Tip 11: Start Your Deliveries During Production
As I continue to create delivery elements for "Bomb It" (for new sales three years after its premiere), I am reminded how onerous they are.
Deliverables are the assets you need to deliver to distributors so that they can exhibit/sell your film.
You need to start developing them during production. You should be organizing your contracts, keeping track of your chain of title (which actually starts at prep) and creating digital assets such as stills and video. Stills are hugely important and you need three types of stills: Of the film, of the crew (mainly the director) and specials of the actors.
Check out a list of conventional deliveries – and then expand that to include any transmedia assets you will need. You’ll thank me for starting earlier than you would have planned to.
Tip 12: Don’t Do Your Deliveries Alone
I mentioned how onerous delivering your film can be. Having someone on your team either help with or do your deliveries is manna from heaven. This alone is reason to have a producer of marketing and distribution. If you are self-distributing or using an involved transmedia project you will have many more deliverables than what is conventional. It is also a reason to start doing them during production, when you have the most crew available to help.
Tip 13: For Docs: Do Your International Cutdown When You Are Cutting Your Film
Documentaries usually need a 52- to 54-minute cutdown of their film to sell to foreign television.
I waited a year before doing my cutdown for "Bomb It," which was way too long. While it did provide me perspective and made it easier for me to slash and burn my film, I essentially had to repeat the entire delivery process for this edit – which was not fun, to say the least.
Further, if you have your cutdown ready when you are finishing – you can make package deals for two separate DIs and two mixes – doing them simultaneously is MUCH better than having to reopen the process later.
Didn't Get into Sundance? Don't Despair
For perspective, I would recommend having a different editor do the cutdown. If you are on a budget, this would be an excellent perk to give to one of your assistant editors. You can then polish it with your editor who is already on staff and might be difficult to engage later.
Tip 14: Full Frame Video Delivery Still Exists
Even though the world is moving to HD and its 16:9 aspect ratio as a standard, some television and VOD contracts require a full-frame 4×3 version. In smaller deals you can often push your way out of this requirement, but on some bigger sales with bigger companies, they just may not take your title if you don’t have a full-frame 4×3 version.
This is not a letterboxed version that has black bars top and bottom. It is the dreaded “pan-and-scan." However, it is a pan-and-scan that you can control – and you can pay to have a pan-and-scan done.
A less expensive approach is a 4×3 extraction. This is a downconvert from HD 16:9 in which a machine pulls the center of the picture into the full 4×3 frame.
Remind yourself that you won’t have to be there when people see it.
You can also wait to do this until you are forced to deliver one. When you are doing your DI – make sure that your titles/subtitles/graphics are very title safe – so that they stay in the frame when the extraction occurs – otherwise you’ll have to replace each of those titles individually – NOT FUN (I know from experience)
Tip 15: Request to Keep Assets that Others Create for Your Film
Make sure you get all of the elements for each stage of the delivery process, whether it is the files for your authored DVD or if it is a subtitled version of your film that a foreign film festival created or if it’s the files for the closed captioning of your film.
I had a closed-captioned version of "Bomb It" created for Canadian television. I received the master HD of this version, but not the closed-captioning file. Because of this I will need to pay for the closed-captioning process again.
I was, however, smart enough to request copies of any subtitled version made for foreign film fest screenings or broadcast.
I just screened "Bomb It" in Tel Aviv. The venue wants to screen it again, but with Hebrew subtitles. I just completed a deal for Israeli television that requires them to provide me with the subtitles and a Hebrew-subtitled DVD. So now I have a DVD to use for the next screening of "Bomb It" – this time with Hebrew subtitles.
My workshops are coming to NYC on June 5-6 organized through IFP – and Vancouver on June 12-13. One of the perks of attending is a digital pack of articles and documents including a delivery schedule and blank boilerplate budget in Excel. I hope to see you there! Check out the book and workshops here.
Previously:
More Film Distribution and Marketing Tips
My Top 5 Film and Distribution Marketing Tips of the Week