Insufficient development funding and flawed distribution paradigms compound the challenges facing Australian producers, however new approaches to self-distribution provide a silver lining explains Mike Hill.
TOUGH GIG
Producing’s a hell of a thing. If you’re not one of the lucky few eligible for Enterprise or able to monopolize the agency funding rounds, development investment is nigh impossible to come by.
Somehow you figure out a way to cobble together a production-ready project on spec. Principle photography, of course, will be an achievementrivaling the ascent of Everest. However you’ll now be battling to meet the high expectations of your investors, which are likely to include delivering ‘value for money’ on an already limited budget, high production values, creative innovation, while payingunion ratesand donating months of your time ‘in-kind’.
Even with the unquestionable benefit of the Producer’s Offset, your earning potential is heavily taxed by the time you’ve brought your production in on time and on budget. Presumably, the rationale here is that you’ll be making bank on the backend…
However, I’m yet to meet actually meet a real, live independent producer who’s reaped the rewards of their toil through the traditional distribution model.
THE DEAL
Distributors are, and should be, profit-driven. They’re also relatively few in Australia, so it’s difficult to negotiate a favorable commercial deal. Therefore the structure of the deals you’re likely do with them will be a largely one-sided affair. That’s great if you like foreplay, terrible if you like to… well, you get the idea.
So presumablyyou agree to a poor deal, start the cycle again and continue on repeat until the inevitable happens:
THE SILVER LINING
The good news is there’s another option.
Last year, my production company released a film that most would consider ‘niche’. It was a documentary about a global health crisis affecting ‘other’ people not from ‘here’.
Well I fell in love with the project, as you do, raising the production and marketing budgets from sevenoverseas investorswho wanted to tell that story as much as I did.
Once it was made, wedecided to try something new and self-distribute the titlethrough a variety ofchannels including:
And guess what? It worked. The film screened publicly over 300 times in its first year in 40 countries and 15 languages. It was broadcast in 5 countries. The DVD sold out on a sliding educational RRP scale starting at $49.95. Short films were viewed over 265,000 times on YouTube and decent royalties flowed from iTunes.
THE GOOD NEWS
Why did we do all this? Because it worked for the project and it worked for us.
The result was immensely satisfyingbecause of how closely we had to engage with our audience. Itwas also financially rewarding. After years of searching, a more sustainable solution to the Producer’s conundrum suddenly presented itself.
The good news is that this self-distribution model is repeatable, meaning: you can do it too.
Moonshine Agency is now helping other like-minded producers to create the suite of tools they’ll need to self-distribute their own titles, such as websites with online stores, apps, DVDs, study guides and marketingservices.The expenses for creating these affordable platformsare reasonably captured in any production budget.
So if youare in production, post-production or early release we’d love to here from you.
To learn more visit : www.moonshineagency.com.au/producers or email Mike at mike.h@moonshineagency.com.au
