Selling Your Film Without Selling Your Soul

Selling Your Film Without Selling Your Soul presented by Prescreen:
Case Studies in Hybrid, DIY and P2P Independent Distribution By The Film Collaborative (Orly
Ravid & Jeffrey Winter), Jon Reiss, Sheri Candler
Published by
The Film Collaborative,
3405 Cazador Street,
Los Angeles, CA 90065,
www.thefilmcollaborative.org
All Rights Reserved.
Production Manager: David Averbach
VideoEditor: Samuael Topiary
Trailer Editor: Gene Merker
Cover and Interior Design by: David Averbach
Copyeditor: Susan Lynn
Camera: Jon Reiss, Jon Kendall Winter

Copyright © 2011 by The Film Collaborative, Jon Reiss and Sheri Candler
ISBN 978-0-9838229-8-1 [PDF Edition]
www.sellingyourfilm.com

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments
Foreword
Introduction
Bass Ackwards
A New Path to EngageFilm Audiences and Create Careers: An Introduction
Ride the Divide
Note by Note
The Best and the Brightest
Adventures of Power
American: The Bill Hicks Story
How do Niche Films find their Audiences?
Using Peer to Peer (P2P) Methods to Distribute Film?
List of Questions Given to Participating Filmmakers
About the Authors

Acknowledgments

The Film Collaborative (TFC) is grateful to Sheriand Jon for their delightful collaboration.
Many thanks to all our sponsors for their support and to all our case study subjects for their
diligent and transparent participation: Ari Gold, Anne Bernstein, Paul Thomas, Matt Harlock,
Tom Gustafson, Casper Andreas, Javier Fuentes, Daniel Karslake, and Thomas Woodrow.
Thanks to New Video for offering numbers for Bass Ackwards. Gravitas for theirhelp with
Casper Andreas’ films and American: The Bill Hicks Story. Wolfe for their help with Undertow
and Were the World Mine. Ted Hope for everything. David Averbach for over-delivering as
usual. Gene Merker for rockin’ it on the trailer front. Jon Kendall Winter for on-the-fly shooting.
Samuel Topiary for video editing for the enhanced digital edition. Meredith Scott Lynn for the
name ofthis book. To all the filmmakers and others who helped us narrow down the name.
Susan Lynn for copyediting. TFC’s Board of Directors and Board of Advisors for ongoing
support. And special thanks to TFC legal counsel Cherie Song.
Jon Reiss would like to offer special thanks to Emy Takada, Rory Owen Delaney, Ted Hope,
Hunter Weeks, Mike Dion, Ben Niles, Pat Weiser, Josh Shelov, Declan Baldwin,The IFP
Filmmaker Labs, Lance Weiler, Saskia Wilson Brown, Jill Savarese, Gayon Augustine, John
Gomez, Whitney Smith, Jonah and Cris Goodhart, my incredible collaborators Orly, Jeffrey,
Sheri and of course my loving wife Jill Goldman and children Sam and Lucie Reiss.
Sheri Candler wishes to thank the following people for supporting her with time, love and
patience while writing this book: myearly “title testers” Nelson Carvajal, Richard Purves, Lucas
McNelly, Chris Jones, Zahra Zomorrodian, Peter Ong Lim, Jeanne Bowerman, Obhi Chatterjee,
Darren Young, and Dawn Mikkelson; Ross Pruden, Josh Bernhard, Bracey Smith, Nina Paley,
Nicolás Alcalá, Jennifer Warren, Alberto Lopez, Cheryl Ingrassia, Cary and Kay Brown, Jason
Brubaker, Rick Vaicius, and Phillip, Tristan, Juliana, Rick,Barbara and Erin who all think I’m
mad but are willing to play along. Also my fellow collaborators Orly, Jeffrey, David, Gene and
Jon who are all a source of support in many ways every day.

Foreword
by Ted Hope
Times have changed for Indie Film. Yet Indie Film—as the public still perceives it—at first
appears as if it hasn’t changed with the times at all. Instead of truly evolving as a whole,Indie
Film has come undone, and split apart. It has morphed into new forms, even though the publicity
surrounding it still speaks as if everything were the same as people remember from back in the
age of Pulp Fiction.
What is this new world of Indie? Indie Film has bifurcated and fractured like the mass audience
before it. Sure, some of its practitioners still spend significant budgets and...