Movie distribution for indies

[Brian D. Goff]

Hi

I'm shooting a real cool - dogma styl movie this summer on a more than low-budget with a friend director, great fresh talent and script. Shooting the movie isn't our concern, but getting distribution is. We were thinking on internet (like net-flex and co.) and Blue-ray - if you have any contacts you could share with me, that I could contact directly I would be so grateful!

Thanks
Brian

 

[Giles Harvey]

Hi

I'm shooting a real cool - dogma styl movie this summer on a more than low-budget with a friend director, great fresh talent and script. Shooting the movie isn't our concern, but getting distribution is. We were thinking on internet (like net-flex and co.) and Blue-ray - if you have any contacts you could share with me, that I could contact directly I would be so grateful!

Thanks
Brian

Who are you trying to distribute to? consumers? If its business to business then we have a real cool web portal for approvals, dailies and broadcast www.nuview.tv

 

[Alexander Ibrahim]

Who are you trying to distribute to? consumers? If its business to business then we have a real cool web portal for approvals, dailies and broadcast www.nuview.tv

I'd guess that yes, they want to distribute to consumers ultimately.

So, they are looking for iTunes, NetFlix or a DVD/BluRay direct distributor.

To the OP:

I don't know what scale you are looking for, or what you want to charge for your film.

I would say this ... a "Dogme" film won't be looked on well. Especially at the low end. So, unless you can win some notable film festivals I would expect that a Dogme film would have to be self distributed.

You have to have truly compelling story, acting, and everything else to make up for the Dogme limitations on production quality. A lot of people will simply walk out of a film that doesn't look up to par. If you are shooting Epic and can handle HDRx data rates, this is less of a concern. The huge concern with Dogme is the strict diegetic sound requirements. If sound department isn't 100% on the ball, you could easily have no film.

So if you are committed to the Dogme concept ... I'd say go win some festivals first and THEN think about distribution. In fact, if you win the festivals, the distributors will start coming to you.

On the other hand ... anything with reasonable production values will get a distributor if your paperwork is in order. Just get it into festivals, and show well. Then you'll get some distribution. Just be wary ... a lot of deals can easily lead to you making nothing or owing the distributor. I usually recommend going for a guaranteed breakeven for investors, and pay out of any deferred wages.

My gamble as a business person would be on making sure that you get the production values up there with prime-time US network TV from the 80's at least. (or low to mid budget cable TV from the 90's) That's not so high a bar today, and it will let you compete on the notion that its a decent show.