At the 41st Annual International Quorum or Motion Pictures Producers a panel of noted documentary producers and directors spoke about successful funding, marketing and distribution techniques for documentary filmmakers. This panel includes Doug Block, driector of 51 Birch Street, J.R. Morley, producer of Super Size Me, and Amy Sewell, producer of Mad Hot Ballroom.

Watch the Video: The Business of Documentaries

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My Notes from the Video

Business of Documentaries

Doug Block
Director, 51 Birch Street

• Starts off with a passionate idea that you want to get out.
• Do well to not lose money in theatrical, hold on to rights — pay a distributor a fee, share advertising costs, and do a lot of the work yourself.
• Film cost was 300K. 75-100K to get out
• Most money was from HBO as pre-sales…this led to conflicts from major distributors who’s parent company was a rival of Time Warner.
• GO out and make the best movie you can make. There is a place for docs in the market if its good.

Marketing

J. R. Morely
Producer, Super-size Me

• Cost of theatrical of a doc is a crap-shoot, cost of doing it compared to the benefit is usually not a good one.
• You’ll make the money back on Cable and DVD. The only time you would do it as a theatrical is if you want to qualify for the Academy

Distribution

Amy Sewwell
Producer, Mad Hot Ballroom

• Targeted a market, soundtrack, etc.
• There are smart people in pockets all across America that WANT to see documentaries, don’t care about what others say.
• Lawyers, sales agents, investors — the doc was an LLC business model, shares were sold. It was a $500K movie, $10K was 1 share. Investors got 15% return on investment.
• Good side for the LLC is if its a loss, you count is as an income loss, if you make a salary of $100K a year, and you lost $10K, you report that you made only $90K that year. Tax write offs aren’t that good though in LLC.

Leveraging the Web

Doug Block
Director, 51 Birch Street

• Many web doc-makers don’t exploit their resources.
• Give active daily updates for people to watch and be engaged, this way you can grow an email list. All those names move forward to your next production.

Truly Indie

Doug Block
Director, 51 Birch Street

• Put up a certain amount of money for every city you want to open up in
• Open up in five cities
• They opened in; NYC, LA, Miniapollis, SanFran, Chi-town — $50,000 was the result
• Have a national publict that coordinates for each local paper.

When not to seek Theatrical Release

J. R. Morely
Producer, Super-size Me

• When you sell off the rights, make sure that you get a sizeable advance for it. They sold it to a large distributor and to showtime.
• For a small doc do a simple small contract deal only if you will make money. DVD sales is where the smaller documentary film was to make its money
• Film business is chaning. How money comes in and goes out is diff. Netflix is now buying films and they want to do that.
• The way they did the funding for their film was to fund it themselves as a private corporation

What is failure…?

…an opportunity to learn! – Let’s critique the shots that did get shot for Free Parking, and juice it for all the gems and lessons we can get from it. The first scene from the compilation of yesterday’s post is of our main character going tschool while he’s late. Lets compare it to something we may already be familiar with…

The following is the scene from “Back to the Future” where Marty realizes that he’s late for school.

http://www.leechonfilms.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/11/bttf_marty_late_for_school.flv

This next sequence is from Chicken Little where Ace is rushing to school because he has missed his bus.

http://www.leechonfilms.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/11/chicken_little_late_for_school.flv

Now let’s compare that to the sequence I posted yesterday:

Here are a few things that I’ve noticed that were different from my own “Late for Class!” scene:

• If you have seen the entire movie, you will notice neither of these two scenes are the opening sequences, they are actually after the major opening sequence. Read my script and You’ll notice that I’ve opened the film with this before I’ve even managed to have the audience’s attention.
• There is an upbeat sound score for each of the sequences to add to the fast-pace nature of the scene and the sense of urgency the character has.
• There are a lot of shots of the surrounding area and environment which gives a feeling and vibe for the character’s setting. Most of my shots were close quarters.
• There are many elements of humor in the sequence. There is hardly any humor in my sequence…which is sad considering the film is suppose to be fun and entertaining.
• There is hardly any dialog, just action.
• Scenes consist most of long-shots and extreme long-shots of the character, with the occational medium-shot and medium close-up to give off elements of the character’s personality. My own medium close-ups and medium shots didn’t give out any elements of the character’s personality except perhaps in the part when the engine isn’t working in the flash back.
• The camera is always in constant fast-pace motion either to keep up with the object of focus or to follow it as it goes, bring about, while most of my own shots are just simple fly by follow shots and static position.
• There is plenty of interactivity of the character with its surroundings, while in mine there was hardly any.
  

Was there anything else that you noticed?

Can anyone recommend any good sequences from movies that I can compare the “Gimmi My Keys!!” scene?

Can thing be brought back from the dead?

A friend of mine was asking about Free Parking and wanted to see the “Rough Cut.” Although this project was canceled I kept the footage and the edits I had made when it was in production. You can watch what the film could have been if the production was planned better.

You may read the script to the short here: Free Parking Script

If you cannot see the Vimeo video above, watch the low quality YouTube video below