I’m an Internet Filmmaking Millionaire and SO CAN YOU!

There have always been indie film snake oil salesmen. Back in the heyday of the 90s Indie Film Boom there were gazillions of books telling you how if you just sold your car, sold your blood, or sold out your family’s mortgage you too could sell a film at Sundance and be an overnight multi-millionaire. Some of those books had accurate production information, most did not, but they all shared one thing in common: a fairy tale ending that was either disingenuous (if you want to be nice about it) or a straightup lie (if you want to be me about it). In the last chapter (or paragraph) of these books, after the authors had just spent hundreds of pages detailing every aspect of development, pre-production, and post-production, they would wrap up by saying you take your movie to Sundance, start a bidding war, and cash the fuck out with millions of chump change in your back pocket. Welcome to being a fucking hotshot millionaire, babydoll! Of course, the process of selling or distributing a movie is no less complex than the process of producing one… and “disingenuous” may be the fairer judgment against these authors because they probably didn’t even know the process of selling or distributing a movie. Film Production is technical knowledge… it’s bare-knuckled, blue collar hard work. It can be taught in technical schools by guys and gals who’ve worked in the field for decades. The processes of making a film don’t really change… and when they do it makes things easier, not harder. Sales & Distribution on the other hand is a bit more nuanced and, to be perfectly frank, sordid… it’s the type of dark arts practiced on Wall Street and East New York streetcorners. It’s far more difficult to write a book about how to sell a credit default swap or a hit of crack than it is to write a book about how to fix a 1982 Buick… not because Wall Streeters are smarter than mechanics but because situations on the ground change moment-to-moment in a dynamic sales environment, whereas the insides of a 1982 Buick stay pretty consistent through the years. Most writers of how-to-be-an-indie-film-millionaire never sold or distributed a film, so they can claim ignorance when their readers lose their cars, blood, or homes. And the ones who did sell or distribute a film? Well, they tend to leave out some pertinent information.

Here’s the real deal on those books: they’re basically the same thing as a book that spends 300 pages teaching you how to buy a lottery ticket and then the last sentence says “now all you have to do is win.”

In the past ten years, the trend has moved away from filmmaking (people caught on to their games I guess) and morphed into get rich quick books about real estate (that worked well), day trading (even better), etc etc etc.

But guess what has happened over the past few years? THEY’RE BACK! The snake oil salesmen have returned to the world of filmmaking… but not that hackneyed old FILMmaking of the 90s… no, the problem with all those books from the 90s was that they came from back before Myspace and Facebook and spam and bots and torrents and all these glorious things that make it so much EASIER for you to make BAZILLIONS of dollars as a DiY FILMMAKER! Hooray! Because look how much good these technologies have done for bands! Sure, record sales are down 90%, record labels are zombies in search of brains, and the highest level of artistic success most musicians seek these days is a put in Grey’s Anatomy. BUT (!) there’s a band I heard about that sold 1 billion downloads just by having a clever YouTube video! You can do it too! Just read my blog about how to shoot a video for YouTube and you figure out the rest!

As you can imagine, I’m pretty cynical about this crap… not just because I’m an oldass veteran of the 90s but because I’ve been releasing movies in the trenches of massmarket retail, new media internet, and DiY face-to-face tabletops for the past few years and I can guarantee you the numbers these self-proclaimed pundits throw around is either completely fabricated or, at best, partially fabricated. The festivals and markets have become echo chambers where false prophets lie to wide-eyed aspiring filmmakers and say “I’m an Internet Filmmaking Millionaire and SO CAN YOU!” The funny thing is these snake oil salesmen, like the millions before them, make their money by selling you information on how to become a millionaire… not by selling their own films. The people who actually make money selling their films are (not so suspiciously) tight-lipped.

Well, I’ve got a big mouth and a bad attitude, so I feel like poisoning the well all these snake oil salesmen are drinking from. I’ll be your indie film Robin Hood, stealing from the stupid and giving to the ignorant. I’ve dealt with every level of this ridiculous business from Best Buy to anarchist bookshops, I’ve crashed major festivals with renegade screenings and also been a guest and award-winner (not simultaneously, of course), I’ve screened films in cinemas with packed audiences and in people’s apartments for a couple of devoted fans (not to mention empty cinemas and packed apartments). And now I’ll tell you how you too can be a Filmmaking MegaSuperstarGodlikeGiverAndReceiverOfPain! Yay!

Why am I going to tell you all this shit? Well… basically, it’s in my self-interest to do so. My company not only produces films, shows, webisodes, lifestyle videos, etc but we also acquire and distribute independently produced films when we see something we dig or when we meet artists we want to champion. Well here’s a tidbit for you… we almost always lose money on our acquisitions and have to make up the difference on our productions. Why? Because filmmakers aren’t generally the shrewdest people in the world and they’re getting a lot of bad information. No one is telling them how to effectively make films THAT CAN BE SOLD. There are so many good films that are just totally unsellable. How is that possible? How can something be good and unsellable? Well, that’s what I intend to tell you.

I originally planned to write a book specifically for the filmmakers we work with so they’ll stop fucking up their movies and making them unmarketable, but I’ve been convinced that it’s probably better to put the information out their for anybody who wants it. So I’m gonna give it a try writing the book on this here blog.

Oh and I’m gonna charge membership for the content. Not because I want your money (although I’ll gladly take it, thank you very much) but for two reasons:
a- if you’re serious about Media Sales & Marketing you oughta know that free information on the internet IS NOT FREE… it is free because it serves someone’s ulterior motive to give it to you for free and their motive may not sync up with your motives so you could wind up with some very bad information;
b- I piss a lot of people off… already in this blog post I’ve probably alienated half the readers and a lot of people I work with. Well, if there’s gonna be any accuracy to my information it’s going to piss off a lot more people, so for my own self-preservation I have to restrict access to the information. The biggest problem with the web is information without context, and I’m gonna say some shit I don’t want just anybody to stumble across in an unrelated google search.

That’s my story and I’m sticking to it. In the next few days, the site will be revamped with free content and premium members-only content and I shall commence dropping the knowledge and shilling my own unique brand of snake oil. Not only will it make you a millionaire, it’ll also cure that nasty rash you picked up at Cinetic’s Sundance party last year. Non Serviam- Pizzolo