If you arrived here by our email invitation, please note this event takes place on Friday Feb 28th, not the 29th.
Doors open at 6:30 pm, the workshop will begin promptly at 7:00 pm. Filmmakers of all genders are welcome to attend.
This workshop is produced by NYC Women Filmmakers (NYCWF), a non-profit volunteer run organization that advocates for inclusion and amplification of underrepresented filmmakers of all trades, experience, and background.
Important Event Policies
***PLEASE NOTE*** By attending, you consent to being photographed and/or filmed at the event which could be used later to promote NYC Women Filmmakers and the presenter.
CANCELLATION POLICY FOR FREE TICKETS: If you RSVP and do not show up and do not cancel your ticket AT LEAST 24 hours in advance, you will be blacklisted from future events for 6 months. It takes a lot of work to put on these free workshops for our community and we are tired of no shows taking spots away from members who were waitlisted or unable to obtain a spot. Emailing us to cancel your RSVP hours before the event do not count. Again, we need AT LEAST 24 HRS notice and for you to properly cancel your ticket via Eventbrite (link to tutorial) so that spot opens up for another filmmaker. These rules will NOT apply to those who DONATE. We appreciate your donations which support programming for our growing community.
Accessibility: Please take the elevators to your LEFT when you first enter to the Basement level (B). Follow the signs to Room 006 which is accessible to persons with disabilities and persons who are wheelchair users. For more information and assistance, please email us directly at hello AT nycwomenfilmmakers DOT org.
Re-Thinking Distribution: What the Direct-to-Fan Model Means for Indie Film
In Summer 2019, writer/actress/producer Naomi McDougall Jones moved into an RV and embarked on a 3-month, 40-city, 51-screening Joyful Vampire Tour of America to release her second feature film Bite Me direct-to-fans and see whether she and her team could invent a new model for independent film distribution. On the road, they gained an up-close, nitty-gritty understanding of the current distribution landscape, including how to market to audiences today, the horror stories of other filmmakers who put their films through traditional distribution models, and how online sales (TVOD, SVOD, etc) interact with in-person screenings.
In this workshop, Naomi will pull the veil back fully on everything they did right, everything they did wrong, and, most importantly, the foundational lessons they learned about how indie filmmakers should be thinking about distribution today. She will also share how, following the tour, her team parlayed the success of their in-person screenings into six offers from traditional sales agents and distributors and ultimately landed a domestic and international sales deal. Naomi offers radical, out-of-the box thinking and invites filmmakers to reconsider continuing to pump their films into the current system of distribution that is rapidly vanishing under our feet. She will also speak about her newly-published debut book, The Wrong Kind of Women: Inside Our Revolution to Dismantle the Gods of Hollywood.
Copies of the book will be available to purchase at the event. Bring your own copy if you have it already and would like a chance to get it signed!
