Foreign Movie Distribution selling season starts this week at the American Film Market |
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In the book “So You Wanna Be A Filmmaker”, we get into very specific details how the foreign markets purchase films for their territories. Starting this week is one of the biggest markets the American Film Market or AFM for short. Every year at the beginning of November people from all over the world descend upon Santa Monica, CA at the Loews Hotel to look at films for their markets. Each hotel room is setup as a distribution office; every foreign/domestic distributor and studio specialty film divisions have an office.
In the book “So You Wanna Be A Filmmaker” we discuss how the films are sold and broken down into different rights, such as All Rights deals, which include, theatrical, DVD, Pay TV and TV. Each Country has buyers who come to Santa Monica to review films to purchase for their territories. Most of the appointments are setup in advance and the buyers know what they are looking for. For example they might need Horror, Action and Family. So they try to find the right film for the right price. At the market you will see a large amount of films, all very similar with name talent, so most of the time the buyer will buy from the companies which they have the best relationships with, unless, you just have the perfect film they want to buy.
At American Film Market there are over 400 film screenings for buyers to see for potential purchase. As a filmmaker if you are in these screenings it can be very intimidating and frustrating until you learn how the system works. The buyers have so many films to see in such a short time, they will watch for a few minutes and leave. At the screenings people will be coming in and out all through the process. You start to feel they don’t like your movie, when in reality they see so many films, they just want and idea to determine if they want to make a deal or at least have a screener copy sent to them. They in turn will review in their hotel, or at their office when they get back. The best-case scenario is they like the film head back to the distributors office and make a very large all rights deal for your film.
As I said in the book we get into very specific detail and explain how all the foreign markets work. It is very important you understand this, or someone in your organization if you want to have a career in filmmaking, or at least get your investor their money back. A lot of your budget payback could come from selling territories overseas.
At AFM all the distributors are there so you can meet with them to discuss buying your finished film, project, presales, etc. I recommend you try to meet with them at the end of the market because they are so busy trying to sell films. You would not want them spending time on other issues when they could be selling your film. They also have the time because most of the buyers have already come and gone.
AFM will cost you a $795.00 entry fee, however that allows you to go everywhere and also see as many screenings of films you like. You will get a very good scope on how the business operates in the foreign markets. I see a lot of filmmakers at the market who do not purchase badges and wait downstairs in the bar for everyone to come down to pitch their products. I do not recommend this; it will make you look bad. The distributors have been working all day and they just want to come downstairs and unwind and meet with their buyers. It also shows you are not serious enough to be in this business. If you can’t purchase a badge and setup a meeting, then you don’t look like a professional.
If you really want to learn more about how this works and of course how the whole business operates, pickup a copy of “So You Wanna Be A Filmmaker”, you will not regret it. |
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