I was a guest blogger on the site Multi-Hyphenate today. Here is a small excerpt from that post and a link to the rest. Enjoy!

As with some of the new bloggers here, I met Tyler on Twitter as part of the group of filmmakers I have been able to connect with using the platform, you know the one that everyone thinks is “dumb” and they don’t “get.” It is quite useful in finding people with similar interests and I am glad, if not relieved, to have found a good group of film people from all over the world who relate to this crazy, artist world that is independent filmmaking.

In a discussion group we are having on Twitter at #infdist, I brought up the point that it is a shame the term Straight to DVD has such a negative connotation; meaning that such films are somehow inferior to films shown in theaters. I think it has more to do with bigger Hollywood studios deciding that their smaller films, the lower budget genre films, don’t command as much marketing investment as the star driven vehicles and they are “dumped” straight to home video instead of screenings in theaters.  It has little to do with the quality of the film. But quality, low budget indie films get this bad rap from it as well. Home video (or DVD) is the most lucrative way of distributing independent films. Low budget films appeal to smaller, niche audiences and while financial investment can be made for an expensive theatrical release, it is more cost effective to reach the audience at home, either on DVD, Video On Demand or increasing online through digital download or streaming.

My friend and indie filmmaker Zak Forsman published a post on his blog laying out his film festival strategy and subsequent release of his two upcoming films, White Knuckles and Heart of Now. In it, he talks about his direct- to-audience release goals.  When I thought about it, this is a much better way of explaining what straight to home video is…

Access the rest of the post on Multi-Hyphenate here.

Sorry to have left this space unattended for so long. It was a whirlwind couple of weeks in Park City and now I am traveling cross country by car. But I did want to do a little check in so readers would know what was happening.

Slamdance was a blast, as expected, and I am still trying to frame it cohesively in my mind to give you a good perspective on what to expect from the experience should you have it next year. One thing I would like to address, because it came up for me and for many first time Slamdance visitors, is the issue of meeting people and networking.

It is a well kept secret that I am not the best mingler when it comes to cold introductions at parties and networking events. I hate walking into an event not knowing a soul and trying to go around introducing myself to groups of people all standing together in conversation and obviously already acquainted. While there was a filmmaker meet and greet at the festival, it consisted of rows and rows of chairs holding over 100 people and we stood up one by one and introduced ourselves and our projects.  Not the easiest setting for talking amongst the group when someone you might want to know is seated way across the room from you. Then we were adjourned and people went back to talking to their own group! The large festival setting is very overwhelming to most people.

I will say that this occasion allowed me to meet many of my tweeps from Twitter. When I met them in person, we already had loads to talk about from previous conversations. In fact, we arranged to meet ahead of time and it made all the difference in getting to know people to hang out with quickly. People may disparage Twitter, say it is dumb and all that, but I have met many a filmmaker and connection from my tweets. You can follow me @shericand, BTW. 

A filmmaker I met, Chuck Gomez from NY, complained about not meeting fellow filmmakers easily and we concluded that it would be a good idea to hook up with filmmakers involved in the festival ahead of time by emailing them or finding them on Twitter or Facebook and communicating well in advance of the event. Introduce yourself and your project, even if it is in competition with theirs, and tell them you would like to meet up for coffee or whatever. Get the details of films and filmmakers selected from the festival media coverage and go their film’s website, Facebook or Twitter page (because I KNOW they will have them, right?) and find out the contact details. Not all will respond, but many will because they are all going to have the same situation and should want to connect to their fellow attendees.

This is crunch time for team YELLOWBRICKROAD on the way to Slamdance. It is T-minus 12 days to world premiere. We just released key art last night and have had an overwhelming response from all our friends at the major horror blog sites and I am totally not complaining. But feeling the need to do an update here, I wanted to share some advice from my recent experiences with the press on this film.

I wrote this entry on another new film community site called www.filmees.com, check it out and I am reposting it here, because 1) I am too tired to think up something totally original (see my 2 previous posts ) and 2) because it is relevant if you are about to release your film and need some advice on reaching the media.

Here’s how I do it. (I can’t believe I am giving out my secrets like this!)

Forget trying to get your low budget, no star film reviewed or covered by any big traditional publication. Variety, THR, Entertainment Weekly even indieWire. They don’t really care about your film unless you have those elements or you have very strong connections into their organization. Go after online publications and bloggers within the niche of your film. This takes either working with someone who does this work professionally (like me ) or through lots of homework.

Study these sites, look at what they talk about. Even within a niche like horror, not all are interested in just any type of horror. They have a preference. If your film isn’t tailored to their audience interests, they aren’t your publication and no amount of badgering is going to help. There are literally thousands of sites covering EVERYTHING. You will find some right for your news.

Next, you want coverage by someone with good traffic to their site. I use Compete.com to see what I can find out about a site’s general traffic numbers. Those are your first sites to hit, they may be your only ones to hit because I find that if  big pubs like Fangoria (using horror sites here because I am currently in touch with them for YBR), Fearnet, Shocktilyoudrop, Bloody Disgusting, Dread Central etc. take up your story, the other smaller ones cannibalize their news so you don’t even have to contact them. But you should, I’ll get to that in a minute. Next, you go to those sites and look for the About Us tab. Research who covers your type of film. Not all journalists are going to cover all types of film. Look at their past articles or what they say interests them if they have a bio. Get their email address and write them a little note explaining who you are, why your film is good for them to cover (this is a hook, an angle) for their audience. None of this is about YOU and your needs.

Give them a trailer to look at (so you’d better have one) or some production stills. Something visually interesting to judge. If you are in preprod or production, then stills will do, but try to have at least a short (short!) clip of the most compelling part of your story. This means it had better be 1)kick ass 2)tailored to the taste of their publication and audience. That goes for the stills too. And give them a short synposis. If they like what they see, they will either get in touch with more questions or to set up an interview or ask for a screener. Here’s where it is tricky.

A word about stills (bold because this is important, write this down!)

Please, please have a professional person take your stills. Take stills of mostly the SCENES and not the crew, the set ups, the behind the scenes. As a publicist, I only need about 10 pictures of the crew and set ups. That is it. The rest I want of action in the scene without extraneous crew in the shot. Those crew pictures are only good for publications covering filmmaking not for pubs covering the film itself. Use a scene rehearsal before shooting or after shooting so the camera sound doesn’t show up in the shoot and the photographer isn’t in the way, but get those scene shots. Please! Make sure they are well lit, well compositioned, and in focus. Please! Please! ok rant over.

If you are looking for distribution and the film gets widely reviewed ahead of time through sending out massive amounts of screeners, this can turn off distributors. They want to be able to launch the film later and build the buzz from reviews at that time. So if it the film has already had many reviews, those publications will not re-review it at the launch. This is bad for a publicity campaign. The buzz was already built and its hard to get that back. Same at a festival, if you launch at a big festival and get lots of coverage from publications and then a distributor wants to go back at film launch time, they won’t get those pubs to cover it again. So be mindful if you are going to do traditional distribution. If you aren’t, then getting as many of the RIGHT publications to review it is your goal. By right, I mean pubs that truly reach your audience and understand your type of film. This will lead to a greater chance (not guaranteed!) of having a good, usable review.

So back to those smaller publications and bloggers, I set up Google Alerts (Twitter alerts are good too) to watch for references to my films. These do a good job of letting me know who is talking about us. I visit every site that gives us a mention and connect with them in comments. I try not to make it purely advertising. If I can personally thank them for helping us and give them more insight or pictures, they think that is too cool; that you acknowledged them and took the time. This is how you build an audience my friend! Even one at a time if you have to. Don’t underestimate how a little bit of encouragement can go a long way with the blogger community.

You want to put all of these writers in a database. Likely you will want to call on them again in the future for other projects. You also want to keep up with them a little because people move around among pubs. It is easier to recontact later if you can remind them of how they know you (”you wrote a piece on my suchandsuch film in suchandsuch publication” etc).

This same advice can be used for online podcasters and radio sites. It is all in the homework and how you approach them. Understand the audience they reach and what would interest them in your film. Oh and listen to the show, make sure they are professional. You want someone professional and knowledgable doing your interview. Online stays there forever, unlike terrestrial broadcast, so you want a good one.

Now a word about press kits. Forget all this paper nonsense. Get yourself a drop.io or some other file sharing account (there are a few, just can’t recall them all at the moment Badango is one too) and load up your releases, your production stills, your online press clipping URL’s, your trailer and clips, synopsis, cast bio, crew bio and pictures of each. As more things come up, you can easily add them to the file for update. Make it password protected so you can give it to journalists and it tracks who looked at it and no one else can change the content.

We have done this for Slamdance and I do not plan on putting anything on paper in the press office. Journalists are really all digital these days, or the relevant ones are, so no need for a paper press kit that you have to keep reprinting. Just make sure if you are at a fest, the press office knows about your file online. Probably they won’t help you anyway, you’ll just have to send the links to journalists directly. Then bring business cards with your contact deets and the link to the online press kit to give out.

My friend and emerging indie filmmaker Zak Forsman writes posts for the Workbook Project  site called NEW BREED. Zak has also made 2 films in the last year called Heart of Now and White Knuckles. He shared his film festival strategy on the New Breed site and I asked if I could reprint it here in case you missed it. You can also follow him on Twitter @zakforsman. If you like what you read, please leave a comment on his site.

The SABI Festival Strategy

STEP ZERO: ASK YOURSELF WHY

Be honest with yourself and ask why you want to do this. It will be a financial, emotional and physical drain to be sure. So you must define your goals and the reason why they are goals. For us, we have solidified our plans to release HEART OF NOW and WHITE KNUCKLES through our own distribution company, CINEFIST. So we are not seeking traditional distribution. And by “traditional” I mean selling the domestic rights for 25 years, for less than $100,000 in advance and a tiny cut of the profit. Instead, we ARE seeking some rather important things to support a direct-to-audience distribution effort:

• To meet new friends, filmmakers, fans and partners
• To garner laurels, prestige, press and reviews
• To announce a platform release to a larger audience
• To make a little $$$ on DVD, soundtrack and merch sales at each screening
• To get additional feedback from audiences

So, what does a modern, forward-thinking festival strategy look like? From the outside, it looks like a bucket full of submission packets amounting to $1500 in fees for 40 festivals. I’ve come to define our festival strategy by working backwards from our direct-to-audience distribution plan. We know we want to begin the latter in July 2010 so the focus had to go toward festivals that would play between now and the end of June. The intent being that if we are accepted, we can incorporate that opportunity into the distribution road map, without relying on it “for direction”.

So how did I decide which festivals to submit to?

STEP ONE: MAKE LISTS

I researched other films and the festivals they played. I zeroed in on two films that I felt shared enough similarities with HEART OF NOW and WHITE KNUCKLES that they could attract the same appreciation for content and form. They were THE NEW YEAR PARADE and MEDICINE FOR MELANCHOLY.

Festivals that accepted The New Year Parade:

• SXSW
• Slamdance
• Ashland
• Philadelphia
• deadCENTER
• BendFilm
• Indie Memphis
• Lone Star Int’l
• IFF Boston
• Cucalorus
• Temecula Valley
• Vancouver Int’l
• Tofino
• Torino
• Woodstck
• Starz Denver

Festivals that accepted Medicine for Melancholy:

• SXSW
• Philadelphia
• IFF Boston
• Viennale
• San Francisco Int’l
• Toronto Int’l
• London
• Sarasota
• Maryland
• Los Angeles

And I also took a good look at the festivals suggested by Chris Gore as being essential to any festival effort:

• AFI Fest
• Dallas
• Atlanta
• Austin
• Chicago
• CineVegas (on hiatus)
• Denver
• Florida
• Los Angeles
• Phoenix
• San Diego
• San Francisco
• Seattle
• Sidewalk
• Wisconsin
• Woodstock

I sought to make one final list of festivals that offered profit participation with the box office grosses, allowing filmmakers the opportunity to make some money off their own content. That list had no entries.

I entered all of this info in a GoogleWave and crunched through the data, noting their deadlines, doing searches on the Without-A-Box message board for filmmaker feedback and reading about each of them on FILM FESTIVAL WORLD as well as visiting each of their official sites.

STEP TWO: SEEK GUIDANCE FROM INTELLIGENT PEOPLE

Guidance came in two forms: from experienced people I’ve met in the last year and from books. My signed copy of THINK OUTSIDE THE BOX OFFICE by Jon Reiss has been a great resource for defining our upcoming distribution endeavor, allowing us to work backwards and plan a complimentary festival strategy. For festival-specific guidance, I picked up the 4th edition of CHRIS GORE’S ULTIMATE FILM FESTIVAL SURVIVAL GUIDE.

In addition, the heads of programming at SUNDANCE and SLAMDANCE both sent unofficial rejection notices that offered personal words of admiration for WHITE KNUCKLES, with the latter making suggestions for festivals that might also be receptive to it. It’s encouraging to know how closely we were considered for those two.

Next, Scott Macaulay of FILMMAKER MAGAZINE was gracious enough to lend his creative feedback and insight as we shaped the edit of HEART OF NOW. When I posted a plea on Facebook and Twitter for east coast festival recommendations, he offered a list for that film specifically.

In addition, festivals that programmed my short film, I F*CKING HATE YOU, fell into heavy consideration due to the existing relationships and friendships we had there. And finally, we’ve received direct invitations to screen HEART OF NOW from some smaller festivals who have been following SABI via Facebook and Twitter.

From those lists I shared above and the cumulative guidance of several people, I was able to identify which festivals would be our primary targets and which would be our second choices, submitting to both sets simultaneously. We made note of the premiere status requirements and the possible conflicts that could arise. A third list of smaller, more regional festivals lies in wait, to coincide with our direct-to-audience theatrical tour and home video releases. Those submissions will be made in the Spring of 2010.

STEP THREE: WHAT TO SEND, WHAT TO EXPECT

I set a full day aside to burn and test each DVD screener and to build out each submission. I use a stack of pre-printed blank DVD-Rs from ARCHETYPE DVD with whitespace for tracking numbers, contact info, running time and other notes. Each packet included the number of DVD screeners they asked for, labelled in the manner they requested, a brief and concise personal letter drafted by me to give the submission a little personality, the Without-A-Box printout, and nothing else. Be prepared for the clerk at your local post office to look at you like your an asshole when you ask for dozens of packages of varying weights to be sent first class.

As for expectations, I’m committed to the idea that a festival run is ancillary to the real objective – to get these arthouse films in front of a paying audience through multiple platforms. So my expectations are tempered. I was about as heartbroken over rejections from SUNDANCE and SLAMDANCE as I would be over not winning the lottery. Which is to say, not much at all really. I’ll save the heartache should we face low theater turn-out, bad reviews, dvd manufacturing delays, getting rejected from itunes, struggles to find a way into cable vod, etc. And I’ll find solace in the knowledge that if rejection or failure didn’t hit in some form, it meant we failed to take the inevitable risk, we failed to experiment as we do with all things and we failed in our attempt to innovate with an evolving model of sustainability – all part of the distribution journey.

This is a repost from my friend D.A Sebasstian’s blogGoKustom. He sees Amazon’s CreateSpace site as the ultimate film distribution model and gives a great explanation of what CreateSpace is and how to use it. You can follow him on Twitter @GoKustom. If you like the post, go over to his site and leave a comment.

Disclaimer: First off let me say I do not work for Amazon or it’s affiliates. However, I am always open to new potential prospects and/or employers.

As An Amazon Customer
I have been an avid Amazon Customer since they went online years ago. I have spent thousands upon thousands of dollars on their site and have only had one problematic experience (and that was with one of their affiliate vendors, not Amazon per see). In Seattle during the late nineties and early oughts we felt the internet boom/bubble more than any other city. Amazon was one of ours. It was an incredible time. The mighty Microsoft was our .com ships anchor. Bold new ideas and creative thinking about how we shop, communicate and live were being presented by new companies every other day. I remember going to house parties and everyone there talking about a new .com they were developing, pushing, looking for investors for or investing in. Money was everywhere and we couldn’t get enough of the new internet commerce. Fast forward ten years and few are left standing. Amazon did survive the bubble bursting and rightly so.

CD-R, DVD-R On Demand
I’m not going to get into the history of Amazon. Google it for yourself. Suffice to say they started as an online retailer, later partnered and expanded until now you can buy almost anything from their massive website. I won’t get into the history of CreateSpace either. They used to be called CustomFlix and are a part of the Amazon empire. They started by making books and printed material on demand much like CafePress.com, except your completed titles were (almost) instantly available on Amazon.com- the worlds largest online retailer. Incredible creative thinking for a such an already successful company. Next CreateSpace delved into the CD and DVD arenas, much like DiscMakers.com Short Run Services, but again, your titles are available on Amazon. Using CD-R and DVD-R technology CreateSpace enables a musician or film maker to upload art files, content files and then mail in larger DVD content files to be made into finished retail ready DVDs and CDs. They are made as you or your customers order them, not stashed in a warehouse, garage or closet until they are ordered or in some cases thrown away. Also understand CD-Rs and DVD-Rs made by CreateSpace and other Short Run (less than 500 unit) Manufacturers are burned or “duplicated” discs, not replicated. Whats the difference?

Replication Vs. Duplication
Replication is an injected mold manufacturing process in which CDs or DVDs are professionally manufactured from raw plastic, molded into the shape of the disc. Minimums are usually 500 to 1,000 units. The more you run the cheaper the per unit price. I use Atlanta Manufacturing Group exclusively for my runs over 1,000. Prices are between $ .97 to $1.90 per disc. Cost depends on if the title is a CD or DVD and the type of printing and packaging you desire. Their website is http://www.amgcds.com
Duplication is a process in which smaller quantities of CDs or DVDs are created or “burned” using recordable media (normally in runs less than 500). With CreateSpace these discs are virtually indistinguishable from replicated discs, with perfectly printed full color surfaces and cover art, Norelco or jewel cases and the ever unenvironmentally friendly shrink wrap. CreateSpace discs do have the standard purple (DVD-R) and green (CD-R) undersides (sometimes called purple and green bottoms) that characterize recordable media. I have seen duplicated silver bottoms from other manufacturers (exactly like replicated discs), but I believe CreateSpace prefers to let people who understand burned media easily know that these are, in fact, duplicated and not replicated discs. Amazon also has a disclosure saying something to that effect on their website. This is important as older CD and DVD players may have difficulty reading CD-Rs and DVD-Rs. All newer players should not have a problem. Some retailers will not carry Duplicated Discs. More than anything, this is to discourage the Home Burner from submitting ugly, inferior, non playable media. In three years, I have never had a customer complaint (knock on wood) about CreateSpace CD or DVD play quality. Remember, Duplicated Discs can be made “On Demand” reducing overstock and the need to run 500 or 1,000 units that you may not be able to sell. This also eliminates upfront replication costs (usually $700-$1,200 plus set up fees). With both replicated and duplicated discs, the more you run the cheaper the per unit price, however duplication will almost always cost substantially more per disc than replication.

The Member Dashboard
Once you have set up an account with CreateSpace, your home page is referred to as your “Member Dashboard.” This is the area where you can check messages from the CreateSpace Team, add new titles, edit titles, delete titles, buy copies of your books or discs (more on that later) and view sales reports. Very user friendly.

Set Up- Four Basic Steps:
To set up your title on CreateSpace, you have to go through four basic steps.
1.) Title Setup. This where you list the title, description, release date, copyright notice, etc. Slightly different for CD and DVD releases.
2.) Artwork.This is where you upload you titles artwork files. It’s pretty straight forward, but you need to get your files ready before attempting this step. I am a graphic artist with years of Photoshop and Illustrator experience and with a decent internet connection this step is a breeze.
3.) Sales Channel Management.This is where you set your price (more on that later), Amazon keywords, eStore settings (CreateSpace gives you an instant web page to sell you title from- especially cool if you do not have a website) and Amazon Video On demand settings (more on that later).
4.) Title Setup Submit.The area to proof your title information and artwork and then submit it to CreateSpace/Amazon. After you submit and during processing, you cannot change your titles info or artwork, but once your title is “available” you can fine tune or change things to you hearts content.

Changing Information, Pricing and Artwork
One of my favorite things about CreateSpace is the control you have over your titles listing. Earlier this year my film Hot Rod Girls Saves The Worldwas accepted into the Backseat Film Festival. I got a little Festival Wreath from the Registrar and added it to the DVD cover artwork. Quickly I uploaded the new artwork file to CreateSpace and within a few weeks the new artwork was on Amazon! Now this is huge people. When you run 1,000 DVDs you are stuck with that artwork until you make another run. Not so with CreateSpace. This flexibility is a key selling point (in my opinion) to using their services.
Later I received a “Great!” review from Film Threat Magazine. I added it to my artwork file and bingo, everyone who saw the discs on Amazon knew that Film Threat liked my movie.
On another front, a few months before Christmas I decided to drop the price of my film Hot Rod Girls Save The World by a dollar. This was to encourage sales and be in-line with my sales strategy and price point for the amount of time the film had been available (since December 2008). I opened my CreateSpace Account, bopped over to the edit page and adjusted the price. Two days later the Amazon price was set at my new price point.
This flexibility also applies to title information (forgot an actor just add them) and whether you even want your title on Amazons V.O.D. Service or Amazon itself anymore. Try that with a 1,000 run and a typical distributor!

Buying Your Own Titles
With CreateSpace you can also buy your titles to sell on your own website. Duplication for orders less than 50 units is currently around $4.95 each. Prices per disc go down the more you order (example an order of 100 discs currently cost $2.97 each). Turn around is fast and you can select the type of shipping you require. On several occasions I ordered 200 discs a week before an event and received them with a little time to spare (though not much- so don’t do this!). You can also order multiple titles at the same time, however you only get a discount per title ordered, not in combination. For example if you order 30 units of one title and 20 units of another, you will not get the 50 unit discount. Another very cool aspect of CreateSpace is being able to create a DVD, Book and CD for the same project. We sell Hot Rod Girls Save The World as a Film, Screenplay and Soundtrack in this way. You can order all the various media versions of your project and have them ready to sell at your vendor booth with only one order! Lastly and most importantly- you can order titles to ship to customers instead of yourself. What you ask? Why would I need to do that? Many times I run out of a title and forget to order more. A customer will order from our website and I have no product to ship. “What to do,” you ask? “No problem,” I reply. Just order the title from the CreateSpace website and set the delivery address to the customers. This can be a life saver- but make sure you always check the “Don’t show prices on the receipt“ button before checkout. Otherwise your customer will be asking you why the hell the invoice says the DVD only cost $4.95 and you charged them $19.99! This is also an excellent way to ship to small distributors. I have several guys that sell my movies at Car Shows, but only order 10-20 at a time. I just jump onto my CreateSpace pages, order the discs and have them shipped to their front doors. Addresses are stored on the CreateSpace site. They can be edited, saved and deleted at will. CreateSpace also gets better deals on shipping than you or I ever could, so it really makes sense to use this method for shipping from the US to the UK, Australia, Japan, etc. I would imagine, but can’t say for sure, that if you lived in Australia or the UK you could use the US based CreateSpace to ship orders within the States much cheaper than if you shipped from your own country.

Direct Payment And Sales Tracking
Another great feature of the CreateSpace website is the direct payment plan. Once your account is active you can link your bank account for direct monthly royalty deposits. I have also set my business bank account debit card up as the default method of payment for my CreateSpace orders. This enables me to see my purchases and royalty payments on my monthly bank account statements. Invaluable at tax time. All sales records are available in the Sales Report section of the CreateSpace website. Excellent for tracking sales and projected sales trends for your titles. This year, in particular, I was able to see that sales for my most recent film were up 30% over last years Christmas buying season. Try asking a regular distributor for a sales report sometime. If the file will even open (many use these wacked out accounting programs) the mumbo jumbo they contain never seems to add up- “unsold units” “returns” “outstanding balances’ blah, blah, blah. CreateSpace is concise. X number of DVDs were sold in X month, X number of downloads in this month.

Amazon VOD
Much like what the MP3 format did for the music world, Video On Demand (or VOD- the delivery system name not format name like MP3) is doing for the film distribution world. Using CreateSpace you can select to have your film available as a VOD, both for purchase and rental on the Amazon website. Your deal with CreateSpace is non-exclusive, which means you can use other distribution services, but Amazon is the biggie so why not start at the top and work your way down? Be warned- some larger distributors will not touch a film that has been on Amazon as a VOD or DVD-R. I experienced this first hand, but honestly feel I am making more money with CreateSpace than I could have with this larger distro company. Additionally I have more control of my titles, which is something I really, really wanted. I like to be in the drivers seat- ya know?

UPC
CreateSpace allows you to use your own UPC and ISBN numbers or they can generate them for you at no cost!

Upfront Costs
Currently there are no upfront costs or set up fees to use CreateSpace (other than the purchase price of the titles you order). This is an incredibly cool deal, because in the past you would have to shell out hundreds or thousands of dollars for a disc run before you cold have professional looking merchandise in your hands. Then you would send it to the distributors to see if they wanted to carry it. CreateSpace cuts the time from project completion to online listing and sales down to the time it takes to receive your proof copy in the mail. This is also great for listing older titles or “back catalog” titles. Maybe you sold out of your last run of 1,000 DVDs and now only sell a few a month, but want it out there. Using CreateSpace, all your titles can “Stay In Print” forever.

Customer Service
Honestly in the last three years I have only had to call customer service once! I had a disc with a pop in it. They corrected the listing immediately and after I sent in a new content CD-R was good to go. Except this one time- my orders always show up, are correct, look and play great. No lost orders, mis-ships, women’s panties in the box- it is amazing. Not so for their competitors Disc Makers. Every fifth order I made with Disc Makers seemed screwed up, had the wrong content on it (imagine getting someone else’s music or film on your CD or DVD!), no shrink wrap (when you paid for it), CD booklets packaged upside down, etc. etc. I truly don’t know how they stay in business.

WithOutABox.com and IMDb.com
Amazon also owns withoutabox.com and IMDb.comand has been trying to integrate these sites with CreateSpace and Amazon. With Out A Box is a film festival listing and submission site both for film makers and festivals. I have both types of accounts as besides my Record Label and Film Company, I run the annual Hot Rod Monsters Film Festival here in Seattle. I use WOAB to submit my work (shorts and feature) to potential festivals. With an account on WOAB you can send and pay for festival submissions from one website. They also let you know of upcoming festival deadlines and can tell you if your film meets format and style criteria for a certain festival. Very cool. IMDb or the Internet Movie Database is THE online listing for actors, crew, film and film companies. Kind of a whose who in the film world. Case in point- Wikipediauses IMDb listings (and other means) to help establish the noteworthiness of a film for inclusion in the Wiki site.

Other Players
IndieFlix, YouTube, Hulu, Vudu, Netflix- ahh just Google it man.

CREATESPACE PROS:
-Near Instant Listing On Amazon.com Available
-Trust (Unlike Billy Bobs DVD Distribution, you know Amazon is a real company with real history)
-Direct Payments Both Fair and Accurate
-Extremely High Quality (In Media and Printing)
-Quick Turnaround For Your Short Run
-Competitive Prices
-VOD Download and Rental
-Did I Mention A-M-A-Z-O-N.COM!

CREATESPACE CONS:
-Not Enough Packaging and Media Options(Like Disc Makers)
(i.e. Colored Cases, Clear Cases, Double Sided Printing, Digipaks, Dual Layer Discs, BluRay, etc.)
-Could Have Easier Multi Disc Setup
(currently you have to list a tile twice and connect the two listings- very confusing)
-Front & Back Artwork Should Be Uploaded to Amazon
(I have several compilation style DVDs and would love to have the back cover viewable online. This would let people know what is on the disc as well and let them read the back cover synopsis, actors listings, etc. You can go on Amazon later and add images, but this is a real hassle and a consistent format would make Amazons titles look better)
-Full CreateSpace Community Integration with Twitter, Facebook, Etc.
(Much more could be done with the CreateSpace community pages and Amazon)
-Limited Shipping Address Book(Currently the CreateSpace address book is limited to a hand full of non-alphabetized addresses. You can only see six at a time and those six are the last six entered. A full feature alphabetized system would be appreciated for small record labels and film companies with multiple regular shipping destinations.)

Bottom Line
The future of independent film distribution is here- so get off you ass and finish that movie! CreateSpace is a great place to start.

In Closing
I would like to recommend that you not put all your eggs in one basket. I made that mistake with MP3.com (remember them) years ago. I had many rare music tracks listed on their site and when they were bought out, the new owners changed formats and all my work was “erased.” I have backups of the songs on CD-Rs someplace, but have never bothered to reload these songs onto another music website. God forbid Amazon goes out of business (don’t laugh monoliths GM and Chrysler almost did) or decides to sell CraeteSpace to Sony, but in this modern age, nothing is sacred and the shelf life of a .com is never cer

Announcement was made last night on Variety for this year’s Slamdance Film Festival and I am happy to report that I will be working with one hell of a film called YELLOWBRICKROAD.  It is a horror/thriller with an awesome cast by two young filmmakers, Jesse Holland and Andy Mitton, who are filmmakers to watch. I hope everyone attending the festivals in Park City will come out to support us.

Watch this space for more news about what we are doing. You also can follow us on Twitter @yellwbrickroad and join our fan page on Facebook.

UPDATE:We have received our world premiere screening time. Saturday January 23 at 10pm in the Main Screening Room at the Treasure Mountain Inn. This is an awesome screening time for a horror film! To purchase tickets, please access the Bside site here . An encore screening will be Monday January 25 at 3pm.

About two weeks before attending AFM for the first time, I started receiving all of these requests for meetings and invitations to stop by office suites to look at film products from sales agents who had obviously found my name and contact details from the attendee database. I ignored most because I am not a buyer, but one struck me as something interesting from a company promising to help independent filmmakers gain secondary funding for their films. I am all about that, so I wrote back requesting an interview. The company is a brand integration firm called Brand in Entertainment (BiE) specializing in bringing together consumer brands with film and TV content creators. Off I went to speak with Teri Morris, COO, and Rolf Auerbach, President, of BiE about how an indie filmmaker can benefit from their service.

What is the difference between brand integration and product placement?

Morris-“With brand integration, brands will be integrated into the storylines of films to provide a seamless synergy. It is not meant to stand out from the story. This kind of placement is attractive to the brand because it cannot be fast forwarded or Tivo’d out; it is integrated into the fabric of the story. Product placement is a little different than brand integration in that placement gets you product for your film (a case of Pepsi or bags of Doritos). Brand integration entails the company name or the product being openly discussed within the story. This gets you money rather than product. “

How is a script chosen as an integration candidate?

Morris-“We do script analysis to see what brands will seamlessly fit within the storyline and which brands have budget and objectives to reach that a certain film will help with. It isn’t that we only have a certain brand that we try to move into films. We have relationships with thousands of brands. We read a script and look at all of the possible ways to integrate products that will make sense for both parties. We aren’t looking to make fits where there aren’t any. We think it is disrespectful to the audience, to the creative process and ultimately it doesn’t serve the brand image to force a brand into a story. We receive scripts generally through an agency and if we are unfamiliar with the track record of the producer, we charge a nominal fee for analysis.”

How do brands choose the projects they will become involved in?

Morris-“Before becoming involved with a project, every brand will assess whether the project will reach their target demographic in a meaningful way. It doesn’t make sense for them to participate if it doesn’t. Before a brand comes on board, we look at the audience for the project and how widespread the project will be delivered and make sure that it all makes sense. We can assist in films getting wider distribution too by partnering with the producer to pitch distributors with the idea that the integrated brands will be running cross promotional campaigns with the film in their own marketing. This makes the project even more visible and attractive to a distributor.” 

How do independent producers benefit from working with your company and what types of projects interest you?

Auerbach-“BiE is a champion of the independent film producer. We enable producers to raise secondary funding apart from the studios to get projects made. We are interested in web projects, graphic novels, films, TV shows, etc. If it is integratable, we do it.  We are also interested in integrating brands within live events. It helps if writers can think about what brands might be included in a project during the writing process, but script analysts on staff also read and look for opportunities that a writer might not have thought about.  The budget of the film is immaterial. We are looking for any project that will help a brand reach its objective.”

An aside: they really prefer projects with budgets over $500K.

In January, the company will be holding its first ever integration auction at Christy’s in New York City. The invitation only auction invites professional representatives and advertising agencies to bid on exclusive content packages to feature their services and products among a variety of media platforms. An online auction preview catalog is available on BiE’s website.