Fans Take Ink to the Next Level

By Jamin

After four packed screenings in Los Angeles, Ink is finally getting a full run at the Sunset 5 in Hollywood.

It's been six months since premiering Ink at the Santa Barbara International Film Festival, and though we've been having a lot of successes, Ink has taken a path I never could have predicted. A lot of filmmakers have asked us about our strategy with the film and why we've made some of the decisions we have with the release of Ink. Here is a description of our experience and an explanation of why we're doing what we're doing.



A lot has happened in the past couple years and especially the past couple months in the indie film world. We're going through the worst economic times of our lives, the independent film model has imploded, independent distributors and theaters are collapsing, several of the distributors who are surviving are ripping off filmmakers, piracy is growing, and the media world is rapidly changing in ways no one can predict due to the web. One can look at the situation and either decide that the sky is falling or acknowledge that maybe the current shift is the beginning of something completely new and awesome. Depending on the day, we've believed both.



The line for Ink outside the Laemmle Sunset 5 for the August 27th, 10:00pm screening. Photo taken by a fan in line and posted on Twitter.

Like a lot of filmmakers, we finished Ink with the dream of a theatrical distribution deal and a substantial advance from a distributor. Though after our experience with our first feature film, 11:59, we decided we would do things differently. Instead of playing film festivals for a year in order to find distribution, we would premiere the film at the first big festival that would have us and move immediately into distribution even if it was self-distribution. We would not wait for things to happen, we would make them happen. Little did we know that we would be finishing the film just in time to watch the indie film market dwindle and retreat in a failing economy.

Santa Barbara International Film Festival contacted us before the movie was even finished. We sent them a copy and they accepted it. We rushed to finish the final touches on the film, notified every distributor in LA and premiered. After a glowing review from Ain't It Cool News, buzz began, however no offers came for distribution at the festival. Not a shock. Again, we weren't going to wait for distributors to find us, we were going to make a ruckus. So we came right back to Denver (our home town) and opened Ink ourselves. In the meantime agencies had seen the film and we signed with United Talent Agency. We were hopeful they would find a distributor for us, but we weren't going to hold back on our own efforts. We were learning at this moment just how bad the indie film world was sinking. The chances of any sort of good offer were getting grim.

Ink played 8 very strong weeks in Denver and an additional 8 weeks in other Colorado towns. The goal was to prove to distributors that the film had an audience. It did that, but still no good offers. It was becoming apparent that if we wanted an audience to find the film, we would have to take it to them ourselves.



Fans of Ink outside Cinema Village in New York City. Pericles Lewnes, second from right, drove four hours from Annapolis to see the film.

To be clear, it's not that we weren't getting offers, it's that offers and opportunities were all coming without advances, no money up front. In this industry money up front is the only money you will ever see. It doesn't matter if back end money is in the contract, you will never get paid. So signing a deal for Ink with no advance would essentially be giving the rights away for free and burn our investors. In addition, there would be no guarantee the distributor would even release the film. Happens all the time.

We decided to take the film out theatrically ourselves. The easiest path would have been to go straight to Blu-Ray and DVD, but we wanted as many people as possible to have the opportunity to see Ink on the big screen and we wanted to make sure we campaigned for the film for several months before the home video release. A theatrical release is still the best promotion for a film so we decided to continue taking Ink out theatrically ourselves to every city we could.



Fan appreciation night in Denver at the Starz FilmCenter, April 18th, 2009.

We booked screenings in LA, New York, Portland, Seattle, Annapolis, and many coming up including Chicago and a return to Denver. Mind you, this has not been easy. Kiowa has spent a better part of the past several months on the phone pleading with theaters and bookers to let us in. We're competing with huge distribution companies for the same slots. For every success there's been 20 failures, for every good day there's been three bad. It's an excruciating process with few rewards, but thus far, we've prevailed.

Once getting booked in a theater, the challenge revolves around promoting each city and screening... oh, and with no advertising budget. Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, this blog, and our email list have been our whole campaign. Obscurity is the evil we're constantly battling. In an environment of mass promoting and media noise we're fighting to push Ink through to the other side, to an untouchable place where people will always be able to hear about it and find it. In Los Angeles most of our principal cast has been doing the same thing. They spend hours every day pushing the film further and further to it's own protected space so as not to get buried due to the lack of a big budget distributor and marketing campaign. It's a Herculaneum effort from just a few people.



The incredible evening at the Egyptian Theatre in Hollywood on June 10th, 2009 with the whole gang. We have truly all become family.

But in all this pushing, one thing has surprised us more than any other. Since the very first screening in Santa Barbara we've had this growing underground army of fans that is relentless in spreading the word. I've never experienced anything like it, but it's overwhelming on a daily basis. It's this base that has given the film the buzz and ultimately any success it's had. We've been working for three years, are absolutely exhausted and have run out of resources, time, and stamina, but now our fans have begun carrying us. And this is why, looking at our situation, we're happy to be at the place we are. Had we taken a traditional route, we would have walked away from the film and let someone else handle it, giving the film an uncertain future. In the new and changing world where Trent Reznor is self-releasing his albums, David Lynch is self-distributing his films, and anyone with a computer and a web connection can start writing and find readers, we're so happy that we can connect with our audience directly.

So now we have reached early September and we're about to go into our first theatrical run of Ink in LA. We've been playing theater by theater for the past six months personally promoting each and every screening while simultaneously preparing the Blu-Ray, DVD and download release in a way where we keep all of our rights. Our goal now is to see Ink through and make certain anyone in the world can see it within the next couple of months. From there, we'll let the fans decide where it will go.

Ink will be playing at Laemmle Sunset 5 beginning September 11th.