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| Pierson at a February signing in Seattle. |
MM: Give us your view of taking a film to festivals. In most cases is that the essential first step?
JP: Well, if you've been able to make it through that last phase of mixing your sound, you know, those heavy costs that come at the end of post production, and you have a print, then you have the Real Mcoy. The temptation which you might've felt if you didn't have the wherewithal to get through those last stages of post, to screen double system for the distributors or whoever, is gone. It would behoove you to wait for the suitable festival and hope you get in. And, if you have a finished film you can try to screen early in order to get invited early so that you can then make your plans to use that event as the point of sale, then you're in even better shape.
MM: John Pierson's A-list of festivals for American independents?
JP: Clearly Sundance has become a dominant event. I don't think any of us really like monopolies, so I don't want Sundance to always for every film on every occasion be the first and only answer. But, the gap between how you can benefit from Sundance verses other festivals has widened with each passing year. Crumb did play in Toronto and New York before Sundance, so the distributor could do Sundance with the further purpose of preparing for the release of the film. Generally speaking I believe it's good to go into Sundance unexposed because I think the excitement level of the brand new film is that much keener. What if The Brothers McMullen had been in Toronto before Sundance? That would that have made everything different for Ed Burns.
MM: What about Toronto and Telluride?
JP: I think Toronto is such a strong festival. I'm not going to slander Telluride, but, to me it's no longer a selling event. I don't think a film's been sold at or out of Telluride since 1988. They can always say we showed Roger and Me first in the same way the Independent Feature Film Market can always say we showed One False Move first. But let's analyze both statements. IFFM showed One False Move, six people came, nothing happened until the film opened. Does it have any relevance at all that it played at the Market? No, absolutely none. Roger and Me at Telluride, people loved it. It had six sold-out shows. It went berserk. But, did it sell there? No. What was its perceived value to distributors at the conclusion of that event? If somebody'd said 'You have to sell this film right now, today, before Toronto,' no way Roger and Me sells for more than a hundred thousand dollars on the basis of Telluride. Why is that? Elitist atmosphere; people discount the reactions up there.
MM: Where do San Francisco and Seattle fit in the mix of important festivals?
JP: Seattle is a great way to set up your regional opening. I think that a lot of distributors have been very savvy about that. I know that Sony Pictures Classics has been devoted to supporting that festival for years and years to good end. San Francisco worked great for me in the mid '80s. Then they changed the date, and it's very close to Cannes now. I think they do very well on a local basis, but it's almost impossible to attract national recognition or to get the distributors to fly in to see something that you are selling there. We had a terrible time with My Life's In Turnaround out there which was one of the opening night films. It played great locally but did not really enhance the value of the film whatsoever to the distributors or to the national press.
MM: In North America, any other key festivals aside the ones we already mentioned?
JP: What are we leaving out? It's too soon to tell, but I believe that the L.A. Independent Film Festival could grow into something significant. Theoretically an L.A. independent film festival in mid April is a sound idea. Peter, you know cause you did the research. What domestic festivals didn't Clerks play in? That was for the purpose of beating the drum in New Orleans; in Charleston, South Carolina; in Fort Lauderdale, Houston, Aspen and Vancouver. You could just go on and on. You wouldn't do that just to try to sell a film to the distributor. The distributor would do that to try to set it up the film for the paying public later on.
MM: So, using festivals to get a distributor is very different from using festivals once you have a distributor.
JP: Vastly different.
MM: Now, overseas is Cannes the most important and Berlin and others aren't as significant?
JP: Cannes remains the top of the heap by a considerable margin. I haven't used Berlin to sell anything, so I can't claim great expert mastery of all the tricks of the trade in Berlin. There are times when Berlin can be used brilliantly, the most notable being The Wedding Banquet three years ago. The buyers from all over the world were certainly there.
MM: What is your general advice to filmmakers about whether foreign and domestic distribution deals should be separated?
JP: It depends on the deal. Foreign value is very difficult to put any price tag on.
You would think that if Clerks had this ability to translate, travel all around the world you would think Slacker must have done the same thing. Well hey, Slacker was a complete foreign washout. John Sayles movies have always had a hard time overseas. Black films have always had a hard time overseas. But if somebody really is putting a higher value on your film and they are going to take a shot at it and they generally have been good with smaller scale independent products, then, hey, why not?
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| Marianne Leone in Errol Morris's The Thin Blue Line (1988). |
JP: The biggest problem is we live in a world where the standard is to take the distribution fee starting with the first dollar of gross film rental. It is the first and foremost thing to guard against and resist whenever possible, which is something that unfortunately I have to acknowledge Miramax pioneered, which is a little embarrassing because I'm part of their extended family now. Miramax will usually ask for 35 percent. That's a little high, you know. If you've got leverage you really, really work hard to get them to 30. The likelihood of getting below 30 is not very good. The one thing to put up a much bigger fight about in my opinion is the idea that the distributor gets a fee up front and then also has a participation, oh God, a 50-50 participation is usually the starting point -- in the back end net. In the mid-'80s you often had a seven or 10-year distribution term and a 50-50 split with distribution costs off the top on theatrical release. Distribution costs are actual print, promotion and advertising expenses which include the creative costs of creating a trailer and a one-sheet. It can be all direct, out-of-pocket costs. That provided really good incentive for the distributor to spend an appropriate amount to release the film without going berserk. Today on a standard fee deal there is a certain point where a distributor is spending money on a film as it becomes theoretically profitable. Your distributor is spending money to make himself a higher fee. And that in the long run, if it's not being spent wisely and intelligently, that's costing the producer money. This is so complicated because in many cases filmmakers, for career reasons and for ego reasons, love to see heavy spending for their films. I don't think Atom Egoyan was complaining when Miramax went out on 440 screens with Exotica this year and bought TV advertising, etc. He may have been mortified over seeing his film sold as a sex film. But, he's got a studio deal now so I don't think he was too mortified. At a certain point if a distributor is spending and spending and building up his fees, it may be taking long term money out of the producer's pocket.
MM: When did distributors start getting a percentage distribution fee plus a split of the back end?
JP: I would say that's kind of an early '90s development. Miramax has come on pretty hot and heavy with it in the last couple of years. They also pioneered the surcharge on advertising.
MM: And how does that work?
JP: Their idea is that they do all this work in house, therefore in addition to the direct cost that they've created and or placed, that they should get another 10 percent for their trouble. That's another thing to guard against, always keeping in mind beggars can't be choosers. Anybody who gets a distribution offer - their first response should be gratitude. Their next response should be fuck you.
MM: In the '80s the distribution term was seven to 10 years
JP: Now it's like 25 and up.
MM: How are costs handled when the distributor is getting a percentage fee?
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| Dana Wheeler Nicholson and Eric Schaeffer in My Life's In Turnaround. |
MM: So distributors get their distribution fee off the top, then they pay their costs, and then whatever is left over is the producer's share?
JP: If an advance was paid in the first place, the producer's share is applied against the recoupment of that advance. You don't earn any overage until the film earns back what they paid you up front plus interest.
MM: So the newest wrinkle is a combination of those two where there is a distribution fee that comes off the top, the distributor gets their expenses and then they want to split the back end with the filmmaker.
JP: Right. As a producer, sometimes you have to make a choice. You can think I want to net out money on this film, or you can think I want a big splash. You're not always in full control of the situation but you generally know that it's more often the case that you will get the bigger splash via a company like Miramax, and that you will be far more likely to make out conservatively and shrewdly on the back end of the theatrical part of your deal anyway if you're with a company more along the lines of Sony Pictures Classics. Goldwyn's spending habits generally run a bit to the richer side. Their worldwide distribution costs on Go Fish crossed the million dollar mark.
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| Tracy Camilla Johns as Nola Darling with Jamie Overstreet in Spike Lee's She's Gotta Have It (1986). |
JP: Yeah, a lot of rotten experience.
MM: Hoop Dreams is obviously an amazing case.
JP: Clerks is, too.
MM: What did Clerks ship?
JP: 60 thousand units on a rough-looking, black and white movie that grossed 3 million or 3.1 million. That's an awfully good number.
MM: What about Slacker?
JP: We use the figure 5,017 units in the rental market But now it's a sell-through and I have no idea how many more that's kicked in. Thanks to the great wisdom of Orion Home Video, the sell-through effort didn't coincide with any particular event, such as the release of Dazed and Confused or Before Sunrise, either one of which any moron would know would have been a big kick.
MM: Roger and Me on home video?
JP: I think they say 85,000 units. Michael calls it a 25 million dollar worldwide gross but I don't know where that figure comes from.
MM: She's Gotta Have It?
JP: 30-32,000 units and a big, big disappointment. CBS Fox badly released She's Gotta Have It. The problem was not knowing what to make of it. It's an enormous frustration. She's Gotta Have It it was still renting and renting. It had significant rentals six months after the home video release. That indicates one thing and one thing only: there were not enough copies out there. Now, why didn't stores reorder more copies? If they are not shoved down their throats in the first place, stores don't have any problem filling the demand for months and months. Hey, it's fine with them -- they save the 50 bucks another copy would cost. But, in terms of untapped potential revenue it's very frustrating from the producer's point of view.
MM: Is there an average range for American independent films on home video?
JP: It's all over the map. My Life's in Turnaround is likely to turn around 3,000 units. Hoop Dreams, 130,000 units. Sometimes there's a logic. Sometimes there's no rhyme or reason. Since many black films have underperformed how come HBO Home Video manages to ship 40,000-plus copies of Straight Out of Brooklyn? How does HBO Home Video ship 35, 000 units of The Thin Blue Line? Excellent hard work.
MM: What about television? How much has Bravo, The Independent Film Channel and The Sundance Channel been paying and what's your sense of what Sundance channel has been paying for American independents?
JP: Bravo prices, except where people have twisted their arms, are your basic $10,000 to $20,000 prices. These are not knock-your-socks-off figures.
MM: You don't see anything changing with the coming of competition?
JP: No, because although it's not collusion, it's just your basic cheapness. The idea seems to be to keep prices low. The prices for "unexposed" films that haven't gotten on cable television by other means. I means are embarrassingly low. I mean they're probably going to have a slot where filmmakers pay The Independent Film Channel to show their work.
MM: So, instead of rent-a-distributor it will be rent-a-cable channel.
JP: Exactly. I wish it were funny, but it's so disheartening, you know? The Independent Film Channel is running around the country trying to find festivals and other film events to sponsor. And, I'm sure Sundance will be doing that as well. Call me an old radical, but I wish that they were spending some of that sponsorship money on filmmakers.
MM: Right. Let's shift to financing for a minute. When I was first writing about no-budget production, you mentioned the disappearance of home video money from the equation. For sex lies and videotape and a lot of other movies home video money was the key if not the whole budget.
JP: Right. Those $1-5 million type films.
MM: Now that that money is pretty much gone, what are the possibilities for the first-time filmmaker trying to make his or her first feature?
JP: Well, on the low end you helped to focus and spearhead this, Peter. On the under 30,000 dollar end. Apparently with each passing decade the ability to access lines of credit through credit cards right after you come out of college certainly expanded exponentially. Jay Westby wrote a fantastic article for MovieMaker called "Budget Lite Moviemaking" in which he characterized this whole generation as the Credit Card Kids. That seems to be the under $30,000 answer. So, is that a new form of financing? Well, yes. Is there any secret to it? Apparently, no. I wish I could have gotten a credit card in 1975. Maybe my whole life would be different. It's really had a huge impact. If there are 400-500 low-budget films a year, clearly hundreds of those are now falling into this ultra-low category. I don't know how people do 1 or 2 million dollar films anymore.
MM: There are certainly not very many companies that are willing to finance first time filmmakers at that level anymore.
JP: That's definitely true.
MM: At your workshop when I asked the audience how many people had, were, or were about to make a feature for under $150,000, two thirds raised their hands.
JP: Right.
MM: What is your sense of how the audience for independent movies has changed?
JP: I feel completely miserable about the incredibily difficult time that Safe is having. I think that a lot of the breakthrough films in this day and age are partly drawing on this aging boomer audience. There seems to be a desire to walk into something feeling like you're going to have satisfaction guaranteed. It's not my sense of how people approached non-Hollywood filmgoing through most of the '80s.
MM: How hopeful are you about the state of distribution or specialized movies?
JP: In every year since 1988 and I think 1995 is pretty much on a par, between 27 and 31 American independent movies have been released theatrically. The number that the system can accommodate seems to be pretty consistent and I think that's reasonably good. I'm not sure how many really good films beyond 30 a year there are. The fact that there are four or five hundred out there as opposed to the 50 or 60 that were out there 10 years ago is a problem for the average filmmaker. The number of films produced has expanded exponentially as the number of releases has stayed the same. The 25-year-old filmmaker may be concerned that a permanent government which is getting older all the time is running these independent companies and making these key festival selections. But there's only one solution. If you say, 'Man, these old farts are running our world,' you just have to run your own world. You run your own world by starting the New York Underground Film Festival like Todd Phillips and his guys did. Or, although I don't think that they've done it perfectly, you decide you're going to start Slamdance and spit right in the face of Sundance. That's the answer if you believe your audience is out there and it's a different one from that being served by the gate keepers. Julie Dash accused me of being one: white male gate keepers run this world. Those white male gate keepers didn't go for Daughters of the Dust, and she found another solution. Working in tandem with a small distributor, Kino, and 2.4 million dollars later she proved her point. Also Sankofa by Haile Gerima -- He proved his point and did it his own damn way. Great. More people have to do that.
MM: If the number of films being made increases and the number of slots in terms of distribution stays the same then the percentage will continue to go down of films that are actually released among the films that are produced.
JP: The percentage does go down. But there are new ways to break in. For the Brian Singers of the world, Public Access, his first feature, which shared the Sundance Grand Jury Prize was released, yet through Gramercy he manages to release the excellent, entertaining The Usual Suspects. Matthew Harrison, same thing The Rhythm Thief's not in release, but he's got a 3.5 million dollar deal to make another feature. This never happened in the '80s, never. Now you can leapfrog right over the old tried and true formula of making the first feature, getting the theatrical distribution, doing well in the marketplace, having somebody notice you and stepping up in the ladder to go on to the second feature. Hey, Brian Singer just skipped steps one two and three.
MM: Should the Independent Feature Market be part of a strategy to get a film sold?
JP: Well, I'll do the sad story here -- if you're not invited to festivals or for some reason feel that you won't be invited to festivals and you need to do something with your film so that it gets in front of some audience, even if that's a handful of filmmakers, then the Independent Film Market is the answer to your problems. Let's call it the Last Chance Texaco. The last resort. I have Papal dispensation from the executive director of the IFP to call it a dump or a dumping ground, either way. That's kind of what by and large it ends up being. Doesn't mean that you can't just jump right up out of there and climb to the top of the garbage heap and be Kevin Smith. Worked for Kevin. He had a design of going to the IFP and he may have only had 12 people at the Sunday morning screening but one of them was Bob Hawk. That lead to you and that lead to me and that lead to everything.
MM: Give me a description of your relationship to Miramax now. How are you part of the family?
JP: Pretty consistently over the last decade I've been getting a films in progress coming in my mail or Fed-exed. Why do people send things to me Fed-ex, by the way, if they have no money? Just please use the regular mail, it works. And, if you send it to me Fed-exed, either I'm not going to look at it within five minutes of receiving them anyways. Save yourself 10 bucks. Put it into the film. But, I get a film every day, some days two. Miramax is hoping that three or four times a year, which is a good year, I will come across something which I want to provide the completion financing for. That could be on the basis of dailies, on the basis of as little as 10 minutes of sample scenes from the movie or on the basis of the world's longest three and three quarter hour rough assembly with 12 takes of the same scene. It takes a little more effort to stay energetic about it these days just because the volume has stepped up. There's not as much diversity as one would hope for. A lot of people seem to be making the same choices.
MM: Is the idea that you will put finishing funds in films that you know Miramax will ultimately acquire?
JP: They're entitled in their relationship with me to a first look. This doesn't mean that there is a prearranged deal that we just sign immediately. If I have something I want to do and they decide they want to see it sooner rather than later we sit down, they look at it, and they go 'yeah we loved it, let's do it and then they have to try to negotiate a deal with the producers of the film. One that is acceptable to me as well. I'm in the complete middle position where I'm representing everybody's interests.
MM: After your book comes out and your book tour is finished, might we see you on some --
JP: I hope you see me guest hosting on the Sundance Channel At least once a week making trouble by going on the air and saying this channel just doesn't pay filmmakers enough money for their films. I don't know what's wrong with this Robert Redford guy. MM