We released the book
Selling Your Film Without Selling Your Soul 2 days ago. Not counting those who bought from the Amazon site or from Apple, we have had 1800 downloads so far. Not bad since this is a very niche interest book. I want to emphasize this book is FREE until October 1 on our
site. After which it goes to $4.99 for all premium digital copies (Kindle, Nook, iBook) but there will always be a free pdf (text only, no URLs, pictures, charts, video) for those who just want the facts.
Also, today is the last day to
RSVP for our book launch party in New York on September 19 from 6-8pm. We have about 50 places left at last count so if you’re in town, join us.
An interview I did with
Cheap Fast Movie Thoughts was just published. Here’s an excerpt:
What’s the biggest misconception that filmmakers have about distribution?
SHERI: That there is some kind of magic distributor fairy waiting to give them a fat check and make their dreams come true. I hear many, many times filmmakers say ‘we’re artists, making films is supposed to be fun’ and I am sure thinking about the business of art isn’t fun to them. But it is imperative. As my filmmaker friend Greg Bayne says, “You may not be interested in the business, but you probably like to eat.”
It is your responsibility to your investors, your crew, yourself to take charge of this and have a solid plan from the outset that isn’t solely dependent on a distributor coming along and making your film whole, which is to say paying a minimum guarantee that recoups your production budget with interest. VERY few of those deals exist now, no matter what producer’s agents and distributors like to say.
Ask many questions of anyone currently working in film today and if you can get them to admit it, there aren’t big upfront deals going on, there aren’t a lot of presales going on and the likelihood of most independent films recouping is slim. Don’t base your estimations on box office returns either. Until there is a number revealed that shows how much was spent to get those returns, you don’t have a clear picture of profit. A film that has a $10 million box office may have spent $15 or $20 million to get that.
Setting aside the goal of recoupment though, it is more than possible to start building a career off of the attention you can get from a release. That’s where having a prestige festival premiere comes in. Say what you like about the films that play Sundance or how difficult it is to get in, that festival has the cache to change the life of your film and your career simply because of the amount of press coverage it receives and that is why it is so coveted and competitive.
For the rest of the interview, head on over to
Cheap Fast Movie Thoughts.
ACTORSandCREW is fully psyched to be featuring Sheri Moss Candler’s 411 for the PMD. PMD stands for Producer of Marketing and Distribution and this is the person in a production whose sole job is marketing and figuring out the distribution path for the film so the producer and the rest of the production crew can get on with their work. Sheri is an expert inbound marketing strategist who helps independent filmmakers build identities for themselves and their films. Through the use of online tools such as social networking, podcasts, blogs, online media publications and radio, she assists filmmakers in building an engaged and robust online community for their work that can be used to monetize effectively. She collaborates with filmmaker/author Jon Reiss (who coined the term PMD) in his TOTBO workshop series by teaching filmmakers about utilizing social media and building personal brands. For Sheri’s complete bio visit her site, here.
Click here to read Shari’s original post
