Fissure co-star, Crystal Mantecon, wraps “Tree of Life” with Brad Pitt and Sean Penn
Fissure co-star, Crystal Mantecon, recently finished up work on a new film by Terrence Malick called “Tree of Life“. Crystal plays opposite of Brad Pitt and Sean Penn.
I had a chance to travel down to Smithville where they were filming. Our first AD on Fissure, Bobby Bastarache, was Terrence’s first AD on “Tree of Life”. So, Bobby spent the evening driving me around Smithville. It was great seeing how they transformed this town to a 1950’s town. Very exciting!
Crystal plays Rachel Claris in the upcoming psychological thriller, Fissure.
Director Russ Pond with co-star Crystal Mantecon
on the set of Fissure
Recent press regarding Crystal Mantecon:
ENVY Magazine: “… Actress Crystal Mantecón is a bona fide class act. The next-big-thing starlet just wrapped filming on Terrence Malick’s upcoming film TREE OF LIFE, which also stars Hollywood powerhouses Brad Pitt and Sean Penn…” — Madeline Hollern, Editor
Blog de Cine about Tree of Life: “La película… está protagonizada por Brad Pitt, Sean Penn, Jessica Chastain, Fiona Shaw y, atención al nombre, Crystal Mantecon [The film… stars Brad Pitt, Sean Penn, Jessica Chastain, Fiona Shaw, and pay attention to this name, Crystal Mantecón.)” — Juan Luis Caviaro
Crystal Manteconas Rachel Claris
Entrepreneur Interviews by Mixergy
One of my passions is business on the internet. The Learner in me loves to learn new ideas, thoughts, strategies and business opportunities through the Internet. So, I’ve been addicted to Mixergy the past few months. And, here’s a great breakdown of some of their top Entrepreneur Interviews.
First 4-mile run of 2009
My wife and I decided to start running again in the mornings. With hot Texas days just around the corner, mornings are about the only time you can run those long runs. It was quite fun!
For some odd reason, I’m itching to do my first full marathon this year. Last year, my wife did the full marathon, while I did the half. It was really hard, but one of the most rewarding experiences in my life. And, that’s only the half of it!
I’m looking forward to some good running this year.
Sprint Now Network Commercial – Excellent animation
As a producer, I often take on projects that can be a creative challenge to produce. One of the more challenging projects to produce is one on business statistics.
Admit it–statistics can be boring. Typically, these are done with PowerPoint slides, bar charts, spreadsheets and pie diagrams. Statistics–while important–are often not very engaging.
Until now.
Sprint did a wonderful job using statistics in a fun, flashy, educational and marketing way. This is a great 60 second commercial:
“Long Journey Home” online now at The Doorpost
We are proud to announce that Long Journey Home has made it to the semi-finalist round at The Doorpost Film Festival. If you can, please watch our film and vote. I look forward to hearing your thoughts.
Also, we launched our new Long Journey Home website. Check it out when you get a chance.
Long Journey Home Teaser
Last week, we wrapped our short film, Long Journey Home. I had some time to put together a teaser. You can check it out here:
More to come later!
Going where you headed
If we do not change direction, we are likely to end up where we are headed.
I read this the other day, and love it. Reminds me of that old saying I hear today:
The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over expecting different results.
Checking your kid’s homework
This is one of the funniest things I’ve seen in a long time. Below is a drawing that a daughter submitted to her teacher, and the topic was “I want to be like my Mommy”:
After seeing this, the mom had to write a letter to the teacher and explain:
- Dear Mrs. Jones,
I wish to clarify that I am not now, nor have I ever been, an exotic dancer. I work at Home Depot and I told my daughter how hectic it was last week before the blizzard hit. I told her we sold out every single shovel we had, and then I found one more in the back room, and that several people were fighting over who would get it. Her picture doesn’t show me dancing around a pole. It’s supposed to depict me selling the last snow shovel we had at Home Depot. From now on I will remember to check her homework more thoroughly before she turns it in.
Sincerely,
Mrs. Smith
Indie Film Distribution Offers and Deals
In my last post, I shared four steps you can take to improve your chances for successful distribution for your indie feature film.
In this post, I want to talk about the various types of distribution deals that are out there for indie feature films. It’s a bit confusing and very subjective at times. So, you have to be careful.
Before jumping into the actual distribution deal, let me take a moment to talk about what exactly can be sold.
Territories
First, you have territories. Often, a distributor comes in and wants to distribute your film worldwide. That’s every territory, every country, every region. Other maybe, they want just foreign rights (which is everywhere in the world except the US or US and Canada). Or vice versa, they may want domestic rights or North American rights.
For Fissure, we received a few worldwide offers. The foreign distribution company that we signed with initially approached us wanting worldwide rights, but we wanted to keep our domestic rights, so we negotiated out the US and Canadian rights, and let them distribute our foreign rights.
Rights
Next, you need to understand what can be sold within those territories. Here’s a list of the rights that can be sold within each territory:
- Theatrical
- Broadcast
- DVD/Laserdisc (yes, Laserdisc!)
- Online/Download
- Pay-per-view
- Airline
Most distributors will bundle all of these in their contract. Sometimes, a distributor may come in and just request “Domestic Broadcast” or “Foreign DVD”, but usually they want all of them.
If you wanted to, you could literally carve out different variations based on territory and rights. For example, you could sell the Bulgarian PPV rights or the Thailand Broadcast rights. But honestly, you need someone who knows what they are doing and has the relationships in place to secure those deals. That’s why is common to sell all of your foreign or all of your domestic rights.
The Offer
Now that you understand territories and rights, let’s jump into what an offer looks like. There are typically three things that are the focus of most distribution deals:
- The advance
- The marketing expenses
- The royalty
These are often the three first questions I ask when an offer would come in on Fissure. What kind of advance are you paying? What are your marketing expenses and are they capped? After expenses are paid, what is our royalty?
The Advance
Today, with such a saturated market, advances are becoming more rare. I’ve heard that advances can often be your only revenue for your film. Exaggerated marketing expenses and hefty administrative cost can sometimes keep you from reaching the royalty stage.
I have a friend who received a good advance on his foreign deal and good advance on his domestic deal, but he told me that it’s really all he’s expecting in the way of revenue. There’s a royalty deal in place and even a cap on marketing expenses, but he’s convinced that the advances will be all he gets on the film.
Marketing Expenses
Marketing expenses were always the subjective part of the deal where most filmmakers were taken. I hate to say it, but this area is the most dangerous, yet the most needed.
Marketing is essential for the success of a film. You need to get the word out. Posters, advertising, PR, website, social media, box art, viral campaigns, trailer, contests, screenings, give-aways, tee-shirts, etc. It’s all needed.
The problem comes when distributors manage that. First, they mark it up to cover their management and administration of the marketing. So, if the bottom line costs for the trailer creation is $5K, they may market it up 40% and charge you $7K for the trailer. Now, they don’t charge you directly, but pull the $7K from the first money that comes in.
And, here’s the kicker–they don’t pay off marketing expenses until after they pull their royalty. So, for example, if the first order from Blockbuster comes in and it’s $50K order and the royalty deal is 50/50, and the marketing expenses are $20K, here’s how the numbers work. First, the distributor calculates his 50% off of the $50K. That’s $25K to the distributor. Then, they pay the marketing, $20K. That’s a total of $45K, and now your profit on the $50K order is $5K. It sure doesn’t feel like a 50/50 deal.
So, marketing expenses can be tricky. The two things you can push for in the contract are: a cap, so that they don’t spend more than they need and secondly, request that all marketing expenses must be agreed upon by the production company. In other words, you have approval over what they spend on marketing. I’m not sure if this is possible, but I know of a distributor who is doing this now.
Royalties
This is what is paid to the production company after all marketing expenses have been and all replication costs have been recouped. We’ve had a variety of royalty offers come our way:
- 70%-filmmaker / 30%-distributor
- 50%-filmmaker / 50%-distributor
- 30%-filmmaker / 70%-distributor
There are quite a few different deals out there.
Recently, I have seen a new type of distribution deal emerge based on a unique combination of the three areas.
In the past, most distribution deals looked like this:
- Advance: $5K to $50K
- Marketing Expenses: Capped at $20K to $50K
- Royalty: 30% to 70%
This was how most of the deals were made–an advance, with a marketing cap and a royalty.
Today, there’s a new type of deal being offered, what I call a “first-dollar, royalty deal”. It looks like this:
- Advance: $0, no advance
- Marketing Expenses: No marketing expenses
- Royalty: 30% to 50%
It’s becoming more common to have no advance, no marketing expenses and then a straight royalty. This a good for both the distributor and the producer. There is no fluffy accounting that can happen. The distributor pays the production company on the first dollar that comes in. It’s seems to be a very clean deal compared to previous distribution deals.
Our foreign distributor, Boll, offers a straight, first-dollar deal. This deal is even promoted on their website:
- Our offer to you is better as what other worldsales company offers: we sell your movie for 30% but in that 30% are all our costs (from legal to marketing) what means from every sale you get no matter how small the deal is your 70%.
Closing
So, there you have it. Independent film distribution in a nut shell. Sure, there are many variations and details to film distribution, but this should give you a solid overview on the distribution process.
Increase your Chances for Successful Indie Film Distribution
Now that we are coming the close of our movie project, I want to take a few minutes to share some of the learnings along the way, because there are many!
To start with, I want to talk about independent film distribution, because of all the various steps of this process, distribution has been the biggest mystery of them all. In all honesty, finding the story, raising the funds, assembling the crew, producing the film, and finalizing the edit were all quite easy compared to distribution.
There are certain steps you can take to increase your chances of having a successful independent feature film. Here are four key areas that you need to focus before you shoot your first shot:
1. Name talent: It’s the number one question I was asked when I told distributors that I had a feature film for sale. “Who’s in it?” Name talent is an essential ingredient for financially successful independent films. Is it always the case? No, not always, but if you want to increase your chances of success, then you can instantly move through the clutter of films by casting name talent. Your investment into a well-networked casting director will pay the highest dividends on your project.
2. Strong Story: Second to name talent comes story. Story is so important, so essential. It’s where every film project must start–with a good story. And not just a good story, but a well-structured, well-thought out, fully developed story. There are so many good books out there today on screenwriting. It’s easy to learn good story structure. Everything they talk about becomes so important in filmmaking–act structure, inciting incident, plot points, character arcs, beats, etc. All of it is needed for a good story.
3. Solid Production Quality: You can have name talent and even a good story, but if the production quality is not there, then you leave your audience with an inability to suspend their disbelief. If your audience keeps getting pulled out of the story, then you’ve lost them.
I remember going to see a movie at a theater in a small Texas town. They had forgotten to put on the projector mask that masks out the 35mm print into it’s correct aspect ratio. With nothing masked, I saw boom mics, camera flags, cables, everything. It was terrible. I can’t even remember what the movie was about.
Anything that pulls the viewer out of the story is detrimental to your film’s success. Some of the key areas to focus on that will increase your production value are lighting, acting, camera framing and movement, editing and color, sound design and music.
4. Distribution Plan: Before your first day of shooting, you should have a solid distribution plan in place. And, it needs to be realistic. If you’re thinking your film will be different, your film will be better, your film will break all the rules and be the next Blair Witch Project, then you are setting yourself up to be one of the thousands upon thousands of indie films that never see the light of day. You’ve got to plan. You’ve got to think ahead of time.
We’re in the process of putting together our next film project. Distribution is the number question to be answered before we get started. It will determine what genre we shoot, what script we select, what actors we cast, what locations we scout. Distribution will be the filter through which every decision will be made.
Obviously, there are others steps that can be taken to increase your chances of success, but in my experience on Fissure, these four areas are the foundation of success.