Studio

My Adventure in Theatrical Self Distribution: Part 4 of 4

12/15/2009 at 1:08 PM by Jon Reiss

This week wraps up the lessons I learned releasing my film Bomb It.

This experience inspired me to write my book Think Outside the Box Office so that other filmmakers - like you would not have to reinvent the wheel like I did - and would have a resources to help you through the process.

Lesson 11: LA/NY or Multicity – I vote for multi city. I don’t know if I would have gotten a NY booking – or LA booking without my smaller market bookings without four-walling (renting the “four walls” of a theater). In NY this can cost $10-$18,000 a week.

Also starting with smaller markets allows you to learn from your mistakes before you get to your bigger cities. Second it gives you more lead time for your materials prep.

Frankly the first two months of our release was my learning curve – I don’t think I really nailed it until our release in Los Angeles where we did $10,000. This was part learning curve and partly that LA was the only city we really had a full 2 months to promote – I recommend that for all of your important markets.

But there is one HUGE drawback to starting with small markets and it concerns the weeklies. You can get stuck with a bad review from a small market weekly that will live with you and be reprinted in every city where that weekly has an outlet.

Lesson 12 Embrace one night screenings. A number of venues would only give me one or two nights. But in general – we did much better on those one offs or extremely short runs than our week long engagements. It makes the screening more of a must see event.

Lesson 13. Give yourself 8- 12 months to do this. Because of the difficulties with the STD – I only had four months to book the film. I lost a lot of long lead press that Lynn Hasty had set up because we didn’t have enough hard dates 5 months before the release. I also did not have enough time to pursue sponsorships.

Lesson 14: Expect to lose money. For instance after getting a very generous take of the BO from Greg Laemmle in Los Angeles where we grossed $10,000 for the week – we still lost money when you factor in all the promotion we did.

Lesson 15: Know What You Want. Perhaps this should have been lesson number one. So far I have been recounting my experience of a multi-city theatrical release – with the goal being as many cities as possible. But if all you are after are large market reviews – without a ton of time – it may make sense to go after only NY and LA.

Other items that helped a great deal:

1. A great trailer we cut several and changed them over time. But for sales always went back to the best one

2. Use online printers for your postcards. Print 11x17 mini posters for promotion and sale: $300 for 1000. Stores are more likely to post an 11x17 poster than a full size poster.

Use offset printing for your posters! It is much cheaper.

3. Post all your photos, key art (in ai and pdf format) and press kit online so that anyone can download it. This way you don’t need to continually attach this material to your emails.

4. Use email signatures for all kinds of repetitive email tasks – eg putting in all your press quotes, even for form letters (however don’t forget to personalize and make those letters specific!).

5. Call everyone you know for advice and help. No way could I have done this without support of wonderful filmmaking friends. Chances are someone you know has done something like this.

For more information or a copy of the book that has these tips and more, please visit www.thinkoutsidetheboxoffice.com.

Jon Reiss Producer, Director