DIY film distribution stealing ideas from DIY music labels

The New York Times has a fantastic article that discusses how small indie music labels and others are leveraging DIY music distribution methods for DIY film distribution.

It makes a lot of sense -- the DIY music "industry" has been finding innovative ways to reach their audience for decades.

In fact, the self-distribution plan for the theatrical run of our film Quality of Life was a hybrid combination of indie band outreach and political grassroots organizing. We hired a political organizer and got an ongoing team of volunteers (both friends and interns) to hand out tens of thousands of postcard flyers in cafes, bars, clubs, bookstores, and more (literally over 50,000 of these little bastards printed up cheaply from Overnight Prints -- with times/locations of screenings in each city).

Taking another page from the indie music playbook, we aggressively targeted MySpace (this was before Facebook) and grew a huge group of friends. In NYC, it resulted in 2/3 of our sold-out audience first hearing about the film through MySpace. Go Internet!

In other words: us DIY filmmakers have a lot to learn from the indie/DIY music world.

Take-aways from the article itself:

- A few small indie music labels are using their channels and methods to distribute indie films that might match their audiences, including setting up screenings at bars where they would normally book a band.

- One label is experimenting with bundling the DVD with a special edition vinyl, to make the DVD package more attractive (in the the age of free downloads of anything via the evil Bit Torrent).

- Filmmakers are jumping in old vans and touring around the country showing the film like an indie band on a DIY tour.

This is great stuff and serious inspiration for DIY filmmakers trying to get to in front of an audience.

Read the article:

The New York Times: D.I.Y. Music Labels Embrace D.I.Y. Film

Comments

[Matt]

That's exactly how I want to handle my films. I'm hugely inspired by DIY bands; traveling the country, playing anywhere you can while trying to get as much exposure as you can. I want to translate that to film, which obviously other people already have. But how do they present their films? That's the biggest question, yet it wasn't mentioned. I was thinking a digital projector with speakers, but that's a lot of money and then do you also bring a portable screen? Great article and cool blog.

[Bad Vegan]

Hi Matt, that's exactly the model that many DIY/indie filmmakers do. In the early 2000's, a film called The Debut made grossed a ton of money that way, selling both tickets plus merch. What works best for that model is to have a clearly defined target audience (theirs was a Filipino-American audience so it was very well-defined compared to many indie narrative features).

However, it's VERY labor intensive and still probably a money-losing operation (break-even at best) as with most theatrical. After all, you can only be in town at once and need to market the hell out of your film there to get anyone to see it, especially if it's in a nontraditional setting as you describe rather than a movie theater.

But there are a lot of options for nontraditional venues, such as colleges, K-12 schools, libraries, community centers, churches, even cafes, bars, clubs and restaurants. They may cost a little and the acoustics will likely suck, but you'll find some cheap options and if you partner with the owner of the space maybe get in without paying upfront (sharing the door box office, for instance, as in a traditional theatrical).

Check out this older post for more thinking on alt theatrical:
http://www.diysucks.com/2007/02/alt_theater_dis.html

[Matt]

I'm willing to risk that loss because I come from a small town and I'm not one of the popular film makers around here, so I've been thinking of ways to be more involved in my film community and showing my films in various surrounding cities, because I need to build an audience which I definitely don't have right now.

But again with my most pressing question: How do you project the films at these various locations? Do you buy a digital projector and if so which one do I invest in? Will there be a blog post about this or do you have any ideas/suggestions?

Thanks,
Matt

[Bad Vegan]

Sorry I should have been clearer: most of these existing venues already have some sort of A/V system in place, which is why they are good to use. Renting/buying your own projector and speakers is doable, but a huge pain. Moreover, I would imagine that setting up to accommodate the different acoustics in each location could be a real pain too. Granted, that may be an issue with existing A/V (how many classrooms have great audio?), but it becomes a constant issue.

You definitely get more options for venues if you own/rent your own gear, but it's expensive, a hassle to travel with and set up. And many alt venues already have some sort of projector and speakers built in (even a large screen TV could work).

But if you have your own projector you can do drive-in movies during the spring/summer and that's pretty hip. Highly recommended.

Good luck!

[Matt]

No, problem. Sorry I didn't respond earlier. I was wondering what your views were, because I don't know anyone who practices this model or has any interest/knowledge in it, so I can't really ask what they think; and I appreciate you answering my questions. Like you said it would benefit me to have my own projector but it would be very costly and a hassle.

Thank you very much for you input.