Paranormal Activity – Learning how to budget your indie film

The new, micro budget horror film, Paranormal Activity continues to rake in the cash, with this weekend pushing it above $60 million at the box office. That’s a Hollywood success story.  The budget to make the film was a whopping $11,000.  Not $111 million.  Not …

(via Fissure Filmmaker's Blog)

Using Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, YouTube to market your film

With our movie, Fissure, we utilized a variety of online services and tools to market our film. Below is a list of the things we tried, along with what worked and didn’t work for us.
Website
This is one of the most important online tools you need for your film. …

(via Fissure Filmmaker's Blog)

Using internet to marketing and promote your indie film

When we launched our film this summer, we used both traditional marketing methods (press releases, radio, news, interviews, screenings, etc.) and Internet-focused methods (blogs, webisodes, social media, etc.). Which is the winner? Hard to tell. Here are some of my …

(via Fissure Filmmaker's Blog)

The New Age of Distribution

Regarding distribution, everything has changed and continues to change. The entertainment landscape is vastly different than it was was just a few years ago. The Hollywood business models that worked for years now don’t work like they used to. The Internet changed …

(via Fissure Filmmaker's Blog)

Fissure.TV Webisodes start June 15th

We are making incredible progress in getting the webisodes ready to launch for our June 15th start date. Very exciting!
In the mean time, check out some of our “Behind-the-Scenes” clips from the movie:

Behind-the-Scenes Featurette 1, The Story
Behind-the-Scenes …

(via Fissure Filmmaker's Blog)

Fissure co-star, Crystal Mantecon, wraps “Tree of Life” with Brad Bitt and Sean Penn

Fissure co-star, Crystal Mantecon, recently finished up work on a new film by Terrence Malick called “Tree of Life“. Crystal plays opposite of Brad Pitt and Sean Penn.
I had a chance to travel down to Smithville where they were filming. Our first AD on Fissure,

(via Fissure Filmmaker's Blog)

Indie Film Distribution Offers and Deals

In my last post, I shared four steps you can take to improve your chances for successful distribution for your indie feature film.

In this post, I want to talk about the various types of distribution deals that are out there for indie feature films. It's a bit …

Increase your Chances for Successful Indie Film Distribution

Now that we are coming the close of our movie project, I want to take a few minutes to share some of the learnings along the way, because there are many!

To start with, I want to talk about independent film distribution, because of all the various steps of this process, …

Trailer Addict

The new, revised Fissure trailer is now online at Trailer Addict.

Foreign Distribution has started

We are proud to announce that Fissure's foreign distribution has started. We signed an agreement this month with Uwe Boll. Boll will be managing all of our foreign distribution--theatrical, DVD and broadcast.

This past Friday, we delivered all of our audio and video …

Redemptive Storyteller Award

We were notified last week that Fissure has won the "Redemptive Storyteller Award" in the Professional Category at the Redemptive Film Festival in Virginia Beach, Virginia. We are very honored that Fissure has been selected for this reward.

Early on the script …

Fissure voted "Best Locally Made Film"

In this week's issues of the Fort Worth Weekly, Fissure was voted Best Locally Made Film in 2008.

Here's what they had to say:

Filmed in Dallas and the Mid-Cities, Russ Pond's thriller screened at the AFI Dallas festival in March. The movie is about a cop who …

Fissure on Beyond Hollywood

Fissure received a relatively positive movie review at Beyond Hollywood. The reviewer writes:

Even with its relatively few shortcomings, Fissure is still worth a look. It's especially great fun to see how director Russ Pond has taken two distinct genres - sci-fi and …

Update on the movie

Things are moving a bit slowly now with distribution. But, that's not bad. We have chosen to navigate these uncharted waters slowly and methodically. There are quite a few horror stories about indie film distribution, and we're not going to be one of them.

We …

Ron Livingston and Rosemarie DeWitt

This was at the closing banquet of AFI Dallas on Sunday morning. I had the opportunity to meet Ron Livingston and Rosemarie DeWitt. Ron was running around getting his picture taken while Rosemarie and I ended up talking for quite awhile. She was really sweet.

AFI Interview with Russ Pond

Here are a couple more interviews from AFI Dallas:

Also, you can watch James Macdonald's interview from AFI Dallas:

Fissure on Good Morning Texas with Gary Cogill

On Thursday, April 3rd, Fissure was featured on Good Morning Texas with Russ Pond, producer and director, along with Crystal Mantecon.

For those of you

AFI Daily News features Fissure

Russ Pond's FISSURE Keeps Audiences Guessing

by Jennah Durant

Engineering and business marketing are not typically a director's forte-unless you're Russ Pond, who pulled triple duty as the director/producer/editor of Fissure, his first full-length film and an entry in …

The State of the State: Filmmaking in Texas

For you filmmakers in Texas, I'll be speaking on a panel Monday at 5:30 about filmmaking in Texas. I'll be joined by Garry Brown, Producer of Prison Break and the Director of the Texas Film Commission. It's open to industry professionals, so I hope you can make …

Fissure in Dallas Morning News as AFI gets rolling

Last night was the opening festivities for AFI Dallas. We had a lot of fun. My wife and I attended the opening screening of Helen Hunt's film along with James Macdonald (aka Grunning) and Jim Blumetti (aka Roger Ulster) and his wife, Pam. After the screening, we …