Pleased Sheep Films takes back all rights to ‘Bad Lad’ from Wysiwyg

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From the news page - originally written by Jon Williams.

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Right now it’s a pretty bad time for independent film distributors in the UK, especially if they are committed to distributing British indie films! The American majors have got the multiplexes sewn up, so if your ‘British’ film is not being distributed by Universal of Paramount you haven’t got a hope. Of course there are the ‘arthouse’ cinemas like Manchester’s ‘Cornerhouse’, but most of those are actually part of a chain that gets money from the EU (and from the UK Film Council!) to show ‘non-British’ European films. But even a focus on European films is not necessarily enough to keep a distributor in business as, last month (June) the mighty Tartan Films went bust after at least twenty-five years in the business with twenty-two people losing their jobs. Independent UK distributors have been left with nothing more than the DVD and download markets, and with making foreign sales of their films. Expect more to go bust in the near future as internet marketing takes off.

But the thing about internet marketing and distribution is it favours the filmmakers. Old style distribution is dying on its feet but DIY distribution is on the up and up. And you can do it just as easily from Blackburn as you can from London in fact more easily if you’re the sort of person who doesn’t believe in poncing about in fancy offices the rent for which you deduct from the filmmakers revenues!

Fortunately Wysiwyg was never one of those sort of firms and they realised that we could, and needed, to negotiate a new working relationship. So, as of last month we control all the rights to Bad-Lad and we’ll be handling UK distribution. But Wysiwyg has substantial experience and contacts in a number of foreign markets and we’re going to be working together on these with Wysiwyg acting for us on a commission basis.
 
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