One of Slated's specialties is helping completed films find the best possible sales partners, festival debuts, and distributors around the world. So, why would you need this?
Thousands of films are made every year that never find a distributor and therefore never make a single dollar in revenue.
Hundreds more get sub-optimal releases that don't come close to recouping their budgets.
That's often because many filmmakers unknowingly make critical mistakes in post production that may seem sensible at first, but ultimately destroy the film's ability to make sales later down the road.
One common mistake is sharing the movie too soon, or with too small a group.
Submitting your cut as a one-off to a few distributors or sales companies before you're ready to 'go wide' leads to exposure of the project prematurely. If you get any notable passes, this exposure could send negative signals to the market, and prevent you from getting a strong distributor or sales partner who may otherwise have been interested.
Worse yet, many filmmakers immediately submit their rough cuts to film festivals, thinking that a debut at Sundance, TIFF, or SXSW could launch them into a bidding war with buyers.
However, without an established EP, producer, or sales company who has a relationship with major festivals, it's likely that the best festivals will pass on your movie - even if the rough cut is good.
As the film gets rejected from festivals, those rejections appear in a central festival database visible to all of the major sales companies and buyers. Once they've seen a festival debut is no longer an option for your movie, they will no longer be interested. We've seen this happen time and time again to great indie movies.
Getting accepted into tiny or unknown festivals, but rejected from the festivals that matter, will also harm your film's chances with the vast majority of reputable sales companies.
While it's certainly possible to submit and be accepted to a meaningful film festival without any connections, your odds are significantly lower without a trusted sales company, producer, or executive producer submitting on your behalf.
Your odds of festival acceptance are also lower if you're not submitting the best possible cut of your movie.
The good news is that these mistakes are easily avoided.
There are two ways Slated helps completed films:
Slated's Screening Analysis team conducts a private, mini "test screening" of your movie to ensure your cut is making a strong impression. You'll get feedback from three members of our development team who each watch a private screener of your movie. They'll provide 10+ pages of feedback on how your edit is coming across and which areas still need to be smoothed over. Analysis on completed films has been proven to increase a finished film's chances of finding a great buyer, festival, or sales company, plus it correlates with Rotten Tomatoes.
Slated's Executive Producer Team also helps finished films strategize their post-production process -- helping you organize a coordinated approach for matching your film with the right sales company, debuting your film at the best possible festival, and launching sales at all the major markets so that buyers will take the film and generate revenue. Slated works with over 250 of the best sales companies around the world.
Submit a private/unlisted cut of your movie for Screening Analysis directly on your project page and our team will be eager to watch and provide you with confidential feedback.
For more information on submitting your cut for Slated's Executive Producer Team's review, please message us using the chat bubble in the bottom-right.