Hollyweird is heading to Sundance
"The work begins"
First, the big news. I wrote a film that’s going to Sundance. Pretty cool!
As a result, I too, will be at Sundance (the last one to be held in Park City before the festival decamps for Boulder), so if you happen to be a reader who’s ALSO going to Sundance, let me know! I’d love for you to see my film, and would love if you’d say hi!
The day the lineup was announced, I heard from a lot of you (hi thank you!), talked with the film team, talked with my team, and at the end of the day caught up with my manager. And while we talked about next steps, accommodations, travel, and more importantly… how to capitalize on this moment with whatever the next project is (this one) he said… “The work begins.”
And the expression has been rattling around in my head since. It’s the perfect mantra for a career in Hollywood. A career anywhere really. Maybe even just life.
The work begins.
Getting your film into Sundance, which is a Big Deal, feels like it could/should be the accomplishment. But no! Because after getting in, there is all the work of trying to get people to see the dang thing!
The life cycle of a film doesn’t end at… “it’s out, now go see it.” Traditionally, the life cycle of a film would then begin its next phase — The Release™. And The Release actually used to be quite a long period of time, until very recently.
Once a film is finished, this is what a successful release used to look like:
Film is completed.
Film screens somewhere important, ie, a major festival.
A promotional image for the film is released.
Film screens at many more exclusive, important events, over the course of months.
A trailer is released.
The filmmaking team does a full court press of interviews, talk shows, public appearances, and keeps coming to all these screenings.
The film is released in select theaters to slowly build word of mouth.
The film is released slightly more widely, but still in select markets.
The film is released nationally.
Then a long time would go by before a similar but shorter cycle began as the film was made available for cable. Then for home video.
This is a long, attenuated process. And it should be.
Making an audience aware of a product that they have never heard of, and don’t necessarily need (but might really be convinced that they want) is time-consuming. It requires A LOT OF AWARENESS. There’s an old adage about needing seven points of contact before a sale. [I used to work in sales]
Here’s what a lot of release strategies look like now:
Film is finished.
Film screens at a festival.
A still and a trailer are made available.
Film is online, anyone can see it any time they want.
Some last minute scrambling for attention happens here.
This isn’t to criticize any of the hardworking filmmakers out there! I am one of you! This process is EXPENSIVE. It’s TIME CONSUMING. It’s a full second job on top of making the film. Which is why, traditionally, distributors were responsible for at least some of it. But… that responsibility seems to be dwindling. Do they still do it for some titles? Sure. But fewer and fewer of them.
Why has this happened?
Short answer? I’m looking at you, Netflix.
Long answer? I don’t know that I have enough time or patience for the entire long answer but… convenience will always guide human decisions. It’s more convenient for the consumer to just click a tile.
There’s also systemic pressure. As with everything in our currently collapsing industry, the responsibility to do just about all of this has been shifted from the big companies, to the little people they employ. Why do that? Isn’t that exactly what these big companies are supposed to be for?
Well… as long as they somehow capture consumer attention, big media companies don’t particularly care how they’re doing that, or what they’re doing that with. They just need to do it with something. Even if it’s a new option to create AI slop out of their legacy characters (looking at you Disney). Why endure the marathon of promoting each and every film for months and months when you could just… push your movie out of a plane without a parachute?
“We will place your tile on the homescreen for a few days! Hope an eager fan catches you!”
Some of these movies will survive, surely!
Now, none of this is necessarily about any one movie in particular. It’s a systemic trend. I hear my filmmaker friends complain about it. I hear my film fan friends complain about it. There seems to be a distinct gap in the process that happens right around… THE RELEASE (which is, one could argue, the most important part of making the movie. People seeing it).
I started writing this newsletter for two reasons.
1) I believed I could help demystify what a screenwriter’s / filmmaker’s career actually looks like. I first moved to Hollywood after some years as a playwright in New York, and any time I had to do something new here in Film & TV World, I had no idea how the heck it should actually work. There’s a tremendous lack of clarity to how and why things work the way they do in this business — and that’s partly because… nobody knows, and partly because… keeping it unclear helps keep people in positions of power in power (or so they think) and people not yet in out (or so they think).
So that’s reason one. Educate, inform, provide context for what this career can actually look like.
2) The second reason is more selfish. As I watched both Twitter (never X) and Facebook (never Meta) collapse under the weight of their embarrassing/evil ownership I came to realize I would no longer have any genuine way to get in touch with an audience anymore, and didn’t want to be at the whims of a social media platform when I did want to reach people. I wanted a consistent point of contact with a broad group of people in order to promote my work. I was thinking, in July 2024, about The Release.
Hopefully I have been informative enough to make the occasional self-promotion feel not only not-annoying, but maybe even interesting???
It takes a lot of time and energy and money and creativity to release a film successfully. And in a world of near-infinite distractions, it’s become harder than ever to get your film finished, and released, and then start promoting it.
So, if you are a filmmaker out there, I’d suggest you start promoting now.
Heck, I actually think some of the promotional campaign can and should be starting BEFORE PRODUCTION.
Given how quickly releases move nowadays, the longer you can have as an artist to build awareness and interest of a project, a project like IN THE BLINK OF AN EYE (which premieres at Sundance) for example, the better your likelihood of success. This work does in fact have to happen if you want people to see what you’ve spent years creating. Which I know I want!
With that in mind, in the new year, I will be breaking down exactly what the journey entailed to get this movie made. From the inception of the idea, to the script, to production, to screen. So that I can continue to service both goals of the newsletter. Inform you all about the process AND build awareness about the actual product of the process. This movie, and of course, after it, my directorial debut The Comedy Hour. Which we continue to puzzle together.
The work begins.
Since you wrote, "I believed I could help demystify what a screenwriter’s / filmmaker’s career actually looks like", what would be truly interesting is you sharing how your movie got selected at Sundance.
Sales agent? Searchlight Picture placement? Rashida Jones?
It is, of course, a taboo question, but with 1% of submissions accepted, we all know there is no place for luck or cold submissions here.