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How did you first hear about Cinedigm?
Our sales agent at redacted brought them on board after pitching the film numerous places.
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multiple projects
We’ve known about them for years due to the many channels they own.
I first heard of them when they bought New Video, which was an excellent DVD distributor.
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[They] made a deal with Sundance Artists Services way back in reda. They had an agreement with New Media for digital distribution, and at some point, I believe that got rolled into Cinedigm.
I have been friends with redacted, and they just began working there recently.
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I’d seen their name on a couple of indie films and some of my collaborators had worked on films that they had distributed. But the way we came to them was that one of our producers on the film personally knew redacted.
What motivated you to work with them?
They were excited about the movie. We liked their library of titles and felt they had the reach we needed to get the movie actually seen everywhere on streaming/VOD. They also got the redacted deal for us right out of the gate as a second window, and got us good $$ for that.
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This tends to happen with every movie we make we end up with one buyer who tends to step up to the plate in way that’s at least reasonable. They were offering an MG. They very much seemed to understand, respond to and like the movie. We were passed on by the biggies which tends to happen and found ourselves choosing between a handful of interested parties—of the people you hope get to love your movie and say they want to get it out there and Cinedigm was one of them.
They offered the most competitive bid amongst 4 others.
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multiple filmmakers
[Re the New Video / Cinedigm evolution:] It wasn’t really a choice for us.
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They’re certainly a company I had heard of before having seen their name on other films. We connected to them through our sales agent.
We filmed two films during COVID and the landscape changed drastically for distribution. We were finding Minimum Guarantees weren’t near as good as they had been just a few years prior. Streaming kind of ruined MGs for indies. Festivals were shut down as well. So we knew we were looking to get the film its best outlet and Cinedigm gave us a decent MG. They could get the film out there on multiple platforms that other distributors just couldn’t reach.
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What went well?
They marketed the film well and delivered on what they promised, as far as getting the film well-placed redacted platforms. They also did a lot to help the film get good star ratings on Rotten Tomatoes and IMDB. I feel icky saying this, but it does make a huge difference. Because [of the fame of our cast], we had a lot of trolls commenting all over the place. They took care of it.
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They were really open to negotiation with the MG. We had one investor on this film, and it was the lead producer so they needed to be happy with the money deal and they responded to their request about increasing it. They were good in the meeting. We believe that they understood the movie and understood the audience and had a really enthusiastic, nice team. We were happy talking to them. We had choices and felt these were the people who got it the best.
Initially we were very happy with the placement for the film. We did very well, particularly for a documentary on the various platforms. The movie was available more or less everywhere.
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Everything thus far—they answer e-mails quickly and are very supportive.
After sending about 18 e-mails to the different executives of Cinedigm, someone finally responded.
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The content placement has always been easy.
They had a really dedicated marketing department. They put a lot of work into the trailers and did some nice interviews with our cast, etc. They even put one of the films in a film festival, which was fun to attend.
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What went poorly?
The MG sucked. They did a lot to help the algorithm of the film online (positive) but did not really help with getting us actually reviewed, even though this was something they promised. Luckily, we hired our own PR. They relied on us a lot to do grassroots promotion, which we were happy to do but wish we felt a little more supported.
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Ultimately all of that goodwill notwithstanding, they really did not do outreach to the specific communities that we felt like would respond to the film. There was nothing unique about the way they positioned it in our opinion. We got almost no press, no real PR push behind it. If you build it, they will not come, so you have to do something (we always say) to let people know the movie was there and we didn’t think there was, really. There wasn’t like a concerted effort to really make sure people knew about this film. There were so many ways that it could have been talked about and had the chance to reach its audience and that was our biggest disappointment.
Two things. First, where New Video had been very responsive and always returned my calls and answered questions, Cinedigm is terrible at communication. I never know who to call and never received responses to questions. Literally never. This included questions about streaming services, foreign distribution, and opportunities for sales.
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As time passed, it became harder and harder to get paid by Cinedigm, or to get quarterly statements. At one point it was years between payments and getting the runaround from department to department there. This was such a widespread problem that we were invited to an email list of about 50 other filmmakers who were in the same situation—many of them very well known in the documentary world. Everyone was having the same issue. About that time Cinedigm also offered to place our film on a number of new platforms and allocate a spend to promote it, but they never followed through with that. These issues bridge the previous ownership and the current management, although the new management has been paying more regularly (although not promptly).
We have had to chase them for reporting and payments but recently that has gotten much better.
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Nothing yet.
They are also slow in getting us quarterly numbers. I also wish they seemed a little more incensed at how quickly our film was pirated.
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The MG could have been more, which would have gone a long way. But they take into account so many factors in determining how much MG to give a film. In our case, they did really well because our film made a decent amount of money considering how much the budget was. So they came out on top, I believe. Also—they are extremely bad with communication and being transparent. Very shady as of late. They are supposed to give you quarterly reports and they don't. They simply do not send them out unless you email, and ask to see the numbers. They have been a full year behind on one of our films. We are actually going to have to audit them, which I have heard from more than a few others they have had to do the same thing.
Did they breach the contract?
Not yet!
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No.
No.
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No.
Yes, with years-long delays in payments.
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No. On time with payments, there was nothing contractual that they did not provide.
Yes. They have now by not handling a few redacted related inquiries as well as not supplying us with our royalties and not even sending out our reports for our investors.
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Filmmaker Friendliness?
Yes? I think so? redacted was, for the most part, responsive and enthusiastic about the title. Felt like they knew how to get it where it needed to be. I never felt my movie was “taken away from me.”
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In my case, they are not at all friendly, certainly not communicative.
At this point I would say no. As I’ve talked with other sales reps everyone kind of rolls their eyes and says they avoid Cinedigm at all costs because they don’t pay. I think that information is a bit outdated, but then again I try to learn from my mistakes and have not used them for any subsequent films.
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100% and that was another thing we really liked about them. We liked their team we liked the people individually but i will say again they slowly disappeared. We started out with a team of 5 or 6 and by the end we were talking to one person and not a lot of follow through. The issue was about overall responsiveness but everyone was kind, respectful, nice to interact with.
They ended up ghosting me. On a scale from 1-10, 10 being highly friendly, I would say a 1.
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I’d say so? But that’s an ambiguous question I’m not sure how to answer to be honest…
With my experience, the marketing department was, yes. But no, no other department is filmmaker friendly. Lots of ineptness and communication is next to nil.
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What would you have done differently?
Honestly … I was happy to have distribution and especially as widely as we did. So, I tried not to complain too much! The platform that really rocked for us at the outset was cable VOD. We were promoted on many cable VOD platforms and that drove a lot of traffic. I didn’t love the trailer and wish I had spoken up about that. It felt a little cheesy/scary for what the movie actually was.
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I would have gone with a different aggregator. Cinedigm ultimately didn’t do anything that a service deal couldn't have done, so they didn’t really add much value that I’m aware of.
Would I go back and try a different distributor? Absolutely, we may have gotten less MG, we may have had someone who didn’t pitch us as well, didn’t interface as well but did a better job. I would give someone else the opp right now because I just don’t know that the movie got seen. That said, it’s hard in the moment because you’re going with your gut, and you choose the team that speaks to you the best and says the things that feel correct to the situation, and you make your choice.
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I would not have gone with them. Unfortunately, you don’t know the answers to these questions until it’s too late. In our case, we’ve been with them for redacted and it's starting to show that they turned a bit opportunistic and clearly attempt to capitalize on filmmakers’ hard work. I absolutely do not recommend them and if you do indeed go with them, please have an attorney. And the MG needs to be bigger.
Any Final Thoughts?
Overall, good experience with them!
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They’ve been a very good partner but like so many companies, they need to be monitored and as a rule, you have to stay on top of all multi-channel partners.
The thing that’s hard about being an indie filmmaker where you are making these movies and they cost a certain amount of money to make, to have it be distributable.
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To have it be something people want to see, clearances are done, etc., and that we live in an environment with distributors that are paying a 10% (if that) of what it costs to make a movie. It’s becoming untenable. There’s no reason to make a movie if everyone else gets paid but us. We have to pay for music licensing, pay crew...everyone gets paid but the filmmakers. And when you come to the moment of distribution—unless you won Sundance—your price drops off a cliff by a couple hundred thousand dollars. We’re sort of over a barrel about it. We get that their side of things is hard, we don’t expect them to get us on Oprah, but you do hope that they’re not just scooping up content to throw it at a wall to see if you make money for them. And we’re kind of stuck. It’s a difficult, not great moment for independent film.
We’ve done redacted—we’ve learned with each film and something that hasn’t changed is how difficult it is to navigate distribution. I’d tell any filmmaker right now that making a film (from what little experience I have) is 25% raising the funding/prep, 25% shooting, 25% editing, and the last 25% is really getting it out there. If you don’t do that last percentage, your film will fail. Don’t take this stage lightly. Arguably it could be the most important part of the process. With our previous films we felt like we accomplished something just by finishing them. I will never have that feeling again. Watching the completed film is great, and you did do something amazing because we all know how difficult it is to make a film on any level. But your work is not done. And I know so many filmmakers are going to read this and say, “Well duh, we know that.” But I’m not so sure some do. I certainly didn’t. Distribution is so hard but it’s doable, and it really comes down to the film you’ve made. Is it for streaming only? Is the goal to recoup your money back as soon as possible? Is it for festivals? Will your investors wait for a festival run? There are different distributors who will look at your film differently. Some will market for festivals because they know it’s a film that needs that validation. Others will see your film, see you have a decent cast who people know, and market it to go straight to streaming as soon as possible because it’s entrenched in a particular genre that does really well by streaming. Sorry if that’s too long. I just know marketing, distribution, and getting your precious work to the right people is the last piece of the puzzle. After that, you grin and bear what happens because it’s out of your control at that point.
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Another distributor told me they were a “predator” film distributor and that has indeed been my experience. They are predators.
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Takeaways
- It’s been over a decade since Cinedigm acquired the distribution company New Video. A few years later, they established Docurama, an OTT doc channel that focused on documentaries and film festival coverage. They were an indie film darling for a while, but they soon began to branch out, launching/acquiring non-film-festival fare such as CONtv (cult and comics) and The Dove Channel (faith-based programming). In 2016, there were a few hiccups and payments to filmmakers were delayed until control of the company was given to Bison Capital of Hong Kong in 2017, but they seemed to do a mea culpa and everything was back on track. They then folded Viewster into CONtv and acquired The Film Detective (classic films) and Screambox (horror). In 2021, they acquired Fandor, which of course is dedicated to independent film. In March 2022, Cinedigm acquired streaming, advertising, and distribution company Digital Media Rights, along with the ad-supported streaming services Cinehouse, AsianCrush, RetroCrush, Midnight Pulp, Cocoro, and KMTV. That same year, they launched an AVOD service Cineverse, which encompasses all of their brands.
- Cinedigm earned a trusted reputation as New Video, and both Sundance (via its Artist Services program) and TFC (via our commission-based digital distribution program) had deals with the company. But a few years later, Sundance switched their deal to Quiver, which TFC was already working with for our flat-fee distribution program, and by 2016, TFC felt that Cinedigm’s commission was perhaps no longer worth the cost of not having to pay the distribution fees upfront and stopped recommending them to our filmmakers, especially since, apart from Cinedigm itself, licensing deals to platforms like Netflix and Hulu were drying up.
- There was a feeling that Cinedigm had one foot out the door of the independent film space. Sure, there was Docurama, which was one of the first OTT platforms. But could it generate enough meaningful income to justify going with Cinedigm? Most of TFC’s filmmakers looking to do digital distribution with us, when given the option, opted to go with Quiver instead.
- So, in this new era of Cinedigm, with so many filmmakers knowing and also not knowing this complicated history, it’s hard to tell what sets this company apart from some of the other distributors we have reported on in this guide. We will say that since the Chinese acquisition, they have not missed a single of our payments. However, it has been so many years since we’ve had a dedicated rep…we’ve written in, but no one has responded to us for months.
