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Courtney Daniels's avatar

Ted, you are the guy who keeps showing up with a nice bottle of wine! This list was a great idea and I’m excited for people to add to it. I know there are filmmakers who used creative release strategies for their small films in years past, before the internet, and it would be great to add some of those to this list.

First Features's avatar

One is Mark Pirro, "A Polish Vampire in Burbank," who made his feature for $2500, and it made over $1 million in sales. Another is Stefan Avalos & Lance Weiler, "The Last Broadcast" made for $900 (the first feature produced and distributed digitally).

Courtney Daniels's avatar

FASCINATING! I want to learn more about these. I’m curious how you knew about them! Will go look at your profile...

First Features's avatar

I know them personally and have followed their careers from early on.

Courtney Daniels's avatar

That’s awesome. Just read about Mark Pirro on Wikipedia and his own site. A lot of his movies have cool premises. Love that he has made so many films so independently. Badass!

Dan Mirvish's avatar

Thanks Courtney & Ted for including 18½ as your #1 case study!!! (proof also that starting a title with a number always pays off in alphabetical listings:)

Courtney Daniels's avatar

Heh heh! Eager to read it! Couldn’t stop to read each one but now I want to do that.

Kathleen Lingo's avatar

Wow this list is worth it’s weight in gold!!! Thank you for creating this and I will be sure to write more case studies soon…

Courtney Daniels's avatar

Fantastic, Kathleen!

Julian 🕶️'s avatar

Thanks Courtney for compiling these. Many case studies to learn from!

Love to know anyone who has a case study on how YouTube was utilized in a films distribution playbook. Whether for free, avod or rentals or some other smart idea to leverage the reach it has and meet the audience that is use to YT.

Courtney Daniels's avatar

Agreed. I’d be very curious to see this, too!

Adam Kritzer's avatar

Def check out Noam Kroll for this, who is not on Substack but has a newsletter where he has written at length about exploring youtube as a distro window/option

Ted Hope's avatar

feel free to send us the links Adam. I maintain my complete allegience to Substack these days!

Courtney Daniels's avatar

Will do. Love how Noam shares what he knows. Can’t believe he’s not on Substack!

Julian 🕶️'s avatar

Very cool. Thx for the tip!

Tom Violett's avatar

Wow! Incredible thanks so much for this!

Hudson Phillips's avatar

Thanks Ted & Courtney for including Guacamole Yesterdays on this incredible list! ❤️

Adam Kritzer's avatar

Def feel free to add my case study "How (Not) To Monetize a Movie" (about the making of my first feature, Good Funk) to this list. Thanks for compiling!

https://amauteur.substack.com/p/how-not-to-monetize-a-movie