An Interview with Filmmaker Mike Binder (Part 2 of 2)

Comedy auteur Mike Binder discusses his body of work and his 2001 film The Search for John Gissing, available for the first time on DVD through The FreeBird. Read part one of this interview.

With John Gissing, you are doing the self-distribution thing. How does that work for you? You are on the Internet. I saw an ad on MySpace. You are probably doing this out of necessity because you have the product sitting around.

What it is is fans of Alan Rickman or just the film itself will email and tell me they want it out there. At the same time, I wanted to see what it’s like to distribute my own movie through a website. Just press the DVD and ship it out when the orders came in, with the idea that one day when the TVs are all connected to the Internet, that maybe I can make a movie just for that or make my own movie, distribute it in theatres and then sell it on home video. Why not just shove a little wire through the ground. I want a pipeline one day, but let’s do it a little bit at a time and build a business.

So you’re just trying to learn about it right now.

Yeah. Word of mouth. This is the ultimate example of the "long tail."

How many people are recognizing what you are doing? You’ve just come off two critically acclaimed films in The Upside of Anger and then Reign Over Me. Now you have Gissing going back a little bit, trying to get people to reconnect. Do you think people are making the connection with the work you have out there in theatres?

Article Author: Daniel J. Stasiewski

Daniel J. Stasiewski resides in Cleveland where he is the webmaster and editor of The Film Chair. He has an unhealthy obsession with movies and popular culture, for which his therapist suggested joining Blogcritics.

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