Indie distribution

Ever want to be a indie filmmaker? Great! make films... But who's going to watch them? It's hard to get butts in the theaters seats if you don't have big actors to catch people's attention, and it's hard to even get your film into a theater if you don't have a distributor putting their money and efforts to expose and market your film. And if you don't have much money yourself how are people ever going to hear about the movie if you can't afford marketing?

There are films all over the US with the big bucks to produce posters of their film and put them all over the major cities of the U.S. or pay for pop up ads on websites or T.V. spots to be played over and over again during prime time television. So it's not like people are in need to hunt down entertainment, they're used to having it incessantly flashing before their eyes.

So, where does the indie filmmaker fit in? I really don't know yet... and to be honest - it's all a bit scary. Festival exposure... sure, but once the festival circuit is done - then what?

Well, for the film Unflinching Triumph, written by Rob Lambrechts and Mark Decena, and directed by Mark Decena, we at Kontent are trying to figure that out. Here's how it's going so far:









There is a place called Rocketindie.com which would offer some pretty cool stuff for the completely "no budget"(or actually "very low budget" more like) film market. They would store the DVD's at their ware house (1,000 or less = 29 bucks a month - or if you're able to sell 50 of them they'll wave the fee entirely). They'd set up a pay pal account and provide 24hr access to current sales and stock levels. Also they would provide a thing they call a "Rocketindie Gold account" which would get our DVD on Amazon and - well, it didn't say exactly, but - it would be a better deal than just setting up an account with Amazon.com where they literally take 45% of any sale. (but to set up the "Rocketindie gold" account... that would cost 50$).
So aside from all those initial charges and possibilities it's FREE! Well, one would still have to make and replicate the initial DVD and cases (1000 or so) for them to sell, and they'd also charge the buyer an extra 5$ for "shipping and handling." (which is how they make their dinero). Also they don't really supply any marketing besides saying that they're selling our DVD on their website... OK

For one, Kontent has it's own website : kontentfilms.com, and two so does Unflinching Triumph (<- just click on the title). And from there I'm sure it wouldn't be too difficult to set up our own pay pal account and we could just charge the buyer what we're selling it for with out the additional 5$ charge from a distributer. And if we're starting off with 1000 DVD's, I'm sure we can find room in the office building to store them - we'll just save our 29$ a month thanks. Next I found this place called Createspace.com (check it out) they actually do this thing where they don't make the DVD until it's ordered... interesting, yet one would still have to buy the 1000 DVD + DVD case package ahead of time. So, it's kind of a deal if we're trying to save materials, but that's really just them saving materials. Well, nothing against the idea, just kind of a funny thing to highlight. Anyway, they had some pretty good deals with fully packaged DVD options but the way they make money (or more money that is) is to charge us $4.95 per unit sold.

So, it looks like it comes down to either charging us or the buyer some extra dollars just for sending the darn DVD's out to the entertainment hungry folk eagerly waiting with dripping lips for the tasty Unflinching Triumph.

There was another sweet looking place for distribution: discmakers.com and through them they have something called "Film Baby." Their Film Baby would be charging 4$ per DVD while also helping us out making a website, but as I've mentioned before - we've got website on lock. They offer to help us with making a two minute trailer to encode on the website, but we've got that thank you (and i hope anyone who's making a feature has one as well). They take phone call orders and online purchases and would send us a check every week for items sold. Didn't mention a storage fee, but I'm sure if we started cutting a deal it might come up.

Ummm... still looking like our own pay pal account on our own website with our own trailer would be more cost efficient because discmakers.com isn't offering us anything that we don't already have. So it looks like if we were to go to any of the above places it's either charge the buyer more per sale or be charged.

Then their is places like Filmthreat.com (yeah the magazine), but of coarse with a name like that they'd want to license the right to sell the DVD, we'd only get paid twice a year and the filmmaker pays for production and authoring of the DVD. Not only that, but it's a huge maybe to get in there because they'd have the Film go through the acquisitions dep.

Microcinema.com, another one like Filmthreat, acquisitions dep. then us paying for the DVD authoring and replication. The only good thing about distributing companies like that is the exposure that would come with being in the magazines or on their website.

Ok, good for them. After I presented these options and more to one of the producers here at Kontent Teri Heyman (<- produced UT), the director Mark Decena, editor Matt Notaro and more of the lot here at Kontent, we decided to do distribution "in house." No unnecessary extra fees for buyers or for us, and we can just store them and ship them from here in the office. We also have other items for sale like t-shirts for Unflinching Triumph as well. And we'll just see how that all turns out. I think we're going to have discmakers.com make us some sexy sleek sleeves and also replicate our DVD, they had some eco-freindly supplies and we like the environment as well, so why not combine the forces of entertainment with the cause of helping the planet stick around a little longer? good idea? yup - you know it.






Um... if curious - you could check out the behind the scenes and trailer on our youtube page: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DhpLLLwy1zs - and this'll perk your interest I promise. these filmmakers are crazy with tactics and tenacity to try something new.
or just watch it right here! Yeah! ( oh, by the way, I edited this - yeah, thank you thank you... I know... no all the clapping isn't necessary, OK calm down. Woah, a little awkward with all the winking and blowing of kisses. OK, well, I'm dating someone so stop. I appreciate all the love, but I'll just keep my phone number to my self. Yup, you're sexy too. All the best to you and your unborn child. )

P2 card disaster

um... so I work at a film company as an assistant editor. The company is called Kontent (with a "K" - yup they're cute like that) and it includes five different directors all with very different styles which makes for an eccentric collection. The founder Mark Decena (writer and director of Dopamine - 2003 - and Unflinching Triumph - soon to be on DVD) found 4 other local indie directors and they all agreed to join forces to make some non traditional original work as well as commercial spots; whether it be TV or web films or brand films and what not. My description sucks check the website by clicking on this: Kontent.

Anyway, based on Kontent's success they've invested in hiring ME, Drew Crocker, the companies first employee! yup yup. Excitement - then a extreme anxiety. Everyday. And for what? I don't know. The people are awesome here and they be so nice to me - it's just - I've never been a real computer dude, but now I spend over 8 hrs a day in front of one.

So, aside from learning a heap load of new programs I've never touched (photoshop, illustrator, DVD studio pro and aftereffects - which I actually have yet to touch) I also am the go to guy when it comes to PA'ing ong their shoots. "Sweet," I think. Instant access to being on set during production. And I did a couple of shoots with them as the PA - no prob. Get them water, be alert and then clean up when the shoot is over...

Then they wanted to up my role... and that is where this story starts. They named me the "P2 wrangler" for a PAM spray commercial shoot. The director of this shoot was Sam Green, who - if you don't know - was nominated for an academy award for The Weather Underground, an amazing documentary film about radical activists in the 70's, so needless to say, I was already nervous meeting the man, not to mention having a role with more responsibility than grabbing thirsty important people water.

I showed up early to the shoot (meaning 6am) to set up my station: Macbook pro, DuelAdapter PCMCIA PC card for P2 capture, two hard drives (one to copy P2 media over to, and the other to ingest as quicktimes through final cut pro) and one external DVD burner to make a hard copy of the footage as a third back up. Not only that, I've also had everything plugged into to a Back - UPS system that provides battery back up just in case the power should go out (if power cuts, batteries kick in and my precious digital information is safe). Once this is all set up there is no way to loose any of this footage... or so I thought.

I got my station ready for P2 wrangling, and that day we were shooting onto 8 gig cards at 720P with an HPX 500 meaning each card holds around 20minutes of footage, and I'm ready for the first P2.
It came to me at about 8:30am and i stuck the card into my DualAdapter PCMIA card reader and copied over the fist load of footage to the first hard drive. Check. Easy as pie. Then with all my FCP systems settings set over to the second hard drive I began ingesting the copied footage into Final Cut. But this is where the problem started. I didn't want Final Cut to read from the P2 card, I wanted it to read from the copied file I had recently made on the first drive. So, in the "log and transfer window" of Final Cut I deleted the P2 icon...

Some how ( and this is seriously still a mystery to me ) but somehow not only did pressing the "delete" button on my key board get rid of the icon in my dialogue window in Final Cut (which is what I wanted) but it also deleted the information in the folder I had made on the first hard drive...

"what..." I said ( and I still feel confused about it ) "the F?" I searched in the folder I recently made in the hard drive and nothing was in there. "NO. I just waited 8 or so minutes for that thing to copy over. where the heck did it go?" No matter how much I questioned it or how often I repeated clicking open that damn folder, the info wasn't there!

Ok... no prob. I'll just go back to the media from the card itself. went there. nothing. why?

I clicked it open again. nothing. why? and now at this point I was really panicking. Then a third time opening that figging folder and oh my me, there was no miraculous reappearance of the footage, nope - there is no god - I was sweating and breathing heavy and shaking my head with disbelief. the damn folder was empty.

I took the card out of the DualAdapter and put it back in hoping for a change - obviously nothing changed (except my heart rate ) and that is when i stood up and walked out of the room. I walked past the set where they had moved on from the scene I supposedly had safely saved and backed up and ingested and burned DVD's of, and I walked into a vacant conference room. I paced back and forth thinking that not only had I lost the first 2o minutes of the shoot, but that I had alos just lost my job.

I couldn't just stand there though. They were going to come at me with more P2 cards and I was going to be expected to copy more footage into my "failsafe" process of saving everything... so I had to call Mark. I had to let him know the embarrassing truth. He was also in a state of disbelief and he sent down not only the main editor of Kontent, Matt - a genius behind a mouse and keyboard - but he also sent Eric Escobar - a Kontent director, [he made One Weekend A Month that played at Sundance in 2004] check out his blog, he's a bad ass film wiz - to oversee my horrible execution of P2 wrangling.

Matt and Eric came and calmed me down a bit just by being there, but they also couldn't find a way to make that footage reappear. At this point everyone on the shoot was aware of my situation and they were giving me the "Everyone is allowed ONE" ('one' mess-up that is) speech, but I have a hard time giving any eye contact and found everyones shoe patterns much more comfortable for me to look at.

It turns out the "protect" switch on the P2 card itself (which makes it impossible to delete footage) was clicked off. And I also found out the hard way that it is possible to delete the actual source footage within Final Cut. I never knew that. I just figure that by deleting the P2 icon with in Final Cut I was only telling the program to not import from there, not to actually erase it!

Well... I never figured out why the P2 media I transfered over to the first drive was erased, but I still have my job. The people here at Kontent are very nice. Sam simply re-shot what I deleted and patted me saying, "no problem man, the second time we got a better performance from the PAM lady anyway." And I learned a few things about P2 wrangling, like never delete with in Final Cut, and always have the "protect" tab in the correct position.

Good times.