MICRO-BUDGET SELF-DISTRIBUTION Corona pre to post in 1 month

See the links list (screenshot to right; scroll down the blog to find links lists on the right side) for other examples of filmmakers showing gutsy determination despite very limited resources to produce and gain distribution for full-length feature films. Especially Coz (Corrie) Greenop (Wandering Rose, or Demon Baby in the US market) and Harry MacQueen (Hinterland). Coz used a broken back to inspire his £40k horror, and social media to get distributor meetings in Cannes, leading to a US DVD release and a multi-million 2nd feature. Harry, an actor, a £10k inheritance to shoot a social realist drama, and a limited theatrical distribution deal with Curzon Cinemas' screenings with Q and A's for members plus Ilkley Film Festival.

This new example has the spirit of Shane Meadows' infamous five day shoot, £48k Le Donk and Scor-Zay-Zee about it...


Spotted a rather excellent example for all of you of fast, determined real-world media production. A Canadian director has scripted, cast, location scouted, costumed/set dressed, filmed, edited/post-productioned, cut a trailer and now released (self-distributed) through VOD platforms Corona. A little exploitative perhaps, but nonetheless when it's easy to make excuses for yourself you could maybe ponder this example. He's done this all in March.

Coronavirus: the movie is somehow already here – but are we ready for it?

I can't see any specific release details yet - perhaps he can't do it all?! Info should appear on the IMDB page. Or on his own website...

DISTRIBUTION horror case study

A lengthy, detailed post with lots of examples and figures, plus external links

CONVERGENCE MICRO-BUDGET Soderbergh iPhone movie to be self-distributed

From a great site for students of film comes news of a true iconoclast further blurring the pro/am line with his own smartphone movie.

Soderbergh is an awkward so and so but an unquestioned auteur and 80s Indie pioneer, like Alex Cox bringing something of a punk attitude to 80s film a decade after the upstart Indie outsiders had become Hollywood insiders (Spielberg, Lucas, Scorsese, Coppola).

Soderbergh is a name you'll see frequently in Peter Biskind's fantastic sequel to Easy Riders, Raging Bulls, his Down and Dirty Pictures: Miramax, Sundance, and the Rise of Independent Film which features on the 80s and 90s rise and fall of the Indies.

...

Steven Soderbergh's Unsane shot with iPhone - NoFilmSchool report.

According to the Hollywood trade publication Tracking Board, Soderbergh shot his latest film, titled Unsane and starring The Crown's Claire Foy and Juno Temple, in secret with an iPhone. Little else is known about the film except that Soderbergh plans to self-distribute it domestically through his Fingerprint Releasing banner, which the director founded in order to test out distribution models for his most recent film, Logan Lucky. Before that, Soderbergh pushed boundaries by shooting Starz' The Girlfriend Experience on high-definition video with mostly non-actors. Since kicking off his career with 1989's seminal indie film sex, lies, and videotape, Soderbergh has consistently been at the vanguard of risk-taking in low-budget filmmaking.  

Recently, Soderbergh encouraged aspiring filmmakers to "get a script and start shooting on an iPhone" in a Reddit AMA. We're glad to see he took his own advice. 

CONVERGENCE Tangerine dream: celebrate death of 35mm?

Tangerine dream? This iPhone-shot movie had critics raving, making a big wave upon its Sundance Film Festival screening, and is cited below as an example of why we should celebrate the passing of 35mm and its replacement with digital. (NB: the trailer features strong language) Read more at theverge.com, BBC, Techradar, Guardian and nofilmschool.

From the Wiki. Also detailed in BoxOfficeMojo.

Most articles about digitisation tend to bemoan the undermining of celluloid and the 35mm film, but this one celebrates the democratising improvements it has brought about, shaking up a conservative industry with high barriers to entry.
Sample:

AFRICA Wakaliwood joins Nollywood, YouTube distribution

The production values, and recording equipment, are far below what a typical Western student can access - but this trailer alone has nearly 3m hits

Bit of a wider perspective on how the film industry works in a neglected (in terms of media coverage or awareness) market, Africa.

Nigeria's Nollywood has earned a reputation as artistically and commercially significant, now comes Uganda's Wakaliwood...

Consider the incredible kit and resources you can access as you read about Isaac Nabwana, shoestring film producer. Sample paragraphs below. 

See Quartz Africa's full article.

INDIE Hooligan film scene flourishing on DVD sales

Andrew Pulver: Gangsters, geezers and guns: the men behind Britain’s booming low-budget crime-flick industry (Guardian)

FILM COMPANIES ALWAYS START WITH A SPECIFIC AUDIENCE IN MIND...

Note the (highlighted quotes) point that the distribution company always have a figure in mind when approaching the distribution and marketing of a film; right along the chain of the film cycle (production, deistribution, exhibition/consumption), having a clear, specific concept of the target audience(s) is crucial. Boiling this down to a singular image of a person who embodies the characteristics/demographics of your audience - as I recommend you do within a treatment - is also industry practice:

Darren, sales manager at a plastics firm in Milton Keynes, is a force to be reckoned with in the British film industry. In part, he’s the reason why British crime cinema – low-budget, morally dubious and about as disreputable as it’s ever been – is the genre that refuses to die. At least, Darren would if he actually existed. Darren, it turns out, is a theoretical construct; an audience archetype identified by Jezz Vernon, managing director of distribution outfit Metrodome, the people who released recent examples of the form such as The Guvnors, St George’s Day and The Fall of the Essex Boys.

“We always talk about the buyer of a film,” says Vernon. “For someone like Darren, there’s a certain boredom about his existence, and the attraction to gangsters or football hooligans has a certain aspirational element to it. It might sound worrying, but we liken it to music: the mainstream in UK music has always liked poetic thugs, from Byron to Liam Gallagher. People like the paradox; both the masculinity of it, and the denial of it.”

MAKING FILMS FOR/REFLECTING THE NEGLECTED WORKING-CLASS

Ilkley's Coz Greenop - £30k debut Wandering Rose

****  Director Corrie Greenop will be in IGS to talk to students, and take questions, about his experiences in the film industry, from self-producing his debut feature and striking a US distribution deal after a successful pitch in Cannes, to getting offers for new productions. Lunchtime, Wednesday 25th March in K5. Feel free to bring cold food and drinks, but no hot food or drinks! ****

THE BASICS:

• Corrie was a Media student here at Ilkley Grammar, who went on to film school and is now completing a MA centred on screenplay writing
• He self-financed and self-produced his directorial debut, Wandering Rose, a horror movie
  
• It was filmed in Scotland, following an offer of assistance from Scottish agencies and failure to get such co-operation from Yorkshire agencies
• Shot in just 12 days, it was produced for a mere £30k!
• The setting may have had aesthetic appeal but also presented practical challenges: the small cast and crew alike had to help out lugging the filming equipment around, not least up a steep hill or

  

  The US distributor changed the film title!

  two!
• The film features another former IGS Media student, Theo Wightman (pictured below), whose own film-making talent can be seen in his Media productions The Cellar  and Party to Hell (a slasher film opening and trailer), as a cast and key crew member. 
• Coz took the financial gamble of attending the Cannes Film Festival, highly prestigious but equally expensive, and this, along with a specially-arranged London screening, paid off with distribution deals in the can for DVD and VoD releases
• The US distributor decided to change the film's name (see the IMDB entry); this may not be an accurate reflection of Coz's vision, but may yet pay dividends with enhanced sales...
• Coz is now in talks with production companies to take on much higher budget projects

Please note: the BBFC rating is tbc; based on the US rating, this could be 15, but may end up as 18. The trailer below contains no graphic imagery, but does reflect the theme of horror, and could be considered as fitting the BBFC 12 rating.



THE STORY IN TWEETS, HEADLINES + QUOTES...

DIGITISATION: MOCKBUSTERS...

Thanks to Simon, Helpdesk Technician, for bringing this to my attention (also featured in this month's Total Film magazine): The Asylum are an example of a production company who make straight-to-video blockbuster rip-offs, generally on sub-$10k budgets! See http://www.theasylum.cc/

Its almost as if the spoof Jack Black productions in Be Kind, Rewind, which launched the concept of 'sweding', leeched out into the real world...