Report on Marketing & Distributing Low Budget Feature Films
1 day event, held on 30th September, 2005 - Falmouth Arts Centre by Creative Skills with Cornwall Film and Cornwall Media Focus
Speakers:
Mary Davies - Festival Director, Rotterdam and Edinburgh Film Festivals
David Nicholas Wilkinson - Director, Guerilla Films Distributors
Pete Buckingham - UK Film Council
Session 1: Overview and available resources - Mary Davies
Resources
BFI - Guide to Exhibition & Distribution (2001)
Australian Film Commission - Marketing Shorts Internationally
Australian Film Commission - Marketing Documentaries
British Council Guides - what we do and catalogue
Edinburgh - UK Fiction Guide - Shorts and Features (2005 Festival - 8,000 copies were downloaded)
Sales Agents
Without a Box
Clearing house for festivals. Currently mostly US festivals but currently looking for European partners.
Filmfinders
Resource centre. Register your film with them. Tell them what rights you have to ‘sell’ or offer.
Festivals
Rotterdam
Mannheim-Heidelberg
Edinburgh
See Australian Film Commission for useful list of Film Festivals:
Magazines
Most print useful editions just before Cannes, MIP etc. with product guide, lists of exhibitors etc.
Screen International
Variety
Hollywood Reporter
Databases
Cannes - for £2-£300 access to a searchable database.
Session 2: Guerilla Films, Distributing Film (David Nicholas Wilkinson)
David started out as an actor, then became a Producer and now, a (reluctant) Distributor of British and Irish films.
Case History: Adam & Paul
Sub-title: Laurel & Hardy on smack in Dublin
An Irish film, cost €400k to make, took €700k in Eire in first couple of weeks. Had a marketing budget of £10k initially, which rose to £15k. He took out a half page advert in Time Out for £2.5k.
David used screens of CineWorld Cinema - a chain that show a mix of Hollywood and arthouse.
For £10.99/month the punter gets an unlimited ticket, ie go to the cinema for 1 fee for 1 month. This encourages people to attend small, less well known, films they might otherwise ignore.
The film acted as a calling card for Producers, whilst critically successful and audiences that saw it, loved it, BUT it proved almost impossible to get audiences to attend.
As a Distributor, David is not the film producer’s first port of call; go to Optomen, Pathe, or Momentum Pictures first. He offers a smaller, more personalised service.
Section 3: A profile of UK Film Audiences (Pete Buckingham)
The UK Film Council has commissioned research into the above after finding standard market research unhelpful. The one common denominator between audience types: Mainstream - General - and Buffs, was music. The role of Cinema is still seen as “satisfying unfulfilled desires”. Cinema remains “an event”, that people go to in couples or groups, usually settling on ‘compromise’ films that are disliked the least. The desired audience is under 35, ABCs. Female 12-24 year olds the “in crowd”.
Genre and Gender:
Women: Comedy Romance Period
Men: Comedy Crime Horror Action Sci-Fi
When combined with comedy (which crosses the male/female divide), the genre becomes palatable to the ‘opposite’ gender.
The Economics of reaching an audience:
Of 388 films made in the UK in 2000-2004:
21% took over 1 million at the Box Office -
33% took between £100k-£1m and
46% took under £100k.
In 1997 - 36% films made were never released
1998 - 33%
1999 - 33%
2000 - 44%
2001 - 56%
2002 - 53%
How Pete assesses films:
Title
Clear Genre
Actors/Producers
Known Source
Potential buzz
Hook/Twist
New/Different
Films need to score highly in several sectors to be considered by UKFC.
Digital Cinema/Distribution:
The more security/anti-piracy stuff thrown at a film, the more restricted the audience access. Basic message: Get your work out there, develop an audience, and don’t worry about piracy/security.
Comments:
Bittorrent - Great FREE software.
DRM - Digital Rights Management = rubbish, doesn’t work.
