Introduction:
In the world of filmmaking, successfully selling a movie and maximizing its financial returns can be a complex and challenging endeavor. This article presents a masterclass on the art of selling a movie, featuring insights from Glen Reynolds, the founder of Circus Road Films. With his extensive experience as a producer's representative, Reynolds sheds light on the role of a producer's rep and shares valuable knowledge on navigating the distribution landscape in the United States.
Film Courage: What is the producer's rep? Circus Road Films’ Founder Glen Reynolds: It's like a sales agent, it's another name for a sales agent so it usually connotes being a domestic sales agent as opposed to an international sales agent it's a little different in that as a producer rep you are selling films to U.S distributors and in doing so there's you don't really have to take over the film from the filmmaker you can make the deal you can negotiate on their behalf and then they can deliver the film to the distributor and the distributor can pay them directly it's a fairly easy transaction whereas on the international front International sales agents really have to take over that process so International sales agents are more like distributors in that you deliver them the film and then they go to markets around the world sell these Distributors and then in turn deliver the film to those Distributors collect that money and then account to a a producer so in my case I don't do that I specialize in U.S Distributors and as most producer apps do and I'm just like a consultant sales agent for that purpose between a producer's rep and so a producer rep is really trying to get the film maker the best deal possible in the United States with a with a traditional distributor Distributors are are taking on the film played in theaters put it on video and demand making
Blu-rays selling the rights to Netflix or HBO and putting on an advertising video on demand later like Tubi or Pluto so they're usually most Distributors are handling all rights that way as a producer rep I'm mean the filmmaker usually about the time they finish the film or about to get into film festival or just got into a film festival and I'm going to help them get into the world of distribution and show the film to the Distributors to see who would be the best possible partner for taking the film out why would a filmmaker hire a producer rep well especially if you're a first time filmmaker most schools don't teach film distribution and so there's just a huge learning Gap in terms of like what distribution is and what they do and usually I consider my part of my job as education in terms of teaching my clients what Distributors do and which Distributors do it better than who and part of my job is to know who's doing it legitimately and who's not doing it legitimately and who takes an appropriate distribution fee for putting the film out into the world who's kind of trying to rip them off and so it's to protect them as well so there's there's really just the knowledge of distribution that's one reason another is just protection and in addition some salesmanship I'm trying to get the best possible deal out there and some filmmakers a filmmaker, in theory, could wear all those hats if they got to learn the distribution landscape and learn who all the Distributors are and learned how to negotiate these contracts and had a sales hat in addition to a creative that there are those types right that could do it all I'm here for the ones that don't and producer reps in general are there for the people who can't that need some help in that in that area have you ever experienced that where someone says I went to AFM I go on IMDb Pro and I see what similar films are who they're with and I just can't navigate this can you help me yeah all the time because there's there are a lot of different kinds of people at AFM like they're sales agents versus Distributors sometimes they do both there's been increasing trend of some International sales agents getting into U.S distribution their contracts look a little bit different than what U.S Distributors agreements
look like and so yeah I get it all the time that from filmmakers hey they can't get the Distributors to call them back there are some Distributors that are pretty good have an open door policy of looking at lots of material and there's some Distributors that just want to really use the system of agents and Reps that are out there to to kind of be a kind of a buffer against all the content that's out there they don't need to see 10 000 movies this year they want to look at the top three or four hundred which to choose the 20 they might distribute that year so it just yeah most most filmmakers when they go to FM AFM is a great learning process but it's not a great really a great tool for independent filmmaker to go to and actually sell their own film it usually they experience it once they'll they'll find it's really hard to get in those doors to meet with Distributors and most Distributors and sales agents want to keep Keep the Wolves at Bay so to speak of course so if a filmmaker says well I'm very Hands-On and DIY I'll I'll be the one to break through it's kind of like they're breaking protocol a little bit that's not how it's yeah it's well it's not that it's not okay it's just that there are some companies that it's just hard to get a return phone call they're just busy dealing with the Reps and agents for film and they're getting some of these companies are getting five six submissions a day and some of them just completely ignore they just look at it and think I don't know what that is there's just there's just too much in coming.
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