Finally, the DVD release of In Memory of My Father is happening.
Add it to your queue and give it a solid star rating if you don’t mind!! Thanks everyone… Links are below…
Okay, so In Memory of My Father is coming out on DVD in a couple weeks and there are a few points I’d like to give you to better arm you for the future.
First… Netflix and Blockbuster DON’T PAY SHIT. But you want them and need them to a degree, as they own the market, aside from Hollywood Video and a few other dying weeds.
Second… Blockbuster WILL NOT acquire something for IN-STORE distribution unless the production is within one year from when they are acquiring the film. The only thing that matters here is the IMDB DATE…
It’s a crap situation, if you post your film on IMDB and you are projecting a date a year or two from now, but things take longer than expected and then you go to festivals and then you’re ready to release but it’s past that listed date… the IMDB sucks ass when it comes to changing this date… they simply won’t do it, regardless if what you’re saying is true. This then influences every distributor that you deal with and they use it as a justification for paying you less.
POINT: DO NOT BE IN A HURRY TO GET YOURSELF UP ON IMDB AND IF YOU DO… PROJECT A DATE 4-5 YEARS IN ADVANCE… THIS WAY YOUR PROJECT STAYS AT THE TOP OF EVERY LIST AND EVERY PERSON’S PAGE FOR AN EXTENDED PERIOD OF TIME.
Next… Blockbuster Online does not put a big purchase order in until your film has a significant number of customers place it in their queue. They enter it into the database, but don’t order until they see how many people are requesting it.
When they and Netflix do buy… they pay you far less then anyone else in the world, except Wal-Mart. The amount I got from Netflix comes to less than $7/DVD… when you remove the costs, let’s assume you spent $2/DVD after, design, shipping, replication and so forth… so let’s put that to $5/DVD… and how many are they ordering? Do you have major stars? Is your film an indie that did well on the circuit? Does it not have major distribution? No? Usually, there’s a reason for that which is why the quantity ordered is not massive.
So… basically, I guess the best thing I can say is… don’t blow your wad getting yourself up on the IMDB, don’t blow your wad, getting everyone to watch your film, don’t pull all of your press favors all at once, because once you get here, you still gotta figure out how to generate interest in the film.
Fortunately, my film hits Sundance Channel in a few months which will keep reminding people it exists and hopefully stimulate a run two years from now on another cable channel which will elongate the run of the film. Personally, I think the best thing to do for our types of films, is get them up on these On Demand sites where people can watch them immediately for $2… something nobody minds spending, so put the same amount of money pressing runs of DVDs into marketing the On Demand life of the film.
If you can put IN MEMORY OF MY FATHER in your queue for either Netflix or Blockbuster and give it a high star rating that would be great. Even if you have seen it, place it at the bottom and keep it there, because that’s what they base their order on!!
After years of grueling drudgery mixed with intermittent debauchary and moments of validation… my film is finally at the point where it won’t be consuming such a solid amount of my existence. Upon having a solid distributor coming aboard and dealing with the U.K. (ScanBox), along with HBO Europe and a few other deals from that part of the world, not to mention a small, but happy one in the United Arab Emirates, I have let go of the push and left it in the hands of a sales agent and a few other distributors. Leaving me with N. America to deal with.
Between Todd and the crew, driving it from theater to theater over the past months, self-distributing on DVD (with the aid of Passion River getting it into Blockbuster Online and Netflix), and a solid deal from the Sundance Channel, all that I have to deal with now is the constant flow of deliverables and the occasional new territory that arises. But how do we deal with the minimal DVD orders along the way? Or the minimal numbers showing up for screenings when we don’t have 36 hours a day to be forcibly beating bodies into the theaters. The mystery that remains is how do you market with no budget. We have our plethora of websites, our occasional press in a mass market publication, and a bunch of banter over social networking sites that lingers away pretty quickly as long as we’re not making films with a teen super star pulling in the children, or the iconic underground voice pulling the geek demographic out from the shadows. So, at the end of the day, we’re left with the same question… how do we market something without spending tons of cash… a publicist can’t make miracles happen without something significant to talk about that people already want to hear about… simple formula… stars or chaos worthy of making noise…
I think our best bet is to start pulling stunts that gain attention, either by major news publications or TMZ… Randolf Hearst and his peers figured it out… Yellow Journalism was the device used to sell papers, by making headlines… twisting stories and catapulting the mundane into historic… at least for a day. Why is it that since the internet really took off there hasn’t been another Blair Witch type of strategy properly employed? Is it that we’re prematurely posting information and not calculating our projects in a manner that can be marketed? Or is the internet to saturated at this point?
My question to you is… in developing a channel, what kind of stunts can we come up with that will pull focus without an immediately let down by the viewer… what is the Yellow Journalism of our time? If we can figure that out, we can create our platform? If we can’t, we’re gonna spend the rest of our lives in houses with six room mates stealing each other’s food and heading to every last crap festival for whatever free stuff and attention we can muster. Most likely, we must impose the strategy of the a solid marketing scheme into the structure of our work, otherwise… suck the right d**k for your next $6k because you need to rent an HDCAM deck for 5 days of cloning your masters.
Anyway, enough banter… here are the links for the DVD release of In Memory of My Father…
stick it in your queue and give it high star ratings. I’m gonna post some info about the DVD deals, next.
Finally, the DVD release of In Memory of My Father is happening.
Add it to your queue and give it a solid star rating if you don’t mind!! Thanks everyone… Links are below…
As Halloween approaches, witches and goblins cast their best tricks on the boys: a disappearing van, an event-based plan, and some spooky movie screenings at the Sunset 5. Even Brian creates his hairy own ghost.
Todd Sklar is eating starbursts. He is the founder and president of Range Life Entertainment, a privately-held film exhibition and marketing company, which tours independent films across the country on a bi-annual basis. Focusing on event-based screenings and niche-targeted marketing, Range Life plans to program over 40 new features throughout 2009.
As the tour hits San Francisco, the boys hit the streets harder than ever in an attempt to pack a full house. They look everywhere for a heart, a hand to hold on to, and a face of somebody who needs you. Everywhere Rennie looks, he just finds trouble.
Todd Sklar is eating starbursts. He is the founder and president of Range Life Entertainment, a privately-held film exhibition and marketing company, which tours independent films across the country on a bi-annual basis. Focusing on event-based screenings and niche-targeted marketing, Range Life plans to program over 40 new features throughout 2009.
Todd Sklar is eating starbursts. He is the founder and president of Range Life Entertainment, a privately-held film exhibition and marketing company, which tours independent films across the country on a bi-annual basis. Focusing on event-based screenings and niche-targeted marketing, Range Life plans to program over 40 new features throughout 2009.
