Distribution Strategy

As with most independent documentary filmmakers today, we will have a multi-prong, hybrid distribution plan to engage as many audience members as possible. Our goal is to increase awareness, garner earned media, engage educators and students, and generate national, and ultimately, international attention.

El Último Sueño de Frida e Diegophoto by Cory Weaver

El Último Sueño de Frida e Diegophoto by Cory Weaver

Distribution Strategy

NEW AMERICAN OPERA (working title) will explore the development of a truly American way of telling stories through music. With the changing cultural, social, and demographic scene, it includes influences from the opera, Broadway and the “alternative music-theater” worlds resulting in a “cross-over” trend that is contributing to a shift toward a new art form. Our overall goal is to help change attitudes toward opera and music-theater, and to build audiences for ambitious new works. In turn, this can help organizations increase ticket sales for all their programs – new and traditional.

Screenings and Submissions

  • Special screenings for opera and music-theater companies as fundraising tools to engage their existing patrons.
  • Submissions to key red-carpet film festivals that screen documentaries to build awareness (Silver Docs, Hot Docs, Visions du Reel, International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam, etc.).

National PBS Broadcast

Our goal is a national television broadcast on PBS – ideally in their Great Performances series. It’s possible we could also work toward a limited Theatrical release in select cities (to be determined).

Educational Market

A multi-platform program, the documentary will be re-edited into a series of short, YouTube-style video modules for different age-groups with accompanying curriculums and discussion materials for:

  • After-school programs to engage grade schoolers in storytelling with music
  • Classroom materials for high schoolers interested in music and theater
  • Post-secondary schools and conservatories with opera, music-theater and theater programs

International Market

Finally, we also know that, perhaps for one of the first times, the European opera community is very interested in what’s happening in the U.S. today. Peter Rosen has extensive and long-term contacts with the European Film Market (EFM) which he attends each February in Berlin, Germany. The EFM attracts 8,000+ trade professionals, more than 600 exhibiting companies and 1,300 buyers each year who are charged with purchasing licensing rights for more countries throughout Europe, U.S., Canada, Russia, Japan, Brazil, China and South Korea. We feel that NEW AMERICAN OPERA would be especially attractive to this group.

We’re confident that this distribution plan will achieve our goal of building larger audiences for productions that tell stories through music around the country.