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How did you first hear about Breaking Glass Pictures?
I’m trying to remember. I think I just knew of them as a brand. If I remember correctly, I believe they reached out to us about our film. I didn’t specifically know their titles or chase after them or anything.
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I had heard about them because they’re known as an LGBTQ distributor and my film fits into that genre. I reached out to them because of that specificity.
I knew of Breaking Glass because they’d done (or their parent company had done) a lot of distribution in the space of work that touched on porn or gay sex in a particular way.
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I heard about them as an LGBT filmmaker, and I was conscious of the kinds of films they distributed. That’s how I knew them.
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I saw another filmmaker post about getting distribution with them so I reached out.
I believe it was through my sales agent. It was.
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They went through our sales agent.
I had heard of them before. If you watch any LGBT film on any cable network, a lot of them were from Breaking Glass.
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Through our producer’s rep.
What motivated you to work with them?
Short answer is that my distribution offers were limited and what they offered me I thought hit everything I was trying to do, that I thought was reasonable.
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They offered theatrical.
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They promised us a theatrical.
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They offered me a deal. They were the only people that offered me a deal so I went with them.
We felt that they had an understanding of a niche community we didn’t understand, but were a little bigger than some of the distributors we were talking to who knew the niche. We thought they could bring it to a broader market too. Succeed both with the niche and maybe spillover.
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I felt that they were one of our few options that were well known in the industry. I felt it was the best chance of the film getting out there in a wider capacity and I thought that their company represented our niche.
Our rep said they were great, and we got positive feedback. I think their advance was possibly higher than other options we had and that was a priority for the director who was also an investor.
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Ultimately they had the best deal. I reached out to a handful of companies - mostly the ones who operated in the same space (LGBTQ+). I had these conversations and ultimately they (Breaking Glass) offered me what seemed at that time to be the best deal. I also, at that point, was tired of working on the documentary. It had been a long process, an expensive process. They were enthusiastic. I had some connection to them—they worked with me. I knew other people who had worked with them and seemed like it was an easy fit.
I’m a first-time filmmaker and had no idea how anything worked. I kept throwing things against the wall and nothing stuck and this was another thing I tried (in contacting them through their general inbox).
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What went well?
At first, they were very communicative.
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They care about the film and they’re good people.
The positives were that they got me good distribution. I was on Amazon, on all those platforms…iTunes…all over. They got me on a ton of platforms, which was important because I’m a first-time filmmaker. It was great to be able to say “go to Amazon Prime to see my film for free. They got me good legs.
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They created a great trailer, pretty good posts, and the artwork, and they did get it out on platforms.
Overall, I have to say, they actually did everything they said they were going to do. I have heard horror stories from other filmmakers where distributors over-promise and under-deliver. If I made a checklist, Breaking Glass did everything on the checklist.
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I never felt like I couldn’t just reach out to them. I had everyone’s email address. I had cell phone numbers. I could call someone/email someone. I didn’t get lost in a wheel somehow. They were clear about what they agreed to.
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Trailer was fantastic—really well done.
It felt like a real distribution company with multiple people there, getting things done in a timely fashion.
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They are the ones who got the film to Amazon, iTunes, Vudu, Fandango—that was exciting.
The fact that they are an LGBTQ+ distributor and that they are both gay, that familiarity, I think. I know it helped me a lot because it does feel like you’re on the same team. I would have felt a little more hat-in-hand with a regular distributor, wondering all the time, “Are they okay with the content? What do they really think?” I didn’t have those worries with Breaking Glass. That was one worry eliminated.
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They’re still paying me periodically. It hasn’t been a horrible loss. They were responsive to my needs in the negotiations. Distributors have a tough road to hoe. In terms of other things that went well—I don’t feel like I’ve been forgotten by them. It’s been 6 years and they contacted me this year to do some press for the movie. Last year they found a new deal for a new platform. I’m still on their radar. They do incorporate it. Maybe it sells for them?
[long pause] There’s nothing that went right with Breaking Glass. From day one it was a disaster. Nothing has ever gone right with them. I’m not being hyperbolic.
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The great thing about Breaking Glass is that they were up front about what they could do, and they did it. I did feel like the communication was good. I could contact them. I was vocal about the artwork, the trailer. I wanted to be hands-on about certain things and they were accommodating as much as they could. Even if I had comments about the ad they were placing, they would listen. They did everything they could within reason to accommodate my requests and please me overall, which is very nice.
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I didn’t have much communication with them until delivery because most of that went through my sales agent. During delivery, we were in contact directly and we had good communication on that front.
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What went poorly?
They messed up the DCPs… no QC and a lack of care… and unfortunately, they didn’t market the film. They charged us tons of money for ad spends that were never spent and they did zero social. It rested in a catalogue of films with no passion behind it.
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It hurts me so much more because they are representing LGBT films, and so they’re hurting LGBT filmmakers. That’s what hits me the hardest. They’re preventing films who are in the minority from making any money and moving their careers forward. They’re taking advantage of their own people.
In terms of poorly, not poorly but what I would say is that there was some back and forth with the usual stuff—the artwork—and I had notes on the trailer they had cut. There was a lot of back and forth about the theatrical release. There was some disappointment on my side for the theatrical, but a reasonable disappointment because theatrical is so tough. We were trying to do this in a very short time period, not an ideal timeframe to do the release properly. I wish I had more lead time. Would have liked to have booked more theaters, but we did get a couple.
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Their communication is a little slow. Par for the course with distributors. Everything is driven by our side. We’re the ones following up about something if it needs to get done. That’s not different from any other distributor.
Not many people were wowed by me saying I was with Breaking Glass. People would say, “Don’t they do softcore porn?” They’re not necessarily screaming out “feature doc” so there was a little bit of judgment placed on them as distributors. I do think this is specific to any distributor that also specializes in LGBTQ+ work. I see other distributors wrestle with that. I didn’t get a whole lot of press. I don’t know how much I would say that is solely on the distributor because I do think the publicist we were working with… maybe they weren’t as effective as others. That was a little disappointing, not as much press as I would like. After the initial release and I got my MG, I was hoping that I would see more revenue coming in—all of the fees have been swallowed up by operating costs and expenses.
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Everyone wants more money (obviously) which is a generic complaint. They are a small company. It always feels a little bootstrapped. I didn’t get the sense that they were faking me or being cheap, but it was flying by the seat of their pants a little bit. If I had heard they had gone out of business, I wouldn’t be entirely shocked.
There have been a couple of times where I have been sent an update on how my film has done and the accounting hasn’t made sense. I wrote back to them and corrected them. They came back and they rectified themselves and send a check. It doesn’t seem shady, but it seems that it’s not always the tightest accounting.
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I don’t get the sense they supported us that well with the marketing. I wouldn’t tell someone else to go with Breaking Glass. It was a negative experience for me.
Things that went poorly… Communication between the filmmakers and Breaking Glass. And the publicity and marketing that was promised. We still haven’t seen evidence of it. The absence of free media and social media that we have no presence in, and it’s absolutely free. A complete lack of discerning visual aesthetic when it comes to marketing any of the movies I’ve seen. A hostile—they do communicate—hostile and aggressively accusatory tone. Uncollaborative. Deceptive in their practices. Impenetrable quarterly reports, when they come at all. Indecipherable. Incompetent in marketing. Lack of engagement with their audiences.
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I was disappointed by the review coverage. I reached out to the press department at Breaking Glass and asked for specific coverage, but they told me that they got no responses. I feel like there’s always room to do more. I was always tagging and posting and sharing on social media—and our cast was doing the same—I was doing all the work because I wasn’t seeing the attention it should get—or was hoping for.
The deal. I think I’ve made $17. The deal was awful, but I took that deal because I had no distribution, and it was my first film. I didn’t want it to be this project that sat nowhere.
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[Deep sigh and silence) What Breaking Glass did—in my experience—their general routine is they do a blanket press release and that’s it. They release the film and do a blanket saturation to media outlets, but that’s it. They’re not going to publicize it any more. Anything else is left up to the filmmaker themselves, or it’s just not done at all. They release and forget about it.
[A filmmaker cited several specific delivery issues having to do with drive and DVD duplication] The quality control was nonexistent.
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I hate the logo; it looks so cheap. First impressions mean a lot. That’s the first image you see—the distributor’s logo. You want something that looks expensive.
Did they breach the contract?
The majority of answers expressed there was no contract breach. No one explicitly said that Breaking Glass breached their contract, nor did anyone have evidence thereof.
[At least one filmmaker got to the point that they were near litigation.]
[A second filmmaker considered an audit, but decided against it because of the state of distribution and money involved.]
a third filmmaker
I think if we were to audit everything they’ve done, we would definitely find breaches of contract.
Filmmaker Friendliness?
They were fairly friendly and fairly responsive within the context of the power that they have. If they felt they could make more money, they’d give me more money. Doesn’t feel like they’re exploiting me as a resource. They are people who believe in films and want to make it work, struggling because of the industry.
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My impression was communications were pretty friendly. There were a few disagreements, but more about the poster or typical creative direction. But for the most part, communications were all positive.
Super friendly, and I go way back with them.
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Everything was super friendly, no problems there.
They’re incompetent.
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While we were negotiating the deal, he would call me up and I couldn’t get him off the phone. After the film came out, I can’t get arrested with Breaking Glass. It’s turned into no communication.
Another filmmaker warned me about the expenses that need to be recouped and not seeing additional money. The expense reports they send are really confusing. It’s written in a way that even some of my producers have a hard time understanding it. That doesn’t really foster confidence. But when I’ve reached out, they’ve been open to it.
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What would you have done differently?
I would have self-distributed. 100%. I knew I was walking into a bad deal. I knew my film better than the distributors and felt very confident I could put it out there with a strategic marketing plan. I think I would have raised more money for marketing and had a full plan to self-distribute. Spending the time marketing myself would have resulted in more marketing than they did, because they did nothing—zero social media posts.
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If I had more options, I would probably try to seek those out. I think maybe I could have found a better distributor. Maybe. I would have explored it…I am extremely grateful to them, but I do wish I had more options.
We’d probably make a different decision, but hindsight is 20/20. At the time, it seemed like it was the best opportunity. Based on what they were saying, we felt like it was the right path. Knowing what I know now about distribution—and the landscape is different now—but we would have insisted on a theatrical, and we would have explored other distributors, or thought twice about it. I wouldn't recommend them to other filmmakers coming out now. If someone has a different genre of film, I would maybe say to consider Breaking Glass, but overall, I wouldn't consider them again in any shape or form.
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I wouldn’t make a different decision knowing what I know now. They got my film out there and they got it on platforms I never thought was possible it get it on to. As far as that’s concerned, they were a great fit for me. It's hard being a first-time independent filmmaker.
I think that all things being equal, same movie and same situation and same mindset, I might make a different arrangement with them. It’s possible. Knowing what I know now, I may think a little bit more about the contract. I don’t feel taken advantage of, but as a first-time filmmaker you don’t always know what you can or can’t ask for.
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I’d self distribute rather than do this, or find another distributor to go with. They should not be going anywhere near anyone’s films. They didn’t do the most minimal thing in terms of supporting their filmmakers. I’d tell other filmmakers to stay as far away from them as possible. I’ve had other films distributed and never witnessed anything this incompetent in my life.
I would be much more aggressive in the conversation at the beginning to ask about their plan for promotion, and how I could help. If you can’t do something, let me know because I will go do it myself. I didn’t want to step on their toes, but there’s a lot I could have done to help the film’s release in terms of publicity and PR.
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At this point, we would definitely still stick with Breaking Glass. We were thinking we could probably have released on our own, but didn’t know the niche audience and we have general bandwidth issues.
If given the same opportunity, I would go with Breaking Glass again. They distributed on the platforms in the rollout I wanted. They did it all, which was nice. I would have loved more offers, a world acquisition, but considering what other distributor deals would look like, they did a decent job with definite room for improvement.
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Takeaways
- General pain points filmmakers reported were lack of speedy communication and some general concerns about reporting that lead to anxiety regarding creative accounting. However, that is not uncommon in the world of distribution, studio or independent.
- The website also boasts some out of date titles and broken links.
- If the tone of these interviews feels more exasperated than all the other companies we spoke to, it could be because many filmmakers expected more from a distributor of LGBTQ+ content.
- After several negative reports, The Film Collaborative revisited this Report to include more recent Breaking Glass clients in order to even things out, because many of the negative reviews were from filmmakers who started working with the company more than 2 years ago. We speculate that a fairly recent change in leadership has lead the company to have a better relationship with its filmmakers.
- A few filmmakers expressed a level of anxiety about the company having a reputation for “fudging marketing dollars” (being creative in the accounting to avoid payouts to filmmakers). For what it’s worth, not one filmmaker we spoke to recouped their budget. However, that can be said of a LOT of distribution deals and should not be thought of as specific to Breaking Glass.
