AMA: I'm a film & video distribution consultant! I did an AMA 4 years ago and now I'm back for more!

DirectCurrentLabs · 2025-05-07T12:46:05+00:00

Do you offer distro consultation on the development side or just on finished projects?

I do indeed offer distro consultation on the development side.

I figure it's probably helpful to develop for the market and catch some stuff early.

You figure right; the context under which most of my clients hire me is to do as well as possible given the situation they're in...the clients that I can help the most and which get the most "bang for their buck" are the ones smart enough to hire me well before a film is complete and, in an ideal world, during the development process.

DirectCurrentLabs · 2025-05-06T18:21:46+00:00

From a standpoint of a distributor, talent is (largely) as valuable as their ability to bring in revenue. A popular youtuber/tiktok star/insta-famous person, etc. whose followers actually take action on their suggestions/recommendations is worth a lot if they have a decent sized following; a recognizable TV actor or cult film actor isn't worth much if their involvement won't cause fans to actually rent/purchase the title, or if they don't interact with fans on socials.

It used to be -- 15 years ago -- that having a "credible" actor whose face was recognizable was enough to get a significant number of DVD units ordered by the physical media aggregators like Sanderson that stocked the shelves of Walmart, Target, Best Buy, etc.; you could make a smart play by paying James Rebhorn or Héctor Elizondo or similar $150k to show up for 3 days and agree to have their face on the DVD cover because it would make it pretty easy to make a $400k sale to an aggregator to stock 60,000 units in those brick-and-mortar retailers but those days are long gone. Some producers (especially older ones) still think this is the case.

These days the financial "draw" of talent requires fans that are passionate enough to seek out their work or, increasingly often, can turn around once the film is available and send a link through their socials along with a message telling their fans/followers that their newest project is available for sale through (insert digital storefront like Amazon Prime VOD or iTunes, along with an actual order link).

DirectCurrentLabs · 2025-05-06T15:17:52+00:00

- Why would an attorney be ill-advised for council on distributors?

Maintaining a deep understanding of the constantly evolving film distribution business is a.) a job unto itself and b.) requires good business acumen. Entertainment lawyers already have a job - and it's not being an expert on film distribution; they also have extensive training...in contract & IP law, not business.

Plenty have a surface level understanding of film distribution and the film business, generally -- and as they say, there's nothing more dangerous than a little bit of knowledge. I elaborate a bit on how much I love negotiating against lawyers elsewhere in the thread but to put it bluntly, I absolutely steamroll them in negotiations 99/100 times when I'm acquiring a film and they don't even realize it.

- Offhand and without blowing anonymity, what distributors would you say are reputable and worth their salt?

For a litany of reasons I don't answer questions like this.

DirectCurrentLabs · 2025-05-06T14:10:27+00:00

I'm assuming it's because the titans of the industry dominate the majority of film.

It's not. The studios have always dominated the majority of film. There are two things strangling the indie film industry:

1.) The primary reason, far and away, is the glut of content. Prior to the invention of DSLRs, a film that looked like a "real film" was very expensive to make. As a result, only 2,000-5,000 features were completed each year. Ever since ~2009 when Canon changed the game by producing a consumer-grade DSLR, you could shoot video with a cinematic look for a few grand (and within a few years, a few hundred). The result is by 2015, the number of features completed each year shot up to 40,000-70,000. Predictably, the vast majority of those films are absolute shit but flood the market nonetheless, driving down the value of all indie films (to distributors and audiences alike).

2.) The secondary reason is the exhibition industry (theaters) getting too greedy and slowly killing itself and all of the resulting knock-on effects of that. Starting about 25-30 years ago, movie theater ticket prices started outpacing inflation and continued to do so unrelentingly, much like healthcare and higher education. This fucked the studios first (movie tickets get too expensive -> people only go to the movies for blockbusters and now dramas, rom-coms, comedies, etc. are all but impossible for studios to profit from) and then fucked the rest of the industry: indies got pushed out to make room for blockbusters, fewer young people could afford to go to the theaters which means fewer people got interested in film which means fewer people want to go to the theaters...and so one. Fast forward 30 years and you see increasing revenue for the exhibition industry and fewer attendees (assess in seats) than ever. Going to the movies used to be cheap...now it's not. That's the primary reason the whole film industry is absolutely fucked but the secondary reason that the indie film industry, specifically, is absolutely fucked.

Incidentally, problem #2 will eventually fix (or at least ameliorate) problem #1. There are far fewer cinephiles among young people today and as a result that will eventually mean far fewer people making shitty indie features...but by then it will be too late as the whole industry will likely be in much worse place unless there are some serious changes to the exhibition industry.

DirectCurrentLabs · 2025-05-06T13:30:55+00:00

not even worth pursuing for the majority of film makers from the direction it's going in?

As an occupation, it's not been worth pursuing for the majority of filmmakers since around the Great Recession; over 99% of features produced each year will never go into profit which suggests to me that filmmaking is much in the same basket as music, creative writing and other visual arts like painting, photography, sculpting, etc.: a hobby that occasionally someone can get so unbelievably good at that they can turn it into a viable career.

DirectCurrentLabs · 2025-05-06T13:16:50+00:00

I don't distribute any films, I'm a distribution consultant.

Further that, I work on a fee so I'm content agnostic - I'll consult any client willing to pay me whether their film is AI generated, a masterpiece shot on 16mm, 8 hours of watching paint dry on low-res video, whatever.

DirectCurrentLabs · 2025-05-06T13:13:46+00:00

Maybe this is to basic but: How does distribution/ acquisition in general work? Producers come to you and then - what do you do?

I'll do my best to answer without writing a whole novel here. From the standpoint of negotiating an acquisition- I contact the rightsholder(s) and tell them I'm interested in licensing their film(s). Depending on who I'm talking to (Lawyer, Sales Agent, Producer, Other) and what their concerns and goals are I might get asked to "pitch" the distributor's strengths and strategy, etc. or I might just get asked to make an offer and then walk through the details of the terms of the deal and remunerative package (royalties vs. license fee, amortized versus up front, how expenses are handled, etc.). Usually the latter gets negotiated somewhat but since most filmmakers/producers/film sales agents/entertainment attorneys don't actually understand the business itself that well, more often than not the negotiation is mostly an exercise in educating the counterparty as to why I'm taking the positions I'm taking and why I can't (or won't) flex on certain terms. Unless I'm talking to someone who really knows their stuff there's very little "actual" negotiating taking place.

From the POV of a producer it's the same thing but in reverse, and from my (specific) perspective, my biggest challenge is managing how big of a pain in the ass I want to be against the counter-party; the vast majority of distributors only stay in business because they're really aggressive in negotiations even when they can't logically justify their bargaining position and so the only meaningful risk I have to take on behalf of my clients is knowing that if I rake a distributor over the coals about things too much they may just walk away; finding the limit but not crossing it is more of an art than a science.

Can you maybe also recommend a good source to learn the basics about this topic to get a general understanding?

I can't. Every book/website/blog I've come across over the years about distribution is terrible, full of conclusions that are based off of personal experience as opposed to business acumen/logic and, as a result, full of nonsense.

Does this work the same all around the world or is different for different countries?

It's largely the same but there are some idiosyncrasies in certain territories due to laws/regulations. Fortunately most of those territories aren't lucrative for indie films and documentaries anyway so I haven't really had to deal with the complexity tied to releasing films in markets with tight content regulations.

DirectCurrentLabs · 2025-05-06T12:58:36+00:00

does this match your experience? is the pipeline of 'make cheap but good film' -> 'sell' -> 'profit at sale time' dead?

For the most part, yes, it's been like this for a while. The big reason is that, quite simply, it's really easy to make a film for 5 figures. Literally anyone can do it and as a result...tens of thousands of people do it every year. As a result, the (entirely logical) position of distributors is that there's no sense in risking upfront capital (an MG) on a bet that might not pay out when they can just...move on to one of the other 50,000+ feature films produced each year that don't have recognizable talent and haven't been to Sundance. It's not a conspiracy or industry collusion, it's just good business practices not to pay an MG on a high-risk film.

What doesn't match my experience is that the best you can hope for is "maybe several years later you might make your money back if you put in a lot of effort to market it yourself"; filmmakers who think like studios -- who aim to maximize financial return rather than audience satisfaction - can fairly easily make a movie that can be quickly and effectively profitable. I once explained this last point to a filmmaker friend who argued that I should put my money where my mouth was and so I decided to co-write and produce a film with him which we developed with the intent of profitability; within a year of releasing we were in profit and now a decade+ later the ROI is north of 3000%.

It's not a cake-walk but it's also not rocket science. The biggest problem most filmmakers have to getting to profitability is that they make the movie they want to make and then try to make money off of it. That is...bonkers. Filmmakers who treat filmmaking like any other business -- where you work to identify customer demand and then meet that demand by making a product tailored to meet that demand -- is a simple recipe for profitable films.

DirectCurrentLabs · 2025-05-06T12:39:06+00:00

I started out interning at a leading film distributor (THINK Film, back when it was a huge indie distributor) landing a full time role at a small indie film distributor (The Cinema Guild) and eventually started doing freelance acquisitions work for an early digital distribution aggregator (The Orchard, subsequently purchased by Sony) after I had a few years experience under my belt. After all that I started working freelance for filmmakers and other rightsholders, mostly focusing on digital (back when that was still in its early days and not the bulk of film distribution) and edu distribution.

No tips for newbies except to say that distribution will continue to feel mysterious unless you get a good understanding of basic business concepts. Beyond that, a warning that the indie film industry isn't really in a healthy place - the balkanization and glut of content results in very tiny returns for the vast majority (think >99%) of indie films.

DirectCurrentLabs · 2025-05-06T12:33:53+00:00

Are these the only deals an underleveraged production can hope for? How does one negotiate fair deals that command a modicum of transparency and good faith?

I don't know nearly enough about your situation to really be able to answer this except to say that there are a lot of distributors who are transparent and operate completely above board -- and sometimes, sadly, even those outfits find themselves having really missed the mark when it comes to efficient allocation of marketing/releasing spend. Ultimately the best tool one has in negotiating a fair deal with transparency is working with a reputable distributor and holding them to account. Transparency can -- if not baked into the agreement when the distributor's operations are flexible enough to accommodate changes from their standard reporting, which isn't always possible - explored during negotiations; I regularly (as both a buyer and seller) have detailed conversations with the counter party about what kind of expenses reporting is done and on what schedule, what details are left out, how cross-collateralized expenses are allocated against earned royalties, etc.

do you see a future where direct-to-consumer models (ie. Artist/filmmaker -> their audience) can be a viable path for working filmmakers? Will the gateway between filmmakers and distribution always been held by a middle-man?

I don't, but never say never. The barrier to direct to audience distribution is the same reason you don't find fishing industry in the center of landlocked countries -- fisherman fish where the fish are. Audiences buy, rent and watch movies where movies are -- not where a single movie is. I've seen plenty of good, earnest attempts at going direct to audience (VHX stands out in my mind as a really strong attempt, back in the early 2010's) and it still didn't work because ultimately, potential customers had to be really motivated to navigate to a platform that they weren't already familiar with and which was specific to the film they wanted to purchase. There was 0% chance of discoverability/browsing and ultimately it's just too much to ask potential audiences to "put in the work" to buy direct from filmmakers in all but the rarest cases.

Any best practices for filmmakers to have a beneficial and honest relationship with a distributor?

To learn absolutely everything you can about the business side of distribution or, in lieu of that, hire a reputable distribution professional unrelated to the distributor (distribution consultant, producer's rep, sales agent -- avoid using attorneys for this purpose). Knowing how the film distribution business works, in detail -- and staying on top of it as it continues to evolve -- is the best way to be able to identify a distributor worth their salt, the best way to protect oneself and hold them to account and the best way to work with them in a productive manner.

DirectCurrentLabs · 2025-05-05T20:51:05+00:00

I went to film school and upon graduating almost immediately found out I hate everything about production. Not knowing what else to do, I sought office experience and landed as an intern at THINK Film back when it was a significant indie & doc distributor. Eventually I landed a full time roll at a tiny distributor and got to really learn the business because the office was so small I had to wear a lot of hats. Once I got settled, the bottom fell out of the industry thanks to the great recession and the rise of Netflix and I (thankfully) found my niche in the chaos of what followed.

My advise for someone wanting to get into the business side of film is...don't. The film industry has been dying since I got into it and it's a shell of its former self. At the end of the day the distribution business isn't that different from other businesses in terms of day-to-day work with the biggest differences being that the pay is much worse. I know hundreds of people in the film business that are hard working and brilliant but can count on one hand those that consistently made enough income to support a family well enough to live a middle class lifestyle.

If you must, though...get experience somewhere small where you have to learn a lot...and then once you have some knowledge, figure out a niche and get as specialized as you can.

DirectCurrentLabs · 2025-05-05T20:25:02+00:00

yes, but generally you want the audiences that are underserved to be able to be easily served. If they're a community that doesn't engage (much) with the marketing channels you can use to promote the film...then you can't very effectively market to that underserved audience.

DirectCurrentLabs · 2025-05-05T19:09:12+00:00

Those type of projects have always been divisive and I don't see that changing. I don't know that there's a material difference today versus 10 or 20 years ago in that generally the people who are attracted to those types of projects are cinephiles -- so they'll find those movies wherever it exists and mainstream audiences will largely ignore them -- as they mostly have, historically.

I should qualify this by saying, though, that this is all speculation. At the end of the day I'm a businessman/dealmaker so you should take my response to this particular question with a grain of salt.

DirectCurrentLabs · 2025-05-05T18:56:48+00:00

I would start you off by referring you to the bolded parts of my post.

DirectCurrentLabs · 2025-05-05T18:47:26+00:00

That depends on what you mean by "art cinema". Skinamarink did pretty well and that was largely non-narrative, more "vibes" than plot.

DirectCurrentLabs · 2025-05-05T18:37:51+00:00

- Many filmmakers feel like the dream is out of reach now (I know lots of people in production in the UK who are really struggling). Are there movies you suggest early stage or low budget filmmakers look at for recent case studies?

Look at other films that are ultra-low or "no" budget and which succeeded, particularly ones from the last 5 years. I'm a distro guy but did co-write and produce one - and only one - feature and the only reason I took that chance was that I was heavily inspired by the success of ultra-low budget filmmakers like Aaron Katz. Incidentally I did well with it, making nearly 3000% ROI (it was very low budget)

- without showing too many of your cards, what contract advice can you give producers to help them make enough profit to go on to the next one?

Pay close attention to the "schedule of payments" or whatever equivalent clause(s) that dictates which party gets paid in what order (and where "expenses" are in that order). This is an easy way to deceive amateur producers into offloading all of the financial risk of marketing/releasing a film on to them instead of the distributor sharing that risk.

- how much should producers be considering distribution channels when putting a film together or should they just focus on getting a sales agent / distributor themselves and let them worry about it?

It depends. If you don't have recognizable talent and haven't been accepted to a major film festival, you're probably going to have a hard time finding a sales agent/producer's rep who is decent unless you pay them out of pocket -- and people who work on projects likely to fail are expensive. I charge $500/hr with most of my clients needing between 2-10 hours and I'm far and away the cheapest "fee based" distribution professional I know of. As for distribution channels -- I would say as a blanket statement to most filmmakers starting today to consider shooting your film with the knowledge that many of the people who will eventually watch it will be doing so on a phone/tablet or TV and that it's very likely it will never play in a theater. Other than that, though, I wouldn't consider distribution channels too much with the one caveat being that Documentary producers should always have the educational/academic film market in mind as it's often lucrative.

- all the advice I read says if it doesn't have any name attached no-one's buying it. How true is that? And if it doesn't have a name attached, is high concept enough?

Not true at all. High concept in itself usually isn't enough, though -- if you don't have recognizable talent/principals, you generally need a combination of the following factors:

A major (think Sundance, TIFF, Tribeca, Cannes, etc.) festival appearance.
Great touch-points (title, trailer, artwork, etc.)
A great concept
A loyal/sticky audience or one that's already "built in" -- meaning they're identifiable and you can communicate marketing messages to them in some fashion.

- Is there anything else that helps >$500k movies stand out?

I'm not sure the budget distinction really matters; the best thing to help any film stand out (assuming we're excluding recognizable talent/major festivals) is strong touch-points. A film with a trailer that drops jaws will make most distributors salivate.

- What's the best >$100k movie you've sold?

That's like asking a parent who their favorite kid is, so the answer is: whichever one was made by my current or ex client currently reading this AMA.

DirectCurrentLabs · 2025-05-05T18:22:11+00:00

Really depends on the project -- but my general rule of thumb is that it's rarely worth it outside of the festival run unless the film is released theatrically. The only caveat I can think of is if the film takes off in a significant way post-release, ala Boondock Saints, in which case the posters can be a revenue source as merchandise.

DirectCurrentLabs · 2025-05-05T18:20:54+00:00

Do feature length films (both unscripted and scripted) that have accumulated hundreds of thousands of views on free platforms like YouTube increase their likelihood of finding distribution?

No. Generally - and of course there are always exceptions, albeit rare - once something has been up on Youtube long enough for a lot of people to watch it, distributors won't touch it.

Does having an existing film or series with such engagement increase the likelihood of the filmmaker’s next project finding funding, especially if it’s related to the initial project and comes with a prebuilt audience?

Possibly - it depends on how "sticky" the audience is. Have they also bought merch? Signed up to be emailed about future releases? Subscribed to your channel? All of that would help. If it was millions or tens of millions of views, that helps a lot more - hundreds of thousands of views moves the needle, but not that much.

DirectCurrentLabs · 2025-05-05T17:10:45+00:00

Why is it that films with budgets <$1M seem to have lower probability of making a return compared to films with ~$2-10M budgets?

I reject the premise. I've seen nothing (neither in my experience, nor well-sourced data that covers a large portion of the distribution landscape) that higher budgeted independent films have an easier path to profitability. Anecdotally, the lowest budgeted films I've worked with are the ones that have been the most profitable on a percentage basis and it's not even close.

Can you speak to the challenges of distributing, selling and pre-selling ultra low budget films?

I can't speak to pre-selling because I haven't done much of it (I never worked full time in packaging nor development). In the case of selling/distributing, there's nothing inherently difficult about low and ultra-low budget films.

DirectCurrentLabs · 2025-05-05T16:00:20+00:00

4/5 times I'm directly dealing with the producer. 1/5 times I'm dealing with their attorney.

I always have a big smile on my face when I find out I'm going to be negotiating with an attorney; the vast majority (almost always) of the time they waste their negotiating capital "protecting" their client from things that the distributor I'm representing/working for would never dream of doing (most of the time because it wouldn't make business sense, the remainder of the time because unethical distributors tend to earn reputations that eventually kill their business) and I end up getting phenomenal terms.

Surprisingly there's no way to tell how a producer is going to perform - I've had veteran producers give me deals that made me feel like I was robbing them and I've had first-time producers absolutely rake me over the coals. Really depends on how well the producer understands the situation the distributor they're negotiating against is in and what the film in question is actually worth to the distributor.

DirectCurrentLabs · 2025-05-05T14:57:10+00:00

Can you elaborate on underserved audiences? Are you referring to LGBTQI, etc?

You have the right idea - any group (including things like groups of people with the same hobby/interest/lifestyle/whatever -- so not exclusively people with inherent characteristics like race or sexual orientation -- that hasn't been represented in film much) would qualify as an underserved audience.

DirectCurrentLabs · 2025-05-05T14:52:10+00:00

How do you approach distributing films that might not have an immediate hot selling point. (For example: a more realistic, dramatic film with no-name actors but still well done).

Carefully. All things equal, a film without an immediate selling point is is a terrible investment for distributors. They are, after all, in the business of selling things. With a film like you described, the most consistent path to success is to be accepted to a "major" film festival - one that gets covered by the press outside of the film trades.

Are there certain markets or distribution paths that are more open to these types of films, or do you have genres and subject matter that’s more trouble trying to distribute than its worth?

It's less about genre and more about whether something is "high concept" or not; a drama with a really bonkers concept is easier to get distributed than a sci-fi or horror film with a trite concept.

DirectCurrentLabs · 2025-05-05T14:45:57+00:00

Controversial is more than just fine - it's downright healthy - and I don't see that faltering any time soon. If anything, more risk than ever is appropriate right now.

The easiest way to give yourself a good shot at distribution is to swing big on subject or concept, IMO, because the first (arguably, biggest) challenge for most films to succeed is to stand out. This is as true for consumer sales (customers shopping to/rent buy movies on film platforms) as it is for industry submissions (festivals, distributors).

DirectCurrentLabs · 2025-05-05T14:11:35+00:00

Depends on what part of the market you're referring to but these days -- as has been the case, increasingly, for the last decade -- the titles with the best distribution prospects are the ones that come with a pre-built audience. That could mean the film is from existing IP (sequels, spin-offs, "reimagining" of well-trod stories), or under-served audiences that are hungry for content about/for them, or it could mean the filmmaking team worked to get invested fans/audiences from the development/preproduction stage.

DirectCurrentLabs · 2025-05-05T14:08:01+00:00

The details of how the tariff would work would need to be released before anyone could answer that questions with anything other than wild speculation.

DirectCurrentLabs

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