How to Not Sell a Movie

Most independent filmmakers operate under the delusion that if you make a good movie, it will get into festivals, win awards, and get distribution. It's a very appealing, very American idea-- that the best will succeed in a free market-- but it is a fallacy. I know, because for a long time, I fell for it, too.

It is a disheartening fact that "Biker Zombies from Detroit" was accepted by the Cannes Film Festival. When I sent my movie to Cannes, my thought was something like this: if "Biker Zombies from Detroit", which has no redeeming value what-so-ever, got into Cannes, then my film has to get accepted. It's a very comforting thought, one that helps you get your hopes up, at least until you get your rejection letter.

Then it's extremely demoralizing. "I'm worse than the people who made 'Biker Zombies from Detroit'!"

How is it possible that so many bad films get into prestigious festivals and so many good ones have trouble getting into the little festivals? Do they watch all the films and deliberately choose the worst ones they can find? No.

The truth of the matter is, they don't watch all the films. It is the worst-kept secret of the festival industry.

And no, it's not because the festival people hate you. They're not seasoning their caviar with your shattered hopes and dreams, commonly thought to be the most delicious of condiments.

Each year, your average large festival receives thousands of submissions. They might have a couple dozen people to watch and select the films. There simply is not enough time for the selection committee to watch every film in full. This is why the submissions deadline gets pushed back further and further every year, to try and give the committee more time.

And this is why submitting to film festivals costs so much money: to try and discourage people from sending in junk. To make sure that they take it seriously. Unfortunately, when the committees don't watch more than a few minutes of most films, it just discourages those who do take it seriously.

But some films do get in. Some films do get viewed all the way through. And there are two things every festival is looking for: a hook and a name.

The best way to sum up a hook is: sex sells, violence sells, anything controversial sells. And that's probably why "Biker Zombies from Detroit" got into Cannes. And if your film has that, chances are you've already sold it.

But if you're making a quiet film, a character film, or even a boisterous but comparatively chaste comedy, the chances of getting someone at the festival to watch more than your opening credits is next to nil. Unless you have a name, which is the reason why they'll watch the opening credits.

Having a name actor does not guarantee that you'll get into the festival, but it does guarantee they'll watch the movie. And chances are, someone will put it out on DVD at the very least. Both the festivals and the distributors know that name actors have fans, and fans will buy tickets or videos if that name actor is in them.

The thing you have to remember is that a festival is a business. They collect submission fees and they charge admission for each and every film you want to see. The more tickets they sell, the healthier the festival will be.

Let's say they have two movies that are almost identical, except for one factor. Plot, theme, character: practically the same. One is your movie, and truth be told, it's a little better than the other one. But the other one features Steve Buscemi in a small role. Steve Buscemi sells tickets, and so that movie's going to get into the festival. (They stopped watching your movie two minutes in.)

Now, there is another kind of name that will appeal to the festivals: yours.

"The best advice I can give on getting into festivals is to try and find someone you know who is involved with a festival, and try to get your film in through the back door," Joe Swanberg, a Chicago-based independent filmmaker told me back in 2005. "As cliché as it seems, connections are the most important aspect when you have no reputation. Once you have a reputation, people will watch your film, but before that, you really have to find ways to get the film in front of the right people.

"I do not recommend just sending the film to a lot of festivals and hoping it gets in. You have to play an active part in getting the film into the festivals, while managing to not be pesky or annoying."

In other words, you got to schmooze and network, you have to know how to rub elbows and work a room, to project the confidence that comes with being an up-and-comer. Now, some of my gentle readers are no doubt saying, "But I hate guys like that! Networking isn't sincere, it really turns me off!" And I hear you, and I'm one of you.

And I'm not suggesting that you try to fake it. The fact is, being able to work a room successfully is not a skill that can be learned. It's something that you're either born with, or not. And if you don't have it and pretend that you do, people can absolutely tell that you're being insincere, it will really turn them off, and they'll hate you.

So, if you don't want to sell your film-- if you'd rather it sit in your closet (or, more likely, on your hard-drive)-- I would suggest not being born shy and socially-awkward. It sucks when you've dropped the ball while still in the womb.

To be frank, the festival system is a broken system, one with impossible odds against the little guy. It's kind of like the old computer game "Prince of Persia": sure, it's exhilarating if you can do it, but most of us can't.

It's especially difficult for those of us who can't pony up the forty or sixty bucks per festival. But wait? Isn't there another way? Can't we go directly to the distributors? Well, you could and, not having the financial resources to continue being rejected from festivals, I did.

First, some background: I made my first feature film as a high school video project. It was bad, and no copies of it are in existence. I didn't try to do anything with it other than get a passing grade.

Fresh out of high school, I was ready to take the festivals by storm. I created a film calculated for festival gold: teenage/twenty-somethings embarking on a life of crime. "Bonnie & Clyde" plus pop culture references equals an uninspiring and derivative mess that was rejected at every turn. This is where I should have learned the lesson about being sincere and being true to myself.

Instead, the lesson I learned was that I couldn't get into any festivals. (Not even Troma Dance.) I make another film, this one calculated to appeal to the artsy-fartsy distribution companies. Full of references to Godard and bizarre humour and oh-so-fashionable nihilism.

If they had seen the movie, they would not have bought it. I know that now, and I kinda knew it then. But they didn't even see the movie, and this is the worst-kept secret of the film distribution companies: they will never, ever watch your movie, ever. Not even five minutes. Not even the opening credits. They will put your disc in a pile with all the others and leave it to rot.

So, if you don't want to sell your movie, go ahead and send it to the companies directly. Invite them to screenings. They'll never come.

I tried that with Fine Line, New Line's old indie/arthouse label. They had an e-mail address listed on the website so that you could invite Fine Line to a screening. I sent them an e-mail in June of 2005. A couple weeks later, I sent them a review of the film from a local paper, hoping to pique their interest.

I never got a reply. I sent an e-mail once a month, asking if they got the previous e-mail and if they could, at least, just acknowledge receipt of this one? By the end of the year, I got a little tiffed:

"I would love to receive even just a form letter that says, we here at Fine Line care about our customers, but due to the high volume, etc. A form letter would be really lovely. I'd frame it. I would. I would print it up and have it framed. Nice frame too. Not wood. No, no, no. Gold. Yes, I'd have it framed in gold and put it over my bed, so that when I say my prayers I can thank the Lord that you at least gave me some acknowledgement that you received one of my e-mails."

Which pretty much guarantees that I'll never get a response. So, if you don't want to sell your movie, I would suggest that you expect the common courtesy of being acknowledged.

Admittedly, the smaller distributors are more likely to give you some kind of response, usually within a week or two, asking you to send it along but warning that they probably won't get to it for months and months, that it's a long shot, that your best bet is to get it into a good festival, et cetera. Which is a nice way of saying they're not going to get to it. It seems like your dream of never selling your movie is within reach.

But if you really want to clinch the deal, if you want to make sure they'll never watch your movie and that you'll never sell it, you should send follow-up e-mails. Nothing is more likely to make them angry than sending reminders and forwarding reviews and clippings.

Not knowing this, and operating under the myth that if you be persistent, Michael Douglas will take you under his wing and explain the benefits of greed, I sent a follow-up/reminder e-mail every couple of weeks to one of the smaller distributors. Eventually, the Acquisitions Head told me in no uncertain terms that I was bothering him.

I sent him an apology:

"Just wanted to apologize for the many e-mails I sent you. Things got kind of desperate on the home front... That's no excuse, though, and I am sorry."

His response was terse:

"You're stalking me. Nobody wants to work with a stalker."

Which pretty much ended that particular correspondence. I wasn't stalking: I was poor, I was hungry, I was desperate, I was worried about being homeless. And so, if you really don't want to sell your film, I'd suggest being really, really poor and pinning all your hopes and dreams on selling that film.

And again, like the festivals, there's no malice to the companies and their indifference. They're busy people. They have lots of festivals to attend, directors and actors to hob-knob with, deals to negotiate. And they are actual people who have actual families and actual lives.

And, like the festivals, there are a lot of people sending discs and videos directly to them in the hopes that everyone else is going to the festivals.

I think the guy was a little harsh in calling me a stalker in response to an apology, but I understand now that I was being pesky and annoying. At the same time, though, I was starving and he was well-fed; I went to public schools and he was educated in Europe. I'm not sure if most of the people behind the companies and festivals realize that a lot of independent filmmakers aren't as financially well-off.

Well, I learned my lessons: the festival system is impossible, going directly to the distributor is impossible. Unless you're insanely lucky or you have a name in your cast, the chances are, you're not going to sell your movie. But I don't find this discouraging. Instead, I find it very liberating.

"I haven't made a dime from filmmaking," Joe Swanberg told me recently. "I keep doing it because I like making movies."

I had made a film to appeal to the festivals, and it failed; I had made a film to appeal to arthouse labels, and it failed. The next film I made, I made because I wanted to make it. Because I had things I wanted to say, characters I wanted to create. I made a film for myself that appeals to myself, and, you know what? I succeeded.

If you define success by financial gain or festival screenings, then your definition will breed failure. But if you redefine success on your own terms (is my film entertaining? did I tell the story well? is the acting good? does the film provoke thought or emotion?), then your odds of success are much higher. Define a film by what it is instead of where it goes.

Make the films you want to make. Make them not for today, but for tomorrow and for all time.

Festivals and distributors are transitory things: they only want films that have been made within the last twelve months. You can't try again next year. Once the window's closed, it's closed.

But art! Art is eternal. If you make a good, true, sincere film, it will always be a good, true, sincere film, even if no one sees it for fifty years.

And that, of course, is the reason why we try to get into festivals and to get distribution. It's not the money: there's easier ways to get money. And it's not the fame: there are easier ways to get famous.

It's the audience. No one wants to feel that what they do is futile, that they are making films for the void. No one is comforted by the thought that the only ones who might ever see their work are their friends and family.

There is, of course, another distribution channel, one that's relatively new and exciting and provides you with direct access to an audience. The internet might not be a series of tubes, but it is a series of screens: screens on which people can watch your work.

There's no money to be made from YouTube, and in some ways it is dishearteningly similar to the festival experience. With thousands of videos uploaded daily, the chances of someone finding yours is slim. With so many bad videos out there, people are less likely to watch your entire video, unless there's a hook or a name.

But the difference is, you've only got one shot, one set of eyes, at a festival. On YouTube and its clones, your video will always be accessible to tens of thousands of people. Maybe you won't get tens of thousands of hits, but there exists the possibility that those who do watch it will enjoy it, that it will touch them deeply. They might send you a comment, or they might forward it to a friend. You might not have a large audience, but you'll have one of quality.

Heck, you'll have one, which is more than you can say for the festivals and distribution companies. YouTube and the internet itself puts everyone on more-or-less equal footing, gives everyone a chance, however small, of finding an audience. Those of us who can't hustle-bustle and schmooze, those of us who are shy and anxious and awkward can just concentrate on making a good film-- which is, in most cases, what we want to do anyway.

And so, finally, the best way not to sell your film is to not even try to sell it. Save your money and appeal directly to the people. Do it cheaply and for its own sake.

Unless you can get Steve Buscemi for a cameo...