Through a bizarre anomaly in the space-time continuum, I received the following email in my in-box. It's dated March 30, 2010, so it's from the future. Since what's being discussed hasn't happened yet, I can't, of course, vouch for its authenticity, but the Internet routing and DNS server codes all seem accurate. I'm going ahead and posting it because this filmmaker's thinking is interesting, but I'm redacting his name and the name of his film so as to protect his privacy. -- S.M.
Dear Friend,
What a tumultuous but exciting two months since our film "(name redacted)" premiered at Sundance!
Thanks to all of you who have enjoyed our film in the past few weeks and for all of the great feedback you've sent to us. Thanks to all of you who provided hospitality to me and our actors when we've come to your town with our movie.
I especially want to thank our investors. When we first pitched this movie three years go, we gave them a business plan printed on fancy paper that convinced them that an independent film was a good investment. We told them about "The Blair Witch Project" and "Little Miss Sunshine," about how foreign moviegoers loved American indies, and about how all the new specialty divisions needed product.
Well, during the making of our film, all this changed. Those specialty divisions started going away, our colleagues began to tell us that the foreign market was in collapse, and all of our friends were premiering films at festivals and not selling them. Suddenly, what we thought was a business plan began to look like fantasy fan fiction.
At this point, we had a split among our producers. Some argued that we were honest with our investors, who had signed off on the risk factors, and that it wasn't our fault that the market collapsed. The Sundance selection was a big deal, and if there was anywhere to sell the film it was there. We should just get a great sales rep, go and see what happens. Others felt we should experiment with some of the new ideas out there, the so-called DIY and hybrid approaches. I have to admit that just handing the film off to someone else was appealing to me -- by the end of postproduction I was completely exhausted.
Then we started showing the film to sales reps. I was thrilled when many of them liked it, told me it was good, and wanted to represent it. And when I asked them if they thought we'd get a theatrical deal, most of them nodded vigorously. A couple, though, were more straightforward, telling me that it was an uncertain marketplace and that while they'd try their best they couldn't offer me any assurances.
And then I had an epiphany. They said my film was good. If they were right, then why would I let the brutal marketplace give everyone the idea that it was bad? I mean, if the film really was a stinker, wouldn't that be the reason I'd just want to hand it off to someone else and move onto my next project? Believing in the film and understanding the marketplace, wouldn't I want to take advantage of the excitement of my festival premiere and all of you fans who have been following our newsletter, Twitter feed and blog and start my distribution immediately?
So, I came up with a plan and met with my investors.
