WEBVTT

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You are listening to the IFH podcast
Network. For more amazing filmmaking and screenwriting

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podcasts, just go to ifahpodcastnetwork dot
com. Welcome to the Bulletproof Screenwriting Podcast,

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00:00:14.960 --> 00:00:18.960
Episode number three fifty eight. Do
not pray for an easy life,

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Pray for the strength to endure a
difficult one. Bruce Lee broadcasting from a

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dark, windowless room in Hollywood when
we really should be working on that next

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draft. It's the Bulletproof Screenwriting Podcast, showing you the craft and business of

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screenwriting while teaching you how to make
your screenplay bulletproof. And here's your host,

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Alex Ferrari. Welcome, Welcome to
another episode of the Bulletproof Screenwriting Podcast.

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I am your humble host Alex Ferrari. Now, today's show is sponsored

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by Bulletproof script Coverage. Now.
Unlike other script coverage services, Bulletproof Script

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Coverage actually focuses on the kind of
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project you are, so we actually
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indie film, market, and studio
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that. At Bulletproof script coverage,
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screenplay or TV script covered by professional
readers, head on over to covermiscreenplay dot

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Com. Well, guys, Today
on the show, we have film producer

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Simon Swart. Now. Simon has
been working in film production and distribution for

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over thirty years and was a leading
studio executive at Warner Brothers, Walt Disney

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Studios, and twentieth Century Fox.
After leaving his last job, he decided

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to venture out and start producing his
own films, and he created some very

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profitable films, including Six with Josh
Hartnett and the mega indie film hit I

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Can Only Imagine, which grossed over
eighty three million dollars at the box office.

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With those releases, he created a
multi window distribution model and he created

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new markets for the ever shifting distribution
space for competitive smaller studios. This third

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party distribution model started with Lionsgate and
then grow into MGM, Relativity, DreamWorks

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and Maribacks and generated substantial fees and
greater, greater efficiency and kind of knocking

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down the old distribution model. Anytime
I can have somebody who is championing a

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new way for filmmakers and production companies
and studios, small studios to be able

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to make money with their films,
I am all about it. I was

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very excited to talk shop with him
and re really get into it in this

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episode. So, without any further
ado, please, in my conversation with

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Simon swart I like to welcome to
the show, Simon swart Man. Thank

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you so much for being on the
show. That's great to be here.

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I appreciate it. Man, you
are you, You've been around the block

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a few times. I know that
you have some shrapnel in the from the

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business, without question, and experience
cars, some battle scar some shrapnel.

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Absolutely. So before we get into
it, how did you get into the

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business. Wow, I've got to
tell you. I got into the business

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by sending my resume to every record
company and music company on the West Coast

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and being completely rejected. And I
ended up meeting and guy at a party

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and turns out they were hiring somebody
they were looking for someone at Warner Brothers,

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and that was it. That's generally, isn't that the way it works?

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The younger generation out there, You've
got to send your resumes out there

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and do that stuff, but ultimately
it's probably your relationships and your contact so

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they're going to get you a job. And by the way, you don't

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get your dream job out the gate. You take whatever job is going and

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you do it to the best of
your abilities. Wait a minute, so

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you so you mean to tell me
that out of film school, Kevin Fahy

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is not going to call you to
direct the next two hundred million dollar Marvel

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movie, like right out of film
school as a ten year old, a

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fifteen year old, twenty year old. Probably not. I think it's a

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long shot, just as happened.
The golden tickets do exist, they're just

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rare. But and I've spoken about
this golden lottery ticket mentality of filmmakers for

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so long because that's the one story
that you hear. I mean, we're

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still talking about El Mariachi. I
mean it's I mean, it's like that

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these mythical stories and these filmmakers think
that that's the way it's going to work,

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and that's not the way this business
runs. You You've got to put

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it in your ten thousand hours plus
and you might be getting coffee, you

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might be driving people to and fro, But you do what you got to

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do, and you learn along the
way without question. Now, what did

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you do when you got over to
Warner Brothers. Well, so here's the

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funny thing. By the way,
I studied accounting and auditing. I was

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actually a charged accountant by trade.
So okay, you know how did that

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all work out? Well? I
was an art student who realized that I

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could probably emigrate better with a business
degree than with an art degree. So

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I did that basic math and I
forced myself to learn business and things like

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that. And when I started Warner
Brothers, I was a manager of international

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Finance, which was a glorious position. It sounds very creative. It was

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very creative, not as much as
you would think, but I would say.

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I worked through Warner Brothers. I
then worked for a small independent,

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I worked at Disney, and then
I spent the last twenty years at Fox

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and doing different roles in different functions, but gradually getting into more and more

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creative roles, where I eventually became
the head of sales ahead of sales and

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marketing, and then I ran the
distribution division for the home entertainment side at

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Fox for the last decade or so. So since you were at Fox,

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there was a few movies that they
had they had ownership of that of course

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now Disney because the Disney owns everything, but at the time you were responsible.

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Soon yeah, soon, I think
I should be getting my check from

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the Mouse at any day now just
to buy me out at this point.

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But while you were there, you
got to work on a very prestigious,

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you know, franchise which is called
the Star Wars. So how was that?

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What was the stories behind marketing Star
Wars? And you were there when

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the re release was happening, which
was the ninety seven re release, which

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was basically our first look. There
was a whole generation we've never even seen

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Star Wars in the theater before.
Yeah, it's pretty remarkable. I mean,

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actually, what I loved about the
gig at Fox on the that side

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of the business was you were the
curator of the studio's history. You're and

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the great filmmakers all understand that their
movies will be remembered, not necessarily on

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the big screen. The launches on
the big screen, and we're all making

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movies for the big screen because it
is such a remarkable experience as a consumer,

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as a fan when the lights go
out and you've got your popcorn and

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this the imagery, the journey you
go on is is so remarkable. But

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the legacy is going to be on
the home screen, whether it's digital and

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whatever format you're going to get it. That's the legacy issue. And you're

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the curator of all this film history. And yeah, ninety seven we had

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a whole generation of Star Wars fans
that you know, your access to the

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movies were so limited. Now you
get to re release it and you're creating

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a whole new group of fans,
you know, whether it's Star Wars or

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it's a Fair to Remember or sound
of music, you know, it was.

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I loved that part of the job
was working on the older movies and

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working on these classic franchises and keeping
them alive. And it's a privilege to

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get to reintroduce them to new audiences. Frankly, now, how can you

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talk a little bit about the marketing
mindset about around relaunching Star Wars in the

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theaters, because that I remember in
that time that it was considered a risk.

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I still remember it was considered a
risk and they were talking to like,

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why would they do this. It's
available on VHS, you know what,

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and it killed obviously admitted the scene
amount of money. Sure, you

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know, Honestly, Lucasfilm was integral
in everything that we did. And you

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know, one thing that one thing
about George Lucas and the guys at Lucasfilm

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is they were so protective of their
fans, right, they wanted they respect

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their fans. They everything was about
protecting the fans and giving them, giving

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them what they wanted. Uh,
and you know listening. I mean,

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they're one of those brands that always
had a dialogue with their fans and they've

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had those super fans for a reason. So everything we did was about servicing

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the fans. And yeah, releasing
the movie out there. I want to

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say, if I remember correctly,
we did something like a million over a

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million units of a trilogy. People
like, there's no way you're going to

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sell a million units of a trilogy
that's from a movie that was released sort

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of you know, thirty years ago. You know, everyone's moved on.

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It's like not so much, you
know, like we were saying, and

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we love proving people wrong. Yeah, Like we were saying, like I

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was saying before when we were off
air, is like I've purchased the Star

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Wars movies on pretty much every format
ever released. Yeah, And honestly,

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the marketing challenge in that right was
always making sure you were giving the fans

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a reason to buy it again.
You're not buying just the same product again,

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right, So when there were technological
advances, like we were able to

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digitize and remaster, like when we
moved to DVD and Blu ray and re

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release them on those formats, you
know, we were able to go back

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and actually, you know, Lucasfilm
went back and fixed some of the scenes

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because the VFX weren't translating properly and
technology had advanced so much, and that

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was pretty controversial as well. We'll
be right back after a word from our

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sponsor and now back to the show. So, I mean, one of

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the marketing decisions we had to make
is I think when we did the DVD,

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we released it in the original format
and the original resolution and in the

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enhanced version where it had been digitized
and some of the digital effects have been

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cleaned up, and so on,
So you know, the fans were very

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clear they wanted both. They wanted
to the original the way I saw it

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and did as way back when,
but I also would like to see the

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new, updated version too, So
it was kind of rare we did.

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We did some some some pretty creative
things back then, you know, releasing

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the releasing, releasing both movies in
the same package. You know you can

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have both versions. Now you you
you were in charge of a lot of

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marketing of a lot of big franchises
during your tenure at Fox and at Disney.

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Can you talk a little bit about
what it's like working with the studios

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and what a typical marketing plan is
for a blockbuster film, because you know,

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the roll outs to the understand because
we'd on the show, we've talked

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a lot about independent film marketing and
your niche audiences and grassroots and all this

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stuff. But I would love to
hear from the inside, what is the

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plan, Like, Okay, we're
going to spend X dollars on billboards and

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this kind of ads, in these
kind of ads, And of course technology

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has changed a bit since probably a
lot of those earlier releases, but just

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curious, so I think one of
the biggest things is you know, back

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back in the nineties, you had
a slightly more homogeneous plans. Right,

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you would have your billboards, you'd
have your radio, you have your print,

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you have your trailering, right,
and you had television, so you

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knew who the audience was that you
needed to open the movie. Obviously,

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there's a lot of testing done in
those days, even pre digital. We'd

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test the movie against the audiences,
so we knew what the rating was.

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And every marketing plan was different depending
on the genre, the size, and

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the scope of the movie. Okay, so you know the worst thing you

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can do, and sometimes you can
see studios getting a little as you about

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it, as there's a cookie cutter
approach, Right, this is the way

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we've done it. And that kind
of strategy went out the window quite a

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long time ago, especially now with
the challenges of mass market marketing. So

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if you're buying media on TV,
you now have to supplement it with social

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media and online media and that becomes
a much bigger piece of the budget.

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So the marketing of these movies has
always been dynamic, and it's always been

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risky, right. That hasn't changed. It's just a matter of where you're

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spending the money and where you're taking
the risk. And it also depends on

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who your target target audience is.
If you go back twenty years ago,

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the sweet spot of opening blockbusters was
males eighteen to thirty four, Right,

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Like, if you could get the
fanboys in to go see a movie you

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were made, you knew you'd make
your number, you'd get the butts and

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seats. And now you know,
twenty nineteen, you know that's just not

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the case anymore, because those fan
boys are you know, they're add basically

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on the media world. You've got
to They're everywhere. And I think one

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of the coolest things that's actually occurred
in the marketing space is, you know,

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the old school marketing demographics don't work. Don't work anymore. We don't

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identify the audiences don't identify based on
ethnicity, social class, gender, as

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much as we'd like them to.
Audiences identify based on interests, behaviors,

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passions. So and it's very hard
to do mass marketing anymore. You know,

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the it's diminishing returns and what you're
getting out of TV. You know,

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you've got to advertise on certain cable
channels and you've got to be in

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certain events. I mean, Super
Bowl ads are probably one of the rare

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exceptions where everybody is probably going to
see your ad and then you've got to

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supplement it with online and social media. But your online and social media can

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just be a replication of what you're
doing on radio and what TV. They've

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got to be unique to that format. And I think that's one of the

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one of the cool things that's going
on in the marketing space right now.

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But is it. I've noticed this
just from just being a watcher of the

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industry. I've noticed that from the
days of when I was coming up in

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the nineties to today, the studios
are having a more difficult time, even

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them with their massive resources to actually
get to the audience to get because there's

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so much more competition. I mean, those fan boys, a lot of

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them are just sitting in front of
a video game for fifteen hours a day.

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They're not interested in going to the
movie theater anymore. So it's much

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it's even difficult and challenging with hundreds
of millions of dollars, how do you

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break through even with the eighty million
dollar spend, and by the way,

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you've got to recoup that too.
So you know, you spend three hundred

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million dollars making the movie. Now
you've got to spend maybe another one hundred

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and fifty million dollars marketing it.
So most people don't understand that whatever the

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box office is, you've got to
cut it in half right off the bat,

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because exhibition takes half, and then
you've got to recoup your marketing costs,

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and then you've got all these other
expenditures in there. So it gets

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pretty crazy because when you start having
to spend against social media and stuff,

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is that an incremental spend or you're
taking a dollar away from your your mass

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market TV. Yeah, And the
reality is you can't take away the dollar

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because you still need that mass market
TV. And by the way, you

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still need those cable spots because that
might be where your target audience is as

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well. Right, And you've also
got to spend money on PR and publicity

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to break through. So really kind
of your your your marketing campaign is almost

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a military campaign of sorts. But
it's all here towards opening weekend, right,

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right. But I've noticed that opening
weekends, I mean depends of course

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on the on the on the franchise
or on the blockbuster that's coming out,

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But opening weekends aren't what they used
to be. Sometimes they will explode and

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will have the two hundred million dollars, one hundred and fifty million dollars,

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a ninety million dollar like The Joker
did recently. You know, you know

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those are that was a surprise,
But those those numbers aren't as much as

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they used to be in box off
like look at that Will Smith movie.

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The Gemini Man just tanked, you
know, which is a whole conversation about

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movie stars. Did they even matter
anymore? I think movie stars definitely matter.

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I think that the model is changing
where you have those you know,

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the classic star driven vehicles. The
content still needs to be really good,

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right, you can't just do those
vanity projects. I think what's happened is

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there's this massive you know, the
days of the studio chief being the thought

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leader or the you know, the
taste maker for the whole country. Yeah,

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I'm going to do I'm going to
I'm going to create a relationship with

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a movie star and I'm going to
give them thirty to forty percent of the

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budget or something crazy like that.
Because it's there in it, it's automatically

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going to open you know, those
days are long gone, right. The

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content needs to deliver, it needs
to be good, right, And I

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think that's that's one of the many
changing things that's going on in the film

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space. I mean, you know, in the industry, we laugh about

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the back end participation, right because
it's invisible. The whole point behind the

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backhand participation was that you would allow
your talent to share in the upside of

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a movie, so you keep them
engaged. The reality is, with the

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studio accounting being what it is,
that back end never materializes, okay,

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so stars have to figure out a
different way to get paid. So what

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they would do is they'd take a
disproportionate share of the budget. All that

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does is shift all the risk back
to the studio in essence. So I

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think these economic models are all changing
as the realities change, and the technology

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is changing that as well. And
the reality is everybody doesn't fully understand,

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or i'd say nobody fully understands what
the future of media consumption is going to

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be. It's not going to be
one thing. It's not going to be

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just theatrical, it's not going to
be just streaming. It's going to be

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a balance of all of these technologies
and now where does the humble independent filmmaker

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fall into all of this conversation in
general? Well, it's fascinating. I

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think the challenge for the independent filmmaker
has been that as studios have moved away

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from the mid level star driven movies
and the smaller movies, they're focusing more

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on the big franchises. Right.
The reality is to in my mind,

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that's a Disney game. Disney wins
that game every time because they're a licensing

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franchise machine. That's what they do. Right. Even Bob, I guess

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is I love I love the movies
we're making, but I also love great

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indie films and those art house films, which is ironic, but he goes,

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but he's clear that those are not
the movies that Disney is going to

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be making, right, Okay,
And and that's that's obviously very very revealing,

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but it's it's insightful. He knows
what their core strength is and he

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plays to it, and he's brilliant
at that. But for the other studios,

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that leaves a lot of in between. Right, if you don't have

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the theme parks and you don't have
that big licensing machine for all the toys

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and the T shirts and all the
other stuff that goes with it. You

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know, where does that leave you
with the independent films and those mid level

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movies, because there is still a
market for them. But but the risk

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is the risk is what it's always
been. The reality is the studios aren't

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going to put out that money.
So as an independent producer, you have

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to go raise the money to make
the movie. You can then partner up

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with the studio for a distribution deal
or a service deal, and that's the

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way to go. Then the challenge
is when you have to raise as an

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independent filmmaker, you've got to be
thinking about how am I going to raise

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the money to actually make the movie? But at the same time, how

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am I going to raise the money
to actually market the movie? Because if

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you don't think about that until you
finished the movie, you're at risk because

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that guy who comes in and puts
up the p and A will then take

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control of the project. That is
the model right now, and I think

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the innovation is going to come with
your releasing strategy. So the challenge for

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the independent filmmaker is, I'm not
making a movie for Netflix per se.

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I'm not going to make a movie
for Amazon, per se. But I've

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got a structure of my financing in
such a way that I know how I'm

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going to get to market. We'll
be right back after a word from our

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sponsor. And now back to the
show. And the higher your budget goes

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over ten million dollars, the only
way out is a theatrical release, or

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you've got to have covered your most
of your negative with your foreign pre sales,

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right, so you structure your financing
creatively. But most people don't think

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that way, right. That's that's
not always There's a few people that get

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that, but for most indies,
like you've got to figure out what your

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strategy is. To me, Netflix
is a is a great strategy, but

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just remember with Netflix, there's not
a lot of upside. There's a great

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business model and they're okay paying the
premium if they own the idea, if

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they own your ip. That's that's
the way they're working right now. But

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they're predominantly focused on big, big
names too. You know, if you

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can get that Golden ticket, you
know, Martin Scorsese with The Irishman,

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you know, that's a good deal. They pay you a big chunk of

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money for the movie and the rights
and you make it for less than that.

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You know, the margin is what
you get to keep the type of

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thing. So the independent film model
is actually a pretty exciting place to be

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right now. But you've got to
really understand the distribution opportunities that are ahead

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of you at the point that you're
creating your budget and you've got another your

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audiences. That was about to say, because I mean, I speak to

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the independent filmmakers on a daily basis, and I'm going to say ninety five

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percent of them are the creative producer, the creative director, and they're not

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the business person. They're creating a
product and have no idea where to sell

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it. And I'm yelling at the
top of my lungs from the top of

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the mountain I can and going,
Look, if you're a real estate developer

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and you make condos, you know
who you're going to sell those condos to.

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You don't just make a condo,
you know, a twenty you know,

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twenty unit condo and go now,
let's see what we're going to do.

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You don't do that? Yeah,
what what's your business plan? Who's

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your audience? Who are you making
this for? What are you hoping to

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accomplish by making this movie right,
Because if you can answer those questions,

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and you're the first question I'll ask
any independent producer or not a dependent producer

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director, is what is this movie
most like? What? What do you

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believe your end product is going to
be most like? Can you name five

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movies for me that you think this
movie is like? And part of that

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is understanding expectations, right, It's
also understanding tone. But oftentimes, if

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you've got an indie filmmaker coming and
saying I've got an eight million dollar budget

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movie or a four million dollar budget
movie and it's most like Star Wars,

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or it's most like Avatar, you
go, okay, that had like a

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three hundred million dollar budget, and
you're going to do it for eight and

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James Cameron it's probably and James Cameron
and and you know, and John Landau

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and a studio behind you and so
on. It's like you've got a level

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set expectations, right. Whereas if
you're making a movie that's a ten million

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dollar budget and one of your compcious
Juno and one of them's Napoleon Dynamite,

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perhaps now you go, okay,
now I'm listening, right now, I'm

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listening, because you know, if
you're going to spend ten million dollars making

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a movie, you've laid off half
of it with foreign your net exposure is

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five million dollars, and maybe you've
got a one one and a half million

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dollar tax credit. Take advantage of
all that, your exposure for you and

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your investors is three and a half
million dollars at that point. A great

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streaming deal gets you into a pretty
good place and gets everyone to see your

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movie. It's kind of like understanding
how you're going to go to market,

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what's your perfect end goal? Right
And here's the thing is for us and

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for where my company's at right now, for NTV Pictures and Tiba, is

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we really want to make movies for
the big screen. And I know that's

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counterintuitive with what people are talking about
in the industry and so on, but

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we're going to make them for the
big screen. We want them to be

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big and cinematic. We're not going
to do the big budget. You know

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that our biggest budget's probably ten to
fifteen million dollars because at ten to fifteen

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million dollars, you can get a
great cast, you can get a great

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director, you can make something that's
beautiful and deserves to be on the big

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screen. And by the way,
if you fumble and the movie doesn't end

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up as good as you wanted it
to be at that budget range, you

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can make money still without a theatrical
release with a certain cast, obviously with

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a certain cast, and if you
passage, if you know who your audience

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is, you know you know.
Again again the challenge is you need probably

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a minimum and there are a lot
of people that will say you need twenty

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five million dollars minimum to open a
movie in the US. I disagree with

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that. I think if you know
who your audience is, and you build

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your audience early and you're creative on
the social side, you can open for

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much less than that. You know, probably around eight to ten for a

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relatively wide release. You know,
but you've got to figure out where you're

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going to get that money from and
how you're actually going to get that get

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that into the marketplace, right,
Yeah, And you could also, I

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mean, there's there's so many different
ways of doing it. I mean,

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I have I've had multiple I've had
multiple guests on and have done case studies

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of films. At heart are low
budget. They were a mill or two

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million dollars. But they knew their
audience so well, and they targeted them

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so well, and they worked on
them for a year, year and a

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half cultivating that audience. By the
time that movie came out, they killed

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it. They were pulling three four
theatrical and a lot of it. It

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was self theatrical where they were doing, you know, neither four walling or

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on demand screenings, and they were
just killing it. It was but there's

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a lot of work and you really
need to understand so many elements for that

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to happen. And most of those
films, by the way, were not

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star powered. They were genre powered
or story power. I think for an

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end, you build an audience while
you're shooting or before you're shooting. Start

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yeah, don't, don't give up
the movie, don't don't trip anything that

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would turn off a potential future distributor. But stop building an audience as soon

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as possible. Now, can you
tell you, I mean, you've had

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great success going after niche audiences,
specifically your film I can only imagine,

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which was a and away blockbuster in
the realm of what you do, which

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is faith based films, And can
you tell everybody a little bit about that

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film and then how much are grossed? And because it was a fairly impressive

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movie, and what was the budget
of that film? If you don't want

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me tell you ask it. I
think a lot of all the credit on

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that movie should go to, you
know, to the Owen brothers, Cindy

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Bond. I mean, they made
something amazing. And you know, the

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Owen brothers I'd worked with when I
was at Fox and we set up our

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whole third party distribution model at Fox. And the Owens were young filmmakers who

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I came across there and they had
a little movie called October Baby, and

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it was very much a faith based
movie, but it was really beautiful and

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well shot. And that was where
our relationship with them started. And they've

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just come along so much as filmmakers. You know, they've got two A

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cinema scores going in the faith based
space, two general market A cinema scores.

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They're great filmmakers. And I think
I can only imagine what worked with

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I can only imagine is we had
a built an audience. It was based

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on a number one contemporary Christian song
of all time, so it was a

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massive audience. Most people didn't know
the story behind the song. Generally,

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most people don't care about this is
this story by the song, but for

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this song. But this song.
Did I even know the song? And

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it's not that's not the music.
I listened to YouTube, but I heard

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that song a thousand times. Oh
it broke, It broke out of the

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out of Christian music because people just
loved the song. It was inspirational and

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just for for for for giving people
hope in music. I mean, it

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is the power of the medium.
So we knew we had a built an

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audience on that one. And you
know, the Irwin Brothers did magic,

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you know, they they they grew
up shooting, you know, doing sports

401
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and music anyway, and they were
the right guys to do this project.

402
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In this in this movie is a
universal story. It is about So you

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got a built an audience. That's
a major plus factor. Our budget was

404
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less than ten million dollars. They
started building the audience a year over,

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a year out with limited screenings and
so on. And you know, the

406
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movie's kind of a bit of a
love letter to Nashville as well, but

407
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it deals with these fundamental issues of
forgiveness. It doesn't become overtly preachy,

408
00:28:14.200 --> 00:28:17.440
but it's really a father son's story, but there's a love story in there

409
00:28:17.480 --> 00:28:21.279
also, And I think when you
look at that movie, it delivers on

410
00:28:21.359 --> 00:28:25.000
all the beats that it's set up, so no matter what you believe,

411
00:28:26.000 --> 00:28:30.000
it doesn't force you into a certain
belief paradigm. You do believe in forgiveness,

412
00:28:30.039 --> 00:28:33.839
you do believe in love, you
do believe in redemption. Right.

413
00:28:33.880 --> 00:28:37.319
We all love those kind of underdog
stories, and that's what this is,

414
00:28:37.720 --> 00:28:41.200
you know. It was basically a
story about a kid who gets beaten by

415
00:28:41.240 --> 00:28:47.880
his father, who's a heavy drinking, you know, abusive dad, and

416
00:28:48.400 --> 00:28:52.640
eventually he has to come to a
point where he can reconcile with his father,

417
00:28:52.920 --> 00:28:56.680
and he does. There's this beautiful
reconciliation. It's based on a true

418
00:28:56.680 --> 00:29:00.119
story, and I think, you
know that's the power of a true story

419
00:29:00.119 --> 00:29:03.799
too, is that you go,
yeah, that actually happened. That guy

420
00:29:03.839 --> 00:29:07.279
got through it, He did that. This is what he accomplished. If

421
00:29:07.319 --> 00:29:10.519
he can do that, I can
do that, you know. And that's

422
00:29:10.680 --> 00:29:15.359
that's something that's kind of cool about
the story driven pictures. Yeah, and

423
00:29:15.440 --> 00:29:18.640
that movie, If I'm Not Mistaken, made about eighty four million domestic in

424
00:29:19.000 --> 00:29:25.920
the theatrical which is for a faased
automatic. And again it was a very

425
00:29:25.920 --> 00:29:30.680
limited marketing spend. The team at
Lionsgate Roadside did a great job releasing that

426
00:29:32.160 --> 00:29:36.640
and you know, we had a
lot to the producers had a lot to

427
00:29:36.680 --> 00:29:41.119
do with the releasing of that movie. But you understood, but the producers

428
00:29:41.160 --> 00:29:48.920
also understood their niche so well that
they understood that. I'm assuming that any

429
00:29:48.960 --> 00:29:52.799
marketing spent wasn't just billboards and TV
advis They were going out to churches,

430
00:29:53.000 --> 00:29:57.920
they were going after that where that
niche audience lived. We'll be right back

431
00:29:59.039 --> 00:30:07.839
after a word from our sponsor and
now back to the show. Yeah we

432
00:30:07.839 --> 00:30:11.400
we Uh. Some of the best
sort of agencies in the in the business

433
00:30:11.519 --> 00:30:17.279
were hired on that and helped guide
that with with Roadside and Lionsgate. And

434
00:30:17.319 --> 00:30:21.119
you know that was an example of
everything going really well. Uh. And

435
00:30:21.200 --> 00:30:22.799
you know, I think I think
the Owens have another movie coming out.

436
00:30:22.880 --> 00:30:27.359
I forget the name, I still
believe I think uh, which is coming

437
00:30:27.359 --> 00:30:30.799
out in March, and every every
indication is it's going to be another hit.

438
00:30:30.960 --> 00:30:33.960
It looks amazing, the anticipation is
there. If you look it up

439
00:30:33.960 --> 00:30:37.799
on social media, you can see
the kind of following it's got already.

440
00:30:37.960 --> 00:30:41.200
And again, that's just an example
of building an audience early on. And

441
00:30:41.240 --> 00:30:45.720
it's a story that people know about
in the community, and you know it's

442
00:30:45.759 --> 00:30:48.599
going to be a well made story
because you know what this these filmmakers brand

443
00:30:48.680 --> 00:30:53.000
is. And and yeah, exactly, and they are building a brand around

444
00:30:53.000 --> 00:30:56.519
there themselves as Oh look, the
Irwin Brothers. It's like Spielberg is a

445
00:30:56.519 --> 00:31:00.920
brand and Scorsese is a brand.
Yeah. And they're also doing it for

446
00:31:00.960 --> 00:31:03.119
a smart number too. It's like
it's not like they're making this for one

447
00:31:03.200 --> 00:31:07.839
hundred million dollars, right right.
Budgets are very the budgets are very rational

448
00:31:08.119 --> 00:31:11.279
if you've got a very targeted audience. You know, again, I think

449
00:31:11.319 --> 00:31:15.319
as an indie filmmaker, you've always
got to rationalize your budget. That's part

450
00:31:15.319 --> 00:31:18.680
of knowing who your audience is and
how you're going to go to market.

451
00:31:18.200 --> 00:31:22.440
So making a movie for twenty million
dollars when you can get the same result

452
00:31:23.000 --> 00:31:26.279
for age or nine, you know, that's just asking for trouble. I

453
00:31:26.319 --> 00:31:30.640
mean, you know, one of
the most famous indies of of recent memory

454
00:31:30.720 --> 00:31:34.160
is Get Out. I mean,
look at how look at Jordan Peel's brand

455
00:31:34.400 --> 00:31:37.519
look at how he's exploded, you
know. But he didn't just show up.

456
00:31:38.119 --> 00:31:41.960
He paid his dues. You know, he took some creative risks.

457
00:31:41.960 --> 00:31:42.920
But you know, I want to
say, get Out was made for what

458
00:31:44.039 --> 00:31:48.119
less than five million dollars, you
know, and that did I think they

459
00:31:48.160 --> 00:31:51.960
did over one hundred and you know
it didn't. I think it did like

460
00:31:51.960 --> 00:31:56.279
two hundred something. It was some
crazy number. And what a brilliant movie

461
00:31:56.359 --> 00:32:00.480
it was. It was just so
fresh right in. But with that,

462
00:32:00.480 --> 00:32:04.160
that's one of those you know,
he was with the Bloomhouse guys, so

463
00:32:04.440 --> 00:32:07.599
then that's a whole other conversation with
Bloomhouse has been able to do and they've

464
00:32:07.599 --> 00:32:12.680
been so smart. So that that's
one of my other points as an indie

465
00:32:12.720 --> 00:32:17.359
filmmaker. Don't comp yourself to a
lightning strike. Okay, oh that's great.

466
00:32:17.400 --> 00:32:21.039
I like that. Yeah, like, oh yeah, my movie's just

467
00:32:21.160 --> 00:32:25.480
like ceronormal activity. My movie's just
like Blair Witch projects. Yeah, we're

468
00:32:25.480 --> 00:32:29.319
all aware of the outliers, right, It's like, you know what,

469
00:32:29.519 --> 00:32:31.279
Actually, when I was working at
Disney, the first movie I got to

470
00:32:31.319 --> 00:32:37.720
work on was Lion King. Okay, and this is something I learned every

471
00:32:37.759 --> 00:32:42.119
other movie, animated movie that came
out after Lion King was the next Lion

472
00:32:42.200 --> 00:32:46.119
King. And the problem is they
were all very successful, but they didn't

473
00:32:46.119 --> 00:32:50.759
do what Lion King did, so
they were deemed failures. And so it's

474
00:32:50.839 --> 00:32:53.640
kind of like, don't benchmark yourself
for an outlier. I think the key

475
00:32:53.680 --> 00:32:58.319
thing in an independent film is that
you've got to set yourself up where singles

476
00:32:58.359 --> 00:33:00.400
and doubles are a good thing.
But if you hit a home run,

477
00:33:00.839 --> 00:33:04.960
you're great, right, But you're
playing for the singles and doubles, like,

478
00:33:05.039 --> 00:33:07.480
get on base, just get on
base. You know, that sets

479
00:33:07.519 --> 00:33:10.480
you up for your next project,
your next thing, And if you hit

480
00:33:10.519 --> 00:33:15.519
a home run, you're ready to
go. And it's kind of like every

481
00:33:15.559 --> 00:33:17.759
project I look at now, it's
like, how do I get back to

482
00:33:17.799 --> 00:33:22.039
break even? Right? Failure should
be break even, and I want to

483
00:33:22.079 --> 00:33:25.480
know that I've got a plan for
break even, and then how do I

484
00:33:25.519 --> 00:33:30.200
set myself up? Will this is
this movie capable of a disproportionate return,

485
00:33:31.240 --> 00:33:36.000
right, And the disproportionate return is
that big you know, the Juno type

486
00:33:36.039 --> 00:33:38.519
number, the Napoleon Dynamite type number, the get out type number. It's

487
00:33:38.559 --> 00:33:43.400
like, but you're not banking on
the breakout. You're banking on a single

488
00:33:43.519 --> 00:33:46.200
or a double. Have you been
Have you been listening to my podcaster,

489
00:33:46.359 --> 00:33:50.960
because you literally said the exact thing
I've said so many times. With my

490
00:33:51.000 --> 00:33:54.480
baseball analogy, I go, everybody
wants to go up to bat and hit

491
00:33:54.519 --> 00:33:59.880
a home run, but most people
when they make their first movie haven't even

492
00:33:59.920 --> 00:34:04.839
been in a baseball stadium or picked
up a bat before, and they're expecting

493
00:34:04.839 --> 00:34:07.960
to hit a home run at the
beginning, where there's that other guy or

494
00:34:07.000 --> 00:34:12.960
girl who's been in the batting cage
just hitting away, hitting away, hitting

495
00:34:12.960 --> 00:34:15.599
away, and just practicing until they
finally get their shot up at bat.

496
00:34:16.280 --> 00:34:22.000
You know, it's fascinating that the
egotistic mind of the filmmaker, which there

497
00:34:22.039 --> 00:34:24.199
is a few egos in our business, just a few, not many,

498
00:34:25.239 --> 00:34:30.159
but we have these delusions of grandeur
as filmmakers. I definitely had for many

499
00:34:30.239 --> 00:34:34.280
years. You know, I was
going to be the next this, or

500
00:34:34.440 --> 00:34:37.239
my film was going to do this
thing. I'm sure you've run into this

501
00:34:37.320 --> 00:34:40.039
many times, so I'm fantasy to
Indie Hustle. I won't reveal my sources,

502
00:34:40.159 --> 00:34:45.719
okay, but I appreciate that.
Yeah, I run into it all

503
00:34:45.760 --> 00:34:47.719
the time. It's a process,
right, and you're gonna pay your dues.

504
00:34:47.760 --> 00:34:50.880
You've got to learn right. And
by the way, there's a ton

505
00:34:50.920 --> 00:34:53.639
of people out there that will help
you as an indie filmmaker. You've got

506
00:34:53.639 --> 00:34:57.880
to build up your network, find
the people that can help you and advise

507
00:34:57.920 --> 00:35:00.920
you. There's a lot of people
that will give you advice for relatively free.

508
00:35:00.199 --> 00:35:04.760
Don't pay for the advice yet,
you know, you know verify.

509
00:35:04.800 --> 00:35:07.039
It's like, I see a lot
of people getting suckered by paying people to

510
00:35:07.880 --> 00:35:12.400
market their movies when they haven't fully
vetted them, and they make bad deals

511
00:35:12.400 --> 00:35:15.079
and so on. There's a lot
of people out there that will advise you

512
00:35:15.119 --> 00:35:17.599
as an indie filmmaker. There's a
lot of resources out there available to you.

513
00:35:17.920 --> 00:35:22.320
But remember it's a slog and you
know, I mean, my hat's

514
00:35:22.320 --> 00:35:25.199
off to anyone who actually makes a
movie. Because a movie, even if

515
00:35:25.239 --> 00:35:29.880
it's shot on your iPhone and it's
edited and put together, it's a it's

516
00:35:29.920 --> 00:35:34.000
a pretty significant creative accomplishment, no
matter, you know, just to actually

517
00:35:34.000 --> 00:35:37.800
pull that all together right, getting
people to perform and so on. I

518
00:35:37.800 --> 00:35:39.840
mean, when when you've been on
sets of on indies, you know,

519
00:35:40.239 --> 00:35:44.199
I enjoy indies because there's there's a
lot of less, there's a lot of

520
00:35:44.239 --> 00:35:49.360
les, less, roomful waste.
So everybody's very mission focused and usually that

521
00:35:49.599 --> 00:35:52.880
crew is tight man. It's like
they will do that. They're in battle

522
00:35:52.920 --> 00:35:53.960
man, and they're going to get
the shots, they're going to get the

523
00:35:54.039 --> 00:36:01.039
coverage. And you know that your
indie director is the ultimate team leader because

524
00:36:01.119 --> 00:36:05.840
he doesn't have money to throw around
the way a big studio director might have.

525
00:36:06.320 --> 00:36:07.440
Right, like, you got to
do this for the passion. You've

526
00:36:07.440 --> 00:36:13.760
got to enroll your entire cast and
crew in your vision for what you're doing.

527
00:36:13.800 --> 00:36:17.119
And that isn't easy. That takes
a lot of practice. That's why

528
00:36:17.119 --> 00:36:22.280
it's like working on other people's movies
is really one of the best ways to

529
00:36:22.400 --> 00:36:27.920
learn because you're in this together,
your problem solved together without without questions.

530
00:36:28.000 --> 00:36:31.960
Preach, sir, preach, preach. Now, we wanted to talk a

531
00:36:32.000 --> 00:36:36.840
little bit about distribution and distribution options
for dependent filmmakers. You know, I've

532
00:36:36.880 --> 00:36:40.639
talked a lot about distribution on my
show and on my other show, Film

533
00:36:40.679 --> 00:36:45.039
Entrepreneur, where is about how to
get your film out there, And the

534
00:36:45.159 --> 00:36:51.840
landscape is changing so rapidly every other
month, there's something new What was true

535
00:36:52.360 --> 00:36:57.880
last year is no longer true today
in every its streaming and theatrical and on

536
00:36:57.960 --> 00:37:01.360
demand and DVD, all of it. You know these legacy models, I

537
00:37:01.400 --> 00:37:06.719
call it the legacy distribution models,
which were basically designed by the studios and

538
00:37:06.760 --> 00:37:09.840
the larger distribution companies to keep more
money in their own pockets because they're businesses.

539
00:37:09.880 --> 00:37:14.079
I get it. And we've all
heard those kind of predatory stories of

540
00:37:14.119 --> 00:37:17.519
the filmmaker signing the their movie away
for fifteen years and never seeing a dime.

541
00:37:17.679 --> 00:37:22.159
We've all heard those stories. What
are the distribution options that we have

542
00:37:22.920 --> 00:37:28.079
as independent filmmakers moving forward? From
your point of view, Well, look,

543
00:37:28.280 --> 00:37:32.760
the number one predictor of downstream revenue, you know, ironically, right,

544
00:37:32.920 --> 00:37:37.360
everyone's talking about all the disruption,
all the stuff that's going on,

545
00:37:37.400 --> 00:37:40.480
the chaos of streaming with Amazon,
Hulu, Netflix coming on board, how

546
00:37:40.519 --> 00:37:45.840
the studios are struggling and so on, but still the number one predictor of

547
00:37:45.880 --> 00:37:52.519
downstream revenues for a movie is the
US domestic box office. And it's like

548
00:37:53.000 --> 00:37:58.320
that brings a lot of clarity to
all the discussions that are happening around the

549
00:37:58.320 --> 00:38:04.159
world and in the space. Right
is the number one predictor of overall profitability.

550
00:38:04.280 --> 00:38:07.880
And what I mean by that is
it still sets most of the downstream

551
00:38:07.960 --> 00:38:13.639
revenue streams. So if you have
a guaranteed domestic release with a reputable domestic

552
00:38:13.679 --> 00:38:17.840
distributor on say one thousand screens,
your foreign value goes up by four or

553
00:38:17.880 --> 00:38:23.320
five x, maybe even more depending
on the package. Right, So that

554
00:38:23.440 --> 00:38:27.599
is still the number one way to
go, But the problem is it's really

555
00:38:27.639 --> 00:38:30.719
hard to get there, which is
why you want to have the option of

556
00:38:31.079 --> 00:38:35.199
bringing your own P and A if
you can, because that gives you the

557
00:38:35.239 --> 00:38:38.920
option to release yourself and manage it
yourself. However, if your budget's right,

558
00:38:39.639 --> 00:38:44.760
you can still get enough money out
of foreign and if you structure it

559
00:38:45.280 --> 00:38:49.880
taking advantage of tax credits and things
like that, you know, you can

560
00:38:49.920 --> 00:38:53.079
then release also directly to an HBO
or a Netflix or a Hulu or an

561
00:38:53.119 --> 00:38:57.480
Amazon. Right now, you can
also get ordered. You can also get

562
00:38:57.480 --> 00:39:00.719
your product ordered and paid for ahead
of time in some case by those guys

563
00:39:00.920 --> 00:39:05.000
if you if you're hitting something that
they know that they have a need for

564
00:39:05.239 --> 00:39:08.800
or a niche. But if you're
an unknown that's pretty hard, you know.

565
00:39:09.000 --> 00:39:13.000
So at the end of the day, you can you can self release

566
00:39:13.079 --> 00:39:15.719
digitally. You can put it on
a digital platform yourself. The problem is

567
00:39:15.800 --> 00:39:21.599
you still need someone to find your
movie, you know, the marketing.

568
00:39:22.000 --> 00:39:25.400
You can't release a movie without marketing. You have to have a marketing plan.

569
00:39:25.920 --> 00:39:29.440
You might have the best movie in
the world. You might have the

570
00:39:30.000 --> 00:39:32.320
you know, you might have the
next Napoleon Dynamite, for example, but

571
00:39:32.360 --> 00:39:36.400
if people can't find it and don't
know about it, you're never going to

572
00:39:36.400 --> 00:39:38.239
build up that word of mouth.
So you've got to have some kind of

573
00:39:38.239 --> 00:39:44.239
strategy for releasing when you're making the
movie, right, so you've got a

574
00:39:44.239 --> 00:39:47.440
couple of marketing in with it.
I mean, the distribution landscape is really

575
00:39:47.480 --> 00:39:52.920
complex. Right now, you've got
windows collapsing. We'll be right back after

576
00:39:52.960 --> 00:40:01.400
a word from our sponsor and now
back to the show. So it's kind

577
00:40:01.400 --> 00:40:05.239
of you know, it used to
be that you would make a fair amount

578
00:40:05.239 --> 00:40:07.639
of your money on the theatrical release. If you could recover most of your

579
00:40:07.639 --> 00:40:12.199
marketing money and the theatrical release,
that was a good thing because then you

580
00:40:12.239 --> 00:40:15.159
could try and recover your negative in
the downstream. Right. You know,

581
00:40:15.199 --> 00:40:21.000
the streaming services used to pay a
percentage of the domestic box office this TV

582
00:40:21.119 --> 00:40:24.920
syndication would pay a percentage of the
domestic box office and then your your your

583
00:40:25.000 --> 00:40:30.280
digital and DVD in Blu ray.
You know digital being transactional. If you

584
00:40:30.320 --> 00:40:32.760
pay to watch it again like a
pay per view, or you buy it

585
00:40:32.800 --> 00:40:37.519
digitally on iTunes. That used to
be most of the profit of a movie,

586
00:40:38.239 --> 00:40:43.920
right, But that's collapsing with the
advent of streaming. That's that's that's

587
00:40:43.960 --> 00:40:47.239
where that that's where the industry is
in a scramble because all that that secondary

588
00:40:47.320 --> 00:40:53.159
transactional revenue is shrinking. And what
I call transactional revenue is again if a

589
00:40:53.199 --> 00:40:59.159
consumer pays to watch it again,
either by renting it on video on demand

590
00:40:59.360 --> 00:41:02.079
or buying it on iTunes, or
buying a DVD or buying a Blu Ray.

591
00:41:02.400 --> 00:41:05.960
And by the way, you know
people are still buying DVDs and Blu

592
00:41:06.079 --> 00:41:08.440
rays. You have a if you
have a big screen TV and you've got

593
00:41:08.440 --> 00:41:14.480
the biggest ultra high definition screen,
the best way to watch your best sci

594
00:41:14.519 --> 00:41:17.119
fi movie, these Marvel movies,
I would argue, it's still on a

595
00:41:17.159 --> 00:41:22.239
Blu Ray. It's the best way
to replicate what you saw in theater.

596
00:41:22.840 --> 00:41:27.840
Because of transfer rates, buffer rates
and all of that stuff is changing,

597
00:41:28.159 --> 00:41:30.719
but you know, each of these
are individual segments that I still think.

598
00:41:31.000 --> 00:41:37.519
I still think physical media of some
form or digital media is that's the legacy

599
00:41:37.559 --> 00:41:40.000
platform. That's where as a filmmaker
you get to explain your journey, you

600
00:41:40.039 --> 00:41:43.920
get you know, that's where people
will discover your movie. And I think

601
00:41:43.960 --> 00:41:46.960
that's something we do have to solve
for. And I know previously a lot

602
00:41:46.960 --> 00:41:52.400
of talk going on about blockchain and
how that can apply to how consumers can

603
00:41:52.440 --> 00:41:55.320
transfer rights and how they can renew
right. Explain explain that to people,

604
00:41:55.320 --> 00:41:59.960
because I know a lot of people
don't understand blockchain, so I don't underst

605
00:42:00.039 --> 00:42:02.760
stand it fully, so I'm going
to qualify it. But what I understand

606
00:42:02.840 --> 00:42:07.400
is that it's basically it's this amazing
certification where if you have a share certificate

607
00:42:07.480 --> 00:42:10.920
or it's like having a dollar and
I'm not talking bitcoin, but if you

608
00:42:12.000 --> 00:42:15.840
buy the right to a movie,
So let's say you buy the right,

609
00:42:15.000 --> 00:42:20.800
I can only imagine you pay twelve
dollars or fifteen dollars right through blockchain technology,

610
00:42:20.800 --> 00:42:23.639
it will identify that I'm the legal
owner of that digital copy of that

611
00:42:23.719 --> 00:42:28.159
file. That means it can't be
pirated. It can't be taken away from

612
00:42:28.159 --> 00:42:31.360
me. But that blockchain also identifies
that the Urban Brothers own the copyright to

613
00:42:31.400 --> 00:42:37.719
that file as well, right,
So it's kind of like this perfect aligning

614
00:42:37.800 --> 00:42:42.559
of rights where it's encrypted and protected. So I have the right to that

615
00:42:42.599 --> 00:42:45.320
movie. I can now sell that
to you if I want to. I

616
00:42:45.360 --> 00:42:49.519
can sell it to you for seven
dollars or eight dollars, but I own

617
00:42:49.559 --> 00:42:52.800
that right and I can certify that
I have that right. So like DVD's

618
00:42:52.840 --> 00:42:57.239
Blue RESERVEE just any physical media you
could do that with as well. Yeah,

619
00:42:57.320 --> 00:43:00.360
except for with blockchain, you won't
be able to rip it and I

620
00:43:00.360 --> 00:43:02.880
won't be able to share it.
So for the studios and for the people

621
00:43:02.880 --> 00:43:06.599
that are making movies, I mean, let's face it, piracy has been

622
00:43:06.639 --> 00:43:12.360
a bane on the business since you
know, its just since smart cams and

623
00:43:12.440 --> 00:43:17.920
bhs, right, and piracy is
not is a major issue because the creators,

624
00:43:19.679 --> 00:43:22.679
we have so many challenges actually making
money on our movie anyway getting it

625
00:43:22.679 --> 00:43:27.960
through the traditional system. People are
taking it for free and actually making money

626
00:43:27.960 --> 00:43:30.440
off of what you've created. So
you know, piracy is not one of

627
00:43:30.480 --> 00:43:36.000
those victimless crimes. I really I
don't believe it's a victimless crime. People

628
00:43:36.079 --> 00:43:38.960
are selling it and making money without
actually putting the investment in the time in

629
00:43:39.320 --> 00:43:43.920
and people that have worked on the
movie are therefore not getting paid. I

630
00:43:43.920 --> 00:43:45.679
mean, that is a fundamental problem, and I think that is one of

631
00:43:45.719 --> 00:43:51.440
those things that the blockchain technology can
actually help address and fix. I don't

632
00:43:51.440 --> 00:43:53.800
think it's there yet, but I
think that's the promise of it. That's

633
00:43:53.840 --> 00:43:58.400
the way studios are looking at it, that's the way content creators are looking

634
00:43:58.400 --> 00:44:00.199
at it, and distributors are going, Okay, how do I make sure

635
00:44:00.239 --> 00:44:05.000
this happens. I mean the irony
is, you know, you broke the

636
00:44:05.039 --> 00:44:07.760
story about the digital platform, the
aggregator, Yeah, the Disugar product form.

637
00:44:07.880 --> 00:44:12.920
Yes, that kind of went sideways
or went under and people lost a

638
00:44:13.000 --> 00:44:16.199
lot of money. The funny thing
is is that when you're selling Blu rays

639
00:44:16.199 --> 00:44:20.599
and DVDs, there's an audit trail
that goes with that. It's like I

640
00:44:20.719 --> 00:44:24.440
know that I shipped these discs to
that retailer, and that retailer then sold

641
00:44:24.440 --> 00:44:28.000
them and I got paid, and
I can trace the money all the way

642
00:44:28.000 --> 00:44:31.840
coming back. Right with digital technology, ironically, even with the downloading and

643
00:44:31.920 --> 00:44:37.719
the you know, the digital downloading
on iTunes and Amazon. It's almost impossible

644
00:44:37.719 --> 00:44:42.559
to audit even though there should be
a one relationship, there should be a

645
00:44:42.639 --> 00:44:46.880
trail that says, my credit card
was charged fourteen dollars for the movie.

646
00:44:47.039 --> 00:44:50.519
Therefore, the studio should be able
to know that. You know, I

647
00:44:50.599 --> 00:44:53.079
can follow that revenue all the way
through the system. It's not it's not.

648
00:44:53.440 --> 00:44:55.800
That's how it should be, but
it doesn't work that way. Yeah.

649
00:44:55.840 --> 00:44:59.360
I was always wondering that myself,
because I'm like, who, Like,

650
00:45:00.400 --> 00:45:02.039
how do I really know how much
money has come in? There's no

651
00:45:02.119 --> 00:45:06.199
way to actually check it. There's
no way to audit it. I'm trusting

652
00:45:06.239 --> 00:45:09.360
Amazon, I'm trusting iTunes, I'm
trusting all of them. They could easily

653
00:45:09.400 --> 00:45:14.079
be siphoning off I'm not saying they
are, but easily by either by error

654
00:45:14.239 --> 00:45:16.880
or whatever. But we can't really
prove that we got all the money that

655
00:45:16.920 --> 00:45:22.559
we get, right. There's there's
quite a few opportunities for leakage in the

656
00:45:22.559 --> 00:45:27.079
current system. Yeah, there was
a well there was there was leakage when

657
00:45:27.079 --> 00:45:31.039
you were shipping DVDs because people could
make copies of DVDs and they could rip

658
00:45:31.079 --> 00:45:34.599
them and then they put them they
put them on the internet. And then

659
00:45:34.599 --> 00:45:37.000
they're sharing them through bittarrents and all
that kind of stuff, and you know

660
00:45:37.119 --> 00:45:39.960
that that's a constant process. And
you know, that's where I think,

661
00:45:40.000 --> 00:45:44.920
again, just coming back to my
limited knowledge of blockchain, that's where blockchain

662
00:45:45.199 --> 00:45:49.480
is the promise to actually shut that
down. But it also will I think

663
00:45:49.480 --> 00:45:52.480
it also has the potential to create
a whole secondary and tertiary market for the

664
00:45:52.480 --> 00:45:55.480
content that we've all bought. Right, So, the days of us having

665
00:45:55.519 --> 00:46:00.960
our big physical libraries, you know, of us owning all favorite movies and

666
00:46:00.000 --> 00:46:04.599
having them on DVD and Blu ray, I think what's going to happen is

667
00:46:05.000 --> 00:46:08.280
we're gonna have a digital library.
I think our absolute favorite movies we're gonna

668
00:46:08.280 --> 00:46:13.440
want on whatever the hottest format is
that's going to give us the best experience

669
00:46:13.519 --> 00:46:15.519
at home. So there's a handful
of movies that we're gonna want to own

670
00:46:16.360 --> 00:46:20.880
physically and we'll rebuy a'lla Star Wars. Right, going back to your first

671
00:46:20.920 --> 00:46:25.079
question, right, when Star Wars
comes out again and it's ultra high definition

672
00:46:25.599 --> 00:46:30.840
and there's all these interactive features and
you've now got a you know, a

673
00:46:34.159 --> 00:46:37.880
holographic George Lucas who talks through the
entire movie for you exactly, and your

674
00:46:37.920 --> 00:46:42.480
TV is the size of the wall
in your house, and it's super high

675
00:46:42.519 --> 00:46:45.119
definition. You're gonna want to buy
it on that format for that movie,

676
00:46:45.400 --> 00:46:49.199
but the vast majority of other movies, you're probably going to be okay just

677
00:46:49.199 --> 00:46:52.760
to stream it right exactly, or
to wait until it comes on syndicated TV

678
00:46:52.920 --> 00:46:57.239
or pay TV that type of thing. If there's even TV, then who

679
00:46:57.239 --> 00:47:01.639
knows. It's all to be a
series of channel apps and everything's going to

680
00:47:01.679 --> 00:47:06.559
be over the top without without question. I mean, things are changing so

681
00:47:06.800 --> 00:47:08.400
rapidly. I mean, I mean, I again, I talked to this

682
00:47:08.440 --> 00:47:13.039
independent filmmaker so often, and I'm
always getting these questions like how do I

683
00:47:13.039 --> 00:47:15.000
make money? What do I do
this or that? And I've really tried

684
00:47:15.039 --> 00:47:20.239
to stay on the cutting edge.
And I love this this blockchain idea of

685
00:47:20.280 --> 00:47:22.840
yours, you know, or the
or the other promise of it, because

686
00:47:22.840 --> 00:47:25.880
it's basically, well, you know, for people who' understand block blockchain,

687
00:47:25.920 --> 00:47:31.039
it is the basis of cryptocurrency.
So it so that that then you have

688
00:47:31.079 --> 00:47:35.639
to you know, whoever wants to
learn about cryptocurrency please go do so that's

689
00:47:35.679 --> 00:47:38.639
a that's a deep well that we
will not cover in this episode, but

690
00:47:38.719 --> 00:47:45.079
that, but that technology does have
so much promise that I always got pissed

691
00:47:45.079 --> 00:47:46.760
about that too, because I come
from the video store days. When I

692
00:47:46.760 --> 00:47:51.199
worked in a video store where I
could buy my VHS or buy a DVD.

693
00:47:51.840 --> 00:47:53.559
I'd hold it and then when I
didn't want it anymore, I would

694
00:47:53.599 --> 00:47:59.079
sell it on Amazon or eBay.
Digitally, that does not exist anymore.

695
00:47:59.639 --> 00:48:02.639
You can't sell a digital copy unless
they bootleg it. And even if you

696
00:48:02.639 --> 00:48:07.239
bootleg it, you can't really sell
it in a digital way. You can

697
00:48:07.760 --> 00:48:12.760
there's other ways, there's other business
models. Inherently, as a consumer,

698
00:48:12.840 --> 00:48:15.360
I should have the right to sell
that right, I should be able to

699
00:48:15.360 --> 00:48:19.199
sell it to you, and you
know, and that's that's the stuff that

700
00:48:19.239 --> 00:48:22.119
I think blockchain actually enables, and
I think it's it's high time because the

701
00:48:22.159 --> 00:48:25.360
reality is when you do buy a
digital file, now you're not actually buying

702
00:48:25.360 --> 00:48:29.639
it. You're kind of renting it. Oh yeah, it's not I don't

703
00:48:29.679 --> 00:48:31.880
have it all to put on your
hard drive. But it's not like something

704
00:48:31.880 --> 00:48:35.800
else you buy that you can sell
to someone else. It's basically, yeah,

705
00:48:35.840 --> 00:48:37.960
I'm renting it. Oh and by
the way, if I change my

706
00:48:37.960 --> 00:48:40.440
cable company or something like that.
God forbid, I'm probably gonna lose it.

707
00:48:39.840 --> 00:48:45.960
It just that's it's that's the reality. Yeah, with our question,

708
00:48:45.199 --> 00:48:49.480
now, do you do you think
and I believe it is, but do

709
00:48:49.559 --> 00:48:53.440
you believe that niche based films are
the future of independent filmmaking Because I always

710
00:48:53.480 --> 00:49:00.320
tell people all the time that film
independent filmmakers can't do a giant like aromantic

711
00:49:00.360 --> 00:49:04.840
comedy, a broad spectrum film,
you know, a ten million dollar romantic

712
00:49:04.840 --> 00:49:07.920
comedy, unless there's some major star
power in it, and that story has

713
00:49:07.960 --> 00:49:12.840
to be really you're now you're you're
really trying to hit that target so perfectly,

714
00:49:13.440 --> 00:49:15.440
you risk a lot. Whereas in
if you I always use the vegan

715
00:49:15.519 --> 00:49:20.719
chef movie, you make a vegan
chef movie that's romantic and you could target

716
00:49:21.039 --> 00:49:23.440
that demographic a little bit. But
I'd love to hear your thoughts. Yeah,

717
00:49:23.519 --> 00:49:27.760
I think you have to have a
clear idea about who your core audience

718
00:49:27.880 --> 00:49:30.519
is. But you know, the
exception to that is, you know,

719
00:49:30.559 --> 00:49:36.800
you take a movie like The Big
Sick last year, right, Even Napoleon

720
00:49:36.840 --> 00:49:42.000
Dynamoe just one of my favorites because
it's illustrative, it's a small movie.

721
00:49:42.079 --> 00:49:45.239
You know who your core demographic is, but it has the ability to break

722
00:49:45.280 --> 00:49:51.719
out because it deals with the human
experience, right, And that for me,

723
00:49:52.079 --> 00:49:53.960
so it depends on you on your
genre and what you're doing. Right.

724
00:49:54.000 --> 00:50:00.440
So I tend to focus on content
that unites and inspires people. We'll

725
00:50:00.440 --> 00:50:07.639
be right back after a word from
our sponsor and now back to the show.

726
00:50:08.400 --> 00:50:14.000
And I gravitate towards stories which have
a broad appeal, even though I

727
00:50:14.039 --> 00:50:17.119
will know exactly who my core audience
is, right, So, if you're

728
00:50:17.119 --> 00:50:22.800
going to do a sci fi movie
that's a high tech and that's going to

729
00:50:22.840 --> 00:50:25.559
appeal to that subset, Yeah,
you've always got to know who your core

730
00:50:25.599 --> 00:50:28.880
audience is, and you've got to
know where they are and how to get

731
00:50:28.920 --> 00:50:30.880
to them. And you've got to
know that at the script stage, frankly,

732
00:50:31.719 --> 00:50:36.199
but you're always hoping that you're doing
Like again, for me, I'm

733
00:50:36.199 --> 00:50:39.400
looking for movies that have that breakout
potential, and they only breakout if they

734
00:50:39.400 --> 00:50:45.119
connect beyond that niche. Now,
now, faith based movies are interesting because

735
00:50:45.119 --> 00:50:49.719
in a way they're ultimate niche.
So much like horror movies are kind of

736
00:50:49.719 --> 00:50:52.440
a niche, they're a bigger,
more commercial niche. Right, But if

737
00:50:52.440 --> 00:50:53.760
you're going to do a faith based
movie for a niche, then you must

738
00:50:53.840 --> 00:50:58.360
do it for a budget, a
smart number, A smart nat You've got

739
00:50:58.400 --> 00:51:01.480
to do it for a rational number
because that's your core and you know that.

740
00:51:01.559 --> 00:51:05.400
You know it's going to be narrow
and deep. Right, it's like

741
00:51:05.480 --> 00:51:07.320
horror. You know that if you
get the core, and it'll be narrow

742
00:51:07.360 --> 00:51:10.519
and deep, but it has the
ability to run, right, it's like

743
00:51:10.599 --> 00:51:15.480
get out, Like get out,
yeah, exactly. I mean that's just

744
00:51:15.480 --> 00:51:17.559
a I wouldn't even consider that exactly
horror. But you're right. It was

745
00:51:17.599 --> 00:51:22.280
that Blumhouse model and it's like this
is they know what to do? You

746
00:51:22.320 --> 00:51:27.239
know? So so yes, I
think I think independent I don't think independent

747
00:51:27.239 --> 00:51:30.679
film is just is just niche.
But I think you've got to have a

748
00:51:30.719 --> 00:51:34.000
hook that you can hold onto,
right, Like when I read a script,

749
00:51:34.039 --> 00:51:37.320
I'm I read script backwards from most
creatives. I'm thinking, if I'm

750
00:51:37.360 --> 00:51:42.239
thinking of it from a distribution standpoint, and how am I going to market

751
00:51:42.280 --> 00:51:45.079
it? Where are the scenes that
are going to be in my trailer?

752
00:51:45.880 --> 00:51:51.119
You know what I'm thinking is that's
what I'm looking through. That's what I'm

753
00:51:51.119 --> 00:51:55.119
looking through. A script looking for
Does that help? Yeah, it helps.

754
00:51:55.199 --> 00:51:59.719
I mean I think that I agree
with what you're saying and that,

755
00:51:59.760 --> 00:52:02.880
but potential to break out is that
home run. So we you know as

756
00:52:02.880 --> 00:52:06.679
well as I do, we get
one maybe two of those a year,

757
00:52:06.880 --> 00:52:09.199
you know, if and then there's
maybe multiple levels of that breakout. So

758
00:52:09.239 --> 00:52:13.320
it could you know, if I
if I could only imagine made twenty five

759
00:52:13.360 --> 00:52:15.320
or thirty million dollars, you would
have been, you know, they would

760
00:52:15.360 --> 00:52:19.079
have been ecstatic, like, oh
my god, you know, because it

761
00:52:19.119 --> 00:52:22.840
was a super hit. But then
you occasionally get the grand Slam, which

762
00:52:22.880 --> 00:52:25.599
is, you know, tenfold of
what the budget is or something along those

763
00:52:25.639 --> 00:52:30.840
lines. But I do, I
truly believe that, again, keeping that

764
00:52:31.119 --> 00:52:37.039
when your budget goes higher, you've
got to have something to to hedge your

765
00:52:37.079 --> 00:52:42.480
bets. So it's either cast.
It's either it's either cast, story,

766
00:52:42.800 --> 00:52:46.239
niche, genre, something that's going
to hedge those bets to higher that budget

767
00:52:46.280 --> 00:52:51.599
goes. And then and I'm always
telling people to drop the budget as low

768
00:52:51.639 --> 00:52:55.639
as you possibly can while still being
able to create an MVP, a minimal

769
00:52:55.760 --> 00:53:01.079
viable product to get to realize your
dream, realize your vision, but get

770
00:53:01.119 --> 00:53:05.199
a product to the marketplace and not
just look at this as an art form.

771
00:53:05.320 --> 00:53:07.199
It is an art form, but
it is a business, and it

772
00:53:07.280 --> 00:53:13.880
is a very expensive art form to
work with. Do you agree? Absolutely.

773
00:53:13.920 --> 00:53:15.719
I mean, there's so many independent
creatives that I've come across that know

774
00:53:15.800 --> 00:53:20.920
exactly how to make a movie for
a budget, and that's that's a massive

775
00:53:20.960 --> 00:53:24.000
skill by itself. Got it.
But these days, you have to know

776
00:53:24.280 --> 00:53:28.840
how you're going to get that money
back to You can't just know that,

777
00:53:29.320 --> 00:53:31.320
you have to know the other part
as well. So it's kind of like

778
00:53:31.320 --> 00:53:35.360
like you're saying, if I'm going
to do a niche movie, you know,

779
00:53:35.400 --> 00:53:37.840
I'll use an example. If you're
going to do an inner city basketball

780
00:53:37.920 --> 00:53:43.760
movie, Yeah, okay, it's
probably not going to travel very well.

781
00:53:43.880 --> 00:53:45.280
You're going to have to make your
money in the US. Now. The

782
00:53:45.320 --> 00:53:49.920
markets are changing. Don't get me
wrong, it's changing. Maybe you can

783
00:53:49.960 --> 00:53:52.760
sell it in China if they stop
tweeting about it, you know, the

784
00:53:52.880 --> 00:53:54.559
NBA and they settle at hash.
But but you know what I'm saying,

785
00:53:54.599 --> 00:53:59.079
It's like, if you do a
very local movie, you've got to know

786
00:53:59.119 --> 00:54:02.960
that it's probably not going to travel
well. Therefore you make it that way

787
00:54:04.000 --> 00:54:07.199
and your distribution plan fits that accordingly, right, So you know that you're

788
00:54:07.199 --> 00:54:10.559
going to make all your money in
that local market and then anything you make

789
00:54:10.599 --> 00:54:15.480
overseas is going to be gravy.
It'll be incidental, but that's not core

790
00:54:15.519 --> 00:54:19.719
to my business plan. Right.
It's like a baseball movie. Do a

791
00:54:19.760 --> 00:54:22.519
baseball movie. There's only a few
countries in the world that it's really going

792
00:54:22.599 --> 00:54:27.079
to work. If you do a
movie about NFL football, you know,

793
00:54:27.159 --> 00:54:31.480
Blindside's probably like an exception that traveled
really well because it wasn't really about football

794
00:54:31.920 --> 00:54:35.639
and it was CenTra Bullet too,
and Canta Billick is a international star.

795
00:54:36.320 --> 00:54:38.320
Yeah, so that's not the example. But it's like, there are certain

796
00:54:38.360 --> 00:54:43.239
genres that you know that you know
are pretty niche and they're probably not going

797
00:54:43.320 --> 00:54:45.880
to break out, and you've got
to You've got to you've got to have

798
00:54:45.960 --> 00:54:50.320
that plan and that understand you've got
to be honest in the development stage of

799
00:54:50.360 --> 00:54:52.119
your movie. It's kind of like, you know, if I use another

800
00:54:52.159 --> 00:54:57.239
analogy, if you're in a let's
say you're in Colombia and you are a

801
00:54:57.280 --> 00:55:01.480
baker and you make this certain Colombian
pace that is very well known in that

802
00:55:01.559 --> 00:55:05.159
segment of the country, not even
the whole country, just that segment of

803
00:55:05.199 --> 00:55:08.039
the country. It's a niche product. But then you say, I'm going

804
00:55:08.119 --> 00:55:13.599
to throw in thirty million on this
pastry because I think the rest of the

805
00:55:13.639 --> 00:55:15.559
world is gonna and we've seen how
many products like that We've seen that are

806
00:55:15.719 --> 00:55:21.159
culturally great. But the second they
tried to break into the American market or

807
00:55:21.159 --> 00:55:23.639
another market, they just like,
I would never eat pig like it's trying

808
00:55:23.639 --> 00:55:29.239
to sound like a big mac in
India didn't go well yeah, well,

809
00:55:29.400 --> 00:55:32.000
well see now that gets into the
heart of the DNA of the creative right

810
00:55:32.840 --> 00:55:37.000
again, coming back to what our
company strategy is. Our game plan is

811
00:55:37.039 --> 00:55:42.239
to make movies that will work in
the US marketplace. That is one of

812
00:55:42.239 --> 00:55:45.280
the lenses that we use. It's
not everyone's lens, that's just our lens.

813
00:55:45.639 --> 00:55:49.079
They're going to be filmmakers that are
going to go, I only want

814
00:55:49.079 --> 00:55:52.320
a movie that's going to appeal to
the African audience, or it's only going

815
00:55:52.400 --> 00:55:54.440
to work for the Indian audience.
And by the way, I've got a

816
00:55:54.440 --> 00:55:58.760
business plan. It's going to work
just fine. Right, there's nothing wrong

817
00:55:58.840 --> 00:56:02.400
with that. That's that's totally Those
all viable options and plans, but you

818
00:56:02.440 --> 00:56:08.920
calibrate and scale your production appropriately.
Okay. But again for us, we're

819
00:56:09.079 --> 00:56:13.800
we're creating content that we believe well
and we're going to cast it and we're

820
00:56:13.800 --> 00:56:17.880
going to package it. We wanted
to work in the US marketplace because generally,

821
00:56:17.960 --> 00:56:21.559
if you can break it in the
US marketplace, it is a pretty

822
00:56:21.559 --> 00:56:25.840
good indicator that it will travel elsewhere. Yeah, and it's it's it's just

823
00:56:25.880 --> 00:56:31.119
fascinating. I've just seen. I
mean, I know of filmmakers like Isaac

824
00:56:31.679 --> 00:56:38.320
Nawaja who is a filmmaker in Uganda
and he makes films locally, and he

825
00:56:38.400 --> 00:56:44.480
created a whole industry in Uganda and
he makes his films for two hundred dollars

826
00:56:44.519 --> 00:56:49.039
two hundred dollars US. I think
that's really exciting for us exactly. And

827
00:56:49.079 --> 00:56:51.719
now Africa is turning into a whole
thing. I mean, there's a lot

828
00:56:51.760 --> 00:56:57.400
of Nollywood and all these kind of
wonderfuls. There's so much media growth potential

829
00:56:58.280 --> 00:57:00.280
right now, and it's a it's
a great thing. But the funny thing

830
00:57:00.360 --> 00:57:05.679
is, with Isaac's example, he
made these little two hundred dollar movies that

831
00:57:05.760 --> 00:57:10.480
were action really just fun and action, and the visual effects are horrendous and

832
00:57:10.599 --> 00:57:14.599
you know, according to our standards, but his audience has loved it.

833
00:57:14.840 --> 00:57:19.079
And then he cad a cult following
worldwide. So now he travels the world

834
00:57:19.159 --> 00:57:22.920
with these little movies. But he
had break up potential. But I promise

835
00:57:22.960 --> 00:57:27.519
you, because I interviewed him,
he had no indication of ever getting out

836
00:57:27.519 --> 00:57:30.559
of his little town. He but
he's going to break out. Yeah,

837
00:57:30.559 --> 00:57:34.000
he did already. He already is. And people like, where did this

838
00:57:34.000 --> 00:57:36.639
guy come from? Well, he's
been doing this for a long time.

839
00:57:36.679 --> 00:57:40.679
He didn't get forty here it is, right, forty features under his belt.

840
00:57:40.800 --> 00:57:45.559
Tyler Perry's a brilliant example of that. Yeah, just brilliant trot,

841
00:57:45.760 --> 00:57:51.119
just unbelievable. He saw a niche
that was completely underserved, which is the

842
00:57:51.400 --> 00:57:55.639
African American woman, right, Nobody
was catering to them at all. And

843
00:57:55.679 --> 00:58:00.639
he saw that opportunity and he saw
the opportunity for positive messaging and he filled

844
00:58:00.639 --> 00:58:06.679
that gap. And it's like,
kudos and credit to him as he saw

845
00:58:06.719 --> 00:58:09.519
that niche and he recognized what it
was worth and he committed himself to it.

846
00:58:09.760 --> 00:58:13.800
And it's just one of those amazing
success stories. But it wasn't an

847
00:58:13.800 --> 00:58:20.440
overnight success. It was a lot
of blood, sweat and tears and just

848
00:58:20.519 --> 00:58:23.800
a lot of courage. Frankly,
no, I remember seeing Diary of a

849
00:58:23.840 --> 00:58:27.599
Mad Black Woman when it first came
out, which was a big, huge

850
00:58:27.639 --> 00:58:30.039
deal. When it came out,
it was like, how can they make

851
00:58:30.039 --> 00:58:30.840
this movie? And there was a
lot of controversy and all this stuff.

852
00:58:30.840 --> 00:58:34.960
I remember that was like in the
nineties, if I remember, it was

853
00:58:34.960 --> 00:58:37.599
in the nineties when that came out
and he was just getting started. And

854
00:58:37.639 --> 00:58:43.079
now fast forward twenty nineteen, he's
got a studio in Atlanta that's bigger than

855
00:58:43.119 --> 00:58:45.760
Disney, Warners and Paramount all put
together. Yeah, isn't it cool?

856
00:58:46.079 --> 00:58:51.320
It's insane Those stories that get me
really excited. I mean, you know,

857
00:58:51.639 --> 00:58:52.880
Frankly, I mean there's a lot
of that stuff going on. So

858
00:58:53.119 --> 00:58:58.280
like ntb our Company to talk about
my company a little bit, sure our

859
00:58:58.360 --> 00:59:01.360
headquarters in South Africa, because there's
exciting stuff going on South Africa. What

860
00:59:01.480 --> 00:59:06.840
most people don't know is that all
the major studios Netflix and Amazon included are

861
00:59:06.880 --> 00:59:10.280
shooting down there because it doubles for
just about anywhere in the world. The

862
00:59:10.360 --> 00:59:15.559
exchange rate is fantastic. There's an
incredibly strong local crew down there, and

863
00:59:15.599 --> 00:59:20.079
there's a great accent centive. You
know. The problem is it's a long

864
00:59:20.159 --> 00:59:23.920
way away, but it's like there's
something exciting to me about building these industries

865
00:59:23.960 --> 00:59:30.199
and places in these more remote places
where technology is possible. It makes it

866
00:59:30.280 --> 00:59:34.719
possible, right and you get these
great crews and the quality of the production

867
00:59:34.840 --> 00:59:38.400
happening down there is remarkable. So
we're not exclusively producing movies down there.

868
00:59:38.559 --> 00:59:44.119
We just have a very strong proclivity
to want to do more down there because

869
00:59:44.159 --> 00:59:45.920
all the studios are doing it down
there. They see what we see.

870
00:59:46.119 --> 00:59:51.239
But what happens is all the IP
and all the upside comes back to the

871
00:59:51.239 --> 00:59:53.719
States or goes back to Europe,
etc. And it's like, we can

872
00:59:53.800 --> 00:59:57.320
do this, we can cast it
this way. We can create movies that

873
00:59:57.360 --> 01:00:01.480
are made for the American market because
it's already happening insideth Africa. Now we'll

874
01:00:01.519 --> 01:00:08.400
be right back after a word from
our sponsor, and now back to the

875
01:00:08.440 --> 01:00:14.199
show. And you know, South
Africa has just been a country that has

876
01:00:14.320 --> 01:00:20.159
consistently hit above its weight class,
shall we say, and with its message

877
01:00:20.159 --> 01:00:24.280
of diversity, it truly is a
remarkable place right now given its history,

878
01:00:24.480 --> 01:00:30.159
and I actually think South Africa being
a former South African has a message for

879
01:00:30.199 --> 01:00:32.639
the world right now in terms of
diversity, in terms of unity, in

880
01:00:32.719 --> 01:00:37.719
terms of kind of a message of
humanity and bringing people together. And I

881
01:00:37.719 --> 01:00:39.920
think it's what we all need right
now. And I don't know again,

882
01:00:40.000 --> 01:00:45.440
you can tell that's the kind of
content that really draws me, that draws

883
01:00:45.480 --> 01:00:49.519
me out, is stuff that brings
people together, where we share our common

884
01:00:49.599 --> 01:00:53.400
humanity and challenges us. And there
needs to be more producers like you out

885
01:00:53.400 --> 01:00:57.119
there, sir, doing doing the
good work that you're doing. So I

886
01:00:57.920 --> 01:01:00.599
thank you. I thank you very
much. I wanted to ask you,

887
01:01:00.599 --> 01:01:05.079
can you tell me about your new
project? I Am All Girls. Yeah,

888
01:01:05.280 --> 01:01:08.679
this one's a very cool little project
we did. It's a great INDIEA

889
01:01:09.280 --> 01:01:14.559
had a very talented director, Donovan
Marsh who did Hunter Killer with Gerard Butler

890
01:01:14.599 --> 01:01:17.920
that released last year, and coming
off that big movie, he wanted to

891
01:01:17.960 --> 01:01:22.800
do something that was kind of small
and personal but had an impact. And

892
01:01:22.840 --> 01:01:27.320
in South Africa, I don't know. A story had broken a couple of

893
01:01:27.400 --> 01:01:30.760
years ago about this human trafficking that
was going on in South Africa, and

894
01:01:31.360 --> 01:01:36.159
it became very clear that human trafficking
is a global plight. It's a massive

895
01:01:36.199 --> 01:01:38.559
problem that people don't want to talk
about, and it's happening in the US.

896
01:01:38.639 --> 01:01:42.239
It's not a South African problem,
it's not an Asian problem or a

897
01:01:42.239 --> 01:01:45.039
Middle Eastern problem. It's truly a
global problem. And your slavery has been

898
01:01:45.079 --> 01:01:50.199
a problem since the beginning of time. So we wanted to create a movie

899
01:01:50.239 --> 01:01:53.639
that was commercial, it was entertaining, but we wanted to explore the world

900
01:01:53.639 --> 01:01:58.159
of the people that actually go into
the human trafficking world to try and stop

901
01:01:58.199 --> 01:02:02.920
it and ascertain what the impact is
on those people. So this is kind

902
01:02:02.920 --> 01:02:07.559
of a crime thriller. It starts
off as kind of a vigilante movie,

903
01:02:08.000 --> 01:02:12.320
and you realize it starts off as
a serial killer movie, but then you

904
01:02:12.360 --> 01:02:16.639
realize it's a vigilante movie. And
there's a conflict between the investigating police officer

905
01:02:17.159 --> 01:02:23.639
who realizes that this killer might actually
be doing her work for her where she's

906
01:02:23.719 --> 01:02:30.320
constrained by the rules and the regulations. This vigilante is going to the place

907
01:02:30.320 --> 01:02:34.239
that she can't go, and you
know, she's she's torn by duty and

908
01:02:34.280 --> 01:02:37.039
she wants to do it the right
way. Now she's like, Okay,

909
01:02:37.039 --> 01:02:39.119
do I bring this person in?
And then she discovers the identity of the

910
01:02:39.199 --> 01:02:45.440
killer. So it's kind of a
very commercial thriller. We have. It's

911
01:02:45.000 --> 01:02:52.039
two female leads are two great South
African actresses, and it basically is based

912
01:02:52.039 --> 01:02:54.639
on real events. It's based on
stuff that actually occurred in South Africa in

913
01:02:54.679 --> 01:02:59.679
the nineties, but when you look
at the Me Too movement, you look

914
01:02:59.679 --> 01:03:02.599
at what going on. We wanted
to create a movie that would wake people

915
01:03:02.679 --> 01:03:07.320
up and want to get them more
involved in anti trafficking and just being aware

916
01:03:07.320 --> 01:03:10.519
of what's going on in their own
communities, and that's one of the reasons

917
01:03:10.519 --> 01:03:15.079
we created this movie. But we
recognized its entertainment as well, so we're

918
01:03:15.079 --> 01:03:20.960
going to entertain people. The cinematography
is stunning. We tested it in front

919
01:03:21.000 --> 01:03:24.719
of a US audience. We tested
just above the norms and above and well

920
01:03:24.760 --> 01:03:29.800
above the norms against the female targeted
audience. But you know, it was

921
01:03:29.840 --> 01:03:32.440
really gratifying to us, as more
than eighty five percent of the recruited audience

922
01:03:32.480 --> 01:03:37.000
in the US said they wanted to
get more involved in anti trafficking activities,

923
01:03:37.400 --> 01:03:42.639
and ultimately, for us as independent
filmmakers, that's the good housekeeping seal of

924
01:03:42.639 --> 01:03:46.960
approval for us, and actually We've
got a song from Pearl Jam on the

925
01:03:47.000 --> 01:03:54.480
soundtrack that that hit daughter and Nancy
Wilson from Heart saw one of the rough

926
01:03:54.519 --> 01:03:59.039
cuts of the movie and she was
so moved she actually did a cover of

927
01:03:59.079 --> 01:04:02.039
it that will just blow you away. And she is so talented. But

928
01:04:02.119 --> 01:04:08.199
this song just captures the energy and
the defiance and the brokenness and the strength.

929
01:04:08.239 --> 01:04:11.440
But just it really epitomized what we
created in the movie. And you

930
01:04:11.480 --> 01:04:14.960
know, and then happens. It's
really magical. That's amazing. I look

931
01:04:15.000 --> 01:04:16.960
forward to seeing that movie. So
you're doing good work out there, and

932
01:04:17.039 --> 01:04:20.599
I'm so I'm so glad that you
will be able to come on the show

933
01:04:20.639 --> 01:04:24.639
and talk drop some knowledge bombs on
the show. Now, I'm going to

934
01:04:24.679 --> 01:04:27.320
ask a few questions I ask all
of my guests. Sure, So,

935
01:04:27.599 --> 01:04:30.239
what advice would you give a filmmaker
trying to break into the business today?

936
01:04:31.039 --> 01:04:35.960
Get into the business, do something
and find people to learn from. Build

937
01:04:35.960 --> 01:04:40.400
a network. Start building your network
right now where you are. Whoever you

938
01:04:40.440 --> 01:04:43.199
went to film school with, those
are probably the guys you're going to work

939
01:04:43.239 --> 01:04:45.800
with again in the future. And
make sure your networks are all supporting each

940
01:04:45.800 --> 01:04:48.960
other. What is the lesson that
took you the longest to learn, whether

941
01:04:49.000 --> 01:04:56.199
in the film business or in life. Sure, if it's not coming together

942
01:04:56.559 --> 01:05:00.920
correctly, you know, be patient
and sometime it's not. Sometimes if it's

943
01:05:00.920 --> 01:05:04.079
not coming together, there's a reason
why, and you've got to be open

944
01:05:04.159 --> 01:05:08.239
to the possibility that maybe it's not
meant to be, and then you move

945
01:05:08.280 --> 01:05:12.239
on to the next So cut your
losses. There's kind of a balance between

946
01:05:12.280 --> 01:05:15.079
cutting your losses and being the stoic
champion of the movie. Right. If

947
01:05:15.119 --> 01:05:19.119
you're hearing the same answer again and
again from many people, it's probably about

948
01:05:19.199 --> 01:05:25.000
right. But you know, but
but don't don't let that crush your creative

949
01:05:25.000 --> 01:05:28.880
instinct. And I know that balance. But yes, and you don't have

950
01:05:28.920 --> 01:05:33.079
to win every battle, yes,
yes, especially in this in this business,

951
01:05:33.079 --> 01:05:36.880
it's very difficult to win every battle. Figure out which ones you must

952
01:05:36.960 --> 01:05:41.719
win and be okay to lose a
few. It's okay. Now, what

953
01:05:41.880 --> 01:05:47.360
was the biggest fear you had to
overcome when making your very first feature film?

954
01:05:46.800 --> 01:05:51.079
Uh, the biggest fear I had
to overcome and making it was actually

955
01:05:51.159 --> 01:05:56.880
it was based on a true story
and for me, my biggest fear was

956
01:05:56.920 --> 01:06:00.719
that we would accurately portray the line
of this person whose movie we did,

957
01:06:00.760 --> 01:06:04.239
and that was a movie called six
Below, okay, And we wanted to

958
01:06:04.280 --> 01:06:08.280
accurate, you know, because because
to me, when you're doing a true

959
01:06:08.280 --> 01:06:12.239
story of someone's life, it's a
sacred trust. And and I really wanted

960
01:06:12.280 --> 01:06:15.440
to make sure that we delivered on
that and and of course made it on

961
01:06:15.480 --> 01:06:17.519
time, of course, and on
time and on budget, sir, And

962
01:06:17.599 --> 01:06:21.159
on time and on budget. Yes. Now, what are three of your

963
01:06:21.159 --> 01:06:27.039
favorite films of all time? Oh, that's a rough question. I've got

964
01:06:27.039 --> 01:06:30.880
to say. Apocalypse Now is up
there? Patterns up there. There's definitely

965
01:06:30.920 --> 01:06:35.519
a Copola thing going there. Apocalypse
Now, mainly because one of my favorite

966
01:06:35.519 --> 01:06:39.800
books growing up I was a peculiar
kid, was Heart of Darkness. You're

967
01:06:39.880 --> 01:06:44.880
very peculiar kid. I love that
translation of it. It was just stunning

968
01:06:45.440 --> 01:06:50.760
and and uh, yeah, that's
that's probably it. And I've got this

969
01:06:50.840 --> 01:06:55.039
is this is not good but probably
dumb and dumber. Hey, you know,

970
01:06:55.119 --> 01:06:59.599
dumb dumber and something about Mary.
I mean, I love the far

971
01:07:00.239 --> 01:07:04.559
early work. Uh and and the
fact the fact that Peter Farley had just

972
01:07:04.599 --> 01:07:10.880
did The Green Book too is stunning
to me. And as a filmmaker,

973
01:07:11.360 --> 01:07:15.039
I love. I love his work, and he always has something more in

974
01:07:15.039 --> 01:07:18.280
his movies. Even he's crazy comedies, there's there's something just there's just such

975
01:07:18.280 --> 01:07:23.079
a great heart in there. The
wouldn't have been interesting though, to see

976
01:07:23.079 --> 01:07:27.320
Apocalypse Now by George Lucas, who
was originally slated to direct that movie.

977
01:07:28.360 --> 01:07:31.719
Yeah, that would have been an
interesting film. Well, you know one

978
01:07:31.719 --> 01:07:35.719
of my anecdotes with Francis Ford Coppola, so we were working on the DVD

979
01:07:35.840 --> 01:07:39.440
set. This might be the segment
you want to cut, but it's like

980
01:07:40.360 --> 01:07:45.760
what I'd say to young filmmakers,
just remember the thing that you're doing that

981
01:07:45.559 --> 01:07:49.239
gets you fired might be the thing
you were remembered for. And the reason

982
01:07:49.280 --> 01:07:54.440
why I say that is that mind
we did this whole thing with Francis Ford

983
01:07:54.480 --> 01:07:58.000
Coppola around the making of Pattern,
and you know, we did a special

984
01:07:58.119 --> 01:08:00.960
edition and so on, and he
talked about that opening scene and Pattern and

985
01:08:01.000 --> 01:08:06.119
that opening monologue and he was actually
fired. He was about to be fired

986
01:08:06.159 --> 01:08:13.800
off of Godfather. Apparently the South
story goes he was fired off of Pattern

987
01:08:13.840 --> 01:08:16.119
and he was about to be fired
off of Godfather when he won the Academy

988
01:08:16.159 --> 01:08:21.439
Award for Patent Okay, and that
So it's kind of funny how that works,

989
01:08:21.520 --> 01:08:25.359
right. This industry is not as
predictable as you would see him.

990
01:08:25.359 --> 01:08:29.600
It's not a straight line. And
you look at what a great filmmaker like

991
01:08:29.640 --> 01:08:32.119
that and the creative risks that he
took, and conventional wisdom at the time

992
01:08:32.239 --> 01:08:35.640
was that this scene sucks. Why
are you doing this? This is terrible.

993
01:08:35.960 --> 01:08:39.680
He got an Academy Award for it, and he got to finish The

994
01:08:39.720 --> 01:08:44.479
Godfather as a result of that,
and that's that's true story stuff. And

995
01:08:44.600 --> 01:08:49.199
imagine imagine The Godfather without Francis Ford
Coppola. You can't. There is no

996
01:08:49.239 --> 01:08:55.039
Godfather with out fresis for Copola,
you know. So I guess to the

997
01:08:55.039 --> 01:08:58.159
young filmmakers out there, it's not
a straight line. It can be a

998
01:08:58.159 --> 01:09:01.520
pretty bumpy road. And that just
stay the course, man, without the

999
01:09:01.600 --> 01:09:04.960
question. I promise you everyone listening
right now, whatever you think is going

1000
01:09:05.000 --> 01:09:09.520
to happen in your career, it
is not going to happen, not like

1001
01:09:09.600 --> 01:09:12.760
that. It's got to be different, exactly. And if it does happen

1002
01:09:12.880 --> 01:09:15.520
like that, God bless you,
be thankful. But if it doesn't,

1003
01:09:15.640 --> 01:09:19.399
just remember it. It's a marathon, not a sprint, exactly. Without

1004
01:09:19.479 --> 01:09:23.279
question, Simon, where can people
find you and more about your work that

1005
01:09:23.319 --> 01:09:27.079
you're doing well. I'm pretty much
on LinkedIn and we have a company website

1006
01:09:27.359 --> 01:09:30.680
and Tiba Pictures, so it's a
bit of a mouthful. I'll I'll put

1007
01:09:30.680 --> 01:09:33.840
it in the show notes somewhere on
the show antiv Pictures you can see more

1008
01:09:33.840 --> 01:09:38.439
about us and the stuff that we're
working on. So time. Thank you

1009
01:09:38.560 --> 01:09:40.840
very much, Simon. Thank you
so much for being on the show,

1010
01:09:40.920 --> 01:09:44.039
and I do appreciate you taking the
time out man terairis. Thanks Alex.

1011
01:09:44.079 --> 01:09:46.399
It's been a lot of fun.
I want to thank Simon for coming on

1012
01:09:46.439 --> 01:09:50.000
the show and dropping those knowledge bombs
on the Tribe today. Thank you so

1013
01:09:50.079 --> 01:09:53.800
much, Simon. If you want
links to anything we spoke about in this

1014
01:09:53.880 --> 01:09:58.720
episode, including links to his films, head over to the show notes at

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Bulletproof Screenwriting dot tv. Forward slash
three fifty eight. Thank you so much

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for listening, guys, As always, keep on writing no matter what.

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I'll talk to you soon. Thanks
for listening to the Bulletproof Screenwriting podcast at

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Bulletproofscreenwriting dot tv.