The sad truth of the matter is that there's no money in making films. There's only money in SELLING them. In order to sell them, you need to make them widely available. That requires marketing and distribution. While those who came to October's Marketing Workshop will know, Marketing is the process of convincing someone to buy your product, whereas distribution is the process of making it available for them to buy. It's complicated, convoluted, and requires strategies few films teach.
Luckily, this workshop is hosted by Executive Producer and Producer's Rep Ben Yennie, who wrote the first book on film markets (used as a textbook in classes on distribution across the country.) has helped over a dozen filmmakers sell their films, and recently started his own direct distribution company.
Here's what we'll cover in the workshop:
Overview
What’s the difference between an Aggregator, Distributor, Sales Agent, PMD, Producer’s Rep, and Executive Producer
What is a collection account and how do you use it?
Traditional Vs Self Distribution
What are the costs associated with Self Distribution?
How does Self distribution effect your marketing?
A formula to help guide your decision as to whether or not to self distribute.
Questions to Ask yourself before deciding to self distribute?
Which platforms should you release on?
The different ways to do a theatrical
When is a theatrical worth the money?
Platforms you can realistically distribute to yourself
Platforms a Distributor can get you on.
How payment for each platform tends to work, and a rough estimation of deal size.
The Community Screening Model
The Structure of a traditional Distribution Deal
Who do you normally deal with as a filmmaker?
What are the major elements of a distribution deal?
How to tell a good deal from a bad deal
What are the major Media right types?
What are the major international territories?
Why Exclusivity is generally necessary.
How much money are you likely to make for various films?
How much recoupable expenses are too much?
Where can you negotiate a distribution deal?
Where can you generally NOT negotiate a distribution deal?
The importance of payment waterfalls.
Film/Television Markets
What are they?
What are the major markets?
Which markets sell what?
How did they come to be?
Who goes to film markets?
How do you get the most out of film markets?
Which markets are worth attending once?
Which markets are worth attending regularly?
How was AFM in 2018?
Distribution Deliverables: What you need to prepare.
Standard Deliverables
Servicing Deliverables
Legal Deliverables
Ancillary/As Needed Deliverables.
Distribution’s Role in financing
How do you sell your film to Netflix?
What’s the difference between a pre-sale, LOI, and Negative Pick Up.
How do you get to be a Amazon, Netflix, HBO, Hulu or any other channel or platform’s original?
What platforms Finance original content?
The difference between acquisitions and development executives, and when you need which.
A strategy for Getting your project to be an original on all the major platforms.
A Distributor’s Role in Marketing
Publicity
Reviews
Festival connections
Art Asset Generation
Who gets final say
What you can do if a deal goes bad
Steps to properly vetting your distributor, Sales Agent, or producer’s rep.
Preparing the proper exit clauses
Controlling recoupable expenses
The benefits and drawbacks of arbitration
This is the Final part of a 5 part series on teaching the skills to become a better executive producer. However, if you haven't been to the others, no worries. The workshops are largely self-contained, however, the skills they teach are more useful when used in conjunction together. The Workshop series starts again in January with The Lean Filmmaker: Using the Methodology that Rebuilt Silicon Valley to Rebuild the Indie Film industry, in February we'll have Packaging like a pro, In March we'll have Film Financing FAST, and in April we'll repeat Mastering Movie Marketing.
About the Presenter.
Ben founded, in 2014, an independent film producer's representation company Guerrilla Rep Media. Ben Yennie has 12 feature film Producer Credits since 2014 he earned by working with filmmakers to Sales Agents and distributors. These films have appeared on many platforms, and DVDs are set to be widely available for one in September. This year, Ben is set to coordinate two theatrical runs for independent feature films.
Ben has helped secure letters of intent, build business plans, and helped to raise funds for 3 early stage films in 2018.
Guerrilla Rep Media was officially launched with the book "The Guerrilla Rep: American Film Market Success on No Budget" which has been used as a textbook in ten film schools and is now in its second edition and audiobook. He also Authored The Entrepreneurial Producer, and the first-of-its-kind State of the Film Industry Report.
Ben is also the co-founder of the Film/Video Project Management Platform ProductionNext and is Founder of a new Angel Investment Group Cultural Capital Investments, with the goal to destigmatize Cultural asset classes.
Ben has been featured in CNN Money, The Seattle Film Summit, Indie Film Hustle, The Movie Making is Hard Podcast, The Filmmaking Sucks Podcast, the Indie Film Academy the Deseret News, the Film Trooper Podcast, and is a contributor to IndieWire, Hope For Film.com, and Cinesource magazine.
The sad truth of the matter is that there's no money in making films. There's only money in SELLING them. In order to sell them, you need to make them widely available. That requires marketing and distribution. While those who came to October's Marketing Workshop will know, Marketing is the process of convincing someone to buy your product, whereas distribution is the process of making it available for them to buy. It's complicated, convoluted, and requires strategies few films teach.
Luckily, this workshop is hosted by Executive Producer and Producer's Rep Ben Yennie, who wrote the first book on film markets (used as a textbook in classes on distribution across the country.) has helped over a dozen filmmakers sell their films, and recently started his own direct distribution company.
Here's what we'll cover in the workshop:
Overview
What’s the difference between an Aggregator, Distributor, Sales Agent, PMD, Producer’s Rep, and Executive Producer
What is a collection account and how do you use it?
Traditional Vs Self Distribution
What are the costs associated with Self Distribution?
How does Self distribution effect your marketing?
A formula to help guide your decision as to whether or not to self distribute.
Questions to Ask yourself before deciding to self distribute?
Which platforms should you release on?
The different ways to do a theatrical
When is a theatrical worth the money?
Platforms you can realistically distribute to yourself
Platforms a Distributor can get you on.
How payment for each platform tends to work, and a rough estimation of deal size.
The Community Screening Model
The Structure of a traditional Distribution Deal
Who do you normally deal with as a filmmaker?
What are the major elements of a distribution deal?
How to tell a good deal from a bad deal
What are the major Media right types?
What are the major international territories?
Why Exclusivity is generally necessary.
How much money are you likely to make for various films?
How much recoupable expenses are too much?
Where can you negotiate a distribution deal?
Where can you generally NOT negotiate a distribution deal?
The importance of payment waterfalls.
Film/Television Markets
What are they?
What are the major markets?
Which markets sell what?
How did they come to be?
Who goes to film markets?
How do you get the most out of film markets?
Which markets are worth attending once?
Which markets are worth attending regularly?
How was AFM in 2018?
Distribution Deliverables: What you need to prepare.
Standard Deliverables
Servicing Deliverables
Legal Deliverables
Ancillary/As Needed Deliverables.
Distribution’s Role in financing
How do you sell your film to Netflix?
What’s the difference between a pre-sale, LOI, and Negative Pick Up.
How do you get to be a Amazon, Netflix, HBO, Hulu or any other channel or platform’s original?
What platforms Finance original content?
The difference between acquisitions and development executives, and when you need which.
A strategy for Getting your project to be an original on all the major platforms.
A Distributor’s Role in Marketing
Publicity
Reviews
Festival connections
Art Asset Generation
Who gets final say
What you can do if a deal goes bad
Steps to properly vetting your distributor, Sales Agent, or producer’s rep.
Preparing the proper exit clauses
Controlling recoupable expenses
The benefits and drawbacks of arbitration
This is the Final part of a 5 part series on teaching the skills to become a better executive producer. However, if you haven't been to the others, no worries. The workshops are largely self-contained, however, the skills they teach are more useful when used in conjunction together. The Workshop series starts again in January with The Lean Filmmaker: Using the Methodology that Rebuilt Silicon Valley to Rebuild the Indie Film industry, in February we'll have Packaging like a pro, In March we'll have Film Financing FAST, and in April we'll repeat Mastering Movie Marketing.
About the Presenter.
Ben founded, in 2014, an independent film producer's representation company Guerrilla Rep Media. Ben Yennie has 12 feature film Producer Credits since 2014 he earned by working with filmmakers to Sales Agents and distributors. These films have appeared on many platforms, and DVDs are set to be widely available for one in September. This year, Ben is set to coordinate two theatrical runs for independent feature films.
Ben has helped secure letters of intent, build business plans, and helped to raise funds for 3 early stage films in 2018.
Guerrilla Rep Media was officially launched with the book "The Guerrilla Rep: American Film Market Success on No Budget" which has been used as a textbook in ten film schools and is now in its second edition and audiobook. He also Authored The Entrepreneurial Producer, and the first-of-its-kind State of the Film Industry Report.
Ben is also the co-founder of the Film/Video Project Management Platform ProductionNext and is Founder of a new Angel Investment Group Cultural Capital Investments, with the goal to destigmatize Cultural asset classes.
Ben has been featured in CNN Money, The Seattle Film Summit, Indie Film Hustle, The Movie Making is Hard Podcast, The Filmmaking Sucks Podcast, the Indie Film Academy the Deseret News, the Film Trooper Podcast, and is a contributor to IndieWire, Hope For Film.com, and Cinesource magazine.
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