Time to Re-Invent Myself as Michael D. Sellers, Filmseller

Pretty much everyone out there who knows me, knows that for the past fifteen years or so I’ve been plying my trade as a hands-on film-maker — a writer, producer, and (more recently) director.  My most recent film is Beneath the Blue, which is now very close to being finished.  I’ve been blogging about the making of the film at dolphinbuzz.wordpress.com.

In 1996 I founded a distribution company, now known as Quantum Releasing, which was established primarily as an in-house distribution arm to handle my own output as a film-maker, but which also had modest ambitions to acquire films from other film-makers who were as frustrated as I was with the way their films were handled by the indie distributors that were available to us.  Since 1996 Quantum has gone through a number of phases, good and bad, but it has survived and has done so with me acting as what would have to be described as an ‘absentee owner’ — an owner who was off ‘in the field’ making movies.

Well, with the completion of Beneath the Blue I’m going to be hanging up my cleats, at least for awhile — I’ll be taking an ‘indefinite break” from film-making and will instead be concentrating on my role as the hands-on CEO of Quantum.  I actually began this role just before the American Film Market in early November, and since we’re now in the final final stages of finishing Beneath the Blue I think it’s safe to say that by the time the new year rolls around I’ll be fulltime selling films, not making them.

So along with that change, I’m going to begin blogging here about the issues and challenges that we face as a distributor — but also my thoughts about the issues and challenges that all indie film-makers face in the current market environment.  I’m looking forward to sharing my thoughts and hearing from other film-makers out there.

And the other thing this means is that I’m very actively involved now in looking for films for Quantum to distribute.  In fact, each weekend I take home a binder filled with films that have been submitted for our consideration.  I want to encourage any film-makers out there who read this and who have films that are looking for distribution to take a look at our website at http://quantumreleasing.com and if you think we look like we could be a good fit for your film, please let me take a look at it.  You can reach me either by leaving a comment here, or by emailing me at sellers.michael@mac.com.  I look forward to hearing from you — and look forward to using this blogsite as a forum for discussion of issues relating to indie film-makers and distributors.