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Vanity Fair special correspondent Matt Tyrnauer faced both the best- and worst-case scenarios as a first-time director in 2008 when he decided to parlay a magazine interview with fashion legend Valentino into a “warts-and-all” documentary that played the Toronto International Film Festival last year.

For the doc, Tyrnauer followed the intensely private designer and his long-time business partner, Giancarlo Giammetti, through the final two years of Valentino's career. The designer's gilded swan song had obvious media cachet: Even if the documentary could garner a fraction of the attention lavished on Valentino the man, the film would be assured at least some success.

But when the designer and his partner screened the finished product, they hated it. Valentino: The Last Emperor , they had hoped, would be a frothy tribute film, oozing with the designer's opulence. Instead, Tyrnauer took an unapologetic fly-on-the-wall approach, closely watching the pair's everyday decision-making and creative process – and their behind-the-scenes tantrums and petty missives. In other words, the truth.

The Globe and Mail

Tyrnauer: a case study in bypassing traditional marketing and distribution channels, while playing to a film’s eccentricities.

An unhappy Valentino and Giammetti, Tyrnauer soon realized, would have to be won over if the director were to succeed in convincing them to promote the movie. In the end, he sufficiently soothed their concerns that Valentino appeared on The Oprah Winfrey Show ; he even judged an online beauty pageant for pugs. But getting to that point required Tyrnauer to go down an unconventional path of do-it-yourself marketing and self-distribution.

His is a case study in how to sell a movie more effectively than by simply striking a blanket deal with a film distributor, and offers guidelines to directors and producers coming to this year's TIFF, which is hosting roughly 100 films still looking for distribution deals in one form or another.

Hollywood consultant Peter Broderick, who helped give the neophyte director some early advice, calls Tyrnauer's approach “hybrid-distribution.” It involves a filmmaker hiring particular distribution companies and cinema bookers for specialty services – in Tyrnauer's case, even directly contacting theatres to book Valentino – while maintaining the rights to their movie.

“We're in a period of transition, that's clear. And the old models aren't working for all films in the way that they used to, that's also clear,” says Cameron Bailey, co-director of TIFF. “We are seeing distributors working to find new ways of getting films in front of the audience.”

Valentino did receive several traditional distribution offers, Tyrnauer notes. They were good, but not great, and they ran the risk of leaving the movie to sink or swim among a pool of other films. Tyrnauer and his partners were inclined toward giving the film more care – in effect mimicking the relationship Tyrnauer had fostered with Valentino and Giammetti. That approach was vital, given that the two men were key to any marketing plans.

“This movie has stars. It has the two subjects who are very particular people, who are very demanding, and used to a certain level of cosseting and caretaking. We weren't sure that a distribution company would get that,” says Tyrnauer. “We always thought that Valentino and Giancarlo were our two greatest marketing assets. And we worked hard to get them on board, because they didn't immediately like the movie.”

The film focuses on their partnership, which Tyrnauer felt was ultimately the story of a marriage. “I thought they were so over-the-top and had such charisma. And their real story was almost unknown,” Tyrnauer notes. That intimacy is exactly what the film's two main subjects didn't like about Valentino . “They rejected it vehemently. And I really had to ride it out with them.”

It wasn't until Valentino received a glowing reception at its world premiere at the Venice Film Festival last August, and made the front pages in Italy, that the designer and Giammetti came around. “It was really Venice and the standing ovation that the movie got, and then Toronto and an even more grand ovation – that's what really pushed them over the edge,” Tyrnauer says. “And frankly, the festivals emboldened us, too.”

Tyrnauer and his partners realized that the film played well to theatrical audiences, but self-distribution meant hiring a cinema booker themselves and designing their own campaign. They hired a leading Hollywood PR firm, 42West, and a Miramax veteran as a consultant. They commissioned top graphic artists to design posters and a website. They also relied on full-time staff to reach out to bloggers and continually update the film's presence on Facebook and Twitter.

Valentino loves pugs, so the producers contacted pug-owner associations and held an online pug contest (it can still be seen at www.valentinomovie.com). Sewing groups unexpectedly began coming out to see the film, so Tyrnauer's crew began doing special events and screenings for them. “You're practically bleeding the movie by the time you're at this stage,” Tyrnauer says.

Then, the fashion press – not a traditional outlet for documentaries – came on board in full force. Women's Wear Daily mentioned the movie on a regular basis. Vanity Fair, Vogue, GQ and The New York Times's T magazine all carried articles. When Winfrey discovered Valentino – and devoted half a show to the film – it was “a gift from the gods,” says Tyrnauer.

Getting to that level of media coverage, however, came with risks. The benefit of a more traditional distribution deal is that the filmmakers get a certain guarantee upfront in exchange for distribution rights. The distribution companies then handle the costs, while being the first to claim their share of revenue. They also have marketing connections, and long-established relationships with exhibitors.

But distributors can fail to go the extra mile to find a film's true audience; they might misrepresent the true nature of a film in their ad campaigns; or they might lose faith, and concentrate their resources on more lucrative projects.

As TIFF documentary programmer Thom Powers notes, traditional distribution companies still serve a central function within the food chain, and sometimes their “hardened approach is useful.” But at other times, a more specialized, idiosyncratic plan orchestrated by the filmmakers can also do well. And that was the case with Valentino.

“Principally, it's the ability to control the release of your film and be deeply involved in the marketing,” Tyrnauer says. “If the film ends up clicking and being a success, then [you can] reap much greater profits from it, because the deals that distributors have been making with filmmakers, especially in recent months, have been very disadvantageous to the filmmaker.

“The days of the semi-frequent, monster M.G. [minimum guarantee] for an independent film really came to an end more than a year ago, maybe even two years ago, where you were routinely reading stories out of Sundance and Toronto of seven-figure minimum guarantees for independent films. Those are great success stories. But oftentimes, some months later, you read about the release of the films that got these mind-boggling guarantees, and the story … is about the failure of the film in the marketplace.”

Valentino has so far made more than $1.7-million (U.S.), with DVD sales expected to double or triple that number. It cost $1.2-million to make. A fashionable return on their investment.

Correction

Wednesday, September 2, 2009

A new self-distribution model for filmmakers is referred to in the industry as "hybrid" distribution. Incorrect information appeared in a story Saturday.