Heavily Partnered Up!

The HopeForFilm INVISIBLE NATION Distribution / NonDē Exploration Case Study, Part 8

little wonders abound

Remember that NonDē Distribution Planning Template I shared with all of you back at the end of May? It came from the work we did on INVISIBLE NATION.

Here it is again ICYMI:

Q: How do you best prepare for your film's distribution? A: far, far, far in advance.

SC-Indie Film wasted a lot of hot air debating what to call a filmmaker-driven distribution campaign. That “debate” shows how trained by the corporate state and hero worship we all are, in that we quickly defaulted to “self-distribution” to describe the contrast with a corporate acquisition approach. Everyone always knew that the work of releasing a film depends on the labor of the many – and the careful coordination thereof. No one ever felt the filmmaker had to do it on their own. Was that phrasing adopted to scare us off from what should have been readily accepted?

Looking at my NonDē template now, you quickly see that you will team up with over 35 partners to play the game (be sure you are looking at the latest edition of the template). The number of collaborators one needs to source is a barrier that halts many from entering filmmaker-led distribution, but… we will soon crush that. Participation should never be about whom you know, and when it is, that is one of the easier problems to solve.

The day will come when only those most in need of large amounts of funding will go the corporate acquisition route for the release of their films. Their advantage will only be the access to the cash. And all will recognize that the added cut they take is generally not worth giving up the ownership they require.

We will soon have easier way to consider and book the different vendors available for each service in the distribution workflow. But as of now, that is not what we have. We have to source them ourselves. And that is still as primitive as the ‘ol “Hey Joe, who’d you use to do this? To do that?” approach. Sigh.

But don’t worry, sprout, we will get there. We will get there, and we will all be richer for it. For now, we are depending on the Taylors, Tubers, and Truth Tellers (aka doc filmmakers) to blaze the way. It sure would have been nice if the various cinema support organizations out there had recognized that there was an unemployed work force eager to work in the field and currently over 250 positions needed to fill the present demand.