Driving Your Movie Cross-Country

I have said before that I believe streaming platforms may not be the answer to independent film distribution. I believe that there is such an abundance of digital releases that it is hard to rise above the masses, even if your work is superior. That is unless you have the marketing budget to spread the word.

I believe that filmmakers must have an alternate approach to distribution, one that goes against the current convenient, yet ineffective mindset of releasing to the masses and hoping for the best.

For some, this advice won’t apply.

Some filmmakers may find exactly the niche audience they are looking for in their digital release methods. That is fantastic and this is not intended for you.

This is intended for the filmmakers who, like myself back in 2012, devoted a year of their life to bring their feature film to the forefront of an audience and then sink into a dark, internal oblivion when the world didn’t take notice.

What I should have done, and what I suggest filmmakers cut from a similar cloth should do — is to continue your focus on the film, but apply it to physically distributing the film yourself.

Hit the road.

For example — after grinding away for a full year in producing a micro, micro-budget film, spend another year in a bus with a large flat-screen TV on board and drive your movie cross-country in order to get as many eyes on it as possible.

Park in front of pubs, coffee shops and town centers.

Hand our flyers, stick up posters.

Don’t rely on the digital, work on the physical.

I have said before, I have a dream project that I’m working on — building collapsible movie theatres that filmmakers can set up and are portable enough to transport. This tool would have exactly what a practical approach to distribution would need to get eyes in front of your film.

This is still in the design phase at the moment, so no movement on a release — but the ‘why’ of the project is to give filmmakers a practical, tangible tool for physically finding an audience.

Perhaps a practical approach to attracting an audience — getting them away from the computer screen could prove to be a much more effective one than keeping them in front of the screen.

Thinking outside the box to bring an audience inside the box.