Category: Distribution

Our BIFF Experience and GHOSTS Tour T-Shirts

Posted by Jim Munroe – September 5, 2013

At a time of year when everyone’s talking TIFF, we thought we’d talk BIFF. For us, getting into the Beijing International Film Festival was a bigger deal, what with Ghosts With Shit Jobs‘s premise being so connected to China.

Co-director Tate Young interviewed BIFF-goers earlier this year on what they thought about our flick, and got lots of great city shots to boot, in this 6.5 minute mini-doc. (Bonus: Tate’s ‘How to Film a Selfie‘ for some behind-the-scenes.)

It’s now four years since we began this project and it’s been quite a trip — literally and figuratively. Since its London, England premiere last year we’ve toured with the movie to nearly 20 cities across the world. Figured it merited its own commemorative tour t-shirt, which you can buy at cost for the next week (mens | ladies). It’s got all the cities on the back!

shirtFront
shirtBack

As an aside, you should enjoy TIFF while it lasts — it ends in 2019 after cultural funding disappears completely. BIFF buys all the red carpets at an auction afterwards.

Lo-fi Sci-fi Shorts Screening Monday

Posted by Jim Munroe – August 24, 2012

So you already know that a bunch of us (7 teams so far) are making new lo-fi sci-fi shorts this weekend. (And Sean’s still looking for actors for Sat., if you wanna get in on that.) You may not know that you can check out what the weekend hath wrought on Monday at the Monarch (12 Clinton, Toronto). Watch a half-dozen or so five minute movies at 7pm, pay what you can, $5 pints, weirdo filmmakers in attendance.

In other GHOSTS news: Poland was pretty rad. I ended up at a dinner table with Julian Sands and forgot he was in Naked Lunch, forgot my English at two q&a’s that were translated into Polish, gaped at the gorgeous animated festival identity, arrived underdressed to the super-fancy opening pictured above, abused the open bar, and made some great pals.

Also: we’re going down to q&a at the Ottawa premiere in a couple weeks, first of a three day run at the awesome Mayfair Theatre.

And: the movie’s coming out on a variety of digital platforms (iTunes, XBox, Playstation, Amazon, and Vudu) on November 27th.

That’s it for now, Ghosties! Hope to see some of you on Monday.

Making this Public, Money, & You in Boston?

Posted by Jim Munroe – June 8, 2012

Couple of important things:

  • I’ve moved the blog in preparation to making it a public document of our process. If you have any issues with this — perhaps you made comments that you’d prefer stay private, for whatever reason — just let me know in the next week and we can figure it out.
  • The Kickstarter money is coming in soon. Off the top we’ll be paying back the money that the producers have loaned the project for costs thus far. Then over the next 8 months we’ll use it for the hard costs involved with screening the movie, keeping careful records. After the promotional phase is over in 2013, we will be dividing any remaining money (if any) as per our Time Logging agreement. If you have logged your hours and have not submitted them to me, please do so before the end of June. If you haven’t logged your hours and we know you’ve put more than ten hours into the project, we’ve been making estimates based on how many hours you were on set, plus prep time. This is an experimental method of compensation, and feedback and questions are welcome!

OK, on to the fun stuff!

I’ve posted some pics from the Toronto screening over here.

Here’s a little clipping from the Berlin version of Time Out, Zitty.

(Talking about other languages, we are working on subtitles for GHOSTS. The first step is making English ones so they can be translated, and Dave has transcribed the entire movie — we just need someone to match it up with the timecode. If you want to learn how to do it, get in touch for more details!)

Our next screening and Q&A is in Boston MA: Saturday July 14th at 8pm at MIT. It’s a free screening and open to the public, and I’ve been told they generally get a few hundred students out for the series. A couple of us are going down for the weekend, so if you’d like to see how Massholes react to Shit Jobs and are up for a 10 hr roadtrip, then let me know and we’ll see if we can carpool!

3 Days Left To Kickstart, Toronto Tickets & Reviews

Posted by Jim Munroe – May 14, 2012

Hey guys! Apologies if you’re getting this multiple times: I’m broadcasting on all frequencies!

There’s three days left on our Kickstarter campaign and it looks like we’ll more than double our original $5000 goal. To give it one last push I just released the new (totally wicked) movie delivery system pictured above today.

After the end of the Kickstarter campaign we won’t be selling the $10 digital download any more. For a good reason, though: we’ve partnered with FilmBuff (owned by Cinetic who distroed Supersize Me and Exit Through the Gift Shop) who’s going to be handling the digital downloads from here on out via places like iTunes and Netflix starting in August or so. So if you want to get the word out to your thrifty pals that they’ve got til Friday at 2pm EST to get a DRM-free version of it straight from us. (Needless to say cast and crew will get a comp copy!)

Of course, you’ll want to encourage all your Toronto pals to pick up tickets online  for the North American premiere in two weeks. If you haven’t already, please add your name to the guestlist. Sorry we can’t do +1s for everybody, but every pre-ordered ticket gets a free No Media Kings book, DVD or t-shirt the night of the show.

Reviews! The Guardian called it “sheer delight“, and Creative Applications said “immensely successful… undoubtedly a cause for celebration“. We also had reviews in Eye For Film, Twitch Film, and ArtThreat.

Distro and Promo Strategy Feedback

Posted by Jim Munroe – December 7, 2011

Anthony tweaks the sound at the Beehive screening room.

We had a great private screening last week with about a dozen folks, people who have worked with broadcasters or distributors or who have sold one of their movies at some point. I gave a presentation about our planned distribution and promotion strategies (you can check out a revised version here, but be warned: it’s pretty hype-laden and includes an unironic “Demographics” slide) and then got some great feedback from the assembled brains. Beyond those presented in the slides, the following additional ideas were generated.

Promotion

  • Run help wanted ads for futuristic shit jobs on LinkedIn or craigslist
  • Have a Job Fair in each city it screens in: could be run by fans who run their own booth with their idea of a futuristic shit job
  • Involve local businesses: have a panel after the screening on “new ways to make a living” featuring people who make new business models work
  • Incentify sharing the clips on Twitter: have Serina award people spam points or something
  • The name is cool — make some kind of merch, even a t-shirt, with the name
Distribution
  • digital portals: ithentic.com, mydamnchannel.com and heavy.com, Netflix and Rogers on Demand
  • Amazon might be more open than ITunes for digital download sales (ITunes requires an aggregator middleman, and costs about $1500-2000 to get content approved without going through an approved distributor)
  • Telefilm has an alternative distribution fund, and they look to fund traditional things (publicist, theatre rental) but it’s also gotta have a new twist to be appealing to them: perhaps something that allows the fan community to vote on which cities get screenings?
  • Having a “150% Canadian” CAVCO designation will make it appealing for broadcasters needing to fulfill CanCon laws.

Feel free to chime in over email or on the comments!

Also, screeners have been requested by a number of distributors/broadcasters intrigued by the trailer and one sheet (Mongrel, E1, Super Channel, TMN, Space, Itunes) and they’re going out tomorrow.

Tofino International Film Festival – Call for submissions

Posted by Sean – August 10, 2009

Perhaps of interest to some..

Call for submissions: 12th Annual Tofino International Film Festival

The Tofino International Film Festival is a non-profit festival dedicated to bringing the best in all types of film to the West Coast of Canada. We are currently accepting screeners for review by our jury in anticipation of our October 22-26 screening dates.

While we are small, we are building a reputation as a destination festival for directors and actors alike as we try to broaden our program by bringing out those related to the films. Although we can’t offer the glamour of Sundance, we can promise discovering one of the most beautiful spots in the world and its celebrated culture.

For representatives of the films chosen we offer transportation to Tofino, accommodation at one of the local resorts and a small stipend to help defray the cost of food. As previously mentioned we also do our utmost to make sure you’ll see the best that the coast has to offer. We guarantee an experience you’ll never forget.

For more information and a link to last year’s lineup please visit our website at tofinofilmfestival.com

To submit a film for consideration please send a screener to:

Kimberly Johnston
PO Box 815
Tofino BC
V0R 2Z0

Screeners will only be viewed by the TFF jury.

For any further inquiries please contact us at tofinofilmfestival@gmail.com

I Dig the Cinema But…

Posted by Benny – December 7, 2008

I dig the cinema (yeah I make movies duh!) but it seems 95% of what I watch is with headphones and a laptop. Insert words of wisdom: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wKiIroiCvZ0&feature=related
I’d like to think about how this film will be presented. The experience of watching it. Another project I’m excited about right now, which I haven’t yet experienced for myself but can’t wait to catch when it comes to TO in February (yeah of course it has bikes, but more than that the live music, texture of the images…):
http://lecyc.ca/
And lastly I’m a little jealous of this (it’s been a while since Wink World):
http://www.aintitcool.com/node/39226