Releasing.net is a filmmakers network for releasing independently produced movies and feature films

This website represents indie filmmaking at its best. Knowing how to release a film is the key to successful distribution and exhibition of your movie.

There are many websites and user groups that are posting wrong information on the state of filmmaking and the realities of distribution. Some of them are simply pushing their own agendas and their advertisers' products, which is understandable; but the indie filmmakers need to know that digital image acquisition is not at a professional stage yet. Only 35mm production can insure that the films produced will have a worldwide marketing potential. Digital is great for post production and encoding DVDs and Blu-ray discs. Also digital is necessary for website video clips and Internet trailers. In the future digital image acquisition may reach a stage that it can be used for many types of movies, even theatrical; but for now digital cameras are not up to the task of covering anything but the experimental or heavy use of computer generated images, news, sports, and impromptu events or reality shows.

35mm film production provides for proper exhibition of movies in worldwide cinemas in widescreen 1:1.85 and Panavision 1:2.33 formats. Digital cameras are not properly configured yet; the technologies haven't been standardized.

Please click on the Rawstock link on this page and read about 35mm film stock for indie filmmaking.

From a legal-ownership perspective, the safest format to shoot is film. This posting showed up today in user groups: posted by Eugenia Loli-Queru on Sat 1st May 2010 22:17 UTC, "You see, there is something very important, that the vast majority of both consumers and video professionals don't know: ALL modern video cameras and camcorders that shoot in h.264 or mpeg2, come with a license agreement that says that you can only use that camera to shoot video for "personal use and non-commercial" purposes (go on, read your manuals).

35mm motion picture film is the best way to get professional results when shooting feature films. It is also the cheapest and best quality process of making 35mm theatrical prints. Digital is cheaper in the beginning, but editing and conforming to 35mm film standards cost ten times more at the end. This is when the distributors and agents refuse to make the 35mm blow-ups, and digital movies end up as DVD releases. Therefore, give yourself the advantage of shooting 35mm film and providing the distributer with the opportunity of booking your film in 99% of theaters worldwide that only have 35mm projectors.

Everybody knows you can’t make a movie without funding and you can’t get the funding without a box office star attached; but nobody can get a star attached unless they have the funding. So it’s a Catch-22 situation, right? Except if you know how to break out of it.

Shooting 35mm or shooting digital is the difference between making money or no money. Even if the film is the same (and it will never be the same,) you will never make a penny if you shoot it in digital. The distributors and exhibitors will take every penny. Finishing a digital movie for distributors costs hundreds of thousands of dollars, and even if it makes millions in the box office, the money will be out of your control. They will take whatever they want, and why would they give you any money? What, so you can sue them? But with film, the 35mm negative is in your hands and no one can touch it without your permission. So for a $15,000 to $20,000 investment in film stock at the beginning of production, you will control all the money coming in and you will decide on how much money to pay all the people who are part of your production and distribution team.

It is natural and appealing for the artist to begin experimenting with digital and telling a story, or creating some visuals, without committing thousands of dollars at the outset to buy 35mm film stock. Working with a small digital camera presents one the opportunity to get into a project without the expenditure of any money, except for the usual money that is spent in living expenses anyway. In this way, the project grows and there is genuine excitement created online, let us say, a blog or a thread on a user group. After months and sometimes a few years of working with a project, suddenly it dawns on one that, hey, this can be a real movie that festivals might play, and that some distributor might be interested in picking this up, and there might be money forthcoming… And then it hits home: the production is amateurish and will cost hundreds of thousands of dollars to bring it up to professional standards, and even then it is never going to look like a feature film shot on 35mm by a professional cinematographer.

The state of the economy has scrambled all efforts to make sense of how a filmmaker is supposed to make a living shooting movies. There is little money left for art and the filmmaker who is self-reliant is the only one who can reasonably survive. What that means is that a filmmaker has to find a way to make movies regardless of whether there is money or not. This thinking lends itself to filmmakers shooting footage and doing small modular films that can be compiled later into feature length movies from 83 to 100 minutes. However, a filmmaker has to think about getting some revenues from these movies. Therefore, it is essential to find a form of exhibition that yields some income to the filmmaker while still protecting the marketability of the movies for later exploitation, and the best avenue is a company like CreateSpace. CreateSpace.com is a subsidiary of Amazon.com and if you submit your movie to them, they will produce a DVD on demand for you that you can sell from your website and they will also put your movie on Amazon. The best part of this deal is that you as the filmmaker receive monthly revenues from DVD sales, downloads and rentals, while at the same time you retain the rights to all your movies and can pull your movies from the catalogue at anytime in the future.

Ten or twenty years ago, it was possible for a filmmaker to make a movie and somehow get it into distribution. The distributors would ask "who is in it" and "what did you make it for?" The first question was so they could sell the movie to foreign buyers or to video outlets. The second question was so they could pay as little as possible upfront for the movie. Frankly, the old model does not work anymore; film distribution has changed, and maybe it is mostly because of the Internet. Putting a name actor in a low budget movie does not guarantee theatrical distribution. Sometimes it does not guarantee any distribution, and it is usually no fault of the name actor involved. The best case scenario even does not work. For example, a filmmaker puts two or three name actors (e.g., actors that have a following on TV) and he proceeds to make a movie that some distributor or agent decides to work with. The end result is usually that the filmmaker does not see a dime for a couple of years -- if ever. The filmmaker is told that just the fact that his movie has been "picked up" by a distribution company and is "out on DVD" means that next time the filmmaker can capitalize on name recognition, that he can then be able to sell his other movies and maybe even get an advance from the distributor. Such filmmakers are even promised some advances on their next projects. So now not only they did not make any money on their first movie, they also lost their second project due to plagiarism and outright theft of their screenplay by other producers lurking in the shadows of this model of distribution (the previous victims of the same scam). Everybody gets ripped off, because the model simply does not work when the audiences are watching such websites as Youtube for free, and they can see everything as it is practically happening.

There are thousands of film festivals now. If all the festival audiences see your movie and your movie is a "festival" movie, who will want to see it after that? General audiences want to see commercial movies, they don't want to see art movies.

Submitting your film to twenty or thirty film festivals, whether they accepted it or not, is like releasing your movie without getting a dime. Yes, of course, it is a way to promote the movie and possibly finding a distributor; but what are the chances of finding a distributor anyway, and one who is going to pay you something upfront?

It is ironic that all the worthless films produced in Hollywood during the last fifty years have been produced by atheists or by those artists who openly attack the memory of Jesus. The festivals are full of films glorifying evil and portraying depravity for its own sake, and all these movies are nothing but refuse. The only films that reach the level of art are the ones that were either based on a Scriptural theme or to some extent glorified the Creator of the universe, Jesus or one of the saints. Great art cannot be based on filth.

And this trend is not unique to film but to all the other arts as well. There simply are no great novelists, writers or artists that have produced anything worthwhile outside of some sustaining faith in Jesus or the Creator of the world as we know him from the Scriptures.

There are several films in development on this website. Send me an email if you are interested in them in any way.

Thousands of movies are made each year; only a few make it to the big screen. Most filmmakers lose money. There are very few honest distributors in the world. If your feature film needs representation at the AFM this year, send me an email.

Neither putting video for sale on non-exclusive sites, nor selling DVDs from websites has panned out for indie filmmakers. By far the best way to recoup for indie filmmakers is through the international marketplace. If you have not given up your rights to your movie via an exclusive deal, email me for info. I am taking on a few filmmakers for representation: Vic Alexander

Virtual movies are shot on digital, real movies are shot on film.

This is the last generation to make real films, while they are still shot on film, feature films in 35mm and documentary in 16mm, and while they are still projected with film projectors in darkened theaters.

Already virtual movies are replacing real films through the digital media of recording. A virtual movie is the creation of engineers and businessmen. It resembles a real movie, but it is not a film. It is transient and marketable only if sensationalized through advertising and publicity. The talents involved are virtual creations of talent agencies that now run show business.

The 81st Academy Awards already made the transition from real films to virtual movies. Movie stars took the stage in fours and fives, male or female, no longer as twos or as real couples. Thus Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie, even though not yet married and yet having had children together, were not asked to be presenters, because they would represent a real couple. Only virtual couples were allowed, such as Natalie Portman and the made up performer who posed with her as an alienated male escort, mocking the image of a couple. A joke was made of it.

Even Steve Martin snapped back at his beautiful escort and said, "Do not fall in love with me!" He then proceeded to say that a certain mythical king (which he made up) had planted the seeds of life, thus mocking God and the natural order of things.

And of course, the movie MILK about homosexuality won for best actor, Sean Penn, in his virtual performance as a homosexual. Accepting the Oscar, Sean proceeded to try and shame all those viewers in the US who had voted for the proposition removing "gay marriage" from the laws written to establish the living together of two men or two women as a legitimate marriage.

Thus even reality is now going to be created through publicity and advertising, so everything will be virtual. Thus for the last time the Kodak Theater has represented real film and soon will become the theater for virtual movies and virtual movie stars.

There was always something fake about Hollywood that film was able to make into a reality of sorts, a reality that dominated world cinema and glamorized the life of the West. But this year's Oscar for Best Movie went to Slum Dog Millionaire, and the kids in the former Bombay celebrated the victory of virtual movies over real films.

Indeed, "slum dog millionaires" is a fitting image for today's crop of virtual stars.

Feb. 24, 2009

The best way to market independently produced movies is now to channel the movies through one independent distributor. If you have a completed feature film, contact me at the email address above. I'm interested in representing a few non-exploitation movies at the upcoming film markets.

Feb. 10, 2009

We are fighting for survival as filmmakers. We are using old ideas, methods and production tools, yet the game has changed now. Movies do not have a dramatic structure anymore, the art of cinematography does not retain the classical Hollywood or the international rules of cinema; none of the supporting crafts that went into making a theatrical feature film or even a long running TV series are the same now.

Thirty second commercials are too long also; viewers' attention span is now about ten seconds and still shrinking. A drug hit lasts less and costs more too (not that I condone drugs), even sex lasts seconds (instant gratification is the norm and there is AIDS to worry about too) and prostitution even is now practically all virtual and masturbatory. The real venues of entertainment are now the computer monitor, the flat screen TV hooked up to the Internet and whatever someone can download on his mobile devices.

Therefore, it is foolhardy to spend three years of your life writing, developing, producing, editing and marketing a feature film now. You cannot get your money back most likely and you will not get as famous as you would expect. Youtube, Myspace, Facebook and other venues springing up are the new theaters of this era. Google Ads and advertising banners that you can sell on your website are how as filmmakers we can make money. Festivals and markets are themselves scrambling for business and their customers are the filmmakers seeking fame and fortune; but the product of the filmmakers needs to target a different audience demographic now or else filmmaking is a money losing proposition.

Jan. 25, 2009

Motion Picture technology is changing so fast that nobody knows what the entertainment future holds. There is a mad rush to exhibit on the Internet. Streaming movies appears to be the new wave. Whoever can get their movies out on the web consistently will attract the biggest audiences. Whether it will become a paying proposition or not remains to be seen. Perhaps as more visitors buy faster broadband connections, watching movies on the worldwide web might become the norm over the next few years.

Jan. 11, 2009

Digital technology is already setting rules for how movies should be made and viewed. It is too early but that is not going to stop those people that are inclined to do so, because through such rules the consumers of digital products are going to be manipulated. For example, the look of movies is now changing from the realism of the 21st Century to the fantasy of the addict culture that was fomented in the 60s and 70s. Storylines are more fluid, the rules of dramatic construction are becoming less stringent, there is no more need for visual integrity, and all the techniques of telling stories are being revised. Some of these techniques have been developed by commercials, advertising and PR. The use of zoom lens, the time-crash edit, the morphing of images, the use of music to dominate the visuals, the lack of literary content both poetic and classical is fast disappearing, and shorter films, staccato scenes and dialogue are now becoming the norm.

This revolution in technology is making it easy for everyone to make movies and the Internet is allowing everyone with a camera and a broadband connection to produce and exhibit movies. Virtual reality is now becoming a way of life and movie makers are now emerging as the cultural heroes of this generation. Therefore, there are benefits to this movement; the playing fields are leveling finally and the major studios and the TV networks are helpless to stop it.

The movie festivals are now a growing trend; every movie maker now has a shot at having their movie seen by mass audiences. The look of look of film is now being simulated for those audiences that still like the films of the past. There are programs that manipulate the image after the movie has been recorded. Digital cameras are proliferating and the art of storytelling is changing.

Dec. 22, 2008

Digital cameras and digital distribution of movies has finally created a new medium of entertainment different than the cinema of the 20th Century. The new medium is more akin to television productions, with the emergence of TV actors as the new movie makers. Many of the older TV stars are also well established film directors by now and their transition into digital movie making has been an easy one. Most of the cinematic qualities of feature films have now disappeared. The new digital technologies cannot match the quality of 35mm film, but audiences are now used to the conventions of digital production and, therefore, digital exhibition is gradually replacing 35mm theatrical projection everywhere. Traditional filmmaking is becoming somewhat of a lost art, still taught at film schools but on its way out as an art form. The only thing that survives from the cinema of the 20th Century is the history and criticism of story telling and the literature based on the work of great directors and classical movies of the last century.

Dec. 14, 2008

The US domestic market is difficult for movies. Theatrical runs are expensive to arrange, especially as most cinemas aren't set up for digital screening yet. The only market that is readily available to indie filmmakers is the foreign market. Selling movies to territorial buyers and sub-distributors will yield more money for the indie filmmaker right now.

Nov. 21, 2008

Distribution is the bottleneck for indie filmmakers trying to find their audiences. Contact me if you are a serious filmmaker with one or more completed feature films. I can take independently produced movies into the foreign marketplace and help the filmmakers recover their money.

Nov. 14, 2008

Today is essentially the last day of the AFM. There were thousands of movies for sale but few buyers were offering the going rate for their territories. The economic conditions are very difficult at this time. The American Film Market participation fees are too large for small filmmakers to participate. The AFM is advertised as the home of the independents, but participation fees are $5,000, with the smallest room going for $7,500. With equipment rental for projection of the movies to potential customers going for a few thousand dollars, plus the advertising necessary, the total cost of a market for companies is over $30,000. Most participants don't make it back for a second time.

Nov. 11, 2008

The annual American Film Market is an international film bazaar for indie movies. This year there are many more Asian companies. The studios have withdrawn from the market after having dumped their old star library on the markets for two decades. Nobody remembers the old stars of the Golden Days of Hollywood anymore.

The current stars are entering the foreign market as producers. This trend will continue until the buyers realize that they can buy similar movies for a fraction of the cost. The present movies with $15,000,000 to $25,000,000 budgets can't compete with indie movies made for $750,000 to $3,000,000.

Nov. 10, 2008

This is an exciting time for indie filmmakers.

There are thousands of digital movies being churned out these days. The market is flooded with them. However, the foreign buyers are looking for bargains. Movies originated on 35mm with a few name actors are the best sellers at the AFM, as most world theaters are still geared up for 35mm screenings.

Most digital moviemakers are biding their time and using the market only to promote their movies.

We will report more on the AFM after it closes.

Nov. 5, 2008

The best marketing for your film is the marketing that makes you money directly from the film buyers internationally. It is best not to rely on distributors and agents, unless they advance you the production budget and guarantee you a percentage or a certain amount of money in a specified period.

Oct. 20, 2008

The Stock Market went went up 1000 points on Monday and dropped a 1000 points two days later. Again today it's moving up and down, with insiders and specialist fleecing the remainder of the investors trying to salvage their lifesavings and the gamblers who are hooked on speculation.

For serious filmmakers the Stock Market gyrations should hold no sway; we are affected by state of the economy to be sure, but we need not be idle. We must find a way to always be advancing our art and completing projects. Sometimes the slowdown in a project brings about maturity of vision and a better result. The product is enhanced as we work steadily and are not affected by the mood of the times. It takes years to complete a project and sell it, especially for us independents financing our own movies through side projects or services provided as hired hands in the movie industry.

Oct. 16, 2008

The Stock Market goes up and down like a yo-yo. The specialists buy low and sell high and then when the market drops down once more, they buy low and sell high again. When the Stock Market brokers overcompensate themselves or lose money, Congress votes to pump more money into the "economy." It's only paper anyway. To my way of thinking, celluloid is a lot more credible. A movie preserves the culture; paper is flushed down the toilet.

Oct. 14, 2008

With the slowdown in the economy predicted by the US Government over the next few years, it is necessary for the independent filmmakers to develop a survival strategy. Making movies that find an audience over the Internet is essential for success. Building a library of films will help us place a wide range of movies on this website. Send me an email if you have movies that you would like to release over the Internet and in the international movie markets.

Oct. 11, 2008

The Stock Market is down 484.26 points so far today. In the last week the Stock Market has fallen thousands of points, until it has now reached the same point as in 1995. All the money that was made by some investors has been lost. Some companies have disappeared entirely, their net worth is zero. The new companies that raised billions of dollars in cash made it look like the Stock Market was holding its value and it looked like it was even going up; however, this was only an illusion, as trillions of dollars were gambled and lost on the Stock Market. In short, most of the money invested in the Stock Market has been lost. The ratio of money won to money lost in the Stock Market is virtually identical to the ratio of money won or lost at any craps table in Las Vegas. The only difference between the Stock Market and the Las Vegas Casinos is that the Las Vegas Casinos provide better entertainment.

Oct. 10, 2008

With the Stock Markets crashing all over the world, the movie business is getting affected like any other industry. As independent filmmakers it is much easier for us to roll with the punches.

While the new digital technologies helped us make movies for less money and to put out DVDs much easier, we still cannot compete with the major studios when it comes to marketing our indie movies. The big distributors can guarantee the theatrical releases that ensure a wider audience for the studio DVDs; the indie filmmaker sells in the thousands, while the Hollywood producer sells millions.

The digital cameras allow the indie movie maker to shoot movies without the initial costs of purchasing 35mm film and lab processing; however, the new technology has created a glut in the number of movies on the festival circuits and in the foreign markets. Moreover, the major movie producers can hire super stars that guarantee big box office returns, while the indie movie maker cannot afford to hire even one of these stars.

The only way to compete with the major studios at a time like this, when the Stock Market that feeds them is down, is to go back to the older technology that produces superior quality movies. The independent filmmakers can now shoot 35mm and release 35mm prints for the small theater chains that can't afford the $85,000 digital projectors.

For the ultra low budget filmmakers, there are short ends 35mm film stock that is a fraction of the cost, because the demand for film has been low recently. Email me and I will quote you on an excellent package of 35mm rawstock for your indie production.

Oct. 9, 2008

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