From Film Funding to Distribution, This Partnership Gives You Control: ‘Anyone Can Do This’
The biggest challenge for indie filmmakers is getting your movie funded — unless it’s figuring out what to do with it once it’s done. Neither is easy, but two companies that specialize in each are teaming up to make both a whole lot easier.
Crowdfunding platform Seed&Spark and community distribution platform Kinema have launched “The Independence Partnership” which provides filmmakers with a suite of tools and resources to move from getting your movie funded to finding an audience.
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Creators who crowdfund their movie through Seed&Spark gain access — in some cases, with fees waived — to Kinema’s distribution platform, which provides creative control over distribution rights, screenings, and virtual events. Kinema tools also will be integrated into Seed&Spark educational workshops and digital distribution materials.
Those who fund programs on Seed&Spark get a dedicated Kinema account manager and custom distribution consultations. Fees are waived for filmmakers with over 500 followers or over 1,000 campaign backers.
Last June, Seed&Spark founder Emily Best and Kinema founder Christie Marchese created The Distribution Playbook, a free resource that breaks down terminology and studio gatekeepers, and provides filmmaker case studies. It receives quarterly updates; additions include a breakdown of last year’s self-distribution success story, “Hundreds of Beavers.”
With the Independence Partnership, they’ve moved from information gathering to providing the tools to implement strategy. Best tested the partnership with “Ratified,” which she crowdfunded as its producer and used Kinema to map out a series of nationwide community screenings.
“When she was saying, ‘How do I best release this,’ it was fundraising through her own platform and then working with us on distribution,” Marchese told IndieWire. “It was through her own, direct experience that we were like, ‘Wait, this is something we can offer every filmmaker.’ What we’ve done with ‘Ratified,’ anyone can do.”
Best said filmmakers who build their own self-distribution plans typically create a lot of infrastructure only for it to dissolve as they move on to the next project.
“[Kinema] maintains that infrastructure,” she said. “It allows you to deliver your film to lots of different types of screening venues, whether in person, online, virtual, VOD, or episodic, and what’s super cool about combining that with crowdfunding is [it’s] a way to fund the whole impact and marketing campaign. It’s sort of a no-brainer.”
The partnership also allows Kinema to send backers a secure link to watch the film in advance and makes them aware of in-person screenings.
“They are more likely to be successful later in their films’ release because they’ve started early,” Marchese said. “Some of the features that Seed&Spark has — you can build followers, you build an email list — that’s such a strong base. Because [Best and I] talk so regularly, we’re like, ‘Well, how do we just make our systems talk better to each other? What could we do collectively?'”
Seed&Spark previously offered the means to place a project on TVOD or subscription streaming, but that paired community funding with traditional digital distribution. “All that community energy and engagement sort of stopped dead,” Best said. “By partnering with Kinema, we can help our creators pour their community funding right into community distribution.
“It just feels like it’s so hard to make things, it’s so hard to fund things, and it’s so hard to get them to an audience,” Best said. “The least we can do is streamline that process.”
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