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AFM Wrap:
A Good Time to be a Micro-Budget
Filmmaker if You Are Well Prepared

by Sheri Candler

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This was my first time to the American Film Market (AFM). I elected to go because I have been studying and networking within the independent film arena for the last year and was told that this would be a good educational experience. I am not a filmmaker and did not have a film to sell or a script to peddle so it gave me time to just walk around, incognito, view the happenings and attend some of the seminars. While I didn’t see much that would encourage a microbudget filmmaker in the market, I did hear some inspirational stories from filmmakers who have chosen not to follow the traditional distribution route touted at AFM. The future is bright for the filmmaker brave enough to take back control of distribution.


I decided to buy a half market badge because it was less costly and I was told that the time to walk around and talk to sales agents was towards the end of the market when buyers had left and they had time to gab. I also wanted to attend a few of the seminars and the ones most interesting to me happened to occur on the last few days. Sunday, November 8 was my first day and they happened to hold an orientation first thing that morning for those of us who had never attended the market before.

Let me digress for just a second to address those who have never visited AFM. A film market is kind of like a tradeshow. AFM takes place at two hotels instead of a convention center and sales agencies and distributors set up their “booths” inside of hotel suites. I am told because of the noise factor involved in screening films, a hotel setting is more suitable. So, to walk the market is to wander hotel hallways and pop in and out of hotel rooms all decorated up with film posters, one sheets and catalogs of titles available. When a producer makes a film, he sells the rights to it to distributors. The producer makes a percentage of what the film makes after the distributor subtracts distribution fees, marketing, expenses (like attendance at these markets!), prints and an exhibitors cut if the film has a theatrical release. Studios use markets too, but in this article, I am describing the market as it fits the independent producer who has hired a separate sales agent to handle the sale of his film to domestic and foreign distributors who will release it theatrically, DVD, VOD, broadcast, to educational distributors and other ancillary businesses.

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