Today I got a note from an agency interested in distributing my film Mausams.
I didn't take it forward because well... this is not the first time Mausams has had such an offer. There have been a few before and I even had gotten into a temporary contract with one. However, none of it worked. For a really unexpected reason. I figured out that I simply do not have the movie in a format that is required for most platforms! Yup, I have a film that these people say they liked but the output quality is not up to the mark. When we made the film and finally rendered it, the quality was just enough for it to go on a DVD. It was a very very last minute job, just a few hours prior to its first screening. Just getting that one DVD working was such a big deal and we never went back to it to afterwards. What I realized later was that most of the distributors need a much higher resolution than what we have, and many even need a HD format, while Mausams was shot on SD.
When I started working on Mausams, it was meant to be purely a home video. My thinking was that ... I have a script and am gonna make a film with no money which then translates to no good camera, no lighting, no proper sound equipment etc. etc. I just wanted to tell the story with whatever means I had which was.. well, nothing much. In hindsight, I should have paid more attention to the production quality from the start but to be honest, just the writing, producing, directing, shooting, dubbing etc. were hard enough for me that I didn't really think beyond it.
And I had no idea that the film would be so much bigger than it was ever intended to be. I had no idea that it wont be just a home video and that it would get the screenings that it did, the award that it did, the film festival selections that it did, the distribution offers that it did. All those were just unplanned (but very welcome) bonuses.
Anyway, back to today... when I got the note from the distributor, I simply wrote back to her saying that I don't have a good enough format and am not interested in pursuing it further. It was a tad bit disappointing.
But it was also incredibly fulfilling to know that yet another distributor found my product worthwhile! That in itself made the day awesome!
I didn't take it forward because well... this is not the first time Mausams has had such an offer. There have been a few before and I even had gotten into a temporary contract with one. However, none of it worked. For a really unexpected reason. I figured out that I simply do not have the movie in a format that is required for most platforms! Yup, I have a film that these people say they liked but the output quality is not up to the mark. When we made the film and finally rendered it, the quality was just enough for it to go on a DVD. It was a very very last minute job, just a few hours prior to its first screening. Just getting that one DVD working was such a big deal and we never went back to it to afterwards. What I realized later was that most of the distributors need a much higher resolution than what we have, and many even need a HD format, while Mausams was shot on SD.
When I started working on Mausams, it was meant to be purely a home video. My thinking was that ... I have a script and am gonna make a film with no money which then translates to no good camera, no lighting, no proper sound equipment etc. etc. I just wanted to tell the story with whatever means I had which was.. well, nothing much. In hindsight, I should have paid more attention to the production quality from the start but to be honest, just the writing, producing, directing, shooting, dubbing etc. were hard enough for me that I didn't really think beyond it.
And I had no idea that the film would be so much bigger than it was ever intended to be. I had no idea that it wont be just a home video and that it would get the screenings that it did, the award that it did, the film festival selections that it did, the distribution offers that it did. All those were just unplanned (but very welcome) bonuses.
Anyway, back to today... when I got the note from the distributor, I simply wrote back to her saying that I don't have a good enough format and am not interested in pursuing it further. It was a tad bit disappointing.
But it was also incredibly fulfilling to know that yet another distributor found my product worthwhile! That in itself made the day awesome!
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