Adventures in Self-Releasing: The Last Lullaby Gets a Release Date!

by Jeffrey Goodman | Published March 13, 2009

Just to shake things up a bit, I thought I would shift today from my standard prose to an interview-style entry. The interviewer has asked that his name remain anonymous. But I can tell you that he’s about 5’7” with dark hair, a buck forty-five on a good day and sports an overgrown goatee.

Anonymous Interviewer (AI): Good morning, Jeffrey. It’s good to have you here.
Jeffrey Goodman (JG): Thank you.

AI: So how’s everything going? It’s been almost two months now since you first announced that you were hitting the road of self-release.
JG: It’s going well. I’m tired and fluctuate between some sort of inexplicable confidence and an ever-present sense of anxiety. But things are definitely moving along in a solid and encouraging way.

AI: So far, what’s the biggest surprise for you?
JG: Probably how much it all costs. It’s really a gamble. And I’m still not totally sure how to prepare for more than one market and feel like I’m doing justice to each of the different cities.

AI: Do you still think you’re doing the right thing?
JG: I do. I mean, in many ways the alternative was quite grim.

AI: So are there any new developments you would like to share?
JG: There are, in fact. We have finally set a launch date. We will be starting our release on May 1 at the Regal Boardwalk in Bossier City, LA (Bossier is just across the river from Shreveport.) We will open there from May 1-3. But I’m still not sure yet where we’re headed from there.

AI: So tell me a little more about what you’re doing to prepare for the launch at the Regal?
JG: That’s a good question. Several different things. We kinda have a three- or four-tier approach to the market. One part of this is a series of speaking engagements. I’ll be speaking at rotary clubs, universities in the area and pretty much any other organization that will have me. Another integral part of this preparation is a series of social gatherings. We’ll have about six in total before May 1. In general, these are just meet-and-greet type deals where people can hang out and talk about the movie. The first four of these are being held at some restaurants and bars that were actually locations we used in the movie.

And the other two major components of our push are physical marketing (things like T-shirts and real estate signs) and social marketing (Facebook, Website, monthly update list, Twitter, YouTube, Blogspot, etc.)

AI: You’ve spoken a great deal about how difficult the marketplace is right now. Are there any movies that you think have offered up good models in the last couple of years?
JG: The ones that jump out at me are In Search of a Midnight Kiss, which did over $400,000 in U.K. theaters. It’s an American indie that actually decided to release in the U.K. before releasing in the States. That was an interesting approach, I think. What Bottle Shock did was interesting, just in terms of self-releasing themselves into over 400 theaters.

And I also am fascinated with Sweet Land and the fact that they were able to self-release to a tune of over $1.7 million in U.S. box office.

But truthfully none of these models are totally applicable to us and our movie. But all serve as inspirations for what’s possible. Unfortunately, I still believe the following: The old model for releasing independent movies is broken, and so far, no one has been able to come up with a viable replacement.

After living in Los Angeles for seven years, Jeffrey Goodman returned to his hometown of Shreveport, Louisiana to direct The Last Lullaby. Co-written by the creator of Road to Perdition, and starring Tom Sizemore and Sasha Alexander, The Last Lullaby was filmed entirely in and around Shreveport and financed by 48 local investors.

SHARE THIS STORY

COMMENTS | POST A COMMENT

Comment by Tony Comstock on 3/16/09 at 5:18 pm

Auspicious news!

A contrarian thought about the various box office numbers quoted: they are meaningless without knowing the marketing budget. Varies “indie” distributors have shown (repeatedly) that they can do hundreds of thousand of dollars of theatrical business on millions of dollars of marketing and PR. Not a winning strategy; and yet way too many indie releases emulate this strategy.

In the same way that an low budget production has to figure out how to get more money on the screen than they actually spend, think a wining self distributed film has to think of cunning ways to get PR out of proportion with dollars spent. That means being every bit of innovative and risk taking with the marketing/PR as wiht the creative choices in the filmmaking.

BTW, I think you are right on with the local angle. I’ve seen this work on films with a lot less polish (than I think) yours has, and seen local communities take up local interest films like a cause celeb.

Here’s hoping that’s what happens to The Last Lullaby. If it does, you can’t go wrong!

Comment by Jeffrey Goodman on 3/18/09 at 8:31 am

Hi Tony,

All great stuff.

I couldn’t agree more with the idea that we rarely know the “marketing budget” behind movies. Most of the reported budgets we see are merely to get the movie in the can. And so you’re absolutely right, we can’t appreciate any box office numbers until we know the production + marketing budget.

Curious, since you have more experience than I do, do you think it’s wise to do a theatrical run (even if you end up losing money on it) because usually that translates into greater business on TV/DVD?

Thanks for all the dialogue, Tony.

Jeffrey

Comment by Tony Comstock on 3/18/09 at 12:16 pm

One thing you have to keep in mind when I’m going off is that I never, ever, ever worried about TV revenues or theatrical revenues. I thought that maybe someday HBO would be bold enough to put one of my films on late night (now I know better) but I never counted on it. I build my approach around modest DVD sales, with the higher margins that self-distro brings.

So does theatrical bring high TV revenues? I don’t think so. What I think is that if you do the kind of marketing and PR associated with standard theatrical run, you are then selling all that brand awareness on to the TV market. If you spent $10M hyping theatrical, then the TV buyers can tap that, as in some guy sitting on his couch, watching a bumper, “Oh yeah, I kind of wanted to see that but never got around to it. Lemme see if I can remember to set my Tivo.”

So, unless you have a bust out run, I don’t think theatrical actually means shit in and of itself; it’ the associated marketing budget that the TV buyers are paying for.

It’s actually pretty easy to make money four walling, or at least it looks like it shouldn’t be too hard. I can get a 350 seat theater with 35mm and HD projection for about $1000/day. Three shows half full and that’s a good day out.

The reason that most theatrical runs lose money is on the M&P;side. A guerrilla production with a (800 pound) gorilla marketing campaign I don’t think is a good idea. I think those days are over.

OTOH, and insurgent theatrical release, calculated to make money out of the box—that’s worth taking a risk on, or at least I think it is. We’ll probably start four walling later this year or early next. As long as our DVD sales hold, we can take some chances on trying things out.

Again, I think you’re ace in the hole is the local angle. People love rooting for a home town hero, even more so if you’ve made a good movie.

Working against you (imo) is budget. Sounds like you’ve spent some real bread on this flick, and my own opinion is that $250K ~ $25M is a dead zone in today’s market. Too big to make it on word of mouth and other insurgent tactics; too small to risk a real marketing budget.

But make no mistake, I AM PULLING FOR YOU FOR SURE. Even if you take it in the shorts on this one, there’s a lot of learning to be had, and if you’re in it for the long haul (don’t start your first unless you’re committed to finishing your third) you will make that money back. People like good movies. If you make good movies, how can you go wrong!

Comment by Gary Nobile on 3/18/09 at 12:17 pm

I recently saw this film at the Cinequest Film festival in San Jose, California and thought it was amazing! There are just too many intricate details to describe here, but if you haven’t seen it, it’s a MUST see. And if Jeffery would like to come back to San Jose at some point, I’d be happy to align him with some local Chambers of Commerce so her can spread the word about this wonderful film. Cheers-

Comment by Digital Film School on 3/18/09 at 5:23 pm

Great Post, I will have to check this out!

Comment by Jeffrey Goodman on 3/18/09 at 5:53 pm

Hi Digital Film School,

Thank you so much! I do hope you will check out Lullaby at some point.

All the best,

Jeffrey

Comment by Jeffrey Goodman on 3/18/09 at 5:55 pm

Hi Gary,

Thank you so much for your very kind e-mail! I really do hope we can come back to San Jose with Lullaby. I will keep you posted.

All the best,

Jeffrey

Comment by Jeffrey Goodman on 3/18/09 at 6:00 pm

Hi Tony,

All great stuff. And I agree the $1-5M indy is in a tough spot right now.

I’d be curious, will you talk a little about self-distributing DVDs? What company do you use? Who authors your DVDs? Who ships them, etc?

Thanks for all of your great feedback. I truly appreciate it.

All the best,

Jeffrey

Comment by Toronto condo on 3/19/09 at 10:08 am

Looking for One Liners and Cheeky Humor? Not in this Bond Flick. As was the case with Casino Royale before it, it’s not in Quantum of Solace’s nature to be sarcastic. Replace Bond’s longstanding smug irony with a ruthless assassin. Bond, in a sense, comes off as an anti-hero. In earlier (pre-Daniel Craig) films Bond might have quipped about how “good help is hard to find” while thwarting a nameless foe; the new Bond would’ve just punched him in the face, and kicked him through a pane of glass.Come Prepared to Suspend Disbelief. While the James Bond franchise has always had its share of over the top stunts, QoS takes it to a new level. Marvel at Bond continuing to fight someone after falling off a roof and thru a window, all without so much as a scratch. Just don’t try to apply any sort of logic/reason/plausibility to it.

Comment by Jeffrey Goodman on 3/19/09 at 2:19 pm

Hi Toronto Condo,

I’m not sure of the relevance of your post to this blog?

All the best,

Jeffrey

Comment by Tony Comstock on 3/20/09 at 1:37 pm

Pardon me if I riff on your interview motif:

JG: I’d be curious, will you talk a little about self-distributing DVDs? What company do you use?

TC: Well I’m not quite sure what you mean there, Jeff. As I mentioned in an earlier comment, after hearing “no” from every last possibility on our first film “Marie and Jack: A Hardcore Love Story”, out of desperation and a deeply held belief that we had made a movie that people wanted to see, we started producing and distributing the film ourselves. In fact, somewhere out there there are handmade copies of “Marie & Jack”; recorded one at a time on our VHS deck and packaged with inkjet printed inserts for the case.

JG: Who authors your DVDs?

TC: My wife Peggy has been an interactive and graphic designer since 1996, and I back around 2003 taught myself DVD authoring on Apple’s DVD Studio Pro v2. Not to knock some of the very nifty DVD authoring that’s out there, but a good movie doesn’t need anything in the way of authoring that couldn’t be done on iDVD. I could author our DVDs on iDVD, except I never learned how to use it.

Speaking of, I could probably cut our movies on iMovie too, but I never learned how to use that either. After going from tape to AVID to Media100 to FCP, I’m (as best I can) finished with learning new software. I opened iMovie once because I heard it had a one-step out to DVD that I thought would be good for watching rough-cuts, but I couldn’t understand the interface and quit.

Anyway, between my wife and myself, we do all our authoring packaging and promotional artwork in-house. A la Bruce Brown, nobody knows these movies or our audience better than we do, so even though its a lot of work and a little homespun, it’s still the best fit.

JG: Who ships them, etc?

TC: I’d guess replication counts in the etc. and for that I can’t stress how important it is to work with a good broker. We’ve been working with Sue George of Lucky Video for about six years and she’s saved our bacon more than once; and even with the personal service, it’s cheaper than the one-stops you see advertising at places like Without A Box.

Which brings up another point. When you’re self-distributed you have to be twice as good to get half as much credit, so we’re sticklers for the quality of our DVDs. Working with Sue, our defective disc rate is less than 1/10th of one percent.

As far as warehousing and shipping, when we were starting out we did our own warehousing (out of our garage) and fulfillment (off our kitchen table). Trips to the post office every other day. Again, it doesn’t fit the picture, but if you believe in your work you do what you have to do; plus it gives you a really intimate feeling about who your audience is. Before Peggy got things sorted, I was actually handwriting addresses for every order. On one hand that’s maybe not the best use of my time, but on the other hand, when you do it that way, you never forget who you’re making your movies for.

Anyway, last Winter we wanted to go to the Bahamas for a few months on an old boat we bought, so we had to find a “real” fulfillment solution. We ended up with ShipMyOrders.com out of Las Vegas NV. They’re sort of like an “indie” fulfillment company. Just like our company, when you call ShipMyOrders.com, you talk to the boss. Working with them has given me a lot more time for commenting on blogs.

There’s a lot of other ticky tacky shit. None of it’s hard to do, but it’s hard to remember all the details off the top of my head. I should probably write it all out with a Powerpoint presentation and start giving seminars! ;-)

Comment by Jeffrey Goodman on 3/20/09 at 3:20 pm

Hi Tony,

This is all fantastic stuff. Tremendously useful. And one of those times when I look in the mirror and say, “Yeah, you think you’re indy? You’re a lazy sell-out next to Tony.”

Good stuff. Thanks for sharing.

All the best,

Jeffrey

Comment by Tony Comstock on 3/22/09 at 9:28 am

Yeah, I was indie before indie was cool; and I’ll still be indie when everyone finally realizes how uncool indie is. ;-)

I wrote a longer response over at my blog, but I think this bit is worth posting here:

“I think of the the things that trips people up is that success (such as it is) doesn’t look like what we get shown as success on TV. Success on TV is sort of like that apartment on FRIENDS; so when we get a taste of real success (food, shelter, a little security, and making work we’re proud of) it doesn’t quite seem to measure up.

“We say, “I don’t want that. I want the apartment on FRIENDS. I don’t want to carry a box of DVDs around in the trunk of my car and hawk them for $20 a piece at every festival, lecture, church grouop and AA meeting that will show my film. I wanna sit on a beach in St. Barts with Angelina Jolie while my royalties are direct depostited into my bank account.”

Dreaming to be the next Scorsiei or Tarentino via the indie/DIY/digital route is like dreaming of going from walk-on tryout to quarterbacking NLF team; or dreaming of becoming a millionaire by buying lottery tickets. It’s a great daydream, but it’s not even remotely realistic.

And getting over being a dreamer and on to the hard reality of being a filmmaker isn’t easy. There are a lot of people invested in the fantasy—giant electronic companies, film festivals, magazines, critics, bloggers—most of people in the “indie scene” are deeply invested in either buying or selling the dream.

That’s why I think what you’re doing with these blog posts is such a wonderful breath of fresh air. No hype. No magic bullets. No non-monetizable buzz. Just an honest accounting of the nuts and bolts of the hard work it takes to make it happen.

It’ll probably scare a lot of people off (and piss off a few people too!) But for the rest of us, it’s inspiration and motivation; and a reminder that we’re not alone!

Comment by Jeffrey Goodman on 3/22/09 at 12:40 pm

Hi Tony,

So well said!

I particularly like these paragraphs:

We say, “I don’t want that. I want the apartment on FRIENDS. I don’t want to carry a box of DVDs around in the trunk of my car and hawk them for $20 a piece at every festival, lecture, church group and AA meeting that will show my film. I wanna sit on a beach in St. Barts with Angelina Jolie while my royalties are direct depostited into my bank account.”

“And getting over being a dreamer and on to the hard reality of being a filmmaker isn’t easy. There are a lot of people invested in the fantasy—giant electronic companies, film festivals, magazines, critics, bloggers—most of people in the “indie scene” are deeply invested in either buying or selling the dream.”

Yes. I think there is much truth in the above.

Comment by Sell House Fast on 5/17/09 at 5:23 am

om Sizemore has been busted in yet another celebrity drug case. Sizemore will be heading to jail for 16 months for drug abuse and possession. Sizemore is a film and television actor.

Comment by David on 6/09/09 at 6:33 pm

Glad to hear that Tony Comstock has a lot more time for commenting on blogs now that he is using ShipMyOrders for fulfillment.

Comment by DVD Duplication Austin on 12/14/09 at 7:35 am

This exchange has illuminated for me what our clients are going through - dealing with - once they leave with their DVDs. I can understand why they are so spacey at times, its a lot to manage. I’ll look forward to getting back to the office and take a look to make sure we’re supporting our clients with this in mind. Thanks again for the peek behind the curtain. Carolyn :)

Comment by Jeffrey Goodman on 12/14/09 at 8:19 am

Hi Carolyn,

Thanks so much for your comments. I do think there’s a big discrepancy between the realities of being a moviemaker and the general public’s perception.

I really appreciate you following along.

All the best,

Jeffrey

Comment by hanniya on 6/17/10 at 5:06 pm