Orson is all about solving filmmaker’s problems with intelligent, technology-driven tools developed by filmmakers for filmmakers.

Our founders have collectively produced and distributed hundreds of movies in multiple genres. We are active producers, investors and distributors in the independent film community and we share with our fellow filmmakers the frustrations of marketing and distributing our films.

That’s why over the last two years we have been working with an extraordinary team of experienced Internet technology entrepreneurs to disrupt movie marketing and distribution in the same way that technology has revolutionized the production of movies, with professional cameras and editing software now affordable to almost anyone.

The result of the massive reduction of cost in production has been an explosion in the number of films produced annually. In 1990 roughly 2,000 movies were made; by 2010 the number was estimated at 45,000 worldwide.

But because of that growth, a bottleneck has developed around distribution. Films struggle for attention, often relying on festivals, where the odds of acceptance are low and the odds of selling a film to a distributor are even lower.

That bottleneck exists because traditional film distribution is a service business: it uses little technology, but a lot of manpower, so it scales poorly. While the number of films made has gone up 20-fold, the number of films released by distributors has barely doubled.

During the last year we surveyed and interviewed hundreds of filmmakers. The overwhelming response to the question “what do you need most”? was twofold: reviews and theatrical screenings.

Of course there are many other priorities for filmmakers: TV sales, VOD, DVD and other distribution, etc. Orson plans to address all of these in the coming months.

But at launch our beta release features the top two filmmaker priorities:

1. 1. Theatrical Booking
2. 2. Reviews

Theatrical Booking

The problem Orson addresses here is that theater owners don’t like to take on the risk of booking films that aren’t supported by Hollywood-style blanket marketing where massive spending supports television, radio, Internet, outdoor and other advertising and promotion leading up to the opening of a film.

Similarly, most filmmakers are unable to afford to rent the theaters (so-called four-walling).

While some independent films do find their way into theaters, typically they are restricted to a small number of screens in a smaller number of cities and they are booked by specialist theatrical bookers, who are great at what they do, but far from affordable for most filmmakers.

Orson has created a proprietary database of thousands of theaters and other screening venues that are willing to book your film – if you can sell enough tickets.

By matching your film’s fanbase with the Orson Theater Database, Orson makes recommendations as to where you should organize public screenings of your film. Orson enables you to pre-sell tickets to a screening on a specific date; when you have sold the pre-set minimum number of tickets, the booking is confirmed and you have your theatrical premiere booked and ready to promote!

Reviews

While there are many important ways to market and promote your film, few matter more than critical reviews. Traditionally the only way to obtain reviews was to hire a specialty publicist who drives reviews in two main ways: spamming a big list of critics with press releases, then arm-twisting a shorter list of critics they know personally.

Orson, instead, looks at PR more like online dating - a challenge of matching films to the right reviewers: the critics who are most likely to review the film, and review it well.

Orson has built the web’s largest real-time database of critics, reviewers, and professional and amateur film bloggers. Unlike most PR databases, Orson doesn’t just collect critics’ contact info, but also analyzes their reviews to learn what kinds of movies they like.

Filmmakers then tag their films with descriptors - genre, themes, even comparable films - which allow Orson to smart-match specific films with the best-suited critics. Orson even helps filmmakers pitch their films, by drafting the outline of a personalized email that takes the matches into account.

The Dashboard

At the core of Orson’s approach is a real-time dashboard providing updates and data about a film’s ongoing release.

For example, the dashboard tells filmmakers how theater tickets are selling in different cities, or how much buzz and word-of-mouth their film is generating on social networks like Facebook and Twitter.

More importantly, the dashboard also tells filmmakers what to do with that information.

Based on extensive input from a panel of smart distributors and experienced filmmakers, Orson has built a unified set of best practices for how to most effectively release a film.

Orson uses that, along with incoming data, to dynamically generate a to-do list that walks filmmakers, step by step, through their film's release.

Tell Us How We’re Doing

We hope you’ll try out Orson’s tools; we’re in beta and we know we can make them better so please ask us for help if you find the tools confusing or too difficult to use.

We want to continue to develop Orson to ease the distribution path of a film. Please tell us what features of Orson work well for you – and which ones could be better. Tell us what else you’d like to see – or anything that you think is important.

We’re dedicated to fostering a truly sustainable independent film community – we hope you’ll join us.