Last Friday afternoon, a small group of Film Production students had the chance to hear from Lance Hammer, whose film Ballast was one of the darlings of Sundance in January.

David Hauka, Head of Film Production at VFS, introduced Hammer by comparing his D-I-Y approach to filmmaking and distribution to Arin Crumley and Susan Buice (Four Eyed Monsters) and Lance Weiler (Head Trauma). “The information, unlike in my generation, is being shared now,” David said. “You don’t have to lose ownership. You are not limited by the old paradigms.”

Hammer, in town for VIFF, elaborated. “When I was making the film, I wasn’t thinking about the market at all. I didn’t want it to influence the creative process.” But he had to face reality after his film’s success at Sundance, where it won the Dramatic Directing Award for Hammer himself, as well as one for Excellence in Cinematography. “People accepted it there. Suddenly, the market jumped into the viewfinder.”

Hammer flirted with a well-known distributor of independent films before finally deciding to put together a team and go the self-distribution route. “I was going to give it away and cede control, and that didn’t make any sense.”

Now, he’s living proof of someone “not limited by the old paradigms”: leveraging social networking and online communities, and eschewing expensive P&A – Prints and Advertising – for a more personal, grassroots approach. But he also admits that the validation that comes with festival success and theatrical release is still important. “Ballast did well enough at Sundance, Berlin, and other places, so we had a decent chance at creating a lot of awareness. We’re relying entirely on our relationships with critics.”

Ultimately, it’s about creating a new marketplace and pounding the pavement – which also explains how he came to visit VFS in the first place. “What people aren’t doing so much is taking their films to film schools. Film school students want to see independent films.”

Can’t disagree with that. Ballast hits the Film Forum in NYC on October 1, then will see limited theatrical release starting October 17. You can check out the trailer here.