Only in Las Vegas? Perhaps. IndieWire has a report from Eugene Hernandez about “Distribution Roulette”, a really interesting new concept in panel discussions. Get eight distribs and reps on the line, spin the wheel for a random shot at a new film, and put them on the spot. Can you . . . . .extemporaneously compose a meaningful distribution plan as the microphone is passed? From Eugene’s write up, here’s the summary …

Here are the panelists and their summary points of view:

Todd Sklar, Rangelife: we didn’t get a quote from the article on him — but his company puts movies in a van and drives them around on tour to a bunch of cities. See the link for a short note in The Fader.

Christian Gaines, IMDb: “linear distribution is over!” pitching Amazon products, plus Facebook and Twitter, he advocated “selling this film one unit at a time”. He drew a “demanding character study”.

Dina Kuperstock, CAA: “tough sell with no stars” (after landing on “edgy, sexy indie”); spinning a second time, she drew “quirky, character doc” and commented — “that’s even tougher”. Eugene gave her points for outlining a game plan for buzz and revenue, however.

Tom Quinn, Magnolia: landing on the same film as Dina’s first roll, the “edgy, sexy indie”, Tom goes for word-of-mouth by targeting strippers as key influencers. Then he throws in the ULTRA VOD from Magnolia before theatrical and multiple endings just for added fun.

Arianna Bocco, IFC: “it won’t do well on VOD” but she would do it anyway; but “if you don’t get good reviews, you are dead in the water”; her draw was a film with a “transcendent aesthetic”.

Chris Hyams, B-Side: Eugene didn’t get a highlight from B-Side, but they have a great home page that touts their success in creating buzz and revenue.

David Fenkel, Oscilloscope: “It’s so easy … ” (after having drawn a film described as a “hip, sub-culture doc”)

Matt Dentler, Cinetic: “I don’t care about how much money I make, I want to make money for the filmmakers!” is Eugene’s quote as Dentler argues for an alliance of all these companies.

This is a great article (hat tip to Eugene and Indiewire) and a great panel (hat tip to CineVegas). This is an interesting and broad summary of indie film distribution ideas today — and I’d say that most of the alternatives are covered. I wish that Scott Kirsner had been on this panel to represent his analysis of Fans, Friends & Followers (see his blog for the latest on his book and his grand tour to talk about it). But I’ll have some comments on it in my next upcoming post.

In the meantime, it’s really good (for me, anyway) to post this write up as a way of “bookmarking” this discussion so I can come back to it in the future. In fact, on Tuesday afternoon, I’m sitting down with Scott Macauley of Filmmaker Magazine to review with him how filmmakers can anticipate their revenues in this kind of market. I’m sure we’ll be talking about this panel then.