How to Sell a Film - Navigating Sales Agents and Distributors as a Filmmaker

This week I thought I'd give you my tips on selling a film either through a sales agent or direct to a distributor. I've been through this process many times before so have tried to give you some of the techniques to avoid not getting paid and some of the things in a contract to look out for. 

This isn't a definitive list so please do write in the comments your own experiences and any advice for fellow filmmakers! 

Disclaimer! These tips are based on my own experiences and so should not be considered legal advice. 

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Transcript

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[Music] hi Jim here and you're listening to the honest filmmaker podcast career advice from people in the business so this week I'm going to be talking about sales and distribution I've been through this process many times before it's got a lot of pitfalls it's not much fun but these are my tips for finding a good sales agent and getting a good distribution deal which is quite a fee okay before I go into my tips bit of a legal disclaimer just to say these are my own tips based on my own experience and should not be considered legal advice so my first tip would be if it's not too late for you to think about this at the very beginning of the process so when you're even conceiving of the idea that's going to be your feature or writing your script sit down take a look at it and figure out who it's being made for who's your audience and how you're going to reach them then I potentially contact distributors or sales agents who deal with those type of movies if you can get a sales agent or distributor to hook up a deal with you before you make the film you'll be in a really good position you may even be able to get some money out of them up from so you finished your film you've got your feature done you're trying to work out where am I going to put it am I going to put it on an aggregator or am I going to give it to a sales agent to sell to distributors or am I going to sell to Distributors direct so first off let's talk about sales agents now sales agents don't get a great reputation when it comes to micr budget film there are some honest out there but you really need to be careful the first thing you need to do is some research now the way I do my research is I would come up with a huge spreadsheet massive list of sales agents all of the ones from can you can go on there's lots of indexes of these you can find find this massive list go through straight away strike off the ones that aren't relevant they might be uh looking at a particular Niche that doesn't fit your film so I'd strike off the ones that aren't relevant to you then once you've done that I'd look at who's in charge of Acquisitions and I contact them with an email hi Jim here honest filmmaker just made a film here's the trailer here's a poster would you like to watch the full film now it's a numbers game you're going to have to send a lot of these screening links out there is a Facebook group I'm a member of for um films trying to find distribution it's a really good one to pick up tips on people not to do business with who stiffed filmmakers in the past I definitely get on that because that'll give you some information and the good thing about that is if you do find a sales agent you can then mention that on the group and you'll get comments from everybody if anyone's done business with them and if they're a company to avoid or if they're one that actually pays so once you've got a sales agent who is interested in representing your film I would then look at the films that they represent and contact the filmmakers from those films so i' pick some directors and producers of those movies Chuck on a message you'll be able to find them on Facebook Twitter all over the place chuckle message hi Jim here honest filmmaker you've been dealing with with such and such sales agent how have you found it have you got paid would you be prepared to do a jump on a quick Zoom with me and talk about the business that you've done with them from this you'll very quickly be able to discern if they're worth doing business with because if the filmmakers had a bad experience they will not hesitate to tell you and equally if they've had a good experience they'll probably be happy to let you know once you've done your research the next part is really important and I fall foul for this every single time in this situation remember this is a business deal so you cannot trust your gut never trust your gut never go with your heart always go with your head now I'm quite a trusting person so I'm probably the worst person to be in the contract negotiations for a film however I'm luckily I'm married to somebody who's quite astute and good at seeing a deal for what it is so what I'd suggest is always take your contract take your deal take the description of your sales agent to a third party or somebody who has got that levelheaded view who look at it won't get too attached to it because you might be a year after production desperate to get your film released you might not be the best person to make a decision about whether a sales agent is right for you or not because you just might want to get it out there and there's a game we often play as filmmakers where we go well I just want it released you know it' be good for exposure it be good to get it out there be good you've got cast and crew when's the film coming out how's it coming it's worth waiting it's worth slowing your roll figuring out if you're going to actually make any money out of this deal because your project no matter what it is is worth money to somebody so you've got to either find the audience find the distributor or find the correct sales agent for you in the past I've had situations where I totally fell in love with a sales agent I've listened to the Spiel I've you know I've been to a party they've been there or I've heard them talk about the films they represent how passionate they are about my film how much they love it and it's easy to get sucked in by by that and make a deal based on that feeling you're getting here what you need to do is look at the cold hard facts look at the people they've worked with what their experience is like look at the numbers on the piece of paper and look at what they're promising you now the contract again this is not my skill set so luckily I'm married to my producing partner and she is really good at going through contracts with a fine tooth cone and it is definitely worth getting somebody who's happy to do that to take a look if you can't afford legal advice it's definitely worth going through it a couple of things I'd look out for uh definitely are the term of the contract so you want that to be as short as possible so 7 to 10 to 15 years um there are some companies out there are now doing a contract in perpetuity I've heard the word eternity mentioned in some um you don't want to sign a contract like that because you don't know where you'll be 10 years from now and you don't know what platforms there'll be or how you can even deliver a film so you want to keep that contract fairly uh the term of that contract fairly short you also want to make sure the end of that term has a clause that you can get out so most contracts will have something like uh when the term's up they get six months or a year to finish up any deals they've got and then the film comes back to you but you do have to give them notice on you exiting that contract it's worth creating a spreadsheet if you've got a lot of films or if you got a lot of projects on the go it's worth creating a spreadsheet and keeping track of when you sign that contract and when it's till so that you know if only your contract is coming up you can potentially give notice and start to think about alternative ways of making money out it one of the other terms to look out for in a contract is cross collateralization so this is where your film gets put into a pot with a bunch of other movies and then the payment for that is spread out you do not want cross collateralization and you don't want to give them the option to cross collateralize your film your film is an individual film and should be treated that way sales forecasts Okay so you've got your film you're really excited about getting out there then you get this spreadsheet spreadsheets amazing it's got the best amount you'll get and the worst amount you'll get and like me I'm a bright side person so I'm looking at that positive list going wow seeing all those zeros wow this is how much they could potentially get make for my film those sales forecasts unfortunately you need to look at them and take them with a pinch of salt because until you've actually got a deal until somebody's agreed to pay that money that's all they are is projections that's nothing set in Stone uh I've had deals before where we've even had to go under the lowest amount that offer uh and things change with the market things change with the world that mean things aren't as worth as much as they were or they're worth more than you think so again take the notice of the sales projections unless You' spoken to a filmmaker who got sales projections and got exactly what they were promised if you can and this isn't easy if you can get upfront money amazing now this might depend on your particular project or if you've got tons and tons of Festival and someone wants to snap it up you might get lucky and get some upfront cash but again go through that contract with a fine tooth conb and find out where that money's coming from so if you're getting money is it coming after sales agent fees have come out are they taking that money first are you ever going to see any money after that because it might be that you know you get that big amount up front and just consider that okay that's how much I've sold my film for for the next time I'll be lucky if I get anything else on top of that then there's the legendary sales fees Market fees sales agent percentages and unfortunately when you look at that contract and you see those amounts they usually not prepared to negotiate too much on them that is unfortunately a price you're going to have to pay to go with that particular sales agent so if you believe you've done your research you've checked the contract you're happy then you've got to appreciate that that's the amount they've got to make before you're going to see a penny and it's worth thinking about that money waterfall who's getting paid first and what all because I guarantee you most contracts will be structured so that you'll be the last one in that waterfall and in most cases unfortunately you'll be lucky if you get splashed a little bit with a little bit of cash as the final bits hit the water one thing I would ask a sales agent is what is your strategy for releasing my film who are you going to try where are you going to go who are you going to speak to and how are you going to pitch it because you want to know that they're going to do some work on it you're going to want to know that they're going to um actually promote it and they've got people to pass that project too so it's really worth looking at their catalog and how you fit into that so the other option you've got is dealing direct with Distributors now this can be quite tough because you're essentially negotiating and doing the work of a sales agent for your own movie and that's not easy um and sales agents have already got all these relationships established so the chances of you cold calling a distributor and managing to get your film released a relatively small I've done it before myself it does work work if you strike up that uh relationship with a distributor but what the sales agent protects them from is uh bad deliverables is timings is not very good contracts all that kind of stuff so if you're going to deal direct with a distributor you really need to be professional and you really need to know what your film's worth going into those conversations something to distributor might ask for and it's often in the list of deliverables you need to supply the film with is e Ando insurance now if you don't know Eno insurance is errors and Emissions insurance and it's Insurance to protect whoever releases the film from any kind of litigation now the thing about enr insurance is it can be quite expensive on a feature film at the moment I think you're looking at about three grand so that's a huge chunk of money especially if you've made the film on a micro budget you might not have that money so if you haven't got Eno Insurance Don't Panic you can speak to a sales agent when you sign with them and say I haven't got that the distributor is going to have to take take on that cost or you're going to have to take that cost out of the money the distributor pays us they might be fine with that but I'd certainly ask if a sales agent uh offers to give get you know insurance for you and take it off the back end I'd certainly ask to see that certificate to make sure you've paid the right price for it so just to go through those again do your research never trust your gut don't you get the feels I really like these people don't trust it get somebody level-headed involved make sure you go through that contract with a fine too cone check out for cross collateralization and the term of your contract make sure you got all your deliverables wave goodbye to those sales fees because they're not coming back take the sales forecast with a pinch of salt and just be aware of where you sit in that payment schedule and when you potentially get paid I hope that's helped please do follow the honest filmmaker podcast every week I speak to somebody from a creative industry so I've talked to sound people puppeteers writers directors sales agents all sorts so do subscribe it's a great resource for you to understand how these different parts of the industry work for more advice tips tricks hints all sorts from people who are in the business and who are working right now please do subscribe to the honest filmm[Music] podcast