How to Distribute a Documentary or Feature Film

Video Transcript

"KEVIN LINDENMUTH: This is Kevin Lindenmuth for Expert Village talking about distribution for your independent film or documentary. So, in the feature, first is the documentary. Again, these are two different markets. Different people generally see features than see documentaries and vice-versa. Documentaries are more informative. Don't get as much sales with documentaries probably, but with features, those are the ones you can get into the video stores and such. Rarely get documentaries in the video stores. And then if you do, nobody really wants to pay for them. So it's kinda a hard thing to say because years ago, I mean I would say features were easier to distribute, but with like the glut of everybody, everybody making a movie nowadays, and there's less of a window to get in like there's just not as many video stores. There's no mom and pop shops anymore just like several big, huge video companies. Like, they carry certain product so it's harder for the little guy to get in there. So, feature films are really I would say hard to get out in the general public at video stores and such, even like your Best Buy or a K-mart or whatever. It's a more difficult thing. So, recently with documentaries I've been finding there's more of a market for it because I've been doing health oriented documentaries and people with whatever disease whatever the documentary is about, is interested in getting the documentary to show their friends or family explaining what it is about. So, I figured out what the market is and I did it that way. So, it just kinda depends if you know what your market is, and it depends what's easier to do. It kind of goes in waves I think, maybe in a couple years, it'll be easier to features again but right now, it seems to be documentaries. Though, that could change. I mean it's just kind of my experience with that and everybody's experience, at times it would be a little bit different but, again, in two different things, it goes back to when you're even making a program with you having an inkling of where you're going to send it. Feature, documentary, kinda two different worlds basically. They're opposite ends of the spectrum."