Outside the Box Office / 8 Above

Overview

Outside the Box Office is a distribution and marketing consultancy for independent filmmakers, founded by filmmaker and author Jon Reiss. The name comes from Reiss's 2010 book Think Outside the Box Office, the first step-by-step guide to independent film distribution and marketing in the digital era. The consultancy now operates under the banner 8 Above, offering one-on-one strategy sessions, a written Distribution Playbook service, and a 6-month cohort-based Distribution Lab. 8 Above has worked with hundreds of filmmakers over the past 15 years, helping them release films across theatrical, digital, educational, and community screening channels while retaining all rights to their work.

Reiss wrote Think Outside the Box Office after distributing his own graffiti documentary Bomb It (2007) and documenting the process in a series of articles for Filmmaker Magazine. The book, available as a PDF for $14.95 from the 8 Above website, laid out a framework for filmmakers to take control of their distribution rather than waiting for a traditional distributor to acquire their film. The framework has been updated continuously through 8 Above's consulting practice, the Substack newsletter, and the Distribution Lab curriculum.

Services and Pricing

8 Above offers three primary service tiers for filmmakers:

Strategy Sessions: 8 Above watches the film and conducts two in-depth strategy sessions with the filmmaker, covering audience identification, distribution options, and strategic direction. This is the entry-level consulting offering.

Distribution Playbook: 8 Above watches the film, conducts three hours of strategy sessions, and delivers a written distribution plan customized to the project. The playbook includes audience identification, recommended distribution path, timeline, team and budget considerations, and clear next steps.

Distribution Lab: A 6-month, cohort-based program limited to 10 film teams per cohort. The lab includes weekly presentations by Jon Reiss and visiting industry experts, group feedback sessions, 3 hours of private one-on-one consultations (6 half-hour sessions), and private access to instructional documents and templates. The lab covers marketing, audience building, distribution strategy, timing and windowing, educational distribution, publicity, community screenings, festival strategy, paid social media, and the PESO media framework (Paid, Earned, Shared, Owned). Over 150 films have gone through the lab across multiple cohorts.

8 Above also offers a 4-week mini-workshop in partnership with The D-Word, priced at $299 (with a $50 discount code available). Participation in the mini-workshop counts toward the cost of the full Distribution Lab.

Distribution Framework

8 Above organizes film rights into four categories, a framework Reiss first introduced in Think Outside the Box Office and has expanded since:

Event/Theatrical: Live screenings in any venue, any format. This includes traditional arthouse theatrical runs, community screenings at universities, churches, advocacy organizations, and virtual cinema events. Platforms supporting this category include Kinema, Gathr, Eventive, and Jolt. 8 Above has hosted a webinar bringing together the CEOs of these platforms for a side-by-side comparison of their features, pricing, and capabilities.

Digital: TVOD, SVOD, AVOD, and direct-to-consumer streaming. 8 Above helps filmmakers navigate which platforms fit their film and audience, and whether to use aggregators like Filmhub or Quiver Digital for platform delivery.

Educational: Sales to schools, universities, libraries, and community organizations. This includes Public Performance Rights (PPR), Digital Site Licenses (DSL), and Educational VOD (EVOD). Educational distribution can generate revenue for years after initial release and is particularly valuable for documentary and social-issue films.

Merchandise: Physical products tied to the film, including DVDs, Blu-rays, books, vinyl, and branded items. For films with dedicated cult followings, merchandise can supplement digital revenue significantly.

What Filmmakers Should Know

8 Above is not a distributor. It does not acquire rights, pay MGs, or take a percentage of revenue. The consultancy model means filmmakers retain 100% of their rights and all revenue after platform and aggregator fees. The trade-off is that the filmmaker bears the full cost and workload of distribution and marketing.

Self-distribution is not the right choice for every film. Films that need theatrical credibility for awards consideration, strong press coverage in major national outlets, or placement on major SVOD platforms that require traditional distributor relationships may be better served by a traditional distribution deal. 8 Above explicitly recommends DIY distribution as a last resort, encouraging filmmakers to explore split rights and hybrid partnerships with experienced companies before going fully solo.

Filmmakers considering 8 Above's services should budget for distribution and marketing as part of their overall production budget, not as an afterthought. Reiss has noted that most filmmakers fail at marketing because they do not understand the time commitment required, which is typically at least a year of sustained effort. The overhead of managing distribution directly, including platform delivery, marketing, audience engagement, and screening logistics, has real time and cost implications that need to be weighed against the rights control and revenue retention benefits.

8 Above has consulted for Paramount Pictures, Screen Australia, Film Independent, Creative Scotland, the South Australian Film Corporation, and numerous film schools and festivals. Reiss was a founding creator of the IFP Filmmaker Lab and is a frequent contributor to Filmmaker Magazine, Indiewire, Screen Daily, and Moviemaker Magazine.

See Also

For how self-distribution compares to traditional distribution deals in revenue terms, see Streaming vs Theatrical Revenue. For aggregator services that handle platform delivery for self-distributing filmmakers, see the Filmhub and Quiver Digital entries in this directory. To model revenue from a self-distributed release across multiple platforms, use the Revenue Forecast Calculator. For distribution deal structures and what a filmmaker can negotiate, see Distribution Deals Explained.