Sales Agents, Distributors and Exhibitors...oh my!

Did the second part of the Sales, Marketing and Distribution course with Mia Bays. Good stuff all around. She brought in the Managing Diretor and Sales Agent Andrew Orr from Independent Film Company, distributor Soda Pictures' Ed Fletcher and Jason Woods from Picturehouse - one of the UK's leading cinema bookers.

I was quick with the meishi and the 30 second pitch. Ed Fletcher gave me the best advice about the pitch, which was that when you are pitching to distributors, they are most interested to know the selling points of your film to specific territories.

This is what I've come up with so far: I think that there is definitely an audience in Japan amongst the nearly one million foreigners living in Tokyo alone and amongst the Japanese themselves as we've got two big stars who appear regularly on Japanese TV and in videos (Patrick Harlan's career has skyrocketed since filming). And, of course, there is America. I think the fascination with all things Japan is there and there is a sort of "Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court" appeal.

As for the UK, I was thinking of the "look what those crazy Americans are doing over in Japan" appeal might be there. That having been said, the film does not focus on the sensational aspects of Japan as so many films about the area do. It's about normal guys finding themselves in extraordinary circumstances. Our main character, Jewish boy from New York Ken, for example, finds himself performing Christian weddings in order to make a buck while he tries to kick start his career on Japanese TV.

There was a bit of a nuisance with the website going down and email crashing. This right after the workshop, so, of course, I was obsessing about how one of the workshop people might try to hit the site, and how it would be down, and how they would think I was a total looser, but I got over that.

Emailed all of the festivals we submitted to and informed them of the changes.

I'm boring myself to tears now.

Photo is a self portrait of Kimiko Yoshida.

Hello Kitty ii ka na?

Spent the day at the Mia Bays Sales, Marketing & Distribution Workshop put on by my mate Saskia at the London Film School (the old alma mater). Highlights were:

Meeting and swapping cards with the Head of Programming for the London Film Festival, Michael Hayden. Did the 30 second pitch: "Tokyo Cowboys is permanent lost in translation...for real: an intimate look into the lives of 5 western men living long term in the wild, wild East."

Learning that you can ask smaller festivals for something called a "screening fee," which is essentially a box office percentage. According to Mia, not all festivals have a screening fee policy, but a lot of the smaller ones do.

And...learning that "The Lives of Others" was rejected by all major festivals, yet it was in the top ten grossing films of 9 of the top 10 territories. (This is to make me feel better in the event of a worst case scenario.)

Another session tomorrow with a Sales Agent, top Booker in the U.K., and a distributor. Must print out some more TC meishi.

Photo thanks to Tokyo Mango.