Tag: “indie”

Update to Jeremy Juuso’s DIY Film Releasing Article

Posted on by Emy

This was published yesterday on jeremyjuuso.blogspot.com.

UPDATE TO BASELINE JULY 2010 DIY POSTING

During the course of research, I found a film from 2009 that initially appeared to be a DIY release, but upon further inspection had to be relabeled as a non-DIY release. As a result, this has slightly shifted the numbers that initially appeared in my Baseline posting. Here is the revised table:

Turns out, DIY was on top opening weekend. Click here for the original posting (and some context).

Jon Reiss joins BAFTA panel at this year’s AFM Conference

Posted on by Mark

I’ll be sitting on the BAFTA panel at AFM discussing changes in Indie Distribution on Sunday, November 8th from 11:00am – 12:30pm.   Come on out to hear the most cutting-edge discussion of indie distribution and marketing!

Sunday November 8th

11:00am-12:30pm

No Direction Home – Changing Indie Distribution Strategies
Programmed by: British Academy of Film & Television Arts, Los Angeles
BAFTA
These are confusing times for indie filmmakers. Just as revolutionary production choices are opening up, traditional distribution models are collapsing. How cost-effective is U.S. theatrical release? Does it still impact foreign sales? What kind of income streams can be generated from such new sources as on-demand, internet download, and direct website DVD sales? Our panel of experts may not have all the answers, but will attempt to provide producers with a compass to navigate the rocky shoals of a challenging and still-evolving marketplace.

Location: Le Merigot Hotel (1740 Ocean Avenue)
Cost: $40 per person

Moderator:
John Alan Simon, Writer-Director, Radio Free Albemuth; Producer, The Getaway; Former Staff Writer, New Orleans Times Picayune; Member, BAFTA/LA Education and Outreach Committee

Panelists:
Chris Hyams, Founder and CEO, B-Side Entertainment
Ted Mundorff, CEO, Landmark Theatres
Jon Reiss, Director/Producer, Bomb It; Author, Think Outside the Box (Office) – The Ultimate Guide to Film Distribution and Marketing for the Digital Era
David Shultz, Founder and President, Vitagraph Films
Leslie Urdang, President, Olympus Pictures; Producer, Adam, Rabbit Hole
2:00pm – 3:30pm
THE ENTIRE CONFERENCE SCHEDULE IS BELOW:
Continue reading →

Blogging, Criticism, and Niche Audiences

Here’s an article from Chuck Tryon’s blog, on the increasingly important role of blogging with regards to independent film.

Blogging, Film Criticism, and Niche Audiences
by Chuck Tryon | August 6th, 2009

One of the ongoing questions I’ve been thinking about for a couple of years is the role of blogging in reshaping film criticism. It’s a topic I tried to address in my book, particularly through the lens of the opposition between professional and amateur critics and the role of blogging in both directing attention to movies and in creating community around shared interest in movies. But as I was writing that chapter (and especially as I look back on it now), I can’t help but feel as if I was aiming at a moving target of sorts, as the various practices of film reviewing change over time. With that in mind, I continue to be interested in some recent discussions of the role of reviews in shaping film culture.

Part of that entails a shift in the status of popular film criticism. A number of critics and film journalists have recently pointed out that after a failed reboot with younger critics, At the Movies, the show that introduced audiences to Siskel and Ebert, has now revamped, hiring veteran film critics, A.O. Scott and Michael Phillips. As Karina points out, drawing from an observation by Patrick Goldstein, ABC’s decision to hire Scott and Phillips tacitly acknowledges that the audience for this type of format is typically middle-aged (although Goldstein hastens to add that a show like At the Movies could find new life on the web). Although the TV audience may be aging, one of the other points here may be that such shows (or reviews) now function best at the level of the niche audience, whether that’s a local readership or a group interested in a certain genre of film, such as the ongoing and borderline exhausting debates over Mumblecore: is it a genre? is it dead yet? is it killing (or saving) indie? The selection of Scott and Phillips shows that there is some room for intelligent conversation about film, but a show like At the Movies would benefit from engaging its online audience, not antagonizing it, especially when audience taste in movies may or may not match up with box office totals.

One of the more interesting discussions of film criticism has focused on Paramount’s decision not to screen G.I. Joe for most film critics, taking the film to the “heartlands” with special screenings near Andrews Air Force Base and for web critics known to be friendly to action films (such as CHUD.com). Continue reading →

Art House Arrest: Current Trends in Small Theater Programming

This is an article I thought you might find interesting from the Sante Fe New Mexican. Just in case you ever wanted to know what that Cinematheque programmer was really thinking.

The Big Picture: Art-house arrest
Pasatiempo | The New Mexican | 8/6/2009

Size shouldn’t matter, but sometimes it seems that big is all people want when it comes to movies.

While the paying public plunks down its cash to see such summer blockbusters as G-Force, Public Enemies, and Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince — making these pictures instant box-office hits — managers of art-house cinemas around the country are looking for new ways to attract younger viewers and keep old-time loyalists happy while paying the rent by showcasing “small” pictures.

Changing times, fast-paced technological advancements, an aging audience, the closure or scaled-back activities of art-house distribution companies, and the fact that mainstream multiplexes — like Regal DeVargas in Santa Fe — are playing art-house titles have contributed to the challenge of maintaining a single or even double-screen cinema devoted to art films. Yet directors of art houses are putting up a valiant fight, with some finding new ways to keep their houses vibrant.

“We are really trying to appeal to all ages, but our bread-and-butter audience is the older, aging art-film crowd from the counterculture era,” said John Ewing, director of the Cleveland Institute of Art Cinematheque, which opened in 1986. “Our attendance was down 21 percent from our last fiscal year.”

Brent Kliewer, programmer for The Screen on the College of Santa Fe campus, echoed Ewing’s comments. “Business is off,” he said. “Looking at the Hollywood hits this year, it’s pornographic what some of them are making. Everyone has the illusion that the movie industry is better than ever. People say to me, ‘I bet you guys are doing good.’ But good times don’t mean that Séraphine is breaking records. It doesn’t mean that anything small is doing big business.”

The Screen’s future has been in limbo since the financially strapped college announced that it was closing last spring. Now, with the city agreeing to take on $30 million in debt and lease the college campus to Laureate Education Inc., it seems that the 10-year-old art house will survive for now. Kliewer said he expects to talk with Laureate officials sometime in August.

That said, he acknowledged that the art-house enterprise has changed, with many programmers, like himself, looking at the bottom line. Continue reading →

Social Networking to Increase Your Independent Film’s Exposure (well, duh).

IndieGoGo – A resource you should all know about. On Monday Triplepundit (typically an environment site) issued this article interviewing the Slava Rubin of Indie GoGo.


IndieGoGo: Cause Awareness Through Entertainment

By Gennefer Snowfield | August 10th, 2009 | Triplepundit.com

The social web has opened the floodgates of communication, allowing users from all over the world to share knowledge, meet new people and connect with a multitude of content from breaking news to causes to movies and everything in between. Nonprofits, in particular, have met with much success harnessing the power of Twitter, Facebook and other social networks to generate awareness — and donations — for their causes, and digital entertainment, such as web series, are beginning to tap into this movement, giving fans the ability to help fund their shows. But thanks to Slava Rubin, and his service, IndieGoGo, independent filmmakers have an established turnkey solution for getting their films and documentaries increased exposure, funding and promotion.

IndieGoGo is a socially-driven platform built on the concept of crowdfunding, creating a central location where independent filmmakers can showcase their work, and fans can show their support through microdonations right on the site. And thanks to a new partnership with Snag Films, filmmakers also have a vehicle to connect viewers directly with the causes they support, giving them the ability to make their films — and a difference. In addition, IndieGoGo’s integration with social networks allows the impact of those contributions to be captured and spread virally within viewers’ various communities to spark increased awareness and donations, helping the documentaries and issues gain greater market traction to build fan bases and cause champions. Not to mention the added benefit of delivering important social and environmental topics in an emotionally resonant and compelling way through entertainment experiences that forge deep, lasting connections well after the film ends.

Tell us a little more about how IndieGoGo works, and some of the services you offer for linking independent filmmakers with fundraising and distribution opportunities.

IndieGoGo provides tools for fundraising, promotion, and discovery to the film and media industry. The platform enables people to showcase their work, mobilize their fans, and DIWO (Do-It-With-Others!). We are in over 90 countries and have helped projects raise nearly $150K in funds. Specific functionality includes VIP perk-based fundraising, social media promotion (widgets, social networking, real time Internet, online hub), media galleries and a two-way communications platform for fans to participate.

What inspired you to facilitate a DIWO (Do It With Others) collaborative filmmaking model for IndieGoGo?

IndieGoGo launched in 2008 to address the fundraising challenges and market inefficiencies affecting independent filmmaking today. While Obama was raising a million dollars per day in sub-$1000 contributions, film director Robert Greenwald was validating crowdfunding for film. When Iraq for Sale raised $267K in small donations via an email campaign, it became clear the entire film industry could benefit from online tools that streamlined the audience-building and fundraising efforts.

What notable films and documentaries have utilized IndieGoGo?

We have nearly 1800 projects using IndieGoGo for audience-building and/or fundraising. A few notable projects include:

* Tapestries of Hope: a documentary about a rape crisis occurring in Zimbabwe due to the misunderstanding that sex with virgins cures HIV and AIDS ($22,500 raised to-date)
* Changing the World on Vacation: a British documentary that explores the controversial trend “Volun-tourism” – the merger of adventure travel and aid work – by following a Cambodian NGO ($10,000 to-date)
* Shelter in Place: a British documentary about civil rights, environmental pollution and corporate greed in America ($7,500 raised to-date)
* Co-Ed: a documentary about co-ed soccer in New York City ($4,112 raised to-date)
* Pressure Cooker: a culinary documentary showcasing the potential of students when teachers believe in them and bust their chops; a Participant Productions film (Promotion only)
* Pelotero: a Dominican documentary on major league baseball’s overseas farm system ($2,000 raised to-date)
* FLOW: a documentary on the global water crisis; a Sundance 2007 film with distribution from Oscilloscope (Promoting only)

You recently cemented a partnership with Snag Films to create cause-based partnerships for filmmakers. Please share more details about this relationship and why you decided to link your business to causes.

We partnered with SnagFilms because of our shared belief in Filmanthropy – connecting cause-based films with philanthropic individuals, large and small. Having reduced the barriers to support a film to just a click and a few dollars, connecting in-progress IndieGoGo docs to SnagFilms’ documentary enthusiasts was a natural step. IndieGoGo’s films find new fans as Snagfilms viewers get a new way to action on their beliefs.

What types of causes will you be supporting as part of this partnership?

The beauty of the IndieGoGo platform is that it is open to all filmmakers. We therefore support all the causes our films address. Documentary is one of our most popular genres, and causes are wide-ranging. Topics include environmental pollution, sexual identity, property rights, suicide, Wall Street history, spirituality, cancer, game shows, the death penalty, biographies, politics, the Internet, education, and baseball… to name a few.

Tell us more about the concept of ‘Filmanthropy’ and why you think documentary filmmakers and viewers will benefit from it.

Documentaries are often used as vehicles to drive awareness for an issue, as story is a powerful educational tool. For example, one of our films is being made for $250K; the filmmaker plans to use the film as a marketing vehicle to raise $10MM for the rape issue it’s illuminating. Adding film to the philanthropy effort helps to expand the reach and increase the resulting impact.

How will consumers be empowered to take action? Do you plan to communicate the impact of those efforts back to viewers? How?

Through the partnership, IndieGoGo’s “Take Action” functionality is ported onto the SnagFilms platform. Within one or two clicks, SnagFilms viewers have made a contribution, signed up for updates, provided feedback or shared the project with friends across Facebook, Twitter and other social media sites. With transparency as one of our core values, all filmmaker and fan activity is published on IndieGoGo, thus encouraging further action. We launched the SnagFilms partnership one month ago, and IndieGoGo’s films have already garnered a half a million impressions via SnagFilms and its partner platforms.

What trends have you been observing in the independent filmmaking space? Have you seen any spikes in indie filmmakers? Do you think that’s a result of new media and web-enabled resources like IndieGoGo?

As production and distribution costs fall, demand for niche content increases, social media becomes increasingly mainstream, distribution platforms proliferate, and online revenue streams for digital content mature; the opportunity to make a living making film by going directly to one’s target audiences will increase. Tools are replacing middlemen, thereby reducing the friction involved in identifying, engaging and monetizing one’s fans.

Yesterday, filmmakers had one way to monetize their film: get picked up by a distributor. With 8,000 filmmakers applying to Sundance 2008, 150 getting in and just a handful getting distribution deals, the distributor option has never been a likely one for most. As more filmmakers leverage web-based tools like IndieGoGo, fan-funding will become an increasingly common monetization method during production, while self-distribution will become an increasingly viable and attractive monetization method post-release.

Do you think indie films and documentaries will ever reach critical mass in reaching a mainstream audience, or will they always be more niche entertainment?

In aggregate, niche content is already reaching critical mass. A majority of Netflix titles rented each month are not “New Release” titles. Many people refer to this as the Long Tail of film distribution. The tail will only continue to fatten as distribution platforms integrate better with social media and technology to become more efficient in delivering desired content to people – where they want it, when they want it.

What are your future plans for IndieGoGo and where do you hope to take the concept?

IndieGoGo’s mission has always been, and continues to be, the democratization of film. IndieGoGo currently enables “filmocracy” by providing filmmakers an open platform to showcase their projects to the world, and giving the fans a vehicle to experience and influence the once inaccessible world of filmmaking. In the future, we plan to expand our toolkit beyond fundraising and promotion to distribution, thereby helping filmmakers through the continuum of their films – and their careers.

As studios cut back, indie spirit serves directors — More Independent Filmmakers are going DIY.

Check out this great article I found in the New York Times. Keep up the indie spirit, everyone!

As studios cut back, indie spirit serves directors
By Michael Cieply | New York Times | Aug 12, 2009

LOS ANGELES » Quentin Tarantino never had to go through this.

When “The Age of Stupid,” a climate change movie, “opens” across the United States in September, it will play on some 400 screens in a one-night event, with a video performance by Thom Yorke of Radiohead, all paid for by the filmmakers themselves and their backers. In Britain, meanwhile, the film has been showing via an Internet service that lets anyone pay to license a copy, set up a screening and keep the profit.

The glory days of independent film, when hot young directors like Steven Soderbergh and Tarantino had studio executives tangled in fierce bidding wars at Sundance and other celebrity-studded festivals, are now barely a speck in the rearview mirror. And something new, something much odder, has taken their place.

Here is how it used to work: aspiring filmmakers playing the cool auteur in hopes of attracting the eye of a Hollywood power broker.

Here is the new way: filmmakers doing it themselves — paying for their own distribution, marketing films through social networking sites and Twitter blasts, putting their work up free on the Web to build a reputation, cozying up to concierges at luxury hotels in film festival cities to get them to whisper into the right ears.

The economic slowdown and tight credit have squeezed the entertainment industry along with everybody else, resulting in significantly fewer big-studio films in the pipeline and an even tougher road for smaller-budget independent projects. Continue reading →

Film Independent Lecture Series: The DIY Bible: A Nuts and Bolts Workshop on How To Distribute Your Film in the Digital Era with Jon Reiss

Hey everyone! I’m doing a workshop with Film Independent Tuesday nights starting tomorrow (through September 8th) and would like to invite all of you to attend if interested.

The DIY Bible: A Nuts and Bolts Workshop on How To Distribute Your Film in the Digital Era

**Topic for Tuesday, August 11th: Your Film’s Overall Distribution Strategy
August 18th: Reinventing the Theatrical Experience
August 25th: Selling DVDs and Other Merchandise
September 1st: Digital Rights and Distribution Options
September 8th: DIY Marketing

Check out Film Independent’s posting for the workshop here.

The independent film world is abuzz with the collapse of the traditional independent film distribution model. Specialty divisions such as Warner Independent and Paramount Vantage are shuttering and the traditional releasing organizations that are left are not buying films like they once did. No longer can a filmmaker believe that if they make a good film, they can take it to a premiere festival and a white knight will swoop down and give them a million or two or four and take their film off of their hands with and wait for their theatrical premiere to miraculously occur to thousands of adoring fans and reviews. In this class students will not only learn how the film distribution landscape is changing, but how to use the new models of independent film distribution to effectively release an independent film. Emphasis will be on: Creating a Strategy for Your Film, How to Prepare Your Film For Distribution, Reinventing the Theatrical Release, DVD and Educational Distribution, Digital Distribution and Web Sites and Web Promotion.

About the Instructor: Jon Reiss was named one of “10 Digital Directors to Watch” by Daily Variety and is a critically acclaimed filmmaker who has produced and directed three feature films most recently Bomb It (Tribeca 2007) about graffiti and the battle over visual public space throughout the world. Based on his experience releasing Bomb It with a hybrid strategy and the classes he teaches at Cal Arts, Jon is now writing the book: The DIY Bible: The Complete Guide to Film Distribution in the Digital Era to be released September 15th.

WHEN: Tuesdays, August 11 – September 8, 7:00pm – 10:00 pm
WHERE: Film Independent Office
PRICE: $200 for Film Independent members, $250 for non-members
RESERVATIONS: Required – call 310.432.1222 or email Reservations@FilmIndependent.org.
Seating is limited.
Parking validated after 5:30 pm
View the MAP with directions.

Three Approaches to Marketing an Independent Film – Three Indie Filmmakers Tell Us How They Did It

Hey everyone. This is an article from Independent Magazine that looks at three real-life case studies of independent filmmakers DIY-ing their own marketing. Again, DIY isn’t always for everyone, but these folks made it work. A great read!

Three Approaches to Marketing an Independent Film

Three independent filmmakers discuss how they succeeded in marketing their films.

July 31st, 2009 | Dante A. Ciampaglia

Independent filmmakers don’t have the luxury of the publicity divisions employed by studios. Yet smart filmmaker know that a film’s marketing is crucial to its success or failure—and doing it well requires an enormous amount of time and effort. So, they tap the passion, wherewithal, determination, and moxie that drives them to make films in the first place to create posters, generate buzz, start an online viral campaign, and do whatever else is necessary to get their work in front of audiences.

Not everyone who goes down this tough, DIY road finds success. But there are some who do, like Bill Daniel, Sterlin Harjo, and Gadi Harel. Their experiences highlight different approaches to successfully self-marketing an independent film—and they provide different definitions of what success means.

Case Study #1

Filmmaker: Bill Daniel
Film: Who is Bozo Texino?

It took photographer/artist/filmmaker Bill Daniel 16 years, on and off, to complete his hobo boxcar graffiti documentary, Who is Bozo Texino? And when it came time to getting the film in front of audiences, Daniel got in his van and lived the life of a vagabond artist.

Beginning in 2005, Daniel, who currently lives in Braddock, PA, utilized the extremely fragile microcinema network in the United States to show his movie. He brought the film to screening rooms set up in music clubs, coffee houses, bars, conference rooms, lecture halls, warehouses, the side of a building, or on top of a van—in short, anywhere you can set up a screen and a projector and screen a movie that was created and is being distributed absolutely independently.

By taking his film across the country this way, Daniel essentially lived out of a 40-year-old van for stretches of time. He would take the van, which routinely broke down on him, across America to show his film to anyone and everyone he could.

“When it was it finally done, this film was mine and I wanted to bring it to who I want to,” Daniel says. “And the way I want to is I’m going to get in the van, print some posters, and call people I know in different towns and say, ‘Hey, where are people showing films these days?'”

This led to Daniel screening Bozo Texino, by his estimation, around 350 and 400 times between 2005 and 2009, and his approach was extremely labor-intensive. He would spend two days booking a screening for every day he was on the road. He would also spend hours silkscreening posters himself and sending them out to the venues ahead of his appearance.

By touring his film this way, Daniel lived like the subjects of his documentary: hand to mouth. He relied on the generosity of his hosts and strangers to allow him to bunk on a couch for a night or help out with his van. And there was never a guarantee that things would work out even marginally well.

“You live and die by your hosts in the town,” Daniel says. “More than three times I’ve rolled into a town and seen the stack of posters sitting on the desk with my express mail or priority mail envelope next to it. That’s the worst. That’s the slap in the face. That’s the pet peeve.”

Despite the dud screenings and the wasted efforts in some places, Daniel kept with the rather old-fashioned way of marketing his movie. He embraced the peer-to-peer way punk bands got the word out about their shows in the early 1980s. To Daniel, punk culture and hobo graffiti culture are part of the same tradition, a personal culture that has value and is important to him. He wanted his film and his distributing it to be part of that tradition.

And in that, Daniel found success. He completed a film that took far longer than he ever expected. He has been able to live and work as an artist without having to go back to working construction. And, as he says, “I’m still here.”

Daniel doesn’t judge the success of his film on its financial success, but rather it’s ability to resonate with the audience. “The film found an audience that was the audience I really wanted for it, the people who I really identified with and care for,” Daniel says. “So the fact that it didn’t have success outside of that—that it didn’t come with the gravy—is fine. It really did what it was supposed to: become a part of the culture that it came out of. That’s the essential thing because, basically, it’s a piece of folklore.”

For more information on Who is Bozo Texino?, visit Bill Daniel’s website at http://www.billdaniel.net.

Case Study #2

Filmmaker: Gadi Harel (co-directed with Marcel Sarmiento)
Film: Deadgirl

Gadi Harel and Marcel Sarmiento aren’t your typical independent filmmaking success story. In fact, theirs is the opposite of most indie filmmakers. They didn’t spend years on the road with their film, and they didn’t have a steady uptick in attention.

Rather, by some fortuitous self-marketing to a management company and an official from the Toronto International Film Festival, the filmmakers found their film Deadgirl on the midnight movie program for the 2008 festival in Toronto.

In their case, the best marketing tool Harel and Sarmiento had was the film itself.

They screened a rough cut for a management company—the company liked it and put them in touch with someone from Toronto. They screened the rough cut for that Toronto official—he liked it enough to take a chance on a couple of unknowns who made a movie on a budget of under $1 million with no stars and put it into the festival. And when they screened the movie in Toronto it was noticed by distributors and ultimately bought by MPI Media.

Once the film was bought, Harel and Sarmiento had almost a year between Toronto and MPI’s planned limited theatrical release. (Deadgirl opened in nine cities beginning July 24, and is scheduled for a September 15 DVD release.) This gave the filmmakers the chance to screen it at festivals around the country as well as internationally. They took the film to major festivals in Austin, Los Angeles, and Seattle, as well as a festival in Spain.

“It was just the two of us and it felt like, in a weird way, that we had never played at Toronto,” Harel says. “There was a long time were we almost forgot we had distribution and we were just operating like this is it, we have to sort of get the word out or nobody will ever see this movie and every screening was the only chance to see the movie.”

As MPI’s release date for Deadgirl approached, Harel and Sarmiento left the festival circuit and prepared for the film’s theatrical run. This meant the filmmakers working closely with their distributor on the marketing tools for their film.

For the poster, MPI went with the one Harel and Sarmiento, who are also graphic designers, put together for Toronto. They wanted to create an “iconic image,” according to Harel, that would cause festivalgoers to stop for a closer look. The poster, a close up of lips tinted pink and green and situated vertically, is provocative and not shy about it’s multiple meanings.

The same could be said about the film itself, a coming-of-age zombie movie about two high school guys who find a dead girl in an abandoned asylum who turns out to be not so dead. Harel says the movie has two sides: the coming-of-age story, and dark, disturbing horror movie.

For their part, Harel says he and Sarmiento were attracted to the Deadgirl script because of the coming-of-age story. He understands that people will come for the horror and that MPI is selling it as a horror movie. “I trust them, and they’ve done a great job. They’ve done for the movie what we hoped someone would do,” Harel says.

It seems like his marketing role now is to make sure people don’t expect the wrong kind of movie. Some Internet buzz and early reviews put Deadgirl in league with the Saw and Hostel movies. Harel agrees the film is disturbing, but says it isn’t torture porn.

“I think that most people who see the movie at this point expect it to be something that it’s not. And they’re either going to be surprised and pleased that it’s not, or they’ll be disappointed,” Harel says. “Everyone that will see it, I’m pretty sure, is expecting something else. And that’s the way it is—it has to be that way to get them to show up.”

More information about Deadgirlcan be found at the film’s official website, http://www.deadgirlmovie.com.

Case Study #3

Filmmaker: Sterlin Harjo
Film: Barking Water

As a Native American, Oklahoma-based filmmaker Sterlin Harjo has a tough time getting attention from agents and the broader independent filmmaking community. Despite screening three films at Sundance and getting distribution for two of them, he constantly runs into misconceptions from audiences about his movies.

“Almost as soon as you say Native American, before you say anything else, you think of drama, you think if this film’s a Native American film, I’m probably going to get depressed and sad,” Harjo says. “So it’s hard to get people into theaters to see the film sometimes. And those are the people who I think need to see this film because it will change their idea of what a film about Native Americans can be.”

The film in this case is Barking Water, a soulful road movie focused on an older Indian couple. Frankie (Richard Ray Whitman) is dying, and rather than see him die in a hospital his longtime on-again-off-again girlfriend Irene (Casey Camp-Horinek) takes him on a road trip to see people and places important to Frankie.

It’s the kind of film that would play well in arthouse and smaller, independent theaters. Yet Harjo, because of his heritage and the perception of what a Native American film is, must fight to convince audiences and potential distributors that Barking Water isn’t a Native film in the stereotypical sense. It’s simply an independent film that details a modern Native American experience.

“I like to attract fans of Native American films. I also like to attract people of just independent films. And that is the biggest thing. I try to push this as an independent film,” Harjo says. “It’s about Native Americans, yes, but a lot of people can really relate to it, and I think that’s key.”

To convey this message, Harjo has marketed the film himself to independent audiences generally and the Native American community specifically.

The first step was getting word out about the movie through the Internet, which Harjo accomplished by working within the Native American community. Ryan Redcorn of Red Hand Media designed the poster for the film, and then blasted all over MySpace and other websites. And a company called One Fast Buffalo designed a proper site for the movie that Harjo pumped up as much as he could.

Once Barking Water was complete, the second marketing push began: touring it. Harjo enjoys taking his films to a new audience and talking with them about the work and getting his projects seen. But he also finds it can be disruptive.

He compares being on the road with a film to being in a band, except rather than playing the same song every night it’s every couple of weeks. He’ll be on the road with the film, and his home will be hotel rooms. When he returns to Oklahoma, it takes him a while to get back into the groove of being home. And once he’s back in that groove he leaves again to show the film somewhere else.

“It’s really exhausting because you’re always on the road and you’re never home, so trying to just show the movie wherever and whenever you can and also trying to find a way to make a living off of film,” Harjo says.

Despite the disruptions and exhaustion, Harjo values the process of taking his films on the road. He toured his previous film, Four Sheets to the Wind, and that built up his reputation as a talented filmmaker and led to larger audiences for Barking Water. The Four Sheets to the Wind tour also landed him a DVD distribution deal for the film, and he says he’s in discussions now with a distributor for Barking Water.

Harjo admits that the success he’s found hasn’t led to a big explosion of money and fame. And he’s okay with that. The slow climb to acceptance within the independent community has allowed him to make the movies he wants while getting all the mistakes out of his system on relatively low-budget movies. And he maintains the creative freedom valued by all artists.

“I have final cut on my films, and I don’t have anyone telling me to change things. I think that’s the way to do it,” Harjo says. “It’s just a good place to be. I get to do what I want to do, and I get paid for it.”

More information about Barking Water can be found at the film’s official website, http://www.barkingwaterfilm.com.

Attend a Workshop with Jon Reiss — The DIY Bible: A Nuts and Bolts Workshop on How To Distribute Your Film in the Digital Era

Hey everyone! I’m doing a workshop with Film Independent Tuesday nights starting next week (through September 8th) and would like to invite all of you to attend if interested.

The DIY Bible: A Nuts and Bolts Workshop on How To Distribute Your Film in the Digital Era

**Topic for Tuesday, August 11th: Your Film’s Overall Distribution Strategy
August 18th: Reinventing the Theatrical Experience
August 25th: Selling DVDs and Other Merchandise
September 1st: Digital Rights and Distribution Options
September 8th: DIY Marketing

Check out Film Independent’s posting for the workshop here.

The independent film world is abuzz with the collapse of the traditional independent film distribution model. Specialty divisions such as Warner Independent and Paramount Vantage are shuttering and the traditional releasing organizations that are left are not buying films like they once did. No longer can a filmmaker believe that if they make a good film, they can take it to a premiere festival and a white knight will swoop down and give them a million or two or four and take their film off of their hands with and wait for their theatrical premiere to miraculously occur to thousands of adoring fans and reviews. In this class students will not only learn how the film distribution landscape is changing, but how to use the new models of independent film distribution to effectively release an independent film. Emphasis will be on: Creating a Strategy for Your Film, How to Prepare Your Film For Distribution, Reinventing the Theatrical Release, DVD and Educational Distribution, Digital Distribution and Web Sites and Web Promotion.

About the Instructor: Jon Reiss was named one of “10 Digital Directors to Watch” by Daily Variety and is a critically acclaimed filmmaker who has produced and directed three feature films most recently Bomb It (Tribeca 2007) about graffiti and the battle over visual public space throughout the world. Based on his experience releasing Bomb It with a hybrid strategy and the classes he teaches at Cal Arts, Jon is now writing the book: The DIY Bible: The Complete Guide to Film Distribution in the Digital Era to be released September 15th.

WHEN: Tuesdays, August 11 – September 8, 7:00pm – 10:00 pm
WHERE: Film Independent Office
PRICE: $200 for Film Independent members, $250 for non-members
RESERVATIONS: Required – call 310.432.1222 or email Reservations@FilmIndependent.org.
Seating is limited.
Parking validated after 5:30 pm
View the MAP with directions.

The Indie Film Dilemma – Hybrid Distribution for IFC?

This is a great article I found from the Santa Monica Reporter
Posted on August 3rd, 2009 by NewsLanc.com. It talks briefly about the history of independent film and possible future for it via methods being tried out by IFC. Read On.


The Indie Film Dilemma

Most reports from show business media tell us that “independent” cinema is on life support, like the “zombie” banks that currently populate our financial system. Lately it seems that the few smaller, quirky films that arrive in theaters quickly disappear after a week or two. And outside the bigger cities, like Philadelphia where taste is more diverse, they don’t even get booked. This summer the classier chains, like Landmark, are playing mainstream titles like “The Proposal,” “The Hangover,” “Harry Potter 6,” and “Ice Age 2,” (or maybe it’s 3 — I’ve lost track of where we are in that franchise’s life cycle.) The audience for more challenging, smaller films seems to be waning.

A quick look at the summer’s grosses supports that conclusion. Box office is up. “Transformers 2” is closing in on 800 million worldwide, “Ice Age” nearly 600, “The Hangover” at 300 plus and finally, “Star Trek,” the laggard among the big winners because it means more in the US, than overseas, has brought in 380 million. “Night At the Museum,” considered a big disappointment has grossed 300 million, performing significantly better internationally than here. These are big numbers. And remember, this is before DVD release.

It’s important to note that these titles come with huge price tags, like “Transformers” at 200 million and “Star Trek” close to 150, mainly owing to visual effects. But at the other end of the scale, “The Hangover,” with a reported cost of 35 million, and Sandra Bullock’s “The Proposal,” at 40, are turning huge profits in this country alone.

There have also been expensive flops; “Land of the Lost,” “Terminator 4,” and “Taking of Pelham 123.” But when you consider the international take, some of these so called losers, both the critically reviled “Terminator,” and “Angels and Demons,” have brought in 356 and 480 million in world sales, respectively. These are far from losers. So the big studio “tentpoles,” (which include costly animated films like “Up,”) complemented by a series of mid budget comedies, are showering the studios with cash.

Where does the “independent” cinema fit in this picture? Continue reading →