By Brian Barnes I have a confession to make. I’m a terrible producer. You’d think that after making films day in and day out since 1987 I’d have learnt the one key skill a producer needs. But, no – still no further along that road. That key skill? Raising money. That means that, as a […]
I asked Danny to share his story on his short film ‘Love Like Hers’ which he made after being the first person in the world to take my online masterclass about making world class shorts – www.GoneFishingSeminar.com – and here is what he sent me… I’m always looking at ways to make a living from […]
A couple of weeks back was ‘DynamoPlayer week’ on my blog. At the time, as part of the analysis on DynamoPlayer I complained that I had not received any statements from Apple / iTunes / Shorts International… and as if by magic, my first one turned up last week! So a brief analysis of how […]
I am doing the final prep for tomorrows Delivering Your Film Seminar and I am delighted that we will have a packed house. I was afraid that as this is a stage at the end of production, most people would say ‘we will deal with that when we get to it…’ But it seems there […]
For the last few days I have been hunkered down, going through endless Sales and Distribution delivery contracts for the Delivering Your Film to The Sales Agent workshop this weekend. It’s been a mammoth task, unravelling ALL the DETAIL from the reams of documents and contracts I have been sifting through… and as we all […]
I have been working all day on the Delivering Your Baby* (*that’s your film) seminar which I am running on Sunday at Ealing Studios. In conversation with various distributors and sales agents, I am struck at how hard it still is to make delivery of a film, especially in this day and age. It’s […]
I have spent the last day putting together a one day seminar about film sales, and specifically how to make final delivery to a sales agent or distributor. I have sat in on several sales meetings recently and have been surprised at how much stuff these guys need or want, and also how technical it […]
I met today with Lise Romanoff of Vision Films. Lise handles international sales for feature films and sells both White Angel and Urban Ghost Story. I went over with Genevieve to get the low down on the international market for commercial Indie films of varying budgets. We had a great chat and met her team, […]
Those of you who have done my two day Guerilla Film Makers Masterclas will know I spend a great deal of time on sales and distribution. We face many problems making low budget films, and some bad ones manifest in the final sales. One thing that many film makers don’t fully understand is that you […]
Yesterday I ran the final part of the Gone Fishing Masterclass at Ealing Studios. The first seminar we ran, at BAFTA last year, was all about how we made the film. This second was about how we exploited the film. The first seminar is online now, and this second one will be edited and uploaded […]
Great news. Today we agreed a deal in principle with BOTH Network Ireland (Derry O’Brien) and Shorts International, (seen here, me with Simon Young from SI). We managed to split the rights to get the best of both worlds. Shorts International’s special relationship with the Academy (Oscars folk), their enormous reach and corporate scale (with […]
In the next day or so, I will be making my choice over who represents Gone Fishing for international sales and distribution. Only two companies are in the running, both have very good reputations and deals to offer, and both I like very much. We need to deal with this now as in the coming […]
A few days ago I promised a free podcast with Indie Film Distribution guru Stacey Parks. Well here it is! I recorded this two hour seminar last May with Stacey, at Ealing Studios. Stacey pretty much came straight from the plane and had a great deal of insight to share with us all. So here […]
Do you have a special Gone Fishing story about watching it on DVD? If you do, I would love to hear it and post it on the blog. If you do, please drop me an email here… For starters, here is one I received this morning. Chris, I just sat on the closed M11, at […]
(If you are having problems playing this video, try here on Facebook or here on Google Video) This weekend, film maker colleague Simon Cox and myself have been selling our movies on DVD at Memorabilia – you can see the video above, just how the day turned out, and how much of a graft it […]
Now that our multi award winning movie, Gone Fishing, has been to several festivals and received its Academy Qualifier screening in Los Angeles, we can now release the film on DVD! All proceeds will be re-invested into the drive for the Oscars and for submission to other film festivals. There are two versions. One for […]
We are now in the process of attaching a distributor to Gone Fishing. I am under no illusions, we are not going to get rich of this film, and any money we do make will get ploughed back into more PR, and repaying a few ‘loans and debts’ that we have acquired (on the understanding […]
We are so close to getting the poster nailed now. You can click on it here to see a bigger version. Yesterday I printed it out to look at in A3plus size, so it was big, stuck up on my wall, and the experience was very different to looking at a PC screen! When viewed […]
So now we have tow major steps to complete for Gone Fishing. First is getting it out there, getting the film working for us, especially with regard to things like film festivals, awards, agents, managers, studio executives etc. More on that in the next few days. The other major step is to complete Gone Fishing […]
Here is the second and final part of Ivan Clemments report from the American Film Market… I like the picture here, it’s Ivan, a producer (left), being a grip! (from Gone Fishing). I'm now back at LAX waiting for my flight and half rack of ribs to stuff my fat face with if I have […]
Gone Fishing is still coming along well, but now I must turn my attentions to the BIG project, on eof the main reasons Gone Fishing was made. That is Rocketboy. Producer Ivan Clemments is now at the American Film Market working with a friend of mine, who for political reasons, has to remain anonymous. We […]
I have spent the day designing the first DVD cover for ‘Gone Fishing’. This is very different to a feature cover in one major way – it will never act as a POINT OF SALE for a buyer. The only people who will get the DVD will either be given it, or come across it […]
I spent the weekend with my good friend Simon Cox, at a science fiction convention in Birmingham called Memorabilia, selling my books and his movie on DVD, ‘Written In Blood’, signed by him of course. It was an intense two days, but very rewarding, not least because I sold some books, but also because I […]
