Jon Reiss

TOTBO Tip of the Day 34 When Booking Your Film: Make the Call

When calling the theater, ask for the person in charge of programming. These bookers are generally very nice people who love film. Why else would they be involved with small theaters that make no money? And remember, it is important to call first before sending an e-mail. An e-mail cannot express your passion, nor will an e-mail exchange allow you to address the bookers‘ concerns about your film in a direct and instantaneous fashion. I always followed up my phone calls with an e-mail and not the other way around.

My workshops are coming to NYC on June 5 & 6^th organized through IFP – and Vancouver on June 12 & 13^th.   One of the perks of attending is a digital pack of articles and documents my theatrical pitch letter and a list of theater listings etc.  I hope to see you there! Check out the book and workshops here.

Film Independent Announces 2010 L.A. Film Festival Programming

I will be doing a 2 day Boot Camp at the LA Film Fest for its competition filmmakers. I am also designing the whole 3 day symposium with the folks at LA Film Festival. Its quite an event with pretty incredible speakers and combos – stay tuned!

Jon

Press Release published on filmindependent.org.

Film Independent Announces Jonathan Gold, Quincy Jones and Paul Reubens as Artists in Residence for 2010 Los Angeles Film Festival

LOS ANGELES (May 17, 2010) – Today Film Independent, the non-profit arts organization that produces the Spirit Awards, the Los Angeles Film Festival, and year-round artist development programs and exhibition events, announced additional official film selections and programming for the 2010 Los Angeles Film Festival, presented by the Los Angeles Times. The Festival will run from Thursday, June 17 to Sunday, June 27 in downtown Los Angeles, with its central hub at L.A. LIVE. […]

“The Los Angeles Film Festival is continually dedicated to supporting filmmakers, so we’ve created a new signature event to help them navigate the changing marketing and distribution landscape. In collaboration with filmmaker Jon Reiss, we’ve developed a two-day boot-camp for our Festival filmmakers, as well as a public event, so artists can take charge and better understand how to harness new distribution options and their social networking community,” said Film Independent’s Director of Education Maria Bozzi.

Read the full story…

10 Solutions to Ted Hopes 38 More Ways The Film Industry Is Failing Today

On Truly Free Film today Ted Hope writes about 38 More Ways The Film Industry Is Failing Today.

My response is to propose 10 Solutions that Filmmakers Can engage in to work against these failings:

1. Consider marketing and distribution of your films as part of the entire filmmaking process. If you do this it will be easier and more organic.

2. Hire a distribution and marketing crew – just as you would a production crew. Hire a Producer of Marketing and Distribution or PMD to run this crew. As a producer/line producer run production crew.

3. If you are interested in film, business, marketing, social media – train to become a PMD so that you can be hired by filmmakers. This is a growth field – if you want a new career.

4. Budget for and raise money for distribution and marketing at the initial raise. That way you can promise your investors a release of the film. This way there will be some assured path to monetization and all share the risk in the costs of that monetization.

5. Put the money for marketing and distribution in escrow – you know what I mean.

6. Consider the audience for your film, the specific audinece(s) that exist for your film. Reach out to them as early as possible. They will help you.

7. Think of how and what that audience consumes. Make products that they want related to your film. Eg Shepard Fairey designed posters printed on linen paper signed by the director of the film Bomb It – 🙂

8. Think of interesting Live Events that you can create that appeal to your audience and are relevent to your film. Steinway brought pianos and pianists to the screenings of Ben Nile’s “Note by Note”

9. Think of interesting ways to reach out to audiences that might engage with the content of your film, but don’t want to watch a feature film (yes transmedia). Check out “The Way We Get By” and their Returning Home community site. Check out Bomb It’s Babelgum webisode site.

10. Remember that you are creating a film or media project for an audience. Creation is one part of the whole, connecting with the audience is the other part to that whole.

Jon

Call for Entries: 2nd Annual Film Festival for Social & Environmental Change

Fans Of Film 2nd annual film festival for change starting Nov/01/2010 ending Nov/01/2010. This is a festival to distribution event.
ORGANIZERS: Michael Palombo and Pattie Greer

Fans Of Film wants to see the best and get 8 winning films in “documentary/narrative social and environmental films for change” that filmmakers can dish out, and we wanna distribute them… (film contract with Fans Of Film is non exclusive with 70% gross profits to the filmmaker. Learn More)

The New Film Festival Model

I posted this on Ted Hope’s blog yesterday.

More Thoughts On The New Film Festival Model
By JON REISS

“Blood Simple” was the first film I bought a ticket for at a film festival. It was screening at the NYFF and I soon came to recognize that the films accepted to that fest were of a exceedingly high quality. The curatorial taste behind that festival choices was something I had confidence in. They gained my trust precisely because they have never tried to be all things for all people, and for that I have always been willing to pay a premium for. The NYFF was, and is, a trusted filter.

Too many festivals these days program too many films without revealing, or reveling in, their curatorial hands, diminishing the power of their brand in the process. If festivals are going to become the new curators, that will have to change. Festivals must emphasize their unique taste, if not overall, then within sidebars at the festival.

Read the full story…

Interview With Cassidy At SXSW

This was published today on Living Proof Magazine.

SXSW INTERVIEW | FILMMAKER JON REISS
By CASSIDY

Jon Reiss has spent the last 30 years making badass documentary films about punk rock, the rave scene, and graffiti. You have almost certainly seen his film Bomb It, a feature length documentary about global graffiti culture. The film has basically become the seminal graffiti film of our generation.

Usually when a filmmaker has that kind of O.G. status you can expect an old-school hollywood mentality, and a shitty attitude. Jon has neither of those. He is chill and down to earth. And when it comes to filmmaking, Jon is on the cutting edge. His book, Think Outside The Box Office, is a bible for D.I.Y. film distribution and marketing. Jon became somewhat of a guru of this (surprisingly) new field after he self-distributed Bomb It.

These days Jon is a tough cat to get a hold of. He splits his time between traveling to film festivals and conferences to educate filmmakers about how they can self-distribute their films, and filming for his new project: Bomb It 2. Keeping with Jon’s focus on the future of filmmaking, Bomb It 2 is a web-series that will be released through Babbelgum.com.

The End of the World Entertainment crew tracked Jon down in a freight yard in Austin, TX where he was filming a piece for Bomb It 2. Jon spoke on his career, the future of filmmaking, and why making movies is still fun. The interview is embedded, and the trailer for Bomb It is below. You can follow Jon’s adventures on his site and on twitter.

Note: check out Jon’s gear setup. Yes, one of the most important graffiti films of all time was made with about $3,000 worth of equipment. Dope.

Copenhagen Documentary Festival Forum Keynote Speech Opens Debate on The Auteurs Website

Posted by T on The Auteurs Website.

PRODUCTION JOURNALS #1: JON REISS | THINK OUTSIDE THE BOX OFFICE

In this exclusive video for The Garage’s Production Journals Jon Reiss, director, filmmaker and author of ‘Think Outside The Box Office’, delivers the keynote speech at the 2009 Copenhagen Documentary Festival Forum, talking about the future of independent film distribution, the collapse of the festival acquisition model and the wider marketing challenges facing the contemporary filmmaker.

I’d like to use this film as a starting point for a series of Garage threads and a wider debate on independent film production, distribution and marketing. The crisis of industry that Jon describes in this speech is accurate: but are his proposals for change definitive? We are clearly at a juncture in the development of global film culture: the means of production have been democratised (to an extent), but getting control over distribution remains a serious difficulty for many many filmmakers.

Anyone who’d like to take part (and take this debate seriously), please watch the film and drop your thoughts back into this topic. We have more interviews with producers, distributors and independent filmmakers coming— this is simply the opening shot.

Join the discussion here.

3rd Annual Babelgum Online Film Festival Call for Entries

The 3rd annual Babelgum Online Film Festival is open for submissions—but only until March 28. This year, the Jury of illustrious filmmakers, Richard Linklater, Sally Potter, Eric Watson, Annie Sundberg, Jean-Pierre Bekolo and Carlos Battilana will be awarding $24,000 in cash awards for short films in four categories (animated, narrative, doc, non-narrative). There are no submissions fees and NO RESTRICTIONS on production year or whether your film has been previously distributed or shown at another online or offline film festival. Plus, all submissions will go live on Babelgum (online and mobile) and the winners of our Jury Awards, Audience Awards, Grand Prize, Best Viral Short, and the Stoli Emerging Filmmaker Award will all screen at a special event in late April at a soon-to-be-announced first-run theater in New York City.

Click here for submission guidelines and more details about the prizes.

James Cromwell at the Next CINEFIST Event in L.A.

EPIC MOVIES ON MICRO BUDGETS
APRIL 7th, 2010 @7PM
Q&A WITH JAMES CROMWELL, CAST AND CREW

Photos from NSI Event in Winnipeg Last Week

Click here for more.