Over at MovieMaker.com Jeffrey Goodman, director of  the indie feature THE LAST LULLABY has been chronicling his adventures in gearing up to do his own theatric release of his film. And for the last few weeks I’ve been having a blog-comments conversation with him about the ins and outs self-distribution. Today I told Jeff about the kitchen table fulfillment operation (and other half-assed shit) that Peggy and I did to get Comstock Films off the ground:

When we were starting out we did our own warehousing (out of our garage) and fulfillment (off our kitchen table). Trips to the post office every other day. Again, it doesn’t fit the picture, but if you believe in your work you do what you have to do; plus it gives you a really intimate feeling about who your audience is. Before Peggy got things sorted, I was actually handwriting addresses for every order. On one hand that’s maybe not the best use of my time, but on the other hand, when you do it that way, you never forget who you’re making your movies for.

Jeff’s response made milk come out of my nose!

This is all fantastic stuff.  Tremendously useful.  And one of those times when I look in the mirror and say, “Yeah, you think you’re indy?  You’re a lazy sell-out next to Tony.”

I think of the the things that trips people up is that success (such as it is) doesn’t look like what we get shown as success on TV. Success on TV is sort of like that apartment on FRIENDS; so when we get a taste of real success (food, shelter, a little security, and making work we’re proud of) it doesn’t quite seem to measure up.

We say, “I don’t want that. I want the apartment on FRIENDS. I don’t want to carry a box of DVDs around in the trunk of my car and hawk them for $20 a piece at every festival, lecture, church grouop and AA meeting that will show my film. I wanna sit on a beach in St. Barts with Angelina Jolie while my royalties are direct depostited into my bank account.”

Well me too, brother, me too. We all want that, and God knows we all deserve it too. But that’s not the reality of this gig. The reality is a little closer to the ground than the dreams we were sold; and it’s a little more ragged around the edges than we thought it would be.

So then why do we do it? We do it because every once in a while you get a note like this one that came in yesterday from Ashley L:

No inquiry here. I just want you to keep making these films. These are the best “porns” I’ve ever seen. Your movies are one of the only things that turn me on these days, thanks to anti-depressant side-effects. Somehow they cut through the anti-libido static. Don’t stop making erotic movies showing couples who love each other AND like to fuck. THANK YOU!!!

So thank you Jeffrey and Ashley both. Just when I get to the point where I think I’m going to quit, you help me realize that if I could quit, I would have done it a long time ago.

From “Why I’m not at SXSW This Year” on blog.ni9e.com

Five weeks ago, in Part 1 of How Film Festivals and Distribution Deals Kills Independent Films I wrote this:

When you stop and think about it, film festivals are some kind of amazing. They get their films for free. They get a lot of volunteer labor. They get sponsors and underwriters. In some countries they even get government funding. Ticket prices are often higher than regular films at for-profit theaters. Overwhelmingly they are non-profit and get special tax treatment.

Yet in spite of all these advantages, film festivals can’t seem to find a way to pay filmmakers for showing their films. Oh maybe there’s money to fly  you in, maybe even a hotel to stay in, maybe even a token screening fee. But mostly “doing the festival circuit” is a big financial drain. If your film is a “success” on the festival circuit, hundreds, even thousands of people will see your film, and you won’t see a dime.

In Part 3 of the rant I banged on about who does get paid:

Participating in this whole process might make sense if there was a pot of gold at end of the rainbow, but there isn’t. Getting into the “festival circuit” could well put you and your film on the road to financial ruin. Yeah, I know, that sounds like sour grapes; and with all the hype around Sundance, Tribeca, Berlin, whatever, it’s hard to accept that there isn’t any money in it. But fortunately for our fragile filmmakers’ psyches we don’t have to accept that there’s no money in it. We just have to understand where the money is going.

The news organizations covering the festivals are making money; magazines, TV shows, newspapers. Everyone working for them is getting paid. The PR people, the folks – the people charged with turning the screening of a bunch of no-name films in with unknown actors into a media event – they’re getting paid. The folks printing up all the posters, palmcards are getting paid. The venues are getting paid. A few people higher-ups at the film festival are getting paid. The restaurants and hotels are getting paid, and a bunch of people I can’t think of right now.

So you can imagine how tickled I was when I came across this rant from Evan Roth, who was invited to give a keynote speech at this year’s SXSW Festival:

I know the last thing anyone wants to hear are artists whining about money (trust me I am one of them). But with all the hype surrounding SXSW I thought I would chime in with why I won’t be in Austin this week amongst all of the web 2.0 illuminati twittering and drinking Mexican beers.

A couple of months ago I had a conversation with SXSW that went something like this:

SXSW: Hi, we’d like to invite Graffiti Research Lab to keynote at SXSW!
Me: Great. Thanks for the invitation. Our standard fee is $X.
SXSW: Oh, we only pay for flights and hotel.
Me: Really? Even for a keynote? Giving talks is in part how we pay for rent and food. How about $X/2
SXSW: Nope. Airfare and hotel.
Me: How about you just pay for meals while we’re in Austin so we aren’t losing money?
SXSW: Nope. Airfare and hotel.
Me: Thanks, but no thanks.

I am somewhat more understanding with events that are grassroots and hence under funded, but the Graffiti Research Lab keynote presentation at SXSW (a private company) is sponsored specifically by Microsoft (a giant corporation). Beyond the moral implications of having the largest proprietary software giant funding a talk about free culture and open source, what I would first like to know is where is that money going? I know it’s not going towards fees or food for the presenters. My suspicion is that the people extending the invitation will be paid, the person setting up the audio and video equipment will be paid, and the janitor cleaning up after the talk will be paid. So, is it really that difficult to pay for a handful of meals for the artists while they’re in Austin?

The problem with this as a precedent is that it leaves artists in a position where they will never be able to pay rent. This issue of not paying artists (which I have blogged on in the past) extends well beyond me and well beyond SXSW, and is something that is becoming more common as the world economy continues to crumble. In the end I’m writing this not because I’m greedy and looking to fund my Champagne lifestyle, but because in general it is a system that benefits private for-profit events (e.g., SXSW) and corporate sponsors (e.g., Microsoft) at the expense of artists (e.g., me). In the end I have two messages:
1. Event organizers: If you respect the artists you are inviting, then pay them. You can’t buy bananas with publicity, so don’t try to pedal this as a form of currency (especially since the artists are also bringing you publicity). If you can’t afford to pay artists, then you don’t have enough funding to host the event.
2. Artists: Airfare, hotel, and publicity are not payment for your time. If corporately sponsored events can’t pay artist fess then tell them ‘no’. By accepting gigs like this, we are just as guilty as they are for perpetuating a system that ensures we stay eating Ramen Noodles until the day we die.

In summary: Event organizers, show some love to those you love. Artists, god gave you middle fingers for a reason, don’t be afraid to use them.

Middle finger indeed!

Learning to say “no” is hard.  As I said in my recent Stranger in a Strange Land post:

In the course of making these films, we’ve said “no” to HBO, BBC, CBC, Pulse Distribution, Adam & Eve, Women’s Health, Pacific Media, Tartan Films, ThinkFilms to name a few. In each case we were faced with the same question: Do we give up control of our films, of our brand, our values for the chance of greater recognition, greater reach, greater revenue?

It’s an agonizing question. As an artist I want  my films to be seen as widely as possible. As a businessman I want Comstock Films to thrive so that I can live up to my obligations as a father.

I could have put SXSW on that list, but the “deal” they offered us was so bad, and so easy to say “no” to, it didn’t even occur to me when I was writing up the post. Here’s the story.

About a year and a half ago I was invited to be a part of a panel at the 2008 SXWS festival. Was there an offer of airfare? No. Was there an offer of lodging? No? I was told I would get an all access pass to the festival, except for the musical events. If I wanted to go see the musical acts, I would have to pay for myself. Color me unimpressed with SXSW’s notion of hospitality.

Still, we had a film (ASHLEY & KISHA) on their short-list, so I looked into what it would cost to fly from Treasure Key to TX (we were on our Bahamas trip last Winter.) If ASHLEY & KISHA got a slot at SXSW, I’d leave Peggy and the kids on the boat in the Bahamas, fly to Texas for A&K screening, and while I was there I’d sit on the panel.

Of course I didn’t go, but I didn’t say “no” to SWSW either. At least not then. They said “no” to me; more specifically, they said, “We really liked ASHLEY AND KISHA, but since it’s out on DVD…”

Grrrr. I decided I’d stay in the Bahamas with my family.

Now of course I didn’t submit BILL AND DESIREE for consideration for SXSW 2009. 1) After 8 years, I’ve figured out that film festivals don’t do explicit sex if the sex makes people happy; 2) We made BILL AND DESIREE available on DVD for our paying audience before we made it available to film festivals. So that’s not really saying “no” to SXSW.

What I did say no to was their invitation to put on a panel at SXSW 2009.

See once you’ve been put on their presenter list for one year, you get a mailing (even if you didn’t show up) asking if you want to put on a presentation for the next year. No offer of airfare, hotel, or even bananas. No, if you’re pay your own way to get your ass to Texas, SXSW is perfectly happy to let you donate content to their cultural festival, just the same way their happy to have Microsoft donate money; because that’s SXSW’s business model.

They get corporations like Microsoft to put up the cash, they get bands and filmmakers and software engineers and whoever else is willing to speak for free to donate the programing, and then they charge everyone who isn’t playing or lecturing or showing a film to come and see all the “free” content, and celebrate the indie/DIY/Alternative lifestyle, in which not getting paid for your work is apparently taken as a given.

SXSW is able to get people to give away their time, their music, their films, because SXSW has build up enough of a reptuation the  place to be seen in the indie/DIY/alternative world  that plenty of people  who are willing to pay out of their own pocket to give SXSW the programing that SXSW sells other people tickets to go see! As a businessman I can’t help but take my hat off to them! That is one hell of a business model.

Anyway, this isn’t really a poke at SXSW; and it’s not a poke at the people who go to SXSW, to lecture or to go to the lectures or just to have fun “making the scene.” To tell the truth, it sounds like a lot of fun. But from a business stand point, it just doesn’t pencil out for us.

But I think it’s important for “independent content creators” to see SXSW for what it is — it’s a business. And I think it’s important for us to ask, “Does helping SXSW (or any other business for that matter) get ahead help my business get ahead?”  

Figuring out the answer to that question isn’t always easy, and sometimes it’s down right agonizing. But you can’t figure out the answer if you don’t ask the question.

And I think it’s important when ”independent content creators” do say no to let the world hear about it. One of the problems with being independent is that it can be very isolating. When it seems like everyone else is doing it (donating lectures to SXSW, taking no money distribution deals, etc)  it can be hard to stick to your guns, even when you know you’re doing the right thing; for your business, for your art, for yourself.

A couple years ago we entered into a non-exclusive distribution arrangement with a fairly well-know company that specializes in placing sexually explicit films in mainstream markets. This is the blurb they wrote for Matt and Khym: Better than Ever:

“This adult instructional guide helps married couples rejuvenate their sex lives through the erotic experiences of real-life couple Matt and Khym, who explain and then demonstrate explicit techniques for becoming better lovers.”

I was horrified.

If watching “Matt and Khym” helps rejuvenate a couple’s sex life, I think that’s great. But the above description runs against everything these movies stand for; the dissembling “educational” language; the promises that somehow the secrets to a better sex life (and a better marriage) have been magically encoded in the DVD; the idea that medicalized, educational sexuality is okay, but sexuality for the sake of its own beauty is not.

We severed our ties with the distributor and set about the months long work of tracking down and eliminating this description where ever we could find it.

But if you know where to look you can still find it. Not anywhere people actually shop for our films, but it’s still out there.

And it still bothers me.

“Latent in every man is a venom of amazing bitterness, a black resentment; something that curses and loathes life, a feeling of being trapped, of having trusted and been fooled, of being the helpless prey of impotent rage, blind surrender, the victim of a savage, ruthless power that gives and takes away, enlists a man, and crowning injury inflicts upon him the humiliation of feeling sorry for himself.” – Paul Valéry

“Impotent rage.”

That would more or less sum up my mood this morning. We can talk all we want about “independent production” and “new digital distribution models”, the simple fact remains: when you move a physical product through a physical distribution pipeline it’s a lot harder for the powers that be to fuck with you than when all they have to do is screen your work against a list of banned keywords and off-limit domain names.

Erotic writers are still be able to get there stories onto the mainstream bookstore shelves under the rubric of “erotica”, but what do you think is going to happen when the text is digital – and searchable. What do you think is going happen when Paypal starts backtracking search results the way Google is doing right now? And how about when image recognition software comes of age? Flick of a digital switch, and *poof*, we will disappear.

For years we have battled to make a place for our work at the “grown-up table”, but today I despair. Today, despite all our successes, our victories seem small and fragile. Today I question the wisdom of pouring still more time, money and hope into such a lopsided battle.

But it’s not all bad news. This morning (via Google alerts, of course) there are some people saying some very nice things about our films. I’m especially tickled to see Hot Movies for Her making Em & Lo aware of our work. I’ve been trying to get there attention for years without any success, but the Porn Librarian came through!

From the Porn Librarian on Em & Lo’s Daily Bedpost:

Em & Lo: What would you recommend for women, gay or straight, who just don’t like porn (the lighting, gynecological detail, fake boobs, bad acting), but wish they did, or wish they could get into it with their partners, or wish they could accentuate their fantasy lives with it, with something?

Porn Librarian: I would start by looking at something from Comstock Films. Tony Comstock creates these really interesting sex documentaries that star real life couples. There are lengthy interviews, so you really get to know about them before getting to the dirty part.

And a new friend, Dr. Strokes at the Swarthmore Daily Gazette:

Comstock Films are so perfect for couples even Oprah recommended them and so hot that they’re, well, molten. These are documentary-style films of real couples who tell you how they fell in love and then invite you to look in on their bedroom. Right now they have a gay feature, a lesbian feature, and two straight films (one featuring an awesome interracial couple), but once you’ve watched those and realized you can’t get enough, don’t despair! They’re coming out with more soon, including an older straight couple, which rocks. I can’t recommend this company enough.

As for the future, well I’m not quite ready to quit yet. But I do feel increasingly pinched between two possibilities:

1) Reconsidering the offers we’ve received from the biggies of the “adult entertainment” world, which would embed our films in a more established and less vulnerable distribution chain. Of course that would mean higher production quantity, which in turn would mean lower production values and diminished emotional and physical safety for the people I film. Not an especially attractive option.

2) Backing away from my commitment to explore sexuality as frankly and honestly and cinematically as I can. There are good films, and a good living to be made without showing cunts and cocks and jizz. Google rankings/listing for my non-erotic documentaries are stable, and none of those films have ever been banned.

Not even the one with the man getting his head cut off with a machete.

[blowfish] is on it. [blowback] is not. [nina hartely] is on the list. [annie sprinkle] is not. [tony comstock] is on the Google “no fly” list. [peggy comstock] is not.

In each of these cases, and many others, the common thread to whether or not a search string will auto-populate in Google’s search field is whether or not there are potentially “objectionable” websites with high rankings the search returns; so Google will “suggest” [sexual intercourse] or [sex offender], but not [sex toys] or [sex education].

Of course by “objectionable”, Google means “sexual”. [stormfront], [nazi], and [white power] all auto populate, and searches on those terms give high rankings to stormfront.org, americannaziparty.com, and whitehonor.com respectively.

It is an incredible slap in the face. Yeah, I get it. Google wants to stay out of hot water, and so they don’t want their “Google Suggests…” pointing anyone to boobies (much less cunts and cocks.) But Nazi skinheads? No problem there. Don’t be evil? How about don’t be a dickhead?

A bigger concern than the fact that there’s a list with [tony comstock] and [comstock films] on it as terms that won’t populate is the worry that somewhere inside of the Google there is a list with comstockfilms.com on it as a site they don’t want to send people to. Is that getting factored into our pagerank? Is that why our visitors on [real sex] dropped from 100-200/day to almost zero? Who can know?

And as far as I can tell, tinynibbles.com is on that list, blowfish.com is on that list, vividvideo.com is on that list, and a whole bunch of other sexually explicit sites, spanning a wide range of attitudes towards sexuality. And all of us — from goodvibes.com to buttman.com — are, in Google’s estimation, worse than racist hate sites.

I am angry. I am angry at Google, and I am angry at a world that wants to be “offended” by two men wanting to fuck each other for the rest of their lives than by the people who would kick those men’s faces in with the heels of their jackboots.

“Don’t be evil” Really? Matt Cutts or anyone else at Google: show me how I’ve misconnected the dots. I’d rather be wrong than angry. I’d rather be the one who’s lost his mind.

 
Stormfront.org is not on Google’s secret list

Spurred by Bacchus’s comment in the previous post, I’ve typed a few names into Google’s search box to see how/if they auto fill:

[comstock films]
No autofill to comstock films, but it does autofill to [comstock films podcast]. Presumably Google feels safe autofilling [comstock films podcast] because that delivers a bunch of “safe” domains as top results, where as [comstock films] delivers comstockfilms.com as a top result.

[tony comstock]
Nope, that doesn’t autofill, I guess because that delivers comstockfilms.com as a top result.

[violet blue]
[violet blue] autofills out to several things, but not to just plain old [violet blue], presumably because the top result for [violet blue] is tinynibbles.com

[john stagliano]
Again, this autofills out to several search strings, but not to just [john stagliano]. Could this be because buttman.com is the second return on the [john stagliano] search? Maybe Matt Cutts can fill us in?

[peggy comstock]
Now this one autofills at [peggy com]. But there’s nothing potentially “objectionable” in the top returns.

[vivid video]
Like [violet blue], [comstock films], and [john stagliano], it autofills out past the sorter search string to suggest longer search strings that deliver less “objectionable” websites. (If you think websites offering bit torrents of copyrighted material are less objectionable that the website of the copyright holder. Maybe we can get Cory Doctorow’s opinion on this one?)

Now I wouldn’t say this proves anything. I would say it suggests that maybe (maybe) there’s a list of “objectionable” websites down at the Googleplex, and that they’ve put some effort into making sure that those “objectionable” websites don’t end up in the returns in their Google Suggests product.

And oh, one more string. Let’s see how it autofills

[stormfront]
s t o r m f.. and thanks for the suggestion, Google. [stormfront], right at the top of the Google’s suggestions. And the first return? stormfront.org, of course. What did you think it was going to be?

Three guesses why Google is okay with search suggestions that deliver stormfront.org as a first return, but can’t bear to make suggestions that return tinynibbles.com or comstockfilms.com.

A two year graph of the number of comstockfilms.com visitors using the search [real sex]

 Long time readers already know that our company has had an on again/off again relationship with Google. Back in late 2006 we broke the Christmas shopping season googlebug story with our post “Will Google Kill Comstock Films?”

A bug in Google’s ranking algorhythms cause a whole host of independent sex-positive websites – babeland.com, goodvibes.com, tinynibbles.com, our own and others – to be massively de-ranked, right in the middle of the holiday shopping season, even when searching their own names, like [comstock films]. The story was picked up by BoingBoing, SearchEngineLand and even PBS.

After the story, our relationship with the googlebot was good till Autumn of 2007, when we started to derank on [real sex] and other productive search terms. We hadn’t changed anything, so I assumed Google must have changed something.

Save an utterly unexplainable uptick around April 17th, our google ranking stayed low throughout 2008, but our website was not especially active. But last July I noticed that although the word [real] is #5 in Google’s listing of keywords in inbound links, [real] doesn’t appear anywhere in the Googlebot’s listing for our site content keywords. That’s right, the Googlebot doesn’t see the word [real] at the home of real life, real people, real sex.

Of course my concern is more than idle curiosity. Visitors arriving to the site on the search term [real sex] made good customers, and we’ve gone from 100-200 such visitors a day to virutally none, with the decline having a noticable impact on our website-generated revenues. Why would the Googlebot go from giving us a high listing on [real sex] to almost no listing?

Well after more than a year of wondering, I think I have an answer.

Have a look at Google’s listing for our content and external link keywords, then look at the search results for [real couples sex].

There we are, right at the top. But never mind that. Look at the rest of the sites that come up. Click through a couple of pages. There’s a mix of news, shopping, and explicit sexuality sites.

Now google [real sex]. The only explicit sexuality sites that come up in the first 10 pages have [real] and [sex] in their domain names. Otherwise it’s all news and shopping domains. There’s even an link to classified ad in vietnam.craigslist.org “as seen on HBO’s real sex”, but no links to explicit sexuality sites that don’t have [real] and [sex] in their domain.

Now try [couples sex], or [female orgasm]. It’s as if the listings have been scrubbed clean of any explicit sexuality site, (save those with the relevant key words in their domain name.)

Now don’t get me wrong. I don’t think that we’re entitled to a high Google ranking on any search term, even our own name. Google is a private business, and their business is delivering relevant search results across an infinite range of possible queries. Add to that that the shame surrounding sexuality means it’s a world that’s going to have more than it’s fair share of spammers, SEO blackhatters, and generally nefarious individuals. The Googlebot isn’t in and of itself erotophobic, it is programed to cope with with the detritous of an erotophobic culture, and delivers an erotophobic result. (Actually, that’s a pretty good explanation of why Hollywood and Chatsworth do things they way they do them too.)

In that way what’s happening with Google isn’t so different from the large West Coast LGTB online video store that won’t carry DAMON & HUNTER, or ASHLEY AND KISHA because they don’t carry “porn”, or the fact OFLC that gives a pass to SHORTBUS  or DESTRICTED, but bans our little films. And it out how difficult it is to try and “stand tall” for what you believe in, both as an artist and a business that believes that honest, healthy sexuality isn’t being well represented in culture and commerce.

We could do a Sinclair Institute and comb though our site getting rid of all the naughty words, but is that really a representation of “real life, real people, real sex”? I don’t think so, or at least it’s not a representation of my sex life. My sex life is lusty and raunchy and raw, and so is the language. (When Peggy and I in bed together, we don’t say “coitus”, we say fuck. I bet you do too.)

We could go also through the site and take out the words “porn” and “pornography”, even in the posts that are strongly critical of the genre and the industry. (Hell, as long as we’re going down that road, we could even take the explicit sex out of our films and start producing for the late night cable markets.)

So where do you draw the line? How far do you bend to the realities of the market, with what you make, and how you market what you make, until you’re just working another job? I don’t know the answer.

When we started losing website sales we were able to move into other markets that weren’t so dependent on the whims of the Googlebot. But in a world that becomes more and more computerized everyday, where the flick of a digital switch — at Google, or anywhere else — can make you disappear, I’m still thinking about those searchers that Google is sending to a spam ad on VietNam.Craigslist.org instead of ComstockFilms.com.

I’m wondering how we can get them back.

And even if I can figure out what it takes, I’m wondering if I’m willing to do it.

UPDATE

Peggy and I spent some time using Google’s Adwords Keyword Tool to try and get a better idea how the Google algorythm sees ComstockFilms.com. The results were pretty distressing. Even when using only the text from our index page, the Keyword Tool returned suggestions like [cum fiesta], [bangbrothers], and [hot girls], and [anabollic]. I guess in that way, the Googlebot is sort of like the OFLC — unless you deny the erotosism of your work, you get lumped in with BangBus, Anabollic, and the rest. No film festivals exemption from the OFLC, or higher quality search returns from Google.

Long time readers may remember my post from early January of 2007, The Secret Formula for Making Boring  Porn, Part 2, and may also remember that it ended up linked to a Boing Boing post entitled “Media overestimates porn industy’s girth.”

The reason we got that traffic-driving, google-rank improving link is because I spoon fed the information in the post to Boing Boing editor Xeni Jardin. I sent her the link to my post. I sent her the links to the ADT post she quoted, I sent her the link the the Luke Ford post she quote. I gave her the Forbes links. And I put them all in context so it would be easy for her to turn it into a news item. This is how the modern world of media works. You send out notes to gate keepers like Xeni Jardin or Andrew Sullivan, or Richard Corliss, and sometimes you get a mention. This is how a guerrilla operation like the Comstock Films public relations department (i.e. yours truly) monetizes expertise, experience and cunning. (more…)

My previous post was about DAMON AND HUNTER and ASHLEY AND KISHA appearing in the Tel Aviv International LGBT Film Festival, and how film fests do and don’t figure into our marketing and distribution strategy. In a nutshell, we put out the DVD so that we can take advantage of whatever publicity the film make generate at film festivals, on the internet, in magazines, etc. This runs contrary to the traditional film fest, theatrical release, then (finally) DVD release approach.

But who am I? And why should you listen to me? I’m just a ultra-low-budget filmmaker, and besides, my films are about sex, so the usual rules don’t apply to “regular films”, right? 

Maybe, but maybe not…

(more…)

Okay, I’m not actually going to be in Tel Aviv, but tomorrow night both DAMON AND HUNTER: DOING IT TOGETHER and ASHLEY AND KISHA: FINDING THE RIGHT FITare going to be playing in the Tel Aviv International LGBT Film Festival! Here’s the info:

Tel-Aviv Cinematheque, TLVFEST – Israel International LGBT Film FestivalYair Hochner2 Sprinzak StTel Aviv 64738 Israel
3:00 AM, theater L for ASHLEY AND KISHA3:15 AM, theater G for DAMON AND HUNTER

I don’t know why these films haven’t had more success in the US LGBT Festival circuit, no Reeling, no Frameline, no Philidelphia, none of the big gay and lesbian film fests. The whole film fest thing is a bit of a crap shoot, and after our submission blitz for ASHLEY AND KISHA, I decided that reaching for the film fest brass ring wasn’t the best place to put our money and energy.

Don’t get me wrong. We are thrilled thrilled thrilled when our films get a chance to play in a theater! And we’d never turn down a chance to be in a festival. But we’ve completely given up on the idea that first you do the film fests, then theatrical, the DVD. Both DAMON AND HUNTER and ASHLEY AND KISHA went out to the people first, then on to the film festival circuit. (We put the festival laurels on the second or third pressing.)

This is a contrariun marketing strategy, but it’s worked for us. Our DVD sales are on par with some of the most recognized documentaries of the last couple years. I think one of reason for this is that we don’t cannibalize our DVD sales with endless low or no paying festival appearances or a money-losing theatrical run. Apparently we’re not alone. From a recent Business Week article:

OPTING OUT OF THE FESTIVAL CIRCUIT
But like musicians who shun record labels (BusinessWeek.com, 10/10/07) to sell their music themselves, anecdotal evidence suggests documentary filmmakers—already an entrepreneurial bunch—are foregoing the conventional path of shopping their films to a distributor. They’re skipping such deals and using the Internet to get their stories in front of people who want to hear them.

But while DVD sales might be the financial backbone of Comstock Films, I still think there’s something special about seeing a film in a theater. I still think there’s something magical about the power of a film to turn a group of strangers, sitting in the dark, into an audience. And I because we’re inculcated in the notion that sex is a private, shameful act, I think that’s something wonderful and unexpected when that happens with one of our films.

So meet me in Tel Aviv, meet me there tomorrow night! If not in person, then in spirit!