Limited release increases value of a film: Pene Patrick
The director of Playing for Charlie, Pene Patrick, says a cinema release, as limited as it may be, increases the value of a film.
“It increases the value in terms of its sales to other windows; since we announced our release we managed to attract a DVD distributor and an international sales agent,” Patrick told Encore.
The cinema release this week, says Patrick, will allow the film to be seen by as many people as possible, but filmmakers have to be realistic when the numbers of screens is limited and there is no big marketing campaign or recognisable stars.
Playing for Charlie is NZ-born Patrick’s feature debut, and she admits that it was developed as a purely artistic endeavour made by “a production company of one employee”, under the 10BA scheme and with the $1m budget supplied by “a couple who love art”.
“I’ve been protected from that ‘I have to have a hit’ mentality that tells people who they should cast and how they should sell the film. Our investor said, ‘Just make your own film and at the end of the day, if it’s just part of my art collection I’m going to be happy with that’. Of course everyone wants a commercial venture if it happens, but that wasn’t the priority,” Patrick explained.
The director and producer (sharing the credit with Franziska Wagenfield) believes filmmakers “can’t make a habit out of it”, but there are still such private investors out there, arts patrons who will listen to those who have a clear vision and a low budget.
Playing for Charlie is a coming of age drama about a young mother and her teenage son, who feels trapped between his family responsibilities after the recent death of his father, and an opportunity to become a professional rugby player.
The film was shot in August/September2007 with the Panavision Genesis camera – the first Australian project to do so, even before Two Fists One Heart. It was completed the following May and screened at the 2008 Sydney and Melbourne Film Festivals, and in the following two years it screened at various international festivals. There was interest from an Australian distributor, but Patrick declined the opportunity when she was asked to do a re-cut and change the title.
Still, festival success made Patrick want to maximise the film’s potential through self-distribution. She got Peter Castaldi and his Pack Screen company to support her with the marketing and distribution. New key art was created by the agency DLSHS (“it was almost like the film was re-branded”) and followed by a limited cinema release at Cinema Nova (Melbourne) and Randwick Ritz (Sydney), a DVD distribution deal (Umbrella), an Australian Teachers of Media study guide and an international sales agent (Odin’s Eye) which is currently in discussions with Asian broadcasters for TV rights.
Patrick admits she approached this project from a ‘let’s see how it goes’ perspective, and although she feels proud that the film’s screenings attracted interest for the project without an actual business strategy (“it’s had a very honest journey by itself”), if she had to do it again she’d recruit professionals who could help her generate a profile from the very beginning.
Playing for Charlie opens on May 6.
