Film Distribution 101 (What's a distributor?)

The most important part about making a movie is getting people to actually watch it. Distribution has always felt like this best kept industry secret, but today let's break it down. For those of you that don't know, I'm Brynne! I've helped films get into Oscar qualifying festivals, which led me to start an app called Hiike where your film can get matched with the right festivals with a similarity score. Anyways, what's a distributor? A distributor is a partner for your film. They're a company that's gonna help your film get onto platforms like Tubi or Amazon or Apple TV, streaming deals or sometimes theatrical or just really getting your film out there in different mediums. Unless you've got a huge name or a huge festival win or super niche market, your film is probably going straight to digital. A distributor is gonna help you clean up all like your poster and your trailer and sometimes they're gonna do marketing. In many distribution contracts, distributors are taking upwards of 50% (on the low end) of your film's profits. And they're gonna recoup their marketing costs, so whatever they spent to market your film, they're gonna collect that back before you can split any profit. I actually recently spoke with a few filmmakers who grossed over half a million dollars for their film and they never saw a dime of it because their distributor claimed that that all was marketing costs. Be smart, be skeptical. Look out for contracts that are asking for perpetuity or auto renewals. Make sure there's a specific delivery timeline. This is why a lot of filmmakers right now are pushing towards self distribution. Filmmakers are getting screwed over because they don't know what to look for. There's not enough knowledge about independent distribution, which is why I built Hiike! Build your audience and keep the power.