FilmSprout: Growing Documentary Film Audiences From the Bottom Up

To fully understand what Caitlin Boyle does for a living, you first have to understand that the dominant distribution model for independent documentary films is broken. If you think about the major film festivals you’ve probably heard of—Sundance, Tribeca, SXSW—where filmmakers have worked, sweat, begged to have their work shown (after, of course, working, sweating, and begging to get their films produced in the first place), you would assume that all those studio reps and movie stars on the red carpet are there to sweep up the winners and the runners-up and the underdogs. Well you’d be wrong. Only one or two of these films a year gets a major studio deal offering distribution into national theaters. And even those few filmmakers don’t see much money at this point, maybe a run of a few hundred theaters in a dozen cities, not bringing in tremendous profit, most of which is eaten up by the studios, the reps, the distributors, and everyone else along the line. And the working, sweating, begging filmmaker? He’s left wondering who saw his film and if it ever made a difference.

This is where Caitlin’s new business, FilmSprout, has the greatest influence. It’s film distribution that puts the filmmakers first, creating direct lines from them and their projects to small-but-enthusiastic audiences in small towns, on rooftops, in church basements, and in school auditoriums across the country. She calls it grassroots distribution, and it, figuratively, took root right in her own backyard.

While she was working in production at Channel 13’s documentary division, her husband and his friend (Ian Cheney and Curt Ellis) were working on a film about sustainable agriculture, America’s number one heartland crop, and the international corn syrup industry. Entitled “King Corn”, the move was as much a buddy flick as it was a hard-core expose and serious issues-driven piece—something we naive film-goers would think would be prime for major pick-up and release. But even as twenty-four-year olds in rented tuxes going to film festivals, they were less green than we were and saw opportunities closing in front of them. And sadly, this didn’t surprise them.

What they weren’t expecting, however, were the number of phone calls and emails they received afterwards from schools and community groups asking if they could show the film to their classes or at their next meeting. In this industry, the idea of giving work away for free is ludicrous; where were the license fees and the contracts? It wasn’t heard of, and they didn’t know how to respond.

As the weeks went by, more and more requests came in through all the “wrong” channels. Finally the group looked at each other and said, “wait, there has to be a way to handle this. these people want to show our film, we want to get it shown. what do we do?” Caitlin contacted a distributor friend and asked for advice. He said go for it—typically a license (for a movie theater, for example) costs $300. If a school or community center will pay that, what’s standing in the way? And this (shockingly rare) grassroots distribution model was born. The licensing fees went directly to the filmmakers (and their families), and the film’s message was reaching people who wanted to learn about it. In eight months, the film celebrated over 250 screenings. Community groups were able to charge admission and recoup their expense, and through word of mouth, the film’s popularity grew, even ending up in the board room of one of the very corn syrup plants the film exposes. On all accounts, it smelled of a successful experiment.

But what next? Surely that was a fluke, right? Not so—next Caitlin got a call from the production team behind Rachel Carson’s "A Sense of Wonder", a film suffering a similar plight despite a well-known writer and critical success. Though still freelancing other odd production jobs, Caitlin decided to give it a try, and found once again that the model worked. See, though industry digital technology has advanced to make films cheaper to make, movie theaters still require 35mm reels, which can cost up to $35,000. Pressing a DVD and cutting a line straight from the filmmaker to a townhall costs almost nothing. With lower hard costs, and fewer folks along the line trying to squeeze money out of the deal, funds and films started to go further. It was at this point that another festival-regular called Caitlin—this time a lawyer who works with filmmakers to broker deals with the big film houses—to give her the push she needed to go at this full-time. He was so impressed with the success of "King Corn" and "A Sense of Wonder" (not traditional “success”, remember, but success in expanding a film’s audience while remaining true to the filmmaker and his or her story) that he promised to send her enough clients to keep her very busy.

He stayed true to his word, which allows Caitlin to stay true to hers. She has a degree in journalism, a direction she chose because she felt that stories of rural towns and environmental issues, if told well and told to the right people, could truly effect the lives of those involved. Its this very ethos that she gets to promote everyday. “Environmental films are how the environmental community communicates with each other and the public,” she says, and she is proud to be able to help them spread the word, and to fulfill a very real thirst for this information—she recently worked with a group in rural Vermont, 70 miles from the closest “major release” city, who were hungry for passionate and important stories.

Caitlin formed FilmSprout in its formal capacity just in the past year and has more filmmakers eager to work with her than she possibly can help. Most recently, she’s been working with the Best Film from last year’s Tirbeca festival, called "Pray the Devil Back to Hell". It’s her first foray away from the environmentalist movement, but sees it as an important message nonetheless. And so does the public, as she’s secured over 400 screenings of the film to date. Hating to say no to anyone, she often finds herself donating time to those she can't fully take on, coaching folks over the phone how to do what she does on their own. Her highest hopes are that spreading the word will get more people on the ground, supporting this effort to get independent documentary films into the hands of the public, and funding into the hands of filmmakers.