Christy Dena Will Help You Be More Successful

I consider myself to be a pretty cutting edge dude. I pay attention to the interwebs and the FaceTubes and such. I know the buzzwords. Everybody is always talking about "transmedia". I read a few blogs about transmedia and I got sick of people telling me I needed to make an iPhone app for my movie. That kind of talk doesn't really hold water for me. I live on my dad's couch. I will be lucky if I can sell enough weed to afford to create our DVDs. There is no room for transmedia strategizing in my meager budget, or my massive to-do list. Or so I thought. After we were lucky enough to participate the in the Slamdance Filmmaker Summit, we got in contact with Christy Dena. Procuring Christy's services was one of the most positive moves we have made with Self Helpless.

I was expecting that Christy would skim through a few minutes of Self Helpless, and hit us with a few emails suggesting that we invest in an app designer and a better Facebook page and that would be the end of it. I was wrong.

Between flights around the world to deal with her major clients who pay her way more than I could afford, Christy found time to screen Self Helpless. In fact, she watched it twice. I find it difficult to verbalize how shocking this is. We have to fight tooth and nail to get people to watch our movie once, and most of those folks have nothing better to do. Not only did Christy give Self Helpless a thorough going through, she got it. She knew all the characters' names, their motivations, and their personalities. She read every blog post, comment, and tweet that we have spewed forth upon the web over the last year. She did her goddamned homework. And then she sent us her consultation: a 14 page PDF with a fully developed report on our film's transmedia possibilities, including a giant "brain map" flow chart diagram thingy outlining all of her different ideas and how they could relate to our release timeline.

Blown away would be an understatement. Christy treated our little indie film as if we were a major corporation. Here's why Christy's transmedia ideas were invaluable to us:

1 - We never would have come up with them. Again, we are pretty far from being stuck in any old school models. I would say we are forward thinking. Christy is better. She is really on some next level shit.

2 - Her ideas felt like they came from us. They were rude, a little shocking, and very funny. They reflected a thorough understanding of our film, our style, and the brand that we are building.

3 - The total cost of implementing Christy's ideas = $0.00. She designed her entire consultation with the understanding that our crew is quite capable with regards to media creation, and fairly destitute in the realm of budget. Her ideas make use of our best strengths, and account for our greatest weaknesses.

My only regret is that we did not get in touch with Christy as soon as we finished the script. Now that I have seen what Christy is capable of, I have realized how much more we could have done with Self Helples if we had gotten her involved sooner. If you are looking into making or releasing a film, company, or any other project that involves connecting with an audience or customer base, do yourself a favor and contact Christy.

You can get in touch with Christy Dena at her site: www.universecreation101.com

Where We At

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The Sensation of Sight and The Power of Local

At our (one and only) festival appearance, we were lucky enough to score some face time with a pretty cool indie distributor. When I mentioned the hometown success we had been having with Self Helpless (sold out theaters, print articles, and a TV appearance) he pretty much laughed in my face. "Success anywhere outside of LA or NY is meaningless, and probably detrimental," was his basic message. While that may be true for films that are shopping to distributors for a theatrical release (old school), it is certainly not the case for those of us who are releasing our own films (true school). I was happy to discover a very concrete example of local success leading to major recognition for a film called The Sensation of Sight.

The Sensation of Sight is a truly independent film that was shot next door to us in New Hampshire. You can check out their excellent website here. The film's executive producer, Buzz McLaughlin, has been writing an illuminating series of blog posts about the film's distribution adventures. His most recent post detailed how his team was able to translate successful theatrical runs in indie theaters in New Hampshire to national recognition and an eventual distribution deal.

I won't recycle the entire blog post, but one piece of information was particularly interesting. After The Sensation of Sight sold out their opening weekend in New Hampshire, the theater reported their sales for that weekend to a number of national media services. Because of this, Variety listed the film at #4 in national per-screening box office gross for that weekend. This put The Sensation of Sight in front of a lot of people's eyes. I was completely unaware of this sales reporting system. Had we understood this aspect of the game, we might have been able to leverage this national reporting system to generate some press when Self Helpless sold out the Brattle theater in Boston, and the Roxy in Burlington, VT.

Check out The Sensation of Sight, and never underestimate the power of local, even if you live in a place where cows outnumber people!

How to exxxttteeeeeeend our film's life?

Jon Reiss recently addressed an interesting topic on his blog. Jon's post was a response to an article by Brian Newman which you can see here. Basically, they are talking about rethinking the "life" of a film. Generally films put a ton of time, money, and energy into pre-release PR. The goal is to build as much buzz as possible so as to maximize the exposure of their release. After the release, that's it. The movie is out there and people buy it, watch it, download it, whatever. While Jon feels that pre-release PR is very important because this is what puts a film on the media map, he and Brian also suggest that filmmakers consider putting more into the post-release life of their films.

This rings true with us. A lot of people have given us the old line "You only get one release, that is your biggest chance for sales, don't take it lightly". The "release" is just a date. It is (in the case of Self Helpless, and lots of other micro-budget films) nothing more than the first day you can buy or download our movie. This idea of the release date as some sacred and pivotal moment seems to be a hold over from the old distributor-based distribution days. So what are some concrete actions that filmmakers can take to continue to grow their audience after they release their film?

The main idea that we have for post-release PR for Self Helpless is a demand based tour. A lot of filmmakers seem to be touring their movie in order to build an audience before their release. This didn't appeal to us. With no press, or stars, or giant youtube following, we found that it was incredibly difficult to manufacture an audience once we got away from our home zone. We still think that a screening tour would be a great way to build audiences and get a shit-ton of tail. We are going to use "demand it" to set up a post-release tour. If we can build an audience with our torrent release, then hopefully those folks will want to see Self Helpless in a theater and meet the assholes who made it.

What are some other ways that filmmakers can continue to build their audience after releasing their film? Are there things that we can do that don't cost a ton of money? Everyone would like to release an app and an online game and a graphic novel, but that just aint in the cards for us. We would love anyone's suggestions.

If you are interested in connecting with some folks who are pondering answers to similar indy distribution question, try searching #infdist on twitter.

Our Search for D.I.Y. Knowledge (w/links)

Has anyone else ever wanted to figure out how the hell to self distribute their film? It is funny to think of the days when we were googling "no budget comedy" in the hopes of finding someone else out there who we could talk to and learn from. There were plenty of eureka moments when one blog post or youtube video would completely change the way we were looking at distribution. Sound familiar?

Our torrent-only model is explicitly NOT the new great distribution model. It is a model that fits our movie in a lot of important ways. Once we actually put it into action, we hope to serve as an interesting case study for the indie community (read: real indie, like PB&J, sleeping on floors because all of the couches are full indie). I try to put as many of our ideas out there as I can, because I can remember when I would have killed to read about someone else's distribution model.

The other night I was geeking out on twitter (as usual) when I stumbled on a twitter conversation. A bunch of people that we have connected with in the indie community were discussing how to increase audiences for independent film. I believe you can still check out the "conversation" if you search for #infdist on twitter. This was the first time a lot of my fellow filmmakers got to hear about our torrent-only release model. It was cool to see everyone's reaction. It was particularly dope to get a lot of support from Jon Reiss. Jon is an experienced director who has been spearheading the new indie distribution movement. His book, Think Outside the Box Office, is required reading for anyone who is at any stage of creating an indie film. He even reposted some of our material on his blog. We studied a lot of stuff from guys like Jon Reiss, Chris Gore, Ted Hope, and a bunch of other people who have embraced the power of the D.I.Y. film movement. This research was the foundation of our distribution strategy.

We entered the indie film world just as a lot of the new ideas on D.I.Y. were being formally articulated. One of the best things that we did during the post production process was to cash in our social lives, dump our Chilean pseudo-girlfriends, and spend 4 cold months reading shit on the interwebs. This period of miserably monastic study allowed us to bypass the standard new indie filmmaker trap: fall in love with own film, blow meager P&A budget on unrealistic festival submissions, confront the reality of not getting a "deal", begin to learn about D.I.Y. distribution. We owe a ton to the folks in the indie community who have been willing to write blogs and books, speak on panels, and upload podcasts. Thanks to the wealth of knowledge that was available to us, we were able to move full force into D.I.Y. distribution as soon as Self Helpless was done. Hopefully everyone can learn from our experiences in the upcoming months. Thanks to everyone for the support. We got nothin' but love fo ya.

Pioneers, Oh Pioneers

Ted Hope is a very well know film producer (American Splendor, 21 Grams, Adventureland and about 60 other features). He is also a leader in the new media approach to indie filmmaking. This guy shoots 50 setups in a day, then gets home and writes a 1,500 word blog post, and blasts off on Twitter for an hour. His latest blog post really caught my eye as it relates directly to a lot of the inspirations behind Self Helpless. You should take a look at Ted's Blog here. I am re-posting my response below so that Self Helpless fans can have a look at it.

My response:

Wow, I can't believe someone is finally talking about this! This was a huge part of the motivation for creating Self Helpless. We are four guys in our twenties who are equally at home watching "Kisses" or "Lovely By Surprise" and "Caddyshack". And there are TONS of people like us out there. We have often discussed our dissatisfaction with indie films insistence on making heavy, emotional, esoteric films that are so steeped in art that they are rendered inaccessible. Films like that can be great, but there needs to be more diversity out there.

Self Helpless is definitely a low-brow comedy. It is full of guns and drugs and mexicans and farting. But there is also some really original stuff in there. The plot is absurdly twisted as are most of the characters. And, the movie feels completely indie! It has excessively long flashbacks, homegrown animation, and plenty of classically comical motifs.

I am not just trying to plug my movie. I really feel that there is room for people to start making more indie films that will appeal to a young audience. It is clear that internet basted, tech-reliant distribution is the future of indie. Young people are the most interweb-savvy customers out there. They are willing to go through twitter, and itunes, and blogger, and dig… just to follow, find, and support something they think is cool. “Trailer Park Boys, “Always Sunny”, “Flight of the Conchords”, the networks have it figured out, now we need to play catch up.

We have based our entire release model for Self Helpless on our faith in the young indie audience. We are running a seven day bittorrent-only release. We WANT people to download the movie because we know they will support it. This is how you access the young indie audience: young filmmakers make great films directed at their peers, they provide the fans free access to the films, and they create quality merchandise that people will want to buy (instead of begging for donations).

Who's on first?

Everyone likes to be able to claim to be the "first" to do something. Self Helpless is clearly not the first film to release a legal bittorrent; so what exactly are we the "first" to do?

I guess, technically, until someone else uses our model we are the "only" rather than the "first". Self Helpless is the only feature length comedy ever to employ a specialized promotional campaign surrounding a BitTorrent-only release. We are approaching our release in a way that has never been done. I want to be clear here, I am not hating on anyone else's release model. I am just trying to explain how ours is unique. I also encourage anyone who has an excess of time to hate on our model.

1) We are running a 7 day bittorrent-only release. Most movies that release a torrent try to have their movie on sale simultaneously. Their hope is that torrent downloads will drive DVD sales. We are going with a torrent-only run for a number of reasons. First, we feel that downloaders are the new taste makers. If your movie becomes popular within the torrent community this will translate to a wider audience. Hollywood films are often pre-screened for critics and important industry types. We are pre-screening Self Helpless for downloaders because they are our most important potential fans. Second, we want as many downloads as possible. Most films release on a pay to watch platform first so that the only way people can see the movie is by paying for it. We want as many people as possible to download Self Helpless, so that is the platform that people will have to access it on if they want to see the movie as soon as possible. Third, we have a point to prove. Lots of movies have dipped their toes in the torrent pool. They release torrents as a last ditch option, they use it to drive DVD sales, or as a publicity stunt. When you go with a torrent-only release, you are all in. If Self Helpless can become successful using a completely torrent based release, then this will demonstrate the validity of the torrent community as a major marketing force (if you aren't aware of this already then you have some catching up to do).

2) We are not asking anyone to donate anything. We do not feel comfortable begging people to give us money. We have made a movie that people are going to love. We believe that they will love it enough to want to buy a DVD or a t-shirt. And we will make sure that we create some sweet merch that will actually be worth buying. I didn't buy a Fade to Black on DVD because I thought I need to support Jay-Z financially, he is a fucking billionaire. I bought it because I love that movie and I want to be able to watch it on my TV, whenever I want, with all the special features.

3) The torrent release is our first choice. Even as we were writing the script, we discussed free playing an important role in the distribution of Self Helpless. We are downloaders, and we made this movie for downloaders. We skipped the whole cycle of "waste tons of money and energy on a film festival run, realize there are no more distribution deals out there, write lots of blog posts about how the industry is fucked up, resort to giving away the movie, cry often and heavily". Bittorrent is an amazing technology that allows us to get our movie seen by millions of people who just happen to be our exact target audience. As an entrepreneur, it would be nothing short of absurd not to consider a torrent release as an incredible opportunity. There is something completely different in the spirit of our release. This is not a last ditch effort. This is what we have always wanted to do with Self Helpless.

4) We are mounting a full on PR campaign to promote the release of our torrent. We are not just assuming that if we put the movie up on the ol' interwebs, it will suddenly grow wings and fly away. Studios spend money to create press and drive sales. We are spending money (and time) creating press to drive downloads. Studios spend money to stop downloaders. We are spending money (and time) trying to get as many people as possible to download Self Helpless.

5) We are not a documentary. Although there have certainly been other narrative features released on bittorrent, it is worth noting how differently they fair. From my limited experience, I can say that documentary filmmaking is extraordinarily tough. One advantage that you have if you have done your job well is cause-based support. If you do a film about climate change, or gang violence, or hunger you will get some support for your effort to expose a socially important issue. If you make a comedy about drugs, guns, mexicans, and milk-farts, you have to rely solely on the quality of your product. If Self Helpless doesn't make people laugh, they are not going to cut us any slack because they believe in our cause. This makes our model a heavy commitment. We are giving Self Helpless away and we are counting on the belief that people will love it.


We know that our torrent-only release model is a bit of a gamble. We are betting all our chips that Self Helpless is so original, and quirky, and over the top funny that we will be able to build a big enough fan base to cover our budget. Maybe it is risky, but there is nothing we would rather bet on than the quality of our movie.

TIME TO RELEASE!

Press releases are going out today. I wanted to make sure that our loyal blog followers would be the first to know. Here is the official announcement of Self Helpless’ upcoming release:

Self Helpless is the first feature length film ever to employ a specialized promotional campaign surrounding a BitTorrent-only release. In early 2010, Self Helpless will be released exclusively as a free download on various BitTorrent sites. After a 7 day BitTorrent-only run, the film will be commercially released on DVD, Blu-Ray, and High Definition Digital Download.

The Self Helpless torrent will be released on a number of major BitTorrent sites and (hopefully) some private BitTorrent communities. The torrent will include links to our facebook page, twitter feed, and our online store. This will allow people who download Self Helpless to connect with the movie and support it.

In an era when big studios spend massive amounts of money to keep people from downloading their movies, we are mounting a promotional campaign with the goal of getting as many people to download Self Helpless as possible.
The simple fact is that Self Helpless is a great movie. A torrent-only release will allow us to get our movie to the exact people we made it for. Selling DVDs and merchandise from our website will allow fans of the movie to support Self Helpless. From both a business and an artistic perspective, giving the movie away just makes sense.

We are playing with the idea of including two short advertisements in the torrent version of the movie. This would generate a small amount of revenue for us, and it would demonstrate a very viable way that studios can profit from marketing directly to downloaders (instead of wasting money trying to stop them).

If you dig our torrent-only release plan and you would like to know more about it, take a look at the FAQ post below.

Torrent-Only Release FAQ

Self Helpless is the first feature length film ever to employ a specialized promotional campaign surrounding a BitTorrent-only release. We have had a lot of questions since we announced this distribution plan. This should help clarify exactly what the hell we think we are doing.

How will you make money if you are giving the movie away?
We will be releasing Self Helpless on DVD and digital download one week after the torrent-only release. We will be selling t-shirts, posters, and other merchandise ASAP. We are also considering placing 2 short (10 second) advertisements in the torrent version of the movie. If enough people download the movie, we hope to set up a screening tour to visit places where Self Helpless is popular.

If someone has already downloaded the movie why would they buy your DVD?
A few reasons:
1) Movies are more fun to watch on a TV than a computer.
2) If people like a movie they often want to own the official, advertisement free version of it. Some people are just straight up collectors.
3) The DVD has tons of sweet extras like live Devin the Dude concert footage, slide shows, deleted scenes, and behind the scenes footage.
4) A few people will buy a DVD just to support something that they dig.


Are you going to have a donate thingy on your website?
As a group of intelligent, healthy young men, we just don’t feel right about begging people to donate to us. If you like Self Helpless then buy a copy. If you don’t have $15 for a DVD (been there) we will have some cheaper stuff like posters and stickers. If you don’t have any money then just tell a few of your friends about the movie and come see us when we come to your town.

You are the first feature film to launch a promotional campaign supporting a torrent-only release. Why not do something more normal, like submit to film festivals, or distributors?
We made this entire film out of pocket, fueled by raw hustle. We are not interested in sitting around for the next two years waiting for someone to decide that they want to “accept our submission”. That just doesn’t sit well with us. We have the technology to get Self Helpless seen by its target audience without any help from distributors or film festivals. We would be stupid not to release it on our own.

Ok, if you are going to release the movie as a torrent why not just release it on DVD at the same time?
We want as many people as possible to download the torrent version of the movie. If this version ends up containing advertisements then this will mean more exposure for our advertisers (anybody know anyone who works at High Times?). Even if we don’t end up going with the advertisement idea, it is important to us to release the movie exclusively on bit torrent. In a sense we hope that this will prove our model. If we can make a little money off a torrent-only release then we will have effectively proven the absurdity of anti-piracy efforts.


Are you hoping this will get you “discovered”?
Discovered as in money and hot babes start raining from the Los Angeles skies? I guess that would be cool. What we believe will really happen is that this distribution strategy will get Self Helpless seen, by the exact people who we made it for, and by LOTS of them.

Is this just a publicity stunt?
If we manage to get some publicity for creating a very innovative release strategy that would be great. That would probably even help our download numbers. The torrent-only release is simply the best way to get our movie seen by the people who we made it for. From a business standpoint, we would be crazy not to take advantage of this opportunity.


Where can I see the movie right now?
We are trying to set up a few screenings before the release. If you sign up for our email list we will let you know as soon as we get stuff scheduled. Other than that, you will be able to pre-order the DVD.

Why so long until the movie is released?
Lot’s of albums get their release date moved up because songs get leaked. We are delaying our release in order to promote it to those very downloaders. I know this sounds backwards. A typical movie release promo campaign takes between 3 and 5 months. We are constructing a full PR campaign to build a buzz around the release of the Self Helpless torrent. We figure, there is a lot of cool stuff out there to download. If we are going to convince people to check out our movie, we are going to have to spend some time letting them know about us.

What if someone leaks the movie?
That would be awesome. Next Question.

Are you trying to create the distribution model that will save my indie film?
No. Our model only works if you manage to create a feature length comedy that is hilarious and quirky, features the acting debut of Devin the Dude, is shot in 2 countries, and contains lots of drugs, guns and crazy Mexican gangsters, all with a budget of $9,500. Oh, and after that you have to edit the movie, compose the soundtrack, license the music, and do all the animation. Then you have to live on people’s floors for a few months, and shovel shit at my grandma’s farm while you save money to put towards your innovative release strategy. Then you have to be willing to work full time for very low pay for the next year after releasing the movie in order to continue to promote it. If you can do all this, and not have your wife/kids/friends completely hate you, then this model might be perfect for you. If not then you should read all of the blogs, and books, and tweets that are out there about indie film distribution. Then you should come up with a better, more original idea that works for your film.


I have a question about your distribution strategy, will you read my email?
I am chained to my computer at all times. I would be more than happy to answer any and all questions, comments, and hate mail.

Where The Idea Came From

We have published a number of articles about the upcoming release of Self Helpless as we have continued to update our distribution model. The indie film industry is changing at such a rapid pace right now that failure to adapt would be nothing short of suicide. A few major principles have stayed the same throughout the various shapes that our release strategy has taken:

- We do not get down with approval-based entities. Anything that requires submission for consideration (film festivals, distributors, certain online communities) will only be considered as an auxiliary component of our distribution. There will be absolutely no sitting around waiting to hear from someone who controls our future.

- Free is key. From the very beginning (like during the writing process) we had planned on giving the movie away for free. We have all downloaded stuff, and we have all supported artists that we really like. We know how that works, and we know that this is the future of art and media.

- Hustle is worth more than money. We are not interested in getting bought out by a distributor so that Self Helpless can collect dust on a back shelf at Coconuts in Methuen, MA. We would be honored to have the privilege of working our asses off distributing this movie by hand. When you have, literally, been shoveling shit for a living, working 60 hours a week hustling an independent film that you really care about doesn’t sound too bad.

- Innovation is our best friend. If what we are doing is unprecedented, then it has a chance of being great. We make it our business to read every goddamned blog, article, and tweet that circulates around the indie film industry. We learn from other people’s successes and struggles, and we adapt this information to form a new vision. If there was an established model that could work for everyone then we would follow it. Since there isn’t, we are working to create our own.


These are the basic tenets that we have developed over the last few months of crafting our distribution strategy. If you have read the torrent-only release FAQ (above) then you can probably see how these concepts ended up manifesting themselves in our current distribution model. Figuring out the stuff that we give a shit about was the hardest part. After that it was just a few months of working out how to apply those principles.

What are you going to do with the movie when it's done?

The traditional model of independent film making is quickly going the way of the dodo bird. It used to be a nice, easy 3 step process: 1 - make movie, 2 - go to film festival, 3 - sell movie to major studio. I am obviously overstating the simplicity here, but there was at least an established pattern.

With the explosion of accessible movie making technology, way more people are making movies. This has lead to a glut of films on the market. This technological boom has also resulted in the creation of a few different movie distribution models such as: VOD (video on demand), self-distribution, and direct to DVD distribution.

What we are pursuing with Self Helpless is a hybrid marketing strategy. Here is a general outline of our different angles on promoting the movie in the hopes of someone buying it:

1) Web Assault - We will be plastering advertisements all across Facebook, Myspace, YouTube, and Twitter. This has become standard practice these days. Our advantage is the large network of friends that the four of us have established. We have approximately 1,200 friends already lined up on Facebook alone. If everyone passes the movie on to 5 of their friends...

2) Promotional Copies - We will be sending promo copies of the movie to anyone and everyone we know that is even tangentially involved in the movie business. You have a friend who cleans the floors at a talent agency in wisconsin, what is his email address?

3) The Premiere - The world premiere hasn't been scheduled yet, and details are top secret. Suffice it to say that it will be off the proverbial meat rack. Picture 100 drunk Self Helpless fans, and 15 bloggers and reporters packed into a theater. Good times will abound.

4) Film Festivals - There are, literally, thousands of film festivals in the US evey year. We will be submitting Self Helpless to a select few festivals that seem to be cool enough to understand the genius behind farting in people's milk.

5) Screenings - We hope to organize premieres in a few different East coast cities to start with. If we decide to try to independently distribute DVDs then we will probably arrange a full tour. Lock your doors and hide your daughters, America!!

These are the major avenues that we are looing at for advertising and promotion. Our main focus is to be adaptabe and work hard. The movie is truly excellent and unique. All we have to do is hustle as hard as we can to get it out to the public.