Marc Rosenbush

Film Producer and Founder of the Company Internet Marketing for Filmmakers

What prompted you as a film producer to get involved in Internet marketing?

I came to Los Angeles as naïve as anybody else. I’m going to move to LA, I’m going to make my first movie, I’m going to go to Sundance, Harvey Weinstein’s going to buy it, and I’m going to get a three-picture deal and be rich. We all want to believe that the fairy princess is going to come down and wave the wand and it’s going to happen. That is a myth. Luckily, while I was making my first movie, I paid my bills as an Internet marketing strategist outside the film industry. And I soon realized that there were marketing techniques available that no one in the industry was using.

The digital revolution democratized making films, so anyone with a camera and Final Cut Pro can make a movie. Getting noticed has gotten harder and harder and harder. There are thousands and thousands of movies being made, so I thought Internet marketing would be a way to give me an edge, and forming Internet Marketing for Filmmakers is allowing me to share that knowledge with other producers.

Do you feel that sales agents and distributors are aware of the impact that the Internet is having?

No, I don’t think so. Even the distributors that are doing the digital distribution for you for the most part don’t know the Internet marking world, so they don’t know how to market it except in the old way. A few of them are ahead of the curve, and they understand that this digital stuff is the key to the universe but they have no idea how to do it.

What about producers today? Do you feel that we are really awake to the possibilities regarding the Internet?

The concept of Internet marketing is still a little bit alien to filmmakers, but the concept of social media they get now, and they get that they have to do it. At the same time, filmmakers really have no idea what they’re doing. They think that, “Okay, I have a Facebook page and I have a website, so why am I not getting rich?” They don’t understand that there is a methodology. There are principles at work of leveraging an audience, of building a relationship with an audience. In fact, my new mantra is “Audience first, movie second.”

Here’s the number one thing – it is about identifying an audience, a specific audience. I talk a lot about this in my workshops since I believe that there’s a big difference between demographics and psychographics. Demographics, for example, are “males, 18–24.” That is such a broad category that unless you have a $20 million to $30 million studio marketing budget, you’re not going to get their attention because there’s too many things going on. On the other hand, a psychographic is more like a niche. I like the term “psychographic” because what it refers to is the way they think and what their interests are.

This is new to me. Can you give me an example?

Yes, I’ll do better than that, I’ll give you an example from the movie I’m working on now. It’s a vampire movie based on a graphic novel published by DC Comics. Vampire movies are popular, that’s great. Lots of people like vampire movies, that’s a good niche, but it’s still a really big niche. There are the people who like Twilight, which is one kind of vampire movie, sort of the teenage girl’s vampire movie, and there’s the people that like True Blood, which is a different type of vampire project. What I’ve got is a sort of a David Lynch–y surreal vampire project with Eastern philosophy under the surface. So it’s sort of an interesting cerebral kind of movie. At the same time, on the surface, it’s got all the sex and violence to be marketable.

So I start thinking, okay, forget about the word “vampire” for a moment. What is the psychographic, what is a niche culture that would be interested in this movie? I started thinking about it and the word that came to mind is “goth.” I went, okay, goths by and large are interested in vampire stuff but they also tend to have an intellectual vibe going on. You know they’re readers but they may also have a dark spiritual vibe going on. Goth culture grew up and became intimately associated with Neil Gaiman and The Sandman. Okay, so that’s interesting, but would the psychographic of “Sandman” fans be right for my movie? Those fans that are likely to have a goth component?

That all sounds great, but how do you get to those fans – that group of people?

Start with social media. Run a search on Facebook. Facebook has an advertising tool; even if you’re not running an ad, you can just run a search on their advertising tool and just put in a key phrase. And what you want is for these people to like your page. Profiles of individual’s pages are for products and entities. And the reason – and this is very important in terms of marketing for the long term because you’re only allowed to have 5,000 friends max and you’re limited in terms of the way that you can market to your friends – pages were developed as a marketing tool whereas profiles were developed as an interactive communication tool. Big difference.

So, for example, I could run a Facebook ad campaign targeted at Neil Gaiman fans. In fact, I did this a week ago. I set up the parameters and I spent $25 a day and for $25 a day, it was costing me less than a dollar per acquisition of links. And I wasn’t selling them anything. The ad just said, hey, if you like Neil Gaiman, you’ll like this movie. And they went and they checked it out. So I got 150 new followers in a few days. And that was just a test. So remember it’s important to have the money in your budget to put into Facebook advertising just to build a fan base.

So this is important to literally put in your budget?

I would say for any new film, if you don’t have a line item for the Internet, then you don’t have a budget.

Do you mean separate from possible P&A money or potential four-wall money in the budget? In fact, before you answer, let me tell our readers what I am referring to here. P&A money means prints and advertising and four-walling a film means that you rent the theatre and show the movie yourself. Usually the theatre keeps the concessions.

No, I am not referring to either of those things. This is a marketing item that exists before the film does. This is not P&A. This is in the production budget. You can create the frenzy before you have the funding. Let me ask you a question: you’re a producer, but let’s say you’re a studio or let’s say you’re an investor, if somebody comes to you with this little film, and says, “Okay, I want to make this for $800,000,” they’re going to look at you and say, “Well, what have you done before and why should I listen to you?” But then you say, “Oh, and by the way, I have 70,000 people who already are interested,” you’ve just done their work for them.

The Internet is a numbers game. You need volume. For example, I am interested in creating an audience on YouTube that has the potential to grow to 40,000–50,000 a year and beyond. Now you can go to investors, or even if you’re past the investor stage, and in production, at the end of the day, you can go to a distributor and say, “Oh, look, I’ve got 40,000–50,000 people.” You just did their job for them. If you’ve got 40,000–50,000 people or if you’ve got 200,000 people, you don’t even need a distributor!

My goal for my vampire movie is a million people in my social sphere or targeted fans of the movie and I don’t just want them on Facebook. I want their email address and I want their zip code so I know where they live so I know whether to do a theatrical first, and if so, where to do it. And if so, how much to spend in each of those locations, and if I’m lucky possibly to not spend anything in those locations because I have their email addresses. We’ll also have an iPhone, iPad, and Android app, so we’ll get their information that way as well. I’ll be able to text them, email them, so if I’ve got 30,000 people in Atlanta and I’ve got their email addresses, they’ve already made a commitment to the film by giving me their email address and zip code, that means they’ve already invested in a sense. Then all I need to do is four-wall, send them an email, and what’s the worst that can happen? As long as I get enough of them to pay for the four-wall, I haven’t lost any money.

Okay, if you’ve got 30,000 people in Atlanta, let’s say, 300,000 in Chicago and 30,000 in LA, why four-wall? Why make the little bit that comes out of theatre? Why wouldn’t you just sell those downloads for $15 and make $15 times 90,000 without having to leave your office?

That’s one of those questions that the answer depends on the movie. You have to get your ego out of the way and decide, is this a theatrical movie? And you have to get your ego out of the way and decide, does this movie have international potential? Because if it has real international potential and you can get it into theatres and make money, you will do well overseas.

I was just curious, where can you make the money?

If you get 500 out of 30,000 to show up, you just paid for the theatre.

Yes, but where is the big money?

Well, it all depends on the size of the network that you build, and at a certain point it’s going to depend upon whether the movie is good enough and theatrical enough. Your goal is to get those 500 people in the door, but then your goal is to have a good enough experience for them that they go out and talk about it to everybody.

And then Disney or Warner Bros come calling because the word of mouth is spreading? Is that part of the plan?

That is a possibility, but this may not be for everybody. That’s something that could conceivably work for my movie if I get a million people on the list. But not necessarily for every movie.

Let’s say, that if I were just going out to raise the funds for Séance with Adrian Paul attached, what would you suggest?

Today with the Internet, I would get the hardcore Highlander fans involved – I don’t know how big those numbers are – my impression is it’s pretty big. I’m guessing that’s hundreds of thousands of people if not millions.

So would you suggest self-distributing by making it available to the Highlander fans through downloads on the Internet?

I realize that six years ago we didn’t have the tools on the Internet to do it with any safety, but I’m not even talking about delivering the movie that way at the moment. I’m just talking about spreading the word. One of the big issues in this whole arena that I don’t think anybody realizes is that distribution and marketing are two different things. Distribution is delivery, marketing is awareness building. CreateSpace, for example, will say, “let us distribute your film.” You’re not going to get an audience from them. All they’re going to give you is a mechanism for taking the money and they will mail a DVD or do a digital download. Nobody’s going to find you through CreateSpace. Because CreateSpace is part of Amazon, if somebody does a search on your topic under Amazon, even on the Amazon search page, it’s going to come in order of how popular the searches are. Why? Because the stuff that’s showing up on the first page is the stuff that’s making Amazon money right now. On the other hand, if I built a social network, get 20,000 people, or even 5,000 people who are really seriously interested in what I’m doing, and I can send them a message on Facebook, or even better send them an email and text them and I can communicate with them, assuming I’ve built a relationship and they like and trust me, then if I want to put the movie on Amazon and CreateSpace, CreateSpace will do the delivery for me but I do the marketing.

Going back to what I said before, identify the audience that’s specific to the niche of your film and the psychographic, understand their buying habits, locate them on Facebook, on YouTube, find out where they hang out. Because really 80 percent of what the Internet is used for, is for like-minded people to hang out together and talk to each other. So all you need to do is fall down in front of the right group of people. All you need to do is find the person or organization that already has a relationship with those people.

Marc, this has been fantastic. Thank you. Any final words of wisdom?

The problem is it’s such a massive topic that I can barely scratch the surface, but what I want to get at is that the root of social media is building a relationship with the right people and who is right for your film. Actually, the phrase that I use that I think is in my video online is building a relationship with people who are already predisposed to being interested in your film. Building a relationship that feels personal. Building a human relationship doesn’t have to be difficult; it could come through in a variety of ways, from baring your soul to humor.

Actually, the number one thing you can do more than anything else is engage your audience. Don’t talk at them but invite them to talk to you. It’s the first rule in sales. I’ve tested this and it works. Everybody wants to be heard. Everybody wants to feel significant and they want to feel listened to.

Okay, here is my final word: if there’s a single value to the Internet for marketing, you can get to more people, more quickly for less money than any other form of marketing in human history. By the way, you’ll also see on my video, YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter statistics that will blow your mind. You know, I was a theatre director in Chicago before I moved here and I remember standing in front of a 40-seat rat-infested theatre passing out flyers on a Saturday night hoping I’d get audience members. There’s a moment on the Internet where you realize, oh, okay, the amount of energy it takes, the amount of time and energy and money it takes to get and print the flyer to 500 people for the same time and energy and money and actually less, I can get to 500,000 people. It’s a massive paradigm shift.

I think if you’re not using the Internet today then you have no chance. If it’s not at least part of your strategy, if not the main part – in my philosophy – especially for a $1 million or lower movie, the Internet should be the primary means of getting your word out.

Stacey Parks

Author of The Insider’s Guide to Independent Film Distribution

What have you noticed from your years of experience in the traditional film distribution arena to the transition to the current trends toward self-distribution?

I've noticed that self-distribution has gone from being an “alternative” form of distribution to really very common. In fact, it’s gone from being Plan B to Plan A, and I feel everyone should have self-distribution as part of their overall distribution strategy.

For anyone who is about to launch into producing their low-budget film, what is your advice regarding the direction they should take with distribution? And at what point should they begin thinking about the distribution of their film?

A producer always needs to be thinking about distribution from the beginning – in fact, the script stage of a project – because this will inform all sorts of decisions from casting, to genre, to target audience. Again, I think everyone should always shoot for the stars, but be realistic and keep self-distribution in mind as part of your overall distribution strategy.

While we were raising money to produce our films, we included in the total amount we were raising the money for our delivery costs. And once we delivered to the sales agent, the rest was in their hands. Now with the possibility of self-distribution, should we be raising additional monies? And do you have any ideas as to how much we should raise for this possible self-distribution?

Yes, you definitely want to budget for self-distribution from the beginning. As a general rule of thumb, take 25 to 50 percent of your budget and allocate it toward self-distribution. Of course, this will depend on what type of self-distribution you are planning to do – for example, doing a self-theatrical release is much more costly than just doing a self-distributed DVD. So let’s say your production budget is $100,000, then I would actually raise an additional $25,000–$50,000 to cover self-distribution, depending on whether part of your self-distribution strategy includes theatrical screenings (which is expensive to execute).

I’m not sure what self-distribution really is. Is it mostly about selling your film as a downloadable product on the Internet? And is that safe as yet? Or is the risk of pirating too great for producers to even be considering this form of self-distribution?

Self-distribution entails distribution on most of the big platforms, specifically theatrical, DVD, and Internet. Honestly, pirating is a risk for all films, even at the studio level. So if a producer is self-distributing their work, then realize it’s not just they that need to be concerned – everyone is concerned!

Should we just be focusing on using the Internet as a way to promote and market our film well in advance of producing it? Or does that work only when we have a film with a particular niche market audience?

Everyone should work on building an audience for their work even before making their film. However, I will admit this can be a challenge at such an early stage, so the idea is that you lay the foundation of audience building during pre-production (website, social media pages) and get started with it, but realize that it’s a marathon, not a sprint, and it can take months if not years to effectively build an audience for your film.

I hear that domestic distributors are being more flexible with their deals these days. Split right’s deals are something that are now becoming common practice. Can you tell us more about that and what we should be asking for in those deals?

Yes, good news for filmmakers is that traditional distributors are starting to agree to split rights deals with filmmakers. For example, if you are making a deal with a traditional DVD distributor, you should be prepared to ask to retain the rights to self-distribute your DVD off your own website and have them carve these rights out for you on the contract. Then you will be able to sell the DVD directly to your audience (remember all the audience building you've been doing?). This is where that will come in handy!

Becky Smith

Writer/Director/Producer “16 to Life”

I know you are the queen of film festivals, with over 50 festivals to your credit on your film 16 to Life. Was this something that you had planned from the get-go? And what was your experience starting out on the festival circuit?

We thought we would try the festival route. The festival “how-to” books and the media hype a select few festivals – the obvious big ones, Sundance, Toronto, Berlin, and maybe Cannes. However, I think that conventional wisdom pays off for a tiny percentage of independent features. Even if your indie feature is one of the very small number of independent films that get into Sundance, the chance of getting a big sale –or any sale – is remote. It’s not going to be an effective strategy for the majority of films.

We submitted 16 to Life to those festivals – I guess it’s worth a shot! But when we didn’t get in, I had to reevaluate. My film is a small coming-of-age romantic comedy, which, I think, is not the most likely material for Sundance or Berlin. We needed to come up with a new strategy. I had no relationships with programmers, no track record as an indie feature director. My cast was young television actors and an adult actress who is an esteemed film actress. But I didn’t have a “star.” So I developed a new strategy based on the question, who does this film appeal to? Let’s go back and look at the festival circuit again, and let’s not use the conventional wisdom of Sundance and Toronto (highly unlikely for 99 percent of indie films). I felt that we needed to focus more on “Who is the appropriate audience for this film?”

There were some obvious selling points. First, the film was shot regionally, on the Mississippi River in a rural, beautiful community. Second, it was about teenagers. Third, a young girl is the protagonist. I started applying to regional festivals. I approached festivals that focused on women and/or supported small, regional films. I also looked at international festivals (there are a number of “youth festivals”). International youth festivals are more edgy and more open to exploration of teenagers in terms of darker themes and sexuality than American festivals. If you see an American film festival that is touted as a youth festival, you are going to get films for children. In Europe and Asia, when they say youth festival, they’re talking about anything that explores issues of young people, i.e., much edgier films. I used Without a Box – because it’s simple and efficient.

Did you have money in the budget? Because this isn’t something you thought of before you made your movie. It sounds like you knew you were going to approach the big ones, but not the whole gamut of festivals you ended up submitting to.

I always thought I’d try for ten festivals. But I initially thought they’d be festivals like Sundance and Slamdance. I had a bit of money and I was aware that we had to have a killer website. We developed the website from the get-go.

Was that useful?

Oh yes, the website became profoundly important with festivals. I know that many festivals have gone to my website to check out the film. I add great quotes when we get them; I add awards we’ve won; I list the festivals we are attending.

Did you have a trailer up there, too?

I had a trailer, a music video, blurbs on all of the actors in the film. I have stills from production, a cast list. We have music – a wonderful soundtrack – you can see the music that’s in the film. One strategic thing I held onto was that when we got into our first festival – whatever festival we first got into – we needed to make a huge splash with that festival. It had to be a festival carefully selected. The first festival we got into was a festival in Los Angeles called the Method Fest. You have to be what I describe as “pleasantly aggressive.” You need to be brave in terms of calling programmers, though not obnoxious. If you don’t get on the phone, I think your chances are diminished. I think it’s important to talk to the programmers at the festival to let them know who you are. Not to be pushy, but to be proud of what you’ve done and articulate why it might be a good fit for the festival. We ended up getting a great screening time for our premiere at the Method Fest.

So even before you got accepted, you called to create a relationship?

Yes, I think it’s a good idea to call the person – you probably won’t talk to the head of the festival, they’re too busy – but talk to the programmers: would this be a good fit for you? Would you look out for this film when it comes in? I think it’s helpful, especially if you have something unique about the film to present to the programmer. Your film could get lost in the shuffle. There are an enormous numbers of films submitted to every festival. So with our first festival – the next smart thing we did – was we hired a social media/PR person. We said no matter what, we are going to fill this theatre. She immediately went to Facebook and Twitter and found ways to engage a broad cross-section of people. We made sure that we put great effort into getting people into that theatre. That night, not only were we the only sellout in the history of that festival, but we turned away 75 people at the door. Absolutely packed – people sitting in the aisles. They called the fire department to say we had to move some people out of there. That led to several nominations for awards in that festival and we won the audience award and Best Supporting Actress.

Had you discussed that fact with the programmer, that you had somebody who was a social media expert who was going to be getting the word out about the uniqueness of the film?

That’s a good question. When they accepted our film into the festival, we introduced them to our social media/PR person. It’s pretty divided – you’re either social media or you’re PR these days – but three years ago she did both. I’ve heard that you have to be very patient in terms of the festival circuit; it’s a slow process. It started very slow for us, then built and built – and we are still being invited to festivals, two years later!

What I found out was that success leads to success. From the moment that we got into the festival, won the audience award and Best Supporting Actress award, and filled the theatre – once we had those accolades plus many nominations for other awards – we were able to capitalize on them with other festivals. Here’s my truth: there are many festivals around the country, including small festivals, medium-size festivals, big prestigious festivals. And all of these festivals are run by passionate people who love film. There are many older actors, wonderful actors, who are celebrated at small regional festivals. There are great directors and cinematographers who are celebrated at regional festivals. These festivals have appreciative audiences and they’re wonderful places to submit, to go to, and to meet audiences and other filmmakers. We had a wonderful time at the Kansas International Film Festival and won both the audience and best of festival awards. We won the Mississippi International Film Festival, the Asheville International film festival in North Carolina – we went to as many festivals as possible and did Q&As.

Did they pay for any of this or was this out of your budget?

You always negotiate when you are invited to a festival; sometimes they pay, sometimes they don’t. Sometimes they’ll give you a hotel room, sometimes they’ll pay your airfare. When I got to these festivals, I found that I was on panels with wonderful people. I was sitting in on workshops with amazing award-winning cinematographers.

The audiences were enthusiastic and vibrant and they filled the theatres. They were knowledgeable about film and – the good news is we kept winning festivals, which was astounding to me. I think now we’ve won a total of nine festivals and/or audience awards. We’ve won two Best Actress awards, two Best Supporting Actress award, and one Best Cinematographer award. It was a one-year journey, but even now as I sit and talk to you, we’re in three new festivals: Russia, Armenia, and Spain. They just keep coming. They call me; we are no longer applying because we have distribution. And we would not have gotten distribution without these festival wins – and the great write-ups in newspapers about the film.

So how many total festivals do you think?

I may have lost count but I think we’ve been in some 40 festivals. I am convinced that the sale of the film to Warner Bros. Digital, for television, direct download, video on demand, Amazon, and Netflix would never have happened without the festivals wins – proof that we had a broad responsive audience.

Did you go after Warner Bros. or did you have a sales agent who went after them?

My sales agent submitted the film to distributors. It was a long and rather discouraging road – especially because we started the process before we got into a single festival. In hindsight, I think that’s a choice you have to make, but I think an independent film needs some kind of credibility. A coming-of-age story is not always easy to sell. When I had to change gears and rethink the festival strategy because we didn’t get into the top five, our decision to focus on getting attention for the film and building an audience for it paid off. I don’t think Warner Bros. would have picked up the film otherwise. Now they’ve come back to us with interest in selling foreign rights, but we’d already made a deal for foreign rights before we got the US rights.

With your deal with Warner Bros Digital, were you able to keep any rights for your film?

One thing that’s happening now with independent features is that rights are often broken up. People tend not to sell all rights to one distributor. I think filmmakers are leery, and rightfully so, that they will have a hard time seeing a return. One thing I think indie film producers should consider is retaining the rights to sell DVDs themselves – unless they get a great offer.

If you had to go back in time and do it again, would you have not gotten the sales agent and just done the festival route and then been able to go directly to a domestic distributor like Warner Bros.?

I would love to say that I would not have used a sales agent, I would’ve loved not to have that middleman. But you have to ask yourself, do I know how or want to learn how to get to distributors? As first-time indie producers, we don’t have credibility, so I don’t know how we can bypass a relationship with a sales agent.

Is there anything you would do differently if you could go back to the beginning?

I would do a micro-budget feature. I believe you must make a very low-budget feature right now to have a realistic chance of getting your money back. Also, I would have thought more about trying to engage people at festivals in a personal way. I learned that as I went along.

I want to reiterate that there is so much hype around the top five festivals and the top ten festivals. But the odds are very much against the indie filmmaker getting into those festivals – or making a sale at those festivals. If you aren’t one of the lucky few, be creative and think outside the box. Realize that there are many festivals that have film devotees and reviewers. They will treat you well, provide you a forum for Q&As, and you may get reviewed, win awards; plus, you will meet other filmmakers. For example, we were invited to Tunisia this year. Five famous French actresses were on the festival jury; one of them is Charlie Chaplin’s granddaughter.

At the festival, the big announcement was the Best Actress award. My actress and I came running in from the beach wearing jeans and T-shirts and were shocked to hear the announcement. We were up against several films that ended up being the Oscar submissions from various European countries. Again, by American festival wisdom, who would have thought that by going to a festival in Tunisia we would end up meeting well-known producers, directors, and actresses and that we would win one of the top awards? Rethink what festivals are about, why you go to them, and what you do there. Getting sucked into this idea that it’s just Sundance or nothing is harmful to independent film. Find your film lover, find the people who appreciate what you’re doing, and remember that every single win or recognition or nomination goes back to your website. It becomes your press release.

What about your investors, did you keep them informed?

We send them an investors’ newsletter twice a year. And many of them attended various festivals. We had a small theatrical release. We did it in conjunction with private theatre owners and with AMC theatres. We opened in nearly 20 theatres. In almost every case, we beat out whatever Hollywood films were in the theatres in terms of audience attendance.

Did you do this to try to make money?

No, it wasn’t about making money, since I knew through my research that films can’t make money on theatrical anymore. I wanted to break even and get more buzz for the film. And we were selective. We kept going to where our audience was. We did well in about ten cities in Iowa, Wisconsin, Kansas, Nebraska, and Arizona. We wanted reviews. Every review, whether it’s online or a small-town newspaper or a larger newspaper, can be added to your website and your poster. We have about 30 nice quotes at this point.

Was this before the Warner Bros. deal?

Yes, absolutely. Going the festival circuit, doing a small release, putting out press releases, and getting people to review the film – all those things helped us make our sell. Now our poster for the film has a Variety review. It’s thinking smartly, not giving up, and having patience.

Any final thoughts you have for film producers?

Yes, your poster. You have to have a poster that encapsulates your story, that’s engaging and makes your film sound intriguing. That gets to the core of your film in a smart way. You need to think about how to get people to see the film at festivals, how to engage programmers. It’s a lot of follow-through. You can’t just direct the film and think that’s all, that you can walk away and someone else will be as passionate as you are about it – and nurture it to distribution. Nobody will care about it as much as you do. There’s just too much noise in this day and age. Too many people with cameras who can go to Final Cut Pro and make a really low-budget film. You have to draw attention through having a quality product and knowing how to market it.

Jim Pasternak

Director, Certifiably Jonathan

Richard Marshall

Producer, Certifiably Jonathan

When you were raising the money to do your film, was your goal at the time to self-distribute?

RM: No, it actually came about as we were going through the process of making the film. We attended seminars and conferences, and we went to one called “How to Distribute Your Film Without Getting Screwed.”

JP: And the irony of that was that one of the speakers on the distributors’ panel said, “Well, you know the reality is that we will screw you, but you will love it because we will get your film out there, you just won’t see any money from it.” Richard and I looked at one another and we knew that that was not what we were going to do. We were determined to repay our investors, and this is part of what drives us. But the most exciting person there was a gentleman named Peter Broderick, who in essence said that the studio system is a dinosaur, and as filmmakers with access to the new technology and with the Internet, there was no reason that we shouldn’t be distributing and marketing our own films. That gave us the inspiration to take it out to theatres ourselves.

How many theatres did you do?

RM: So far, we’ve done 48 theatres in a whole gamut of cities and all at independent theatres across the country. Probably our biggest strategy that we ended up at was to do some Internet marketing. Because our demographic is basically 45–50 and over, a couple years ago that demographic was harder to reach on the Internet. Right now, they’re not. We set up a Facebook page and it’s been very successful.

JP: We did the key cities: New York, Chicago, and LA. Everyone was telling us that you have to do those cities in order to be considered legitimate.

So I take it that the point was not so much about getting the money back from the theatres, but more to be seen, to entice and excite a domestic distributor?

RM: Yes, and what happened was that the combination of our Facebook page – which in 14 weeks has almost 89,000 fans – and the fact that we had and were continuing to set up theatrical screenings brought Gravitas to us, and Gravitas is a digital aggregator. They are an aggregator of on-demand and digital rights.

JP: And they were an aggregator for Warner Bros. We ended up getting a deal through Gravitas with Warner Bros. for a VOD (video on demand) release. And now our film is going to be in 100 million homes in North America.

So do you get to keep the other remaining rights?

RM: Yes, Warner Bros. has exclusive VOD; however, it does not include Internet VOD, which is separate from cable VOD. So because we have signed on with Gravitas, they will make the deals for us with Netflix, Netflix streaming, Amazon streaming, and possibly Google streaming. They will make the Internet deals.

JP: After we’ve done our theatrical releases, we then start selling the DVDs on our website, because we have maintained those rights. And we’re hoping that by then we’ll have 100,000 fans on Facebook and those 100,000 fans will be a sort of tipping point for us to multiply our customers and sell our DVDs.

RM: We’re not only selling DVDs of the film, but we’re actually working on two additional DVDs at the same time of the additional footage we have. We’re also setting up a store right now to sell T-shirts, hats, and posters and other related items of the film along with our premium DVD. And then we are planning a third DVD, collections of scenes with Jonathan and some other comedians.

You mentioned your Facebook page earlier. The numbers are amazing. Did it cost money to get involved in social media and what have you learned about that whole arena?

JP: Yes, it so important to have enough money to market your film on the Internet – having enough money to promote it in such a way that you can sell the film yourself. And what that does to investors is that it says to them that this film is going to get made and it’s going to be seen, because if a traditional distributor doesn’t want it, these filmmakers have thought ahead about how to get this film out into the world. The biggest problem is that people make films and they don’t get seen. So what we’re saying to our investors is, if we make this movie, it’s going to get seen. And that’s important. But it costs money to get a good website. It costs money to keep the Facebook page going. It costs money to enter into film festivals.

RM: I have to interject here. Making a film is easy compared to getting a film distributed.

That’s a good line. I love that. Now, let’s talk for a bit about theatrical. Do you feel it was worth the time, effort, and money?

JP: Yes, because what it did is it made us legitimate to other ancillary venues like VOD, and I think it helped drive our Facebook campaign. It’s all very intertwined in a way that you can get the word out and create a profile for your movie that makes you legitimate.

RM: That just brings up another point. We spent a substantial amount of money on a publicist in one of those cities. The most important thing that we did with the theatrical was in Chicago. We were able to get one of our cast members to do publicity, and she did a half dozen television and print interviews and we had the best turnout in Chicago.

That’s fantastic. Did you do the four-walling in these cities or did you hire a company to help you?

RM: We only four-walled once. We only four-walled in New York. We made a deal with Emerging Cinemas; they’ve been taking it out all over the country and what happens is we’re getting requests through our Facebook page and our website from independent theatres to do screenings as well. The thing about Emerging Cinemas is that they are all digital projection, so we just have to make one digital master and send it to them. They send it out and take care of it.

Did you do the deal with Emerging Cinemas?

JP: No, we hired a broker, Richard Abramowitz and Kirt Eftekhar, at Area 23a. They set up the deal with Emerging Cinemas, and Emerging Cinemas is a company that goes in and they have their own digital equipment that they install in independent theatres all over the country. Theatres like the Laemmle and Landmark. It’s a fairly new concept.

RM: So what Area 23a did is they contacted theatres, sent screeners, got commitments, made sure that they got all the posters, got all the deliverables. They collect the box office receipts for us.

Do they take a percentage?

RM: No, we pay them a flat fee to do the whole thing for a certain number of months.

For a flat fee they’ll just get your film into as many theatres as they can and help you strategize how to get into theatres. The other thing I want to point out here is that you can’t just send your film out and expect theatres to book you. They want to know that there is a certain amount of marketing and muscle behind your film because the last thing they want is a film in their theatres that nobody knows about and they’re not making any money from.

JP: So, having the Facebook page really helped. And of course, opening in New York gave us certain legitimacy with other theatres in the country.

So you guys did that on purpose – you did the four-walling yourself in New York to help Area 23a have that credibility to take you to more theatres across the country.

RM: Exactly, we opened in New York to get the reviews, and we bought some advertising in New York, we did press in New York. And when other theatre owners see that you’ve opened in New York, and you’ve opened in Chicago and they knew we were opening in LA, then they go, “Okay, that’s a legitimate film, we’ll book that film.”

JP: And I think it helped us get Area 23a. Once they knew we were going to open in New York, they were a lot more willing to take a chance and open in Chicago a week later. And knowing that we had a celebrity in Chicago – Nora Dunn is a fairly big celebrity there – they had the confidence to book us in one of the best art theatres there. And the great thing about Chicago is that we had a week-long run there and then we got a call from the Winnetka Theatre outside of Chicago, and they ended up booking the film because we did so well in Chicago. So it really is about building a momentum and then other independent theatre owners start to see what you’re doing and then they actually start to request your film.

What about film festivals? Were you and are you actively doing the festival circuit?

RM: I have to say that the festival is sort of the perfect, ideal place to show a movie. I would advise filmmakers to use the festivals as a theatrical in a sense. I know there are companies popping up that actually get you booked in the festivals and to use the festivals to start to build momentum for a film. Because you’ve got a captive audience, they are there to watch films, and they’re not as critical as the LA, New York audiences are, so it’s kind of a perfect environment to view your film. So I think it’s really important to do the festival thing.

How many festivals have you been in to date?

RM: We’ve done 18 festivals.

JP: When you’re making a film or when you’re trying to go out and raise money for a film, from this point on, I would never think of raising money for the film without raising the marketing money at the same time. And this includes festivals. If you want your film seen, it’s important that you have a sense of the marketplace and you have a sense of what your core demographic is; you have an idea of who your audience is and you have that in mind from the beginning. You’re thinking about what kind of campaign that you can have on the Internet and create interest and controversy and enroll an audience to see your film. Yes, before you make the film.

RM: I totally agree. You really have to understand this aspect. It’s never been so clear to either one of us until we made a film and had to market it.

JP: And there really is no template. We were lucky. We were lucky that we had a comic icon like Jonathan Winters. Because we had Jonathan Winters, and all of the activities that were involved in making the film, we were able to get Jim Carrey to participate in the project. We were able to get Robin Williams, Sarah Silverman, Jimmy Kimmel, and Tim Conway. We have a cast! So for a relatively low-budget film, we have a big-budget cast! And that has made it much easier for us to get the attention of people in the distribution mechanism and our investors as well. We were able to finance the film because we had what everybody felt was a marketable film.

RM: If you’re going to self-distribute, you still have to have names in your film. It still comes down to names. And the names change constantly.

Any final words of wisdom?

JP: I think it’s very important for filmmakers to always work with people who know more about what they do than you do. It’s better to be collaborative and build a team of people than it is to try to do it all yourself. Because when you try to do it all yourself, not only is it exhausting and not fun, but you have limitations and you need to have good arguments and playful conversations and people who are better at finance than you are or people who are better salesmen than you are or have a better sense of color than you have.

Or marketing experts or Internet experts ….

JP: Exactly. So what you try to do is you try to develop a project that has a strong enough collective vision to attract the people you want to work with. And I think you have to be constantly thinking about marketing materials while you’re making the film. And I think directors have to think like producers.

RM: Even beyond thinking like a producer, as a producer you have to be thinking like a distributor, and that’s the reality of making independent films. There’s no way around it any more. If you’re going to be an independent filmmaker, you literally have to be a distributor at the same time. You have to understand that world so thoroughly that if you’re lucky enough to get a distributor, it doesn’t end there. You still have to be involved in the distribution because if you leave it up to a distributor, there’s a good chance they won’t get it right, because frankly, the reality of a sales agent/distributor is that they have 12 films they have to get out that year or 20 films that year and they only have so much time for each film. They can only put so much effort into each film and so many people to put on that film. They’re not going to push your film as hard as you are. So you have to be willing and able and smart enough to be involved in that as much as if you were in producing your film.

Jerome Courshon

Award-Winning Producer, Distribution Expert, and Founder of Three-Day Distribution School

Jerome, I know with Adrian Paul attached, you talked about democratization in reference to distribution on your video series “The Secrets To Distribution.” Could you speak a little about that?

Yes, I think democratization has finally come to distribution. It’s come to filmmaking and now it’s come to distribution. Everybody now has the potential to actually make money these days by self-distributing. And there are some people who are doing it. The challenge is that it’s hard work and most film producers don’t want to spend their time doing that. Many just want to make movies and let someone else handle the distribution so they can move on to the next film.

For those who are considering self-distribution, what is your advice?

I think it’s important that filmmakers really focus on what they want and what their goal is. What is your goal and what are you trying to achieve? If you know you’re dead set on some theatrical deal, then you need to learn how to position your film and play the game to go after that. If you just want a home video deal, or VOD, etc., then you tailor your approach to the marketplace from that standpoint. Also, it’s important to build a pedigree for your film (unless you’ve already got that with a name cast). This is essential. You build a pedigree to set yourself apart and show the world, not only distributors but potential customers as well, that your film is really good and that they should spend their money.

How did you do that with your first film, God, Sex & Apple Pie?

I did it by using festivals, and then a small theatrical release. I made a movie, a comedy-drama with no names, and I started submitting to film festivals. I knew I needed to get press and quotes from the media. I did a bunch of festivals, built up a pedigree, and by the time I was done, I’d won six top awards. I had a lot of press and now with this pedigree, I made the decision to open it theatrically in as many cities as I could afford.

Did you four-wall your film and can you say a little about that concept?

When you four-wall, there are really two distinctions that I tell producers you need to make, especially when you’re dealing with theatres. Four-walling is when you buy the theatre out for a week. You’re paying the owner or the chain an amount of money up front, and you get the theatre and all the box office. However, I didn’t want to four-wall as I didn’t want to pay out money up front. I wanted to make deals with the theatres. And these deals are percentage deals, where you and the theatre (or chain) are splitting the ticket sales on some percentage basis. Of course, the theatre is sharing the risk with this type of deal, so they have to believe that you’ll put butts in seats. So this is what I did. I made deals with the theatres, paid no money up front, and we split the box office. Frankly, if you can make a good percentage deal, this is generally the better way to go; the money you might have budgeted to buy out the theatre can now be spent on marketing.

So I decided to open in Chicago first because that’s where I grew up. I planned to use the “local boy” angle to gain press, and it’s one of the top three cities in the country, so it’s a good market.

Please keep in mind – and this was a mistake I made in Chicago – it’s important to choose the right theatre. Number one, be aware of what the theatre is known for showing, whether that be mainstream fare, arthouse fare, or second-run/revival fare. This will have a direct bearing on how your film is perceived in the community and affect attendance. Which type of theatre is right for your film? Number two, choose theatres that have foot traffic. If you pick a theatre everyone has to drive to, you’re probably doomed. Obviously, there will be people who will drive to you, especially if your marketing is good. But you also need the spontaneous, impulse-purchases of people walking by. And if you or someone from your team is standing outside the theatre pitching the foot traffic coming to the theatre, you will convert a lot of this traffic to your film. This was how I sold many tickets in my New York City run. Lastly, it’s also important that the theatre chosen be in the right area of town for your type of film. For example, if you have a Latino-flavored film, you must take into account the demographics of the area where you plan to open your film, making sure that it makes good business sense.

Did you have the money for this in your initial budget?

No, I learned my lesson the hard way. I recommend that you raise everything you need, including festival money, marketing money, P&A money, everything you need! I tell people, budget and raise money for P&A so that you have options if you don’t get the deal you want. Since I didn’t do this, I had to raise money separately to open theatrically in Chicago and New York.

My marketing was approached in two ways. I hired a PR firm for their traditional approach to PR, and then I personally handled all the grassroots marketing. I knew from my festival work that I needed to do a lot of grassroots marketing, but also knew many PR firms don’t understand how to do this. I worked my ass off. I go to stores in the neighborhood, getting posters in store windows, postcards on store counters, I talk to people everywhere, I get on the radio and do radio shows, I work the Internet. I do everything I can. This is just a necessity if one is going to open theatrically and you don’t have the money the studios have.

This is great info and I’d like to ask you about mixing traditional distribution with self-distribution. What are your thoughts?

For many independent filmmakers, I feel using the best of both worlds is the way to go. Unless one of the studios’ specialty arms or one of the major independent distributors like Lionsgate or Summit or the Weinstein Co. is cutting you a nice check for your film, the best way to maximize revenues is market by market (i.e., home video, VOD, cable, foreign, online platforms, etc.). However, exploiting your movie market by market all by yourself is a huge amount of work. The filmmakers who think, “I’ll just put my movie online and make a fortune” – most don’t realize how much work it takes to actually make significant sales. It’s not just putting it online and then going to the beach.

So if one can partner with some of the traditional distributors for some of the markets, this can make the road to recoupment and profit easier. (Just be sure your butt is covered thoroughly in any contracts signed; too many filmmakers make fatal mistakes by signing bad contracts.) I have a lot I can say about this, but here’s an example of what I mean.

Let’s say you want to make a deal with a home video distributor, and for the sake of this example, it’s not one of the studios’ home entertainment divisions. It’s a smaller home video distributor. You should negotiate the right to sell your movie from your own website, and you allow the distributor the rest of the marketplace (which in North America would be the United States and Canada). This way, you are utilizing their ability to mass-market your film and leveraging that to drive online traffic to your website to buy directly from you at retail price. So you utilize the market penetration and awareness that a home video distributor can do for you – and hopefully they’ll make good sales – but if they don’t, you still have the power to make your own sales. And each of your own sales is a much bigger piece of the pie, since they’re not shared with the distributor.

Now, there are a lot of filmmakers nowadays doing home video on their own without a distributor. Some have had very good success at it. Just know, it’s a hell of a lot of work, so don’t expect it to be easy.

Also, be aware that many home video distributors are now wanting Internet rights as well. Frankly, I prefer to keep those separate and exploit them myself (or make a deal with a different company). Not only do you want to avoid “cross-collateralization” (where distributor losses in one market are covered by profits in another), but most online platforms are taking anywhere from 30–50 percent of a sale. After a distributor takes their cut of a digital sale, what’s left? By the way, when you make a deal with a foreign sales company to handle your film in the overseas territories, I recommend holding back the Internet rights. Why would you want people going to some website in Germany, for example, to download your film? You want them to come to your site, or your Facebook page, or wherever you have your film for sale online that you control. However, if you do make such a deal where you are granting Internet rights in a foreign deal, be sure that your film can be viewable/downloadable only within the territory the deal is for. This has to be in the contract.

Any additional suggestions as to how we can take advantage of the Internet?

The Internet right now is not making most filmmakers a tremendous amount of money. But it is making some money and growing every year, so we need to take the potential very seriously. One thing I would recommend is building your fan base and collecting email addresses. You’ve got to be able to draw eyeballs and traffic to wherever your film is. Second, I feel that a lot of producers charge too much for their films. Pricing is really important. And look for ways to give added value. For example, the movie Twilight released a special edition on DVD with some additional perks, one of which was a charm bracelet. My friend’s wife spent $50 for the charm bracelet. She already had the DVD but she bought the special edition just because of that item. Even offering the poster signed by the stars of your film gives added value. My third piece of advice here is to pay close attention to your key art (your movie poster artwork). The key art is extremely important. Too many independent filmmakers don’t understand that if your key art is kick-ass, people will buy your movie just based on that. Your potential customer, Joe Consumer, who knows nothing about you or your movie, is generally not going to spend time researching it or you. You must grab their attention in an instant. Bad key art doesn’t do this. Excellent key art does. And once you’ve got their attention, you’re halfway – or more than halfway – to the sale.

Try to get some great quotes from critics as well. Let’s say Fangoria loves your horror film. Fangoria is well known. You get a good quote or review from them, you will likely want to put that on your artwork. It becomes a “stamp of approval” or endorsement – and this is pedigree. It tells people who like or trust Fangoria that your movie is good and worth their money. Remember, you’re asking people to give you $10 (or whatever your price point is) and two hours, so you have to sell them immediately with your key art, your pedigree, and anything else you can come up with.

Any final piece of advice for today’s film producer?

Currently, to make distribution successful, I feel producers need to use everything. (Unless you’re getting a big check from a major distributor, as previously mentioned.) DIY, Internet, and traditional distribution – use them all. Map out a distribution strategy – ideally before you actually make your film. But if you’re at the finish line of postproduction and you didn’t do this, then sit down and map out a strategy. Even before doing film festivals if you’re planning to do those. Educate yourself about distribution, and don’t buy into a lot of the misinformation circulating out there, such as “Distribution is impossible” or “DVD is dead” or “If I get into Sundance, my job is done.” Not understanding distribution and the viable options available is the real reason most films never see the light of day.

JC Calciano

Writer/Director/Producer

JC, I know that you put a lot of thought and work into both self-marketing and packaging your film right from the very beginning. Why did you decide that this was the way to go? Why did you decide to take charge of this area?

The reason that I self-market my films is because I believe that no one is going to care more about my film then I do and that if I want it to be done the way I want it done, then I need to do it myself. It’s not to say that having help isn’t great, but the simple truth is this: there are a lot of films being made and the competition is fierce, so if you want to find your audience, you need to be proactive in finding them and telling them about your movie. Marketing is expensive, and often distributors are just interested in selling the movie to the markets and not publicizing and marketing it appropriately. That’s why if you want it done to your satisfaction, you do it yourself.

When you work with a distributor, they charge fees not only for their distribution services (and expenses) but also for marketing, promotion, and packaging. So say you want to distribute an independent film, they’ll take approximately a 20 percent fee for their services, with an extra $50,000 in expenses for marketing, promotion, and materials. There is often no way to audit the $50,000 or get a breakdown of what those expenses were. That means you have no proof or idea if that money was actually spent on your movie or what it was really for. I like to know what I get for my money. I’m not in the business of making other people money unless I’m making some for myself, and for that reason, I want to make sure that their expenses are real and went towards my movie. I’m a capable person who can handle taking care of what needs to be done and I don’t need a third party hiring someone else doing marketing and promotional materials. The more people involved means the more people who want to get paid and have input in my movie (which is something I don’t want). I want to control my product and how it looks and is represented, so I hire the designer to design the packaging, poster, DVD cover, and so on. By doing it myself, I now not only control it, but I also know what I’m paying for.

And since it’s your baby in a sense, you know what is best and you get to create your brand from the get-go. Is that how you see it?

Well, I have a lot of experience in marketing and distribution. I’ve worked at both in the past and learned what needs to be done. Since I’ve got the experience already, what I do is start with grass roots and free marketing like Facebook and Twitter. The Internet is the best value for an independent filmmaker looking to build an audience for cheap, so I concentrate my efforts there. One thing that I’ve done which has been extremely successful for me is to create a webisode. I figured I’d make something simple and sexy that would draw in my target audience weekly. I’ve build a fan-base on the Internet to market my movies through my webisodes. I started the webisode a year before my first movie, and within two years, each of my webisodes average between 20,000 to 50,000 views a day. On every one of the webisodes, I have the name of my company at the beginning of them, so I’m branding my company, and at the end of the webisode, I show two of my movie posters and where they could find them. That means at least 20,000 times a day minimum, people are seeing my branding, seeing my product, and seeing my movie posters. On top of that, I run a revenue share on each episode (advertising banners served by Google), so each month I get a check for hundreds of dollars for showing my webisodes and advertising my movies and company.

Where does the money come from in this case?

YouTube has several ways of generating revenue from videos. You can charge per webisode, where you can set a price per view. My webisodes are free to watch, so in that case what I do is on the very popular ones, they give me an option to run a 15-second commercial of their choosing in front of my webisode. So I can click on the option to let YouTube run a 15-second spot before my webisode and they pay me more money for that view. Or on the less-popular webisodes, I don’t run a commercial; all I have to do is allow them to serve ads (Google) to put a banner with a click-through the lower quarter of the screen. By allowing those ads, I make money, and they pay to place the ads on my videos as well as if someone clicks on the ad; when that happens, I get a larger revenue share.

I shoot ten webisodes in one day, and it cost me nothing. I’m a one-man crew, so I cut them myself on my home computer with Final Cut Pro and post them once a week. The cost of feeding my nonunion actors is a $50 lunch once every two months. There are no expenses on top of that. Because of these webisodes, I have millions of people who have seen my posters and advertisements for both my movies, the brand of the company as well as becoming fans of my webisodes. Also, those webisodes all have subscribers who I can email about my projects and keep them informed of what I am doing (and selling). Often bloggers pick up my webisodes and promote them on their websites because they think they are funny or sexy. A blogger could have tens or hundreds of thousands of fans to that blog, and when they post my webisode, those fans see my marketing.

And this serves your film?

Yes. The viral component of the Internet is amazing. Once it’s out there, if it’s clever and/or funny, people will pick it up and promote it for you. It’s a remarkable tool for promotion and marketing.

By just using Facebook, Twitter, blogs, and my webisodes, I have built a huge fan base for both myself, my brand, and my products. My YouTube channel now has thousands and thousands of people who know me and my movies. When a new film comes out, I go over to my YouTube subscribers as well as my fans on Facebook and Twitter and tell them that I just released a movie on DVD or VOD and tell them how they can click on the link (which I have an affiliate program built into) to watch or buy it. They click on my link and not only buy my movie, but also because I have an affiliate link built in to the link to the seller (Amazon or iTunes), I get a percentage of that sale from the seller.

Does Amazon charge quite a bit of money?

Amazon works in a lot of different ways. You can sell a video on demand and/or streaming as well as a rental or DVD purchase. Amazon takes percentages of those transactions. You could also sell DVDs from another manufacturer or use a service they provide called CreateSpace, where you can actually generate a DVD product and sell it – you upload your movie through their site and it not only helps you create a physical DVD to sell but also provides the shopping cart to do the transaction.

Does the fact that we have the Internet access these days make it all a lot easier for the independent producer?

Yes, before the Internet and all the information out there, the distributors really were in control of marketing, production, promotion, and sales, but now, with the Internet, the market is open to everyone and the information is out there for all who seek it.

Online companies like iTunes, Amazon, and CreateSpace have made selling more accessible to filmmakers. There are many services like that available now like DVD Baby – you can go to DVD Baby, create a store and manufacturing system to sell your DVDs, and customers can click on your shop and buy a DVD straight from you. It’s all done online now.

Your numbers are amazing. How long did it take you on that site to get to those numbers?

It took me basically two years to reach 4 million unique views on my webisodes. Those webisodes really fueled the marketing and the numbers grow exponentially. I also use other social networking websites like Facebook and Twitter. My new movie eCUPID has nine actors who are constantly promoting themselves and the film; each actor brings his social network to the film’s marketing and adds to the numbers. The more popular the actor, the higher the numbers. For example one of my actors is a star from last year’s MTV’s Real World. He’s a popular character as well as an advocate for the community; he’s got a large fan base from the Real World as well as the important causes he speaks of; his fan base is tremendous; and he helps promote himself and the movie. I also hired Morgan Fairchild, and she’s got her own fan base, which is tremendous. If you consider nine actors, with their own personal fan base promoting the film, you can see how quickly things can grow exponentially.

That is excellent, and it sounds like it’s a win/win for everybody.

Yes, and all this marking and promotion is not only free, but it’s also making me money. This is a big difference from the old days when a distributor would charge to market and advertise your film. In my model, I’m making money while promoting my product. I’m not saying that there aren’t times to spend money. I think paid online advertising is great and very effective as well, as long as you do it in a targeted way. YouTube and Facebook have great affordable, targeted marketing engines and by being smart about how you place your ad, your keywords, and your metadata, you can target your demographic in a very focused and strategic way. I believe if I’m going to be spending money on marketing, it’s going to be a wise investment and yield a return. When I place ads online, those ads are going to sell rentals of my film and make me more money than I’ve spent on the ads.

If $50,000 is going to be spent, I can assure you that that $50,000 is going to be spent very, very wisely. And it’s going to be servicing the audience who I know are going to watch my film. And that’s going to be what I consider the most cost effective advertising, and from what I have available to me, it’s web-based.

There is a distinction between domestic and foreign sales of movies. However, when you are doing something on the Internet, isn’t that worldwide? Is that going to prevent you from having a sales agent come on board to do your foreign sales for you? Especially since the Internet is worldwide? Why would Brazil give you money if you are already tapped into people from their territory, for example?

You know that’s a very good question, and I think that answer is that although my last film, Is It Just Me?, came out in the United States first, the foreign markets want their own version that is subtitled or dubbed as well. For example, Is It Just Me? came out domestically in November of last year. Then we had a foreign seller come on board. The foreign seller then went out and sold overseas territories. They converted the film into foreign DVD formats (SECAM and PAL) as well as adding subtitles and packaging in their local language. There is also overseas television that will want the film with subtitles or dubbed in the local language. Local DVD and the TV/theatrical sales are still somewhat viable in the rest of the world. I would imagine, yes, if there was a fan that wanted to see (or order) the English version, nonsubtitled, from Amazon, they might be able to find that online, but if not, they can get the film in their language locally as well.

Have you used your great fan base as leverage?

It’s like a band looking for a record company. If a band has lots of fans, the company is far more likely to sign them to a record deal than the band with no fans. I think it helps that I come off of previous successes and have a large fan base of buyers. If you are going to be working with someone (sales agents, investors, distributors, anyone) and they know that you are going to work to promote and sell that film so that it’s profitable, then you’ll be able to excite an interested partner better. When I talk to investors and show them my fan base and the number of people who subscribe to me as well as the profitable numbers my films make, it puts me in a much better position to negotiate for the money I want to borrow. In that case, yes, it’s leverage. Everyone wants to do business with someone who is going to make him or her money.

Any other tips for us regarding marketing?

Another thing I do as far as marketing is to promote my product in the niche markets that it represents. By that I mean my films are GLBT [gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender] movies. I will Google GLBT movie blogs and I contact them. If my film were about vintage motorcycles, I’d search for groups/blogs about vintage motorcycles. Whatever it is, I look for a group that is interested in that subject matter and then I will write to those bloggers and offer the people that control those blogs content for their blog. I tell them that both my actors and myself will be available for interviews and that I will provide them with exclusive footage and stills. I ask them, “Would you like to do a story on me and/or my movie?” Bloggers need content; I need promotion and marketing of my film; we basically need each other – the same goes for radio (and Internet radio).

I love it. Have they been taking you up on it?

Absolutely. Here is an example – my actors are good-looking guys. Yesterday, I contacted a website called Hunk DuJour. They have 1.5 million viewers a day! I offered them an interview and photos of my actors in exchange to promote my movie. They said, “This is great; we’d love to help you out!” I told them to send me ten questions, so they sent them and had my actors answer them. I also sent five stills. So within 24 hours on their blog, they wrote a special section for us where their audience could “meet the eCupid stars.” They talked about my screening, my website, my webisodes – all 1.5 million viewers saw it! I have nine stars, so every other week I’m going to roll out another star. I’m going to do one each week, so you do the math and that’s huge numbers that are going to aggregate to my website, my movie, and my webisode – all the time seeing my brand. That is just one example of how this works … and I do this kind of stuff every day. Last week, I contacted mostbeautifulman.com, and my lead was featured on the blog the entire day. I speak to online magazines like OhLaLamag and Bellomag.com, and they did a special campaign with my trailer and pictures of my guys. I contact all these publications and offer them content – and most of them take me up on it.

This self-marketing takes up a lot of time on your part. Is that a problem? Or do you feel that the new game is this and we all need to get with the program?

That’s a fantastic question. That question has bred a new animal, and that is what they call a media producer. Basically, this kind of situation has created a problem that someone like myself has been forced to deal with. I struggle with the dilemma of not having enough time to do all the social interacting and online marketing every day. I cannot move forward onto my next movie because I’m so busy with the marketing of my movies, so yes, I do have that problem.

There is a certain amount of things that I have to do myself; for example, if I’m going to create a webisode, I have to be the source of that webisode. But by working with a media producer, I could have somebody take the burden of the constant blogging and constant outreach of tweeting, Facebook, blogging, and so on off me. Reducing that workload is a huge benefit and help to me and a person who can do that is what I would consider a worthy investment.

This is really interesting. So a media producer is someone who has mastered those qualities? Not someone who wears both hats?

It’s the person who comes in just to handle the media, press, marketing, and social networking associated with the movie. They are there to help the producer market the film, because the problem that the producer already has – wearing a number of hats – is that they often don’t have the time to service the social media aspect of promotion and marketing of the movie. The media producer does that for you.

These days, investors are looking to invest in films that have an additional safety net – anything innovative or different that will draw attention and therefore dollars. It sounds like you were really on top of this from the beginning. Is there anything else that you did in the planning stages that you knew would get investors excited?

My movie, which is called eCupid, which stands for Electronic Cupid, is a movie about an app that comes to life and helps this couple in jeopardy fall in love. So what I did is I went out and I actually designed an eCupid app that is part of the movie. So you can actually go to iTunes, download the eCupid app, and in the movie, Morgan Fairchild is the voice of the app. So Morgan Fairchild’s voice talks to you and in the integration of the game (or love tester), you can play with the game on the app or can go on “About the Movie” and it takes you to the website, Facebook, Twitter, screening times, and trailer. I’ve created this app that is not only a fun device, but it is also a tool that integrates the marketing and promotion of the film – all of these things talk to each other.

Wow, your innovation is great because it shows investors a better possible return for investment!

Yes, I’m very pleased and excited to be able to say that. My first movie, Is It Just Me?, within six months of being released my investors were paid back 100 percent and I’ve already started to enjoy the profits from it.

Specifically where did your initial return come from?

For Is It Just Me? I made my initial money back within three months from festival fees, DVD sales, and download/rent/VOD alone.

And that was only through the Internet? Is that right?

Mostly online sales, Netflix, Amazon, DVD, and download. That does not include TV or foreign sales.

So, the only time you want to include a sales agent as you mentioned earlier is when it comes to foreign sales.

Not necessarily in all cases, but for the most part I think that domestic can be more “DIY” – overseas is harder in my opinion to “do it yourself.” The problem with the foreign territories is the servicing of all the foreign territories. The challenge also comes with collecting money from the foreign territories. I don’t have the relationships with the foreign buyers. For me to deal with the legality of contacts and leveraging the payments is not something I want to take on. There’s a big difference between them paying a distributor with whom they have a relationship and want more product from in the future and paying out to a filmmaker directly.

I think, for overseas sales, it’s worth having the convenience of somebody who has the expertise in that market and has the relationships with the buyers who they know are trustworthy and will pay for a film. If they are charging a reasonable percentage for their knowledge, legal advice, and to handle the deliverables to all the countries, it becomes worth it for me to have the convenience of their services. But I would caution anybody: if you make a domestic deal with a US distributor, be careful that they don’t to go out and subcontract it out to a foreign sales agent for an additional percentage of your movie – there will be a lot of fingers in the cookie jar when you do that. So what I would say is that every filmmaker should find a foreign sales agent yourself. Find a foreign sales agent who deals just as a foreign sales agent and deal with him directly and then give them a fair percentage for their time and work to sell to the overseas buyers.

Any final words of wisdom?

Yes; before I make a movie, I find out what the movie is going to sell for. For example, when I made my first movie Is It Just Me? I called a sales agent who had sold a film similar to the one I was about make and asked him point blank, what are your fees? Then I asked him, “If I produce a film similar to that film for X dollars and gave you your fees, could I make my money back in two years?” He said yes, so then what I did is produced Is It Just Me? for half of the amount of X. I felt that with that information, I was comfortable walking up to an investor and showing him a movie, explaining to him that I’m going to make a better-looking, higher-quality movie for half of the amount of money that the distributor told me he could easily make on it (the other half would then be my profit).

That’s what I would encourage independent filmmakers to do: know what you are going to sell that movie for before you make it. Because a lot of people think, okay, I’ll make a movie that is going to cost me $500,000 to produce. They make the film and then they take it to the market place and their $500,000 film doesn’t recoup $1 million. (You really need to make at least double what that production budget is in order to get the money back.)

Every time I make a movie, the first thing I do is I go to a sales agent, find the numbers the film will sell for (minus theatrical), and make the movie for a quarter of that number.

As far as marketing and distribution: I look at making a movie like being a parent. The fun part is making it and the tough part is raising it. And when you make an independent movie, the work starts after it’s born. It’s a lot of time that gets invested in an independent movie and it’s a tough road to travel, but if you do it well, there is nothing more gratifying.