Kevin Smith is a film director from New Jersey and his first movie was Clerks in 1994 which was filmed in the convenience store in which he worked but was only allowed to film there when the shop was closed at night however his film won the highest award at the Sundance Film Festival.
He called himself a “fat stoner” before he started making films, simply implying how if anyone works hard enough then they can do it, if they are determined.
He realised for his films to gain an audience he needed to advertise and distribute them in the correct way, get an exhibitor and just basically find people who know how to pitch a film in the best way possible!
Red State-
Red State is an American horror action film , written and directed by Kevin Smith himself in 2011 , starring John Goodman, Melissa Leo and Michael Parks.
Smith started off in November and December 2010 distributing teaser posters which were released featuring characters from the movie. He released a teaser trailer for his film on 23rd of December 2010.
With this film Kevin Smith was originally going to auction off his film to a distributor at a controversial event to be held after its premiere at the Sundance Film Festival, however decided to distribute the film himself by purchasing then distributing it under the SModcast Picture banner with a traveling roadshow in select cities starting on March 5th at Radio City Music Hall, taking the film tour across North America before officially releasing the movie on VOD and DVD in September 2011 through Lionsgate,he also released it in select theaters again for a special one-night only engagement on September 23, 2011.
But was it successful?
Obviously there was mixed reviews in terms of the actual film itself and the plot etc however it seemed a success as it was watched and reviewed by many. In October 2011, Red State won the Best Motion Picture award at the 2011 Sitges Film Festival. Smith stated in his book that foreign gross from his Red State screening tour and millions from Video-on-Demand and Netflix streaming rights helped the film turn a profit from its $4 million budget. This just goes to show how important the distribution of the film is when finding its audience and getting the publicity it deserves.
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