IndieFlix

Once It Was Direct To Video, Now It’s Direct to the Web

October 23, 2005, Sunday

By JOHN ANDERSON (NYT); Arts and Leisure Desk

Late Edition – Final, Section 2, Page 27

IT was a late night in Seattle. It was probably raining. Scilla Andreen was still haunting the offices of her as-yet-to-be-started Internet movie company, IndieFlix, when the phone rang. It was – no surprise – a young filmmaker.  “He thought we were a local production company,” said Ms. Andreen, 43, a filmmaker herself, as well as an Emmy-nominated costume designer. “Or a distribution company that might buy his film.”

What the young fellow had found in his efforts to support his movie – which he’d financed by selling his late grandmother’s ring – wasn’t a distribution company, not in the traditional sense, but instead, the latest wrinkle in the dissemination of independent film.

As cheaper technology and a seemingly inexhaustible hipness quotient have led to more filmmakers and films being produced, theatrical distribution has become more expensive, the outlets more cautious, and the returns on investments more dubious. The Internet has absorbed some of the spillover, although the bigger success stories – notably, the political films of Robert Greenwald (“Uncovered: The War on Iraq,” “Outfoxed: Rupert Murdoch’s War on Journalism”), or “Faster,” a highly lucrative motorcycle documentary narrated by Ewan McGregor – have been niche movies with a core audience.

So what about more general fare with no stars, budgets or hope? That’s where IndieFlix, founded by Ms. Andreen and her business partner, the filmmaker Gian-Carlo Scandiuzzi, comes in. Directors submit their films, which are then posted on the Web site (www.indieflix.com). When users log on and click to buy the films that capture their interest, IndieFlix burns them onto a DVD and ships them out. The price for a feature-length film is $9.95.

Ms. Andreen’s motto: “Own a movie for less than a movie ticket.”

At a time when audiences are ebbing, piracy is threatening profits and at-home downloading takes gas mileage out of the movie-going equation, a company that helps filmmakers and audiences find each other on the Internet may be as natural a step in the evolution of cinema as portable DVD players or reserved seats. It may also be as close to a no-risk deal as filmmakers are likely to find: all they need provide is proof that the rights to their film have been cleared, and a master to be copied. And unlike traditional or even online distribution deals, the filmmakers retain all the rights.

IndieFlix represents “a platform to present their work to an audience that under normal circumstances wouldn’t be available to them,” said the actress Whoopi Goldberg, who is on the company’s advisory board. “As one who works inside and outside the system, I’ve come to understand the distribution is a key component. And from a purely economical standpoint, if there’s a way for folks to participate” it would be “a win-win for everybody involved.” But Peter Broderick, president of the Los Angeles-based Paradigm Consulting and a longtime adviser to distributors and filmmakers, cautioned that price really doesn’t have much to do, he said, with the attraction of buyers to on-line indie films.

“It’s apples and oranges,” he said. “If you have a film that has a core audience, it doesn’t matter if it’s $9.95 or $29.95. If your movie is about something that matters to people, they’ll buy it. Just as you can’t compare Tom Cruise and ‘War of the Worlds’ to what somebody buys online.”

And to many filmmakers, success online will always be a very far cry from success in the theaters. “That’s our art – and we think it needs to be bigger than life, on the screen, the group experience in the dark,” said Ms. Andreen. “All filmmakers want that.”

“That’s the weird thing about filmmakers,” she added. “It just repeats itself. It doesn’t evolve. So we just said, ‘It’s time to evolve.’ “

She speaks from experience. “First and foremost, we’re filmmakers,” she said. “Carlo has made more movies than I have.” They have made two films together, including the feature “Outpatient,” and several shorts. The “game” as she calls it, is the same “whether you’re making art or schlock.”

They made what they called “artful” movies that got good reviews, and several awards, and grand jury prizes “and we had distribution offers from Artisan and Lions Gate and various other name companies and realized that the terms were so horrible. They wanted the rights for 20 years; we got them down to 7.” She said that the terms were so ridiculous “you’d have to make $10 million before you begin to see a penny, and then they still wanted you to go out and do this grassroots campaign and marketing and publicity for our own movies, even after we had to do all that other stuff. And that was a good deal.”

They opted instead to raise the money themselves, on the Web. They were following the model of Bob Berney – the man who orchestrated the unorthodox distribution strategies of “My Big Fat Greek Wedding,” “Memento” and “The Last Temptation of Christ.” Now at Picturehouse, Mr. Berney approves of their innovation. “Considering how difficult it is to do it on your own, either theatrically or on DVD, it’s a good idea,” he said. “If you’re at that stage where you haven’t gotten any interest – and no one believes you when you say, ‘If only people had a chance to see my film, they’d love it … If only people knew …’ – IndieFlix is like ‘No more excuses.’ “

It also takes the shelf-space argument out of retail DVD sales, he said, because the major retailers only have room for very little other than the blockbusters.

“But the other question,” he said, of IndieFlix, “is: how are people going to hear about it?”

A recent weekend found Ms. Andreen in an Indian casino in Temecula, Calif., at the Temecula Valley International Film & Music Festival, where IndieFlix was awarding cash prizes – something the company had also done on Long Island at last summer’s at the Stony Brook Film Festival at the State University – to the audience-choice award winners. A thousand dollars for a feature, $500 for the documentary, $250 for shorts.

“It’s not a lot,” Mr. Scandiuzzi acknowledged. “We can’t do very much. I mean, I know that TriBeCa is doing something like that, and much bigger, but they have millions of dollars from American Express. It’s more about the gesture.”

That gesture, however, can count for a lot. IndieFlix may be the movie director’s version of the Last Chance Saloon. “We might be the last stop on the track,” said Ms. Andreen, “but our goal is that eventually filmmakers will go out with their little mini-DVD cams and make a movie for practically nothing, specifically to sell it on Indieflix because it costs them nothing. And we give them the publicity tools, the marketing tools and we make it for them, and deliver it in a timely manner.”

“We feel every film has an audience” she added.

“I have reached a point in my life where my main focus has shifted to wanting to give something back to the community. I’m not rolling in dough. I’m not famous. And I have so many kids” – six, including 6-year-old twins – “that I don’t exactly have a lot of spare time. As filmmakers, Carlo and I had become so frustrated with the limitations of standard distribution and disheartened with the way it squelches creativity. So, after much thought and careful planning, we started IndieFlix and suddenly it felt like the shackles came off.”

“It’s also good,” she added, “to see other companies sprouting up that offer a similar deal. It validates what we are doing and how quickly the world is changing.”

John Anderson is co-author of the forthcoming “I Wake Up Screening: What to Do When You’ve Made That Movie.”

Before You Buy a Ticket, Why Not Buy The DVD?; Some See No Reason To Release Movies Exclusively to Theaters

MONDAY, DECEMBER 19, 2005

By LAURA M. HOLSON (NYT); Business & Financial Desk

SAN FRANCISCO, Dec. 18 – At the Dubai International Film Festival last week, Morgan Freeman, the Oscar-winning actor and star of last year’s ”Million Dollar Baby,” took on his most challenging role yet: movie entrepreneur. Dubai was one of several stops on a Middle East tour for Mr. Freeman, who was meeting with local moviemakers, hoping to find independent films to distribute through his Internet venture, ClickStar. Mr. Freeman and Intel founded ClickStar this summer with an eye toward offering downloads of a movie at the same time as its theatrical release.

Mr. Freeman said in a phone interview Wednesday from Dubai that the industry practice of showing feature films in theaters first, then selling them later on DVD, was outdated. With new advances in digital filmmaking, he predicted, consumers will demand better access to movies.

”We want to give people what they want, when they want it,” said Mr. Freeman. ”We are following the wave.”

Mr. Freeman is not the only entrepreneur riding the digital technology surf. In the last several months, a handful of new ventures have been formed to help filmmakers find their audience — online, on DVD and at the movie theater.

Among them is IndieFlix, based in Seattle, which was introduced by two independent filmmakers in October. For $9.95 a disc, the company will burn a feature or documentary film onto a DVD and ship it to a customer who has ordered it online. Another outfit, 2929 Entertainment, has teamed up with the Oscar-winning director Steven Soderbergh to offer the forthcoming movie ”Bubble” simultaneously in theaters, on DVD and on cable television.

But how big is the market? Even those working on distributing movies in new ways cannot predict what will capture the public’s interest. As many entrepreneurs did in the early days of the 1990′s dot-com craze, they are experimenting with untested business models. Hollywood has a long-established way of promoting its movies, mainly through blockbuster releases. Until that changes, entrepreneurs will probably continue to find it challenging to get people to watch their films and to earn enough money to make their ventures profitable.

”The idea that a lot of things can get out without marketing clout is not there,” said Bob Berney, a Hollywood veteran and president of Picturehouse, a theatrical distribution company. ”I think there are complications for the next several years, as we are still in a theatrically driven mode.”

Still, many in Hollywood smell opportunity, particularly since Steven P. Jobs, the chief executive of Apple and an industry outsider, announced he would offer some television shows and movies on the video iPod. ”I’ve seen more movement in the last three months than the previous five years,” said Todd Wagner, who along with his business partner, Mark Cuban, will release Mr. Soderbergh’s ”Bubble” in late January. ”I think people are now saying they can’t avoid this.”

Smaller movies with limited appeal could have the most to gain from alternative distribution, either through movie downloads or bypassing studios altogether and selling DVD’s directly to consumers. Such opportunities are enhanced in a digital world, which is not defined by international borders or movie-release patterns.

”There is a middle class of movies that have a niche audience,” said Lori McCreary, Mr. Freeman’s business partner. ”If you put those audiences together throughout the world, it becomes a big audience.”

Gian-Carlo Scandiuzzi, a co-founder of IndieFlix, said that 10 years ago, most independent filmmakers sought distribution deals with studios they hoped would market their films smartly. ”That has changed,” said Mr. Scandiuzzi. ”Film studios are less likely to buy little-known movies, so the film’s makers have to ask, ‘How can I make money?’ ”

Mr. Scandiuzzi and his business partner, Scilla Andreen, started IndieFlix to give directors a place to sell smaller films that major studios would not choose to distribute. Directors submit their films to IndieFlix, which posts descriptions of them on a Web site. When customers pick a movie to buy, IndieFlix burns it onto a DVD and ships it to them. Each film’s success depends largely on word of mouth.

Since mid-October, when IndieFlix opened for business, the service has sold about 100 copies of movies a day (about 60 are currently for sale on the site) and the average person buys two or three, Ms. Andreen said. By the end of the year, she said, IndieFlix hopes to offer about 160 films. But success may not be easy to measure: IndieFlix does not track filmmakers’ budgets to see if movies make a profit.

”We’re something of a petri dish, and want to see what comes of this venture,” said Ms. Andreen.

Hollywood executives say that movies, particularly independent films, need smart marketing plans to break out of the clutter. At the Sundance Film Festival this year, 2,600 feature films were submitted for review, and only 120 were accepted.

Mr. Berney said that most filmmakers still needed a relationship with a studio to succeed. When he was involved in the release of ”Happiness” in 1998, he said, ”I did it out of my house with a telephone.” But he conceded he would not have been able to do so if he had not had longstanding relationships in Hollywood. ”I had a lot of connections to the film business,” he said.

Peter Broderick, president of Paradigm Consulting, an independent film consultant based in Santa Monica, Calif., advises moviemakers on how to distribute their films in theaters and online. In 2003, he attended the Cannes Film Festival, where he helped sell ”Faster,” an independent documentary film about motorcycle racing narrated by Ewan McGregor. It had a limited release in theaters.

The makers of ”Faster” had the right to sell the DVD themselves, and the film got its biggest boost on its Web site, Fastermovie.com. In particular, said Mr. Broderick, ”They had a killer trailer.”

Mr. Broderick said the film sold 5,000 DVD’s the first two weeks it was for sale online, and an additional 8,000 DVD’s in subsequent months. He estimated that by selling the DVD for about $23, the filmmakers earned about $16 to $18 per disc, compared with the $2 they would have made under a standard studio contract.

Later, when the filmmakers sold the DVD in retail stores, they added a bonus documentary and more footage. And as an incentive for fans who already owned the DVD, they offered a free T-shirt with the purchase of a second. Mr. Broderick said the film sold about 50,000 DVD’s in retail stores and an additional 7,000 of the extended version on the Web site.

But most important, filmmakers get the names and e-mail addresses of fans, and can use that information to market their other movies, Mr. Broderick said. ”The filmmakers have a sense of their audience that the studios don’t,” he said.

While most do-it-yourself distributors focus on online marketing or DVD sales, 2929 Entertainment works more broadly. The company has several entities: HDNet Films, which finances smaller-budget movies; Magnolia Pictures, a distributor; Landmark Theaters; and HDNet and HDNet Movies for cable broadcast.

Mr. Wagner, Mr. Cuban and Mr. Soderbergh plan to release ”Bubble” simultaneously in their theaters, on DVD and on cable television. What the three men are proposing is a radical — and, to theater owners and existing distributors, not particularly welcome — model of how movies could be distributed one day. Theater owners complained several months ago when some media executives said the window between a movie’s theatrical and DVD release would shrink. And video rental stores, which already fear going out of business if their renting customers become retail buyers, worry about an acceleration of that trend.

None of that is lost on Mr. Wagner, who conceded that a same-day multifaceted release of ”Bubble” would not be possible if his group did not own both theaters and a cable channel. ”It’s not by coincidence,” said Mr. Wagner. ”I know if I went to another theater and said, ‘Let’s sell the movie at the same time on DVD and in the theater,’ they would say ‘no.’

”I don’t think there is a right answer yet. We are experimenting. If we are just dead wrong, we are not going to do it anymore.”

IndieFlix pitches way of selling hidden screen gems

By Heidi Dietrich

January 22, 2006, Sunday

Local Internet DVD company IndieFlix scored the chance last week to pitch its novel film distribution model to movie moguls gathered at a panel for the Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah.

IndieFlix by passes traditional film distribution by allowing consumers to buy independent films directly, rather than wait for the film to be bought and distributed by a production company or studio. Filmmakers submit their films to be listed on the IndieFlix Web site.

When a customer decides to order the movie, IndieFlix makes a DVD of the film, and the filmmaker receives one-¬third of the $9.95 sales price.

In Park City last week, IndieFlix founders and principals Carlo Scandi¬zzi and Scilla Andreen planned to network with production companies that could use IndieFlix’s Web site to identi¬fy possible films for theatrical release. Studios could see which films post high DVD sales, as IndieFlix automatically tracks and features the top selling films on the site, drawing more customers to those pictures.

“IndieFlix works organically, so the good ones bubble up to the top,” Andreen said.

Sundance, the largest independent film festival in the United States, is seen as a launching ground for companies and filmmakers.

“Sundance is a great place to promote and find business opportunities,” Scandiuzzi said. “We want IndieFlix to be a conversation point on the streets and in the cafes.” Michael Siewerath, executive director of Northwest Film Forum, also traveled to Sundance and believes the festival is a good opportunity for an emerging company like IndieFlix.

“There are an obscene number of filmmakers in Park City right now to network and see films,” Siewerath said.

Whether IndieFlix will change the way filmmakers sell their movies remains to be seen; the four month old company has yet to make a profit and is still building its film library. Paul Matthaeus, president of Seattle based production company Digital Kitchen, questioned whether many consumers would be motivated to search through all the films, order and wait for a DVD for a fee that’s higher than a Blockbuster rental, and then find the time to actually watch it.

“It probably will be very much a fringe factor,” said. “But it does allow another outlet for indepen¬dent voices to be heard.”

Since IndieFlix accepts all films, regardless of quality, consumers must be willing to hunt for the gems. Siewerath said he believes film distribution will never move entirely toward a system like IndieFlix, as curated collections will always appeal to discriminating movie viewers.

“I think it would be bad if IndieFlix was the only portal and nothing was filtered, but I do think there is a place out there for a completely unfiltered swap meet of DVD sales,” Siewerath said.

So far, IndieFlix has posted about 100 films on the site, and another 100 to 120 are in the pipeline. On average, the com¬pany is adding 30 to 40 new movies a month. Clips, trailers and filmmaker interviews let customers sample the films. Right now, IndieFlix is selling about 20 movies a day.

“A model like this works with vol¬ume,” Scandiuzzi said. “We need to have several thousand movies.”

Scandiuzzi and Andreen, driven by IndieFlix’s social mission, see their dis¬tribution model as a way for more film¬makers to have their voices heard.

“We are trying to do something that’s so right and fair and different,” Scandiuzzi said.

IndieFlix grew out of Scandiuzzi’s increasing frustration with securing distribution for the science fiction films he produced through his now defunct production company. As Hollywood began producing more and more films, independent production companies began finding it harder to land a movie on the big screen. Previously Scandiuzzi could make money selling B movies overseas, but foreign audiences have started clamoring for big name films.

“There was no good way to get out movies like ours,” Scandiuzzi said.

Other filmmakers share Scandiuzzi’s frustration and are seeking alternative distribution methods. Hollywood direc¬tor Steven Soderbergh, for instance, plans to release future projects to the¬ater, television and DVD simultaneous¬ly. Closer to home, NetMusic Entertain¬ment Corp. of Edmonds sells digital mu¬sic and independent films by streaming video or download.

Scandiuzzi and Andreen partnered up just last year, but the two are old family friends and have known each other for 27 years. Both have lengthy film and en¬tertainment resumes prior to IndieFlix. Scandiuzzi transformed the Showbox in Seattle from a bingo hall to a music venue, and produced films. Andreen was a costume designer in Los Ange¬les for the television series “The Won¬der Years,” “Party of Five,” “Dawson’s Creek,” “Smallville,” and “What I Like About You.

IndieFlix offers filmmakers web-based DVD distribution

Love it or hate it, filmmakers are getting more and more options for getting their films in front of an audience. Last week, Erik reported on controversial billionaire/Landmark Theaters owner Mark Cuban’s plans to allow indie filmmakers to rent screen space in Landmark theaters. This week we bring you tidings of the another development into indie film distribution: IndieFlix, a website that allows filmmakers to submit their films, which are then featured on the Seattle-based company’s website. Viewers can then purchase DVDs of the films they are interested in through the site for $9.95, and IndieFlix burns the DVDs on-demand and ships them out.

The service has a great market; indie filmmakers, shooting on shoestring budgets and strapped for cash, can distribute their films at a grassroots level and avoid the potential pitfalls that come with distribution deals. Filmmakers would still, of course, have to market and promote, but hey – they have to do that with distributor deals now.

What do you think about all these changes blowin’ in the wind for indie film? Do they ultimately spell the demise of traditional distribution channels, as more artists opt to self-promote and retain more rights? Or will traditional models triumph with their deeper pockets, theater chain connections and marketing moxy?

With new technology giving the power to the people, moviemakers are discovering that do-it-yourself distribution may be the way to go.

It’s a scenario that’s all too familiar to hundreds of moviemakers: You’ve spent years pouring blood, sweat and tears (not to mention your rich uncle’s money) into your first movie. You’ve cut corners and costs, called in favors and maxed out credit cards to get your magnum opus made. A couple of small film festivals have accepted it into their lineups and the crowd at the premiere liked what they saw. Maybe you brought it back home and screened the movie once or twice locally. Then the smoke cleared and you sat by the phone, waiting for the call from that big/medium/small distributor which, with the whisk of a pen, could make all your dreams come true. So you wait. And you wait. And you wait…

If your only goal in making a film is getting a distributor to buy it, you’re almost undoubtedly in for a rude awakening. Yes, every year Cinderella stories still happen at festivals like Sundance and Toronto, where little films build buzz and get picked up in seven-figure deals, but those cases are the exception. The more common story goes like this: A good movie gets made, is shown to a handful of people and poof! It’s never heard from again… Unless its creators decide to spend another few years self-distributing it, which is a ridiculous notion anyway because those things never work out, right?

Wrong! The landscape for self-distribution has changed drastically in the last few years. While there’s no such thing as a sure thing, the do-it-yourself route has come a long way from the days when the only option was “four-walling” orphan films into theaters for a steep fee. Yes, it’s still possible to hit the jackpot the old-fashioned way. People point to Gene Cajayon, who took his low-budget romantic comedy, The Debut, on the road for two years, grossed over $1 million by working the overlooked Asian-American audience and now has a home video distribution deal with Columbia/Tri-Star. The wait-and-see method of schlepping a film to festivals and limited-engagement art-house runs until a name distributor comes a calling also has its share of success stories, notably with Keith Beauchamp’s The Untold Story of Emmett Louis Till (his dogged efforts to get the film seen eventually attracted the attention of THINKFilm) and Caveh Zahedi’s self-confessional I Am a Sex Addict (he’s sharing a service deal with IF C Films). Thanks to a whole new set of factors, however, moviemakers intent on going DIY now have other options besides driving their prints from theater to theater.

Zack Coffman and Scott Di Lalla spent a little over a year working on their documentary, Choppertown: The Sinners, which follows a custom bike club dedicated to building tricked-out choppers. “They’re all modern-day greasers in their late twenties and early thirties,” Coffman says. “They make inexpensive, garage-built bikes. We were making an inexpensive, garage-built film, so we could relate.” The directors wanted to get the blessing of the Sinners before they started showing the movie around, so they arranged a screening for the group and invited along some journalists from motorcycle and car magazines. It was a smart move. The gearhead press immediately started spreading the word to the film’s core demographic.

“We were still thinking we’d try to shop it to the studios,” Coffman recalls. “We were just starting to map out a game plan when we started getting all these calls from people asking, ‘Where is this playing? When is it showing again? Can I buy a DVD?’ We just got inundated with tons of e-mails and pre-orders… So we thought, let’s start selling it until we get something going. We set up a Website and managed to move several thousand copies in about four months.”

Though Coffman and Di Lalla still have their eyes on a theatrical deal, they’ve already managed to get their film directly into the hands of their audience via the Internet and jumpstart a grassroots marketing campaign. “The film festival scene is pretty political… especially the bigger ones,” confirms Coffman. “If you don’t have a rep or you don’t know the people running them, it’s tough to get all the programmers to look at it. But we had all these people who’d seen the film at a friend’s house and the next thing you know, they’re calling us up and wanting to organize screenings on their own. We suddenly had people from Paris, Tokyo and London coordinating public showings and selling the disc in their shops for us. They all wanted to be part of this cool thing we’d done, and we haven’t had to spend a dime on advertising yet.”

Thanks to the Web’s ability to reach a community of people with just a few mouse clicks, moviemakers have found the Internet to be a key tool in creating awareness (and cutting out the middleman) when it comes to their films. After Maine-based director Dana Packard and writer-actress Jennifer Nichole Porter procured a sales agent and organized an industry screening for their independent drama, Mr. Barrington, at the DGA Theater in New York, they received a handful of offers. None, however, would allow them to recoup their expenses.

“The sorts of deals that were getting floated toward us at the end weren’t going to enable us to pay our investors back,” says Packard. “It became apparent that getting a theatrical release wasn’t going to happen, so I started researching how DVD distribution is set up… Normally, through a distributor, you get $.25 back for every disc sold. On our own, we were clearing $7.00 per product and we were able to pay for the first batch of DVDs—as well as shipping and managerial costs—strictly from those online sales.”

Like the Choppertown folks, Packard took advantage of the Net’s viral mode of communication. “We followed the model of organizations like MoveOn.org,” Packard admits. “We sent out e-mails about the film to those who might be interested and it didn’t cost us anything. By going to fan sites for someone like [star] Eric Schweig, we were able to let his fan base know directly that he was involved with this project and asked them to tell their friends.”

Producer Paco de Onis has been fortunate enough to see State of Fear, his documentary on Peru’s terrorist insurgent group Shining Path, get some very lucky breaks. An executive at National Geographic Channel International had seen an ad hoc trailer the moviemakers had put together during production and bought the worldwide TV rights. Director Pamela Yates also knew Karen Cooper, a programmer at Film Forum, and with her help Yates was able to organize a successful theatrical run, which opened up opportunities in other parts of the country. When distributors did come calling, however, de Onis wasn’t sure it was the right road to go down.

“Political documentaries like this one need special attention and care,” says de Onis. “Many distributors don’t have the time or patience for them, and if it doesn’t really do well that first weekend, a lot of distributors will just shelf the film.” De Onis recalls what happened to Peter Raymont’s Shake Hands with the Devil: The Journey of Roméo Dallaire, a well-made doc about the head of the UN peacekeeping mission in Rwanda. It got great buzz after showing at Sundance and came out right on the heels of Hotel Rwanda, “so it had a lot going for it. But then the movie played at Film Forum for one week and just disappeared altogether. That’s just one example; there are dozens of others. Plus, most distributors will offer you around 20 percent of the cost of the DVD sales, but that’s after expenses and marketing. It’s a long time before you see any money.”

So de Onis decided to self-distribute the film, contacting human rights film festivals and working the Latin American audience by appearing on Univision and Telemundo to promote the film. It was after he hooked up with the independent moviemaking co-op New Day Films, however, that he was able to start generating a profit.

“They are the original self-distributors,” says de Onis. “They started up 35 years ago and handle films that have appeal to the educational market. They even have their own fulfillment house that collects orders, takes the money and ships products out. You have to promote your film, but they take care of the nuts and bolts of getting the film out there to universities and institutes who will buy the DVD.”

Even if a moviemaker isn’t making features designed to shed light on injustice or appeal to the institutional market, there are still companies like BuyIndies.com, FilmBaby.com and IndieFlix.com that can offer support. While they aren’t co-ops, they do act as effective online bazaars where moviemakers can sell their movies directly to consumers without getting gouged, percentage-wise. (Depending on the service, an artist can earn as high as a 90 to 100 percent return.) Though word-of-mouth may drive a number of consumers to someone’s Website, having a film featured alongside like-minded products in its genre offers exposure to a much larger consumer base. In the case of IndieFlix, you don’t even need to pay for materials. After you submit your film, they’ll burn it right onto a disc and ship it out. Since many of these companies are run by former or current independent moviemakers, they tend to keep the emphasis on making sure the struggling artist is well-served.

Thanks to these companies and others like them, the self-distributing moviemaker now has an online commerce-based infrastructure. As the largely untested video-on-demand (VOD) format comes of age in the next few years, it’s easy to see similar service-based sites springing up. Soon it may be possible to bypass theatrical releases altogether. For those still clamoring to get their work seen on a big screen without selling their souls, private consultants like Peter Broderick’s Paradigm Consulting and Withoutabox.com’s recent The Distribution Lab project—which will allow a handful of applicants access to everything from catalog services and accounting to DVD and download fulfillment capability—can shepherd moviemakers through the self-distribution process in a user-friendly manner.

Though the fact that self-distribution is still an exhausting process—moviemakers must do the job of a well-oiled marketing department with a tiny fraction of the budget of most small distribution companies—the one thing that those who’ve gone through the experience agree on is that it can also be empowering. “Everything is ours, so if in the future someone big does want to come around or a studio wants to add it to their library, they have to deal with us,” says Coffman. “It ends up being worth a lot more in the long run, and since we know we can live off this, we can wait until an offer comes around that we are comfortable with.”

“There was this mentality that you had to take the first deal that’s offered to you, no matter how bad it was,” Packard concurs. “That’s no longer the case. The advantage is that you own it… That may seem like a lonely proposition when it feels like nobody wants your film right away, but the reality of it is that it’s a powerful position to be in. There’s this whole vast gray area between the great distribution deal and the lonely person holding their movie. But my feeling is, I’d rather be the lonely guy holding his movie if it means that my investors will be paid back and people will still get to see it.” MM

Indie filmmakers get another venue to show their work
by Kristi Heim, The Seattle Times

Indie filmmakers get another venue to show their work

Picture: Indieflix.com, an online seller of independent films.

Credits: Carlo Scandiuzzi and Scilla Andreen co-founded the company to allow filmmakers to showcase their work and connect with consumers. “We made shoes and now we made a shoe store,” says Scandiuzzi, a native of Italy who has been a producer, director, actor and music promoter. Seattle native Andreen has made films and worked as a costume designer on TV shows such as “Dawson’s Creek.”

Latest news: Less than a year after launching the site, they have 130 films for sale and 50 on the way. Filmmakers send their works to be posted on the site. Customers can order any movie for $9.95; one-third of the price goes to the filmmaker. Indieflix burns a DVD of the film and mails it to the customer. The next steps are to offer film downloads and a subscription service.

Quote: “Everybody hopes to be a ‘Napoleon Dynamite,’ ” Scandiuzzi said. “It’s the Hollywood dream. We are creating a new standard where everybody has a chance. We are going to promote every movie and let the audience decide which ones are best.”

Funding: Self-funded. Founders are considering bringing on investors. Competition comes from Amazon and CustomFlix, but Andreen says there’s a big difference: “It’s the human quality.”

Example: Indieflix promoted University of Washington student Josh Caldwell and his short film “The Beautiful Lie,” which won MTV’s best student film competition last week. Afterward, Indieflix posted an exclusive interview with him on its blog, MySpace page and YouTube. The effort is paying off: Caldwell has meetings with Hollywood agents, and Indieflix has a deal with MTV to use its interview footage, Andreen said.

Film festivals: Sundance, Seattle International Film Festival and others.

Favorite films: Andreen likes the original “Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory” and “Breakfast at Tiffany’s,” while Scandiuzzi likes “8-½” and “Blade Runner.”

– Kristi Heim

Pick a Film for SIFF at IndieFlix
By John Cook’s Venture Blog

I spent last Saturday night at the Seattle International Film Festival on Capitol Hill, but maybe I didn’t have to leave the house.

That’s because SIFF is showcasing 10 feature films and 10 short short films on IndieFlix, a Seattle startup that specializes in independent film.

The idea behind the company’s free MyFestival site, as reported today by TechCrunch, is to allow online viewers to choose which films will be showcased at the closing night gala. Those who are logged onto the site can vote until June 8.

In a blog post, IndieFlix describes the MyFestival site as “the ultimate test screening and audience building opportunity.”

GridNetworks, the Seattle online video distribution company that announced an investment from Comcast last week, is providing some of the back end technology to make the streaming video experience top notch.

And speaking of Seattle technology startups at SIFF, Pelago, whose mobile social networking application I wrote about last week, was everywhere promoting its Whrrl service. (On ballots and the sponsor ads before the show.)

IndieFlix Introduces Crowdsourced Film Festivals
By TechCrunch

IndieFlix, a marketplace for independent films, has launched MyFestival, a new streaming video site that will let film festivals crowdsource the movie selection process. MyFestival is making its debut in conjunction with the Seattle International Film Festival (SIFF), which is taking place from May 22 to June 15.

For MyFestival’s pilot trial at SIFF, users will be able to stream and vote for any of ten films and ten shorts for free from now until June 8. After the deadline, the votes will be tallied and the winning film will be screened during one of the festival’s most prized time slots. Even the films that don’t win get something out of the deal – the site provides detailed demographic responses that let filmmakers tweak their distribution plans. The site has already forged deals with a number of other festivals, and major venues like Sundance are watching the results closely.

Getting a screening at a film festival can be very competitive, even with hundreds of festivals in the United States annually. Even if a film is screened, getting distribution is considerably more difficult – less than 1% of American films find meaningful distribution. IndieFlix CEO Scilla Andreen says that a new voting system could help expose many of these films to a much broader audience, with the ultimate goal of giving the audience a say in what films are shown at their local multiplex.

Of course, the new system is going to run into a number of problems. The prospect of screening an unreleased film in an uncontrolled environment is a movie studio’s worst nightmare – just plop a video camera in front of the screen and you’ve got a (low quality) copy to share across the internet. Many of the independent filmmakers involved in MyFestival were understandably hesitant to join, but Andreen says that for many of them, the “old school” method hasn’t been working, so they’re willing to try something new.

MyFestival is powered by GridNetworks, a Seattle-based video streaming service. Grid movies require users to install a small “connector” plugin that claims to offer HD quality material in a secure manner. IndieFlix was founded in 2005 and recently closed a $1.3 million Series A round of funding. For the time being MyFestival is totally ad free – the site hopes to finance the site through sponsorships after proving the system’s feasibility. Anther player in the indie film festival space is b-side.

Can’t go to SIFF? No problem. SIFF will come to you.
By Monica Guzman, Seattle PI Online