Service Deal or No Deal?

First off let me apologize for the fact I haven't written a blog post in the last two weeks, we got wrapped up in Holiday affairs. But we're back on schedule now, at least until Christmas...

Let's talk about service deals. If you don't know what a service deal it's where you press and ship your own product and pay a distributor to place the film in their catalog, stores, theaters, digital outlets etc. www.FilmBaby.com is probably the most well known and reputable service deal distributor in the home video world. Where www.FreeStyleReleasing.com is probably the most famous service deal distributor in the theatrical business. The little known secret is most labels and studios handle service deals, but they just don't advertise it. We've offered service deals in the past.

Now a lot of people say "I'm not going to pay for distribution!" My question is why not, you paid to make your indie film or borrowed the money to do so. So why the refusal to pay for distribution? Think about it for just a second, if you are pressing your own product and shipping it for the distributor, you have a lot more control then someone who licensed a film to a distributor. If the distributor owes you money and is late on payment, you have some leverage, you can stop shipping product.

Service deals are a great option especially if you have been turned down by the traditional distributors. That's how we launched our distribution label. We had taken our catalog out to the larger wholesalers and labels and couldn't get any deals we liked. So we signed (or paid) for two different service deals, one worked out very well and was quite lucrative and one did absolutely nothing for us. But the thing is we believed in our titles, as I'm sure you believe in your film, and if no one is willing to distribute your film you should be willing to put the cash into your film to get it to the market. Let's face it, no one can predict what film is going to sell or big studios would never have hundred million dollar flops.

The other thing about service deals is you'll learn exactly how the distribution machine works first hand. Plus some of the contacts we made through our service deals were invaluable. Many we still keep in contact with today.

So next time you put together a budget for an upcoming project, set a side a chunk for service deal distribution, it's always a great contingency plan if nothing else.

The Official Apprehensive Films Store:
www.TheGrindHouse.Net

Everything Apprehensive:
www.afcinema.net