So to give an example, say I just made a feature and I am working with distribution, what would I do that would make money
"I am working with distribution" is vague.
There are primarily two different kinds of distributors (AKA aggregators): Ones that will pay you up front for the rights to distribute your film for a specified period of time - and - ones that you pay for them to basically host your film on their servers.
The former may even provide you with a percentage of earnings, but don't count on it.
Any distributor that spends their own dime promoting your film via any media at all is fairly rare and the deals are very tough to come by.
You had better have a d@mn good product.
A
d@mn good product.
The latter are a dime a dozen, unfortunately.
They won't spend a penny to promote your film.
Your film will be ENTIRELY dependent upon you to spend your time, effort, and money to promote
YOUR film at
THEIR VOD website or to buy their DVDs of your film.
Obviously this provides greater benefit to them in the long run than it does you, but you do get a percentage of the traffic revenue from viewers willing to pay to see your film.
The idea is that you're going to need to bring in more viewer revenue than your own advertising expenses - the same boat the former distributors are in: $1 spent on advertising
had better equal >$1 in revenue, otherwise you're throwing good money after bad if revenue is <$1 of advertising spent.
Pfft! Ha! Basic business.
This is why you'll see so much blabbin', especially by myself and a few others around here, but mostly me, about how important it is to have a fan base already built up BEFORE production really gets rolling along.
I would safely argue that marketing and promotion are probably more important than the actual film product itself -
if - making money is a serious motivating filmmaking factor.
Thus:
and
Otherwise, only spend "vacation money" on filmmaking.
People spend a few hundred to a few thousand on a typical vacation and have zero expectations of "making money off it."
That'd be CRAYZEE, right?!
Nah, just throw your money down the toilet making a film you want to see and pretty much no one else does - and call it art.
But if you wannna make money... well, then... you gotta not only produce a product consumers want but you also gotta promote the bejezus out of it or find someone else who will.
And that costs money, too.
And it ain't easy making $1 turn into $2, or even $1.10.