Speaker 1: You are now listening to the Someone's Favorite Productions podcast network.
Speaker 2: Hello there, and welcome back to the Disconnected. I am
Speaker 2: here with a label I've been trying to get for
Speaker 2: quite a long time. Solloscope Labs. Thank you for coming
Speaker 2: on with me today. Of course, thanks for having us
Speaker 2: since we got two of you. Can you introduce yourselves
Speaker 2: and your role at the company.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm Rachel Zern. I deal with all the DVD
Speaker 1: and Blu Ray aspects, and I work with Tom over here.
Speaker 3: I'm Tom Slanek. I work with Rachel for the shiny
Speaker 3: discs stuff. I also do the other aspects of home entertainment,
Speaker 3: which is digital download rental, licensing for streaming services, licensing
Speaker 3: for linear TV, a little bit international. Everybody wears multiple
Speaker 3: hats around here, so that's kind of kind of what
Speaker 3: we do.
Speaker 2: And one thing I was going to bring up later,
Speaker 2: but you kind of segued perfectly into its whole jump
Speaker 2: into it. Our Solloscope seems to do with a lot
Speaker 2: of educational opportunities. Is that a big part of what
Speaker 2: you guys do?
Speaker 1: Still, Yeah, that's it's not really our department, but yeah,
Speaker 1: we work with a lot of universities to have screenings there.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, the easiest way for a college or
Speaker 3: university to access our films is via one of the
Speaker 3: major services like Canopy is a big one, Alexander Street,
Speaker 3: you know, info Base, We most of our catalog is
Speaker 3: available across multiple educational streaming services. And even in the
Speaker 3: public library space is people like Hoopla. Sorry, they're they're
Speaker 3: great resources too. And again, if your local public library
Speaker 3: has access to Hoopla, people should take full advantage of that.
Speaker 3: And again you'll see not only our stuff with a
Speaker 3: bunch of other great stuff too.
Speaker 2: That's a good shout out. Not a lot of people
Speaker 2: take advantage of the library system right now, and not
Speaker 2: only is it robust, but it also makes them get
Speaker 2: more funding when their stuff is actually used. So I
Speaker 2: would say check that out.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, again getting back to the library question,
Speaker 3: I mean, people like Midwest Tape, Baker and Taylor. They've
Speaker 3: been great partners for us on the physical media side
Speaker 3: because they actually have dedicated staffs that actually talk to
Speaker 3: buyers and curators at the local library level and even
Speaker 3: like the larger library systems, So people forget that even
Speaker 3: though Blockbuster's gone away and Hollywood Video has gone away,
Speaker 3: and family video has gone away. Any regional business is
Speaker 3: basically all done. You have a great video store, probably
Speaker 3: in your own hometown, and that's your public library and
Speaker 3: you can get it for free with your library card.
Speaker 3: And again I'm happy to work with those distributors, as
Speaker 3: I know Rachel is too, because they do job making
Speaker 3: people aware of more stuff and it's great for the
Speaker 3: consumer because they get it at a you know, low
Speaker 3: to no cost basically.
Speaker 2: And since we're bringing it up, this has very little
Speaker 2: to do with a philloscope. So pardon me for just
Speaker 2: a second, but if you are in the middle of nowhere,
Speaker 2: don't have access to something great like this. Reminder two
Speaker 2: in the US, especially that Scarecrow Video has every single
Speaker 2: Soilloscope title and they rent nationwide as well for fairly cheap.
Speaker 2: That's true.
Speaker 3: Mark's a longtime friend of Oscope and again happy to
Speaker 3: support them as they've been super supportive of us since
Speaker 3: basically day one.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, speaking of day one, can you tell us
Speaker 2: about the history behind Oscope because it has been an
Speaker 2: interesting ride that includes the Beastie Boys.
Speaker 1: Yes, started with MCA of the Beastie Boys Adam the
Speaker 1: Auk back in two thousand and seven. Two thousand and eight.
Speaker 1: He was really passionate about film, so he wanted to
Speaker 1: start a production slash distribution. Personally, I was at south
Speaker 1: By Southwest. I was working the film portion of it.
Speaker 1: And this was two thousand and eight, I guess, and
Speaker 1: I saw him come up, and I'm a huge Bucy
Speaker 1: Boys fan. That's how I got into how I got
Speaker 1: into this. And I saw him come up and he
Speaker 1: was about to watch one of the films which we
Speaker 1: which a Soloscope ended up buying. It was a Bigfoot,
Speaker 1: not your typical big foot, not your typical big but
Speaker 1: but I chatted with him afterwards, not knowing that two
Speaker 1: years later I would start working for them.
Speaker 2: Wow, that's awesome. So you've been there, Gosh, it's almost
Speaker 2: fourteen years, Tom. How long have you been there?
Speaker 3: Rachel and I started basically around the same time. I
Speaker 3: started as a like DVD sales guy and January twenty ten,
Speaker 3: and I think, did you come.
Speaker 1: On board that I was an intern in twenty ten?
Speaker 3: Okay, so yeah, and I know that we hired you
Speaker 3: shortly after your internship, but I assumed that we came.
Speaker 1: Here officially to the eleven right.
Speaker 2: Yes, I have a friend that lives in Brooklyn, and
Speaker 2: probably once every couple of months, he's sends me a
Speaker 2: picture of the front little doorstop of us Pelloscope. It says,
Speaker 2: you got to come try to get him on the show,
Speaker 2: and now you're finally here, so I get to fulfill
Speaker 2: this Finally.
Speaker 1: I'm glad that we finally responded to an email.
Speaker 3: It's funny because we're usually really good at that. Unlike
Speaker 3: a lot of people in this business, we respond to emails.
Speaker 3: I'm not going to point fingers or name names.
Speaker 1: There's only about ten of us that work here, so
Speaker 1: it's a very small company, so communication should be should
Speaker 1: be strong.
Speaker 3: But internally well, yes, yes.
Speaker 2: I didn't feel ignored. I will say that I've had
Speaker 2: worse with the company being around for almost sixteen years
Speaker 2: now and everything that's happened with physical media during that time.
Speaker 2: I would love to hear how do you describe the
Speaker 2: catalog of ours solloscopes somebody else, because it's such an
Speaker 2: interesting and varied slate of films.
Speaker 3: Yes, I mean in the broadest sense, I tell people
Speaker 3: that a soloscope curates the best in American and international independent.
Speaker 2: Films.
Speaker 3: And whether that you like documentaries or you like narrative features.
Speaker 3: We've got something pretty much for everybody, whether they know
Speaker 3: it or not. There's a lot of discovery left meant
Speaker 3: to be had here.
Speaker 2: So i will say one of the things that I've
Speaker 2: enjoyed most about our solloscope you just brought up, and
Speaker 2: that is the documentaries. There are few boutiques that would
Speaker 2: be willing to invest in documentaries as much as a
Speaker 2: Solloscope has over the years, and there is never a
Speaker 2: shortage of interesting subject matter or good filmmakers or something
Speaker 2: that has come out, honestly, within just like the last
Speaker 2: six months, usually there's at least one or two that's
Speaker 2: always impressive, and that seems to be a hurdle that
Speaker 2: other boutiques have not taken on. Do you think there's
Speaker 2: a reason why or why Soloscope seems to find it important.
Speaker 3: I'm not sure why other people don't take as much
Speaker 3: advantage as they can. I think there's a lot of
Speaker 3: business reasons why they don't. When the streaming world kind
Speaker 3: of kicked in and Netflix realized that was a relatively
Speaker 3: inexpensive way to grab rights and have exclusivity, they did
Speaker 3: a lot to make a more traditional distributor, the full
Speaker 3: service distributor like we are that includes theatrical and Homemanner
Speaker 3: came in and libraries and educational and everything else. Makes
Speaker 3: a lot more challenging for us to have access to
Speaker 3: that material song for a while of air a good
Speaker 3: seven eight years, the big streamers are eating up all
Speaker 3: the high profile titles that maybe would see the light
Speaker 3: of day if they were in a But since the
Speaker 3: business kind of cratered a little bit and some there
Speaker 3: were some changes, you know, outside of their company and
Speaker 3: how things worked in the way that they approached original
Speaker 3: material things that pendulum has kind of swung back a
Speaker 3: little bit to people like us, where we'll actually treat
Speaker 3: a film and the subject matter or the subject being
Speaker 3: discussed as you know, being you know, is meaningful and
Speaker 3: important and deserving of a platform that's not just something
Speaker 3: that you're going to scroll past.
Speaker 2: On a on a TV screen. That makes a lot
Speaker 2: of sense to me. We probably should get into the
Speaker 2: thing that has been most compelling to me over the years,
Speaker 2: and that is the fact that I'm holding the four
Speaker 2: most recent titles that I've received in the mail from Ocilloscope,
Speaker 2: including one really interesting one. But the reason I have
Speaker 2: them is because I've been a member of the circle
Speaker 2: of trust for years. Now, can you give some of
Speaker 2: the details behind what the circle of trust is?
Speaker 1: Yes, So the circle of Trust is it's a year
Speaker 1: long subscription and I believe you get whatever release, whatever
Speaker 1: we release and the that year, and usually it's about
Speaker 1: twelve I think it's usually twelve to fifteen DVDs or
Speaker 1: Blue rays.
Speaker 2: It's usually ten titles. It's not based on the year,
Speaker 2: it's the next ten gotcha.
Speaker 1: Yeah, as fourteen years, but still a really great deal
Speaker 1: for ten titles at one hundred and forty dollars and
Speaker 1: it's either DVD or Blu Ray. So the fact that
Speaker 1: Blu Ray is the same price, it's great, Such a
Speaker 1: good deal.
Speaker 3: Yeah, And again it speaks to the culture of the company.
Speaker 3: When Adam founded the company, he wanted the Solloscope to
Speaker 3: kind of be seen as an indie label, not just
Speaker 3: an indie film distribut but also like a boutique brand
Speaker 3: because he was obviously a music guy, a record guy.
Speaker 3: He collected stuff and he wants people to have that
Speaker 3: kind of you know, tangible piece of whatever art that
Speaker 3: they're consuming. And the idea of Circle of Trust is
Speaker 3: that he wanted to kind of number one, kind of
Speaker 3: smooth out the billing when the company is just getting
Speaker 3: started and you have X amount of subscribers paying x
Speaker 3: amount of dollars will up front. That's how people like
Speaker 3: subpop and you know, touch and go and merge, you know,
Speaker 3: kind of smooth out their billing a little bit. But
Speaker 3: it also it's good for the consumer because they get
Speaker 3: a little bit cheaper and they know that it's they're
Speaker 3: going to have it before a store has it.
Speaker 2: So be on that. You also get fifty percent off
Speaker 2: of everything in the catalog for the entire time that
Speaker 2: you remember. Yes, and that's something I took advantage of
Speaker 2: when I first came on to get the big ones
Speaker 2: that I wanted that had already been released. But I've
Speaker 2: seen a couple of people always laugh because our Soloscope
Speaker 2: has a couple really trusty sales every year Black Friday
Speaker 2: for twenty or probably the most well known ones. But
Speaker 2: we're only twenty four hour sales, and so after that
Speaker 2: your s ol unless you're.
Speaker 1: A member exactly. Yes.
Speaker 2: One big thing too, though, is being a member you
Speaker 2: get access to things like this documentary God in Country
Speaker 2: that just came, not something that any of us had
Speaker 2: to pay for, It just came. We got an email saying, hey,
Speaker 2: we're just doing this to be nice. In the past
Speaker 2: two years, I got a shirt, really nice long sleeve
Speaker 2: shirt for free I got for the very first time
Speaker 2: from any boutique label. For anybody listening, we would love
Speaker 2: to get this lube from a from a company. Yes,
Speaker 2: all of these wonderful you know things have come. We've
Speaker 2: gotten stickers, We've got all kinds of stuff. Where where
Speaker 2: is that headspace come from? What? What do you what
Speaker 2: are you doing? Because that that's expensive.
Speaker 3: Well, since we again, like I said, we are a
Speaker 3: full service distributor. Part of the marketing of a film,
Speaker 3: you don't have to kind of reach out out to
Speaker 3: the exhibitors the arthouses that are showing these films. And
Speaker 3: we learned a lesson relatively early on. Not that early,
Speaker 3: I guess, but it was like when did Hell come out?
Speaker 2: Oh?
Speaker 1: Yeah, when we did the Yeah, we.
Speaker 3: Acquired a film called hal about the director Hal Ashby,
Speaker 3: who was a famous stoner and one of the choch
Speaker 3: key that we would make that record labels used to
Speaker 3: make to spiff out to record stores or whatever. We
Speaker 3: actually made some branded hal Ashby gummies to give to
Speaker 3: some of the exhibitors as a kind of like, hey,
Speaker 3: you know, would you play our movie and here's some
Speaker 3: gummies for you, like some CBB gummies, And there were
Speaker 3: so much demand for those. We actually sold more of
Speaker 3: those than we did at the disc and they thought was, well,
Speaker 3: you know this is great. Maybe what other things that
Speaker 3: are can we multipurpose? Obviously it's a promotional item, but
Speaker 3: people like it is utilitarian enough, you know, someone would
Speaker 3: actually want to buy it. So yeah, again, it's nothing
Speaker 3: serves only one purpose around here.
Speaker 2: I think I think if I remember right, I got
Speaker 2: rolling papers one time, lots of rolling papers.
Speaker 1: Yeah. We have a Soila soap, so yeah we have
Speaker 1: I think we have candles. Oh maybe not maybe not yet.
Speaker 3: Maybe.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: One thing that I should bring up celluloid. The game
Speaker 2: seems to be a big thing that Acilloscope is pushing.
Speaker 2: Oh look at that. I didn't even know you had
Speaker 2: it in your hand.
Speaker 3: Amazing.
Speaker 1: It's really great if you want to open that up.
Speaker 1: But yeah, it's like a film trivia game and you
Speaker 1: kind of you can kind of create your own rules.
Speaker 1: There's like suggested rules of how to play, but a
Speaker 1: lot of it is just like Movie Association or Film
Speaker 1: Association there's also TV nice do you want to just
Speaker 1: take you do that? But like the artwork on it
Speaker 1: is really nice. It's oh yeah, but just yeah, so
Speaker 1: like great artwork and just a lot of I don't know,
Speaker 1: a lot of different ways that you can decide how
Speaker 1: to play it. But it's a it's a fun film game.
Speaker 1: Film trivia games.
Speaker 3: You know, being part of the culture is something that
Speaker 3: Adam always wanted us to be and you know, for
Speaker 3: the longest time, you know, things kind of hit a
Speaker 3: bump with covid a Soloscope would host trivia nights for
Speaker 3: the local New York film community and the turnout was
Speaker 3: always great. Everybody would have a lot of fun, got
Speaker 3: real competitive with teams and stuff. It was always fun
Speaker 3: to try to come up with questions to stump the
Speaker 3: other panelists.
Speaker 1: It was known as one of the hardest trivia film
Speaker 1: trivia games in the city.
Speaker 3: And that's how we ended up here, yes with cellularly
Speaker 3: with an idea of just trying to make something for home.
Speaker 2: Yep, and anybody that has been deep in film trivia. No,
Speaker 2: that's that's a true bragging point to be able to
Speaker 2: be the most difficult one.
Speaker 1: The questions were very specific.
Speaker 2: Well, to answer those, you got to be rooted in cinema. So, Rachel,
Speaker 2: what's your history of film? I mean, you were at
Speaker 2: south By Southwest. What got you there?
Speaker 1: Yeah? Well, actually, so I went to college in Austin,
Speaker 1: and so I was studying advertising, but then working at
Speaker 1: south By Southwest, I was working the film part. I
Speaker 1: was a theater manager. So I saw all these awesome
Speaker 1: small films and I met all a bunch of directors
Speaker 1: and filmmakers, and it was really cool just to be
Speaker 1: a part of that scene. And so I became part
Speaker 1: of the film community in Austin. And then when Adam
Speaker 1: made a soloscope, I was like, oh, this is perfect.
Speaker 1: Let me just see if I get an internship. And
Speaker 1: that's how I got here.
Speaker 2: Very nice. I mean, that's a I'm sure a very
Speaker 2: related journey for me, most people as well that have
Speaker 2: gotten into this.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: And then my brother also introduced me to a lot
Speaker 1: of obscure films when I was younger, just forced me
Speaker 1: to watch stuff which I think really shaped who I am.
Speaker 2: Now, what about you, Tom, how'd you get here?
Speaker 3: A long strange trip? Really? It is quite long, to
Speaker 3: be expected, Like Rachel, I studied film a little bit
Speaker 3: in college. My approach was less on the production side,
Speaker 3: more about criticism, using film as a way to kind
Speaker 3: of analyze the life experience. And you know how a
Speaker 3: film is almost analogous to a novel at times. So
Speaker 3: I would write about films and you know, took different
Speaker 3: film courses, ended up working straight jobs for a couple
Speaker 3: of years out of college, ended up working in the
Speaker 3: music business for quite some time, and ended up at
Speaker 3: a Soloscope you know, pretty much by happenstance. The company
Speaker 3: was co founded by David Fenkel, who went to his
Speaker 3: wife went to summer camp with one of the artist
Speaker 3: manager's wives that I was working with. So again this
Speaker 3: is just getting.
Speaker 1: I didn't even know.
Speaker 4: Yeah, looking for a DVD sales guy, and they needed
Speaker 4: somebody who was, you know, knowledgeable and aggressive and kind
Speaker 4: of understood the culture and what they were doing.
Speaker 3: And somehow they managed to pick me. Fenkel you know,
Speaker 3: brought me in and we had a good conversation. We
Speaker 3: kind of hit it off, and called me the next
Speaker 3: day he said, you want to come in and meet Adam.
Speaker 3: I'm like, sure, why not? So I came in the city,
Speaker 3: talked to Adam, and you know, he and I kind
Speaker 3: of hit it off. We had some common people. You know,
Speaker 3: are some people in common because obviously, you know, he
Speaker 3: had a long history in the recording business. You know,
Speaker 3: I had a long history record labels, so there was
Speaker 3: some crossover at times, but I never actually worked directly
Speaker 3: with him on the music side. But we also we
Speaker 3: know people both on the artist management side and the
Speaker 3: label side that know each other. So again it's all
Speaker 3: very it's all very incestuous.
Speaker 2: Seems like the industry.
Speaker 1: Yeah, as you may know, David Finkel went off to
Speaker 1: start a twenty four.
Speaker 2: What Yeah, that's uh. That was one of the things
Speaker 2: that I was going to bring up is some of
Speaker 2: the some of the titles could could easily fit under
Speaker 2: that brand as well. But I'm really excited about a
Speaker 2: Soloscope's catalog because there's still some titles that you know,
Speaker 2: nowadays you would kind of just assume would be a
Speaker 2: twenty four films, but something like Wendy and Lucy, which
Speaker 2: you happen to have the poster above your head there.
Speaker 1: I actually have the DVD right here that.
Speaker 2: Was not blanned by the way, that was perfect. There.
Speaker 2: There's stuff like that, or we need to talk about
Speaker 2: Kevin that are these massive titles and somehow a Soloscope
Speaker 2: which doesn't get like a lot of mainstream attention. How
Speaker 2: have you guys been able to get some of these films?
Speaker 2: Like just bluntly, I guess that's the question. I'm sure
Speaker 2: the answer is knowing the right person at the festival.
Speaker 2: But there's some great pedigree in the catalog. Is the
Speaker 2: best way I want to say that.
Speaker 3: Well, the fact that we've been around for as long
Speaker 3: as we have and we've released the films that we've
Speaker 3: been able to release and either monetize them or make
Speaker 3: the public aware of them, to the point where the
Speaker 3: filmmakers and the producers realized that, you know, we're a
Speaker 3: real company and we really put our best forward and
Speaker 3: do the right thing for the films kind of has
Speaker 3: been speaking for itself, you know, in the early days
Speaker 3: with something like Wendy and Lucy. I mean, obviously, you
Speaker 3: know it's Kelly's I think her third film that she
Speaker 3: ever made, Kelly Records third film. And the fact that
Speaker 3: you know Adam was who he was is who he
Speaker 3: is as a spectral being made a big difference. You know,
Speaker 3: in the early days for a lot of access for
Speaker 3: some of the titles that a brand new company might
Speaker 3: not have the ability to get kind of grow from there.
Speaker 2: Really, Yeah, I want to make a couple of pointed
Speaker 2: questions and if they're too specific, let me know. But
Speaker 2: some of the titles have gotten very prolific, Like a
Speaker 2: lot of people know these so well. What do you
Speaker 2: think is the most distributed title from our solo scope?
Speaker 2: Is that something that is just known around the company
Speaker 2: like this has been the most popular title.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think we would say Ketty, which the posters
Speaker 1: up here as well, right there. I don't know if
Speaker 1: you're familiar with it, but it's a documentary about Turkish
Speaker 1: street cats. It's surprisingly interesting and there's so much emotion
Speaker 1: in it that you would you wouldn't expect. But that's
Speaker 1: definitely our one of our number one sellars.
Speaker 3: It's probably the most successful film that we've released.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it is.
Speaker 3: Actually shortly after release, it was the third highest grossing
Speaker 3: foreign language documentary of all time. I mean number one
Speaker 3: was you know, Babies, because you know it's about babies
Speaker 3: and people like babies and numbers. Number two at the
Speaker 3: time was Kina. The Erner Herzec film was then vendors
Speaker 3: I forget, but it was like it was one of
Speaker 3: those ones that it grossed well because it was shot
Speaker 3: in three D and exhibited in three D, so the
Speaker 3: tickets were higher. I feel like we've probably sold more tickets. Uh,
Speaker 3: and more people have seen Kenny than have seen.
Speaker 2: Film especially now. Yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah, but Kendy had a really really long life, many
Speaker 3: many lives in that movie.
Speaker 1: I think love Which as well has also love which.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I think that one just keeps going. People ask people,
Speaker 1: see memes about it, or just like see references to it,
Speaker 1: they watch it, and yeah.
Speaker 3: Embrace of the Serpent was a twenty seventeen ASCAR nominee
Speaker 3: for Best Foreign Language Film. That is I think our
Speaker 3: second highest grossing film of all time. If you haven't
Speaker 3: seen it, you should. If you like exotic adventures, it's
Speaker 3: for you. Beautifully shot, really really interesting story. Yeah, it's
Speaker 3: it's an evergreen for us too.
Speaker 1: Yep.
Speaker 2: The other big one I was going to bring up,
Speaker 2: Rare Exports, has gotten oh.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah great around this time and around Christmas time. Yeah,
Speaker 1: Rare Experts is a big seller.
Speaker 3: Now.
Speaker 2: The more personal question, do you guys each have a
Speaker 2: favorite one?
Speaker 3: We were talking about that's like asking who your favorite
Speaker 3: child is.
Speaker 2: Well, nobody's going to see this, like twelve people probably,
Speaker 2: so don't worry about anybody else knowing you personally. What's
Speaker 2: the one that you look at and go, this is
Speaker 2: the one I enjoyed the most?
Speaker 3: Well? For me, it changes pretty much anytime you want
Speaker 3: to ask me, but I most consistent, most consistently, I
Speaker 3: probably say terribly happy. If I don't know if you've
Speaker 3: seen it's a Danish film. It is kind of like
Speaker 3: early David Lynch meets Coen Brothers in Denmark.
Speaker 1: It's very good. My favorite film I have. I like
Speaker 1: a lot of the documentaries, but most recently Clay Dream
Speaker 1: I was really enjoyed. And Art and Craft. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: also J myself.
Speaker 3: Yeah, what's my favorite doc? J myself?
Speaker 1: Probably Yeah, just creative old white guys. That's that's my
Speaker 1: Those are my favorite, other.
Speaker 2: Than The Circle of Trust. What is the best way
Speaker 2: for people to support a soloscope.
Speaker 3: Shop at a soilloscope dot net? Yeah, yeah, yeah, borrow
Speaker 3: movies from.
Speaker 1: Your library if you can, Yes, canopy.
Speaker 3: Canopy for sure. If you're a college student. Retailers inteligently tough,
Speaker 3: because you know, we we've had you know, mixed successes
Speaker 3: with with some of the bigger chains. We're not in
Speaker 3: most of their change simply because they don't sell DVDs anymore.
Speaker 1: We're on Amazon.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Amazon's Amazon's a thing, for sure. It's certainly easy
Speaker 3: to get there.
Speaker 1: We have an Etsy page that has prints like this.
Speaker 2: I don't think I realized that we.
Speaker 1: Have some love which stuff.
Speaker 3: Some of our music docs are on band camp, so
Speaker 3: you can, you know, buy your discs there if you want,
Speaker 3: also buy some more vinyl.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, we have a lot of vinyl, A lot,
Speaker 2: I mean tons of stuff on the site. You've got
Speaker 2: the books. Yeah, one recently, Tangents just came out. I
Speaker 2: think that was last fall. Yeah, that was a big one.
Speaker 2: How is this possible that everything I bring up is
Speaker 2: within arms reach?
Speaker 3: Your conference room is also your stock world.
Speaker 2: I run a group through my channel as well, and
Speaker 2: when Tangents came out, this is one that a handful
Speaker 2: of people immediately like, Okay, I got to jump on
Speaker 2: this one. This is kind of an incredible choice. And
Speaker 2: it seems like with our Silloscope it's every time a
Speaker 2: title comes either through circle of trust or just happens
Speaker 2: to be announced as getting distributed. I have a group
Speaker 2: of people who are like Oh, this is kind of
Speaker 2: exactly made for me. How did they know I wanted this?
Speaker 2: And that's where I feel like a lot of companies
Speaker 2: are not curating as specifically as this, because like an
Speaker 2: Indigo Girls documentary is not going to come from Shout
Speaker 2: Factory or something. And I'm not trying to put them
Speaker 2: down or anything, it's just they're not going to care
Speaker 2: about something like that.
Speaker 1: It feels like we do have a lot of music documentaries,
Speaker 1: and I think that has to do with the BC
Speaker 1: Boys connection. But we're also we've been pretty successful at
Speaker 1: selling them putting it out, so we keep getting them well.
Speaker 2: And one of the big things it is a very
Speaker 2: specific tone to our telloscope that feels right at home
Speaker 2: in Brooklyn. How's that been being in the core of
Speaker 2: growth over the last sixteen years and through the home
Speaker 2: of culture for a lot of this.
Speaker 1: Well, we actually started in Manhattan. We were off Canal Street,
Speaker 1: so close to Chinatown in Tribeca. But that office was
Speaker 1: really cool because the recording studio was right across the
Speaker 1: hallway from us nice, so that was really neat. But
Speaker 1: we moved to Brooklyn in twenty sixteen, and it's cool.
Speaker 1: It's an old bike shop, but it's it's nice because
Speaker 1: we have a storefront this time, so people can actually
Speaker 1: see walk by and like see our brand. The we
Speaker 1: have a neon sign in front, and we have this
Speaker 1: old school wine and liquor sign that that's above us too.
Speaker 3: So basically every summer, a couple of times a week
Speaker 3: people think.
Speaker 1: That we're antique store, vintage store.
Speaker 3: Yes, you can go a couple of doors down because
Speaker 3: this is a giant sign from like the nineteen twenties. Yeah,
Speaker 3: it's really well the prohibition sign, neon sign that doesn't
Speaker 3: work anymore, but the building it's it's too expensive to
Speaker 3: fix and too expensive to take down, so it's there.
Speaker 3: So we get a lot of misdirected tourists.
Speaker 1: But we do have a couple of people come in
Speaker 1: that are actually as holoscope fans and are curious about,
Speaker 1: you know, our films and what we sell here.
Speaker 2: I hope to make the pilgrimage one day the near future.
Speaker 2: Anything that you can tease coming out, or things that
Speaker 2: you've announced as acquiring for digital maybe that hasn't been
Speaker 2: confirmed as coming on Blu.
Speaker 3: Ray, well pretty much everything that we least will be incredible,
Speaker 3: and at some point again we were going to geek
Speaker 3: out about the packaging and stuff, because this is also
Speaker 3: a big thing of Adams, is that this actual special
Speaker 3: wallet us again that's this is like a generation of that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so the one that you have only has four
Speaker 1: panels or yeah, yeah, I look at that.
Speaker 3: I'll show you we used to have that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, multiple, I got some of those over there too.
Speaker 1: Oh, I'm sure.
Speaker 3: But in the early days it was like we Adam
Speaker 3: worked with the printer to kind of create this special packaging.
Speaker 3: There's no no plastic in it other than the disc itself.
Speaker 3: The paper is eighty percent post consumer waste recycled. The
Speaker 3: printing was done at a printer that used only water
Speaker 3: and soy based inks and dies because the runoff is
Speaker 3: bad for the environmental All these things are part of
Speaker 3: the culture, part of the thought process here.
Speaker 1: And all the discs themselves kind of are reminiscent of
Speaker 1: records because they all look the same, and that's what
Speaker 1: Adam wanted. He just wanted it to all look like
Speaker 1: a record label type thing. And if you collect all
Speaker 1: of them back in the day, they would spell a
Speaker 1: so leoscope.
Speaker 3: The fine if you had all one hundreds to start on.
Speaker 1: Those are for the mega fans.
Speaker 2: Ye, well, and that's I guess that's one of the
Speaker 2: questions I was going to ask too, is how obviously
Speaker 2: we can't get into very specific numbers, but is is
Speaker 2: everything okay? Like, are sales going well? Do we still
Speaker 2: have a healthy number of subscribers because in all reality,
Speaker 2: like I work with a lot of these companies behind
Speaker 2: the scenes, and there are some companies that are worried,
Speaker 2: like if a couple of titles don't do well in
Speaker 2: a row, we might need to make some changes for
Speaker 2: the next couple after that.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think it's been pretty consistent.
Speaker 1: I mean it has, it has really been consistent.
Speaker 3: The numbers aren't, you know, earth shattering, but you know
Speaker 3: a little bit of a bump because people started to
Speaker 3: buy stuff again when they were housebound during COVID, But
Speaker 3: you know, previous to that, the erosion in the market
Speaker 3: for discs especially was just yeah, going down pretty really quickly. Yeah,
Speaker 3: it seems it feels like it's plateaued. Obviously, it kicked
Speaker 3: up a little bit during the pandemic and then kind
Speaker 3: of leveled off. We haven't gone down any further than
Speaker 3: the lowest point that we've been. We're not finding a
Speaker 3: new bottom, I guess is the nicest way to put it.
Speaker 3: And well, again, physical media is super important to us.
Speaker 3: You know. There was just a court ruling in California
Speaker 3: that says, as consumers, you're actually not allowed or you
Speaker 3: do not own your digital download. It's only a license.
Speaker 3: So if you actually physically want to own something that
Speaker 3: is yours kind of have to buy it on disc Yeah,
Speaker 3: and that's and we're just going to keep moving forward
Speaker 3: with that until until they tell us to stop. Yep.
Speaker 2: I was. I was so glad when that court ruling
Speaker 2: happened because, as most people know, with stuff like this,
Speaker 2: corporate's not gonna roll it out just for California. They're
Speaker 2: going to make it the same everywhere, So everybody will
Speaker 2: get some sort of disclaimer saying, hey, you don't own this,
Speaker 2: which is huge because there's a lot of people that
Speaker 2: will argue to other blue in their face, no I
Speaker 2: bought it on iTunes, No you didn't, Yeah, can you
Speaker 2: buy it? So yeah, lots of exciting stuff still coming
Speaker 2: in the future. Circle of trust. One thing that I
Speaker 2: didn't hit on with a circle of trust that I
Speaker 2: think is one of the more unique aspects to that
Speaker 2: I'd love people to hear is that you get a choice.
Speaker 2: Like every time there's a title coming, they'll say, hey,
Speaker 2: if you don't want this one, just email us and
Speaker 2: we can skip it. And usually for a subscription, you're
Speaker 2: kind of locked into, Hey, you're just investing in the
Speaker 2: future of the company. But no, you can literally choose, like,
Speaker 2: if this one is off putting to you, you don't
Speaker 2: have to get it. That's fine.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Surprisingly, we don't have like a huge number of circle
Speaker 1: of trust members, so we personally, you know, email everyone
Speaker 1: and we personally pack everything. Back in the day, in
Speaker 1: the early days, we had a lot of circle of
Speaker 1: trust and we would have packing parties or everyone would
Speaker 1: like everyone in the office would come together at the
Speaker 1: ping pong table and package everything. But yeah, so everything
Speaker 1: is very in house. We do it all very personally.
Speaker 3: It's all very bespoke.
Speaker 2: Well, and that's it's not a bad thing either. You
Speaker 2: can tell like you can the email comes literally to you.
Speaker 2: Somebody spent their time putting this in here. Your personal
Speaker 2: tracking numbers at the bottom. It's not just a you know,
Speaker 2: FedEx spit out this this email to you. It is
Speaker 2: something very specific and it feels like that and knowing
Speaker 2: that one of you guys may have packed the lube
Speaker 2: for me. Is It's just a great story.
Speaker 1: Shout Sarah's the one that sends you guys emails. She's great.
Speaker 2: Anything else we want to shout out before we call
Speaker 2: it a day.
Speaker 3: What's coming? It's in theaters now. Uh, German Swiss co
Speaker 3: production called The Universal Theory. Yes, it throws off like
Speaker 3: super heavy, hitchcocky and noir vibes. The soundtrack is amazing,
Speaker 3: which we actually have on LP if you want to
Speaker 3: check it out. It's a beautiful movie. It's fun, it's interesting.
Speaker 3: It's like a super smart hybrid of Oppenheimer and give
Speaker 3: me another metaphysical thriller.
Speaker 1: It's like parallel universes exactly. Yeah, yeah, multi verses yep.
Speaker 1: It's pretty interesting, super cool.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: And also not to get confused with Universal Theory, but
Speaker 1: we also have Universal Language coming out.
Speaker 3: That's a festival favorite. It is Canada's official entry for
Speaker 3: the Foreign Language OSCAR this year. That comes in theaters
Speaker 3: in February. Currently, it's doing a couple of festival runs
Speaker 3: New York Film Festival premiere. I think is Monday, is
Speaker 3: that right?
Speaker 1: I think? Yeah, Monday?
Speaker 2: Yep.
Speaker 3: So that's coming. We're doing a twentieth anniversary restoration and
Speaker 3: relaunch of the documentary called Big. If you remember the
Speaker 3: band Dandy Warhols, that drama around that film, it's you know,
Speaker 3: some people claim it's the greatest rock documentary of all time,
Speaker 3: and who am I to argue.
Speaker 1: Excited about We have highlight Killing Flies, which came out
Speaker 1: back in two thousand and six or two thousand and seven.
Speaker 1: We're re releasing that on dB and Blu Ray, and
Speaker 1: we have some extra features. But that's about this little
Speaker 1: diner in New York that has a cult following, very.
Speaker 3: Interesting stuff, the classic curmudgeonly New York. Yeah, but calling
Speaker 3: the chef is I think he would be angry if
Speaker 3: he was referred to as he's just a cook's Yeah,
Speaker 3: he flips pancakes.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Nice. If I know my audience, will I guarantee at
Speaker 2: least a few people in the comments are watching this
Speaker 2: and going to ask Will, is there any chance of
Speaker 2: Soloscope is going to ever go into UHD or four K?
Speaker 2: Is that ever a possibility?
Speaker 1: We've looked into it multiple times. We look into it
Speaker 1: like once a to see the prices of it. And
Speaker 1: right now it's completely out of our budget. Just does
Speaker 1: not make sense for the amount that we sell. You know,
Speaker 1: if like thousands of people are buying our discs, then
Speaker 1: maybe we can do it. You know, we need we
Speaker 1: need to sell more to make it make sense.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, it's not. It's not easy obviously to pay
Speaker 2: the licensing fee just to use the UHD monikers a lot,
Speaker 2: and then authoring all that is more expensive and everything
Speaker 2: it gets crazy.
Speaker 3: Is bad enough. Yeah, I've also come down a little
Speaker 3: bit on the actual manufacturing side. But the licensing of
Speaker 3: the format itself is is not cheap.
Speaker 1: Yeah, right, DVD is pretty cheap, but also our packaging
Speaker 1: itself is pretty expensive. Yeah, so when you put four
Speaker 1: K on top of that, it gets very very like
Speaker 1: not worth it. We would have to sell our blue
Speaker 1: rays for like sixty dollars.
Speaker 2: Well, and that's that's always a hard thing to convey though, too,
Speaker 2: is when you're trying to do something right and do
Speaker 2: like recycled materials and all this, even though you're looking
Speaker 2: at it and saying, well, this is flimsier than the
Speaker 2: other thing. I collect, it's not because you can feel
Speaker 2: good about purchasing it. But the sad thing is sometimes
Speaker 2: that does cost a little more.
Speaker 1: Yes, I mean, and that's why we also make the
Speaker 1: amory just the plastic, basic plastic cases, because we know
Speaker 1: some people don't care about the packaging. And if they
Speaker 1: don't care about the packaging, yeah, just basic plastic cases works.
Speaker 3: More, you know, transportable. One of the downsides of the
Speaker 3: sell scope you know, paper packaging, carbor packaging, is that
Speaker 3: it can get shot one pretty easily. It's going from
Speaker 3: warehouse to distribution center, to retailer, back to a distribution
Speaker 3: center back to us. Things tend to get beat up
Speaker 3: a little bit. The plastic packages, as much as we
Speaker 3: do not like them, are a little bit sturdier.
Speaker 1: Sturdier and cheaper.
Speaker 3: Totally cheaper. Yeah, yeah, I mean, this is like putting
Speaker 3: a fifty cent to manufacture d into This is like
Speaker 3: taking a fifty piece and wrapping it in a five
Speaker 3: dollars bill.
Speaker 1: Yep, that's fine essentially what it Yeah not.
Speaker 2: No, that that totally checks out with everything I've seen
Speaker 2: behind the scenes. Yeah, that is about exactly what it costs.
Speaker 2: So yeah, check out oscilloscope stuff online. I'm gonna have
Speaker 2: all the links in the description below. I've been a
Speaker 2: happy circle of trust member for years. I've recommended it
Speaker 2: many many times on the show, but to hear it
Speaker 2: from your mouth is a big thing and just for
Speaker 2: a lot of people to put the faces to the name.
Speaker 2: Oscilloscope has been here for quite some time and I'm
Speaker 2: sure we'll be here for many more years.
Speaker 1: Yeah, hope, so hope, so well.
Speaker 3: Really appreciate you taking the time with us, and it's
Speaker 3: all the fans that are listening and watching out there.
Speaker 3: If you're not a Circle of Trust.
Speaker 1: Member, join why not join the circle?
Speaker 2: Sincerely. It's one hundred and forty dollars and that includes
Speaker 2: shipping for the next ten titles. That's prett the damn great.
Speaker 2: You should join.
Speaker 3: Plus you get all kinds of fun spam. I mean,
Speaker 3: if you're in a market where we're having an advanced
Speaker 3: screening of a movie, you might get a ticket for sure.
Speaker 2: Yeah this is true.
Speaker 3: I'm not saying that they don't or never happened.
Speaker 2: Well, thank you for the time, Rachel and Tom. Hope
Speaker 2: to be able to talk to you again someday.
Speaker 3: Thank you so much, Ryan, thank you.
Speaker 2: Hello.
Speaker 5: This is Matt and Emily from Scarecrow Video in Seattle, Washington.
Speaker 5: Did you know that we have the largest video collection
Speaker 5: in the world. We have over one hundred and forty
Speaker 5: six thousand titles and growing. That's over three times more
Speaker 5: than Netflix, Amazon Max, and Hulu combined.
Speaker 6: Plus a Scarecrow now offers rent by mail service throughout
Speaker 6: the US, so check out Scarecrow video dot org for details.
Speaker 6: You can catch Emily and I or Matt and I
Speaker 6: if that was going to be you saying that on
Speaker 6: our biweekly YouTube show, Viva Physical Media for video recommendations
Speaker 6: and so much more.
Speaker 2: See ya. Thank you for listening to The Disconnected podcast.
Speaker 2: There's one big thing that you could do to help
Speaker 2: the show, and that is to leave a rating and
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Speaker 7: My name is Kevin Tutor and I'm one of the
Speaker 7: three hosts of almost major Film podcast. I sect in
Speaker 7: many major indie studios in the films they release. Every week, Myself,
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