INDUSTRY RESEARCH How to get a distributor for a micro-budget horror movie

Typically to be able to make a successful movie you will need a distributor amongst many, many other factors. You would want a specialist distributor for your specific genre. For example you wouldn't chose a RomCom specialist as your distributor for a Horror movie as the marketing for those two are completely different. You would also most likely go for a distributor who actually fits within the budget of your movie. For example, you would never in a million years be able to get distribution by Buena Vista if you have a low budget horror movie without any stars.

With that being said, how do you even get a distributor in the first place?

Getting noticed:

There's many different ways to do this, you can take the digital approach and try to cut a deal with Amazon Prime, Netflix, Hulu, iTunes or even YouTube. Most of these streaming services are not too hard to get on however it is a bit more complicated with Netflix, though not impossible. 

Netflix:

To be able to even make it onto Netflix you have to makes their

database list. Without your movie in this list it is extremely hard to

get your movie onto Netflix. Once you make it onto the database

list you have to convince them that it is worth uploading your movie to Netflix. To do this you need to get a lot of requests on the

"Queue demand." To be able to do this you must have marketed your film well and created interest towards it. This will also increase the chance of the amount of money Netflix will pay you to stream your movie.

Hulu:

This is a good service at it's a free service which earns its revenue through ads. This means that in order to be payed for your movie it just has to be good enough for viewers to be able to watch through an ad to continue watching the movie. After that you will earn a % of the revenue earned from Hulu. They will however pay you to stream your movie. Don't worry! There is a company who helps you get your movie distributed on any of these sites which I will be mentioning later

iTunes:

Usually you need a distributor to get your movie onto iTunes, however if you don't have one, you can use the same company which I will mention at the end of the post for this. Once your movie is on iTunes, you need to advertise it as you would on any streaming site.

YouTube:

Simply upload your movie to YouTube and hope for the best. You need to make sure it follows the guidelines set to not get your movie demonetized. Your only income will be the ad revenue on your movie from YouTube. You can however strike a deal with them to give you a fixed amount of money for the amount of views you gain on the movie, however you have to... market it well, like on all the other sites.

Amazon Prime:

By using the Amazon Video Direct service. After your movie has been accepted onto the service you can make a deal to earn revenue base on views, hours streamed, on ads or even the monthly subscriptions.

Now for the company...

Distribber: (link)

For a fee of 150 USD per year this aggregator service can gain you easier access to all the above streaming websites/ movie services. The content remains 100% yours and you don't have to credit the company. Assuming your movie gets picked up by Distribber they will also help cover ingestion, encoding, review and much more. It is an overall good service and will help you a lot to get onto your desired website.

Marketing:

Before even considering the above things you have to make sure your movie is marketable. Is it a movie people will want to watch? Does it appeal to the target audience? Do you get mostly preferred reading? Is it well constructed? Does it fit the genre specifications?  The list goes on and on and unless you tick nearly every single box it is going to be hard to market your movie, which is what distributors are looking for. Forget trying to hire stars as your budget is too low to be able to afford that. This among with many other factors is why it is so hard to actually market your movie. However, film festivals are a great start.

Festivalas/ Screenings in popular places:

These are almost vital if you want a good distributor and will most definitely help you find the one fit to you. A simple screening in London can get you offers from distributors already. Large film festivals like TIFF or Sundance is also possible to get into, even if you are a low budget indie producer, and it has happened before. You just need the movie and network to get in.

Picking the distributor: 

You have now completed the painful journey of getting noticed and you are now receiving offers from distributors, you have to be aware of a few things. Firstly, they can mess you over big time, so be careful you pick a distributor who specializes in distributing films of your genre. Take Tyrannosaur (Paddy Considine, 2011) who got an LGBT distributor for their movie as an example. It's box- office earnings is about half of that of the budget which is a major flop. This British drama was never the success it could've been because the distributor (Strand Releasing) didn't want to take risks with marketing the movie and therefore it didn't earn what it could potentially have made. Another way distributors can take advantage of you is writing a contract based on their needs, earning them the most money and giving them the publicity for the movie. Get a lawyer or solicitor to look on the contract to try and get the best deal! It is a must, even for low budget movies as you can really mess up in this department.