You are listening to the IFAH podcast Network. For more amazing filmmaking and screenwriting
podcasts, just go to ifahpodcastnetwork dot com. Welcome to the Bulletproof Screenwriting Podcast,
Episode number three sixty five. Sometimes people don't want to hear the truth
because they don't want their illusions destroyed. Nietzsche broadcasting from a dark, windowless
room in Hollywood when we really should be working on that next draft. It's
the Bulletproof Screenwriting Podcast, showing you the craft and business of screenwriting while teaching
you how to make your screenplay bulletproof. And here's your host, Alex Ferrari.
Welcome, Welcome to another episode of the Bulletproof Screenwriting Podcast. I am
your humble host Alex Ferrari. Now. Today's show is sponsored by Bulletproof Script
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by professional readers, head on over to covermiscreenplay dot com. Now, guys,
today we have a success story. That's a story of tvod actually working
with Amazon and cracking the code of Amazon and making money with an independent film.
The filmmaker's name is Ismael Gomez and his film is called Death of a
Fool and he was able to use nine thousand dollars of Facebook ads to generate
seventy two thousand dollars in sales through tvaugh on Amazon. And in our conversation
I dig deep in his techniques, how he did it, what his ideas
were to target his specific niche audience, and much much more so. Without
any further ado, please enjoy my conversation with Ismael Gomez. I like to
welcome so Gomez the third. How are you doing this good, Alex?
Thanks for having me on the show. Ah, thanks for reaching out,
man, I appreciate it. Anytime there's a filmmaker who wants to talk about
distribution and the truth behind self distribution, numbers, raw data and all the
other little warts and all good and bad, I'd like to talk to them
because it's rare. Like you said in your email, it's a rare thing.
There is not a lot of transparency out there. So before we get
into that, how did you get into the film business? Uh? Well,
you know, I was so. I was born in Cuba, in
Havana, and I grew Cuban. I couldn't help it, man, I
have theano. It just comes out, you know. So I was born
and you know, I was born in Havana, and I grew up watching
you know, Disney Pixar movies. And actually the first time I went to
a theater was to see The Lion King, and I was obsessed with it.
Like when I came out of the theater, I was telling my mom
and my dad like, this is what I want to make. And it
started as a cartoon, you know, like animated films. And and then
my dad, because he was very well connected in the artistic world, he
would get me into the film festivals in Havana, and I saw Apocalypse Now
when I was like nine, So if you can imagine being nine years old
and watching Apocalypse Now, so you know, I got really obsessed with that,
and and I had the opportunity when I came to the United States.
So I came to live. Immigrated to the United States with my mom.
My dad was already here, and I came on a plane in two thousand
and nine and I went for everybody listening us Cubans we're known for being good
swimmers, so I came on a plane. My parents came on planes as
well. Yeah, so I came here, and I always had the passion
in Cuba. But I you know, I finished high school in Cuba,
so when I got here, I went straight After one year that I got
all my papers and everything, I went to the New York Film Academy and
I started studying film. And it was a great experience because they're very hands
on, you know, so I really I've never shot I mean, I've
made home videos, but I was there shooting with bactu film like sixteen millimeters
and thirty five millimeters, and it was a pretty cool experience. It was
an amazing experience and After that, I moved back to Florida. I got
my bachelor's and because my whole family was here already, and uh so,
after I graduated, I went back to New York and I started working as
an editor. Uh So, I realized while I was in film school,
I realized, all right, I don't think people hire directors not very often,
so you directors end up always working on their stuff. So I have
to develop a second skill, you know. And I also realized for me,
in the editing is where really the magic happened. Like I would be
able to save because my shootings were always super chaotic, and when I got
to the editing, I kind of like make things work a little bit.
So I realized, like, this is where the magic happened. So I
got to learn this skill. So I got very you know, well versed
in Final Cut seven, Rest in Peace and and and they you know,
and then Premiere when it came out, and Avid and then finally Cut Tin
and so I started editing, and I started editing my friends' short films,
my own stuff, and then I got my first feature film, and then
I got my second one, and I ended up editing like I don't know,
like nine feature films, already independent feature films, and yeah, so
and then after that I moved back. You know, my girlfriend was here,
my family was here. I was up there by myself dealing with the
winter. You know, my Caribbean flesh. She's not used to that.
They don't like that. They don't winter so much. I couldn't deal with
it. So I came back here and I had this movie, Death of
a Fool, and I had the vision of my company, Robert Hole Pictures,
And at that time, Moonlight came out and I was like, I
saw what Barry Jenkins did in Miami and it was very inspiring, and I
was like, you know, I can I can do this. I can
be let's say, big fish in a small pound, right, I can
start here, try to make fantasy films, which I don't see. Actually,
when I was doing a lot of research when I made Death of a
Fool and thinking about all the fantasy films shot in Miami, and I couldn't
like find anything. So I got very inspired and I was like, you
know what, and then to open the company here. I'm gonna start making
films here, and uh yeah, that's kind of like how it happened.
It's fun It's so funny because you you've walked very similar path that I have,
because I did the exact same thing. I was like, I'm going
to be a director, but I see that no one's hiring me right now
because I am twenty whatever young. And I started getting into the post and
that's exactly, and it's and I discovered the exact same things and peace found
a cut seven. But also just everything happens there, and that's sometimes I
think a lot of filmmakers don't do that. They don't understand that you need
to have a skill that pays you while you're chasing the dream, while you're
building those tools in your toolbox. That's street sure, But you jumped on
your first feature much fatch. It took me twenty years to jump out my
first feature, So you've jumped much quicker. So I thought, there's a
lot of begging. Oh, I can imagine, I can imagine, So
tell me, Yeah, so tell me tell me about your film Death of
a Fool. Okay, So Death of a Fool was actually based on a
semester film that I did at NAIFA, the Film Academy, and so I
have been writing it for two years and I was already in Miami, and
I started submitting it to screenplay competitions and then I ended up being semi finalists
in like three of them, and then quarter finals in two of them,
and then Blue Cat, it's a screenplay competition in la We ended up winning
it in two thousand and eight, two and eighteen, Joe the co writer
and I, so we both won the competition and they gave you ten thousand
dollars is the cash price. So that was kind of like the beginning of
the funding process of the film. So after we won Blue Cat, we
ended up like talking to some investors that I have worked with in the past
for other projects or other businesses that I was running. And yeah, it
just took a lot of convincing and really and it also I got very prepared
in terms of, you know, not counting on sundans and or you know,
the lottery ticket and really trying to think how would I be able to
recoup this money, you know. So we were able to bring a few
investors on board. Then I did I would say like thirty percent of the
financing myself. We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor. And
now back to the show, and yeah, we got everything together. What
was a budget? It ended up being like one hundred and three thousand dollars,
so one hundred thousand, which was really challenging because let me tell you
the stuff that we pulled with one hundred thousand dollars because it's it's a fantasy
film, and you know, you got like you have a magic fruit,
and you have like magical places, and you have it's like flashbacks like the
seventies, so there's a lot of crazy stuff. And yeah, but you
know, I had an amazing team, that's what I can say. The
cinematographer, the producer, everyone was just so awesome. And that's also the
cool thing about shooting in Miami that not a lot of films are being shot
here, so everyone was really excited about that. You know, people were
willing to just work and give you good rates and all that to make the
film happen. Yeah, that's exactly what happened with me when I made my
first film there, and it was so excited just to be like, oh,
someone shooting's, let's do this. You know it's not bad boys,
but we'll do it. Let's go. Yeah, which is really cool.
Now you when you made the you finished the film. Now, I'm assuming
you went down the festival circuit and the distribution path, So tell me about
what you felt. Did you do the festival circuit at all? What did
you feel? Well? I sorry, I sent the film to Sundance,
of course, because we all have to donate money to Robert Reforends retire now.
So I was like, you know, let me send it here.
Actually, the cinematographer, Leila Kilborn, she was she had been to Sundance
like seven times. She even won with documentaries. So you know, I
sent the film to Sundance, and I did I think sun Dance was the
film fastal. I had just finished it and I didn't want to send like
work in progress to film festivals, you know. So I sent it to
Sundance and then you know, got the rejection letter and around the time I
had a really tough call. This is the where we get into distribution,
because then twenty twenty had just started, you know, and I had to
wait probably till the summer when the film festivals were going to open again,
you know, like the fantasy film festivals also like yeah, Infantation, Fantastic
fest you know. Although, so I was like, should I wait until
the summer, like waste six eight months and wait for the film festival,
or should I just launch do a theatrical premier in the Coral Gables the Art
Cinema and launch the film on Amazon, or should I just wait for the
film festival? So I really hate being passive, you know, and putting
like hoping that someone else, you know, allows And by the way,
I didn't. I didn't even you know, I heard about the coronavirus in
China and all this this was like in January of February. And also I
had an eye opening experience because I ended up going to Sundance with the co
founder of Robert Whope Pictures, one of my best friends, Larry. I
told them, you know, we should go to Sundance, even though we
didn't get in. I feel that we hear so much about Sundance and I've
never been to Sundance, so we should go check it out, you know.
And for me when I went there, and the eye opening experience that
I had is that even people that I saw got into Sundance were struggling to
get a distribution deal, oh absolutely, And I saw I saw everyone hustling
and I'm like, Okay, they need it here, and they're still hustling
and trying to get a distribution deal and thinking they might get like ripped off.
So this is not even a guarantee, you know. So I think
it might be better off just the super in the film, myself learning this
process, try to do my best and really be self reliant, you know.
So so yeah, so I I made the call and I told,
you know, I spoke to my to the producer of the film, and
I told her like, I think this is a way to go. And
we had the screening here are Coral Gables. It was completely sold out.
And then two weeks later, because you know, it was still hot,
you know, I I released the film on on Amazon Video. No,
did you did you get some deals? Did you get some deals offered to
you? Yes? Yes, So I spoke to a few. First of
all, I saw all the episodes on Indie Film Hustle about distribution, you
know, and I wrote, like, I actually have a notepad and I
wrote every time that I had an insight or something that I didn't know about,
I would write it down and then revisit. You know, you were
you were prepared, You were you were locked a loaded when these guys came.
Yeah, so they came, you know, they came trying to bite
a few of them. I think a few of them had good intentions,
I would say, But still I was like, even though it so,
what were the kind of deals you were getting? You know what to say?
It's just kind of deals. Yeah. So with sales agents, you
know, I I feel them wanted to wanted to charge me, which I
thought, I don't know, if you really think the film has potential and
you can make some money, why would you want to charge me, you
know upfront? Put I guess, you know, they need to keep their
business going and all that. But that for me was you know, a
rep flag. I didn't want to even though if you had good intentions,
I didn't want to give into that because it was money that I would use,
you know that I can use some Facebook ads or things like that.
You know. And with distributors, they a lot of them didn't reply,
and the ones that did, they had like fifteen year you know, fifty
year contracts. Yeah, and I was fifteen years, You're gonna own my
movie for fifteen years. That's a long time with no money up front,
with no no minimum guarantee and was there any was there any marketing capital or
of course it was like onered thousands, like fifty thousand dollars every year.
It was every year. Yeah, And I was like, all right,
you're gonna spend fifty thousand dollars in my film every year? I as every
year they had that sun So yeah, and then and then you could you
could, you know, you could. I was like, is this negotiable?
And then it was said yes, and then okay, and then they
would negotiate and bring it out to ten years and you know, twenty thousand
dollars. But isn't that But isn't that interesting that they I've said this a
bunch of times that they throw out the worst deal to see if you fight,
and if you fight, all good, I'm gonna screw you down.
Yeah, and then if you want to negotiate, I'm just gonna screw you
a bit less. I'm still screwing at the end of the day, you're
getting screwed. Yeah. It's kind of like they want to they want to
stab you, right, and they first put like shoved gun and you're like,
oh, shotgun, that's really bad. And then they show you the
knife, and okay, I guess the knife is not that. Would you
rather get your head blown off or just a little a little stab in the
back. It's just a little and so so then so okay, so none
of these obviously, none of these deals. After listening to everything I've said,
you just said no. If you wouldn't have listened to all these podcasts,
you might have been probably. Yeah. Probably. That's that's why I
want that information to get out to as many it's humanly possible, man,
Yeah, it's they are. What did they promise you? They promised you
to get you on all the platforms, right, I'll get you on all
the platforms. I know somebody over at Netflix, so we'll pitch Netflix.
I know somebody over at HBO. Maybe I could get you an HBO deal.
I guess I'm going to show Time. Maybe we could do a pay
cable deal. What what's what's the special placements? We're gonna get special pa
iTunes? And because if you go with us, like if you go through
an aggregator, you're just gonna be thrown in. But if you go with
you get special placement on iTunes. In that whole scenario, it's it's so,
and it's getting worse. The predatory aspect of distribution is getting worse and
worse as everything starts to tighten tighten around. So that's why I wanted to
bring you out because you're pretty fresh. You're like, this is happening within
the last three or four months. Yeah, all right, So I sorry.
And even the ones that have good intentions, let's say there's still a
business, you know, and they still need to survive business model. See,
and if they have ten films and nine of them are performing better than
mine, you know, they're gonna they're gonna sell those, They're gonna pay
more attention to those nine. And it's not only that, it's also like
I always put this analogy that it's a business, right, And if my
film is a tangerine, let's say, and people here buy watermelons, they
will market my film as a watermelon to people who like watermelons because they have
to sell. And I don't want my like I want people who like tandarines
to see my film. I don't care about people who like watermelons because then
that's where the bat reviews come and people and I feel that I'm actually,
you know, cheating, right, and I'm lying to people because I made
you think that this was a watermelon and you came saw my film, pay
for it, and now you're feeling happy, you know, And I understand
that. So I that's that was also for me, like I wanted to
have full control. You know, I'm a little bit of a city.
So yeah, no. And obviously, so you're telling me that distributors might
lie in trailers to get by the movie. I can't believe that. That
seems so unlike. Yeah. Uh. And that's the other thing that people
that filmmakers don't understand is when they do sign a deal with the distributor,
unless it's in the contract, they have no control of how that movie is
presented. Will be right back after a word from our sponsor, and now
back to the show. Poster design, trailer design. I mean it's I
mean, I remember when I had my I had a short compilation and a
distributor picked it up. I was able to get it back from him,
but he put on the cover some woman with a gun who had nothing.
She wasn't even in the movie. It was it wasn't even in the movie.
I was like, what what is it? What is this? And
it's it's it is the nature of what they're trying to do. It's the
old model of doing things. So it's going to be interesting to see how
this is all going to keep going. So obviously you decided that that the
traditional distribution was not going to be your path, and your budget range makes
it a good viable option for for self distribution. So tell me your journeys
to your self distribution and what and what's going on. What happened? So,
you know, I started looking into how would I sell distribute like where
you know, what platform I would use? So you know, there was
Vimeo, which obviously has main like an amazing potential because I think you keep
like ninety percent of the revenues. And then there was Amazon, and then
there was other things like selling from your website like gum road. I think
it's called you know a bunch of those. But for me, just thinking
as an audience, like it's better, Like people trust is a big thing,
right, So people trust Amazon. People don't trust Vimeo or gum road.
Not a lot of people, like one percent other people, so not
movie going people like people buying online products or courses or things like that they
might want to do gum Road and Video. The filmmaker will understand who they
are, but general public will. Yeah. So I was like, you
know, Amazon is the best deal in also, you know, even though
I could have gone through an aggregator, right, I think I looked into
film Hub and bit max. You know, I felt like I don't want
to sparse like the attention, Like I want to just have one place where
I can send everyone and here's the film watching. Which I also think if
all the sales go there is gonna help with the algorithm and more people,
they will promote the film to other people, right right, So so I
was like, you know, and I actually I did. I did a
few polls on Facebook groups and stuff like that where do you watch movies?
And I would see Amazon was always the top one. So I was like,
okay, Amazon has to be And I thought of myself, I mean,
I rent movies on Amazon and so so yeah, so I chose Amazon,
which you know, Amazon is amazing. It's great that they give the
opportunities to filmmakers, you know, and I had spoken to them before.
It's kind of you know, it kind of sucks that they take fifty percent,
you know, I think I wish they would take less, like like
Vimeo, but you know, it is what it is. You gotta deal
with so for people to understand, so they take fifty percent of your transactional
Yeah, like so transactional video t VOD You know, if you if you
sell, if someone buys you movie for ten dollars, five goes to Amazon
and five goes to you. So they take fifty percent of them. Yeah,
and you know what, I have the same I mean, I self
published my books through Amazon and they're actually worse worse than fifty percent sometimes.
But the different the problem exposure. Yeah, you are the largest marketplace where
everybody has their credit card and everyone trusts everything. So a fifty to fifty
split might sound bad, but the amount of the amount of access you're getting
for that fifty percent is the only thing that makes sense for that scenario.
But now, if you would have signed a deal with a distributor, then
they would have taken a percentage of of of it. So at the end
of the day you might now you might even get really ten percent. What
I'm really curious about is like how much like how much Amazon. I wonder
if Amazon offers that same type of deal to big companies like Disney and one
of the brothers if they give them fifty to fifty or if they offer because
I feel like, you know, it's a small business as an entrepreneur the
starting, they should offer better deals for us than Disney. But you know,
but that's the way. That's not the way the game. So that's
not the way the world works. But we can have a whole episode just
talk about Amazon and how they treat filmmakers. But at the end of the
day, they have opened up a marketplace that filmmakers. So if you like,
let's take let's take Amazon off the table that they shut down and like
no more filmmakers. Yeah, yeah, that really that really hurts a lot
of a lot of businesses. It's amazing. I'm really grateful. I think
it's amazing. I think it's amazing what they're doing. But I agree with
you it should be like seventy thirty is fair. Seventy thirty, seventy thirty.
I mean, I think it's amazing. I'm really grateful that I can
do this stuff, you know, but if I have Jim Bezos in front
of me, it will be something that I will bring up. Also,
also a Cuban brother, Yeah exactly. So yeah, so I decided Amazon
and then and mostly right, yeah, I personally, you know, I
have seen a bunch of my friends gone through distribution and gone through Amazon too,
And for me, something that I learned is to not undervalue your art.
And this is something that I learned actually in the theatrical screening. So
when I had the premiere at core Gables, we sold out the whole screening
and I actually brought some merchandise and I remember, you know, it was
like this. My cousin who's an artist, made like this. She printed
a poster on like this wooden kind of like frame and it was really beautiful.
And we only made like twenty and I was thinking, you know,
I'm not going to make it too many, and I we're gonna sell them
for twenty box or whatever because you know, not a lot of people are
going to buy it and stuff. And like we got there, we screened
the movie and right when people came out, it got sold out and like
literally and one minute, and people wanted like we want more, we want
more, and I was like, oh my god, she'd have brought this
more, like I should make more, you know, And that the screening
was sold out, like they were like, so let's stop, let's stop
numbers. So let's talk numbers on that screening. So you rented out the
theater or was it a split? I four walled the screening so I ended
So what did it cost? It was like, so they do by the
hour, so it was like two fifty an hour, and I ended up
doing three hours, so it was like seven fifty. And yeah I did.
I did like the Q and A afterwards with the cast and how much
and how much did you and the tickets ticket sales. Yeah, so I
ended up using event right again, full control, you know. I put
the price of the takeover thing, and between the tickets and the merchandise,
I ended up making like thirteen fourteen hundred bucks. So it was a good
day. You're a profit, you're in profit. And then about the merch
how much of the merchantdake give over the time? Well, that's well the
merch was like the tickets were like eleven hundred and the merch was like three
hundred, so combined they were like fourteen hundred you know the day. Yeah,
and I thought of I mean, I thought, like, you know,
I can keep doing theatrical in Florida, South Florida. Maybe you know,
do like five or ten more of these, you know. But then
I ended up like two weeks after, on February twentieth, I launched the
film on Amazon. So the first thing that I did was oh so talking
about Amazon for me, learning from that experience, I was like, you
know, I'm going to put my film for sale first, so you can
only buy it for like only purchase option and purchase just straight first, because
I knew the people that had just seen the movie were going straight to get
on teavot that we're going to rent it. You know, there was a
lot of people I got all their emails that were waiting, so I went
straight to t vot. I think I put like fourteen ninety nine was the
first price that I did. And I put no rentals like the first week,
like the first ten days, because I knew it was going to be
hot, you know, those people were going to come and buy the movie,
so I did that. I put it for purchase option only. I
didn't do any Oh so, I got a lot of you know, uh,
newspapers, radio everywhere, you know, talking about the premiere or core
gables like local news. And then a lot of social media and all over
Facebook and Instagram, and then I ended up just putting the purchase option for
those ten first days, so and then only the let's say, the warm
audience, the loyal audience, right, the true fans came those those first
ten days and they purchased the movie. I can't remember the exact number of
how many people, you know, but I was, well, that was
happening. I started learning Facebook ads. I already had, like ran Facebook
ads in the past and Instagram with some other businesses that I that I had
in the past, and also with the with rabbit Hole on Instagram. But
I hire someone to pretty much kind of teach me like all the ins and
outs, you know, all the tricks and little things. And even though
I thought that I knew a lot, like this person really taught me a
bunch of stuff that I was like, oh, wow, that's how it
works. Okay. So so that gave me a lot of insights and I
slowly started using Facebook ads and Instagram ads. We'll be right back after a
word from our sponsor and now back to the show. And for me,
what I think has worked so far, which I told you in the email,
Like I feel that a lot of people always want to like, I
want my film to be seen as many you know, that many people as
possible see my film, right, and a film that's a big mistake.
I mean, if they could see it for free, of course, try
as many people as you can. But when you have to pay for the
Facebook ads, you have to make sure that the person that watches the film
right, the trailer, the teaser, they're really you know, they trust
the brand, and if they don't know the brand, you know, why
would they click to watch the movie. So for me, the name Miami
right was that trust. So for example, when I was running ads,
I realized the copy that would get the most let's say, engagement was when
I would put like, you know, Miami releases a new mystical adventure,
a new fantasy film. Because I thought if I put like rabbit Hole Pictures
releases a new you know mystically, they're like, who's rabbit Hole Pictures?
But when you put Miami, people somehow in their heads that's what I'm guessing.
They're they're guessing like, oh so, Miami, it's kind of like
made this film like the city itself, you know, it's made in Miami.
So then I only targeted like twenty five mile radios races in Miami and
that started getting you know, a lot of attraction. Then you know a
lot of experimenting. I think you have to do a lot of testing,
like a lot like you know, I had a teaser onder one minute.
I had a trailer which was a minute and forty. I had pictures.
You know, I have different copywriting. And also you have to get this
is a trick that I learned also that you have to have social proof before
you sent out. So when I would first create the ad, I'd had
like my small group of you know, friends and family that I would send
it to them and be like, okay, like this comments that you saw
that you loved it or whatever. So when the advertisement will go out right,
you had social proof. So one season they're like, oh, there's
people coming to there's people liking it, let me check it out right.
And so what I started doing also the strategy was I would do video views,
so it's one of the options when you run Facebook ads. I first
started doing traffic, which was kind of like a mistake that you the traffic
strategies pretty much Facebook finds people that would click on the ad and would go
to the website where you send them. But by doing video views, Facebook
pretty much finds people that usually watch videos, like they watch the most percent,
let's say, of videos. So I started using the video ads and
that started getting better results and people will still click on it and go to
the website. Right. And then I would do video views Monday through Friday,
and then Saturday and Sunday I would do a reach strategy Facebook ad which
I would say, Okay, so from Monday through Friday, I do this
video views, and then Saturday Sunday, I create an audience that everyone who
watched the video from Monday through Friday ninety five percent of like people who watched
ninety five percent of my videos, right, I would make that an audience.
Facebook would find all those people, create a custom audience, and then
on Saturday and Sunday, I would just target those people again and with a
reach strategy and be like, Okay, now reach as many people as you
can within this parameter that I just put that they're already a warm audience because
they saw the teaser, and find them and show them again, you know,
the trailer. So that would bring that would bring really good you're using
but you're using this based off of a fourteen ninety nine price point, not
when I started. Yeah, when when I started doing Facebook ads, I
already had the rental option, so I actually brought it down to nine ninety
nine and five ninety nine. So I started seeing, you know what,
most of the rentals will be on Amazon, and I saw a bunch of
like new releases were not five ninety nine for rentals, so I put it
five ninety nine. And actually, this was really funny because you have to
you have to test things out. You have to just don't be afraid of
like sometimes people want to be too like logical, and you think of like,
oh, my film is an indie film, who would rent it?
Who would pay five ninety nine? And a lot of people don't know,
you know, like normal audiences they don't know. They just see. They
just see a film if it's a cool trailer, a cool poster. Maybe
they don't all the actors, but the genre itself, right, since it's
a fantasy kind of mystical supernatural film, the genre itself will sell the film,
and if they connect with Miami, they will sell it. And actually
I did a crazy thing for like a week. I didn't make a profit,
but I broke even. But when the whole coronavirus hit, they started
doing this whole theatrical premieres for nineteen ninety nine, so I actually for a
week, I removed everything and I put it for nineteen ninety nine. I
was like, you know what, maybe people will confuse me with like Disney
and like The Invisible Man that was also coming out during that time, and
like, I don't know, like ten people bought it, like ten people
bought it, and you know, it cost me a lot on Facebook ad,
so I kind of like I ended up breaking even. So I was
like, you know, I know that I can find more people, but
it will cost me more, so let me just let me just bring it
back to a different price and kind of like what I had it before.
But it was it was it was a you know, an interesting experience seeing
that they would actually someone be willing to pay nineteen ninety nine for the film,
just like they would pay for any of those big studio films. You
know. So it's about let me ask you. In regards to the Facebook,
Facebook ads and Instagram ads, a lot of times I found that filmmakers
who spend a lot of money on those the ROI doesn't make sense the return
on an investment because they they're either not optimizing properly or their their offer is
just too low a price, Like you talk about ninety nine cents ninety nine.
You've got to get volume, you know. So if you spend five
dollars to get a one ninety nine rental, that's not business. So how
did you make it work? Well? Yeah, I mean I kept the
price of five ninety nine, you know, good rental and purchased at nine
ninety nine. So I knew that every time there would be a sale,
I would make pretty much three dollars, right, So from five ninety nine
fifty so I knew that, okay, I have to make under you know,
under three dollars, and so I would make sure. And this is
really hard to what happens with Amazon is really hard to track the sales that
come from the Facebook ads because Amazon doesn't give you the information, right,
Amazon keeps all the data for themselves. You have no so you can't do
a Facebook pixel with it for Amazon. No, you can't because it's it's
on the Amazon page, right, And so they're not gonna let you pixel
that, so you could I couldn't do a pixel. So it was But
what happens is that I say, like people, what I'm guessing. Like
people, a lot of times they try many strategies at the same Like what
I would do is like I'm gonna stick with one strategy one week to see
the results of that week, right, and then I will see, Okay,
so this week I spent this much and this much came in, and
you know, I wasn't doing anything else, and I have kind of the
clicks on the Facebook ads, and I saw that, you know, every
twenty five cents, someone was clicking on the ad. So I started kind
of like comparing the numbers. And then after one week I would switch to
a different strategy and that way, you know, I would kind of like
know what strategy work the most. But again for me, it was all
about that, like you have to know your audience, you know. And
for example, I also thought, even though the film has let's say the
film is about a grandson a grandfather, right, they were like after life
investigators, So there is a younger audience and there's an older audience. And
for me, I focused mostly on the older audience because they have funny number
one. You know, younger audiences. I say it, you know,
for my sister, they don't like to pay for stuff. They want to
just free content, you know, because I mean, you know, they
grew up on YouTube. And even I sometimes like struggle, like I should
have paid Should I really rent this movie or should I wait until it comes
out on Netflix or anything? You know. So it's that's the subscription mode
has changed, you know, people's mentality when it comes to that. Right.
So I was like, I have to focus on the older audience because
they're the ones that are really gonna pay for this, right and most of
the time maybe they'll bring their children, you know, their grandchildren whatever to
watch the movie. Now, the problem with you also have to think about
the downsides. Like the problem with the older audience is so so they don't
leave a lot of reviews, right, Older people don't go and the Amazon
start reviewing, you know, like, oh I love the film or whatever,
we'll be right back after a word from our sponsor and now back to
the show. And which actually, you know, the reviews. It's such
a tricky game because you know, mostly like people who only have negative things
to say are the ones that go and review, Like you watch the movie
as the world did. It's like this was the best movie ever. And
you don't go on like IMDb or Rotten Tomatoes and you don't review it.
You're like, this was amazing. But then you know those fascinators, negative
people, the trolls, they just go there and start like, oh,
this was awful, you know, but it is what it is. But
then I try to, like, you know, if I saw someone watched
the movie or tag the trailer or the post or something, I would message
them like, please, if you like the movie, leave us a review
on Amazon because it can help, you know. So. But it was
a combination Alex of a lot of like work on my side, I did
a lot of like say, you know, gorilla marketing myself with you know,
on Instagram. I for example, the core Gables Arts Cinema. I
went on Instagram and I saw, you know that they had eight thousand followers.
So I would go to each one of those followers and literally message them
like, Hey, we're in Miami Film Company. We just make this film.
If you like you know this type of genre, go check it out.
Literally every day I would message until like Instagram blocked me pretty much like
you exceeded like you limit for today, so you know, so it was
it was a combination of things, you know, and like being on the
Miami Herald, on the newspaper also you know, brought sales and then just
combining all that with Facebook, Instagram and just doing a lot of work and
also, like I told you, trying a lot of different content. People.
Sometimes you create a trailer and that's it, like they market everything with
that trailer. Like you know, I had trailer teaser short clips, like
at least like I don't know, like thirty different types of like assets,
let's say. You know. The The thing that's fascinating as well is that
you decided to focus on your local regional market, which is something that most
filmmakers don't think about because they're like, oh, it's just the local.
I need to be big. I need the world to see my movie.
I I need to be as big as Tarantee and Tino and Nolan. I
need to be that where you focus on the regional, which is extremely powerful.
That's a much warmer audience, if I can take your term, it's
a much warmer audience. Uh, And a lot of people will just support
because you're a local boy. And Miami is not a small town either.
No, it's I mean it's it's a big city. It's one of the
big in the in the US, absolutely so. But even with that,
you were still able to generate interest and revenue from that. So that's that's
a really great way of doing it. And that's not you know, that's
also like, you know, this was like I at the same time,
while I was in post, you know, I really studied a lot of
like marketing, you know, like Seth godin Sure, you know, you
know the Purple Cow and uh, there's another guy called Roy Sutherland, he's
from London, you know, and really started marketing, uh, and try
to learn as much as possible. And one of the ideas is like how
you know how ideas like spread, right, and everything starts small, Like
if you think about Facebook, how did Facebook start? Facebook started in Harvard
and then it started with only IVY leagues, right, and then once they
got the IVY leagues, when people see something that they like, they will
tell their friends, and the friends will to tell the friends and that's how
things spread. So I was like, I'm only going to focus in Miami
and then from there on, actually, later on, I started seeing there
was some sales in the UK where I was doing no marketing, and which
was really interesting. I was like, I don't know how people in the
UK are watching this, but I guess they're just because they see as an
American movie, they're they're watching it. But you know, I really focused
just on local and make like I would target Miami twenty five miles radius,
right, and I would say people who liked Pixar, Disney, Harry Potter,
you know, films that kind of had the same tone that my film.
And then I would also do besides that and would narrow down down the
audience that they would also purchase on Amazon dot Com, which it's pretty much
everyone, but you know, but that would really put it like, just
find those people that have purchased on Amazon, which you know, they like,
they have Amazon Instant Video or whatever, and they like these type of
films that are similar. Now, what, so let's get some numbers if
you don't mind, What are the returns of all of this work and how
much revenue have you generated with off of Amazon? So Amazon has been like
thirty six thousand dollars, which that's insane which is I mean, when you
really think about it, with seventy two you know, so that's thirty six
to you, thirty six to me. Yeahy, So you generated seventy two
thousand grows off of this technique, off of what you're doing, and you're
and you're one hundred thousand dollars. Yeah, indeed with no stars attached and
a unique genre being like fantasy is not you know, it's it's it's there's
less water, there's less sharks or less blood in that water. It's a
little bit more blue oceany if you want, the fishing is better in your
area. So it's a niche. It's a niche. It's a large niche,
but it's a niche. So you've been able to generate And then how
much does that cost you? And then yeah, and then nine thousand dollars
in marketing, around nine thousand dollars so far, So the profit ends up
being like what twenty seven plus the what I've made in the theatrical premiere.
I don't know about I don't know about you, but I will spend nine
thousand dollars every day to get twenty seven thousand. All day. I'll just
continue to feed that beast. So it's fascinating. You're one of the few
heard of your making it work. Now you have a very there's a lot
of unique elements, like in every project, like and you mentioned Range fifteen
in your email, that was a unique set of circumstances in a unique time
period. Every movie is going to be a little bit different. Like your
movie might be hitting at the right time with the right movie. That also
helped, you know the I mean the hope that everyone was stock home,
you know, stock at home. I'm looking for new, fresh content and
then you just happen to be I've got fresh content. I also know how
to market it because I've done my homework. I've done my research, and
I want you, I want to I want you to tell all the filmmakers
out there, please, because I've been preaching this for the longest time,
that filmmakers need to understand marketing. They need to educate themselves on the distribution
processes, the self distribution process, all the non sexy because everything you're talking
about is not sexy. It's not as sexy as the new lexap with the
new the cook lens, yeah, you know, and the techno crane that
I'm going to work on and it's not the sexy stuff. Can you please
tell the audience the value that you have found by doing that deep dive into
marketing, because obviously it's working. Yeah, I mean I would tell you
this. This is how I think about it. If you know how to
market, if you know how to distribute, if you know how to sell
anything, then you can make anything. Right. It's not like you make
something and then like how am I going to sell this? It's like learn
how to sell things. Like I think of like Steve Jobs, which I
think is once one of the greatest marketers ever, right, how he created
Apple and all those things, and he would find uh how to like think
about it, like how people hey six times more for an iPhone, which
is pretty much does the same as a as an android, you know,
an LG. Like it's just not as pretty. It's just not as pretty,
and it's the brand because he grew the brand and that he connected with
a certain type of appeal. And for me, it was like I thought
about, like you know, I have because people just like to make things.
You know, as an artist, you just want to think about the
creative process, but then you end up being you know, at the mercy
of like, you know, distributor, and sometimes you will find a good
distributor. But like even if you have a good distributor, wouldn't you want
to know how that works? And they might not even even you. I
mean, if you know your audience, if you know your movie, your
input might be you know, so valuable for them that might help even with
the sales. So for me, it's like you have to learn, you
know again, like I was reckoned men Seth godin UH all his YouTube videos.
He also has a course that I took online. It's called the semin
the Marketing Seminar uh Roy Sauerland from h from Great Britain. You know garyvy
it's amazing. Yeah, you know he's actually doing UH tea with Gary Vee
every morning at nine am. I fought, Yeah, he's he's pretty cool.
He's got a bunch of good stuff, you know. And and yeah,
and watching in the film Hustle all the episodes about distribution, you know,
try to learn as much as you can because that's the only way that
you can be self reliant and and and not depend again on the lottery ticket
of getting into sun Dance. And and I also thought about that. I
was telling Larry, my friend, the co founder, we'll be right back
after a word from our sponsor, and now back to the show. I
I told them, like, you know, like I think of Disney.
Okay, they're so successful, but I think of Disney, I think of
like you know, Wonder Brothers. They don't go to know, film festivals,
they don't care about film festivals. They go straight to the audience.
Why should we And I love film festivals and I have nothing against them,
right, but you're playing by the rules, So why should we be like
waiting? I was, I would keep some men into film festival, but
we shouldn't be waiting for that to be our strategy. We should be just
getting straight to the audience, you know. So so yeah, so that's
that's it's it's it's an inspiring story, brother, I really appreciate it.
You've been able to do the numbers that you've talked about, which is like,
no one's getting rich. You're not getting you're not rolling around in it.
But it's you're building a business my investors. That that's the most important
thing. Now that I'll be able to pay my investors. You know that
I can talk again for my second feature film that I want to you know,
so it also creates that you know, trust, which is really import
and I'm building my audience as well, people who already saw the movie and
liked it and you know, saw the company in Miami. So I just
think, just thinking from listening to your story, I think you could definitely
benefit from reading the Rise of the film entrepreneur. I think your head's going
to explode getting it, getting it for sure. If I may do a
self plug, No, I think there's a lot of I think you're leaving
a lot of money on the table honestly with this. But you're doing fantastic
by the way, You're doing better than ninety nine point five percent of the
filmmakers I talked to, So you're doing extremely well. But I think you
could even do you could take it to the next level. But I'm really
you know, I'm really excited that you are a good example of what how
filmmakers can make money on Amazon during COVID. This is all happening. This
is all happening during COVID. Uh And what are your plans now? Because
you know you did this all tivot, which is something that unless you know
how to drive traffic. T VOT is a lost cause unless you can drive
track, I can target an audience or have an audience to bring along with
you. Yeah, I mean, I'm gonna keep you know. Sometimes the
sales are down, sometimes they go up. It's a little bit, you
know, but I'll keep investing a little. I think I may expand now
to Florida, try to expand to Orlando, Tampa, you know. But
yeah, I'm gonna keep it. I actually put you know, I found
the right spot. Now I have the movie for two ninety nine and fourteen
ninety nine because I feel there's actually I feel that somehow I'm getting sales without
marketing. Sometimes I think Amazon is promoting the movie itself. I brought money
for them, so I guess the the algorithm or whatever. But I would
tell this also going back to the whole the schuberting and stuff like for me,
I would never put my movie for free. That's just like, so
you're not gonna put it in asbad like Amazon price, And I see I
would suggest to everyone, I mean, put ninety nine cents, you know,
like that's that's an okay price if you have a movie. That unless
unless you really don't care about recouping your money because it was your own money
or something, and you just want to get people to see your film.
And in that case, I mean, you know, you can also put
it on YouTube, right if that's your strung. But if you really have
to make money to pay investors to recoup some money, forget about SVOD.
Like you're not going to make a lot of money unless maybe you have it
on I don't know to be like AVOD at all the places, but just
put it in about about about at a certain point when you're when your sales
have gotten down to a point, because like, nobody really makes a whole
lot of money on the spot Amazon platform anymore. That's pretty much gone.
But a VOD as we speak today is really I've seen the numbers. I
mean, there's tens of thousands of dollars being made by certain films and certain
genres. So there is potential there. But I absolutely milk this cow for
as long as you can. AVOD could wait, it could wait a year,
it could wait two years before before you go to AVAS. Sorry I
forgot to mention that I actually I put the film also on film hob now
as VOD because the rest of like other English speaking countries don't have Tea bod
So I couldn't the rabbit Hole picture, you know, I couldn't put it
on the rest of like Latin America to say, also because I do have
some Hispanic stars that are well known in Latin America. So and I have
the movie subtitles. Oh that's something that actually bothered me too from Amazon that
they didn't let me. They didn't let me put Spanish subtitles. They don't
have that option, which I thought, like you're missing out, Like,
yeah, they can't deal with that kind of complexity from the masses. They
can deal with that complexity from distributors who handle two, three, four hundred
movies and they allow that situation. It's a completely different business model. Well
no, like if you go and actually no, no, like Amazon doesn't
doesn't allow how Spanish subtitles on any film doesn't matter, Like oh, yeah,
now they stopped it. Yeah, you're right, they did stop the
subtitling. Now it has to be I think it's I don't know if it's
a legal issue or what, but I told them, like Netflix has been
doing this for like years, and like, if you really want to compete
like you're missing on like, you know, the whole like Hispanic audience in
the United States that would rather, you know, like my a lot of
my family members, you know, they I actually put the movie with subtitles
because they understand English. But you know, you will miss a lot of
little detail. It's not the same reading it in your first language, you
know. So yeah, that was one thing, but through film Hub that
now I'm putting it on Latin America. But have you had anything from them
yet? Nothing come in yet? No, nothing. It's been recent.
It's been recent. I haven't done any marketing also out there. So I'm
just letting it to see, you know, see what happens organically, to
see what happens well, keep us in, keep us updated. In the
film Hub thing, I'm really curious to see. I haven't heard a lot
of success stories from film Hub, meaning that filmmaker is actually making a lot
of money. So I'm curious to see. In theory, he sounds great
in the in the in the the marketplace sounds great, but I'm curious to
see real hard numbers come in. But man, you're an inspiration brother,
without question, I'm gonna ask you a few questions I ask on my guests,
what advice would you give a filmmaker trying to break into the business today.
Hmm, I would say, focus on providing value to others, which
is something that you know me as a director when I started, a lot
of my friends now that work with me had a really hard time working with
me because I was sort of a dictator and it was always like, you
know, I would always think of my movie and this needs to be perfect
because it's my film and my name is on Is and I'm the director.
And then I was just bring a lot of suffering really because I would be
self frustrated and stuff. And when I kind of switched their mentality and started
thinking about being, you know, a provider's value service to authors, to
the crew. I want the to really try to have everyone in the crew
to reach their maximum potential. And the cast. I want the actors to
do the best performance that they can. I want the DP to have the
best images, and I'm just the catalyst for these people to really push them
hard so they can get there, you know. And also for the audience
that's gonna watch my movie. It's not like watch my film, it's like,
how can I really make your time worth that. You can spend an
hour and a half watching my movie and you're gonna have a lot of fun.
So I just kind of like switching that mentality of, you know,
providing value to others. And it really you can tell when you work with
someone who's just there for a paycheck, you know, and don't I don't
like working with those type of people. I feel. I can see when
there's someone there who obviously I want to pay everyone, and I think everyone
should get paid, but they're there because they care about their craft more than
the paycheck, you know. So I would say that now, and what
is the lesson that took you the longest to learn, whether in the film
business or in life, uh, film or or in life, I would
say, Uh, don't take it personal. That's it. Don't take don't
take film reviews personally. You don't know who that person is. If they
like if they like happy endings, then you had a sad ending. Of
course they're gonna hate your movie, you know, Uh they had. Don't
take personal the film rejection, the film festival rejections. Maybe they didn't even
watch your film. Maybe that person had a bad day, God knows.
Right, don't take it personal. It's it doesn't It doesn't say anything about
the quality of your craft and or of your film. So that's it,
you know. And then what are three of your favorite films of all time?
Uh, that's such a tough question. Three that comes to your head
right now? Well, I mean definitely The Lion King, you know,
as a child and in Cuba, I would say I think of films in
like different stages of my life, so I would say definitely as a child,
The Lion King and The gold Rush from Chaplain. Yeah. Gold Rush.
Yeah, it's a fun movie. I always love to watching in a
movie. Now as a grown up, I think, you know, I've
seen brilliant films. Uh, you know a lot of brilliant films. But
I feel that films that like say that I really saw and where like really
changed my perspective on what a movie could be. Will be right back after
a word from our sponsor, and now back to the show that I was
like, I've never seen anything like this, I would say The Tree of
Life from Terrence Malick in Sinet du Key, New York. From Charlie Kaufman,
which is which is really funny because I see Kaufman, which I think,
in my opinion, he's the most original writer and creator like in Hollywood
when it comes to film, I think his stories are the most original.
And I see him struggling to make it film, to get financing, and
I'm like, I mean, if Kaufman it's like going through this, I'm
okay, you know, it's fine. Exactly now, where can people find
you your movie and your work. Well, the movie's on Amazon, you
know, on Amazon Video, and they can find us on you know,
rabbit Hole Pictures, on Instagram, rabbit Hole Pictures, Rebert Hold Pictures on
Facebook, everywhere, rabbit hople Pictures. Yeah, Ama, thank you so
much for being on the show. Brother, You're an inspiration. I'm glad
to highlight a success story you know, on Amazon in today's world and TVOD
and everything else. So thank you so much for coming on and being so
raw and honest with your with your numbers and your experience. Man, Thank
you, brother, Thank you, Alex. I hope this really helps a
lot of filmmakers out there, and you know, pay hustle. You could
hear at the end that we finished that interview with a thunderous applause background that
lightning strike HAP and wonderful Miami thunderstorms. Oh so well, I want to
thank you. It's my for come the show and dropping those knowledge bombs on
the tribe and inspiring filmmakers that you can make money on Amazon, and you
can make money on ti vod, but it takes work and you really need
to understand what you're doing. In Ismail is an amazing example of that.
If you want to get links to anything we talked about in this episode,
including watching his film Death of a Fool, please head over to the show
notes at Bulletproof Screenwriting dot tv. Forward slash three sixty five. Thank you
so much for listening to guys. As always, keep on writing no matter
what. I'll talk to you soon. Thanks for listening to the Bulletproof Screenwriting
podcast at Bulletproofscreenwriting dot tv.