Interview Part 3: Filmmaker Nick Staron -  1097 days ago

 

Before you started filming, what was your distribution plan? How did it change after the movie was completed?
We had a loose agreement with our distributor that he would try to distribute it for us. I highly recommend having something more solid in place if you can. However, most distributors would rather the filmmaker take all of the risk first and then they will decide if they want to movie. Usually the independent filmmaker has to just make the movie and see if their distributor likes it.

Be aware of the kind of films your distributors sells. If your film does not fit with their style of filmmaking, you will not get in. We did our homework and found out what Christian audiences expect and do not like. We still had surprises about how people reacted to “Between the Walls”. It’s a tough audience.

Thankfully our distributor helped us to hone our film down into the kind of movie the market would like to see. Distributors are usually not hands on so we were really blessed to get this kind of instruction for our first feature. It was a very emotionally difficult process but a necessary one.

How successful have distibution efforts been to date?
We’ve been able to get our films into a lot of places but have not been able to sell a massive amount of copies. I think we have a lot to be proud of. But since our advertising was left totally up to us, we cannot let people know it is on the shelf because we cannot afford advertisements. Just to get into one of the popular catalogues of a store that we are in costs $7,000 for a small ad. How can an independent afford that? Simple. They can’t.

Word of mouth, church screenings and interviews like this have been the best advertising. But it seems it only gets you so far. For our next films we plan on budgeting in more money for advertising.

What advice would you have for other aspiring Christian filmmakers?
1) Make achievable films. Most Christian filmmakers try to make films that have dragons, wars and special effects. Practice on smaller films and work your way up.

2) Try to up the quality of your production. Even if it is on video you should light the scene. Try to find people who can actually act. Move the camera a little bit.

3) Make the movie move. A lot of early films in someone’s career are slow. Make them move at a rapid fire pace. (We struggle with this one sometimes).

4) Do not use stilted language. Christians write movies so that everyone is speaking proper English. This isn’t the case. Please stop.

5) Don’t put horses into your movies. This may sound silly but every Christian movie that has a horse in it seems to fall flat.

6) Most filmmakers rely on the device of a Bible in their movie. A character longs for more, looks at a bible and then is suddenly saved. It’s a cheap trick. If we want to have films that impact people, we need to show them what a faith journey looks like. Not a cheap trick to advance the story. In “Between the Walls” there isn’t a Bible or a church in the whole script. Yet the Bible is quoted and put into practice. People watch the transformation and can see how they can change themselves.

7) Make films that you would like to see. This may sound silly but I think a lot of films wouldn’t be make if we asked ourselves “would I want to see this movie?”

8) Pray about the movies you make. Should you make them? How should you make them? With whom should you make them?

9) Prepare for the project. Plan everything out before you start. Most beginning filmmakers push things off until the last minute. It drives me crazy as a crewmember and it comes through in the final product.

10) Schedule in some free time for your crew so you don’t burn them out. Maybe even plan in fun things you can all do together during the shoot. You’ll have a better time making the film.

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