American Film Market Dailies

The AFM hosted the Distribution Conference, with topics entitled: ‘Working with Sales Agents’, and ‘The Future of VOD’.

Clay Epstein

David Lancaster

Producer, Rumble Films

David Lancaster, Producer and CEO of Rumble Films, and Douglas Mankoff

“The emotional connection and enthusiasm that you have for a property has to outweigh any sales agent - or anyone else - who will tell you that you can’t make it.”

“If you study each sales agent, you can arrive at a decision about who would be on your top list that you might chose for a particular project – sales agents have a certain brand to their work that would make them more susceptible to your project. Each one of them will then give you what they can perceive to be the value equation that you need to pursue and how you might want to put that together.”

“A lot of it is finding the material, and making sure you spend at least as much time looking for directors. The buyers are so much more sophisticated now than they used to be. They really do depend on the vision of what you’re going to do with the script. Having the right director that can sell the vision of the movie is critical not only for your sales agent but for your casting process.”

Douglas Mankoff

Producer, Echo Lake Entertainment

“Selling a completed film is harder than selling a film that’s not completed. And it’s a matter of finding who connects with the material.”

“[On Netflix and the global platforms] One possible lesson is to not pre-sale your movie so much. Another possible learning is to try to have a deal with some of your buyers where you can buy back the movie for some premium. But the buyers never want to hear that. So it’s a conundrum.”

Kathy Morgan

President, KMI Films

“Local product around the world is getting pretty darn good. People are making movies in their own countries for their own people. My business – the pre-sales business – it’s fun to sit there and convince someone that it’s going to be great. But the value of the film is execution dependent.”

“We like the pre-sale business. We like to get in early so we can influence the package in order to do our job. We look at 5 elements: I feel like in a way we are poker players. We show up and deal a hand. The first hand is the script genre – some work better than others internationally. It needs to be a script that will travel. Second card, very important, is the director. If you have that card and it’s an Ace, you don’t need any other card. Third card, which becomes challenging, the cast card. Internationally they are a little behind from what is hot here. But if you have an Ace, again, then you can get away with it being a different genre. Fourth card is the producer, the business card budget. The last card, which is a scary card, is U.S. distribution - what is the U.S. distribution plan. It has become such an issue recently with the day and date distribution.”