Yes, some films need a more professional touch, but for a lot of filmmakers, distributing online themselves is a great option. Plus, it’s a lot of fun. You get to see actual money coming in (hopefully) that people paid to see your documentary or your movie. Even if it is $2 at first, that’s $2 that you made from your own filmmaking blood sweat and tears. It’s a cool feeling.

So let’s take a look at some options to go with for self distribution. This post is going to cover one of the big ones: IndieFlix.

Indieflix was started in 2005 as a DVD on demand fufillment service for filmmakers. Now, they do the whole video on demand and hooking up to alternate content channels thing (like iTunes and Hulu). They don’t charge for anything until you make money off your film. Then they take a 30% cut.

The nice thing about IndieFlix is that it is specifically made for filmmakers. It has the whole “by filmmakers, for filmmakers” vibe to it. In fact, the requirement for being on the site is that your film was an official selection at a film festival. So they don’t play around.

So apparently IndieFlix has some people behind it actually looking at your film and helping with the distribution behind the scenes. You get DVD sales and VOD on the site, and then there is the third party stuff like iTunes and Hulu:

Here’s the deal for now with third-party outlets: IndieFlix not only offers DVD and Streaming Pay-Per-View sales at IndieFlix.com, but we now provide content to a growing network of alliances and preferred partnerships with digital platforms that currently reach millions of viewers worldwide. These third-party outlets include iTunes, Amazon VOD, Tivo, Hulu, Vudu and Netflix. We research and negotiate the best possible splits for you and create marketing campaigns geared to turn traffic into sales – absolutely free.

That’s a lot of trust to put into any company  - trusting them to put together some sort of marketing campaign for free. Their incentive, of course, is that if your movie is popular, they make more money. Also, getting onto these content streams like Netflix is on a selective basis, which means NetFlix determines what they are going to push where. It’s up to them.

So the name of the game with IndieFlix is trust. Do you trust them to do what’s right for your film? Looking around their site, they definitely seem to have a feeling of pride about the films they distribute. Their blog is filled with posts that could not have been written without a group of people who were interested and actively involved with the promotion of their films. That’s a good sign.

IndieFlix is not a Createspace or  Lulu where you are interacting mainly with the site, and are being put through a pipe. IndieFlix is more selective, but you get what is more of a partner is distribution than a distribution method.

One thing that makes it a viable choice in my eyes is the fact that IndieFlix is cool with you going other places for distribution. So if you are getting no joy from them and they aren’t interested in pushing your doc to Hulu, you can try another path and that’s okay.

Have an experience with IndieFlix? Let us know in the comments!

Yes, $15,000 is on the high end, of what we talk about here, but this is a feature and that includes equipment (apparently).

What caught my eye about this story were the elements that would sound familiar to someone making a short for $200:

• Filmmakers playing lead roles
• Filmmakers making food for cast and crew
• Crew from Craigslist
• Crew working for free
• PVC track camera dolly
• Shot on video
• Actors/actresses doing their own makeup and hair

You’ve got that, right? Everyone can scrounge up everything on this list. So why is this film getting distribution? Well, here are some things you might not have in your pocket that they did:

• DP with inheritance money to buy nice equipment
• Known, award-winning actors willing to work for SAG daily minimum
• Insurance to piggy back off of
• Shot in New York City

The film doesn’t sound that appealing to me but I’m not really a romantic comedy fan, and the thought of spending a few hours watching two twenty-something jewish kids work out their relationship problems in hilarious ways doesn’t exactly make me want to change my mind, but that’s not the point.

The dude from the IFC sums it all up here:

If this were just friends and family, that would be one thing. But they’ve got some very distinguished actors, and it looks great. So it’s incredible that they spent so little out of pocket.

It looks great and they’ve got some great people. Hmm. Well, with work DiY Filmmakers can make what they shoot look great.

The thing that gets me is the emphasis on the people they have in the movie. It’s not “the story was so compelling, that I can’t believe they spent so little.”, it’s about the fact they got some names in there (in small parts, mind you), that are recognizable to some.

When you go to the article, take a look at the slideshow. It’s just a bunch of kids making a movie on video – you’ll see shades of yourself in there, but they’re being profiled in the New York Times and got slipped $40,000 by IFC to promote it – almost triple the original budget.

So is there anything to learn from this?

I think there is. When you take a look at your resources as a DiY Filmmaker, try and push them a little bit farther, outside of your comfort zone.

We all can come up with everything from list A. We all don’t need everything from list B, but we need to be able to find things to go in list B that give us the extra edge. Here are some suggestions:

• Find out if there are some well-known people around your area, and if there are, find out if they’d do a small part in your film. If you present yourself as someone making a great little project that they could be a part of, then you never know, they could bite. The worst thing they can do is say no. No one likes to hear “no”, but you can chin up and take it.
• Call around to your friends and see if they know someone or something interesting or notable you could somehow work into your film. Maybe your friend has access to a vintage car collection. Maybe they know someone famous who can be cajoled into a role.
• Think of the ideal location for a scene in your film. Then, call up the people who manage that location, and ask if you can shoot there. Who knows – you could be shooting a scene in a dream location instead of at the park down the street.

I’m sure you guys can come up with some more. The idea is getting to the starting line (the first list), and pushing yourself a little farther (the second list). Don’t limit yourself to just what is within arms reach, and who knows, one of those things you pushed yourself for could be the stand-out thing that gets you noticed by a distributor.