The Great Trade Show
The first thing you need to understand is that the American Film Market is a trade show. That's all it is. It's no different than a farm equipment trade show where farming companies gather together once a year to examine the latest in tractors or cultivators or a furniture market (which is big in High Point, NC) where dealers from all over the country and even the world come to decide whether to buy 5,000 Flexsteel sofas or stick with La-Z-Boy.
The only difference between the AFM and most other trade shows is that the AFM is held in a hotel and most other trade shows are held in stadiums or massive warehouses.
I'm emphasizing that because it should effect how you approach this. Do you think a furniture dealer in Detroit cares how artful this beautiful sofa looks if the first time he sits down on it, the whole thing falls apart because it can't support his weight? Of course not. So why would a film distributor care how clever your story is if he can't hear half the dialogue or the whole thing was shot on a consumer handy-cam?
So the first piece of advice I can give a prospective filmmaker looking to attend next year's AFM to sell his finished film or script is this: before you shell out the $800 per ticket to attend the AFM, find some way to attend a trade show in some other business. Farming, furniture, appliances, it doesn't matter. You have an uncle who owns a hardware store? Beg him to let you attend his next trade show with him. You have an aunt who attends her company's fabric trade show? Beg her to let you carry her bags.
Attend the trade show and watch everything. Watch how fast decisions are made, how everything revolves around the buyers not the exhibitors. That will help you get into the right frame of mind to go out and sell your movie or your idea. I can't tell you how valuable my years working at the High Point Furniture Market was at the AFM once I realized it was all the same thing.
Most Buyers Are Also Selling
This is another crucial point to keep in mind. Never was this more impressed upon me than when I was waiting outside the office of a Scottish company that was big enough to have offices (they are very expensive so only the bigger distributors actually had offices) and had all the fancy movie posters and handouts and were taking meeting after meeting with high powered people ... and yet when the head of another company stopped by to ask a favor the head of the Scottish company practically begged her to accept a screener to his best looking film. Here was the head of a mid level distributor with a great looking film with a great cast, a fantastic poster, and one of the best movie trailers I saw all weekend ... and here 5 days into the market he was still begging people to look at his screener. Which, essentially, is the same boat I was in.
Think about that and you realize there's pressure on everybody and that if you're going to sell someone on your finished film or movie script, it'd better be damned good. More importantly, you'd better be damned good at selling your concept in 2 minutes or less.
As you walk into the room to meet with a company, understand that they were just in your shoes with a potential buyer 5 minutes ago. So you're going to have to knock their socks off to even keep their attention.
What Can And Can't Happen
So what can and can't happen at the AFM?
Can't Happen:
1) Getting investment money to shoot your script. I'm sure it's happened in the past, and maybe it even happened this market, but it's not going to happen to you any more than any of you reading this are going to win $50 million in the lottery. Do people win big in the lottery? Sure. But you're not going to.
Put another way to illustrate what I mean, are you going to quit your job and spend every dime to your name buying lottery tickets on the hopes you'll win big? Sure, people win big, but are you that confident that you will given the odds?
See what I mean? Your time is much better spent working towards realistic goals. Because you're not taking your script out there, meeting with 30 companies, and finding someone who's going to invest in your movie.
2) Sell an unfinished movie. So your principal photography is finished and you even have a rough cut together. But you don't have the sound or color correction right yet and you haven't even started on finding music. If that's the case, STAY HOME. If your only purpose in going to the AFM is to shop a movie that's 6 months from being finished, you're wasting your time. Distributors want to hear one of two things: Either "It's finished, here's the DVD!" or "It's about 2 weeks from being finished, can we send you a screener?"
If you can't deliver on that two week promise, you're wasting your time. It's not going to happen.
Can Happen:
1) Get distribution on a finished film. I saw this happen daily. There's a certain protocol you have to follow, your film had better be damned good, and you'd better be damned good in selling it, but it can happen. Of course, "distribution" can mean a lot of different things. Theatrical in the US? Direct to DVD? Overseas theatrical? Overseas DVD? Where overseas?
2) Get interest in a finished film. I ran out of screeners for 3 of my finished films. The companies will take them back, look at them, and get back to me. This was a pretty big step for us because distributors aren't accepting screeners to make the small people feel better. We got turned down flat out many times. So consider a successful screener handoff a small victory.
2) Get distribution interest on a nearly finished film. I managed to secure over a dozen invitations to send in Mind Breakers screeners when it's finished. Again, a limited victory and all you can ask for when a film is a couple weeks from being finished.
3) Presell a script on a regional or worldwide basis. A presell is getting distribution advance money for a script before you sell it. Essentially, a distributor pays you part or all of the money they'd pay you on a finished film but they do it before you shoot it and other distributors see how good it is and create an auction atmosphere. Its a distributor's way of getting you more cheaply than they might have to later if you really make an awesome film. But this is big for you because not only do you have distribution, you have some money to start making your movie.
Is this easy to do? No. You'd have to have either some names attached, a super incredible script, some or all of your financing in place, a well known director attached, someone well known in the business attached as a producer, something else that makes you stand out of the crowd, or some combination of the above. And even then it'd take an incredible sales job on your part.
Still, it happens enough to be considered a valid goal.
4) Secure distribution on an unshot script. Unlike a presale, there is no upfront money, just a guarantee your finished film will be distributed if it's what's called "acceptable industry quality". And it had better be. One distributor told us that if they sign this kind of a deal on a script and "the quality of the finished film is crap" they'd sue you. They have before. So before you try this angle, you'd better know you can produce a certain level of quality or you're asking for trouble.
This isn't as hard a deal to get as a presale because no money changes hands before the film is finished, but this is still a huge win for your script. Having distribution in place before you shoot gives you a little leverage when it comes to securing top quality actors and crew, to say nothing of attracting investors. If the best actors and crew in your area have to chose between two scripts and one of them already has a distribution deal, they'll probably pick your project even if there's less money being offered. Because, as I heard more than once during the AFM, a movie without distribution is nothing more than a very expensive home movie. Nobody wants to be involved in that if they can avoid that.
Still, getting this won't be easy either. Your script still has to be damned good and you have to be a damned good salesman, and it wouldn't hurt to have some of the elements mentioned above. But it can be done. Personally, I have quite a few distributors who agreed to read one or more of the 3 scripts I took out there.
That's something else to keep in mind. You're probably not going to get a deal done on your script during the AFM week simply because it takes time to read and absorb a script. Most distributors have so much going on they're going to have little time to read before getting home. Your goal is to get your script into as many hands as possible and hope for the best over the next couple weeks.
Next Time
On Monday I'll go over what a Director looking for work might be able to accomplish at the AFM, some things you can do to make your project more attractive, and answer any questions you might have.
