November 12, 2025 • 17 mins
You’ve made your indie feature — now how do you get it out into the world? In this episode, Jeff Deverett breaks down the often confusing world of film distribution and offers practical advice for filmmakers ready to take their next big step.
Jeff explains the key differences between agents, distributors, and reps, and shares insider tips on where and how to find legitimate partners — from film markets like Cannes and AFM to trusted online directories. He walks through the process of researching, vetting, and reaching out to distributors, comparing it to “dating” — where trust, fit, and shared goals matter most.
By the end, listeners learn how to identify active distributors, avoid red flags, and secure deals that actually get their films seen. It’s a grounded, no-nonsense look at the business side of indie filmmaking that every filmmaker should hear before signing their first distribution contract.
Jeff explains the key differences between agents, distributors, and reps, and shares insider tips on where and how to find legitimate partners — from film markets like Cannes and AFM to trusted online directories. He walks through the process of researching, vetting, and reaching out to distributors, comparing it to “dating” — where trust, fit, and shared goals matter most.
By the end, listeners learn how to identify active distributors, avoid red flags, and secure deals that actually get their films seen. It’s a grounded, no-nonsense look at the business side of indie filmmaking that every filmmaker should hear before signing their first distribution contract.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
So you've made you great indie film, now you want
to get it distributed. How do you find and choose
the right distributor? That is a tricky process and a
lot of filmmakers get frustrated with that, but there is
a way to do it, and that's what we're going
to discuss today. If you want to be a successful
(00:20):
indie filmmaker, you need to know a lot about not
just the production of movies, but the business. We are
going to tell you the truth and reality of what
really happens in the indie film business. Hi, everybody, welcome
back to Indie Filmmaking Truth and Reality. I'm your host,
(00:41):
Jeff Devrett, and today we're going to talk about how
to find and choose the right distributor for your indie
feature film. So distributors are basically people are going to
help you get your film released. I mean, that's what
distribution is. Now we use the word distributor, but we're
also talking about agents, sometimes producers, reps, sometimes lawyers. But
(01:04):
I use the word distributor to mean somebody who is
going to represent your film in the release of the movie.
All right, so it could be an agent. Now, let
me just sort of debunk the difference between an agent
and a distributor, and in a lot of cases they're
the same. An agent generally is somebody's going to represent
your film and find you a distributor, whereas a distributor
(01:24):
is going to license your film from you and release
your film, usually these days to streaming platforms, So the
agent isn't necessarily going to release the film onto the platform.
They're going to find you a distributor who's going to
release the film. Now these days, agents and distributors are
sort of intertwined. It doesn't really matter what you call yourself.
It's sort of the function that you're performing. An agent
(01:45):
can release a film on a streaming platform. A distributor
might find you another distributor. So it's just kind of
what we call substance and form in the legal industry.
It's not more or less what you say you are,
it's what function you're performing. So a distributor is generally
somebody's going to license and release your film, So let's
look for that. Let's say you're going to try to
find a distributor. Now where do you find these distributors?
(02:10):
I mean a lot of filmmakers start the basic way
they make their film and they just go on to
Google and they push how to find a distributor, film distributor,
and upcome a whole bunch of podcasts and webcasts. Probably
this one will come up after we publish it. And
there's a lot of different people talking on YouTube about
film distributors. There's even some film distribution companies who post
(02:32):
their own videos and they pop up, So that's one
way to find them. You could find a handful of
distributors just by googling, or you could say list of
film distributors, and then lists will come up because there
are published lists, like, for example, there's a published list
called the Film Catalog. It's called Thefilmcatalog dot com. It's
(02:53):
a published list. It's done by i think the American
Film Marketing Association. It's a whole bunch of distributors, several
hundred of them who are very active in the industry
and represent films. So if you were to type that in,
up would come a list, and you can type in
the word companies that you're filtered by companies and you
(03:15):
see them all alphabetical. So now let's say you have
this list, all right, So that's one way to find distributors,
and I'll go through how to choose them in a second. Right.
Another way would be to go to a film market,
not a festival. A market. Let me explain the differenttry
and a festival in a market. So, a festival, as
we talked about in a previous episode about film festivals,
is a place that people go to celebrate their movies.
(03:38):
You've made a film, now you want to err in
front of an audience, have a screening Q and a
talk to other filmmakers. That's a festival. Distributors generally don't
go to those. They only go to the big festivals
like the Sun Dances and the can and the big
festivals the Torontos. A lot of distributors do not attend
the smaller festivals. So you're generally not going to find
distributors at a festival. Once in a while they do
(03:59):
a panel on distribution, then you'll find some distributors, but
for the most part, if you go to a market,
you'll find them. So a market is basically a business
convention like the American Film Market, where there's not a festival.
It's not connected to a festival. It's basically a convention
of industry professionals. These are people who are buying and
selling films. So it would be distributors would be the
(04:22):
people who are exhibiting showing the films, and say streamers,
TV people, theatrical people would be walking around. They'd be
the patrons who are looking for the films, and we
call it a market. It usually takes place in a
convention center a hotel, and the distributors would take the
rooms or the booths, and the programmers from the various
streaming platforms whatever, the various countries from around the world
(04:44):
would walk around and meet with these people and they
would say, here's what I have, here's the films that
I'm representing, Here's what I think would be good for
your platform, here's what I'm suggesting, and try to make
a deal to license the films to these platforms. So
these are called markets. A more expensive to attend than festivals.
Like a festival you could attend for I don't know
(05:05):
the cost of a screening, I guess, whereas a market
you have to register usually two to three hundred dollars
a day or fifteen hundred dollars for the week or whatever.
You know, you're attending the level that you're attending. So
some of these markets are connected with festivals, like, for instance,
the Can Film Festival also has a market component called
(05:28):
marchhade to Film. So if you see on television you
see the Can Festival with the big red carpet and
all the stars getting out in the paparazzi and all that,
that's the red carpet the stairs leading up. This is
in Can France, this big convention center there, so half
of that building is the festival. There's all the screening
rooms there. The other half of the building, the other
(05:48):
side you don't usually see on TV or sometimes when
they do a wide shot you see it. It's got
all these posters decked out all around. It is the
convention center and that's where the business people go if
you register for the Can Film Fest, so you don't
go into the marshaded film, which is the market, the
film Can Film Market. All the people who've registered for
(06:08):
the Can Film Market they transcend on Can at that
same time. They do it side by side and do
the deals on the films. They're talking I have this film,
they're horse trading, I've got this one, I've got this platform.
Who wants this film? And it's not like a bidding
product like it's like, it's not like an auction. All right,
it's a convention and they all have appointments, they converge
(06:30):
for four or five days. They meet with each other,
they talk, they have dinners, they have drinks, they have
tons of meetings in the convention center, and they try
to do business together on selling each other films and
licensing them. That's a market. It's all distributors. The whole
market is distributors and streaming platforms and programmers. Now the
other component there are filmmakers. So if you're a filmmaker,
(06:54):
you can go to one of these markets. You'll have
to pay. You have to pay, you know, have the
amount to attend, and you don't necessarily to go for
the whole thing. That you can go for two or
three days if you want, and there's an opportunity to
meet with distributors, you can certainly see what the distribution
landscape is like. But I'm telling you, if you go to
a market as a filmmaker and you're trying to meet
distributors and or pitch them on your product, whether it's
(07:16):
a film and development or a concept film or a
finish film, you generally want to meet with them at
the end of the market, not the beginning. In the
first two or three days of a market, they're super
busy trying to sell the films that they represent, and
they're taking most of their meetings with the streamers and
the international clientele in those two or three first days.
In the two or three last days, they're going to
(07:37):
have a little bit more time for you. Especially the
last day and the second last day, there's a little
bit more relaxed. Hopefully they've done most of their business
and they'll have time to meet with filmmakers to talk about,
you know, because they're always on the lookout for new films,
especially finished ones. So that's when you can meet with
distributors in a market. But if you do this, you
have to make appointments with them. Don't think you're going
(07:58):
to walk around, knock on the door and say here
I am. Once you register for market, you're going to
get access to the attendee list, and then you can
make appointments in advance, which you definitely want to do now.
Warning to filmmakers who have never been to a film market,
it can be a super intimidating experience. The first time
you go, so I strongly suggest you go. Don't go alone.
(08:19):
Go with somebody else who can be your wing partner,
who you can have moral support with. Hopefully two filmmakers
you go together, you both have a film, you're both learning,
You can chat with each other because otherwise it can
be very scary, intimidating. It's all business. This is not
like going to a film festival where people want to
talk to you about the crafting of your film and
(08:39):
how pretty it is and everything. They just want to
talk numbers. That's what distribution is, all right. It's deals,
it's legal contracts and numbers. So you might not be
used to that, but it's a great experience. And for
all you filmmakers who haven't done it and have actually
made an indie feature, I strongly suggest that you attend
at least one market. And the big ones are the
American Film Market in Los Angeles every years in November,
(09:03):
the can Mar Shaded Film we just talked about. In May,
there's Berlin, the European Film Market that takes place in
Berlin in February. There's the Hong Kong Film Market. So
there's there's a bunch of those. Are the four big
ones and there's but there's other ones around the world,
and there's there's a thing called Mipcom and MIPTV also
takes place in France. In can So you check out
(09:24):
the market that's probably you know, most viable to you,
maybe easiest to get to or if you want to
go to Can, you know, just to check it out
and experience the can film market. Then by all means go.
It's just not cheap to do it. It's very expensive,
but it's worthwhile. It's a great experience to understand what
really goes on in film, whether it be through a
list or through a market or through both. All Right,
(09:45):
you've gotten the landscape of who the distributors are out there,
and you want to in order to choose a distributor.
There's some criteria that I would use. Number One, you
want to choose a distributor who's active in the business,
all right. You want to see that they probably are
attending markets, because those distributors that attend markets are you know,
they're spending money to go to the markets, and they're
(10:06):
relatively active in the business if they're attending markets, so
I think it's a good sign that these distributors are
at the markets. That's one way to sort of decipher
who's super active in the business, because if they're not active,
they might take your film and sit on it and
not have a lot of activity on it. So I
would choose somebody who's active. Number two I'm going to
(10:27):
call choosing a distributor very similar to dating, all right,
So you want to choose the right part Like when
you're dating, and let's say you're dating for marriage, you
want to choose the right partner. So what's the criteria
for choosing the right partner. It's sort of the same
criteria for giving your baby, your movie to a distributor.
(10:47):
Here's the criteria. Number one, and again not in any
particular order, but I would always put number one as this,
you want to make sure you're dealing with people who
you trust. Trust is the most important component of any
business deal and any relationship. Now, how do you know
you could trust them? How do you know they're honest,
How do you know they're going to do what they
say they're going to do, How do you know they're
(11:08):
good at it? You got to check them out, all right.
So that's kind of like you know, if you're gonna
get married you want to marry someone you trust, you
got to check them out. How do you check them out?
Number one, you start with going online. You go onto
their website. Every distributor's got a website. You kind of
see what kind of movies they're doing. Are they the
right fit for you? Like, say you have a horror
(11:29):
movie and they don't do any horror films. Chances are
that's not going to be a good partner for you.
They need to understand the genre you're working in. You know,
you want to If you go on their website, you
see their movies. You want to make sure that at
least they have some movies, or hopefully a lot have
a similar genre of what you're having. You know what
the movie you made, so they can they know how
to talk about it and how to handle it all right.
(11:51):
Number two, as I said, you want to make sure
they're active. Are they going to markets? Do they have
you know, their customer base? I mean everybody sort of
lies a little bit. They show you how they're dealing
with all the major streamers and everything like that, which
they're generally not. But you're gonna ask about that. So
now you're gonna narrow it down based on. I feel
like these guys are active. I feel like they're the
right fit. I feel like they handle the right number
(12:13):
of films. Their website looks good, they present themselves. Well,
you go, you look at their bios. You know, you
see what their history is, that kind of stuff, all right, anygain,
a lot of people lie. It's like dating online dating.
Everybody puts up a false picture in a false bio.
Not everybody, but a lot of people do. Right. But
now you you whittle it down, and now you have,
(12:33):
say your top ten, all right, even though they were,
say fifty that you started with. Well, let's say let's
say you do start with fifty. All right. Now you're
going to send them your movie or if you have
a trailer or a concept reel or a script, but
let's say it's a finished film. All right, You're gonna
send an email to each of them, these fifty that
(12:54):
you have identified as being what appears to be the
right fit, either by meeting them I'm in a market
or checking them out on a list and going online
onto their website. So you've narrow it down to fifty,
because there's hundreds of them also, all right, and some
of its location maybe you want to deal with somebody
who's local to you. Maybe you want to deal with
somebody who's in the United States. If you're a domestic
(13:15):
you know, if you live in the United States or whatever.
All right now you're gonna check them out. Basically, you're
gonna send them your movie with a nice email and
attachment with a hopefully you have a promo, or maybe
you send the movie and say, hi, brand new filmmaker
made this great film. I checked you out. You look
like you could be the right fit for it. Can
you take a look? Tell me if you think I'm
the right fit for you. And it's better if you
(13:37):
send them a trailer link as opposed to the movie.
But if you only have the movie you haven't cut
a trailer, then that's fine. I have those fifty thirty
of them. You're not gonna hear back from. They're going
to ghost you as though you didn't even send an email.
You're gonna send one more follow up email. It's gonna
be short and sweet. They're just gonna ghost you. They
just that's the way the business works. They're gonna ghost you.
They're not gonna ever respond back. It's almost like, did
(13:58):
it get through like I didn't get like an error message,
like their website doesn't Welcome to the film business, folks.
I hate to say it, but it's true. So twenty
we'll get back to you. Ten of them will say, hey,
it's not for us, thank you very much, thanks for
submitting it. We appreciate it. We took a look at
the you know, first ten minutes. It's not our kind
of movie, but good luck to you. So now you're
(14:20):
down to ten. Okay. Of those ten, they'll all say okay, well,
some of them will say send me the movie or
we need to watch it a little bit more. We
saw you know, what are you looking for? Blah blah blah,
and you don't know what you're looking for. You're looking
for a good distributor. Then it's going to get down
to getting an offer, all right, So you're going to say,
I'm looking for a good distribute I want this, this,
and this. So at that point, basically three more are
(14:43):
going to drop out. They're never going to send you
an offer. They curious about you, but they're not going
to follow up. So now you're down to say seven,
all right, then they send each of them send you
their standard deal memo. You realize that the standard deal
memo is basically con deletely skewed in their favor. Everything
leans towards them. They're gonna make the money you're not.
(15:05):
They're gonna be like ten year terms and restrictive costs
and all this kind of stuff of that you're gonna
eliminate half of them because you're gonna say, I can't
deal with these terms. So now you're going to be
down to say three, and of the three, the final
check and you're saying, Okay, this feels like the right company,
feels like the right deal terms, feels like we can
(15:28):
do business, feels like they're motivated. They like my movie,
I like them. The final check is you go back
on their website. You look at their movies, and now
you look at the actual movies and the credits of
who made the movie. You find the producer, choose three
or four movies, you find the producer. You go into
IMDb and you find the contact information for that producer
(15:50):
and you call her up, or you send her an email,
or you call her up and you say, Hi, my
name's Jeff Deffornh'm a filmmaker. I just made this film
and I'm thinking of dealing with you know, ABC Distribution.
I see that they are handling your film. Can you
just spend a minute or two with me and tell me,
you know, were they a good distributor, did they get
the job done? Did they pay you on time? Did
they pay you anything? Did you make any money? Can
(16:12):
you just give me a recommendation because you know, like you,
I had to struggle to figure this out, and a
filmmaker generally will do that for you. They'll give you
a reference. They'll tell you the truth because they know
what it's like to be you. So you get three
or four or two or three references of filmmakers of
films that this company is representing, then you'll get the
(16:35):
honest truth about what's really going on with the company.
That's kind of like getting the final reference check on
a date. You know you've met somebody. Now a friend
is going to say, oh, I know this person, she's
really great or whatever. So that's the way to do
it once and then once you kind of get the
warm and cozy feeling that everything checks out. It might
(16:57):
not be the perfect relationship, but at least you've checked
them out. But that reference from the other filmmaker and
sometimes you know other filmmakers aren't available or don't want
to talk about it, but usually they do because they
know what it was like to go through that process,
because they went through that process all right, and they
understand what it's like to be an any filmmaker the struggle,
so they're going to share that with you. So that's
the best reference. And then the rest is just negotiating
(17:20):
the right deal. Now, even though they send you a
deal memo doesn't mean you have to accept it. You've
got to go through the motions and tweak it a
little bit to make sure that it's fair. But that's
how you find a distributor who is hopefully going to
work out and get the job done for you. As always,
you want more information, have any questions, just connect with
me through the link below or send me an email.
(17:42):
Jadeveret at deformedia dot com. Look forward daring from you,
Good luck,
So you've made you great indie film, now you want
to get it distributed. How do you find and choose
the right distributor? That is a tricky process and a
lot of filmmakers get frustrated with that, but there is
a way to do it, and that's what we're going
to discuss today. If you want to be a successful
(00:20):
indie filmmaker, you need to know a lot about not
just the production of movies, but the business. We are
going to tell you the truth and reality of what
really happens in the indie film business. Hi, everybody, welcome
back to Indie Filmmaking Truth and Reality. I'm your host,
(00:41):
Jeff Devrett, and today we're going to talk about how
to find and choose the right distributor for your indie
feature film. So distributors are basically people are going to
help you get your film released. I mean, that's what
distribution is. Now we use the word distributor, but we're
also talking about agents, sometimes producers, reps, sometimes lawyers. But
(01:04):
I use the word distributor to mean somebody who is
going to represent your film in the release of the movie.
All right, so it could be an agent. Now, let
me just sort of debunk the difference between an agent
and a distributor, and in a lot of cases they're
the same. An agent generally is somebody's going to represent
your film and find you a distributor, whereas a distributor
(01:24):
is going to license your film from you and release
your film, usually these days to streaming platforms, So the
agent isn't necessarily going to release the film onto the platform.
They're going to find you a distributor who's going to
release the film. Now these days, agents and distributors are
sort of intertwined. It doesn't really matter what you call yourself.
It's sort of the function that you're performing. An agent
(01:45):
can release a film on a streaming platform. A distributor
might find you another distributor. So it's just kind of
what we call substance and form in the legal industry.
It's not more or less what you say you are,
it's what function you're performing. So a distributor is generally
somebody's going to license and release your film, So let's
look for that. Let's say you're going to try to
find a distributor. Now where do you find these distributors?
(02:10):
I mean a lot of filmmakers start the basic way
they make their film and they just go on to
Google and they push how to find a distributor, film distributor,
and upcome a whole bunch of podcasts and webcasts. Probably
this one will come up after we publish it. And
there's a lot of different people talking on YouTube about
film distributors. There's even some film distribution companies who post
(02:32):
their own videos and they pop up, So that's one
way to find them. You could find a handful of
distributors just by googling, or you could say list of
film distributors, and then lists will come up because there
are published lists, like, for example, there's a published list
called the Film Catalog. It's called Thefilmcatalog dot com. It's
(02:53):
a published list. It's done by i think the American
Film Marketing Association. It's a whole bunch of distributors, several
hundred of them who are very active in the industry
and represent films. So if you were to type that in,
up would come a list, and you can type in
the word companies that you're filtered by companies and you
(03:15):
see them all alphabetical. So now let's say you have
this list, all right, So that's one way to find distributors,
and I'll go through how to choose them in a second. Right.
Another way would be to go to a film market,
not a festival. A market. Let me explain the differenttry
and a festival in a market. So, a festival, as
we talked about in a previous episode about film festivals,
is a place that people go to celebrate their movies.
(03:38):
You've made a film, now you want to err in
front of an audience, have a screening Q and a
talk to other filmmakers. That's a festival. Distributors generally don't
go to those. They only go to the big festivals
like the Sun Dances and the can and the big
festivals the Torontos. A lot of distributors do not attend
the smaller festivals. So you're generally not going to find
distributors at a festival. Once in a while they do
(03:59):
a panel on distribution, then you'll find some distributors, but
for the most part, if you go to a market,
you'll find them. So a market is basically a business
convention like the American Film Market, where there's not a festival.
It's not connected to a festival. It's basically a convention
of industry professionals. These are people who are buying and
selling films. So it would be distributors would be the
(04:22):
people who are exhibiting showing the films, and say streamers,
TV people, theatrical people would be walking around. They'd be
the patrons who are looking for the films, and we
call it a market. It usually takes place in a
convention center a hotel, and the distributors would take the
rooms or the booths, and the programmers from the various
streaming platforms whatever, the various countries from around the world
(04:44):
would walk around and meet with these people and they
would say, here's what I have, here's the films that
I'm representing, Here's what I think would be good for
your platform, here's what I'm suggesting, and try to make
a deal to license the films to these platforms. So
these are called markets. A more expensive to attend than festivals.
Like a festival you could attend for I don't know
(05:05):
the cost of a screening, I guess, whereas a market
you have to register usually two to three hundred dollars
a day or fifteen hundred dollars for the week or whatever.
You know, you're attending the level that you're attending. So
some of these markets are connected with festivals, like, for instance,
the Can Film Festival also has a market component called
(05:28):
marchhade to Film. So if you see on television you
see the Can Festival with the big red carpet and
all the stars getting out in the paparazzi and all that,
that's the red carpet the stairs leading up. This is
in Can France, this big convention center there, so half
of that building is the festival. There's all the screening
rooms there. The other half of the building, the other
(05:48):
side you don't usually see on TV or sometimes when
they do a wide shot you see it. It's got
all these posters decked out all around. It is the
convention center and that's where the business people go if
you register for the Can Film Fest, so you don't
go into the marshaded film, which is the market, the
film Can Film Market. All the people who've registered for
(06:08):
the Can Film Market they transcend on Can at that
same time. They do it side by side and do
the deals on the films. They're talking I have this film,
they're horse trading, I've got this one, I've got this platform.
Who wants this film? And it's not like a bidding
product like it's like, it's not like an auction. All right,
it's a convention and they all have appointments, they converge
(06:30):
for four or five days. They meet with each other,
they talk, they have dinners, they have drinks, they have
tons of meetings in the convention center, and they try
to do business together on selling each other films and
licensing them. That's a market. It's all distributors. The whole
market is distributors and streaming platforms and programmers. Now the
other component there are filmmakers. So if you're a filmmaker,
(06:54):
you can go to one of these markets. You'll have
to pay. You have to pay, you know, have the
amount to attend, and you don't necessarily to go for
the whole thing. That you can go for two or
three days if you want, and there's an opportunity to
meet with distributors, you can certainly see what the distribution
landscape is like. But I'm telling you, if you go to
a market as a filmmaker and you're trying to meet
distributors and or pitch them on your product, whether it's
(07:16):
a film and development or a concept film or a
finish film, you generally want to meet with them at
the end of the market, not the beginning. In the
first two or three days of a market, they're super
busy trying to sell the films that they represent, and
they're taking most of their meetings with the streamers and
the international clientele in those two or three first days.
In the two or three last days, they're going to
(07:37):
have a little bit more time for you. Especially the
last day and the second last day, there's a little
bit more relaxed. Hopefully they've done most of their business
and they'll have time to meet with filmmakers to talk about,
you know, because they're always on the lookout for new films,
especially finished ones. So that's when you can meet with
distributors in a market. But if you do this, you
have to make appointments with them. Don't think you're going
(07:58):
to walk around, knock on the door and say here
I am. Once you register for market, you're going to
get access to the attendee list, and then you can
make appointments in advance, which you definitely want to do now.
Warning to filmmakers who have never been to a film market,
it can be a super intimidating experience. The first time
you go, so I strongly suggest you go. Don't go alone.
(08:19):
Go with somebody else who can be your wing partner,
who you can have moral support with. Hopefully two filmmakers
you go together, you both have a film, you're both learning,
You can chat with each other because otherwise it can
be very scary, intimidating. It's all business. This is not
like going to a film festival where people want to
talk to you about the crafting of your film and
(08:39):
how pretty it is and everything. They just want to
talk numbers. That's what distribution is, all right. It's deals,
it's legal contracts and numbers. So you might not be
used to that, but it's a great experience. And for
all you filmmakers who haven't done it and have actually
made an indie feature, I strongly suggest that you attend
at least one market. And the big ones are the
American Film Market in Los Angeles every years in November,
(09:03):
the can Mar Shaded Film we just talked about. In May,
there's Berlin, the European Film Market that takes place in
Berlin in February. There's the Hong Kong Film Market. So
there's there's a bunch of those. Are the four big
ones and there's but there's other ones around the world,
and there's there's a thing called Mipcom and MIPTV also
takes place in France. In can So you check out
(09:24):
the market that's probably you know, most viable to you,
maybe easiest to get to or if you want to
go to Can, you know, just to check it out
and experience the can film market. Then by all means go.
It's just not cheap to do it. It's very expensive,
but it's worthwhile. It's a great experience to understand what
really goes on in film, whether it be through a
list or through a market or through both. All Right,
(09:45):
you've gotten the landscape of who the distributors are out there,
and you want to in order to choose a distributor.
There's some criteria that I would use. Number One, you
want to choose a distributor who's active in the business,
all right. You want to see that they probably are
attending markets, because those distributors that attend markets are you know,
they're spending money to go to the markets, and they're
(10:06):
relatively active in the business if they're attending markets, so
I think it's a good sign that these distributors are
at the markets. That's one way to sort of decipher
who's super active in the business, because if they're not active,
they might take your film and sit on it and
not have a lot of activity on it. So I
would choose somebody who's active. Number two I'm going to
(10:27):
call choosing a distributor very similar to dating, all right,
So you want to choose the right part Like when
you're dating, and let's say you're dating for marriage, you
want to choose the right partner. So what's the criteria
for choosing the right partner. It's sort of the same
criteria for giving your baby, your movie to a distributor.
(10:47):
Here's the criteria. Number one, and again not in any
particular order, but I would always put number one as this,
you want to make sure you're dealing with people who
you trust. Trust is the most important component of any
business deal and any relationship. Now, how do you know
you could trust them? How do you know they're honest,
How do you know they're going to do what they
say they're going to do, How do you know they're
(11:08):
good at it? You got to check them out, all right.
So that's kind of like you know, if you're gonna
get married you want to marry someone you trust, you
got to check them out. How do you check them out?
Number one, you start with going online. You go onto
their website. Every distributor's got a website. You kind of
see what kind of movies they're doing. Are they the
right fit for you? Like, say you have a horror
(11:29):
movie and they don't do any horror films. Chances are
that's not going to be a good partner for you.
They need to understand the genre you're working in. You know,
you want to If you go on their website, you
see their movies. You want to make sure that at
least they have some movies, or hopefully a lot have
a similar genre of what you're having. You know what
the movie you made, so they can they know how
to talk about it and how to handle it all right.
(11:51):
Number two, as I said, you want to make sure
they're active. Are they going to markets? Do they have
you know, their customer base? I mean everybody sort of
lies a little bit. They show you how they're dealing
with all the major streamers and everything like that, which
they're generally not. But you're gonna ask about that. So
now you're gonna narrow it down based on. I feel
like these guys are active. I feel like they're the
right fit. I feel like they handle the right number
(12:13):
of films. Their website looks good, they present themselves. Well,
you go, you look at their bios. You know, you
see what their history is, that kind of stuff, all right, anygain,
a lot of people lie. It's like dating online dating.
Everybody puts up a false picture in a false bio.
Not everybody, but a lot of people do. Right. But
now you you whittle it down, and now you have,
(12:33):
say your top ten, all right, even though they were,
say fifty that you started with. Well, let's say let's
say you do start with fifty. All right. Now you're
going to send them your movie or if you have
a trailer or a concept reel or a script, but
let's say it's a finished film. All right, You're gonna
send an email to each of them, these fifty that
(12:54):
you have identified as being what appears to be the
right fit, either by meeting them I'm in a market
or checking them out on a list and going online
onto their website. So you've narrow it down to fifty,
because there's hundreds of them also, all right, and some
of its location maybe you want to deal with somebody
who's local to you. Maybe you want to deal with
somebody who's in the United States. If you're a domestic
(13:15):
you know, if you live in the United States or whatever.
All right now you're gonna check them out. Basically, you're
gonna send them your movie with a nice email and
attachment with a hopefully you have a promo, or maybe
you send the movie and say, hi, brand new filmmaker
made this great film. I checked you out. You look
like you could be the right fit for it. Can
you take a look? Tell me if you think I'm
the right fit for you. And it's better if you
(13:37):
send them a trailer link as opposed to the movie.
But if you only have the movie you haven't cut
a trailer, then that's fine. I have those fifty thirty
of them. You're not gonna hear back from. They're going
to ghost you as though you didn't even send an email.
You're gonna send one more follow up email. It's gonna
be short and sweet. They're just gonna ghost you. They
just that's the way the business works. They're gonna ghost you.
They're not gonna ever respond back. It's almost like, did
(13:58):
it get through like I didn't get like an error message,
like their website doesn't Welcome to the film business, folks.
I hate to say it, but it's true. So twenty
we'll get back to you. Ten of them will say, hey,
it's not for us, thank you very much, thanks for
submitting it. We appreciate it. We took a look at
the you know, first ten minutes. It's not our kind
of movie, but good luck to you. So now you're
(14:20):
down to ten. Okay. Of those ten, they'll all say okay, well,
some of them will say send me the movie or
we need to watch it a little bit more. We
saw you know, what are you looking for? Blah blah blah,
and you don't know what you're looking for. You're looking
for a good distributor. Then it's going to get down
to getting an offer, all right, So you're going to say,
I'm looking for a good distribute I want this, this,
and this. So at that point, basically three more are
(14:43):
going to drop out. They're never going to send you
an offer. They curious about you, but they're not going
to follow up. So now you're down to say seven,
all right, then they send each of them send you
their standard deal memo. You realize that the standard deal
memo is basically con deletely skewed in their favor. Everything
leans towards them. They're gonna make the money you're not.
(15:05):
They're gonna be like ten year terms and restrictive costs
and all this kind of stuff of that you're gonna
eliminate half of them because you're gonna say, I can't
deal with these terms. So now you're going to be
down to say three, and of the three, the final
check and you're saying, Okay, this feels like the right company,
feels like the right deal terms, feels like we can
(15:28):
do business, feels like they're motivated. They like my movie,
I like them. The final check is you go back
on their website. You look at their movies, and now
you look at the actual movies and the credits of
who made the movie. You find the producer, choose three
or four movies, you find the producer. You go into
IMDb and you find the contact information for that producer
(15:50):
and you call her up, or you send her an email,
or you call her up and you say, Hi, my
name's Jeff Deffornh'm a filmmaker. I just made this film
and I'm thinking of dealing with you know, ABC Distribution.
I see that they are handling your film. Can you
just spend a minute or two with me and tell me,
you know, were they a good distributor, did they get
the job done? Did they pay you on time? Did
they pay you anything? Did you make any money? Can
(16:12):
you just give me a recommendation because you know, like you,
I had to struggle to figure this out, and a
filmmaker generally will do that for you. They'll give you
a reference. They'll tell you the truth because they know
what it's like to be you. So you get three
or four or two or three references of filmmakers of
films that this company is representing, then you'll get the
(16:35):
honest truth about what's really going on with the company.
That's kind of like getting the final reference check on
a date. You know you've met somebody. Now a friend
is going to say, oh, I know this person, she's
really great or whatever. So that's the way to do
it once and then once you kind of get the
warm and cozy feeling that everything checks out. It might
(16:57):
not be the perfect relationship, but at least you've checked
them out. But that reference from the other filmmaker and
sometimes you know other filmmakers aren't available or don't want
to talk about it, but usually they do because they
know what it was like to go through that process,
because they went through that process all right, and they
understand what it's like to be an any filmmaker the struggle,
so they're going to share that with you. So that's
the best reference. And then the rest is just negotiating
(17:20):
the right deal. Now, even though they send you a
deal memo doesn't mean you have to accept it. You've
got to go through the motions and tweak it a
little bit to make sure that it's fair. But that's
how you find a distributor who is hopefully going to
work out and get the job done for you. As always,
you want more information, have any questions, just connect with
me through the link below or send me an email.
(17:42):
Jadeveret at deformedia dot com. Look forward daring from you,
Good luck,
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Ruthie's Table 4
For more than 30 years The River Cafe in London, has been the home-from-home of artists, architects, designers, actors, collectors, writers, activists, and politicians. Michael Caine, Glenn Close, JJ Abrams, Steve McQueen, Victoria and David Beckham, and Lily Allen, are just some of the people who love to call The River Cafe home. On River Cafe Table 4, Rogers sits down with her customers—who have become friends—to talk about food memories. Table 4 explores how food impacts every aspect of our lives. “Foods is politics, food is cultural, food is how you express love, food is about your heritage, it defines who you and who you want to be,” says Rogers. Each week, Rogers invites her guest to reminisce about family suppers and first dates, what they cook, how they eat when performing, the restaurants they choose, and what food they seek when they need comfort. And to punctuate each episode of Table 4, guests such as Ralph Fiennes, Emily Blunt, and Alfonso Cuarón, read their favourite recipe from one of the best-selling River Cafe cookbooks. Table 4 itself, is situated near The River Cafe’s open kitchen, close to the bright pink wood-fired oven and next to the glossy yellow pass, where Ruthie oversees the restaurant. You are invited to take a seat at this intimate table and join the conversation. For more information, recipes, and ingredients, go to https://shoptherivercafe.co.uk/ Web: https://rivercafe.co.uk/ Instagram: www.instagram.com/therivercafelondon/ Facebook: https://en-gb.facebook.com/therivercafelondon/ For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iheartradio app, apple podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com