Production/Distribution Flowchart for Filmstack

How to navigate from making a film to selling it?

After all the great responses to my Film Fundraising Flowchart last week, I thought I’d post another set of flowcharts. In the interest of NonDê full disclosure, here’s one chart we’re using internally on my upcoming film Atomic Fondue (our Kickstarter campaign starts next week)! Now that we’ve got our LLC formed, bank account, etc., we’re hitting 2026 hard to raise money, start pre-pro and make the film.

By way of navigating this colorful spaghetti chart, the green arrows are money flowing (payments, revenue, etc.), the orange arrows are residual payments, the purple arrows are SAG and DGA deposits and the black arrows, are well, just flow, itself, in its most flowcharty sense of being.

Hopefully this starts to answer what happens after you finish the film itself? When should filmmakers start talking to sales agents, distributors, and film festivals? And what happens if/when money starts to flow back to all our stakeholders?

A few months ago I posted a ‘stack called Scheduling a Film, where I looked at how Courtney Romano was doing her cool scheduling, and my Chapman students and I did a fun version on dry-erase white boards. Well, this flowchart is another way to go. Here’s a less colorful version, if it helps to decipher the flow at its essence (irrespective of any money):

Of course, these kinds of flowcharts are going to be totally different for every filmmaker on every film. And in fact, you really can’t even do an accurate chart like this until well after you’ve made your film. Doing it in advance is mostly just wishful thinking. And truth be told, this chart pretty much shows what happened to my last film, 18½. Whether Atomic Fondue follows the same flow is still anyone’s guess.

Everyone’s going to have different stakeholders they need to take care of: Some of us work with some unions, others don’t work with any. Some of us use CAMs (Collection Account Managers) and some don’t. Some films will sell all rights to a single distributor, and others will carve out their rights like an apple pie. Some may not sell at all, but have great festival runs. And some won’t play any festivals, but might make great sales direct to streamers.

But hopefully just thinking about time and energy through these kinds of flowcharts will help you or your teammates (or your backers) to get the big picture of what you’re doing and just how long it might take to make your film and find an audience for it one way or another.

Good luck on your films (or any other creative project!) and if you want to follow along with our journey on Atomic Fondue, please check out our link tree - or if you’re reading this past January 13th, feel free to go to our Kickstarter page.

Also, if you’re going to be in Park City for the Last Dance, I’ll be at the Impact Lounge co-moderating with Amy Hobby a panel called Distribution Revolution with an amazing slate of panelists and special guests (including many famous’n’fabulous FilmStackers) talking all about film distribution! It’s on Sunday, Jan. 25th at 10am at the Prospector. Free donuts! And yes, I’m sure I’ll completely rewrite my flowchart right after that :)

Cha!