Cooper Raiffs the movie “Cha Cha Real Smooth” sold to Apple For $ 15 million in 2022, but Hans was not the first or the last to do such a business at a festival. That is not to say that it was easy, but with Raiff’s new project he does not even have that track record to fall back on.
Raiff’s latest project is “Hal & Harper”, an 8-part drama series presented in SundanceS section for section. The series plays Lili Reinhart, Mark Ruffalo, Betty Gilpin and Raiff, and is one of the more profiled series ever played in Park City. The problem is that there is very little precedent for an episodic project to find a distributor in the sales market at Sundance. People do not come to Sundance with a pot with money allocated to buy programs they are with movies. And for all idiosyncratic series out there, the way in which TV is today funded means most “indie TV“Is just no matter.
“It’s not a new model, it’s the same model. The independent movie model is a fantastic model that works, and then you say, why don’t you do it for TV? Many people, including myself, really believe it. It is Just since the past year or like I have actually had this awakening, Raiff tells IndieWire. “There is no reason for a network or a streamer to buy an independent TV program, and I definitely didn’t say it to anyone when I attempted to obtain funding for the program. ”
Raiff hopes to change that, but it will take a big turn. Indie films can make the daring projects a studio would never do and make it cheap. Why shouldn’t the same logic apply to TV. Raiff made “Hal & Harper” for less than $ 10 million, a number that producer Lionsgate TV heard and said, “It’s damn good. It’s smart, it sounds smart.” Raiff even played “Hal & Harper” as a 4.5 -hour movie and filmed scenes in the pilot’s back against back with something shown in the final.
But he realized that a streamer or network is just thinking about whether this show will get more subscribers or keep them. Although the show is good, they have no evidence that it will actually work to buy a show instead of doing it themselves. So if “Hal & Harper” were to sell, he needed to do his show “undeniable” for the buyers. It must be so good that a manager must choose it over the dozen other passion projects they can do instead.
“I thought I could do a show that was just for me, and that’s all I ever wanted to watch on TV,” Raiff said. “But about a year ago when I was in the editing, I realized that I had to do this thing undeniable so they have to buy it.”
Raiff says “Hal & Harper” was originally created on a network, but he realized during the development that the managers fit the show in a box he did not want it to be in. A producer saw him in a zoom meeting and told him, “I can say we don’t enjoy this.” He was not, and the producer struggled to get the rights back.
The pivot to make it independently did not mean that Raiff could do what he wanted. “Hal & Harper” still needed to feel like something a streamer would have done yourself. So it has bing -friendly cliffhangers, commercial flowers and cut from 10 sections to eight. Raiff trimmed a six-minute opening sequence of Ruffalo and Gilpin who were just a bit of life’s world building. The opening needed to “go harder”.
Raiff also told Sundance that he needed to present the entire series, not just a pilot, to let buyers know exactly what they are getting. Only the first four episodes will be shown at a theater at Sundance, but all eight sections will be available via Sundances online portal during the second half of the festival.
“They think they know what works for them, and they really stick to it,” Raiff said. “I would have believed two years ago that you just go and show a piece of life’s TV program that is not similar to that anyone has ever seen before, with Mark Ruffalo and Lili Reinhart, and they will buy it. But I have realized Last year, no, they won’t do that. They don’t because they have no reason to break what they have done. It is definitely not broken.
Programs without script as “100 foot wave” have had greater success in the indie TV market, but it is more difficult in the script area. “Penelope”, Mark Duplass and Mel Eslyn’s series sold to Netflix after an SXSW premiere last year, spent a week in US top 10, but is a series of slow burn that is unlikely to start a larger market for indie -TV. “Animals” received a two -season order from HBO after showing two episodes at Sundance 2015. “Fleabag” and “Baby Reindeer” both started as very personal, independent projects before a streamer made them here. But some agents Indieview talked to were skeptical that such success stories were something more than one -off phenomena. The lack of activity among episode titles Going back to when Sundance launched the 2018 section.
The good news is that Raiff has left the door open for a second season of “Hal & Harper”, that is, if anyone buys it and the audience wants more.
“I hope people just love it. I hope people really see themselves in the characters and get a feeling of healing they get,” Raiff said. “The dream would be to go to any place: Apple, Netflix, HBO, Amazon, FX, Hulu, all these places. I’d die if the show were to be in any of these places. And I’ll try to manifest it. ”
“Hal & Harper” premieres on Sunday, January 26 at Sundance and will be available for streaming via Sundances online portal.
