“Two weeks ago I wrote a guest post on Ted Hope’s Truly Free Film blog about the need to educate filmmakers on distribution and marketing their films.  This weekend the Los Angeles Film Festival is hosting a truly wonderful event which I am proud to have developed in collaboration with LAFF and Film Independent (with strong push and support from Ted):  Seize the Power: A Marketing and (DIY)stribution Symposium.

The Symposium is designed to focus on the nuts and bolts solutions to the current distribution and marketing malaise plaguing our industry.  The intention is to provide an introduction to a wealth of new tools for filmmakers (and all artists/media content creators) as well as strategic guidance from many of the key practitioners and thought leaders in our field.  It is an antidote to the concerns of too much talk talk talk on this subject with little true education.

In addition there is a non-public component that you can participate in via twitter.  I will be giving a distribution and marketing boot camp to the LAFF competition filmmakers Friday June 18th 9am – 12:30pm and 2:30pm – 5pm and Saturday June 19th from 9am-11:30am.  All times PST.   We will be tweeting bullet points on #totbo  We have done this in the workshops I have given in the past month – and we have found that people around the world start to participate and chime in – creating a global discussion around these topics.

The Symposium: Starting Saturday afternoon at 1pm – Ted kicks it off with a presentation on the need for the artist entrepreneur to encourage filmmakers to think expansively about their creative output in order to create sustainable careers.  This is followed by a plethora of service providers (from Orly Ravid of the Film Collaborative to Yancy Strickler of Kickstarter to Bob Moczydlowsky of Topspin) that we brought together so that filmmakers could learn the best ways to put these tools into practice in their own careers.

Sunday morning will kick off with a discussion between myself and Corey McAbee (The American Astronaut and Stingray Sam).  We will explore how he uses the new distribution and marketing tools and landscape to create a viable artistic career for himself.        Caitlin Boyle from Film Sprout will give one of her incredible introductions to grassroots audience development and distribution.  I am super excited to see Lance Weiler and Henry Jenkins on Transmedia.  (somehow Lance always has a way of frying my brain – in a good way).  The inimitable Peter Broderick will lead a discussion on crowdfunding,  Colleen Nystadt and Sean Percival will present different tactics for audience engagement.  The event will cap with one of those incredible Film Independent public case study examinations of two films:  Children of Invention and Bass Ackwards.

Last but not least – it will give filmmakers an opportunity to connect with each other and the presenters.  Come on down and introduce yourself, learn and contribute.

I hope to see you there.

Jon

Location:  Grammy Museum (downtown) June 19th 1pm 5:30pm – and June 20th 10am – 5pm

Hybrid Cinema

c/o 4th Way Fulfillment
1301 Maulhardt Ave.
Oxnard, CA
93030
US

“Effective and logical media planning on what medium will be used for film production is important. Use posters as a media planning tool for your movie. There are several considerations you need to consider when using posters to achieve desired results. These are mainly focused on the target audience and the poster ad as your medium of advertisement. Here are points you need to remember when deciding to use posters as media tool in promoting your film production.”

Read the rest of this article from Filmmaking Seminar.

“If you’re one of the many independent feature filmmakers who is trying to navigate the ever changing world of digital self distribution (so you can still make a living by making independent movies). . .

I have an AWESOME solution for you.

And No. I’m not talking about iTunes and their snobby indie movie selection mechanisms. Nor am I talking about Hulu’s wonderfully new nickle and dime subscription service (I say that with sarcasm.)”

“Mobile entertainment firm Mobilefilmworks, Inc. debuts today its beta service that makes instant streaming of full-length feature movies available on-demand to millions of mobile phone users. Mobilefilmworks™ is now available via the mobile web on all four major U.S. carriers and initially across 30 different handset devices, including the iPhone, Droid, Blackberry, Palm, Windows Mobile and many high-end feature phones, potentially reaching over 250 million subscribers.”

Read this press release from Mobilefilmworks.

“In their rush to find an online audience, filmmakers can make some bad choices, a Los Angeles entertainment lawyer says.

Harris Tulchin, co-author with colleagues Gunnar Erickson and Mark Halloran of The Independent Film Producer’s Survival Guide (Schirmer Trade Books), said makers of films and videos can be too quick to surrender their rights, be they territorial, length of licence, sales of DVDs, merchandise sales, and distribution beyond the Internet. Due diligence becomes mandatory. Know who you’re dealing with.”

Read the rest of this article from the Vancouver Sun.

“Online DVD rental service Netflix (NASD: NFLX) on Monday announced deals with a number of independent film distributors that will increase the size of its library available for instant streaming to its subscribers. The new deals with The Criterion Collection, Gravitas Ventures, Kino Lorber, Music Box Films, Oscilloscope Laboratories and Regent Releasing will make around 300 new titles available for instant streaming.”

Read the rest of this article from Digital Media Wire.

“201 Things You Wouldn’t Know
Without Movies or Television!”

That question has come up a lot lately on Twitter among indie filmmakers enduring the plight of self distribution. I decided to do some quick research on the matter and figure out for myself how one might go about getting their film on iTunes.

I know the filmmakers of Inkdid it, but then again their film has a huge following and has been around for a few years. I wondered if the little known indie filmmaker, with the little known film has the same access to iTunes that a more well-known film has.The sad fact is, Apple and iTunes has little to no information on their website about their selection process. However, my research uncovered some alternatives to contacting iTunes directly.”

Read the rest of this article from Angelo Bell.

The Ten Commandments of Filmmaking
How to Work (and Survive) in the
Film and Television Industry
by Peter D. Marshall

“A lot of filmmakers think that when they’re done their filmic masterpiece the festivals will beg to play it, the distributors will instantly send offers, and peace will fall over the planet. But this is not the case.

I got lucky with my first film, “Hunting Humans”. I put together a really crappy one-sheet myself, but because my film was high concept it got picked up. You probably won’t be so lucky.

I got even luckier on my second film. I hired a guy named Erik Ashley to design a poster for “Fear of Clowns”. He put together a couple of great ones, and I can tell you this with absolute sincerity:

His poster got Lionsgate to pick up my film!”

Read the rest of this article from KangasKahnFilms.

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Sign up now for your own FREE monthly subscription to “The Director’s Chair” filmmaking ezine and get: (1) Day One of my 201 page mutli-media Online film directing audio course, “The Art and Craft of the Director Audio Seminar” and (2) the first 24 pages (plus mp3 audio) of my 137 page “Script Breakdown and Film Scheduling Online Course For Independent Filmmakers.”

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“A newly released movie is pirated and spread around on torrent websites. Surely the producers must be furious? Not so much this time. While the typical Hollywood studio frowns on movies being shared on BitTorrent, it’s a different story for independent filmmakers. Producer-writer-director Jamin Winans and fellow producer Kiowa Winans are happy and grateful that their movie Ink is being embraced by pirate sites.

It seems that within days of being ripped, the little movie no one’s heard of has enjoyed a sudden boom in profile. Case in point, IMDB indicates that the film rose 81,093% on their MovieMeter this week alone. That’s a pretty staggering upstream no matter how you look at it.”

Read this article from Just Press Play.

“201 Things You Wouldn’t Know
Without Movies or Television!”

“This has become a common topic of conversation in the world of distribution for Directors and Producers.

There are several reasons for this, among them: a) More filmmakers are doing this and getting press, such as the “Four Eyed Monsters” team, as well as John Sayles with his last movie, “Honeydripper”; and b) More filmmakers are realizing that to stand out from the crowd of thousands of movies vying for distribution when looking for a DVD and other deals, this is one way to do that.

To be able to say your movie had a theatrical release, and you achieved box office numbers of ‘x’ per week, this can do a lot for one’s “pedigree.” There’s also the chance that your movie may make some real money at the box office.’

Read this article from Secrets to Distribution.

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Sign up now for your own FREE monthly subscription to “The Director’s Chair” filmmaking ezine and get: (1) Day One of my 201 page mutli-media Online film directing audio course, “The Art and Craft of the Director Audio Seminar” and (2) the first 24 pages (plus mp3 audio) of my 137 page “Script Breakdown and Film Scheduling Online Course For Independent Filmmakers.”

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