In this first blog, I will give you a very brief description of my career regarding self / hybrid distribution. In future posts, I will continue the discussion, moving in the direction of handling the distribution of my films myself. It is my pleasure to write to you about my experiences and thoughts . I am honored that IFP would consider my words worthwhile to their readers and can only hope that you are able to derive something useful from them.

I began in the industry as a PA working on lots of small indie films. I was a country kid from Maine, excited to get my feet wet learning from professionals in the Big City.  I refused to turn down any work, and vowed that if I ever had to take work outside of the industry to survive in NYC, I would leave and find another path.  I have remained true to that commitment and quickly worked my way through the industry; after just four years in NYC, I was fortunate enough to produce my first feature film (Bomb The System).  From there I continued producing projects that inspired me and allowed me to work with people whose visions I felt passionate about.

Mike O'Connell & Jesse Eisenberg in "The Living Wake"

A few years later I directed my first film (The Living Wake) and am now excited to continue my career as both producer and director.  I love doing both and don’t feel that there is a need to choose one direction or the other. In fact, with the current state of the film industry, I think it is imperative for filmmakers to be well-rounded and have a solid understanding of every aspect involved with making a movie.

But, the one thing I never thought I would be doing when I got started in the business was working as a distributor. I have always been a storyteller and creative collaborator, but thinking about marketing, publicity and everything else involved with distributing films was never anything I aspired to.  I always thought that I would make movies and other people would think about who would watch them and how audiences would become aware of them. However, after a couple of challenging experiences with distribution on the first films I made, combined with the rise of the digital age in cinema, it became apparent to me that discovering how to communicate directly with audiences was just as important as making a great movie.

Jim Gaffigan in "The Living Wake"

My first major decision in self/hybrid distribution came in 2007 when I premiered The Living Wake at film festivals.  We were getting attention and some distribution offers, but they weren’t the kinds of commitments that my partners and I felt would reap rewards financially or critically.  So we decided  not to accept any of the offers and embark on the distribution journey ourselves. After two years of work and research, we finally set a timetable and plan that we felt confident with.  During that time, I began working with Mangusta Productions on several other projects. Collectively, we decided to integrate the intent to distribute films ourselves into our business plan.

The best way we saw for our investors to reap the greatest rewards, and for our films to have a chance to break out, was to raise distribution funds in the very beginning of the financing process for every film we do.  While it is challenging to raise more funds than you need for the production, it presents a greater security for the investors and puts the filmmakers in a position to control all of their rights. Even with a modest distribution budget in place from the beginning, we are able to make decisions from a position of strength instead of fear. When you don’t have any other choice, a distributor can offer whatever they want because of the fear this might be the only chance your film has to be seen.

But, with distribution backing from the start, filmmakers can turn down undesirable, lesser deals and still be confident their movie will be seen.  For the investors, it provides security in knowing that their investments won’t be diluted by last minute investors coming in to pay for distribution – thus taking the first money in plus a percentage on that return.  With this distribution backing plan, all first money coming in from distribution efforts will go directly back to those initial investors, giving them a much greater chance of seeing a return on their investments.

Since my partners and I came up with this strategy after making The Living Wake, we needed to raise the distribution funds in a way that didn’t cannibalize our initial investors returns.  So, Mangusta Productions combined these efforts with that of another movie we had been involved with, Fix, that was in a similar position.

Armed with some finances, we partnered with a theatrical booker, Dylan Marchetti of Variance Films, to help us secure theaters and dates that we were excited about.  Once we had theatrical dates, we began negotiating with DVD companies and digital aggregators to make deals that would allow us to get the film out across all revenue streams.  Doing the theatrical ourselves and splitting up the other rights allowed us to retain the lion’s share of potential profits. We also kept the terms of the deals short so that we could turn them around in a few years when the digital landscape will be much more integrated into the marketplace.

Armed with this knowledge, I made sure that I had distribution funds in place in the production budget for my next project, 2012: Time For Change, a documentary about consciousness expansion and eco-solutions.  With this film we knew we had a very clear, worldwide target audience.  With the comfort of distribution funds in place, we turned our attention from the large film festival premiere to ways we could reach our core audience directly. We partnered with the Green Festivals which puts on several large conferences around the country throughout the year.  This gave us the opportunity to show the movie to our target audience and communicate with them directly and personally, so they could get excited about the film.  This strategy also let us take in profits from these events while spreading the word, as opposed to film festivals where it costs the filmmakers a bunch of money with the festivals making all profits from the ticket sales. We have been working on this model for nearly a year now with some very encouraging results.  I will get into the details of these distribution strategies in my next blogs, but the experience has been very positive and has opened up a whole world of possibilities for future projects.

At this point, my partners and I have released three films theatrically in the past year and have been trying different strategies in leveraging those releases into other deals worldwide.  The only things that are guaranteed in going the self/hybrid distribution route is that it is an incredible amount of work and that there is no right way to do things. One just has to continue to build on these experiences and communicate them with other filmmakers. Finding other like minded filmmakers is an absolute must. If we can communicate and build together, we have a chance to carve out distribution structures that can continue to work moving forward.