How to Sell a Film to Distributors

Video Transcript

"KEVIN LINDENMUTH: This is Kevin Lindenmuth for Expert Village talking about distribution for your independent film or documentary. Selling to a distribution company is a whole other thing. With a feature, generally, if you're not going to distribute it yourself and you want somebody else to do the expense in the duplication and the distribution and all that because a lot of filmmakers don't know the first thing about that. So, you want to give to somebody who does. Lately, a lot of distributors will just promise you a residual. So, they say "Oh, you know, we're having an expense of making all the copies and send it out to the stores and it's costing us so much, blah, blah, blah." But that's their job. They shouldn't expect you to give it to them for free. And you're just hoping that you're going to make your 10 or 15 percent because there's no way to prove really because it isn't like you're going to audit them because that'll cost money. It isn't, like, you're going to get a lawyer or something to track them to make sure they're not cheating you. Because it's too expensive; I mean it's thousands of dollars. And if that's all you're going to make on the movie, it's simply not worth it, and distributors know this, so a lot of them will just promise residuals. And in my experience, you will never receive any or if you receive some, it'll be like over two to three years, maybe like a thousand bucks or something, and that's nothing because they're making twenty to fifty times more. Even though they'll say they're not making, they are because otherwise, they would not take your program. So, always hold out for money. Always hold out for some even if it's six or several thousand dollars for a couple-a-year deal or for an internet thing you're getting X amount of dollars, always get their money. Otherwise, you just basically think of giving it away. With documentaries, it's a little different. There are not a lot of documentary distributors and basically, they're kind of the same as the feature distributors who won't give you any money, so just do it yourself. With mine, that's kinda what I did. I got on PBS first and then I got them into reviewing all the library journals and such, and sold directly to the libraries or directly to the sub distributors who'll buy them wholesale, like half the price you're selling it for. And then, they resell them and make the other half of the profits. So, you're only making half of what you're charging. Let's see you're charging 25 bucks, and they'll buy it off to you at 12.5. Well, they'll order a lot more of you. And again, usually that's the only way to get into the libraries and get into the hospitals or whatever or schools. You have to go through a sub-distributor, and that's a lot better because they'll definitely going to pay you because they're buying finished product off of you. You're making the actual DVDs, labeling them, packaging them up, selling them to them, and then they'll pay you. Sometimes, you could do it COD. Sometimes, they want it like 30 days or 60 days but they'll fax you an order, and so that's a lot better to have that actual fax order because it's proof that they ordered that rather than just some distributors kinda ominously telling you that it's not selling or whatever where you can't even look into it. So, it's two different things. In the features and documentaries, the distribution, I mean, there is so many different ways but just know that if you don't get any money ahead of time you're just not ever going to get any money."