Speaker 1: In response to the changes in market conditions, as indie filmmakers and producers, you need to understand the distribution chain, how and where a film is released, and who is in charge to help you explore your film globally and in many different ways. All this, coming up. Hi everyone and welcome back to another video, my name is Ania Espuda, I create this channel to help indie filmmakers in the process of making their films, so if you want to be part of this amazing film industry and this community, consider subscribing. Now let's jump into the video. Usually when we talk about distributors, we hear the sentence buy a movie, this is not quite accurate, actually the distributor is not making an outright purchase of the film, the distributor would be entering into a license agreement whereby the distributor has the right to distribute their film in certain territories for a particular length of time, usually known as the term. So at the end you're not selling your movie, you're selling the license for certain rights for certain territories for a limited period of time. That being said, now, what distributors do? The distributor of a film is responsible for exploiting a film for its maximum value once it has been made. They set the release date and they plan the life cycle of the film through various windows and territories making the movie available for the audience. In the world of independent film, distribution companies tend to work on a territory-by-territory basis. So, for example, the Canadian distribution company will buy the film for Canada. That means the distributor will have the right to arrange for distribution in all media, theatrical, DVD, VOD, television, airlines, in Canada only. A German company will buy the film for Germany, a Brazilian company will buy for Brazil, and so on. This is why sometimes it's good to work with sales agents, who can advise and make the sales to several distributors and help the producer to place the film in different territories around the world. Now let's talk about the distribution life cycle of a film. Here we use the concept of windows. This refers to the fact that films can be seen in many different ways, in theatres, television and home video. Over the years, the film industry has developed a pattern of releasing films on these different platforms, in a particular sequence, over an established time frame. But as we know, the current system of release windows is under increasing pressure from changes in the audience behavior. The standard sequence of release for a future film places theatrical at the top, followed by premium VOD, a service that allows you to watch a movie even if it's still played in theatres or very shortly after. Then we have transactional, that is DVD, Blu-ray and pay-per-view, then paid TV, that can be cable or digital video like VOD or SVOD, then free TV, educational, that works most for documentaries, and the catalogue, the last stage in the distribution cycle where the movie is part of the distributor's catalogue for the time left. Nowadays there is a period of exclusivity between the theatrical release and the following windows, which traditionally runs for 90 days. After these three months, you can distribute more broadly and the film can be available on DVD, pay-per-view and airlines. Then, 18 to 30 months after the initial release, it might be on free TV, the standard broadcast channels. The goal here for each window will always be trying to maximize its exclusive or non-exclusive access to the film. The most important thing is to be informed, do your homework, do your research and build a profile of the different distributors you want to connect with. Know the trends, know how the business works and how the industry is changing day by day due to the current worldwide events. Well, I hope this video was helpful for you, let me know in the comments below. You can hit the like button as well. Thank you so much for checking out this video and the channel, keep crushing it and see you next time.