Sundance Wrap Up
+ getting grounded in reality
Hello and welcome to your weekend read - a day late that is :) I normally like to send these out on Friday's but the day got away from me….actually the entire week got away from me! The beginning of 2025 so far has been a blur of activity.
I wanted to check in with you all post-Sundance, post-NATPE, post-Real Screen….how’s that for three big film and TV industry events in the last two weeks?
Let me boil it down for you and say that one of the themes in all three of these events is around making more with less. That’s it! LOL… just kidding but honestly in one way or another, that’s what I’m hearing and seeing in the market right now.
Film producers coming out the other side and saying, I wish I had made it for less. Big series producers saying, we used to have multi million dollar budgets per episode and now we are accepting a third of that and shooting overseas with less crew footprint to make it happen.
At the same time, there’s all these new fancy tools on the market (AI and otherwise) which will have you believe the market value of your film or series is not what it is. Spouting off box office numbers that have nothing to do with your bottom line.
Let’s have some real talk - just make your film or series for less money than you’d ideally want to realize your full vision.
I’ll give you an example of this lest you think I’m just pontificating from on high … I’m actually in the trenches with you as a practitioner of all this.
I’ve had several conversations with producers and filmmakers in the last two weeks about what they want their project to be worth in the marketplace versus the reality.
If you look at Sundance acquisitions, which aren’t representative of what most of us will ever be party to, you see that outside of a few multi seven figure acquisition outliers, the best you can hope for is a $500K or tops $1 million buy out. And these are for Sundance films. The tippy top of the heap.
I don’t know about you but those numbers kind of tell me everything I need to know which is to reframe all my projects into one of two categories - the first being $500K or less mostly equity play. The second being $3 million or less with no more than $1 million exposure to equity.
This is an over- simplified version of a finance plan but you get the idea. As back-of-napkin math, this is what we’re looking at.
For independent series (both scripted and unscripted), I’m running the same numbers. Why? Because I want independent TV to become a thriving and sustainable business so I’m discouraging clients and partners not to spend too much on a first series. In fact, I’m walking my own talk and producing a micro-budget series myself so I know how it feels and all the specific challenges that exist and how to overcome them.
Where things get interesting is in the distribution piece because let’s face it, 99% of us aren’t going to be getting offered those $500K-$1 million Sundance acquisition prices. We’re going to be executing on a multi-prong strategy that involves possibly our own theatrical screenings (that we pay for) to market a VOD release and drive transactional sales to hopefully converting that to a streaming license followed by a long tail of ad-supported streaming (AVOD) over 2-3 years of a long tail recoupment.
Several projects I'm involved with are impact films meaning the ROI is less about dollars returned and more about spreading a message (like my film Kemba I referred to a couple weeks ago). But the majority of my projects aren’t in that fortunate position so we have to account for every dollar and not get caught up in box office numbers on ‘similar’ films to ours which I frankly have no tolerance for.
That’s why I include realistic sales estimates both in my Funding Strategies Bootcamp and in my FS Pro group so we can all come down to earth and start from a place of reality and then back into a budget intelligently or at least with our eyes wide open.
Who’s with me here? Raise your hand in the comments below and tell me how you’re doing with your own projects! 🙋🏻♀️ How can I help answer any questions for you?
Distribution & Releases
More and more I’m seeing a multi-prong approach to distribution necessary to really push a project to market and score views and transactions. Which also means marketing dollars are necessary. Plus every film and series is different so requires customizations based on audience and desired outcomes.
Back in the day, I used to be the only one talking about distribution - I even wrote a book on it. Today there’s lots and lots of distribution experts out there all over the internet so I’m not sure what I can add to the discussion but let me know if you feel there’s any ‘holes’ in your knowledge that I can help fill. What are you hearing out there that has been helpful or not helpful?
Comment below or email me at stacey@filmspecific.com.
On that note, I’ll let you go and enjoy your weekend!
I hope you have a wonderful Saturday and I’ll speak to you again soon…
Stacey
+++++++++
Do more with less. That's a 2025 tshirt slogan. Honestly looking at a 6 day shoot: Ireland vs Louisiana. The total expenditure is too small to qualify for the tax credits. There has got to be a way to get stories made!
Hi Stacey, Raising my hand here. ✋🏼
Had a great week with the independent reality series you've been helping me lock in.
I also received 2 other pitches this past week, one for an impact documentary and another for a docu-series that people want me to partner with them and help produce.
With unscripted series content, what else should we be looking for, other than what the networks are buying, to make sure a project is viable?