I have been talking to Sales Agent and Author Stacey Parks
about running a seminar later in the year, with her new book on distribution.
She has her own subscription website too, www.filmspecific.com,
and has free emails every so often. She holds teleconference calls too, and here are some of her pointers from the last one. Fascinating stuff.
The Distributor Teleseminar with Scott Bedno of Showcase
Entertainment (fresh back from the Cannes Film Market) went extremely well
yesterday. He gave out some awesome information, and some very valuable insight
into the foreign sales game...so much that I was furiously taking notes the
whole time! It's far too much information to list here, but here's a few good
tid bits from the call that I wanted to share with everyone:
2. Foreign DVD sales are down, mainly because of the
'bargain bin' phenomenon sweeping the world....but foreign Broadcast sales are
up.
3. When pulling together all your deliverables, don't forget
to make a 'fully filled' M &E track.
4. Working with a foreign sales agent allows you to leverage
their years of experience and relationships with buyers. Sales are made on relationships
and if you haven't been doing business with distributors on an ongoing basis,
you may end up at the bottom of their priority list.
5. The most important of all your deliverables are SLIDES.
Be sure to take at least 50 hi-res images, ACTION shots on the set, so that you
can deliver a good amount of 300 dpi images for your campaign and artwork
creation.
Scott also said they are now accepting submissions for the
upcoming MIPCOM and AFM film markets in the fall. I've posted the contacts and
submissions details up on the site, so check it out there.
Also, the good news is that if you missed this call
yesterday, I've already posted an MP3 recording of it up on Film Specific. You
can check it out here:
http://film-distribution-tips.com/t/8778034/584635/180029957/
AND...the best news of all is that we've locked down Michael
Baker, V.P of Acquisitions and Development for North American theatrical
distributor THINK FILM for our June Distributor Teleseminar! Stay tuned for
details...but this is gonna be one you don't want to miss...and as always, I'll
be giving you the opportunity to send in all your questions beforehand.
Alright! That's enough for now. Hopefully you will benefit
from the Foreign Sales tips ... please let me know if you have any feedback!
Check out her site if you like this little snippet.
Chris Jones, Film Maker and Author
www.livingspirit.com
[email protected]
