The Douche Bag Film Distributor

Like so many of us in Hollywood the first thing I do when I wake up is check my email, it's just what  I do before I even drink coffee, or pee, or check the time, I check my email, sometimes right off my IPhone in bed if I am feeling really lazy but more often on the desktop computer.  Now, there is something about a passive aggressive email lurking in the dark waters of my emails that seems to grasp my attention almost immediately. It's like a shark's fin that breaks the surface of the ocean water, you're praying it's a dolphin but in actual fact it's a goddamn shark. So I click the email from the distributor of one my films, and when I say "distributor" I mean that in the loosest sense of the word, it's often a misnomer especially for the lolly independent filmmaker.  For the indie filmmaker who used his blood, sweat , tears, mortgage, and grandmother's social security money to make the damn film, a distributor is most often times not the person who is responsible in getting your film accessible to the world and in return making you some cash.  But, more often than not the distributor is the person who has an exorbitant amount of "marketing fees"  ie. $25,000 to $50,000 - that they keep first - and then after that you get whatever crappy percentage you worked out. And what do they spend their money on you might ask? Going to south of France, paying for a retardedly expensive hotel and food and parties and "artwork" which is done in house so virtually costs them $6, and they charge this same fee to 30 other indie films and then you see your film being sold on dozens of weird websites for a year,  and yet results in zero money in exchange, and when you ask for your promised quarterly reports, they some how sway the matter.

That said, I opened that ever waiting passive aggressive email from my "distributor"  writing me a note, pointing the finger at me for being the bad guy for referring another filmmaker elsewhere, after I just got off Facebook checking out his snapshots from partying in the French Riviera.  You win some, you lose some. Moral of the story, get money up front, go with a big company, or self distribute.  That's my two cents, they ain't all bad, just 90%.

 

Camille Solari - Photo By Isabelle Ruen