Creative representatives have always touted themselves as part of the artist’s “team,” particularly when a film hits pay dirt with lots of critical acclaim, awards, etc. However, in the current indie world we all inhabit, this appears to be more than a sentiment—at least in the cases of some of the filmmakers to whom indie is truly DIY from soup to nuts. Over the last few months—months laden with the major international festivals and awards shows and the ubiquitous year-end “best of” lists—I spoke with a wide array of filmmakers and reps. We talked about their stories of how these films got made, the hard roads these filmmakers traveled, the insurmountable odds of not only getting projects completed, but finding the ways and means to market and distribute them. All are really quite inspiring in every case.
I asked a lot of folks about the importance of having representation for yourself and your film projects. What can an artist’s, producer’s, sales or PR rep do for you and your film that you can’t (or don’t want to) do for yourself? And how do you know if a rep really has your best interests? Responses from filmmakers who have gone the route alone all the way through self-distribution, and those who have found real champions in their representatives, weigh in, as do some of the people who have helped them in various ways.
We’ll start with filmmakers Barlow Jacobs and Zack Godshall who hit the high-stakes road to Sundance by premiering their first feature there in January of this year, as was their intention. Low and Behold is a local story writ large by the disaster that was Hurricane Katrina, a combination of an act of nature and the negligence of humankind that left huge swaths of destruction and misery in the southern part of our nation in her wake.
When Jacobs and Godshall finished their film, met the Sundance deadline and were waiting to hear, they shopped it around and got a screener into the hands of independent producer, Sarah Hendler who, in turn, got it into the hands of an agent at William Morris Independent and Ravi Anne and Jared Moshe´ of Sidetrack Films who helped lob it over the fence in Park City and repped the film there. The first narrative film to come out of post-Katrina times, the filmmakers are still looking for distribution, and, like many first-, even second-, third-, and fourth-time, etc. filmmakers, are huffing it around the globe to as many important festivals as possible to position themselves to meet and greet a distribution arm of a studio to score theatrical runs, television and/or DVD distribution deals.
But do you really need representation? As clichéd as it sounds, this is a business of relationships. Writer/director, Mia Goldman, who started as an editor (Crazy People, Flesh and Bone, Something to Talk About, My Big Fat Greek Wedding), also didn’t have representation during the filming of her first directorial effort Open Window, which debuted at Sundance last year. She says, “Get the work done. It’s not to say you shouldn’t keep trying to find representation or people to help you get your film made and shown, but don’t rely on that. Chances are they will find you. And they’ll find you because they like the script, they like you as a person and believe in your talent. But you’ve got to do the work first.”
I also had a chance to sit in a room with the seven filmmakers who were up for best feature at the Independent Spirit Awards this past February: first-time filmmaker Aric Avelino (American Gun), director/writer team Anna Boden and Ryan Fleck (Half Nelson), directors Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris (Little Miss Sunshine), Karen Moncrieff (The Dead Girl) and Guillermo del Toro (Pan's Labyrinth). When asked about representation from a filmmaker’s perspective, they expressed how essential it was to stay the course and stay true to the vision of your project—the way you wish it to be shot, the way you wish it to be told, the way you wish it to be represented and marketed.
I heard very similar sentiments from the reps. Maureen Toth of the Geller Agency, who represents editors, ADs, directors of photography, composers, etc., (also known as “below-the-line” talent), says, “The people who are super enthusiastic… are the ones that are going to have the most compelling careers. …enough can’t be said about how your attitude and commitment translate into future work.”
Financier and producer, Jared Moshe of Sidetrack Films, whose company provides financing and finishing funds for nonfiction and narrative projects (Kurt Cobain About a Son and Low and Behold, among them) and brokers deals for domestic and international distribution, says, “I have to understand why the filmmaker wants to make their movie. The process is a long and hard one, and if a filmmaker doesn’t have the passion when they are starting the film, they probably won’t have the drive to see it through. Also, films are made for audiences, and the competition for audience attention is fierce. If a filmmaker can’t explain why he/she is making a movie, there is no way the audience will, and you’ve lost them before you’ve begun.”
Cassian Elwes, who is an agent at The William Morris Agency, represents independent films and independent film producers. He is widely regarded as one of the most influential people in the U.S. independent film industry because of his ability to package and market small “art house” films and cross them over into the mainstream. Yet, on a recent panel held last November at the AFM, Elwes emphatically expressed that, unless a writer/director/filmmaker doesn’t come to the table with a clear, pure passionate vision of his/her project, as much of a “miracle worker” as he’s touted to be, nothing much can be done to move things along if the filmmaker wavers in their conviction of how and why the film needs to be made in a very particular, focused way.
Do we sense a theme here?
Particularly in the independent world, everyone from Bob and Harvey Weinstein to entertainment lawyer, John Sloss, to producer, Christine Vachon of Killer Films, champion and support the outside filmmaker—visionary artists whose projects refuse to slip comfortably into a typical Hollywood genre. The best thing a new filmmaker can do is familiarize him/herself with those of which are looking for projects to get behind.
On the subject of representation, there was universal agreement, that no matter what kind of support a filmmaker has from an agent, a manager, a sales agent, a distribution company—any kind of “indie angel”—the responsibility ultimately lies with the filmmaker, the auteur of the piece. To a person, the same thing was said repeatedly. Go out and make your film. It’s possible, it’s do-able, you are the only person who can make your vision live and breathe—no one else can or will do that for you.
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