No More Gatekeeping!
Why artists need to share their experiences
Happy Friday everyone, I hope you all had a great week. Before heading forward I want to thank you all for your reactions and feedback on this physical distribution journey. It was incredible to hear from some of you as this will be a journey with no clear destination. With that being said, I’d like to back up a bit for everyone that may be new to the stack.
The Beginning
I am a child from a divorced family which meant weekends usually consisted of my stepmom picking me up on Friday afternoon, hitting Sonic for some cheddar bites and driving to Kansas City. Dad would get off work, and we’d hit up the local blockbuster. One of my favorite parts about a physical store, was the ability to browse. Blockbuster had a .99 cent rental section that was a treasure trove of cinema.
This browsing allowed a young me the opportunity to see a film that may have been missed in theaters. Better yet, it allowed people to see a film that may have otherwise been lost to history had it not been duplicated to VHS, and later DVD/Blu-ray. Some of these films are out of print or have never been transferred to DVD, leaving the VHS copies as the only way to watch. I have some of these films in my collection.
Around college, Netflix was introduced to the game and it was wonderful. I went to college in a smaller town in Missouri and the shipping option allowed me to find films that even my local rental store didn’t have. This included films from around the world that I had never heard of, it was amazing. Blockbuster couldn’t compete and slowly started to fade away, while Netflix explored what the internet had. Keep in mind the early internet streaming of Netflix was only available on your computer. I watched the entire series of The Office on a desktop computer on netflix.com
Fast forward
My love for cinema led me to LA 14 years ago with a dream to make films. I knew I wanted to direct, but more importantly I wanted to be around filmmaking. My love of cinema, led me west and I was working on movie sets within weeks of arriving. The feeling of being on set is unlike anything else I have experienced. It’s fast and chaotic. Its alive with creativity, and imagination. It’s also the beginning stage of a ruthless business that doesn’t care if the film ever gets seen. The veil had been lifted.
Over the past 14 years I have worked on hundreds of films. I’ve directed three feature films and worked as a gaffer on features, shorts and commercial. Of these films, I have seen only a handful premiere or get any kind of distribution. For a while I just accepted this, but to this day it doesn’t make sense to me. Films take years to get to production, but they can take decades to be seen after they are completed. A journey that my features are still on to this day.
One of the things I keep in mind throughout this journey that it is important to stay present. The act of making a film is a powerful group performance where everyone must be at their best. When we make a film we are hoping that a distributor will like it enough to put their name behind the film and help us grow. At least that was what I was told.
Getting a film seen
If you have read any of my previous articles then you know I have had distribution/aggregators for my films, so I won’t bore your with redundancy. Check out those articles for more information. The thing I want to talk about now is how films get seen, and why indy films (independent films) can not compete in the current market. Nor Should They! We need a better way for artists to show case their work, and thats where I am currently.
As I said in my last post I am starting a dvd distribution company as part of Bronson Creative, but I am approaching this as an educator. I ask all of my students what the future of film is going to be and we still don’t truly know. I do know that cinema will not survive in the current landscape unless the artists are in control of their destiny. More specifically, this means having distribution avenues that are not controlled by corporate interests. If you make a $50,000 film you would only need to sell 5000 DVDs at $10 a piece to recoup this investments. Of course there are other time factors to consider, but there are at least 5000 people out there that would want to see your film, if they knew about it. So why don’t these companies share the work after they take control of the film?
Sidebar: How does distribution work
There are two types of distribution, one for the studios and one for Indys that are going to streaming. Studios do most of this in house and the indy’s get companies that come and go pretty quickly, I will only talk about the indy side of things.
When you get a distribution deal as a small artist you are probably actually getting an aggregator deal. These companies have contact with streaming companies and facilitate a brokerage between you and them. There will be no up front money, and if they ask you to pay for something I would run away. The contract will be between 5-15 years with a 50/50 payout. In my experience with two aggregators, that pitched themselves as distributors, there was less than around $1500 in total for two films over 5 years and I don’t know any of the data that was generated during this time.
These companies “contract” (with no up front payments to the artist) multiple films and only need one to pop to make money. There is no guarantee you will make money and you also wont have control over your films trajectory. Also keep in mind how long 5-10 years truly is before you sign these contracts. My deals were 5, and that was a long time to watch nothing happen.
“IT WILL TAKE MONTHS TO FIX”
In taking control of my own films, I have started making the physical items to sell. DVD creation softwares are very sparse, and very clunky. As a reference, I was able to finish two of the films this week in one of these programs and send them off for a test print. The third one has crashed the program and this is what customer service had to say:
It could take months to fix, they said. The program is specifically marketed to make DVD’s with customizable menus, but the customer service is saying try without a menu. I responded that I found this unacceptable as its in contrary to their marketing and product description, and I am awaiting a response. So whats next…
I am going to move forward and find another program, but I am also going to try and find open source software or make something. DVD sales were over half a billion dollars last year, and I know studios aren’t making them on this program that keeps crashing. Physical media has only went down in popularity because of streaming, which we now know is only profitable because no one is getting paid. This is unsustainable, which leads to what is happening now.
Over the past few years Netflix has bought the Egyptian theatre, Sony has bought Alamo drafthouse, and Amazon bought some of the Arclight locations. In 2021 Netflix CEO Ted Sarandos stated, "I think (moviegoing) will be less frequent, maybe more expensive1,” and that they had no plan to own a movie theatre chain.
If its expensive and no one is going then why is Netflix planning to open a physical store where you can play eat and watch2? This sounds like a movie theatre to me. If movie theaters are expensive and no one wants to go, then why are tech CEO’s buying them?
Conclusion?
I was taught a long time ago, probably from watching films, that you watch what people do, not what they say. Just like in cinema, we must learn to see. There is a reason that capitalism wants us to think that movie theaters and physical media are going away and no one is saying it out loud, they are just buying theaters.
With that being said I need to get back to work. The test discs are in the mail now and I should have them by the first of the week. As for the third film, I will keep working on a workaround. The industry has taught me so much about myself, most importantly that its worth doing the right thing.
Have a great day, and we will chat more soon!
Jerry
P.s. If you are more savvy than me and you know what “failed to create dump file error 2147024865” on a PC means then I’d love to chat.
https://www.reuters.com/business/media-telecom/netflix-does-not-plan-buy-movie-theater-chain-co-ceo-says-2021-09-28/
https://www.fastcompany.com/90964551/will-netflix-houses-be-the-new-movie-theaters