DIY secrets of Sundance and building a team of experts

Another year, another freezing cold, over-crowded Sundance. Why couldn't Robert Redford have fallen in love with Cancun or San Diego? Or even Utah in the summertime?

Instead, we get over-priced, over-booked, blisteringly-cold Park City in January. Yay.

Happily, you don't even have to have gone to Sundance (though you should -- here's how you can go cheaply next year), all the best ideas are right here on this site. Lucky for you I've taken notes and typed it all up. You can just stay there in your comfy chair, warmed by the eco-fireplace. Did I mention how cold and annoying it is in Park City?

Granted, Sundance ended a few weeks ago, but I've been swamped prepping for (and then recovering from) pick-ups for our new sci-fi feature, In-World War. So apologies for the slight delay in getting this posted. Plus, it's taken me another week to write all this up.

As usual, I try to attend DIY and indie distribution and marketing panels, as a way to find out what's working for other filmmakers. The bottom line is that I don't expect a distributor to be interested in buying our film (and neither should you), so we're preparing to do it ourselves.

In my experience, the distribution and marketing phase of the filmmaking process is the most complex, time-consuming and expensive. You can understand why it's a major pre-occupation of this blog. After the exhausting theatrical self-distribution of our previous film, Quality of Life, I wanted to create a place to share with other filmmakers and learn from them. That way, no one has to recreate the wheel.

It's in that spirit that I share what I learned at Sundance this year and bring you the state of the art in DIY distribution and marketing of independent feature films.

And you're not getting the capsule summary. The entire DIY Secrets from Sundance write-up this year runs about 5000 words, so in order to keep things sane and bite-size (more or less), it's broken up into six chapters, organized by general topic, posted each week for six weeks (new chapters each Monday).

This is the first officially serialized special report on the DIY Filmmaking Sucks blog. Exciting! (Not exactly a man on the moon or a cure for cancer, but still pretty major given all the other crap I've got on my plate these days. And hey, it's free, so no complaints.)

These general topics are in no particular order and were culled from a number of different conversations and events, including a distribution panel sponsored by the New York Film Office and another hosted by the DIY distribution godfather himself, Peter Broderick (and sponsored by IndieGoGo). Sadly, I missed the awesome Filmmaker Summit at Slamdance this time. Ah well, there's always next year.

Here are the topics of the DIY Secrets of Sundance series:

• Week 1 (this week): DIY Secrets of Sundance and building a team of experts
• Week 2: Secrets of Netflix distribution and revenue
• Week 3: Secrets of Facebook and audience engagement
• Week 4: The secret of indie film release strategy
• Week 5: The two most important things in marketing an indie film
• Week 6: Secrets of successful IndieGoGo and Kickstarter crowdfunding

Okay, enough with the preliminaries.

Let's dive in and start with the big picture: how do you figure out how to market and distribute your indie film?

Gather the experts
Not surprisingly, the panel of distribution and marketing experts recommended filmmakers gather a team of distribution and marketing experts such as themselves (many were consultants of one stripe or another), rather than try to become an expert in all these areas themselves. Despite the seemingly self-serving advice, they're right. Don't try to recreate the wheel -- find people that have done it before, learn best practices from them and, if you can afford it, pay them to do it for you.

In order to make the best possible film during production, even small indie films like ours use production pros who are experts in their domains: DPs, ACs, location sound recordists, gaffers, etc. We need to think like that for distribution and marketing too.

A great no (or low) cost way to gather a team of experts is to do it stealth, so the experts don't even know they're on your team. Go to panel discussions and public talks -- or listen to free podcasts and read online interviews with the experts. When you get to hear them in person, stand up and ask your questions during the audience Q&A. I got nearly all of the info I'm sharing with you from Sundance in this way.

Afterward, go up and meet them in person. Get their card. Ask them to join your distribution advisory committee.

Twp experts I highly recommend you stalk and try to see in person at panels/events (and read their writings and interviews):

• Peter Broderick
• Jon Reiss

Both of them do paid consulting and if you can afford it, it's definitely worth it. Peter was our distribution consultant on Quality of Life and hugely influenced our strategy and laid the foundation for much of how I think about indie/DIY distribution. Jon is a rising star on the same topics (and is another filmmaker who's worked in the graffiti subculture like us). He wrote a must-read book -- essentially the bible of DIY distribution: Think Outside The Box Office: The ultimate guide to film distribution and marketing in the digital era

Bottom line: do what successful people do and work with people smarter than you.

In the comments, if you went to Sundance this year, let us know what you learned about indie filmmaking, distribution and funding.

This is part of a special report series from DIY Filmmaking Sucks: DIY Secrets of Sundance. The series covers lessons learned at this year's Sundance Film Festival from an assortment of indie distribution and funding panels, in addition to conversations with filmmakers.

Next Monday -- Week 2: Secrets of Netflix distribution and revenue

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Super-DIY filmmakers should look into Tromadance! Submission is always free and Troma has been a long-time supporter of DIY films.

The 2011 Tromadance is coming up April 22-23 in the Showroom Theater in New Jersey. This would be a great alternative to Sundance for DIYers out there!