The Changing Face of Film Distribution
Hello! Welcome to another edition of the Film Specific Dispatches :)
We left off last week talking about Series development but I’m going to take a sharp right tun into film distribution territory… and specifically, the changing face of film distribution.
I speak about this being in the trenches myself, navigating distribution on a recently completed film I produced. We’ll be premiering at a top notch festival in the fall so are somewhat apprehensive in closing any deals prior to that, since we want to try and leverage the buzz and promotion that will come off this festival in securing the best deal possible for ourselves.
In the mean time though I’ve had several conversations with a handful of reputable distributors about the current realities of things and something that stands out to me is that TVOD (transactional VOD like iTunes) is no longer the (potential) cash cow it once was for independent films, rather AVOD (ad-based VOD like Tubi) is proving to be the front-runner in revenue earning potential, particularly for films of a certain genre.
I’ve had conversations with filmmakers in the last few weeks who after spending way too much on a theatrical tour in hopes of leveraging that for bigger TVOD sales, are sorely disappointed in their non-existent results.
I’ve also had conversations with new distribution clients who fortunately are in the know on all this and actually targeting AVOD rather than pie in the sky Apple iTunes launch or big streamer acquisition (which in current times feels laughable).
Times, they are a changing! Or have changed while we were out doing other things (like making films).
To that end, I’ll dedicate some space here over the coming weeks to digging into all this a little more and welcome any questions you have, or specifics you’d like me to discuss.
Just click that comment button below and let me know.
Also in the spirit of all this, I re-released my Film Distribution Consulting for a few select folks who want help navigating this new world….
Summer is a great time for us to get started working together on your film’s distribution since there’s an obvious demand in the market for completed films, but also TIFF and AFM are on the horizon and all my sales agent contacts are emailing asking for what I have to send them. That’s how I know market demand has really kicked up!
»»»Click here for more info on Distribution Consulting
I would love to see what you’ve got and start a dialogue on if and how I can help if you desire guidance in this area.
Let me know what you think! Email me at stacey@filmspecific.com or click to comment below and I’ll look forward to continuing this conversation on film distribution next time…
Until then!
Stacey
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Thank you for your insight as always. The distribution landscape has really changed and I think many of us really need to understand how to build an audience and self-distribute our content to that audience. Most of us simply want to create content, but learning how to market our content has become much more important.