Indie producer tells all about DVD distribution

ANDREW PARKINSON is a writer/director/producer of low budget horror films whose third feature Venus Drowning has just been screened at the Cannes Film Festival. After making many Super8 films he moved to London to start work in Post Production at the BBC.

He started his first feature, I, Zombie, in 1994 and finally finished it in 1998. Since then his first two features – the second is Dead Creatures – have been distributed internationally on DVD and have played at many festivals to critical acclaim.

Andrew talks to DVD Intelligence's JEAN-LUC RENAUD about producing and distributing his work on DVD.

JEAN-LUC RENAUD How did you get to show your film at the Cannes Film Festival?

ANDREW PARKINSON Anyone can show a film at the Cannes Film Festival. There’s the market and there’s the main festival, where the big, prestigious films go. We were in the market.

You just register yourself as a member and then book your screening, turn up and encourage people to come to your screening. You go round the marketplace and try to get distributors interested, email as many people as you can.

You do get an awful lot of information when you go down to the Cannes Film Festival. But it’s almost worth registering your film and not going because there are nice film festivals and there’s Cannes. You can do a lot better . . .

In the end, was it useful?

Well, I renewed quite a few old acquaintances. I’ve been making horror films for about 8 years now so I know quite a few people and the truth is I probably could have stayed in contact with them without the trouble of going to Cannes.

But what I found was that most of the big distributors are not that interested in smaller filmmakers. I was lucky, and got some film festival people peolpe along to my screening. There’s a circuit of genre film festivals around the world and, if, say, you make a horror film, and if they like it, they will be keen to stock their festival with your film for next year – hopefully.

So they all came along. And I realised, sitting at the back of the screening room, that the film was not yet finished. It was a bit of a cringe really. I thought: ‘Bloody hell, now I’ve got to re-shoot that.' People stayed and enjoyed the film but they were slightly bemused. I need a bit more time in the cutting room I think . . .’

You have made three films, all available on DVD?

My first film was called I, Zombie. I shot that on 16mil and it was a real labour of love, a real struggle to make. I almost secured fairly big UK distribution for it, but didn’t happen at the last minute for some reason. I should say: my films are not really mainstream films so any advice I give today is highly suspect. They are horror films but they’re fairly perverse, leftfield horror films. They’re not for your average mainstream popcorn-eater.

Having said that, there is a small market for them, so I’m not complaining. I finally got a very small UK distribution deal for I, Zombie – on VHS actually, before DVD, before those heady days – and it was a rotten deal. I didn’t get any money out of it.

But because I had a UK release, other countries got interested and I got several releases on the back of it. The biggest one was the US release, which made its money back in one hit – so that was quite good. The UK release was kind of a loss leader, but it got the ball got rolling.

Is a UK release important?

To an extent, any release is fairly good news. Certainly, back then, it was really the only good way of getting publicity for your film. Most independent filmmakers don’t think far enough ahead to put money aside for publicity at the end of the film.

They have a huge struggle to make a film and haven’t got money at the end of it. And then they realise there's not no money to publicise it or get it out there. So, back then, the only way to do that was to virtually give it away.

Obviously, you try to get the best release you can but in the case of my horror film, which was a very strange film, it did get a distribution. And that got it reviewed, got it up there. We are talking pre-internet days, so I couldn’t go online and post to the newsgroups about it.

You produce for a niche market, how do you reach your audience?

There are several ways of getting in touch with your audience, I guess. I think if I was starting now, it would have to be the internet – it would be the biggest one because, certainly, the nice thing about making genre films is there’s a very focussed interest on those from certain sectors.

I was pretty lucky that my US release was with a magazine called Fangoria: they’re kind of the ‘Melody Maker’ of horror films. I’ve had a lot of publicity through them because and then through the internet on a dedicated website (although my website isn’t really up there properly yet).

Have you been working with horror film magazines?

I’ve thought about it. I don’t know. The horror film magazines in this country are kind of weird with British filmmakers. They have a slightly strange attitude. I think if you’re French or German they’ll take you on board and embrace you. But if you’re a low-budget British filmmaker, they’re a bit cagey. It’s just part of the British attitude towards people making films, I think.

You single-handedly do a wide range of tasks, how do you put the word out?

Well, the truth is, so far I really haven’t that much. I’m a lousy businessman. There are basically two kinds of people who make films: there are hustlers and there are geeks and I’m basically a geek, 98% geek. But I’m learning to be a little bit of a hustler.

There are other people who would be out there, very aggressively touting their films and I see this happen quite a lot – the films very often don’t live up to the word.

However, I’ve always tried to work a little bit the other way: not quite as much word. If you do make a specific genre film, there’s an inherent curiosity out there in the fan base and, hopefully, if you hit it right, that will suck you along and you will find yourself with an audience.

Are you considering distributing your film yourself?

When the film will be finally finished, there are several ways of distributing the film and getting it out there and promoting it.

You know, not all film deals are the same: you can end up with quite a nice packet of money or you can end up with a very small one. Occasionally you end up with none. So it’s really a question of whether I distribute it myself this time round and maybe risk having less sales and less out there in advertising. But I’ll be taking all the percentage from my website. The alternative is to give it to someone and end up with 20% of their profits at the end of the day. Who you trust, I have no idea.

What is the financial equation of the distribution?

It’s very hard to be specific because everyone who makes a film is different: the money comes in in different ways.

Certainly if you make a big-budget film, it almost inevitably has distribution lined up but, with a low-budget film, you make your film and then you try to sell it. What it's worth is what people are willing to pay for it.

The best possible situation is where you’ve got two distributors who want it. You can play them off against each other. If you haven’t got that; if you’ve got one specific distributor who may offer you $5,000 or $10,000, you may have to take that. Or you may choose to leave it.

Sometimes you’re offered a percentage as well. I was always warned at the start: ‘Never take a percentage; always try and get some money up front’. I took a percentage in the US and I did quite well out of it. So that warning didn’t ring true either.

You have to trust the distributor; is it a big issue?

Oh yes, huge!

Well that’s the problem you know. You spend so long making a film and it’s a big struggle since making a film is not an easy thing to do. It’s a very exciting thing to do but there are easier ways of making money.

And then you’re there at the end of the process. You’re worn out but you’ve got to try and find somebody to take it on. And you don’t know the people.

Now, after a few years in the industry, I know quite a few people and I know of their reputations from other filmmakers but, even so, initially it’s a shot in the dark. People do end up making no money and getting ripped off and sometimes the films don’t even surface properly in the market. But even if you’re not making a great deal of money, at least it’s getting out there and you’re building your profile as a filmmaker. So you hope that will happen.

How involved are you with a distributor?

They aren’t that interested normally. They say: ‘There’s your film and we’ll put it out the way we think is right for our market’.

I’m not happy with all the DVDs of my films that have been released. One of the big plusses for self-distribution is that at least you can only blame yourself at the end of the day.

Distributors can sometimes put horrible artwork on the front or the quality will be poor or it will be badly authored. Sometimes it surprises you and they get things quite nicely done but not always. Once you give it to them, it's their baby and they can do what they like with it.

I had a good disc in the UK for Dead Creatures but it has a terrible cover on it. I told them I didn’t like it but they still went ahead and used it.

What lessons did you draw from the first two movies that could be applied to the third one in terms of the deal, partners, personal involvement?

You can only be as involved as they’ll let you be. So with my third film, I really wouldn’t mind self distributing – just to see if I can do it and to see if that’s a viable thing to do.

What often happens is that someone will pick it up for a different territory. If you self-distribute you have all the different territories that you can deal with. So, what have I learnt?

I suppose I’ve learnt to lower my expectations a little bit and not to beat myself up. It is very hard if you’ve made a big investment making a film, not just financially but emotionally as well. It’s something you’ve written and when it goes out and you’re not quite happy with it, it’s a mixed blessing.

Does piracy affect you?

Yes . . . there was an Asian pirate copy of my first film. There was a dodgy Italian copy of that as well, which I found was actually from a sales agent that I was briefly hooked in with.

As a filmmaker, you can either deal with each distributor separately or you can have a sales agent who will then deal with them for you. For a while I was hooked in with a sales agent who wasn’t entirely reputable so. I've found that they don’t necessarily know anything about the releases.

The pirate version was for sale on websites in Hong Kong but trying to track down the pirates from here in the UK is pretty much impossible. If you release a film in the US within a week it will be pirated in Asia. I think, with the ‘War of the Worlds’, they released it there first so they could make the money in those few weeks and then do the rest of the world.

Is film stock still an option or should you go DV?

Well you should certainly go digital unless you’ve got an awful lot of money. You don’t want to be shooting on 35mil. It’s ludicrously expensive and DV is delightfully cheap.

Dead Creatures, my second film, was shot on 35mil and probably 80% of the budget went on film stock and camera hire and lamp fees. Whereas with the new film, I’ve made it for a fraction of the cost.

We shot it on DigiBeta and a mixture of digi and DV. The filmmaking is better because we could afford to do more takes, more angles. People do take it seriously. The sort of myth you hear quite a lot is that actors won’t take films shot on DV seriously but they do. It depends how you treat them really.

Does online/streaming offer real potential?

You can get over-protective about your film in terms of retaining/protecting their rights. Some never distribute their film. You never sell your rights for ever, never give them away. It’s for a few years, after which they revert to you.

In the US for 5 years, in France for 5 years, in Spain for TV for 5 years. You slice them in various ways. Nobody has yet approached me for online distribution, but if so, I will certainly consider it, same for satellite channels.

What advice do you have for independents?

I think: just make the films that you want to make and take a good deal of pleasure in that because it’s very rewarding. If you can make any money out of it, then good for you . . . and don’t kill yourself because it’s not worth it. ...

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