In a pre-American Film Market move, Buffalo 8 has launched a new distribution division with digital distribution veterans Sean Thomas Flanagan and Jake Coburn.
The company’s new division will oversee distribution, aggregation and strategic consultation for filmmakers with finished projects who are seeking to enter the market place.
Flanagan and Coburn were previously with Visual Data Media Services and Premiere Digital, overseeing hundreds of films through the theatrical, digital and physical marketplace, from independent filmmakers to industry veterans including Film Rise, Sundance Institute, Paradigm and Revolution Studios.
The pair have also broken into the festival circuit to educate filmmakers on the new opportunities that await them in the ever expanding world of digital distribution, with appearances including San Diego Comic Con, New Orleans Film Festival and Austin Film Festival.
“Filmmaker education is the one component that seems to be missing from film schools and the general marketplace,” Flanagan said. “There are now more options and opportunities than ever, and we are thrilled to work with Matthew Helderman and the Buffalo 8 team to continue to roll up our sleeves and join forces with filmmakers from around the world to bring their passion projects to the global marketplace.”
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Coburn said, “The single most important part of a film’s release is planning. We have seen many filmmakers release quality content without a concrete plan for how to connect with their audience, and a release can be very difficult to course-correct once in progress. Buffalo 8 has done a fantastic job of guiding their filmmakers through the production phases and we are excited to now provide the tools needed to succeed in an increasingly crowded and competitive digital space.”
Buffalo 8 is part of five-year-old BondIt Media Capital, which has provided debt financing to more than 250 feature films and TV shows, resulting in more than $200 million of production spending. Recent BondIt-financed projects include Netflix’s “To the Bone,” starring Lily Collins; “Driven,” with Jason Sudeikis, and the Oscar-nominated animated film “Loving Vincent.”
Co-founder and CEO Matthew Helderman said, “The vision for Buffalo 8 has always been to add value at each level of the filmmaking process from development, through production and into post and now expanding in to the often opaque world of distribution in the digital age. The majority of indie-films today are passion projects and with the addition of Jake and Sean we’re more equipped than ever to assist in releasing the best possible content strategies for filmmakers.”
AFM runs from Oct. 31 to Nov. 7 at the Loews Hotel in Santa Monica, Calif.