Independant film promotion service

[Simon Scott]

Everyone,

I am in the process of setting up a promotion company specifically for independant and low budget films.

The service would provide all administrative responsibilities for submitting your films to festivals and distributers. Building a website for your film and promoting it within the press. Poster and postcard design etc.

Is this something which you feel would be of value to independent films?

The cost would probably be in the region of a one of payment of ?200-?300 UKpounds plus a percentage of any revenue from the film.

Please let me have your feedback on this.

[Xendar]

Hi Simon,
Sounds like a good idea. I think it would be really useful for first time film makers who aren't sure of where to find the relevent info. It might be a good idea to offer a service to help people get funding for their films from local authority grants, lottery funding etc.


Mark Smith
Neon Films www.neonfilms.freeserve.co.uk

[Littlerich]

Simon,

I think that a promotion company especially for independent film makers / low budget films is a great idea.

The only thing I disagree with is the price you've quoted.
For a lot of small, first time films that are Low Budget, I think the ?200-?300 would be too much.
I know it doesn't sound a lot, but if you consider that some of the low budget films are made on LESS than this, it is a bit un-nerving.

As for the website service, a lot of people can now design their own site using either frontpage/word/html.
I think that if you organised your company so that the process of distribution (which I know NOTHING about, and don't pretend I do) would cost a very SMALL fee (Eg. ?10), then the vast majority of directors/producers/film-makers would benefit, and as a business, you would have more people spending more money.

1 Film x ?200 = ?200.

20 Films x ?10 = ?200

I hope this helps. If you want further comments / help, don't hesitate in contacting me.




------------------
KEEP FOCUSED!
Little Rich.
http://go.to/littlerich
www.rmsgraffix.freeserve.co.uk
[email protected]

[miker]

Sounds like a good idea, as long as you are doing it for the right reasons, and have good contacts.

[eddie]

I dont want to offend anyone here, but if you cant rustle up at least 200 quid to promote your film then is it really worth promoting?

You promote something so that people will buy it or at least watch it. If you cant get together 200 pounds then you must doubt that you will make that back from it.

I mean the film has already been made by this time, so if no-one is impressed enough to lend you the money *just* to promote it then perhaps its bobbins and you should just concentrate on the next one.....

200 quid is NOTHING to spend on promotion, face it most things have the hell promoted and hyped out of them. Ill wager for most large films of 6 figure budgets a good 10%-20% of that (at least) is spent on promotion.

[Chance1234]

Dont want to sound pedantic here , but thinking ?200-?300 quid a film, and you would hanble festival entries etc etc. promotion Ad-min getting to distribution etc etc

ok lets say you have 10 films which you are promoting and theres 4 festivals coming up

posting package for a 10 films to each festival is going to come to about

?100

plus if your going to be promoting htese at all festivals there , then theres going to be the cost of duplication so that would be aprox. for the lot

?80

then theres the packing nicce cover and press release thats going to be about 4-5 quid a tape, so 40 tapes that another

?80


then theres all your other releases , press

say another ?50

so thats so far a cost of ?330 for one lot of festical and one lot of tapes
so lets say you charged the full 300 quid you would have ?3000 in the bank before now you would have 2670, dont seem to bad well firstly theres going to be VAT on what your charging so if thats ?300 quid including VAT.

so thats ?525 quid away from the 2670 so thats 2145

lets say so far this has been a months work, out of that you'll probably have bank charges to pay which is another ?60 ,
then your accountant ?70
Phone Bill - ?100
Office - ?180(persuming you are going to go one man at first and cheapest you can)
Business Rates - ?72
General Overheads - ?200

so thats ?682 out of the 2145

?1463

ok then let the Tax man have his share

?1024

still doesnt look bad ? - wrong

if you do the web sites as well your oging to have to pay ?60 for there prescence a year so thats got to go from the original ?3000 true you only pay it once but lets sya htis is your first month

so were now down to

?424

for which you got to pay your PAYE and a Salary

so you would get roguhly

?313 quid for that month

so we move on to the next month, your not going to be paying the web fee's this time surely that money should go back up plus hopefully then theres soem money form festivals and distributin your saying.

ok fair point, but
say you get another 10 films in thats going to double your costs for festivals etc, as i pesume your not going to promote a film once then bin it and you already spent most of the moeny you charged for the first lot, when you get a few months down the line at say ten films a month in, 4 festivals a month your going to ende up in the red pretty quick in your costs

ok income side

say out of that ten films from the first month a distribution company snaps it up , unkown indy production unles sits the next mariachi you'll probably see about 0 to 0.5 % of the money from the sales they are far more likely to go straight to the produciotn company its self and buy the rights, unless you are going to actually obtain all the rights to the film your promoting which then moves your business into a different light you then got to thing legal fee's etc etc , the distribution co will want eveyr penny they can get from it and looking at indy sales even thats not a lot, plus payments are done twice a year (normally) so you could have to wait 6 months before seeing any money say it takes 60 000 from video sales your going to see ?3000 but......... Third party tax is going to kill it down to ?1200 plus your going to have to pay corporate tax on it , and your long term costs will probably have minus that out. and thats if it even makes that amount of money. plus theres all the cost of getting distributors to see it in te first place

not wanting to put you off, but make sure you have a good bit of capital behind you and one hell of a dammm good business plan.


[This message has been edited by Chance1234 (edited July 19, 2000).]

[darthshawn]

This is a novel idea. But how about the concept of paying the filmakers for distribution rights?