribution is a thing
Did you know that festivals will pay screening fees to include your film in their program? It’s true! But there is a caveat. Your film must have some sort of value to festival programmers. How does a film have value? By premiering at a world class festival (Sundance, Berlin, SXSW etc or at a prestige niche festival) or having notable name cast. Those are things that other festivals prize and are willing to pay for.
You should try to carve out your own festival distribution efforts if a sales or distribution agreement is presented. That way you will see these festival screening fees and immediately start receiving revenue. Our colleagues, Jeffrey Winter and Bryan Glick, typically handle festival distribution for members of The Film Collaborative without needing to take ownership rights over the film (unlike a sales agent). TFC shares in a percentage of the screening fee and that is the only way we make money from festival distribution. No upfront costs, no ownership stake.
Deliverables
This is an expense that many new filmmakers are unfamiliar with and without the proper delivery items, sales agents and distributors will not be able/interested in distributing your film. You may also find that even digital platforms will demand some deliverables. At TFC (as well as with any sales agent/distributor), we require E&O insurance with a minimum coverage of $1,000,000 per occurrence, $3,000,000 in the aggregate, in force for a term of three years. The cost to purchase this insurance is approximately $3000-$5000. Also, a Closed Captioning file is required for all U.S. titles on iTunes. The cost can be upwards of $900 to provide this file. Additionally, many territories (such as UK, Australia, New Zealand and others) are now requiring official ratings from that territory’s film classification board, the cost of which can add up if you plan to make your film available via iTunes globally. For distributors, closed captioning and foreign ratings are recoupable expenses that they pay for upfront, but if you are self distributing through an aggregator service, this expense is on you upfront.
You may also be asked to submit delivery items to a sales agent or a distributor such as a HD Video Master, a NTSC Digi- Beta Cam down conversion and a full length NTSC Digi-Beta Pan & Scan tape all accompanied by a full Quality Control report, stereo audio on tracks 1&2, the M&E mix on tracks 3&4 and these may cost $2000-$5000 depending on the post house you use. If your tapes fail QC and you need to go back and fix anything, the cost could escalate upwards of $15,000. Then there are the creative deliverables such as still photography, key art digital files if they exist, electronic press kit if it exists or the video footage to be assembled into one, the trailer files if they exist. Also, all talent contracts and releases, music licenses and cue sheets, chain of title, MPAA rating if available etc.
Distribution is a complicated and expensive process. Be sure you have not completely raided your production budget or allocated a separate budget (much smarter!) in order to distribute directly to your audience and for the delivery items that will be needed if you do sign an agreement with another distribution entity. Also, seek guidance, preferably from an entity that is not going to take an ownership stake in the film for all future revenue over a long period of time.
For those headed to Park City, good luck with your prospects. TFC will be on the ground so keep up with our Tweets and Facebook posts. If the offers aren’t what you envisioned for your film, be ready to mobilize your own distribution efforts.
Sheri Candler December 19th, 2013
Posted In: Digital Distribution, Distribution
Tags: Berlin, cable VOD, digital aggregators, digital distributors, digital film distribution, independent film distribution, Netflix, Orly Ravid, Park City, release windows, Sheri Candler, Sundance, The Film Collaborative
A look at Slamdance ’13 winner Bible Quiz
All this month, we will be sharing advice geared toward filmmakers heading to the festivals in Park City in January. Notorious for brisk weather and brisk sales, the festivals offer unparalleled access to close to 1000 members of the press as well as film buyers looking for the next big acquisition. Preparation is key as is an alternative plan in case that big sales opportunity doesn’t present itself. Today’s post will examine the outcome of documentary jury winner from Slamdance 2013, Nicole Teeny’s Bible Quiz.
SC: Did you go into the festival with sales representation or a publicist? What kind of press coverage resulted from Slamdance? From the rest of the festival run?
NT: “Most features and a handful of shorts that went into Slamdance had a publicist. It was too expensive for me so I did my own publicity. It ended up being a lot of work juggling the premiere and press, but I enjoyed the process and learned more about my audience. I was also happy with the range of publications that covered BIBLE QUIZ.
We were lucky that my feature documentary BIBLE QUIZ struck a chord with and intrigued a lot of people. We’ve received reviews and articles in Hollywood Reporter, the BBC, The Christian Post, IndieWire, San Francisco Guardian amongst others which can be seen here: www.biblequizmovie.com/press.
When we initially heard BIBLE QUIZ was selected to screen at Slamdance, I got varied advice whether it was necessary to have a sales agent, and if so, whether to wait until after the screening to sign with someone. Since this was my first film and I was learning, I ultimately decided having a sales partner would be helpful to me. I have been working with Steven Beer for domestic distribution and he’s been fantastic. He is also an entertainment lawyer so that works out well when it comes to contracts. I think that if a filmmaker decides to go with an agent, they should try to do so before their premiere.
For international sales, everyone I have talked to says you must have an international sales agent. I’ve been working with Forward Entertainment and they have been great.”
SC: What happened after Bible Quiz won the jury prize at Slamdance? Did distribution offers materialize? What lead to continuing on the circuit?
NT: “It’s hard to say exactly what caused what, but it’s a fair guess that screening and winning the jury prize at Slamdance led to a lot of interest in the film. Many distributors asked to see the film, many film reviews happened, and many other film festivals asked me to submit the film to them as well. It was great to have this kind of momentum.
Ultimately, though, each festival and distributor decides for itself whether a film is right for their audience. I think the main reason for success has been that Mikayla’s coming of age and identity story in BIBLE QUIZ is relatable to people of all ages regardless of creed, so the film connects to a lot of people, and as a result, many different festivals have screened the film.”
SC: What marketing assets did you already have in place by Slamdance? Website? Email database? Social media presence? Organizational partners? Or did those start after the festival?
NT: “Prior to screening at Slamdance, I had a website, Facebook page, Twitter account and newsletter list. I’ve found promoting the film comes way before the first film festival.
SC: In continuing to show the film at festivals, what did you learn or gain from the experience?
NT: “Timing is everything. It’s important to strike when the iron is hot. When you have something newsworthy like partnerships, press, festival acceptance, distribution etc. it’s important to use that leverage to your advantage. For instance, I found it really helpful to use festival acceptance as a way to have a reason to connect with press and get them interested in writing about the film. It’s also great to post news (articles, festivals, awards, etc.) on your film’s social media sites to engage and build your audience.
For documentary filmmakers, whenever possible, I highly recommend bringing the subject of the documentary to screenings. Mikayla,the star of BIBLE QUIZ, was great to have at Q&A’s. We have a good dynamic on stage sharing stories together plus after she endeared the screening audiences, they liked seeing where she is today. On that note, I’ve learned that audiences like to have a personable Q&A. I try to swallow my nervousness, let my personality come through and talk to the audience as though we’re at coffee together and whenever I can, use stories to answer questions.
I also try to do as much of the press before the festival so when I get to the festival I can primarily network and meet other filmmakers. It goes without saying that it’s great to have an audience and share your film. But, one of my other favorite things about festivals is hanging out with other filmmakers, festival staff and industry. Many are inspiring, fun to hang out with and end up becoming friends outside of the circuit.
I also try to see as many other filmmakers’ movies at festivals as I can because it’s important to be supportive and it is a great way connect to what’s happening in film now and find inspiration. Also, I just love movies.”
SC: Did you guide and manager the festival distribution yourself or did you have someone help you?
NT: “I managed the festival circuit mainly by myself although my associate producer, Katheryn Warzak, accompanied me to a of couple festivals. But I feel fortunate to have had many kind people give me great advice. My dear friend and mentor filmmaker, Marco Williams, was my professor at NYU and he guided me during the filmmaking and after the release in understanding which festivals to apply to. (As a side note, I think many film students do not take advantage of getting to know their professors—they are incredible resources and have vast amounts of knowledge and experience).
Festival programmers were also helpful in knowing other festivals that might be good fits for my film. I am particularly grateful to Paul Rachman and Peter Baxter at Slamdance who helped answer questions, gave me great advice and recommendations. Slamdance is truly a film festival for filmmakers and kind of like a big filmmaking family. I could not have asked for a more awesome festival at which to premiere.
Michael Feldman was our MVP when it came to the logistics of finishing the film. He was our online editor, colorist, helped me incorporate tweaks from screenings, make discs and so much more. He and I have co-directed projects together in the past so it was awesome to work with someone I trusted and knew my style.”
SC: Has any revenue been generated on the festival circuit?
NT: “Not really—if you have suggestions I’d love to hear how! I have generated some from various screenings outside the circuit though.”
SC: Has the film had the release you envisioned? Do you feel satisfied with what the screenings have accomplished?
NT: “I had no idea what to expect with the release of the film. A couple of people told me a film’s life doesn’t start until after your premiere. I disagree. I think a film’s life starts the moment a germ of an idea pops into your head, but manifests itself in two phases: The first [phase is creating the story and the second phase is sharing it.
There’s a whole caboodle that goes into getting your film to the audience: press, festivals, awards, distribution, social media/online presence, outreach partners, etc…. Managing it is almost an entirely different skill set. I personally found it thrilling and useful to learn about. The audience is always on my mind when I’m making a movie or writing something and I found this process to be another way to understand how audiences think.
I am very satisfied with where the film is now. We are planning for an early 2014 release and I can’t wait to share the film with an even broader audience. Stories and movies are moving and they connect us to one another. It’s one of the most rewarding experiences to have someone share with you that they felt touched and connected to your characters through film.”
Thanks to Nicole for sharing her film’s journey beyond its Slamdance win and good luck to those attending the upcoming Slamdance Film Festival with their films.
Sheri Candler December 11th, 2013
Posted In: Film Festivals
Tags: Bible Quiz, documentary, Forward Entertainment, independent film, Katheryn Warzak, Marco Williams, Michael Feldman, Nicole Teeny, Park City, Paul Rachman, Peter Baxter, Slamdance Film Festivals, Steven Beers, The Film Collaborative
Be Well Prepared Before Crowdfunding
In our final guest post highlighting crowdfunding, Radio Free Albemuth producer Elizabeth Karr explains why success all comes down to preparation. We hope you have enjoyed our month devoted to crowdfunding advice and we plan to release a white paper roundup of the best crowdfunding tips in this series in a few weeks.
People donate to Crowdfunding campaigns for three reasons:
1. The People.
2. The Project.
3. The Premiums.
But maximizing your chance of success depends on the fourth P – Preparation. This is crucial and will be the focus of this article.
It’s incumbent on any of us doing a Crowdfunding campaign to make it an enticing, exciting, and well-thought out project that will attract backers. That’s a given. But having a terrific project isn’t a guarantee of success. You need to get the word out and get your campaign in front of as many eyeballs as possible. Particularly if you are trying to raise a substantial sum like writer/director/producer John Alan Simon and I did with Radio Free Albemuth Theatrical Release Kickstarter.
I’ve seen great projects fail because of a lack of organization and so-so projects succeed because there was a targeted effort to reach out beyond family and friends to people who have an interest in their subject matter. Like Blanche DuBois, crowd-funders depend on the kindness – and interest – of strangers.
So when do you start to prepare? Right now. If you are even thinking about crowdfunding in the future, take the time to do the following steps NOW. You’ll be too busy during your campaign to tackle these tasks. Get a jump on them with the added bonus that up-to-date contact lists put you in good standing for marketing and promoting, in general.
1. Clean up your personal email lists. Make sure contacts are up to date. Organize them by category: Family, Close Friend, Acquaintance, Business, Cast, Crew, Science Fiction, Philip K. Dick, etc. Choose categories that make sense to you and your project. During your campaign, this allows you to tailor pitch emails to the recipient.
2. Use Bulk Email Programs. Sign up for and/or build your subscription list on one of the many mass mail programs. We use Constant Contact. There are a lot of bells and whistles to this and other programs. Take the time to familiarize yourself with them now. Create templates for future use. Organize the contacts by category as above. Add a sign-up button to your website for new subscribers. These contacts are invaluable as they are people who have chosen to be kept abreast of what you are doing.
3. Research bloggers and news outlets that cover your subject. Create a contact list (Email, Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, Google+, Pinterest) so you are ready to go pre-launch and on Day One when you announce your campaign. And don’t wait for the campaign to contact them. Engage with them now. Become part of their community by commenting and sharing information. Presumably, you are already interested in the topics they are writing about, so you’ll increase your knowledge. Plus you are expanding your circle of friends and acquaintances, and possible backers. Crowdfunding is all about community building.
4. Contribute to other’s campaigns. It’s good karma and you get to see how campaigns work from the donor’s side. It also gives you an idea of how much to charge for premiums and you can pick up tips watching others’ pitch videos. Before launching our Kickstarter for Radio Free Albemuth distribution, John Alan Simon and I contributed to over 100 campaigns. Maybe it’s just me, but I’m more likely to donate to a campaign when I see the person has backed others. What goes around comes around…
5. Write a press release. The old-fashioned 5 W’s – Who, What, Where, When, Why – that you will send out to bloggers and media outlets two weeks before launch, and again on Day One. Be sure the contact person (probably you) is someone who responds quickly to each and every request for photos, interviews, additional information, etc. News outlets move fast. You need to be ready when they are.
Phil (Shea Whigham) and Nick Brady (Jonathan Scarfe) interrogation at FAP Headquarters. Radio Free Albemuth
6. Build your team and designate ambassadors. Crowd-funding is a full-time job and you will need help. Enlist members of your outreach effort now. Make it easy for them to help you by giving them clear assignments. For example, we engaged the Philip K. Dick community to share with their friends and followers. Our friend Franceska Lynne, researched sites that were interested in Alanis Morissette, Shea Whigham, Kathryn Winnick and Ashley Greene, who are actors in Radio Free Albemuth. Create a list of tasks to do during the campaign that you can delegate amongst your team and ambassadors. Your cast and crew are likely candidates to help you. Don’t assume they will be there. Chat them up. Get them involved.
7. Create email templates that friends, and family, – and people you meet through social media – will send out to their contacts about your project. Again, make it easy for people to help you. Give them the template and they can tailor it/personalize it.
8. Prepare videos, clips and articles for Updates in advance. In the whirlwind of a campaign, you don’t want to be editing clips from your movie. Have them ready to go. The more prep work you can do ahead of time, the more time you have to focus on building concentric circles of connectivity when your campaign is up and running.
9. Build your social media presence. If you’re reading this, you’re probably already on Twitter and Facebook. If you’re not, do so immediately –- both for you and your project. Be social. Engage. Comment. Share. Retweet. Don’t just jump on the scene with a megaphone for your campaign. Your message is more likely to get across if you’ve proven to be a good listener.
10. Face to Face and telephone conversations are still very valuable. There’s nothing like IRL (In Real Life) interaction. Tell people in advance what you are thinking of doing. Not everyone is on social media or makes decisions by email. Friends and relatives who already believe in you are your most likely early supporters and contributors. For many of us, crowdfunding is not a natural fit, and we have to get used to asking people to support with us with donations and/or time. The more comfortable you get with your role as a Crowdfunder, the more effective you will be as an advocate for your project.
11. Ask for Day One support. Now that you’ve organized your contacts by categories, target 50 that you will send a pre-launch email and ensure their support on day one. Follow that up with an email when your campaign goes live. That way, when you announce your campaign to the world, those clicking on your link will see that you already have backers. It’s a reassuring sign to potential backers that others support the project.
12. Never lose sight that Crowdfunding is as much about building community as raising money. Equally important to the funds raised on our successful Kickstarter is the community of 827 supporters, who are now part of Team RFA. Many of them are actively taking part in the film’s journey beyond their financial contribution. John Alan Simon and I agree that this is the best part of the Crowdfunding experience – the people.
Is this Crowdfunding Prep list exhaustive? No, but it’s a good start. Did John Alan Simon and I do each and every one of these to perfection before we launched? No. Will we next time? Yes.
A few parting words. We continued to get queries from people who wanted to back our project after Kickstarter ended, so we created a Slacker Backer site on our website powered by PayPal that will be live for the next few months. Donations and sharers welcome! All rewards will be delivered the same time as the Kickstarter rewards. All funds go towards Radio Free Albemuth’s theatrical release. To reiterate what I said about Crowdfunding being an important builder of community and resources; this site was created by Kickstarter backer Victor Grippi, who we are proud to have as a new Associate Producer.
Follow Elizabeth Karr on Twitter @elizabethkarr and Radio Free Albemuth @rfamovie. Visit the film’s website for more information http://www.radiofreealbemuth.com
Sheri Candler December 2nd, 2013
Posted In: crowdfunding
Tags: crowdfunding, Elizabeth Karr, email list, independent film, John Alan Simon, Philip K. Dick, Radio Free Albemuth, Slacker Backer, social media, The Film Collaborative
Bringing ’90s fundraising skills to a Kickstarter campaign
A guest post from director Leslie Harris. I asked Leslie to participate in this series because to me she represents what the older generation of film directors is facing. The way things are being done now is VERY different to the early and mid ’90s when film financing and large distribution deals were plentiful. A time when her Sundance winning film had a full and celebrated release on the Miramax label. New developments like social media, digital self distribution, and the idea that a creator has to gather an audience and build a personal brand have left some of the older generation shaking their heads. Leslie is diving right in and running a Kickstarter campaign for a new film and I applaud her willingness to experiment and adapt her previous experience to this new world of film finance and distribution.
Even though I have made a feature film before, the Sundance Special Jury Prize winner Just Another Girl on the I.R.T. released by Miramax in 1993, no matter how many films you have made, most filmmakers will tell you making another feature is like starting over from scratch.
When my film was released in the 90’s, it was a boom for independent film financing and distribution and somewhat a Renaissance for the indie African-American filmmakers too. Unfortunately, the boom was mainly for the young, hot, male directors not women. Black women both in front of and behind the camera, well… we were practically non-existent except for a few of us.
Fast forward to today, sure there are more Black actresses working, but not in all genres and the recent controversy about the lack of Black Women on Saturday Night Live exemplifies what we’re facing. The numbers are even more embarrassingly low for Black women behind the camera. There’s a lot of work to do to make a change and that’s why I came to crowdfunding. I think crowdfunding works best for filmmakers who have been ignored by traditional film financing sources and have something passionate to say. Projects that artists can take straight to the audience and encourage their support rather than to studios and investors purely looking at the bottom line. My new film, I Love Cinema, is a satirical comedy about sex, race and politics in a ‘so-called’ post-racial world. The story is about Professor Layla Laneaux, sophisticated, educated and African-American. Layla is obsessed with cinema both in the classroom and the bedroom, but the Professor’s film fantasy world is shattered by racial controversy and a media circus all seemingly out to get her.
The same skills that I learned in the go-go 90’s of indie film are still useful to me today. My experience applying and receiving grants from National Endowment for the Arts, American Film Institute and New York State Council on the Arts is helpful because I had to convince people in a concise way that my story is viable and worth funding. Back then, I put together a reel and wrote the grant application. I also approached people like filmmaker Michael Moore and author Terry McMillan, who both supported Just Another Girl on the I.R.T with a check. Now my reel is a pitch video and my written application is the text on my Kickstarter page. In a way, I have already run a sort of Kickstarter, but now I need to reach many more people about my film idea and need to use all of the new tools available to me.
Social media and the internet are basically the heart of a crowdfunding effort…Facebook, Twitter, Instagram etc. I have learned the value of having a great team of people to help with social media, though I found my team mid-way through my campaign…a mistake! You’ll make mistakes, but doing crowdfunding is relatively new so it is a learning process. I was so happy to find committed young people, especially women, who were internet savvy and happy to volunteer. Search around, it may take a bit of time to find the right person, but there is someone out there to help. My interns are learning new skills that will help them in their careers in film because I think crowdfunding sites for moviemakers is the wave of the future for financing. I couldn’t do this campaign alone. I have learned having your film on a crowdfunding site is similar to making a really small indie film…you have to have a team.
And ya gotta be passionate and tenacious because crowdfunding is a lot of work! I’ve gotten very little sleep, about four hours a night. But my sleep deprivation didn’t just occur during the 30-Days while my project has been live. I’ve been preparing for this campaign for months prior to the launch. First, I did my research about crowdfunding wherever I could find information from blogs, advice from other filmmakers who have done crowdfunding and even You Tube videos to see what worked and what didn’t. I didn’t want to copy what someone else was doing because, in my opinion, every project is unique and your video has to reflect your particular film. I looked at production techniques and editing transitions. For example, it’s effective to use dissolves for this format if you have a one camera set up when one person is talking directly to the potential backers. If you’re not experienced in front of the camera, and most filmmakers aren’t…it’s going to be hard not to flub a line and I flubbed a lot of ‘em! Remember, there are limitations. You can’t use copyrighted material or music in your video unless it is cleared and you have to have permission to use it. So be really creative. Keep your video short 2-3 minutes unless the subject and tone calls for something longer. For example a documentary fundraising video might be 5 minutes or longer because you have a lot of material and it may take a bit longer for the story to unfold with a doc.
Let’s be honest reaching your goal is tough. My advice is to be ultra conservative in determining your goal. Mine is set for $35,000. The style and tone of your pitch video also depends on whether you’re asking for funds in pre-production, production or post. Are you trying to get something new off of the ground or something almost finished into the world?
Remember you have to offer perks and that means you have to produce them and deliver them in a timely manner (don’t forget postage costs!) and make your backers happy. Offer great rewards that are really interesting and valuable, but don’t cost much to produce. For example, I am offering a Production Journal as one of my rewards that will detail my experiences on set during production. It is something I would probably be writing anyway. How much will it cost you to make a T-Shirt? How many do you plan to sell? How much is shipping to India? I had to use my 9th Grade math skills a lot while deciding what rewards I would offer.
Yes, raising funds this way is a tremendous amount of work. While I’ve launched, there is still a lot more to do during the campaign. Update! Update and Update! I keep my page current with photos, links, video and press…Indiewire’s Shadow and Act did a great piece on our film. This experience for me has been exciting. It’s new. Implementing the social media, creating a video that is spread around the world is very cool! I’m a storyteller. The crowd-funding process is all about telling a story. Ask yourself…why does my film deserve funding? Put yourself in the role of a backer.
Who knows if I’m going to make my goal…so take what I have written with a grain of salt, it’s just one experience. For me, it’s been rewarding already. I’ve reconnected with many friends and colleagues. Actress, Jennifer Williams, and my production team have been wonderful in making the video. I couldn’t have done this without my Editor, Jack Haigis. My producer, Erwin Wilson has been at my side all the way. Great people who supported the project… and that’s gold! I’ve met and worked with great women who are savvy in social media. I know I am doing my best. I can always sleep after December 8th the last day of my campaign. So wish me luck and stop by my Kickstarter page. I could really use your support!
Sheri Candler November 29th, 2013
Posted In: crowdfunding, Uncategorized
Tags: African American, crowdfunding, Erwin Wilson, film director, filmmaker, I Love Cinema, independent film, Jack Haigis, Jennifer Williams, Just Another Girl on the I.R.T., Leslie Harris, Miramax, Shadow and Act, Sundance
3 lessons in crowdfunding the UK short film Patient 39
A guest post from Lizzie Crouch. Back in December 2012, Writer/Director Dan Clifton sat down with producer Roland Holmes and co-producer Lizzie Crouch to talk about how they might approach a crowdfunding campaign for Dan’s short film, Patient 39. In this article, Lizzie explores the lessons learned from their ultimately successful campaign, raising over $8000 for the film on Indiegogo. Also included are excerpts from the diary Dan kept while fundraising.
Lesson #1 It’s not just about the campaign; it’s about the community
From Dan’s diary:
The first thing is to discuss what to do with the short fundraising appeal film I’ve made… My appeal is under 2 mins and involves me dressing in pyjamas and making a slight fool of myself (a good thing, apparently), although hopefully the tone is appropriately sincere. Thankfully my producers like it.
There’s lot of great advice online about how to build a good crowd funding campaign. Don’t underestimate how long it takes to do thorough research, but don’t be overwhelmed by it either. There is no set way of doing the perfect crowd-funding campaign, each one is unique, so the real trick is working out what’s right for you.
The most important thing is to figure out the target audience for your campaign. For the Patient 39 Indiegogo campaign we identified a number of audiences who might be interested in supporting us, but given the film’s scientific themes, it was a group we called ‘science-y culture-vultures’ – those interested in the crossover between science and art – that we thought had most untapped potential.
Still from Patient 39
Despite this, we knew that other groups would play a part and ultimately become the film’s audience, so we were careful to include a broad range of content about the film to build a larger online community. The content at the heart of the campaign was aimed at short film fans and science culture-vultures, but careful curation of online content allowed a diverse range of audiences to engage with us.
Lesson #2 Building an online community is committing to a long-term relationship
From Dan’s diary:
The evidence from successful campaigns suggests that what people value above all is not material goodies, but a chance to feel involved as part of the team. After much debate we came up with a list of perks that range from Exec Producer credits at the top of the range, to visits to the set and crew T shirts for more modest-level investors.
As Dan identified in his diary, building a community is about making people feel like they are a part of something – and different audiences will respond to different things. Those who want to donate to the campaign may like thoughtful perks while others may simply want to engage with diverse, inspiring content related to the film or to filmmaking.
In recognition of this we set up a website and social media channels to disseminate articles, carefully balancing new content with our call for donations. Spanning science articles on consciousness and the history of medicine, we built our community around themes that would appeal to them; connected with online ‘influencers’ and key contacts; and kept our campaign fresh by updating the video and making announcements about team members that joined us.
But building an online community is like committing to a long-term relationship. Although most people understand who they’re trying to connect with, many don’t realize the amount of work that goes into maintaining it. Never assume a campaign will run itself – sometimes when we weren’t quite as on top of things are we could have been, we saw the consequences.
From Dan’s diary:
What I am learning is that you definitely have to feed the beast. What I mean by that is even though it seems foolish in some ways, like shouting without hearing an echo back, all the content and tweeting etc. does make a difference in reaching potential supporters. I’ve been away for five days on a shoot and consequently not able to be as proactive as I’d have liked, and sure enough we’ve had a noticeable lull in donations.
All this can be hard work, but a well-built community will reward you at every step of the filmmaking process. Don’t assume though that because you’ve finished the film, the community ceases to be – we are still communicating with ours as we build up to an online release in the future!
Lesson #3 Getting to know your community is humbling (and anxiety-inducing)
When you build an online community, you get to know your audience in a whole new way; you learn their names, where they’re from, etc. This is useful not only when it comes to later stages (marketing and distribution), but also for future projects. But it is also a responsibility that you have to carry on your shoulders!
From Dan’s diary:
Four days to go and we have reached our target, a $500 donation late last night lifting us over the line! I feel amazed and humbled by the whole experience. To feel people’s generosity and support in such an immediate way is something I hadn’t expected, but it is wonderful although I feel a great sense of responsibility too. In the last few days we’ve managed to reach out to funders beyond our immediate circle of family and friends, and it’s great to think that our efforts to widen our base of supporter and followers has had some measure of success.
I believe that our campaign was successful to due the hard work of the team to build and maintain an engaged online community, and we are very grateful for the support we received during our campaign.
To find out more about Patient 39 please visit our website, like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter @Patient39film.
Sheri Candler November 27th, 2013
Posted In: crowdfunding, SHORT FILMS
Tags: crowdfunding, Dan Clifton, fundraising, independent film, indiegogo, Lizzie Crouch, Patient 39, Roland Holmes, short film, The Film Collaborative
Crowdfunding in Canada
A guest post from Richard Bishop of Empty Cup Media based in Oshawa, Ontario. Crowdfunding via Kickstarter has only been available in Canada since September 9, 2013. I asked Richard to share what his team learned in being one of the first projects on the platform and some of his comments on their success seem to defy conventional advice. Further proof that there is NO blueprint for success.
As a small company foraying into the independent film making industry for the first time, we based part of our film fundraising strategy around running a successful crowdfunding campaign. We first heard about the idea while attending a few Hot Docs workshops over the past two years. After committing to the idea, we did our due diligence – reading books, articles and blogs about other projects’ successes and failures- and we opted to go with Kickstarter as our platform as it had launched in Canada only a month earlier. We thought it would be possible to cash in on some of the general media press surrounding their launch.
When we launched the campaign, we had already completed the production of Heal Myself and we planned on using the crowdfunding money to cover post-production costs. We set a fundraising target of $25,000. We knew that this was a large number and success would require dedication and hard work. Throughout the production of the film, we had continually built an e-mail contact list for all participants as well as developed a solid social media following on Facebook. In our minds, we initially looked at it as a mathematical equation – with connections to over 2,500 people we only needed each of them to donate $10 and we’d be done! Well, we quickly found out that this notion was unrealistic.
We launched the campaign on Oct. 4th and watched the film become 20% funded in the first few days, then the initial flare burned out and stagnation set in. Every day a few people would donate, slowly driving us closer to the goal, but it wasn’t enough to drive us up the popularity matrix on the Kickstarter website. By Oct 30th, 4 days before our campaign ended we had climbed to 62% funded, crunch time set in. It was on that day that things started to accelerate and by the end of the campaign we had reached 106% funded. It was time to celebrate with all those who helped us!
There have been a lot of good posts on this blog already about how to build a campaign to maximize your chances at success, but we thought we’d share some of the things that we learned throughout the process (along with some numerical breakdowns) in hopes that it will help some of our Canadian friends who may be new to the concept of crowdfunding.
Here’s what we learned based on our backer reports and analytics:
-80%+ of our pledges came from people who had direct access to the film either by knowing us personally, liking Heal Myself on Facebook, being on our e-mail list etc;
-Posting update videos on Kickstarter and social media outlets is useful, but time consuming. A more effective use of our time was creating posters, such as these for the same purpose;
-Being featured on the Kickstarter documentary homepage isn’t as helpful as one might think. It did increase traffic and Kickstarter video plays (about a 15% increase), but it didn’t generate much in the way of pledges from people who were not connected to the project in any way (less than 1% of funding);
-Our two most successful award tiers were $100 and $200. The reason for this, we believe, is the rewards we offered at these levels were the most engaging for fans of the film. $100 tier included the special features DVD and $200 tier included the special features DVD and a pair of tickets to a private screening. Backers of our project really gravitated to the idea that they could be part of a physical event – we gave away over 88 tickets in this manner!
-Broad spectrum advertising or marketing had very limited success. We had advertisements on a variety of websites (through our personal connections), went on TV and a radio show, but none of these things brought in significant monetary pledges (less than 5% of our goal).
-Niche marketing was highly successful – we posted online on a variety of blogs and websites that were directly related to the subject matter of our film. Theses avenues brought in a fair amount of pledges (more than 15% of our goal).
-There is no substitute for hard work. We were using social media and e-mail all day every day to contact our personal connections. It was these people who spread the word to their contacts, creating a web of support that reached more people than we could have alone. Relying on your friends and family for help is crucial for projects of the size we undertook.
Although running a successful campaign is great in financial terms, after all you now can go ahead with the next stage of your film project. But the community you’ve built around your film is equally important. We are now in the process of thanking the great people who’ve funded our film and shown interest in our project. We believe that they will be our greatest assets when creating a grassroots campaign of screenings and events once Heal Myself is completed. Finding ways to demonstrate our gratitude and keeping these people informed as the project develops is an ongoing process, something we are continuing to experiment with and learn about. We are open to hearing any suggestions about how to keep our backers engaged going forward. If you have suggestions, please email (info @ emptycupmedia.ca) us.
Best of luck with future campaigns, we hope that some of our experiences can be put to good use!
A quick note to Canadians who are using crowdfunding:
As of early October 2013, the Canadian Government has ruled that all money received through crowdfunding is counted as business revenue. This is the case even if you are an individual raising money for a film without any company ties. This is a big deal as it really alters the amount of money you will receive in the end from your campaign as well as create some more paperwork in order to correctly deal with the tax implications.
The money the crowdfunding source takes as their cut is deductable as business expenses. Also the money that you use to fulfill rewards is deductable. I am not fully sure of all the tax implications and I am sure that this will be an evolving issue as time goes on. These tax rules will certainly inflate the initial fundraising goals for projects making successful projects that much harder to run – especially if you are private sector and don’t have non-profit ties so that you can offer tax receipts for donations!
Empty Cup Media is a video/photo company serving clients in and around the Greater Toronto Area. You may follow the progress of Heal Myself by connecting on Twitter, Facebook or joining their email list.
Sheri Candler November 26th, 2013
Posted In: crowdfunding
Tags: Canada, crowdfunding, documentary, Empty Cup Media, Heal Myself, Hot Docs, independent film, Kickstarter, niche marketing, Richard Bishop, Sheri Candler, The Film Collaborative