Indie record labels branch out

Photo: Uli Seit for The New York Times

This story in the New York Times talks about several indie labels taking on film distribution, both as small cinema runs and on DVD. The approach is similar to how the lables operate... "stay small and informal, know your audience, and put out stuff you like." Excerpt below...

"... This summer, Drag City, a Chicago label, distributed “Trash Humpers,” the fifth feature by Harmony Korine (the screenwriter of Larry Clark’s “Kids”). “We were very glad to take it on,” said Rian Murphy, Drag City’s sales director, “because it is something new and different, and we like that kind of thing, and because it doesn’t have to do with the record business right now, which is kind of in a bummer.” Drag City, which represents musicians like Joanna Newsom and Silver Jews, bought prints of the film and “made sure they were in constant motion” around the country.

“Trash Humpers” was “not held to the traditional channels for distributing a movie,” Mr. Murphy said, “because we don’t know what those are.”

He added: “If someone emails us, and they’re not a complete lunatic, or if they are a complete lunatic, and they have money and a screen....”

As a result, the film has played at a beer bar in Chattanooga, Tenn., a bookstore in Houston and the George Eastman House in Rochester, extending its life beyond the art house. (How many screens? Mr. Murphy didn’t know; the company barely even signs contracts with its artists. “It changes the atmosphere,” he said.) The “Trash Humpers” DVD is due in September.