HAVE SMUT, WILL TRAVEL: A TED BONNITT INTERVIEW
FilmThreat.com, by Phil Hall
| Over the past half-dozen years, an increasing number of filmmakers have taken the route of self-distribution to bring their films to moviegoing audiences. While self-distribution was long seen as a last-resort by first-time filmmakers who could not snag a deal with established distributors, many well-known filmmakers including Larry Fessenden, Arthur Dong, Bill Plympton and Penelope Spheeris have successfully added the title of "distributor" to the various credits they already carry. Ted Bonnitt opted for self-distribution for his documentary Mau Mau Sex Sex, a jolly tribute to veteran B-Movie filmmakers David Friedman and Dan Sonney and the vintage shock cinema productions they created from the 1940s through the early 1970s. Packed with salacious clips from the duo's most notorious features plus good-humored humors with the elder kings of exploitation (the New York Times dubbed them "The Sunshine Boys of Smut"), Mau Mau Sex Sex premiered in New York last year and has since toured the U.S. and is now on its way across Canada and Germany. In handling self-distribution, Bonnitt had three major obstacles to overcome. First, the subject of his film (with its campy collection of sequences from old-time exploitation films that played in "adults only" theaters roughly a half-century ago) wasn't exactly viewed as mainstream fare for today's more sophisticated and cynical audiences. Second, the film was produced on video and Bonnitt was not eager to spend considerable sums to have it transferred to 35mm--yet many theaters are not equipped with video projection and do not wish to pay high leasing fees for the temporary use of this equipment. Third, and obviously least expectedly, Bonnitt found the bulk of his pre-booked distribution tour coming in the wake of the September 11 tragedies. At a time when the major studios were frantically re-arranging their releases in uncertain reaction to a grieving country, Bonnitt was faced with the challenge of whether audiences were in the mood for a documentary on vintage smut flicks. Film Threat caught up Bonnitt in his Los Angeles studio to discuss how he successfully brought Mau Mau Sex Sex across the U.S. -- and how he quietly made history by incorporating a low-cost home entertainment tool into his distribution strategy... Q: When did you originally decide to self-distribute Mau Mau Sex Sex? Had you been in touch with established distributors before going out on your own? TED: Self-distribution was not our first choice. We entertained several offers from notable distributors, which amounted to exclusive rights for them, and no money down for us. Our only reasonable choice was to embrace self-distribution, despite the formidable challenges. After all, we had the most to lose and the most to gain. Q:When you first plotted the distribution of the film, what considerations went into your research and planning? TED: Because Mau Mau Sex Sex is a documentary with no marquee talent attached, it was clear that we had to establish a perceived value of the movie. If you want to make money in TV broadcast, cable and home video sales, the cache of a theatrical run will make all the difference. We decided that if we opened in New York and got positive reviews, it would launch us out of the gate with some momentum. The trick was to pull that off as a very low budget enterprise. We were successful, thankfully. We cold called three Manhattan theaters with video projection capability and offered them a screener. They all wanted to book it after they took a look. Our critical notices in the New York media, particularly a positive review in the New York Times helped us book the movie in theaters across the country, and now internationally. We avoided film festivals, unless they timed to critical events, such our opening in New York for advance publicity purposes. The Santa Barbara Film Fest invited us to play two weeks ahead of our NY opening, which resulted in a Variety review, and we also played at the International Documentary Festival in Amsterdam, which stimulated international sales through their market. But two other festivals that we played were useless to us, and we turned down the rest. We only go to festivals that offer a market program, or something in return for exploiting your movie, such as attending buyers and meaningful press. We chose this strategy because of what we encountered as myopic political content correctness in the documentary world. If we should someday distribute a documentary regarding a subject more appropriate (like less funny, happy and sexy -- and more struggle oriented -- and I'm only half-kidding here) for such venues, marketing may benefit from a more extensive festival strategy. Otherwise, you can shoot your publicity wad in the festival's city when it shows, and enjoy none of the ticket sales. So, if you ever want to open in that city again, you won't get the publicity and have to spend money to buy advertising space to draw fresh ticket buyers. Some festivals overseas are more progressive in that they offer box office splits of ticket sales akin to a standard booking arrangement, and handle the publicity and venue. We are pursuing those opportunities to help seed potential broadcast sales in those territories. Q: What was the average budget for opening the film in a city by city basis? And where did the money go? TED: New York by far was the most expensive city to open. The theaters there demand that you run ads in the Village Voice and New York Times, which cost a pretty penny. Don't ever expect to make money in New York theaters unless you have a New York-themed doc, like "Dark Days." New York audiences have so many choices, and unless you pay a fortune in advertising to keep your movie in their consciousness, or have a special interest or ethnic theme to promote on a grass roots level, it can be lost in the shuffle very easily--even when you receive plentiful and positive press coverage and reviews. New York is the only city where we worked with a publicity firm, which was referred to us by Cinema Village, the theater where we played. They did a great job of delivering all the major press, including an interview in the New York Times and even an original art piece on the movie page of the New Yorker! Our experience taught us to go with the smaller publicity agencies--they are more scaled to the small movie and will work much harder for you, unlike the big, fancy agencies who didn't even return our phone calls, and would have charged us 10 times the amount, and probably delivered less. New York cost well under $10,000 to open including ads, artwork, trailer prep, ad space and publicity, hotels and expenses which is still about a third of what it can cost. Other cities cost us nothing up front, as we made a back end deal with theaters to pay for advertising space out of our share of the box office take. When possible, we booked the movie at what are known as "calendar houses" where customers are mailed scheduled listings of movies shown at the theater, saving us advertising expenses. We did our own publicity in every city (except New York, of course) by either calling the media directly or going through the theaters' publicity agent. One footnote: distributors warned us that several theaters would not pay us,because many distributors only get paid when they threaten to hold back the next picture from them. We were told that as a self-distributor, we would not have that leverage (with only one movie). I'm happy to say that no theater stiffed us, even the most notorious! All of our experiences with theaters were really positive. Q: Many people may not realize this, but your film was the first to be theatrically distributed on DVD. How did you come up with the idea of releasing the film on DVD? And why did you go with DVD version Beta SP or any other video format? TED: We did not see getting back the 40-plus thousand dollars it would have cost to make a 35mm transfer and prints. I also did not want to degrade the final digital image on film. We called theaters around the country and found that sufficient video projection venues existed to play in the cities that we targeted. This is an independent, art house movie and they tend to have more diverse projection equipment and put more effort into promoting your run. However, these being the early days of DV, many theaters did not have video projection equipment, and he cost to rent the projector and playback machine were prohibitive. So, we had theaters wanting to book the movie, but unable to do so. Our solution came from Sharp Electronics, which introduced a high quality portable LCD projector (P-20) that we were able to ship overnight to theaters. We tested it with a DVD player, and the image was remarkably good, considering the compression on the DVD. Sharp provided the projector in order to introduce their new product to the theatrical marketplace, and we suggested that theater owners bring their DVD player from home and plug it in. We never had a complaint from a customer, and we received big press reviews in every city we played without any mention of how we showed it. It was a successful road-show slight of hand trick! Theaters were even willing to pay for the projector's $100 shipping cost, because after all, their take of the box office sales is in part to cover the cost of their facilities, which we were in part providing to them with projection capability. Necessity is the mother of invention. It represents a new trend, where independents are getting down to business. They'll make their movies on desktop computers and distribute them on DVD's to art house cinemas with smaller and more powerful video projectors that look and sound much better than 16mm. It's an elegant solution that helps dispel the stigma of self-distribution. Q: How did the programmers and exhibitors react when you told them the film was available for DVD projection? TED: The typical response was: "Huh? Really? Wow. Okay. We'll do it." Exhibitors are refreshingly down to Earth. They'll try anything if they think that it will sell tickets. So, the fact that Mau Mau Sex Sex was the first movie to be distributed theatrically on DVD was no problem for a great majority of them, just a cost-effective solution. And, as a result, theaters are buying the Sharp projector, because it costs less than a 35mm projector, which represents a breakthrough for them. It was a win-win solution for everyone involved, including the audience, who otherwise would never had seen Mau Mau Sex Sex. Q: And what was required of them to make their projection booths ready for this type of projection? TED: A connection to their sound system, and usually with a simple RCA plug. We included an easy 3 page step-by-step instruction manual on how to plug in the DVD player to the projector and point it toward the screen--everything else is automatic. Q: What U.S. cities has Mau Mau Sex Sex played in to date? And how has reaction, both critically and commercially, varied in the different cities? TED: Mau Mau Sex Sex has played about 20 U.S. cities, including New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Chicago, Boston, Philadelphia, Seattle, Portland OR, and Salt Lake City. Generally, we enjoyed extensive press coverage in every city, and reviews that averaged from polite to enthusiastic. Audiences appeared to be satisfied, and we sold many VHS, DVD and soundtrack CD's to them as they exited the show. Attendance varied according to the city and venue. Some venues did great business because they know their audience and how to attract them. It's really up to the venue and their operation. Unfortunately, a majority of our run occurred post-9/11 (in fact our national release announcing the national run was originally dated 9/11.) On the day we opened at Boston's Coolidge Corner Theater, U. S. Attorney General Ashcroft called both the Mayor of Boston and the Governor of Massachusetts warning them of "an imminent terrorist attack" on Boston during our opening weekend. The streets were quiet, but we still held over for 10 days. During the week we opened in four theaters around the Bay Area, we did very well, despite authorities announcing that San Francisco bridges were in danger of being blown up that week. We started to refer to our run as the "Credible Threat" tour. Q: How did the distribution of the film in the U.S. market differ from the distribution in Canada and Europe? TED: Canada and Europe pay guarantees, although some U.S. venues did pay advances as well. We are selling TV broadcast rights country to country over the Internet with success. The subject of our movie (a portraiture of two elderly all-American hucksters and makers of exploitation films) translates well across cultural borders, with it appealing to international audiences as an entertaining American success story. Q: What bumps along the self-distribution road did you hit that, in hindsight, you would not repeat again? TED: Marketing and distribution is difficult, time consuming and costly. As difficult as it was to make our movie, in retrospect it perhaps accounts for about 30-40 percent of the overall effort when considering marketing, publicity and exhibition. Self distribution is not for everybody, and perhaps for no one who wants a life apart from their movie for the one-to-two year period it takes to do it. You must have an understanding of product packaging, creative marketing, booking theaters and delivering them good local press, a powerful trailer, ad slicks, posters and publicity materials. Then, you have to donate a year or two of lost wages to do double shifts on working "your picture." I have a much greater appreciation for how distributors survive in such a crazy business model. New computer design, organizing and communication programs are allowing individuals with a broadband Internet connection to match the productivity of a small staff. Some distributors have dismissed our business plan, others are calling us for advice. In a scale of economics, where bigger distribution companies need to sell 200 tickets a show, we only need to sell 20 to enjoy a relative rate of return. And we never had to four wall our booking- every theater offered us a standard booking because they liked our movie and thought it would do business. Having said that, it is most important to make a movie that not only interests you, but meets the marketplace at least half way. Commercial appeal should not be regarded as a compromise, but a challenge. Take the time needed to learn how to find and tell a good story. Compelling content will transcend technical limitations in audiences' eyes. Q: Do you recommend self-distribution for independent filmmakers, or are there only certain exceptions where this route would work? TED: If you can score the increasingly rare, good distribution deal, like a return on your investment up front and a contracted release agreement plan, go for it. However, new digital video, design and management tools are an exciting remedy for much more common dead-end distribution deals. New digital cinema exhibition circuits will emerge (I'm involved in that now) that will provide these critical services for moviemakers who want to stick to making movies. New, accessible technologies are democratizing independent production, making it easier for movies to reach the big screen, and without filmmakers having to give away their rights to do it. As one distributor kidded me: "It's bastards like you who are going to put us out of business in five years." That may not be accurate, but the business is taking notice. It represents an exciting, new opportunity to restore the true meaning of "independent" to the term "independent moviemaking." It's a wonderful time to make movies! April 10, 2002 |
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