Hi... I just found this forum and its been a wealth of insightful information.
Like many filmmakers, we jumped into a production completely self-financed. Now that we're in the final stages of post and the film is looking good from a story standpoint, we have started to approach sales agents. Our film is an urban documentary which a strong emphasis on Hip Hop music. The key people in the film are well-known in the industry and outside with each having their own extremely large fan base.
Some of the money that the sales agent is coming back with from distributors in several markets seems low. Now I know what we perceive the value of our film to be vs. what the market will bear may be way off. So I'm wondering what or where I might be able to find out how much distributors may have paid to pick up similar films for? I don't want to jump at the first deals that have come our way, but at the same time we also need to recoup what was already expensed. And at the moment, there is a huge gap.
We're really skeptical of just blindly sending copies of the film. Every film company has interns and its always possible that one copy will find its way onto the internet and eventually bootlegged somewhere.
So, are sales agents worth the % or is it just as possible to find distributors on our own? Our thinking is to set up sales screenings on our own and invite distributors. Has anyone been successful with this?
Sorry for the rambling. This is actually the condensed version.
D.
Like many filmmakers, we jumped into a production completely self-financed. Now that we're in the final stages of post and the film is looking good from a story standpoint, we have started to approach sales agents. Our film is an urban documentary which a strong emphasis on Hip Hop music. The key people in the film are well-known in the industry and outside with each having their own extremely large fan base.
Some of the money that the sales agent is coming back with from distributors in several markets seems low. Now I know what we perceive the value of our film to be vs. what the market will bear may be way off. So I'm wondering what or where I might be able to find out how much distributors may have paid to pick up similar films for? I don't want to jump at the first deals that have come our way, but at the same time we also need to recoup what was already expensed. And at the moment, there is a huge gap.
We're really skeptical of just blindly sending copies of the film. Every film company has interns and its always possible that one copy will find its way onto the internet and eventually bootlegged somewhere.
So, are sales agents worth the % or is it just as possible to find distributors on our own? Our thinking is to set up sales screenings on our own and invite distributors. Has anyone been successful with this?
Sorry for the rambling. This is actually the condensed version.
D.
