How Cooper Raiff Intends to Launch Indie TV with ‘Hal & Harper’

Cooper Reef‘s “Cha Cha REL SMOOTH” movie has been sold to Apple For $ 15 million in 2022, but it was not the first, nor the last of such a deal in a festival. This does not mean that it was easy, but with the new RAIFF project, he did not even have this busy record.

The latest RAIFF project is “Hal & Harper”, which is a 8 -part Dramde series that is presented in SandansExhibition section. Lili Reinhart, Mark Ruffalo, Betty Gilpin and RaFF series, one of the upper series that plays in Park City. The rubbing is, there is a very few precedent for a transverse project to find a distributor in the sales market in Sundance. People do not come to Sandans with a degree of money for purchase for programs in the way they are with movies. Despite each chain of privacy, the way TV is funded today means, most of them, “Innie television“Not just something.

“It is not a new model, it’s the same model. The independent film model is a great model that works, then it says, why don’t you do it for TV? Many people, including me, really believe in it. Rav told Indiewire:” There is no reason to buy a network Or a stream to buy an independent television program, and certainly I didn’t say that for anyone when I was trying to get financing for the offer. ”

RAFF hopes to change it, but it will take a big swing. Independent film makers can make bold projects, not the studio will never do this at a cheap price. Why should the same logic be applied on TV. Raif “Hal & Harper” was less than $ 10 million, a number heard by the producer TV Lionsgate and said: “This is great. It is smart, it looks smart.” RAFF filmed “Hal & Harper” as a 4.5 -hour movie, where he filmed scenes in the pilot back with something that appears in the end.

But he realized that the sign or network is only thinking in terms of whether this offer would make them more subscribers. Even if the offer is good, they have no evidence that buying an offer instead of making it actually work. So if “Hal & Harper” is to sell, he may need to make his “uninterrupted” offer for buyers. It should be so good that the CEO needs his choice of dozens of other emotional projects on their list they can do instead.

“I thought I could make a show only for me, and all I wanted to see on TV,” Riv said. “But about a year ago when I was in Tahrir, I realized that I had to make this thing that could not be denied until they have to buy it.”

“Hal & Harper” was originally created on a network, but he realized amid the development of the executives that were suitable for the offer in a box he did not want to be. One of the producers saw him at the enlargement meeting and told him, “I can say that we do not enjoy this.” It was not, and the product fought to restore rights.

The axis to make it independently does not mean that a countryside can do what he wants. “Hal & Harper” still needs to feel that it would make itself. So it contains friendly Cliffhangers, commercial prosperity, and was cut from 10 episodes to eight episodes. Reef reduced a six -minute opening sequence from Rovalo and Jelapine, which was just a slice of the life world building. The necessary opening is “going more strongly”.

Reef also told Sundance that it needs to be presented the entire series, not just a pilot, to inform buyers exactly what they are getting. Only the first four episodes will be shown in the stage in Sundance, but all the eight episodes will be available through the Sundance portal on the Internet in the second half of the festival.

“They think they know what suits them, and they are really lucky to do so,” Reef said. “I was thinking two years ago that you only go and appear a slice of Life TV program nothing similar Because they have no reason to break what they have done.

The non -joint offers such as “100 feet of wave” have achieved greater success in the independent TV market, but it is more difficult in the text space. “Benilop”, Mark Dubbas and Mail Eslin series that sold to Netflix after the SXSW show last year spent a week in the top 10 United States, but it is unlikely to jump a slow burning chain a larger market for Indie TV. “Animals” obtained an order consisting of HBO seasons after showing two episodes in Sundance in 2015. “” Fleabag “and” Baby Reindeer “started as very personal and independent projects before making them sign. But some of the agents who spoke with them were skeptical in Success stories are like anything more than once. It dates back to when Sundance launched the section in 2018.

The good news is that Raif left the door open for the second season of “Hal & Harper”, and this is if someone buys it and the masses want more.

“I hope people love it. I hope people see themselves in the characters and be a feeling of recovery they are getting.” The dream will be to go anywhere: Apple, Netflix, HBO, Amazon, FX, Hulu, all these places. I will die for the show to be in any of those places. And I will try to show it. ”

For the first time on Sunday, “Hal & Harper” will be shown on Sunday, January 26 in Sundance and will be available for broadcast via the Sundance portal online.