Uncategorized Archives - Adam Leipzig

Huh?!? Audiences Deserve Better Sound Design

Originally published in Cultural Weekly on June 3, 2015.

In Deaf West Theatre’s production of Spring Awakening at The Wallis, you can understand the actors who sign the songs better than the actors singing. That’s because the sound design is haphazard, and the audio mix, on the night I attended, was uneven, not responsive to the ebb and flow of voice in relation to the live musical instruments.

How sad. The audience misses out on Steven Sater’s heartbreaking, involute lyrics, like these that open the show, which, if you could hear them, would make you cry from the first A minor chord:

Mama, who bore me,
Mama, who gave me
No way to handle things,
Who made me so sad.
Mama, the weeping,
Mama, the angels
No sleep in heaven
Or Bethlehem

Or these:

Haven’t you heard of the word of your body?
O, I’m gonna be wounded.
O, I’m gonna be your wound.
O, I’m gonna bruise you.
O, you’re gonna be my bruise.

I know the lyrics because you could hear them clearly when Spring Awakening had its original Broadway run at the Eugene O’Neill Theatre, and I saw the show more than once. That’s also a reason I know that good, clear sound is possible. However, we rarely get it in theatre and music venues.

Sylvie Drake, Cultural Weekly‘s theatre critic, told me, “I long ago gave up understanding what they’re saying at all shows, especially the ones with music. It never seems to work. I now make it a point to request a script for (a) ALL new plays and (b) something like this one, not new, but newly interpreted. Some theaters make it a practice to automatically provide one, which tells you something in and of itself.”

It’s not just a theatre problem, and certainly not a problem with The Wallis itself, which is a wonderful space with good sight-lines and acoustics. It is a matter of attention to the live audio mix and the way microphones are used to capture, or not capture, the performance. I’ve watched, and appreciated, music artists like Andrew Cole refuse to start his set at the House of Blues until the sound mix was right. Good for you, Andrew, and thank you. The audience deserves great sound.

One recent evening I went to HOME, a venue in Beverly Hills that hosts a Thursday jazz night. (HOME is a twee acronym for House of Music and Entertainment. Sadly, it is neither.)

I might have been able to forgive HOME’s inhospitable, cavernous design and harsh lighting, if the sound had been good, but it wasn’t. (Actually, I could not forgive the harsh lighting. Who wants bright table-spots at a jazz club?) When the singer began, you literally could not understand a single word. Why? Here, the sound is disadvantaged from the get-go because the mixing panel has been foolishly placed to the far left of the stage and out of the way, so the mixer cannot hear the sound in the house. Compounding this insensitive sound design choice, the proprietors don’t seem to care.

I went up to the evening’s host after the first song and let him know we could not hear the singer. “Yeah, it’s a problem,” he said, and walked away. Tellingly, he didn’t go over to the mixing board and try to make any corrections; he just let the night play out, content to watch people order over-priced food and drink.

Thursday night Jazz at HOME in Beverly Hills

As someone who has spent years of his life in theatres and performance venues, believe me when I say it does not have to be this way. Excellent, clear, well-balanced sound is entirely possible. In fact, with newer technologies, it is easier than ever before. It simply takes venues that value sound quality as much as all other aspects of the audience experience, and producers who put the resources of time and attention toward achieving it.

Top image: Daniel N. Durant (Moritz) and Krysta Rodriguez (Ilse) in Deaf West Theatre’s production of Spring Awakening. Photo by Kevin Parry.

The Distribution Equation

Originally published in Cultural Weekly on April 22, 2015.

Congratulations! You just finished your movie, which puts you at the edge of the winner’s circle—lots of people start movies and are never able to bring them out of post-production to the light of day. You finished yours.

You made it micro-budget, for $400,000, and it’s awesome, or so your friends tell you. Your investors are happy, but also nervous: Will they get their money back?

Let’s say your friends are right, and your movie is awesome. You even manage to go further, and get your film into a festival, maybe Tribeca. Grateful festival audiences will see it, and distributors, too. Because that’s what you need, distribution.

Distribution is the fulcrum of the financial equation, because without distribution audiences cannot see your movie and investors have no hope of financial return. This is where most independent films fall down: they do not have a distribution plan before they start production. Hence they are vulnerable. Of all the feature-length films that are completed each year in the US, fewer than 10% actually get any form of distribution. Ninety percent or more repose uselessly on hard drives, gathering dust in someone’s garage.

You don’t want your film to be among the 90%. Your investors certainly don’t want that. How do you solve the problem?

In the first place, you need to make a good movie, and I mean really good—a film that works for its genre, delivers for its audience, is excellent in its execution and boasts a brilliant cast. Whether you cast known or unknown actors, they’ve got to be great.

Let’s go to the next step and assume your movie really is good, but you enter the festival with no distribution set. At this point, there are two possible outcomes: either a distributor will want your movie and offer you a deal, or not.

If it does happen, you may feel as though you have won the lottery. In one sense you have, in terms of an opportunity to be distributed by a legit company. But your investors likely will not be pleased. Unless your film sparks massive attention, which in turn attracts the interest of more than one distributor, hence fueling a bidding war, you will be offered pennies on the dollar.

As evidence of this, you can look at the films that played this January at the 2015 Sundance Film Festival. Even now, deals are still being discussed, and most of the films in the festival will be picked up for distribution. But very few will have had the chance to raise their sales price with a bidding war; most will sell for $100,000 or far less.

That is not a good financial outcome. However, if you did not pre-plan your distribution strategy, pre-plan it even before you started shooting, this is the situation you will be faced with.

Is there another possible outcome, a way to improve your side of the distribution equation?

There is. Today, wise filmmakers and their investors are planning and budgeting for a distribution strategy from the moment of their first fund-raise. For a low-budget movie, they raise an additional $300,000-$500,000 and keep it in the bank, so they can cause distribution to happen if the perfect distribution company does not make the right offer.

Let’s take a look at two scenarios to see how this might play out.

Scenario 1: Traditional Distribution

You made your movie and also have a $500,000 war chest for marketing and distribution. If distributors see your movie, love it, and offer you a fair price, you can take it.

At that moment, though, you have terrific bargaining leverage. You don’t need the distribution deal because you have the resources to do it yourself. Of course you want the deal, because a legit distribution company is in the distribution business and will do a far better job of distribution in most cases than you will—it is their métier, after all.

But now you have leverage. Either you can take that $500,000 marketing war-chest and give it back to your investors; your investors will be happy. Or you can strike a more aggressive deal with the distribution company, offering to co-finance the marketing spend. Some distribution companies won’t let you do that—they will want to keep full control over marketing and the opacity of its accounting. On the other hand, some will let you co-venture P&A, and they’ll admire your foresight. Depending on how much marketing money you actually have to co-invest with the distributor, you can potentially drive the standard distribution fee of 30% down to about 15%. That will make your investors delighted.

Let’s run some numbers.

When distribution companies offer to buy your movie, what they are really doing is giving you cash as an advance against potential future earnings. Let’s say you get an offer of $1 million for your $1 million movie. Of course you will take it, because now your investors will come close to breaking even. You’ll also be offered 50% of the proceeds after distribution fees and expenses are recouped by the distribution company; the company will keep the other 50%. Will you ever see more money than your initial advance? Not likely.

The amount that cinemas keep, versus the amount that goes back to the distribution company, is called the “settlement rate.” The settlement rate averages 42%, which means that the cinema keeps 58% of every ticket sold, and the distributor gets 42%. But that is the average across all movies, including studio movies. In the indie world, the settlement rate is far less, sometimes dropping as low at 20% for documentaries.

Let’s say your settlement rate is 40%. After the distributor gets its share (40% of the tickets sold), the distributor will charge its fee (typically 30%) and then subtract the cost of advertising, marketing and publicity, a number that can be surprisingly high, even in the independent landscape. If the box office is good, the distributor will keep spending marketing money to chase a higher box office return, and the net result will be that theatrical run will lose money.

Enter home entertainment sales, the big basket that includes cable, VOD, SVOD, Amazon, iTunes and the like. The average settlement rate here is higher—70% will go back to the distributor, then the distributor will still charge its 30% fee off the top, plus subtract additional expenses.

As you’re about to discover, it is good to be in the distribution business, and not so good to be in the movie making or movie financing business. Here’s the math:

Let’s assume your movie will make $1 million at the theatrical box office, and an additional $1 million in home entertainment. 215 movies made at least this much money in 2014.

If you are working with a traditional distributor, the $1 million box office revenue will bring back $400,000 to the distributor, because of the 40% settlement rate. The distributor will take its 30% distribution fee, leaving $280,000. Marketing expenses will probably have been $750,000, so that means the film is at a net loss of $470,000.

Home entertainment could begin after, during, or before the theatrical run. Assuming an additional $1 million in home entertainment revenue, and a 70% settlement rate, $700,000 will come back to the distributor. The distributor will take its 30% fee, leaving $490,000. The distributor probably spent an additional $100,000 in home entertainment marketing, so the film is now at a net loss of $80,000.

You and your investors will not get anything more than the initial advance, whatever that was. Note that although the film is showing a loss, the distributor will still have made $330,000 in its distribution fees.

If you had access to your marketing investment war-chest, you could have co-ventured the P&A spend with your distributor, with each of you paying for half of the total $850,000 marketing spend (or $425,000 apiece). Now, in addition to getting that money back, you could have been able to shave the distribution fee to 15%, which means your investors would have been able to get back an additional $165,000.

Will your investors make a profit? It all depends on the advance you got from the distributor in the first place. If the advance was only $100,000, and your movie cost $400,000, your investors will be in a losing position.

Scenario 2: Free Range Distribution

However, let’s say you choose to be responsible for distribution yourself. Now you will work harder, because you will have executive responsibility for keeping everything on track, even though you will hire top-caliber people to handle distribution for you. But you will spend less. The settlement rate will be the same, but the distribution fee will be less (distribution professionals work for a percentage) and you will keep far more money.

You would play out this scenario if you don’t get a distribution offer or you don’t get one that’s financially exciting. Now you can take your marketing war-chest of $500,000 and guarantee distribution by hiring one of the stronger companies that can book theatres, handle marketing and publicity, and make VOD, SVOD and cable deals. In this case, because you are the “client,” you will have full transparency into costs and spends, and distribution expenses will be far lower.

This financial scenario can be even better. Given the same financials, your P&A cost will be less— likely $500,000 all-in, for home entertainment and theatrical marketing, and also including the for-hire distribution professional’s upfront fee.

Why will your marketing expense be less? Because free range distributors do things more grassroots, and have cleverer ways of using their resources.

The total revenue will be the same, $1.1 million ($400,000 from theatrical and $700,000 from home entertainment). Assuming you now pay the professionals you hired 10% of the generated revenue, you will spend $110,000 in additional distribution fees, leaving you with $990,000. Now let’s subtract the marketing expenses of $500,000: you’ll end up with $490,000.

As you can see, that is a far better financial outcome. Your movie would be in profits.

I must end with a bunch of disclaimers. There is no regular ratio anymore for theatrical-to-home entertainment revenue in the indie sector, so any film’s specific performance will vary widely. I’ve simplified a complex process for this article, and there are other factors to take into account, such as international revenue, but it is probably safe not to include it, as American independent films don’t traditionally make that much money overseas. Finally, of the 693 films released last year, only 215 of them made more than $1 million at the theatrical box office, so the movie business is as risky as ever and financial success is no sure thing. Which means, again, your movie needs to be exceptional, with a clearly-defined and big enough audience before you start making it.

All the more reason, therefore, to build distribution costs into your business model from the beginning. Without them, you and your investors stand even less of a chance of being in the winner’s circle.

My thanks to Glen Reynolds and Sebastian Twardosz at Circus Road Films for their expertise and checking my numbers and formulas.

Top image from the self-distributed film ‘Particle Fever.’

Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater in Uprising

Power of Ailey

Originally published in Cultural Weekly on April 15, 2015.

The opening night program of Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion showcased four pieces from the repertory, and affirmed the company as America’s premiere dance troupe. Collectively entitled Power of Ailey, the evening featured Episodes with choreography by Ulysses S. Dove, Caught with choreography by David Parsons, Uprising with choreography by Hofesh Shecter, and Ohad Naharin’s audience-participatory Minus 16. It was a night of pathos and magic.

In Episodes, dancers in pairs and trios execute leaping near-misses, repeating gestures of reaching and repulsion. How much do we want connection? Enough to embrace each other in arcs of muscle. How much do we fear it? Enough to float away from a partner on point, without even wearing toe shoes. Facing toward and away from each other in John B. Reade’s diagonal runways of light, the full troupe finally materializes on stage. As the music stops, they face each other and the relationships they have made and lost. That’s when realization sets in: all the connections they missed while they were creating their drama.

Kirven Douthit-Boyd is the solo dancer in Caught. Shirtless with simple white pants, he stands in a pool of light. Then in a gasp, as the stage goes black, magic begins. A strobe light flashes. On the formal level, this work is simplicity itself: a man and flashes of light. But O, what magic. The strobe’s flashes catch Douthit-Boyd mid-air, moving across the stage. You believe a man can fly. Our persistence of desire reinforces our persistence of vision, because we want magic to be real. That’s the meaning and paradox of this piece — the moments when light catches him are moments of flight, of purest freedom. The choreographer seems to ask, How much of freedom depends on brutal selectivity, such as seeing only seconds of an entire leap? How do constraints, such as the simple elements of Caught, keep us free?

Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater’s Kirven Douthit-Boyd in David Parson’s Caught. Photo by Rosalie O’Connor

Uprising, unlike the first two pieces, is full of loose muscles and dangled limbs. It begins with seven men on stage, men who are troubled but cannot fully express their anger. One begins to raise his fist, and another man beings his arm down. After a blackout, as we watch the men prone on the ground, backlit, their silhouettes twitching, one cannot help but see Trayvon and Eric and Levar and all the others. #blacklivesmatter

What happens to raised a fist deferred? Maybe it just sags like a heavy load; there is a long, static section where the men stand motionless and slowly collapse to the ground, then pick themselves up, only to fall slowly again. One man remains on the ground, his forehead inclined on the stage, his right arm raised in a fist like a promontory from the earth. Then they gather in a circle and begin to struggle with each other. What keeps us from rising up? The answer is ourselves. The solution comes at the end, in a heroic tableau with red flag aloft, a mashup of Soviet Realism, the Paris barricades of the July Rebellion, and American marching band flourishes. It’s the only questionable moment in the piece, because it suggests false optimism. The raised fist deferred doesn’t turn itself into a meme. More likely, it explodes.

Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater in Ohad Naharin’s Minus 16. Photo by Paul Kolnik

The evening concluded with Minus 16. A semicircle of twenty company members enact a repeated grammar of conformity and the struggle with it. They throw off articles of clothing, arch their backs, raise their arms, fall back, chant a lyric, and repeat, repeat, repeat. Then, dressed again, approaching the apron like zombies, they break the fourth wall and descend into the audience, pulling patrons onto the stage with them. Here the choreography becomes especially brilliant, because the dancers make the civilians look great. With whoops of delighted joy from the supportive house, twenty audience members dance on stage. At the end, one audience member remains, center stage. As in an elemental theatre, she has come dressed for the part, in black pants and a red tunic, set off against her white mane of hair.

It is ideal stagecraft, all the more perfect because of its unpredictability, and proof that the democracy of movement can make magic real. Yes, everybody’s got some dance in them. Power indeed.

Read Sarah Elgart’s interview with choreographer Matthew Rushing.

Top image: Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater in Hofesh Shechter’s Uprising. Photo by Paul Kolnik

What I Loved About the Oscars

Originally published in Cultural Weekly on February 25, 2015.

The Oscars are the best and the worst of television — they are appointment viewing worldwide, yet everyone hacks them to pieces as the show plays on.

I thought the 87th Academy Awards was a good event: producers Craig Zadan and Neil Meron struck the right balance of honor and irreverence, and Neil Patrick Harris made his hosting duties look effortless. Not every line zinged, but it never does, and there were enough buoyant moments to keep the evening afloat.

Indies Rule

The Oscars were yet another moment to applaud independent cinema, as the indies swept every major award category. (For a list of all the winners, with indie movies highlighted, see below.)

The studios are not creatively bankrupt. They can still make great movies, and execute scale in a way no one else can. Guardians of the Galaxy and Interstellar, two films from 2014 that represent unique and unconventional creative choices, albeit in vastly different ways, are only possible with massive studio budgets and operations supporting them.

Yet the demarcation between studio films and independent films has never been clearer. Studios make gigantic movies with known brands, with a brand being a franchise, like the Divergent novels or 50 Shades of Grey, a famous director, like Christopher Nolan, or comic book heroes from the DC or Marvel universes.

Indie movies are more personal and do not need to achieve global box office success to make back their investment. This is true even as the average budget of independent movies has grown, thanks to smart, entrepreneurial new financiers willing to take risks on creative vision.

The ratings for the 87th Academy Awards were down 16% from the year before, owing largely to the fact that fewer people in America saw the movies that were nominated and won — because, again, most of them were indies. So while the Academy is still one of the oldest, whitest, most male organizations around, and has a big blind spot when it comes to race, Academy voters do validate the quality of independent cinema over routine studio fare.

It’s further demonstration that there is no relationship, positive or negative, between commercial viability and artistic accomplishment.

Highlights and an Internationale

What else did I love?

The Oscars were also a celebration of the international presence of cinema, with Mexican and UK citizens grabbing gold in abundance. Alejandro González Iñárritu’s shout-out to his Mexican countrymen, on both sides of the border, was as welcome a wake-up call as Patricia Arquette’s demand for equal rights for women in America.

Julianne Moore finally won. She is the bravest actress I know, and her honest, fearless portrayals of characters others would shun earns my continuing admiration.

“Heil fucking Hitler”” “Heil fucking Hitler!” Yep, they said the F word twice in The Imitation Game clip, showing once again that The Weinstein Company has no truck with parochialism… and that the Academy didn’t prescreen those clips carefully. Thank God. Which is in contrast with bleeping out the “God” in “God damn!” coming from JK Simmons’ mouth in the Whiplash clip.

Paweł Pawlikowski, the director of Ida, who demonstrated how to keep the orchestra from playing you off: Just keep talking. The orchestra relented.

Now we know Common’s and John Legend’s real names.

Lady Gaga won’t become the next Barbra Streisand… she will become the next Bette Midler.

John Travolta owning it.

Jessica Chastain calling out “Chiiiiivo!” with sweet affection; that’s cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki ‘s nickname. Every single one of the nominated cinematographers is a personal hero of mine.

More people from technical areas and executive management in the In Memoriam segment, and deservedly so.

What didn’t I love?

Not enough acclaim for Boyhood, which will stand as a landmark cinematic achievement for decades.

The Grand Budapest Hotel was still my favorite film of the year — it is 100 minutes of pure cinema joy. It would have been my pick for Best Picture… but overall, the awards this year were well distributed and honored exceptional people and movies.

Here is the full list of winners and nominees, in the order the Oscars were presented, with independent film winners in GREEN.

Best supporting actor

WINNER: JK Simmons for Whiplash
Robert Duvall for The Judge
Ethan Hawke for Boyhood
Edward Norton for Birdman
Mark Ruffalo for Foxcatcher

Achievement in costume design

WINNER: The Grand Budapest Hotel – Milena Canonero
Inherent Vice – Mark Bridges
Into the Woods – Colleen Atwood
Maleficent – Anna B Sheppard
Mr Turner – Jacqueline Durran

Achievement in makeup and hairstyling

WINNER: The Grand Budapest Hotel – Frances Hannon, Mark Coulier
Foxcatcher – Bill Corso, Dennis Liddiard
Guardians of the Galaxy – Elizabeth Yianni-Georgiou, David White

Best foreign-language film

WINNER: Ida – Paweł Pawlikowski
Tangerines – Zaza Urushadze
Leviathan – Andrey Zvyagintsev
Wild Tales – Damián Szifrón
Timbuktu – Abderrahmane Sissako

Best live-action short film

WINNER: The Phone Call – Mat Kirkby, James Lucas
Aya – Oded Binnun, Mihal Brezis
Boogaloo and Graham – Michael Lennox, Ronan Blaney
Butter Lamp – Wei Hu, Julien Féret
Parvaneh – Talkhon Hamzavi, Stefan Eichenberger

Best documentary short subject

WINNER: Crisis Hotline: Veterans Press 1 – Ellen Goosenberg Kent, Dana Perry
Joanna – Aneta Kopacz
Our Curse – Tomasz Sliwinski, Maciej Slesicki
The Reaper – Gabriel Serra
White Earth – Christian Jensen

Achievement in sound mixing

WINNER: Whiplash – Craig Mann, Ben Wilkins, Thomas Curley
American Sniper – John T Reitz, Gregg Rudloff, Walt Martin
Birdman – Jon Taylor, Frank A. Montaño, Thomas Varga
Interstellar – Gary Rizzo, Gregg Landaker, Mark Weingarten
Unbroken – Jon Taylor, Frank A. Montaño, David Lee

Achievement in sound editing

WINNER: American Sniper – Alan Robert Murray, Bub Asman
Birdman – Aaron Glascock, Martín Hernández
The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies – Brent Burge, Jason Canovas
Interstellar – Richard King
Unbroken – Becky Sullivan, Andrew DeCristofaro

Best supporting actress

WINNER: Patricia Arquette for Boyhood
Laura Dern for Wild
Keira Knightley for The Imitation Game
Emma Stone for Birdman
Meryl Streep for Into the Woods

Achievement in visual effects

WINNER: Interstellar – Paul J Franklin, Andrew Lockley, Ian Hunter, Scott R Fisher
Captain America: The Winter Soldier – Dan Deleeuw, Russell Earl, Bryan Grill, Daniel Sudick
Dawn of the Planet of the Apes – Joe Letteri, Dan Lemmon, Daniel Barrett, Erik Winquist
Guardians of the Galaxy – Stephane Ceretti, Nicolas Aithadi, Jonathan Fawkner, Paul Corbould
X-Men: Days of Future Past – Richard Stammers, Lou Pecora, Tim Crosbie, Cameron Waldbauer

Best animated short film

WINNER: Feast – Patrick Osborne, Kristina Reed
The Bigger Picture – Daisy Jacobs, Chris Hees
The Dam Keeper – Robert Kondo, Daisuke “Dice” Tsutsumi
Me and My Moulton – Torill Kove
A Single Life – Joris Oprins

Best animated feature film

WINNER: Big Hero 6
The Boxtrolls
How to Train Your Dragon 2
Song of the Sea
The Tale of the Princess Kaguya

Best production design

WINNER: The Grand Budapest Hotel: Adam Stockhausen, Anna Pinnock
The Imitation Game: Maria Djurkovic, Tatiana Macdonald
Interstellar: Nathan Crowley, Gary Fettis
Into the Woods: Dennis Gassner, Anna Pinnock
Mr Turner: Suzie Davies, Charlotte Watts

Achievement in cinematography

WINNER: Birdman: Emmanuel Lubezki
The Grand Budapest Hotel: Robert D Yeoman
Ida: Lukasz Zal, Ryszard Lenczewski
Mr Turner: Dick Pope
Unbroken: Roger Deakins

Achievement in film editing

WINNER: Whiplash – Tom Cross
Boyhood – Sandra Adair
The Imitation Game – William Goldenberg
The Grand Budapest Hotel – Barney Pilling
American Sniper – Joel Cox, Gary Roach

Best documentary feature

WINNER: Citizenfour – Laura Poitras, Mathilde Bonnefoy, Dirk Wilutzky
Finding Vivian Maier – John Maloof, Charlie Siskel
Last Days in Vietnam – Rory Kennedy, Keven McAlester
The Salt of the Earth – Wim Wenders, Juliano Ribeiro Salgado, David Rosier
Virunga – Orlando von Einsiedel, Joanna Natasegara

Best original song

WINNER: Glory from Selma – Lonnie Lynn (Common), John Stephens (John Legend)
The Lego Movie – Shawn Patterson (Everything Is Awesome)
Beyond the Lights – Diane Warren (Grateful)
Glen Campbell: I’ll Be Me – Glen Campbell, Julian Raymond (I’m Not Gonna Miss You)
Begin Again – Gregg Alexander, Danielle Brisebois (Lost Stars)

Best original score

WINNER: Alexandre Desplat – The Grand Budapest Hotel
Alexandre Desplat – The Imitation Game
Hans Zimmer – Interstellar
Jóhann Jóhannsson– The Theory of Everything
Gary Yershon – Mr Turner

Original screenplay

WINNER: Alejandro González Iñárritu, Nicolás Giacobone, Alexander Dinelaris, Armando Bo – Birdman
Richard Linklater – Boyhood
E Max Frye, Dan Futterman – Foxcatcher
Wes Anderson, Hugo Guinness – The Grand Budapest Hotel
Dan Gilroy – Nightcrawler

Adapted screenplay

WINNER: Graham Moore – The Imitation Game
Jason Hall – American Sniper
Paul Thomas Anderson – Inherent Vice
Anthony McCarten – The Theory of Everything
Damien Chazelle – Whiplash

Best director

WINNER: Alejandro González Iñárritu for Birdman
Richard Linklater for Boyhood
Bennett Miller for Foxcatcher
Wes Anderson for The Grand Budapest Hotel
Morten Tyldum for The Imitation Game

Best actor

WINNER: Eddie Redmayne for The Theory of Everything

Steve Carell for Foxcatcher
Benedict Cumberbatch for The Imitation Game
Bradley Cooper for American Sniper
Michael Keaton for Birdman

Best actress

WINNER: Julianne Moore for Still Alice
Marion Cotillard for Two Days, One Night
Felicity Jones for The Theory of Everything
Rosamund Pike for Gone Girl
Reese Witherspoon for Wild

Best picture

WINNER: Birdman
American Sniper
Boyhood
The Imitation Game
The Grand Budapest Hotel
Selma
The Theory of Everything
Whiplash

Free Range Distribution It’s Viable for Sundance and Slamdance Films

Originally published in Cultural Weekly on January 21, 2015

Inside Track for Independent Filmmakers, my new book that gives step-by-step instructions for filmmakers to get their movies made and seen, shares important tips on the newest distribution frontier. Call it Free Range Distribution, which captures the energy and Wild West experience you’ll find here. (It’s a term I learned from my friends at Seed & Spark, an organization that supports and facilitates independent filmmaking.)

If you’re a filmmaker with a film at Sundance or Slamdance, or if you want to be, you may find that Free Range Distribution is a viable option for getting your work in front of your audience. If you’re in the audience, and you want to see films that aren’t “big” enough for traditional distribution, you may find that Free Range Distribution is the best hope you’ll have of encountering movies that fit your taste.

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What is Free Range Distribution?

Free Range Distribution platforms are websites that make it possible for filmmakers to sell or rent their movies. In a digital setting, a “sale” can be defined as a download that the customer can keep forever, and a “rental” is a streaming or viewing opportunity that expires within a certain period of time, usually 24 to 72 hours. Sale prices are typically higher than rental prices.

These distribution platforms go well beyond the monetization strategies of more basic sites like YouTube, where interaction is limited to advertising or requesting a donation. Instead, these platforms allow you to have a direct, transactional relationship with individual audience members.

Some Free Range Distribution sites are open to everyone, such as Vimeo, which allows you to upload and sell your movie as long as you subscribe to its Pro service. Other ones are more selective and require a submissions and acceptance process. I prefer these selective platforms because there are fewer movies on them, and their curation procedure establishes a certain level of quality. At the same time, they charge more for their services, through either a setup fee or a share of revenue.

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If you’re a filmmaker interested in exploring the Free Range Distribution option, you need to do your homework. There are many Free Range Distribution platforms available (some are listed in the Essential Resources section of my book), and because this is an emerging and fluid marketplace, their terms and offerings change frequently. Look for a platform that has been successful for films similar to yours and that has the features most important to you.

If you select a platform that has a submissions procedure, study it carefully and make sure you have all your materials in order. Often, staff members are available by email or phone to help guide you through the process, and to answer questions as you determine if this is the right platform for you.

It’s a good idea to be in touch with your potential Free Range distributors early on in your filmmaking journey, even before your movie is finished. You’ll learn what is possible and what is not, and it will be just one more step in planning your release strategy well before you premiere your film—which is exactly what the big studios do.

A frame from the Indiegogo campaign for ‘Across the Sea,’ a first feature directed by Esra Saydam and Nisan Dag. screening at Slamdance 2015

However, no matter which Free Range Distribution platform you choose, be prepared: you must be your own marketing department. For any creative entrepreneur, in any field, this job requirement is the most important and the most uncomfortable.

Let’s look at discomfort and importance.

For creative people, those of us who work primarily alone in coffee shops or studios, it is truly difficult to step into the public sphere and trumpet their own stuff. This is true for filmmakers as well, even though there’s a lot of social activity involved in on-set camaraderie. When your movie’s done, you’ll probably feel the film will speak for itself.

Newsflash: it won’t. It’s your job to speak up for it. You must demonstrate to the world how important your film is, and you do this by talking about it, in every medium, at every chance you get.

If you choose Free Range Distribution, marketing is 100% a requirement, and you must build out and execute your own marketing plan. Movie tickets—or downloads—are not going to sell themselves. You must bring the audience to your film, hold their hands, entice and encourage them, and, finally, get their money.

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1. Buy Inside Track for Independent Filmmakers at Dolly’s Bookstore on Main St. in Park City.
2. Take a creative photo of the book somewhere in Park City.
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How do you prepare yourself? Fortunately, marketing is not magic; it simply requires that you plan for it, and that you have a clear understanding of your film. You need to:

Know what your film is about.
Know who your audience is with great specificity. Your film is not “for everybody.” By definition, each independent movie has a clear-cut, distinct niche audience, not a general demographic.
Know the size and duration of your social media following (and the social media following of your actors and creative team). You need to build it up over the year you are making your movie, so they are waiting for you on the day you release.
If you did a crowdfunding campaign, which is a good idea as an audience-engagement tool, maintain a strong relationship with the contributors (and the people who peeked but did not contribute), so you are ready to turn them into your core advocates.

If you and your team take these steps, you’ll be well on your way.

In case you didn’t notice, you have just become the Chief Marketing Officer of your very own film company! That, along with persistence, talent, passion and big ideas, is one of the essential attributes of successful independent filmmakers today.

Buy Inside Track for Independent Filmmakers here.

Top image: ‘Western’ / U.S.A., Mexico (Directors: Bill Ross, Turner Ross), screens in the Sundance 2015 U.S. Documentary Competition. Photo courtesy Sundance Institute.