An offer for distribution...

ctbehrens

ctbehrens

I have received an offer for distribution of my no-budget feature "Tiburon" and am not sure if I should take it.

The money is negligible and the first profits go to the producer's rep and distributor - not much, and I'm not really concerned about the money - it's more of the fact that I am not receiving any money up front and the rep and the distributor will be the ones to profit at the outset, yet I am the one who put the BS&T's into the production of this film.

I will be the first to admit that it is not a very good film - I made it by myself(writer, director, actor, editor, etc), but it is a good example of what can be accomplished by a solo filmmaker. The initial intention of this project was my continuing education - the experience of performing each aspect of making a feature length film in order to better understand the synergistic relationships, thus, making myself a more competent writer and director.

I don't expect money - I am just not sure if it's right for someone to profit from my work, when I most likely won't.

It's a superficial ego boost to say I got distribution, but I am not sure there are any real positives to be gained as those in the industry will see it for what it is - a sort of clearing house for mediocre films where the buyers are picking films up for cheap in hopes that the artist's future work will garner attention and allow them to exploit what they bought for next to nothing.

As you can tell, I am weighing the pros and cons of this offer and would appreciate any feedback/input/opinions...

Thanks!

Chris
 
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Look man, if they have been in the industry for 20 years and have more than 300 titles under their belt, I cant see a reason to not take this offer. You could even get funding from investor's for your next feature or even get repped , who knows?
 
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punee said:
Look man, if they have been in the industry for 20 years and have more than 300 titles under their belt, I cant see a reason to not take this offer. You could even get funding from investor's for your next feature or even get repped , who knows?
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The industry is not was it was 20 years ago or even 5 years ago. There's been a shift from brick and mortar store distribution to Internet distribution. Traditional distributors have been replaced with Internet distributors who have standard contracts and don't have the risk and BS that you have with these brick and mortar old school distributors.
 
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The industry is not was it was 20 years ago or even 5 years ago. There's been a shift from brick and mortar store distribution to Internet distribution. Traditional distributors have been replaced with Internet distributors who have standard contracts and don't have the risk and BS that you have with these brick and mortar old school distributors.
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ctbehrens,

what kind of distribution deal was the offer? Theatrical or Internet streaming/vod etc?

Blade_Jones, I see you have a point. Would you please explain it. I didn't get you
 
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punee said:
ctbehrens,

what kind of distribution deal was the offer? Theatrical or Internet streaming/vod etc?

Blade_Jones, I see you have a point. Would you please explain it. I didn't get you
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The OP didn't specify. Based on his description there's no way he could be getting theatrical distribution of a bad indie film. My point is that you don't need one more middleman to distribute to streaming and Amazon. Movie distribution is going the way of music distribution. No need for a traditional distributor unless you like throwing away money.
 
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Blade_Jones said:
The OP didn't specify. Based on his description there's no way he could be getting theatrical distribution of a bad indie film. My point is that you don't need one more middleman to distribute to streaming and Amazon. Movie distribution is going the way of music distribution. No need for a traditional distributor unless you like throwing away money.
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You can't get to a number of outlets without a middle man.
 
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Hey ct, have you heard of these guys?

I'm not advertising for them, nor am I necessarily recommending them, but the CEO, Nick, is an IT member and would probably personally answer any questions you have.

I'm also curious if anyone else on IT has any experience with the company.
 
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2001 Productions said:
Hey ct, have you heard of these guys?

I'm not advertising for them, nor am I necessarily recommending them, but the CEO, Nick, is an IT member and would probably personally answer any questions you have.

I'm also curious if anyone else on IT has any experience with the company.
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That video explains part of what I have been talking about with regard to traditional distributors and all of their BS.

The site says "Our investment is normally between $1,200 to $20,000 depending on the networks you selected and marketing "
So it APPEARS as if THEY are taking a risk by paying the iTunes and other encoding fees if they select your film.
http://www.digidistribution.com/our-investments/
The only thing that concerns me is how many movies do they reject? 1 out of 3? 19 out of 20? 99 out of 100? If they reject a lot then those $35 fees start to become a "cash cow"!

Another note: Deliverable movies must be on Digibeta tapes. That will probably cost you about $1,000 just to put your film on one of those tapes.

Does anyone know of any VOD systems or software for selling movies yourself via your website?
 
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Blade_Jones said:
The only thing that concerns me is how many movies do they reject? 1 out of 3? 19 out of 20? 99 out of 100? If they reject a lot then those $35 fees start to become a "cash cow"!
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At a whopping 252 views across half a year I doubt that Nick's raking in the dough.

20120924DiGiStats_zps2d91fb30.png
;)


http://www.youtube.com/user/NickSoares1/videos?view=0
 
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Kholi said:
None of which you can get to without a middle man. In amazon's case, Amazon Prime.
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True. I'm not saying there's any other way. My point is to just avoid brick and mortar distributors because they are not likely to do anything other than VOID and online distribution through ANOTHER middleman. So you're throwing away too much money by not going with DigiDistribution, Tunecore, StoneHendge Productions, Amazon Advantage, etc. Also hiring a lawyer to review their contracts is expensive. And if the brick and mortar distributor screws you over, as they are so famous for dong, then it really becomes expensive.
 
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Blade_Jones said:
Deliverable movies must be on Digibeta tapes. That will probably cost you about $1,000 just to put your film on one of those tapes.
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I don't think so. Just buy the tape ahead of time and it will cost you about $50 each. Then go to a post house and pay their hourly rate -- you can probably find one that will do it for $100-200 per hour. Not "cheap", but not $1000, either.

And yes, I have done this myself.
 
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Kholi said:
Your statement is wrong.

They won't be advertising anything for him. These tiny boutique distributors take the movie, try to cram it into many avenues as possible and leave it there. There's no advertising.
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Absolutely true. Most of these distributors who only do VOD (cable/satellite/telco) and internet do not do any marketing/advertising. It's up to the filmmaker.
 
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Blade_Jones said:
The industry is not was it was 20 years ago or even 5 years ago. There's been a shift from brick and mortar store distribution to Internet distribution. Traditional distributors have been replaced with Internet distributors who have standard contracts and don't have the risk and BS that you have with these brick and mortar old school distributors.
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There is a shift happening, but the internet revenues are (as of end of 2011) only 10-15% of the revenues of physical DVDs & Blu-rays. There are less rental stores for movies, no question. But the DVD/Blu-ray market last year was $15.6 Billion. And this market is projected to remain stable in this range for the next few years. (Maybe it will, maybe it won't.)

Eventually, except for movie theaters, delivery of most content will be online and via pipe, cable, wireless, etc. But the transition has been quite slow, relatively speaking, and certainly not as fast as the news media love to proclaim.
 
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Blade_Jones said:
Does anyone know of any VOD systems or software for selling movies yourself via your website?
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Yes, I just mentioned it in a post in another thread. One can utilize the embeddable players from these sites to put your film anywhere online, including Facebook: DynamoPlayer.com, FlickLaunch.com, Distrify.com
People can then pay & watch right from wherever you've put your film. (I'm not endorsing these sites/tools; I've not personally used them.)

The split with these sites was 70% to you, 30% to them, but check their TOS. I believe you can set up the payment such that as soon as someone buys a viewing of your film, it goes right into your PayPal account. (Or at least on one of these sites you can arrange this.)
 
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