Shooting People » Jon Reiss

New Breed in Park City

ingrid — Fri, 29 Jan 2010 04:10:13 +0000

Some useful ideas explored here from New Breed - these are part of an on-going series from Filmmaker Magazine and The WorkBook Project to document the Filmmaker Summit held last Saturday at Slamdance (more about this to follow soon).

Filmmakers Zak Forsman and Kevin K. Shah of Sabi Pictures arrive at Park City with an intent to define the questions most relevant to independent distribution options. Insights from Brian Newman, Dan Mirvish, Jon Reiss and Ira Deutchman open a path toward discovering some real solutions.

SABI filmmakers Zak Forsman and Kevin K. Shah move away from identifying the questions toward some possible answers that may, in fact, lead to the solutions we seek. Insights from Linas Phillips (Bass Ackwards), Habib Azar (Armless), Dan Mirvish, and Brian Newman are fleshed out with more thoughts from the pre-Filmmaker Summit roundtable.

SABI filmmakers Zak Forsman and Kevin K. Shah move away from identifying the questions toward some possible answers that may, in fact, lead to the solutions we seek. Insights from Linas Phillips (Bass Ackwards), Jon Reiss and Brian Newman are fleshed out with more thoughts from the pre-Filmmaker Summit roundtable.

Are you going to be at Sundance/Slamdance? Consult with Jon Reiss

ingrid — Tue, 12 Jan 2010 16:05:09 +0000

We’re big fans of Jon Reiss’ book, Think Outside the Box Office. Jon is offering filmmakers a really great consultation opportunity so if you’re headed to Park City you’ll want to read this:

As some of you might know, one of the reasons that I wrote Think Outside the Box Office was after those first Filmmaker articles I wrote in Fall ‘08 about my experiences distributing my graffiti doc Bomb It, many filmmakers contacted me to help them with their films. However they were all broke, as most filmmakers are. The book started as a brain dump so that I could share my experiences with others. I figured people could at least afford $20-$25. (After many requests the book is now available as a PDF from my site for $14.95)

But filmmakers still need individual advice; how to apply the new distribution and marketing models and landscape to their specific films. And unfortunately since filmmakers in general are not saving money for distribution and marketing, they are still broke.

So I wanted to do some kind of community consulting “event” at Park City this year. I thought about sitting in a coffee shop for 2 hours a day and having online sign ups for 20 minute sessions (I still might do this if enough people request it).

However, Lance Weiler asked me to do a live consulting session at the Slamdance Filmmaker Summit (Saturday January 23rd) with two filmmaking teams one narrative/one doc. Anyone in Park City can attend and it can also be live streamed (along with the rest of the Summit that I recommend you all check out).

I’ve decided to expand this to 10 more feature filmmakers from either Sundance or Slamdance. I will provide 45 minutes of consultation by phone or Skype before the festival begins and 45 minutes during the festival. This can be used in any way the filmmakers want, from helping to devise a complete DIY scenario, to getting my opinion on any deals being offered.

For selection any interested film should email me by Thursday January 14th by noon at reiss.jon@gmail.com. Send me what you have eg synopsis, trailer, website, plans you have in mind etc.

I will pick the films and announce them by Friday January 15th.

For any other Sundance/Slamdance filmmaker not chosen I will be reducing my consulting rate before and during the festival from $75 an hour to $50 an hour. This rate will apply even for the chosen films if they want to go beyond the first hour and a half.

You can follow Jon’s blog here.

Jon Reiss Shows You How to Think Outside the Box Office

ingrid — Fri, 18 Dec 2009 12:09:31 +0000

If you haven’t picked up a copy of Jon Reiss’ Think Outside the Box Office do yourself a favor and grab one now. Whatever kind of distribution and marketing strategy you are pursuing for your film (and if you haven’t got a strategy yet this book will help you develop one!), there are loads of good tips and ideas in here for you. This is a time when we all need to be sharing as many resources as possible to make the long, hard road of getting a film made and seen feel just a little bit less like venturing forth into complete Terra Incognita. There are lots of great folk out there helping to clear a path through the wilderness, like Ted Hope with Truly Free Film for example, but we all need to share what we are learning as we re-invent the future. So read this book and pass it on!

Great tips from Filmmaker Magazine

ingrid — Tue, 21 Apr 2009 19:31:35 +0000

Select stories from the Spring issue of Filmmaker Magazine are now online and there are a couple of articles I particularly recommend as far as tools you can use goes:

Esther Robinson tells you how to keep your credit sweet.

And Jon Reiss gives some great pointers on marketing DVDs on the web.

Filmmakers talk about shooting films with still camera.

And Lance Weiler talks about building community on torrent sites.

Film Festival Strategy

ingrid — Fri, 09 Jan 2009 20:13:06 +0000

Sundance is going to be interesting this year. With the economy in the dumps there is almost certainly not going to be the usual sales activity, and hopefully filmmakers will be going there with expectations firmly in check. This could actually be a good thing for Sundance. As Steven Zeitchik writes in the Hollywood Reporter:

But what these breakouts show is that the fest’s main value might now lie in the classic indie model, in which little money is spent and little is earned. The payoff comes in the form of critical cachet and awards, not in a “Little Miss Sunshine”-style plug-and-play blockbuster. It’s a switch that takes the fest back to its emergence two decades ago, when movies like “sex, lies & videotape” were championed not as possible crossover hits but as giving rise to directorial talent and even a new style of filmmaking.

Such a shift would dovetail, in a sense, with the festival’s own ambitions. While organizers haven’t voiced outright opposition to the sales market as they have with swag and ambush marketing, they have had an ambivalent relationship with it: Organizers like the heat and industry attendance it brings but privately worry that it puts the emphasis on the big sale instead of the great film.

So, like the Scouts, be prepared and be ready with a strategy that does not stand or fall on a sale. Filmmakers looking for festival strategy tips may already be aware of Chris Gore’s Ultimate Film Festival Survival Guide. I haven’t read them but you might also want to look at Christopher Holland’s Film Festival Secrets: A Handbook for Independent Filmmakers and Heidi Van Lier’s The Indie Film Rule Book. You can read more from Heidi on the Film Independent website here and here. Bomb It director Jon Reiss also has some good advice on his blog, including info about printing postcards and posters.

Shooting People will be reporting from Park City over on our Festival Focus blog so stay tuned!