Have you finished an independent film and are looking for distribution? If so, you’ve come to the right place. If you’ve made it here you’ve probably already run into some of the roadblocks while trying to get your indie movie into the main retail market. You can always submit your film to different distribution labels like us, but they may not be interested in your film, or their deal might be a little more beneficial to the label than the filmmaker. You can always try going direct to a retailer, but they’ll tell you to go through a wholesaler with whom they already do business. You then decide to go to the wholesaler that the retailer recommended and the wholesaler tells you that they only deal with distribution labels and not filmmakers. This is because the wholesaler wants a client that brings them 10+ titles a year, not one title every three years.
So now you’re back to square one. What can you do to get your film to market and turn a decent profit per unit? Welcome to the world of Sub-Distribution and Service Deals. You basically pay us to list your film with our wholesalers and direct retail partners. You also press your own DVDs (must be factory replicated) and mail them to us as we need them. You get paid monthly, net 90 days. Which means you get paid for April’s sales in July. So why should you pay to press your own DVDs and pay to have your film listed with our wholesalers? Well you’ve probably spent thousands of dollars on your film, why not press 1,000 DVDs and put it to market. A 1,000 DVDs will basically cost you $1,500.00 and our listing fees are just a few hundred dollars. Not a lot of money compared to what you’ve spent on your film at this point. Hey you made the film, so you must have thought there was an audience, why not put your film to the test?
You maybe thinking what’s the difference between our service and say something like FilmBaby? I’m glad you asked, the difference between us and FilmBaby is we’re full fledged distribution and we accept returns 100%. FilmBaby is a great service, but they don’t accept returns and this is going to severely limit the market penetration of your title. Yes, all of your DVDs are 100% returnable, it’s risky, welcome to distribution. Our deal is exclusive, FilmBaby’s is non-exclusive. If your title is exclusive it receives a much harder push than a non-exclusive deal.
Risk Factor: Yes this business is risky. Without risk there is no reward. But you’re a filmmaker or perhaps an up and coming label (yes we accept films from labels as well) so you knew that going in. But we understand that not every filmmaker out there is willing to take the Wal-Mart risk. Yes if Wal-Mart orders 30,000 copies of your movie, you have to press and ship 30,000 units. And yes those are all 100% returnable. To alleviate this problem we have two deals setup here you can take advantage of, our Basic Package that excludes Wal-Mart but still features many of the top outlets like Best Buy, Barnes & Noble etc. Then we have our Deluxe Package that is exclusive to the top 5,000 retailers. Now not necessarily are all 5,000 retailers going to pick up your product, most probably won’t. But that’s not saying you couldn’t do 30,000 units through our Basic Package either, but the risk is much less.
We deal mostly in Cult, Horror, Sci-Fi and Exploitation titles. These are our specialty, but we accept all genres of movies. We have a couple of promotional packages available to help assist you in marketing your title, these are available only for Cult, Horror, Sci-Fi or Exploitation titles, as that is what we market. If you have a Western or Indie Documentary we can set you up with some marketing assistance for those as well, but those are done on a case by case basis. If you need assistance with replication services for your DVD, we can put you in contact with our replicator to get you a great deal.
Here are some examples of our titles out in the main market: Hardware Wars 30th Anniversary DVD, Orlok The Vampire in 3D, Why Lie? I Need a Drink.
Some of our upcoming titles: Crippled Masters 2, Crippled Masters 3, Comic Book Independents, Colony of the Dark.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
All right you’ve looked over all the packages and still feel you shouldn’t pay for your own distribution. Sure you can send us a screener and we’ll look at it. But we only put out a dozen or so films a year on our label, so the competition is pretty tough.
Please send all inqueries to afcinema@yahoo.com
Apprehensive Films
7250 Auburn Blvd. #260
Citrus Heights, CA 95610
(916) 880-4025