Distribution Reality with Noah Segal

 In this episode, Jeff sits down with longtime industry veteran and Elevation Pictures Co-President, Noah Segal. Together, they unpack the hard truths of indie film distribution—what it takes to get your movie seen, the myth of theatrical releases, and navigating today’s streaming-dominated landscape. If you're making a low-budget film, this episode is essential listening.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hello everybody, welcome back. You made a great movie and
now it's time for audiences to see it. But usually
they don't get to see it because as a filmmaker
you often get stifled by distribution. Today we're going to
talk about how to get your movie in front of audiences,
how to get proper distribution. If you're enjoying this podcast

(00:20):
wherever you're listening from, please press subscribe and become one
of our subscribers and you'll get lots more content. If
you want to be a successful indie filmmaker, you need
to know a lot about not just the production of movies,
but the business. We are going to tell you the
truth and reality of what really happens in the indie

(00:42):
film business.

Speaker 2 (00:47):
All right.

Speaker 1 (00:48):
Today we have a very special guest, an old friend
of mine and somebody who's been in the business for
a long time. Noah Siegel, who is co president of
Elevation Films in Canada, who has been doing this for
a long long time time, knows this business inside and out.
And I'm really pleased to talk to him because I
don't get to speak to him enough. We go back
a long time, and he really knows what he's doing.

(01:10):
So Noah, welcome to the show. Thanks for doing it.

Speaker 3 (01:13):
Thanks Jeff, I've never heard you be more formal than
you have.

Speaker 1 (01:17):
Then I told you I was going to be formal today. Okay,
so why don't we start with how do we know
each other? You can tell the story.

Speaker 3 (01:24):
Oh my god, it's almost lost on purpose in my mind,
but effectively back in the heyday of the early motion
picture days of the eighties.

Speaker 2 (01:36):
Nineties VHS, the VHS days exactly VHS.

Speaker 3 (01:40):
If people remember that, and Beta. Actually, yeah, Jeff was
working at New World Pictures or New World Mutual at
that time, and they needed a sales rep to go
across country to sell video cassettes to wholesalers and retailers
so that consumers can walk in every Friday night and
rent a bad movie. And the way to win the

(02:02):
day was to have somebody that didn't really sell movies
but sold entertainment and then they hopefully bought the movies too.
So I was a young goofball and that's exactly when
you want Jeff needed. And Jeff hired me and said, yep,
he's not like me and he'll work perfectly.

Speaker 2 (02:18):
I got into the business.

Speaker 1 (02:20):
Yeah, But then we started doing other meetings, you know.
I mean we worked together obviously for long time, selling
movies and doing that kind of thing. But remember that
meeting we went to where the guy looked at me
and he looked at you. Do you remember what he said?

Speaker 3 (02:32):
He said, he looked at you and said, you you
don't look like you're in the business.

Speaker 2 (02:36):
And they looked at me, and I was hungover at
the time.

Speaker 3 (02:38):
He said, but you you look like you're in the.

Speaker 2 (02:41):
Film with exactly.

Speaker 1 (02:43):
He said, you look like you're a baker, and you
look like your filmmaker. Okay, so now you've been doing
this for a long time now, why don't you just
kind of just run through quickly sort of what your
experience has been so we can set the stage so
that I would ask you the real questions. Just you know,
the different companies you've worked for in your experience is
in a nutshell because it's been a lot.

Speaker 2 (03:01):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (03:02):
So basically I've survived for the last thirty thirty five
years in the film business and a bit of the
TV business, And the way I've done it is I've
moved back and forth between production distribution, production distribution. So
before I had met you, Jeff, I had spent some
time in production on a TV show, basically doing anything
that I could do, from assisting producers, assisting editing, DJing

(03:25):
rap parties and cleaning bathrooms. And then I got into
the repping business for New World, did that for a while,
and then after that I started acquiring films within that framework,
so I became more sales and acquisitions and then general
management later, and then went to the music business for
a while at BMG International, which now is Sony b.

Speaker 1 (03:47):
I forgot about that little story, Yeah.

Speaker 2 (03:49):
Yes, Sony BMG.

Speaker 3 (03:52):
And then after that I came back to the film
business and worked at Lionsgate for a bunch of years,
and then after Lionsgate, I took some time off to produce,
and I produced films for three or four years and
then was dragged like Pacino in Godfather three. They dragged
me back in to the film distribution side. Basically I

(04:15):
was at Alliance, which was a big enterprise out of Canada.
That distributed was the largest distribute in the country, had
about twenty percent market share, and I ran their home
inside and then was moved up to sort of oversee
the country Canada. That company was merged into entertainment one,
and I did the same for them. E one was

(04:35):
an international company and was the MD for Canada, and
then from there I exited to produce again and then
begin what is now Elevation Pictures, which is the largest
independent in the country in Canada. We've been around about
ten years and all we distributed and we produced. We
produced three to four films a year, some TV and
we distribute about forty films theatrically year.

Speaker 1 (04:57):
Yeah, so you're in Canada, Toronto. I should have said
that off the top. That's where I'm formerly from. That's
how we know each other. Is the Canadian market similar
to the I mean we call it the obviously the
domestic market, So it's US Canada, you know your experience.
Obviously you deal with a lot of US distribution as well,
so it's I would say there's very similar experiences, except
on that distribution side, maybe not on the production side

(05:18):
as much.

Speaker 2 (05:18):
Yeah, I think it's all the same. Look.

Speaker 3 (05:20):
I think when I was at Lionsgate, for example, I
ran home End for North America. So you know, it
basically is the same to a great extent. Obviously, the
big distinction is that you have two things. One is
you've got three hundred and fifty million people in the
States and you've got at that time thirty five million
now forty five million people in Canada, so you're ten

(05:41):
percent of the market out of Canada. And then there's
slight demographic differences. And essentially in the US you have
a much larger African American population and a Latino population.
In Canada we have as we have twenty percent of
population situated in Quebec and speak French as a first
lange whiche, so that's a different demo altogether. And then

(06:03):
we have a very large Asian population and South Asian
population in Canada.

Speaker 2 (06:08):
So between the Asia.

Speaker 3 (06:09):
And the South Asian they account for like fifteen percent
of population. So and the other big demographic difference is
that the US, as much as there's so many people,
is a much larger rural market than Canada. Believe it
or not, Canada is a much more urban centric market.
We have the majority of the population one hundred and
fifty miles north of the border and down and mostly

(06:32):
in big cities, very few people in small environments. In
the US, there's a lot more small towns, there's a
lot more.

Speaker 2 (06:40):
That kind of breakout. So like Toronto is a.

Speaker 3 (06:42):
Much bigger percentage of population than Saint New York is
of the US, so that urban to rural population drives
appetite for film and television differently.

Speaker 1 (06:52):
Interesting. Now, let me just clarify why ninety percent of
the Canadian population lives within one hundred and fifty miles
of the US border. Why not because they love the
US so much. Because if you start to go north
of that, it gets really, really really cold. So that's
more south you live it's cold anyways, but that's more
or less the reality. Yeah, So, Noah, you're running your

(07:14):
co president of Elevation Pictures now, and just what does
your day to day look like in terms of you know,
acquisitions and distribution, Like what what would be a typical
day or week.

Speaker 3 (07:25):
Well, if you look at my role, which is always
very bizarre, I basically spend twenty percent of my day
on general management like any other business, not just the
film business, from HR issues to finance, et cetera, et cetera,
et cetera. And then the other eighty percent is split
forty forty distribution and production. So I'll, you know, a
day would be let's look at the grossest from the

(07:47):
films we released theatrically, that would be a distribution factor.
Let's look at our budgets, what we're spending to release
these movies or are we acquiring more movies?

Speaker 2 (07:55):
What movies?

Speaker 3 (07:56):
What scripts am I reading or what films am I'm
buying that are finished? So that's all distribution activities, and
then the other times I'd be spent basically looking at
financing models and reading scripts and trying to get films made.
So when you look at that, you say, oh, well,
you're only producing three or four films.

Speaker 2 (08:15):
A year, But we think about that.

Speaker 3 (08:18):
That means we have to get rolling on a film
every three months, and that is getting a film ready
for prime time, which is like a script that's ready,
a budget that works, and a financing plan that you
can sell to market to get that film made. That's
a lot of work within a short period of time.
So that takes up a lot of time too.

Speaker 1 (08:37):
Okay, so Elevation Pictures is I'm going to say, well,
you said it is like the premiere independent film distribution
and production company in Canada relative to say the studios.
The studios all have operations in Canada's but not like
they have in the United States. So your position kind
of high in the marketplace, meaning that you are not
just doing independent films, but you're actually doing some studio

(08:57):
level films, certainly on the distribution side. Explain that.

Speaker 3 (09:00):
Yeah, So basically your point earlier about how Canada is
dif from the States, it is a little bit different
in that it's the same in that the major studios
have placement in Canada. So Disney releases Disney films, and
Warner General releases Warner Films and Sony et cetera, et cetera,
et cetera. But certain films slip through the cracks that
they don't produce. They may just acquire certain rights, like
US rights, and then we might grab domestic rights, meaning

(09:22):
Canadian rights. So for example, we released Big Factory Wedding
three in Canada, Universal Focus we released in the United States.
We would release Paw Patrol in Canada, Paramount Pictures would
release that in the United States.

Speaker 2 (09:35):
So we do those kind of studio.

Speaker 3 (09:36):
Level films, and then we do a lot of independent films.
So we have an output arrangement with Neon Pictures. So
Neon does a lot of films. In fact, the Oscar
Winner and Noura they released in the States, we released
in Canada. We have a really good longstanding relationship with them.
And then we also do you know, the gross majority
of the eight twenty four films in Canada.

Speaker 2 (09:55):
So we do films like The Brutalists.

Speaker 3 (09:57):
We release, we released Moonlight, we released everything everywhere, all
at once. And then on top of that, we also
release about eight to ten Canadian films a year, and
those could be films that you would know and not
know because some of them just are very Canadian centric
and some of them are very American centric.

Speaker 2 (10:12):
So we you know, we produced.

Speaker 3 (10:15):
A film called Infinity Pool a few years back with
Alex Carsgard and Mia goth As, directed by Brandon Kroneberg,
which is a great sort of crazy horror film that
Neon released in the States, but we produced and released
in Canada. We will also do films like BlackBerry, which
was produced by some friends of ours. We helped them
get it finance, and that was released by IFC in

(10:36):
the States in paramount internationally. So we do a cross
section of movies, some independent, some you know, released by
other folks in the States that are independent, and then
some studio fair Yeah.

Speaker 1 (10:48):
Okay, so is it fair to say, like, this podcast
primarily focuses on the independent film business, not like big
budget studio Hollywood stuff. So low budget stuff, usually stuff
that's made for less than a million dollars, has very
limited marketing funds, that type of thing. So what I
want to do is, first I want to kind of
dispel the whole theatrical release thing. How many indie films
that are made for less than a million dollars, you know,

(11:10):
usually this week's bought five, six, seven hundred thousand, How
many get actual theatrical releases, Like I basically say, very
very few, because they generally don't have any recognizable talent.
The films are good, but the production value is lower
just because they don't have the money and people just
don't want to spend money going into theaters to see
those kind of films. Is that correct or what would

(11:31):
you say?

Speaker 2 (11:31):
Yeah, that is correct, but I would say there's a
caveat there.

Speaker 3 (11:35):
So yes, it's a small, small, small, small percentage of
the films made get released theatrically. It's actually a small
percentage of those films that get repped internationally for sale,
where most of the international destrippers buy because they just
don't have the sex appeal for those customers, like you said.
But what's interesting is that's happened over the last say

(11:55):
ten years since the.

Speaker 2 (11:56):
Birth of streaming.

Speaker 3 (11:58):
Streaming has sort of taken the lion's share of the
business in the world. Whereas theatrical used to drive everything,
now at least fifty percent or more is driven.

Speaker 2 (12:06):
By what happens in streaming.

Speaker 3 (12:08):
So what's happened is you have a lot of theaters
out there that don't have as much content as they
used to.

Speaker 2 (12:14):
I mean it used to be way more releases per week.

Speaker 3 (12:16):
So in a weird way, you can get screens more
so than you could, say, five years ago. But here's
the issue. You can get a screen, but it costs
money to put it in theater. So you have to
do that equation of if I put it on screen,
I have to pay for the cost of getting it
to screen. Then I have to pay for the cost
of promoting it to consumer so they know it's there
so they come in. Because you don't get paid just

(12:37):
to put in theaters. You get paid when the consumer
pays for a ticket. So basically it's a red share
with theaters. So it becomes a very expensive luxury to go.

Speaker 1 (12:47):
Theatrical and a high financial risk, right.

Speaker 3 (12:50):
So people do it generally to drive a bit of
theatrical business. But all the other ancillaries that follow, which
means vod hard Goods, DVD these days, alines and hotel
which is a very tiny proportion non theatrical, and of
course streaming and broadcast sales. So what I would say
is that that's really where the rubber hits the road.

(13:11):
I would say that more money is spent on promotion
and advertising than it is almost on the acquisitions of
films for a lot of companies. And therefore it's not
just oh geez, my little movie is it going to
get released theatricals is it worth going theatrical? Because you
might be more in the hole going theatrical than just
not going theatrical.

Speaker 1 (13:31):
Right, So you do a lot of theatrical releases, but
they're generally bigger movies, like you say, you know, like
you're going to release an Aura, you know, the Academy
Award winning movie. You know, it's bigger stuff. So I
just want to clarify for the for the audience, the
holy grail of filmmaking is a theatrical release. That's what
everybody you know, dreams of and strives for it to
see their movie in a big theater, on a big

(13:52):
screen and audience coming and hopefully, you know, making lots
of money and winning lots of awards. That's what everybody
dreams about. But the reality is, on lower budget indie films,
that doesn't actually happen. Remember this is truth in reality
we're talking about. And the reason is is because people
don't want to spend fifteen dollars going to the movie
theater or twenty whatever it is these days on a

(14:13):
lower budget indie film where there's no star power, right,
that's sort of the reality. So if you're going to
do this attempt at theatrical release, you said two things
first of all, and you said them quickly. So I
want to just make sure everybody understands. You said you
have to buy the screen, which is what we used
to call four walling. So can you just explain that
a little bit.

Speaker 2 (14:31):
Yeah, So there's two options.

Speaker 3 (14:32):
One you either put up enough money to promote your
movie that you'll get screens without four walling.

Speaker 1 (14:37):
Okay, well, I was going to say the second thing.
I said. There's two things. One is four walling. The
other is the advertising budget. So you're going to tie
them together.

Speaker 2 (14:43):
Okay, so I'll do them both.

Speaker 3 (14:44):
So you acquire a movie, or you're a producer, you
want to release a movie. Either you're going to show
the movie theater how much you're going to spend so
that they're going to give you their house. Because remember
the movie theaters make most of their money off popcorn,
so what they want. They're a big confectionery store, they're
a five dollars I'm in the corner. So what they
essentially want is they want movies on screen. That's a
lost leader so they can make money off popcorn and soda.

Speaker 2 (15:07):
So essentially, what you're.

Speaker 3 (15:09):
Doing for them is you're going to guarantee them advertiser
going to drag consumers off their butts and pull them
into the movie theater to pay for popcorn and soda.

Speaker 2 (15:18):
That's what they want. So that's one way, and then
they'll say, okay, we'll.

Speaker 3 (15:20):
Give you the screen if you've satisfied that threshold where
they think you're actually going to deliver on success, meaning
you're going to promote the hell out of something. And
you say, well, now I'm going to tell my friends
that ain't enough they want to see real spend. They
want to see hundreds of thousands of dollars, if not millions.
Then the other ways they say, okay, if you don't
want to guarantee that, well, then you can do what jeff,
what you refer to, which is four walling, where you

(15:42):
can say, look, they'll say, tell you what, we don't
have a busy week, pay us enough money that would
have cost the same as the revenue we would have
gone out of the house.

Speaker 2 (15:49):
Guarantee us that revenue, and.

Speaker 3 (15:51):
Then it's okay if nobody comes to mice popcorn, because
we're making money for doing nothing.

Speaker 2 (15:56):
So that's four walling.

Speaker 3 (15:56):
So it's basically you know, airbnbing their movie theaters, and
they will do that, but they usually don't give you the.

Speaker 2 (16:03):
Best screens for that.

Speaker 3 (16:04):
They usually give the screens they can't fill anyways, because
they won't give you their best screens for sure. They
leave those for Toy Story nineteen and Star Wars fourteen.
And by the way, if you get in with your film,
every Monday is a report card day, so you put
your movie in on the Wednesday, Thursday or Friday night.

Speaker 2 (16:22):
They look at the grosses Monday.

Speaker 3 (16:24):
First thing, and they go your bottom of house or
your bottom three of the.

Speaker 2 (16:27):
House, you're out. They don't care. They're not going to
pull punches.

Speaker 3 (16:31):
And more so, the major studios, even if they're lower
than you, will horse trade with those cinemas and go, well,
you know what, I know, we're lower than Joe's film,
but we give you Toy Story four, so you better
keep it on screen and kick that guy out, or if.

Speaker 1 (16:47):
You want the next big thing, keep it on the screen.

Speaker 2 (16:50):
Right.

Speaker 3 (16:51):
So it's a pretty there's a lot of bullying and
it's not for the timid, but that's what goes on
in cinema. So then the independence that exist in this
space don't like the four wall that much unless there's
a lot of money in play from the producer that's
going to pay them, and same with the exhibitors, the
theater change. And on top of that, they also want
films that will work because they have to build momentum

(17:13):
all the time with the cinema chains. So you don't
want to be the guy going in all the time
saying here's my four wall, here's my four wall. You
want to go in and say here, I'm going to
give you an aura or I'm going to give you
paw patrol because then they go, oh, yeah, that guy
delivers good stuff. We want to keep supporting him. And
usually you settle with better terms than the major studios.
They go, we like the movies he brings in because
they do bring different audiences. On top of that, we

(17:34):
keep more with him than we would with Disney, so
we'll keep him around, right, And so that's kind of
how the game is played. So the idea of producer
with a tiny movie come in very hard. The cards
are definitely stacked against you.

Speaker 1 (17:47):
So you know, you were just talking about, you know,
the terms and all this kind of stuff is that's
from the distributor perspective. That's when you're doing regular business
and you have a relationship with the theater change. But
when you're a one off producer, you have one film,
let's say you made it for half a million dollars
and let's say it's really good, like it's a super
entertaining film, but no star, you know, recognizable talent. The
cost of releasing that to do it properly, Like you said,

(18:10):
the theaters want you to kind of guarantee that you're
going to create awareness with the audience, do a good
marketing campaign because they want people buying popcorn. I agree,
Or you're going to guarantee what the revenue in the
house is, you know, the four walling side. I would
say the minimum cost of releasing a movie, even on
say a dozen ten screens, with the advertising you have
to do in one market, you're going to spend a
couple hundred thousand dollars to do it properly, which is

(18:32):
really low, low low. I mean they want you to
spend probably a half a million dollars to do it properly.
That's the cost of your movie. And independent filmmakers generally,
number one, don't have that kind of money, they don't
have access to it. And two, they don't want to
take that kind of risk, or if they're smart, they
shouldn't take that kind of risk, because the chance of
getting the return on it, you know, is very low,

(18:53):
not because the film isn't good, just because there's no talent.
Because the first thing people say is when they're going
to the movie theaters is who's in it? And if
there's nobody in it, you know some or didn't win
an Academy Award or something like that, chances are they're
maybe not going to go. They're going to go see
like you said, Star Wars nineteen or something like that.
You said something else though, which we I want to
pick up on, because this is going to lead to
the second part of the conversation. You said that sometimes

(19:15):
a filmmaker might do that to create sort of buzz
and awareness for their film. So even though they know
it's going to be a lost leader the theatrical release
and they're going to spend say two or three hundred
thousand dollars on advertising, what it's going to do is
create awareness for maybe other markets and scillary markets like
the VOD market afterwards. Does that make sense? Is that

(19:36):
a good strategy?

Speaker 2 (19:37):
It used to.

Speaker 3 (19:39):
It used to make a lot of sense because there
was a period of time until streaming started where VOD
and DVD combined generated seventy percent of the net revenues
for a movies take, and you had more control. So
the nice thing about that business was that like people
like Apple or Amazon didn't push back and limited shelf space,

(20:03):
so you could put movies up and just share rev
share with them at VOD so you would get x percent,
they would get expercent, you got the majority of revenues
and so the consumer would rent a lot there because
there was not really an option besides HBO and Showtime
and maybe Stars. I think that what's happened is the
birth of streaming led to a much more accessible way

(20:26):
of getting movies to the consumer, and consumer was caught
on pretty quick that why would I pay five bucks
to VOD something when I could wait another thirty days
and they get it on Netflix, Amazon, Paramount Plus, etc.
That started hurting and VOD has gone through a tremendous slide.
So back when VOD was king, some people would do

(20:46):
the artifice of creating a theatrical release. To your point, Jeff,
of like quarter million dollars spend just to get so
that the consumer kind of knew the name, so they
went to rent. Not that they expected them to go
to movie theaters, but they expected them to remember the
name or the advertising and they would bod the movie
in their house and or they would do the theatrical
at the same time as VOD, so it had the

(21:07):
perception that the movie was higher quality and therefore consideracay,
oh I don't want to go to the theater, I
can watch it in my.

Speaker 2 (21:13):
House right away.

Speaker 3 (21:14):
So that worked for a while but then streaming started
taking hold and it started diminishing. So what was seventy
percent of the business has now diminished a thirty percent
of the business.

Speaker 2 (21:23):
So now the gamble on doing.

Speaker 3 (21:25):
A theatrical release, which had easier access to market, easier dividends,
is a much higher risk game because the streamers don't
buy everything. They don't let you on their service like that.
You have to try to get them to purchase your
movie and in most cases they say no.

Speaker 1 (21:42):
And I'm going to add to that, and maybe I'm
wrong because you have way more experience with this than
I do. Say you do a theatrical release and let's
say you get lucky and it runs for two weeks
and you've put a quarter million dollars of advertising in.
Are they going to say, what was the box office
on it? Because it could be that you had no
box office like that it was sort of a disaster.
You did it just to create profile on the advertising side.

(22:03):
Maybe that's almost a negative in that, like nobody went
to see your movie because it wasn't popular.

Speaker 3 (22:08):
Right, I think yeah, they The truth of the matter
is they want to say, well, they gainst you, but
they don't really care until it's half a million dollars
in box office, like you say. You can say I'm
a theatrical release and I put a quarter a million
dollars in advertising, and they're going to say, okay, so
what right, But if you don't do a half a
million dollars in box office, because they're smart enough to know,
they're smart folks there, and they have a lot of data,

(22:29):
so they're going to say, okay, it doesn't generate half
a million dollars, that means it's not on anybody's radar
as a consumer, so therefore, why should I buy it
for my service? And so they're much more inclined to
think of genre or movie stars and have their own
data analytics to sort of determine whether that's value add
So you know, again it is roulette, right, This is

(22:49):
the roulette side of the business.

Speaker 1 (22:50):
Yeah. I often tell my filmmaker clients that sort of
the hope and the dream is better than the reality,
because as soon as you release theatrically and it doesn't
do the numbers, then there's statistic saying, hey, it didn't
do the numbers, whereas if you don't release you actually
somebody can actually believe, hey, maybe this is going to
be a real hit on streaming. So it's different strategies.
But my experience has been and by the way, I

(23:12):
learned this the hard way. And you might recall my
first film, My Brother's Keeper. You actually released it at Lionsgate.
I begged you to put it into like four or
five you know, cineplex theaters in Canada, and you said,
don't do it. Don't do it. I said, I need
to do this. I'm a filmmaker, now I need to
try this. And I lost a lot of money on
the theatrical release. Now, luckily I made it back on

(23:34):
you know, on home video, because we knew what we
were doing, and you know, there was a market, but
it was it was a vanity ego play. I needed
to see my movie open in a theater, which most
indie filmmakers need to do at some point in their
life because they got to they got to live that
experience and they believe that it's going to be a success.
I still think it's a good movie, but I learned
the lesson. There was no star power, that not enough.

(23:56):
I didn't have nearly enough advertising behind it, and I
lost a lot of money on the theatrical side. So
that's why maybe my experience is unique. But I think
that that's more or less what happens.

Speaker 2 (24:06):
Yeah, I think that is.

Speaker 3 (24:07):
And I think what you have to understand, like sort
of a macro way, is that the major studios have
that same problem in a different way. Like again, on
top of streaming eating everybody's lunch, it's not just streaming.
I mean, the average consumer twenty five and under spends
forty percent of their time on TikTok and YouTube and

(24:28):
all those things. Like Netflix worries about YouTube and TikTok.

Speaker 2 (24:33):
They don't worry about.

Speaker 3 (24:34):
Theaters taking their business. So theaters are even a smaller
chunk there. And there's you know, so the consumer has
access to tons of streaming, they have access to all
the other services that are not movies sucking up all
that time. So when they put a movie out and
they put a ton of money into the movie and
a ton of money into the p and A, the
promotions advertising, they take big risks too. It's harder to

(24:57):
get consumers to go see a movie and it ever was.
So you have to be aware that we're fighting a
very big battle for eyeballs. It's the war of the
eyeballs right now, it's not just a vanity play. There's
an alarm clock going off telling us consumers don't go
to the movies every Friday night. They go to a
movie when they want to. It's appointment viewing, right, So

(25:19):
it's changed and they don't necessarily go over Friday. They
go when they want to see something specific. So you're
fighting an uphill battle. The one thing that's interesting in
this environment that is positive. I guess if you want
to put a lining silver lining on that cloudy day,
is that there was a time when consumers wanted all
the movies to look the same. So in the years

(25:40):
of Disney's touchtowe not to pick at them, but every
movie looked like it was sort of made out of
a factory and had a very middle of the road
to p appeal. They were rom coms, they were comedies,
they were action, but they're very down the middle PGPG
thirteen movies. What's happened now because there's so much fight
for eyeballs, fighting reaching higher with these bigger blockbusters, the

(26:03):
streamers fight for that middle of the road so much,
And what's still around that everybody still has trouble reaching
is there's certain niches that just don't get serviced by that.
So being very individualized does still have place in the marketplace.
And the best example I ever thought of was Moonlight,
because when we acquired that movie, we loved it. We
thought it was a piece of art. But here's a
movie about a gay black man in Miami. How's that

(26:25):
going to translate to Saskatchewan, Canada.

Speaker 2 (26:27):
Well it did, it did.

Speaker 3 (26:29):
Globally, and years ago that never would have happened. But
there's something about that that said, this is an individualized
experience that people can relate to because of its earnestness
and its beautiful nature of film. So there is that
small area of the film world that still exists and
didn't totally go away. In fact, one could argue it
never even shrunk too much. That's what a twenty four

(26:50):
and neon count on is that there are people that
want to see Parasite, there are people that want to
see Anora, and Sean was not wrong when he said
that on stage. We've got to say the movie theaters,
because that's where those people want to see that. They
still believe in the magic of cinema. The dream is
alive with independent cinema, but arguably it's challenged by all

(27:11):
these other pervasive, much more articulated ways of content getting
to consumer. Yeah, not to mention the world of sports
eating our lunch more and more. There's more sports leagues
than there was even fifteen years ago. So you have
to look at that and say to yourself, Okay, I
got to be grown up. I'm going to go in
this business. I want to make a tiny movie. It
better be really good, and it better be a message

(27:33):
that they're not getting anywhere else.

Speaker 2 (27:34):
Otherwise you're not going to get noticed.

Speaker 1 (27:36):
I say, I'd add something else to that, and you
better create some awareness because this great movie that has
a great message isn't going to be known by anybody
unless you have a decent marketing campaign.

Speaker 2 (27:46):
Agreed.

Speaker 1 (27:46):
Yeah, great, Like a lot of audience are going to
want to know lots of different things, like you know,
but I want to focus on certain things. First of all,
when you're acquiring a movie, let's talk low budget INDI films.
So let's not talk the Academy Award winning movie like
eight twenty four Inneon stuff. But some producer sends you,
you know, their five hundred thousand dollars indie film and
it's decent. You watch it and it's decent. What do

(28:09):
you look for, like, how do you know what you're
going to acquire? What exactly are you looking for?

Speaker 3 (28:13):
It's a really good question because you know, well, we
because we're Canada. It's also unique because we have to
take bets early. Like other territories in the world, like
Germany or France, sometimes they get the luxury of waiting
to see what happens stateside before they buy a movie,
both who's releasing it and or if it was released
and what was the box office. Usually just who was
releasing it In Canada because the US is so apt

(28:33):
to just come in and release it themselves. We have
to buy early to get those rights before we get
We gotta get squatters rights, you know, before somebody buys
in the US, or they'll just buy out the rights
for Canada and we won't get a chance.

Speaker 2 (28:45):
So we have to buy a lot pre buys. We
buy some films finished.

Speaker 3 (28:49):
We bought The Brutalist after we saw the movie, which
was a masterpiece.

Speaker 2 (28:53):
But we buy a lot of films.

Speaker 1 (28:56):
But talk about the low budget indie stuff that not
the bigger profile stuff.

Speaker 3 (29:00):
Well no, but the Brutalist is, as far as the
market's concerned, a low budget.

Speaker 1 (29:03):
Right, but I'm talking I'm talking like even lower than that.

Speaker 3 (29:06):
You know, that's I understand, But it's in the same bucket,
is what I'm telling you.

Speaker 2 (29:09):
That's that's what happens.

Speaker 3 (29:10):
There's two areas, like there's basically movies that will go
wide release and then movies that won't.

Speaker 2 (29:16):
So when you're.

Speaker 3 (29:17):
Making your million dollar movie, you're competing with the Brutalist,
a ten million dollar labor of love that nobody wanted.
He made a three and a half hour movie that
nobody wanted, including the people that financed it and Focus
Features and said you got to cut that, and he said, no,
give me my movie back, took the whole risk himself,
and then resold it.

Speaker 2 (29:35):
So the point is that's what you're competing against. So
when we as.

Speaker 3 (29:38):
Buyers go into buy movies, I'm looking at the Brutalist
the day before, day after.

Speaker 2 (29:42):
I saw your movie and making a decision, And.

Speaker 3 (29:45):
There's only so much room for movies like the Brutalist
and market as evidenced by year, I would argue it's
probably fifteen to twenty proper independent releases in North America
per year, but.

Speaker 1 (29:54):
That's on the theatrical side, not on the streaming side.

Speaker 3 (29:57):
Well, streaming, I would argue, it's okay, maybe it's.

Speaker 2 (30:00):
One hundred, yeah, but it's not a big number.

Speaker 1 (30:02):
It's not what makes it a legitimate, you know release,
Like when you say what was the word, you just
use a fifteen to twenty.

Speaker 3 (30:09):
Fifteen twenty proper independent release.

Speaker 1 (30:11):
Proper, So what makes it proper? Like that's what I'm saying.
What do you look for?

Speaker 3 (30:15):
It's got to either have the chops that would link
it into a genre that's under serviced.

Speaker 2 (30:20):
So let's say like se Su when Lionscape bought that.

Speaker 3 (30:23):
It's a bizarre foreign language. Ye I saw that pretty
action war film, but it's so specialized.

Speaker 2 (30:30):
But it's like, okay, that is action thrillings.

Speaker 3 (30:33):
There's not enough movies like that in market, and it's
so well made that okay, that fits. So it scratches
an itch that didn't exist before, or have to be
unique like Moonlight that's just so wildly special that we
see the movie and go, oh my god, that is
just undeniable.

Speaker 1 (30:50):
So you can you can look at a movie and
kind of identify and say, wow, there's something to it,
like it doesn't. It's not about what previous success it had.
You just you have to take look at it and
just get that feel, that gut feel.

Speaker 3 (31:01):
I would say yes, I'd say look, it's subjective. So
I've been wrong a lot. I've been wrong almost as
much time as I'm right. But hopefully the ones that
I'm right on make more money than the cost of
the ones that I have lost money on. And you
just when you're in this business long enough, you know,
I've always said this about an acquisition person. You're not
a good acquisition person until you've made a mistake and
bought the wrong movie. So you start to get the

(31:22):
gravitas associated with putting that money or whatever, either to
release a film or to acquire at the rights, and
you start to learn what it takes to win, and
you start to see the hand to hand combat it
takes on a small film to get an audience to care.
And we've done it both ways. We've fall in love
with movies and invested time and effort into those movies
and had them not to get take rate with audience,

(31:43):
very devastating feeling. When you do all the right things,
you market it, you get great reviews and still nobody comes.

Speaker 2 (31:49):
And then there's other times where you do things. But
you know what, it didn't even have to do anything.

Speaker 3 (31:53):
People found the movie and thought it was brilliant and
they just keep telling friends about it, and sometimes that happens,
and that really works. It's an amazing opportunity. So when
you ask the question, when somebody makes a movie brings
it to us again, you got to believe that you're
going to get that reaction, that it's going to bowl
somebody over and go, okay, that is movie magic.

Speaker 1 (32:11):
Okay, let's just let's switch gears into streaming.

Speaker 2 (32:13):
All right.

Speaker 1 (32:13):
So I've been throwing around the term VOD, so the
audience that doesn't understand, it's called video on demand, which
is basically, you know, streaming, being able to watch a
movie when you want, what you want, you know, for
as long as you want. That's why we call it
on demand. So streaming now is can I say probably
ninety percent of viewership happens through streaming or you know

(32:34):
a big amount, whether it be through subscription services like Netflix,
or through transactional say like Amazon, or advertising you know,
free stuff like to beer pluto. I mean, is that
accurate that that's a big chunks.

Speaker 2 (32:48):
It's a gross majority of the business.

Speaker 3 (32:49):
And again, the categories for clarity are premium video on demand,
which is where you release a movie very shortly after
a movie's theatrical release at a high price, so people
pay like fifteen to twenty bucks.

Speaker 1 (33:00):
Like, guys, we're sitting here. Universal is doing that with Wicked.
I mean, you know, so one of the girls who
was the marketing department was in my class, was explaining that,
you know, that would be a twenty dollars price or
a thirty dollars price.

Speaker 3 (33:12):
Yeah, right, and then Universals you need will come back
to them in a second. And then they then if
that's not during the window, then the next thing is
a t BOD, which is TBOD, which transactional VOD, which
is the same as premium BOD, but it's it's just
at a lower price, and it's usually later in the window.
So if it's usually about forty five to sixty days

(33:32):
after release, Companies like Kay twenty four and Neon sometimes
hold back those dates because the films are performing in
a longer way theatrically, right, They films like a Nora
hang on forever, so they hold the t BOD date
because it's still holding in theater as well, So then
you'll get it for four or five bucks per rental
for night. And then beyond that you have SMOD which
is the streaming you talked about selling is Netflix, Amazon, Yeah,

(33:55):
subscription VOD which is you know, basically you know, an Amazon, Netflix,
Paramount plus Hulu, et cetera, where they pay a license
to the producer or the distributor and they have a
free for air on service at a premium level.

Speaker 2 (34:09):
And the final level is a VOD, which is.

Speaker 3 (34:11):
Advertising based video and demand, which now Netflix has a
tier and you know Disney Plus has a tier, Hulu
is a tier, et cetera, et cetera, where it consumer
pays less or nothing to get access to movies with advertising,
which effectively is like TV, but you're still allowed to
click and watch it when you want. They control the
gross majority of viewing audience worldwide, but mostly in North America.

Speaker 1 (34:33):
I just want to make clear to the audience that
you know, when you said about you were still talking
about the bigger movies on the premium on demand side,
because smaller movies don't get a premium video on demand release,
They're always just going to start at a four ninety
nine rental price, like if it's not a big theatrical
or a big Academy Award winning film, you know, like
when I'm talking these half a million dollar indie films

(34:54):
are going to be released at four ninety nine for
rental on the TVOD windows to start with. Probably right,
there's not a premium window, okay, so tell me how.
I mean, I believe most of the viewership happens there
because it's very accessible for audience to just turn on
their TV or their device or whatever, easy to get it.

(35:14):
A huge obviously selection, gigantic selection. Again, I'm going with
the five hundred thousand dollars no name, good film, but
nobody knows about it. It goes into video on demand?
What are the chances realistically? All right, remember stay with
that kind of film. We're not talking in Anora here
or anything like that. What are the chances it's going
to get on a subscription video on demand platform these days?

Speaker 3 (35:37):
I mean, I don't know a percentage, but very very
very very very low they are buying. Netflix is just
not buying. They'd rather make and own rights forever. And
it's not like you could say, as an individual, well,
I'll make it for you Netflix, just buy and you
can own it forever.

Speaker 2 (35:52):
They don't care.

Speaker 3 (35:53):
They have a vision of what they want to make
and they're going to go make it. And usually what
it is is big stars, massive budget, certain genres, and
so they don't want anything that doesn't fit that bill
unless it's a massive theatrical success or it has.

Speaker 2 (36:06):
A very particular thing.

Speaker 3 (36:07):
They don't get enough of ya romance rom com.

Speaker 1 (36:12):
But what do you make of something like say the
Squid Game foreign series.

Speaker 2 (36:16):
You know, they'll tell you they knew it.

Speaker 3 (36:18):
I think it is quite compelling, but I think they
even they were shocked about the performance. I think the
one thing that Netflix has really done well that you
can never take away from them is they somehow found
a way to present foreign language content or international content
to domestic audience is in a palatable way.

Speaker 2 (36:35):
Some of that has to do with the fact that
they've dubbed everything.

Speaker 3 (36:37):
Part of that is just that the service is just
so ubiquitous that consumers who watch a lot, which I
find amazing that they watch so much that they could
just be bored with what's there and they need to
find something new, and Netflix will have a foreign language
entry that they might do it, and then most of
those shows are pretty compelling, and I would argue a
lot of those shows are genre based too, like a
Squid Games or The Dark or whatever the German series,

(36:59):
because they're not really making a small independent thing that
doesn't really is just a straight up, soft, slow moving drama.

Speaker 2 (37:06):
They're tending to make a genre.

Speaker 3 (37:08):
Show like Squid Games in Korean or The Dark, which
is like suspense horror, almost sci fi in German. I mean,
these are massive successes on those services, but Netflix did
a great job of positioning those They continue to do
so that's one of the one of the most important
things they've brought to the business was that ability.

Speaker 1 (37:27):
Okay, so let's dispel the myth that chance everybody says
I'm going to make this and Netflix is going to
buy it, or you know, we're saying Netflix, but it
could be Paramount plus Disney all those svods. The odds
of getting an independent film on those are very low
these days. All Right, I don't know, make people depressed,
but I want to tell the truth. Let's look at
t VOT transactional video on demand. So this is where

(37:47):
you put your movie on to say Amazon or Apple
and you would somebody would download it to rent it.
What's the market for that these days? For low budget
indie films? Are people doing transactional?

Speaker 3 (37:58):
Again, I think the consumers so inundata that an independent
film that has no setup is really hard pressed to
get a lot of take rate. Yes, you can list
it and in some casesn't cost you a time to
do so. So access to market is still reasonably priced
and you can't just do it yourself.

Speaker 2 (38:15):
You have to go through some other distributor.

Speaker 3 (38:17):
But some will do it and charge you a small
amount to get up on all the services. But again,
the consumer is so inundated, they're just keeping up right
and they still go through the top fifty and if
you're not top fifty. A friend of mine that was
in the app business, the mobile game business for phones,
said that it's.

Speaker 2 (38:33):
A great business.

Speaker 3 (38:34):
Right it took off, and he said, but really after
the top twenty, there's huge transaction in the top twenty.
So after you get past the top twenty, it's a
noticeable decline, like dramatic.

Speaker 2 (38:43):
It's like falling off a cliff.

Speaker 3 (38:45):
So I think the same thing has happened in the
motion picture business on vod as. This business is that
part of the business is becoming more jeopardized. I think
if you're not in that top fifty, top one hundred,
top two hundred.

Speaker 1 (38:58):
Okay, fair enough. So let's look at av advertising video
on demand. So it's much easier obviously to get onto
an AVO D platform, although a lot of them are
curated now when they used to not be, meaning they
choose the films and they don't just let anything go
on it. So let's say you can get a film
onto free V or two B or Pluto or you know,
all of them have AVOD models. Now all these streaming platforms,

(39:19):
first of all, are like you said, it's a very
crowded marketplace. There's hundreds of thousands of films on these
platforms and you're competing against you know, studio films that
are in their fifth, sixth, seventh window and reruns. So
what is the experience with AVOD for indie films? Are
they I mean, I know they're getting onto the platforms,
but are they making money? Are people watching them? And

(39:40):
are they generating advertising?

Speaker 2 (39:41):
You know, again, it's not a lot of cash, it's not.

Speaker 3 (39:45):
But the trick of the trade really is pick your lane, right,
So there's certain genres that can do extraordinarily well on
those services. In each service is a new medium, right,
so they have different kinds of appetites.

Speaker 2 (39:56):
So the consumer that watches CW.

Speaker 3 (39:58):
Is not the consumer that watches Netflix, not the consumer
that watches to be right, They're all different kinds of
sets of folks, and these services may want to change
that demo that is targeted so to be for the
longest time had a very strong African American thirty five
and underd female demo. So films dedicated to that demo.
We're doing extraordinarily well to b is Now as they've

(40:21):
grown said okay, we want to be not just a
one demo audience, so they've been trying to expand that audience.
Anything that works in TB is horror films, because the
bigger streamers don't like horror. They find it doesn't transact
very well or click through on say Netflix, they find
that consumers go to theaters to watch horror movies, but
that consumer doesn't watch it on Netflix. I think that's

(40:43):
because this is my own supposition. I have no data,
but it makes sense to me. Is that you go
to the movie theater with a bunch of friends to
watch a horror film or on a date and it
tends to be horror tends to be a female leading genre,
believe or not. But on a Friday night, as a
single woman, you don't come home and turn on VOD
and watch a horror film. You're not going to do
that on your own. It's more of either a communal
experience or you're doing that separately. So it doesn't perform

(41:04):
on BOD and it doesn't perform on streaming. So it
created an opportunity for firms like freebe and two b
because if they're not available there and there's a consumer
set that wants to see those horror films, well they
can be found on a BOD.

Speaker 2 (41:16):
You'll find a much higher yield of horror.

Speaker 3 (41:19):
Films on a BOD and a lot of them do
perform because they don't need the star value, they don't
need a massive theatrical They just have to fit a
scratch again, scratch that certain niche So make a horror
film that's good, that's supernatural or gore fest or you
know the subgenre is in horror in the right context,
they can make a lot of money on those services.

Speaker 2 (41:38):
I remember we had when twob was just starting up here.

Speaker 3 (41:42):
We had like seventy five movies on, including films that
did theatrical revenues that were notable that you would recognize.

Speaker 2 (41:48):
Our number one film for the first year was Jeepers
Creepers three, and.

Speaker 3 (41:51):
It was because you couldn't find it on another service
because that audience knew to come to two Me to
find Geepers Creepers. It was a two to one too,
by the way it was flying, So we were making
really good money off Japers Creepers three, and I'm sure
the US numbers were manifold higher. I mean the ratio
is not a ten to one, it's more like twenty
one on Avod's because they're.

Speaker 2 (42:10):
Much more prolific in the US.

Speaker 3 (42:12):
So I think it gives you some indication that, again,
a small indie that's not in a certain genre that
is underserved will fail yet AVOD. But in the ray
genres you can work an African American demo thing will
work well into me, a horror film will work well.
Maybe a Western, which is always an underserved audience, will
do well.

Speaker 2 (42:32):
So there's just different things.

Speaker 1 (42:33):
What about YouTube, what's your take on YouTube?

Speaker 3 (42:36):
Well, YouTube is harder to crack, but they're just so prolific, right,
meaning that they it's not even pennies are serving. It's
tenths of a penny a click, and the consumer still
finds it more of a short form medium than a
long form. But they're starting YouTube's trying to drive people
to watch long form there, so short forms still generate
its long form doesn't. They're having trouble monetizing kids as

(42:59):
much as kids are deeply ingrained in YouTube, the laws
have changed that you can't advertise them the same way,
so you can't generate as much revenue because the revenue
is generated from a portion of the advertising revenue.

Speaker 2 (43:11):
So in the kids space, it's.

Speaker 3 (43:12):
Become much more about launching a brand and a property
they can either sell to Netflix or make movies out of.

Speaker 2 (43:18):
Or sell toys and merch. But in the adult space,
they're a part of it.

Speaker 3 (43:23):
And they cannot be ignored because they are a massive,
massive viewership part of the audience. But on the feature
lank side, they still haven't quite got consumers to think
of that as their first destination to watch movies.

Speaker 1 (43:37):
Okay, so a lot of our listeners are going to
be doing low budget indie films like again the five
three four, five hundred thousand dollars indie films. They're going
to put their heart and soul into it. They're going
to try their best. A lot of them are going
to make decent films. So the question I have for
you is, and again remember this is called truth and reality.
I want you to be brutally honest here, even though

(43:57):
the news might not be great, going to make that
kind of thing based on your long experience in a game.
Don't go into the bigger budget stuff in the eight
twenty four stuff, a right, stay in that in that
five hundred thousand dollars genre thing. What would you do
and how would you try to position yourself so that
you have a better chance of success.

Speaker 2 (44:14):
Well, I'd say a couple things.

Speaker 3 (44:16):
I say, you know, it doesn't matter what we say
to anybody, Jeff. Ultimately this movie is driven by passionate
absolutely right.

Speaker 1 (44:22):
This is a dreamer's business, no question.

Speaker 3 (44:24):
And I also a friend of mine day twenty four
that leads it said to me once the best producers
make the best movies, but they also come to the
biggest pay.

Speaker 2 (44:31):
They ask for distribution.

Speaker 3 (44:32):
Because they're the ones that do don't stop anything to
get a filmmade. But then then they're impossible because you say, well,
it's only going to do x amount of business, and
they know it's not. It's going to take over the world,
and they just don't take no for an answer. Right, So,
no matter what we say, in some ways, we'll never
train people to understand that it's a mugs game and
it's roulette.

Speaker 2 (44:50):
I mean not roulette. You put it down on four numbers. Roulett.

Speaker 1 (44:53):
You're putting out one number, you're playing one number. Yeah, yeah,
I say that's actually your being kind. Yeah, that's only
thirty six numbers.

Speaker 2 (44:59):
Right.

Speaker 3 (45:00):
But I would say to people I try to drive
home is think about this as you're not making one movie.
You're a movie maker, right, so you're going to make
a lot of movies because you know why, because you're
going to make a movie and nobody wants to tell
your babies ugly, but it's probably going to be ugly.

Speaker 2 (45:12):
And you're going to say, well, then I'm going to.

Speaker 3 (45:14):
Have to release it myself, and you're going to try
to go theatrical and you're going to see the results there.
They need to drop it on transactional and you're going
to see the results there, but you're going to learn
from that and you're going to learn what worked and
what didn't.

Speaker 1 (45:25):
But no, let me interrupt you. That costs money. It
costs money to make the movie, it costs money release
the movie. It costs a lot of money to learn.
People don't necessarily have access to all of the learning money.
And then the next time around you can't go to
back to an investor and say, hey, good news is
I learned a lot. They're going to say, well, the
bad news is you just lost seven hundred and fifty
thousand dollars of my money and I'm not sure I

(45:47):
want to try a gain for you to learn more.

Speaker 3 (45:49):
Well again, you know, in the absence of knowing a
specific movie, I would say, yeah it is.

Speaker 2 (45:54):
It's tuition, right, you're going to school.

Speaker 3 (45:56):
I just rather people go in eyes open and go like, Okay,
I am gambling with a half a million dollars to.

Speaker 2 (46:01):
See if I can make it back and make some and.

Speaker 3 (46:04):
Likely you're not gonna But if you're good and you're smart,
you will learn from that experience what does work and
doesn't work, and maybe you'll pull in one hundred thousand
dollars and you're down four hundred thousand dollars. So the
next one you got to make another five hundred thousand dollars. Bet,
and maybe you'll be smarter next time.

Speaker 1 (46:20):
Okay, so the question really let me paraphrase the question
now again because of the way you answered it. You've
been doing this for a long time. You've made a
lot of movies. You've released thousands of movies at every level.
So can somebody learn from you? Why don't you just
tell us what the secret sauce is.

Speaker 3 (46:36):
I've distributed and I've produced, so I know how that feels.
And what I will tell you is I learned, and
I learned from when we work together, Jeff. And this
is the beginning of the thing, is that when we
were fresh in the business, it was all about what
Blockbuster wanted. So we can talk about how good our
movies were, but Blockbuster didn't want it.

Speaker 2 (46:53):
Yeah, we were nobody, Yeah we would Nobody wanted it.

Speaker 3 (46:55):
Nobody wanted it, and then it changes and then we
came what Walmart wanted, and maybe there are other people
that have wanted it, but you weren't going to make
money unless a Blockbuster wanted than Walmart wanted it. And
then it became what Apple wanted it, you know, on
the transactional side. Then it became what Amazon wanted, and
then it became what Netflix wants.

Speaker 2 (47:14):
Yeah, so the lesson learned is how I survived in
the business.

Speaker 3 (47:17):
I go where as this is a Canadian expression, but
I'm sure I'll understand not where.

Speaker 2 (47:21):
The puck is, but where the puck is.

Speaker 3 (47:23):
Going when Gretzky said that a long time ago. So
you look at where the biggest market is and you
know what they're buying, and then you make that decision
and you can say to yourself a thousand times over,
but no, but I want to make this very special film. Well,
my friend, you can. But in most cases you got
to make movies.

Speaker 2 (47:39):
And where the puck is going?

Speaker 1 (47:40):
Right, which is I'm going to I'm going to translate
that the puck is going as a hockey reference, obviously
the hockey puck, but I'm going to say, what is
commercially viable that audiences actually want to see. You've got
to anticipate what an audience wants to see, not necessarily
what you believe, you know, your passion project exactly.

Speaker 3 (47:56):
So the bottom line is, if you can't walk in
the room trying to sell your movie and compet which
means to look at other examples of successful films. If
you can't find five successful films that fit this see
your movie, well, I think you're out of luck.

Speaker 2 (48:09):
And then you're on your own. And you may be right.

Speaker 3 (48:12):
You may be finding something that nobody else could see, right,
but more than likely you will be out of luck.

Speaker 1 (48:18):
Okay, so very quickly, I'm going to ask you this question.
You're going to kind of laugh, and then I want
the real answer. How often does a filmmaker walk into
your office and say to you, Hey, I made a
great movie. It's not a big budget movie, but I
made a great movie. But I'm prepared to do a
really robust marketing campaign. I've got some social media influencers
lined up. I'm going to do a spend on social media.

(48:39):
I'm going to create awareness from my movie because I
know that's what it's going to take to help launch
the movie. Is that realistic? Does that actually happen? Or
is that delusional?

Speaker 3 (48:48):
It's I got a line about my door right now
with one hundred people saying exactly what you just said.

Speaker 2 (48:53):
It's delusional. I think that it's not enough, right.

Speaker 3 (48:57):
I think it's what one does when one feels that
they believe and nobody else believes, so they go chase
the dollar value and they go do it. I think ultimately,
we don't do that anymore, right.

Speaker 1 (49:08):
Well, distributors don't. But that's why I say, listen, I
am an independent filmmaker. No, you know, I've made a
lot of movies, right yeah, and I self distribute all
of them now because because I'm going to put my
money where my mouth is and I'm going to do
my own marketing campaign because I don't expect a distributor
to do that. It's the only chance I have. So
when you say you know there's a lineup at the door,
it's because you don't believe them. But my experience is

(49:31):
the only way you have a shot at success is
to actually do that, because you can have a great movie,
but if nobody knows about it.

Speaker 2 (49:36):
No, that's totally fair. I think you're right.

Speaker 3 (49:38):
I think that ultimately it's you know, you can be
insulted by me, but you don't have to listen to me.

Speaker 1 (49:43):
Right well, I think you're saying that because you don't
believe they're actually going to do it, because they don't
know how to do it, or they've never done it before.

Speaker 3 (49:49):
Well, yeah, I think it's Look, I think it's an
intricate thing to do right, and you learn over time
what works on what doesn't to get people's attention.

Speaker 2 (49:56):
But that said, if.

Speaker 3 (49:57):
You're strong enough to make a movie on your own
and believe enough, and you actually really think you can
articulate the market and you've got the cash, sure, I
mean the nice thing about this business is no matter
what you do, you could have Marvel, And already when
they talk about that Marvel like it's the spiral that
they're in, they can't seem to get the same attention
to their movies because people get tired, they want something fresh.

(50:19):
It is a renewable resource, and that consumers are always
looking for a story that's different.

Speaker 2 (50:24):
So yeah, you can win. You can win.

Speaker 3 (50:27):
Terrifier did it this year, right, Like Terrifier was a
film that nobody wanted. These guys put it out to market.
They did it themselves with very little p and a
right and it worked. So nobody's ever.

Speaker 2 (50:38):
Going to tell me that it can't be done. I agree.

Speaker 3 (50:40):
I'm just saying generally, the door slam in your face
is way more than they're open, and You're right, it's
not just making the movie, it's being aware that you're
going to have to be able to sell the movie
yourself because in most cases people are going to say
no to you.

Speaker 1 (50:53):
Yes, I totally agree with that, absolutely. So there's been
a lot of information in this session here. I'm sure
people are loving it. Any final last words advice to
filmmakers or anything else that you would want to share.

Speaker 3 (51:07):
Well, I say all this terrible, jaded, gross stuff to you,
but at the end of the day, I'm one of you,
right Like, I am the guy that made movies and
we did things that nobody said could be done, and
you just got to leap in, right Like, so I'm
a believer in going for it, but I'm just seeing go.

Speaker 2 (51:21):
In eyes open. I said it earlier, I'll say it again.

Speaker 3 (51:24):
Recognize the limitations of what you can do and what
is available to you. The market is hard. The reason
people say no is not because they want to make
you feel bad or they're power tripping, because everybody on
this side of the Fance meeting distribution has their own
metric success.

Speaker 2 (51:38):
They have to run a business, so they don't want
to say no just to piss you off.

Speaker 3 (51:42):
They want to say no because they don't feel they
can make money, and that's what they're supposed to do, right,
So you have to believe in yourself and believe you
can make money. Otherwise you wouldn't be in the film business.
You be in the art film side, and you can
make movies to put.

Speaker 2 (51:57):
Them on a wall, great or home movies. It's great.

Speaker 3 (52:00):
You want to make money in this world. You want
to keep making movies. You got to be able to
find a way to monetize it.

Speaker 1 (52:05):
That's that's why we call it the business. We use
the word business, and I agree, but most filmmakers are
artists that they don't want to talk about the business side,
so that's the disconnect there. Anyways, No, it is always
a pleasure chatting with you, obviously, and you shared a
wealth of information so we really appreciate that. Thanks for
coming on. I'm going to have to invite you ten
more times because there's so much more to talk about,

(52:27):
but thank you.

Speaker 3 (52:28):
Happy to be here. Jeff, just I want snacks.

Speaker 1 (52:30):
Next time they'll be going to be virtual snacks.

Speaker 2 (52:36):
Okay, thanks for that, all right, take it easy, okay. Bye.

Speaker 1 (52:40):
So Noah gave a lot of great information about distribution.
He's been in the business for a long time. As
you can see, he does a lot of theatrical releasing,
which is sometimes, you know, as we discussed in the episode,
out of the sort of the realm of what a
normal indie feature film would do. But it was nice
to hear the perspective and how it all fits together.
So keep all these things in mind. Distribution is so important,

(53:02):
you've got to get it right.