All these wonderful things

Joe Swanberg, DIY Distribution and the Wave of the Future

A few years ago during the pre-theatrical release of Gigantic, I met up with a college kid named Joe Swanberg. Joe was attending Southern Illinois University in Carbondale, where a year earlier we had shot footage of former US Senator Paul Simon for the introduction to our film. Joe asked to do an interview with me for his website and a few months later, he screened Gigantic in Carbondale during their student-run film fest Big Muddy. Joe and I stayed in touch over the next few years as he began working on a DV feature with some of his friends. We talked about it occasionally and I was intrigued by the process (the four actors would co-write and co-direct) as well as the subject matter (a no-holds barred look at sex and body image). Occasionally we would disagree, as Joe would be talking cinematic revolution (DIY all the way, who cares about festivals or distributors), while I encouraged him not to sell his idea short and assume from the beginning that fests and distribs would be uninterested. The truth ended up somewhere in the middle as Joe's film Kissing on the Mouth debuted at the 2005 SXSW Film Festival and went on to play several other festivals in North America. Distributors, however, were less inclined to pick up the experimental, graphic film (with full-frontal nudity, erections and more).

Truly Indie: What Have We Learned

When I first posted about Truly Indie last week, I had no idea that it would create such a swarm of interest and/or criticism. On first blush, it seemed a great alternative, a network of four-walling, that seemed of benefit to filmmakers. And because it seemed to me that Mark Cuban and Todd Wagner are consistently proposing new ideas related to the production, distribution and exhibition of independents, I wanted to give them due credit for another interesting idea.

As I noted later, I was surprised by the amount of anmosity towards Cuban and the knee-jerk criticism of Truly Indie. Then I became interested when I received a number of comments, both here and off-line, from folks in Boston who described a battle over the Brattle (the thrilla from Manilla) and numerous problems at Landmark's Kendall Square, which is owned by Cuban and Wagner's 2929 Entertainment. After Mark Cuban himself weighed in on the subject, I tried to do some investigation on both topics, including a at Truly Indie that tried to answer some of the lingering questions.

Some Truly Indie Answers

There was a great deal of speculation here [and here and here and, of course, here] and elsewhere late last week with the announcement that Mark Cuban and Todd Wagner were starting up a new self-distribution model called Truly Indie.

Over the weekend, I traded emails with Truly Indie's Kelly Sanders in an effort to get more specifics on the program. Herewith, 7 questions, 7 answers:

   1. Indiewire reported that 100% of the box office
   take will be returned to the filmmakers, but the
   Variety article quoted Mark Cuban as saying "most
   of a pic's box office profits will usually go to a
   project's producers, though each deal will vary".
   Can you give us a general idea of the breakdown
   of a typical deal?

   KS: 100% of the box office is the standard.

Mark Cuban Responds

Within the last hour, Mark Cuban joined the debate here about Truly Indie and weighed in on allegations that Landmark has targeted the Brattle in Boston, attempting to get it shut down.

His response is printed below. You can also find it in context here. He is responding, in part, to comments made over on Chlotrudis as well as the debate here about his latest film initiative Truly Indie.

For my part, I think it's great that he's joined the debate. As noted in my initial post on the subject, my instinct is that Cuban is a net positive - I admire his desire to find innovative ways to work with filmmakers, film distribution and exhibition. I'm pleased that he's responded directly to the comments made here and elsewhere regarding the Boston situation. We will continue to cover both topics here.

Landmark vs the Brattle

I want to make note of Michael Colford's recent post on the Chlotrudis blog regarding the debates we've been having here on Truly Indie, Mark Cuban and Landmark. [Yes, I'm linking to a blog that blogs about this blog, and yes, I know how meta that is.]

In his post, Colford notes:

     As many Boston-area Chlotrudis members are
     aware, there's something strange going on with
     Landmark. The recent turnover in the management
     at the Kendall Square Cinema, coupled with the
     unionization of the staff are two clear indicators.
     Add to that the fact that former manager, Nancy
     Campbell, has just joined the Chlotrudis Board,
     and we have some fairly dependable info about
     the goings on in Landmark Theatre operations.

Gigantic. Truly Indie? (And Save the Brattle)

In our ongoing debate on Mark Cuban and Todd Wagner's newly announced Truly Indie, my pal Joe asks "if "Truly Indie" was an option when you were getting ready to release Gigantic, would you have considered it over a traditional distributor, or do you see it as a last resort for films that can't get into theatres any other way?"

I'm not sure I know the answer to this question. From our first screening at South by Southwest, we actively pursued (the dear departed) Cowboy Pictures to release our film. [We also pursued a number of other distributors who had expressed a vague, non-defined interest.] It took us months to get Cowboy guru John Vanco to see the film, at which point we found out he was interested in releasing it.

In the meantime, we received a number of offers from DVD companies who were interested in releasing Gigantic. We could have skipped a theatrical release altogether and gone straight to DVD, but we knew that a theatrical release of some kind was imperative. Our thought was, if you walk into your local video store and you see a DVD about They Might Be Giants that you've never heard of, you're probably going to assume, oh, this must be a concert video or a collection of videos that the band put out.

More on Mark Cuban and Truly Indie

After Joe and I debated the relative merits of Mark Cuban and Todd Wagner’s Truly Indie, I did a bit more research on the proposed venture. Several things that are worth noting come via Monday’s article in Variety. While Indiewire had previously reported that filmmakers would receive 100% of the box office take, Variety quotes Cuban saying “that most of a pic's box office profits will usually go to a project's producers, though each deal will vary.”

This seems to highlight the somewhat undefined nature of Truly Indie and provide a reason for some of the skepticism greeting the announcement. But, beyond this, in reviewing the original Indiewire article and reading more of the posted comments, I was still struck by the response (just as I was by Joe’s comment to my original post). While I knew that Cuban was/is a controversial figure in the NBA, I had no idea he engendered such enmity within the independent film community.

Truly Indie

The announcement Monday that Mark Cuban and Todd Wagner's 2929 Entertainment will launch Truly Indie - a distribution scenario by which filmmakers can fund their own theatrical releases - is just the latest in a long line of innovative and truly creative ideas from Cuban and Wagner, all of which threaten to turn long-established traditions on their ear.

Under the Truly Indie plan, accepted films/filmmakers can pay $40,000 to screen for one week in five cities or as much as $150,000 to screen for a week in 20 cities. Filmmakers will then keep 100% of the box office take AND retain all rights to their film. Because a theatrical release is almost essential to getting a decent DVD release, this is a real opportunity for independent filmmakers. While some have criticized the cost of the program and questioned its originality (as one poster on Indiewire argues - "this is basically four-walling"), Truly Indie puts more control in the filmmakers hands - both in choosing the size of a release and in cutting out the often difficult reality of collecting box office receipts (particularly when you are working with a distributor that has less clout than a major).

But most of all, Cuban and Wagner just seem really into trying new stuff, whether simultaneous theatrical/DVD/pay-TV releases or HD-investments. Their ingenuity and willingness to risk is, in my opinion, terrifically refreshing.