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Contact
IndieFlix, LLC.
1207 41st Ave. E.
Seattle, WA 98112
v 206.323.3549
f 206.860.8406
info@indieflix.com
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New route for movies: Direct to Web
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By John Anderson The New York Times
SUNDAY, OCTOBER 23, 2005
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As cheaper technology and an inexhaustible hipness quotient have led
to more films being produced, theatrical distribution has become more
expensive, the outlets more cautious and returns on investment more dubious.
The Internet is absorbing some of the spillover. IndieFlix, founded by Scilla
Andreen and her business partner, the filmmaker Gian-Carlo Scandiuzzi, is one
place aspiring filmmakers can go. Directors submit their films, which are then
posted on the Web site, www.indieflix.com. When users log on and click to buy
the films that capture their interest, IndieFlix burns them onto a DVD and
ships them out. The price is $9.95.
Andreen's motto: "Own a movie for less than a movie ticket."
IndieFlix may be as close to a no-risk deal as filmmakers are likely to find:
All they need to provide is proof that the rights to their film have been
cleared, and a master to be copied. And in contrast to the usual practice, the
filmmakers retain all the rights.
IndieFlix represents "a platform to present their work to an audience that
under normal circumstances wouldn't be available to them," said the
actress Whoopi Goldberg, who is on the company's advisory board.
"As one who works inside and outside the system, I've come to understand
that distribution is a key component," Goldberg said. "And from a
purely economical standpoint, if there's a way for folks to participate,"
it would be "a win-win for everybody involved."
Still, to many filmmakers, success online will always be a far cry from success
in the theaters. "That's our art - and we think it needs to be bigger than
life, on the screen, the group experience in the dark," said Andreen of
IndieFlix, 43, a filmmaker herself as well as an Emmy-nominated costume
designer. "All filmmakers want that."
Andreen and her business partner, Scandiuzzi, have made two films together, one
of them the feature "Outpatient," and several shorts.
"We had distribution offers from Artisan and Lions Gate and various other
name companies and realized that the terms were so horrible," Andreen
said. "They wanted the rights for 20 years. We got them down to
seven." She said the terms were so ridiculous that "you'd have to
make $10 million before you begin to see a penny, and then they still wanted
you to go out and do this grass-roots campaign and marketing and publicity for
our own movies, even after we had to do all that other stuff."
They opted to raise the money on the Web. They were following the model of Bob
Berney, who orchestrated the unorthodox distribution strategies of "My Big
Fat Greek Wedding," "Memento" and "The Last Temptation of
Christ." Now at Picturehouse, Berney approves of their innovation.
It takes the shelf-space argument out of retail DVD sales, he said, because the
major retailers have room for very little other than the blockbusters. But one
problem, he said of IndieFlix, is, "How are people going to hear about
it?"
IndieFlix may be the movie director's version of the Last Chance Saloon.
"We might be the last stop on the track," Andreen said, "but our
goal is that eventually filmmakers will go out with their little mini-DVD cams
and make a movie for practically nothing, specifically to sell it on IndieFlix
because it costs them nothing. And we give them the publicity tools, the
marketing tools, and we make it for them and deliver it in a timely manner.
"We feel every film has an audience."
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