As I near the end of this incredible journey in making my first film, the last three months have been flying by with accomplishing much needed “to-do’s”. Having quality conversations with copyright or IP lawyers, to negotiate booking a theater for the eventual premiere, I’ve been wearing my Producer hat more now that the film has been handed off to our sound mixer which was explained in Production Log 31. I wanted to give you an update on some of those Producer topics because if you’ve been inspired in creating your own indie film, take these producing subjects into consideration.
Copyright/Intellectual Property
It was recently brought to my attention through a indie filmmaker Facebook group that I should look into the possibility that my film may have a legal tie up with a different registered property. That property is the 1985 video arcade game also called “Gauntlet”. In my entire time working on this project, I had not heard, saw or researched this particular game or knew of its existence. You can correctly imagine that I was incredibly fearful upon hearing if I indeed was stepping on some intellectual property. When I wrote the screenplay back in 2011, I researched through the Library of Congress all of the other film entities that were titled “Gauntlet”. There was one titled The Gauntlet which starred Clint Eastwood back in 1977 that had an entirely different plot than mine:
“A hard but mediocre cop is assigned to escort a prostitute into custody from Las Vegas to Phoenix, so that she can testify in a mob trial” – IMDB.com
So naturally, when I heard about an actual video game made in the 80’s having the same title as my film, I freaked out.
I was able to reach out to trusted copyright and IP lawyers here in Indianapolis and Chicago, IL to go over my situation. Both lawyers stated that since my property was from an original concept and used no references to the arcade game or its characters, that I was in my own right of intellectual property. This was a HUGE sigh of relief because I couldn’t fathom the concept of having to halt all of my work due to a legality issue. This just goes to show how important it is to have a strong Producer on your film crew to make sure things like this are all in the clear. Great learning experience for yours truly.
The most important thing for me to do when the sound mixer finishes the mix to the film will be submitting it for copyright to the Library of Congress. I already have my copyright for the screenplay and the film will be a derivative of that work. Copyright and Intellectual Property is a big deal in the creative community so if any strong advice I can give after experiencing this is to ALWAYS make sure you copyright your work or create some sort of legal documentation that you own the IP to cover yourself. If you want to learn more about how to submit any creative work with the Library of Congress, click here.
Movie Theater Rental
So with that finally cleared up, I felt better with proceeding booking a movie theater near my hometown for Gauntlet’s official premiere. Yes COVID is still prevalent within our society, even with vaccines being available. My hope is that by the Thanksgiving holiday weekend, which is when I’m aiming for a premiere date, that the COVID cases will drop and that all who are invited will feel safe in attending the in-person event.
I first contacted a small local theater (one screen) to see what the cost and availability were to screen my film. They were happy to help and excited that I reached out. Even though the cost was incredibly affordable, the only time I could show my film on any Saturday, regardless if it being Thanksgiving weekend, would be from 9am-Noon. You may be thinking: why would that be the only time they were willing for me to rent their theater? Well small local theaters really only make their money by showing mainstream films and their primetime ticket sales is in the afternoon, leading into the night. So to say they’d give that time up to use their only theater to screen an indie film is just bad business for them. On the flip side, 9am-Noon wouldn’t work for me because I know not many people who will be invited will show up that early (it doesn’t help that it’s still College Football season either). We unfortunately came at an impasse and respectively went our separate ways. I share this to again help educate you that if you’re wanting to do the same thing, screen your indie film at a local small town theater, you may run into the same problem, who knows?
Next, I reached out to the national chain movie theaters in the surrounding cities like Regal Cinemas and AMC Theaters to see what their policies were in booking a private event. You may or may not know this but apparently its quite common for anyone to rent out a theater for multiple purposes which is cool. I was able to find their policies on each of their websites, along with who to reach out to do business. You may have assumed that it wasn’t as affordable as the small local theater and you would be correct. However, I thankfully had a budget in mind for making this investment and was able to do business with the AMC Theater in Findlay, OH. Paperwork is still be ironed out but the fact that I have a date and a theater for my premiere is giving me ALL the feels.
As I prepare for negotiations to finalize, I’m also understanding that you have to package and deliver your film technically in order for it to play back properly in a modern day movie theater setting. I won’t go into too much detail about that here and maybe will for the next Log, but know that my goal is to make sure the premiere will be the best possible viewing experience to whom all will be there!
Film Festival Research
Along with doing business with the local movie theaters in the Northwest Ohio area, I’m also constantly researching potential film festivals to submit the film too. As stated in the previous Production Log, you as the filmmaker are not guaranteed a spot in the festivals lineup, even though you paid for the non-refundable submission fee. So I, the filmmaker, have to be very intentional in ‘playing the field’ to have the best possible chance for Gauntlet to be accepted and viewed at a festival experience. The indie filmmakers I have interviewed so far who have gone this route have all told me to “be prepared to get rejected” when I start submitting. It’ll hurt the ego I’m sure but in reality, I’m one among thousands of submissions and let’s be real, Gauntlet is a LOW BUDGET-FILMED-IN-YOUR-GARAGE-PENNIES-TO-THE-DOLLAR film. We’ll see where Lady Luck falls on our side but I still need to have a reasonable plan so I don’t over invest my resources.
Currently, the goal is to first locate and submit to a festival in the three host cities that Gauntlet was created: Nashville, TN, Jackson, MS and Indianapolis, IN. I’ve learned that cities or states love to highlight their in-town creatives at their festivals which is awesome. Next, focus on the festivals that offer a sub-genre of no-budget categories. I found that each festival classifies “budgets” to films differently but below is what I found to be the general norm as what classifies a film’s budget, per dollar amount:
- Low-Budget = $250,000 – $1 Million US dollars
- Micro-Budget = $25,000 – $250,000 US dollars
- No-Budget = $0 – $25,000 US dollars
I personally didn’t know this was an option going into making this film but happy to see it is available in some festivals which is really cool! Finally, the third option will be genre specific festivals, which in Gauntlet’s case be Sci-Fi/Fantasy. There are Film Festivals specifically geared towards the genre they’re wanting to host so I’ve been looking at ones all over the world that have Sci-Fi/Fantasy and seeing which one would be a good one to submit too. Ultimately, it’s a numbers game so my end goal is to keep my submissions between 10-15 Film Festivals to help my law of averages. I feel at this point it’d be too costly to go over 15.
FilmFreeway.com
But a great question you’re probably having at this point is “where” or “how” am I researching all of these film festivals? There’s a fantastic website called FilmFreeway and it is essentially the best marketplace for film festivals and independent filmmakers all in one location on the web. Not only can I research a festivals’ requirements, deadline dates, categories and submission fees, but I myself can create a profile of my film and submit to any festival I want. It’s incredibly simple and easy compared to yesteryears mailing hard copies of your movie on discs and printing out press kits. Incredibly easy!
So with all of that laid out, below are my top festivals that I’ll be submitting Gauntlet too when completed. Things may change from now until I submit but I’m hopeful that at least one of these festivals accepts it so that the folks who still live in these areas gets the chance to see their voluntary efforts on the silver screen!
Social Marketing
One of the best and FREE ways to market your indie film is by creating a Facebook Page. I’ve listened to so many podcasts and lectures from other indie filmmakers and they are all in unison in using Facebook as their #1 social media outlet to connect with their fans (Instagram being a close second). I’ll admit that I’m way behind the 8 ball when it comes to this because typically you create a page to attract buzz about your film before you begin shooting. This helps the project gain a potential audience who will follow and interact with your posts on the process of your movie making experiences. You could also use the Facebook page to drive your 100% committed followers to a crowd funding platform like Kickstarter, Patreon or Indiegogo, to help finance your film.
Another way of looking at the positive in doing a Facebook page is to show potential buyers or distributors the amount of followers/likes you have to see if indeed you the filmmaker created an audience for your movie when it’s completed. So with that in mind, there’s some work to be done because I just recently launched the page. I’ll continue to use my website to show you the progress of this filmmaking experience but will also populate other cool content on the Facebook Page as we near the end of this wild ride. You can follow Gauntlet on Facebook by clicking the link below!
The Official Gauntlet Facebook Page
I’m also excited and overjoyed to add an incredible designer that I found here in Indianapolis. Nick Yonce has agreed to help design and create some promotional materials for the film (see banner below). This is big because he’ll take away some stress off of my plate while I focus on other aspects of the film that need to get completed like the Press Kit and some other promotional materials I’m thinking about for the premiere. More on that later. Anyways, you can check out the killer design of Gauntlet’s widescreen poster look!
Designed by Nick Yonce and Jeff Loehrke
Doing all of these necessary tasks reminds me that in the end, it’s called “film business”. Yes there’s an art form to creating moving images and telling a narrative in those sequences, but it’s also a product for consumption. How does one go about selling that film then to media outlets and especially to an audience can be very challenging without investing time and resources into the effort to get the word out. I’ll be honest in sharing that this is my least favorite part of the process but am willing to put the effort into making it happen. If anything it just gives me a greater appreciation to any film producer out there!
“One of the cool things is you work on something so long, and then you finally get to show it to an audience. You want to sit with an audience. You want to feel what it feels like to an audience, and that’s also pat of exorcising it out of your system. It becomes part of what you’re doing 24 hours a day for so long.”
– Matt Reeves (Cloverfield, Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, War for the Planet of the Apes)
