Film Distribution with Berry Meyerowitz of Quiver Distribution

 In this episode, Jeff Deverett sits down with Berry Meyerowitz, President of Quiver Distribution, for a deep dive into the realities of indie film distribution. They explore the evolution of Berry’s career across major companies like Fox and E1, his entrepreneurial journey founding Quiver, and what it takes to get a film distributed in today’s saturated market.

 Topics covered include:

● How the distribution landscape has changed for indie filmmakers● Why AVOD platforms like Tubi are a growing opportunity● What distributors look for in low-budget films● Why marketing assets are just as important as the film itself● The hard truth about breaking even on a $500K indie● How filmmakers can improve their odds through preparation, genre selection, and partnership with distributors

Whether you're a first-time filmmaker or a seasoned indie creator, this episode delivers a candid and practical look at what it takes to succeed with distribution today.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome back everybody. Today, we're going to do another episode
on distribution. So distribution is, in my estimation, the foundation
of the film business. You make a great movie, and
that's great, but you need to sell it. You need
to get it in front of audiences and make sure
they're aware of it. And that's what distribution is all about.
So pay close attention. If you want to be a

(00:22):
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 film business. All right,
Today we have the honor of having Barry Meriwitz on.

(00:43):
He is the president of Quiver Distribution based in Canada,
but he does business all over the world, primarily in
the United States and Canada. And Barry and I have
known each other for a couple of years. So Barry,
want to introduce yourself. Tell us first of all, how
you and I met, and then sort of what your
trajectory was to get to where you are today.

Speaker 2 (01:01):
Okay, well, thank you for having me today. My first
job in the entertainment industry was working for Jeff in
nineteen ninety six. I had just finished my MBA and
Jeff was leaving a large Canadian media company called Astrol
to go start a new business with some partners, and
he hired me as his first employee. And as he

(01:23):
used to like to say, I was as green as
the grass. I was a whole lot because in school
they don't teach you much that's practical, especially about film distribution.
And we had a great couple of years together. I
learned so much from Jeff along the way. We had
a really good time. We traveled all over the place.
This was in the heyday of the VHS video days

(01:44):
before even DVD, and we were building a solid business
in kids entertainment, in licensing and merchandising, and it was
one of the best jobs I've had and we had
a really fun time doing it.

Speaker 1 (01:57):
We did. We really did enjoy that gain.

Speaker 2 (01:59):
Yeah. A couple of years later, I was recruited to
relaunch the Canadian office of twentieth century Fox Home Entertainment.
At that time, Canada was being run as a sales
office out of the LA office.

Speaker 1 (02:13):
As I like to say, Fox stole you from me,
That's how I say it, which was a compliment to
you and to all of us because you were at
that caliber.

Speaker 2 (02:21):
So Fox had a new president who had just become
the head of Worldwide Operations, and he had joined Fox
from PEPSI, where he set up individual territory specific p
and ls around Europe, and then when he became president
of Worldwide, which included the domestic US in Canada, he
couldn't understand why Canada was being run as part of

(02:43):
the US and I was the first hire to start
separating that business. And I had a really interesting first
year at Fox. The content was amazing, from the X
Files movie to There's Something About Mary, the Full Monty.
These are all the big movies that I worked on.
And then the second year I found very frustrating. A

(03:03):
lot of bureaucracy, a lot of decision makers, a lot
of paperwork, and at that time I wasn't that happy.
Over a while, I wanted to move to the US.
I wanted to get going with my career, and the
Internet was really taking off. This is nineteen ninety seven eight,
and I ended up moving to New York and I

(03:23):
worked for a number of startups there over four years,
and then at the end of that tenure, Jeff came
to town and Jeff owned two businesses at the time
and he was selling one of them, and as part
of that deal, he had to divest his control over
the entertainment business, which had been renamed Kaboom Entertainment, and
over a couple of days in New York, he and

(03:45):
I made a deal where I would take over the
business from him, and a few months later I moved
back to Toronto and we had a one day handoff
in the office and he was gone.

Speaker 1 (03:57):
You knew what you were doing, you knew and I
trusted you in place.

Speaker 2 (04:00):
Yeah, And then ran that business for three years. We
sold it to a Canadian and US publicly traded production
services company called PSARCH Entertainment. They wanted to add distribution
to all of their production business joined PSARCH ran Home
Entertainment during that time. We bought a US distribution business

(04:21):
and the stock was moving really nicely. And then there
was a traumatic incident at the American Film Market and
I think ninety eight, maybe no.

Speaker 1 (04:32):
A little later, two yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, two thousand,
two thousand eight, yeah.

Speaker 2 (04:37):
Yeah, where we had a big party at AFM. We
had just produced a movie with Meg Ryan and Bill Macy.
It's a big event for our company, and then the
next day we were all either staying in la for
a couple of days or flying home, and at the
end of the day we couldn't reach our CEO, and
then we found out that he was arrested at Lax

(04:58):
by the FBI for alleged bank and that was the
beginning of the end of peace Arch Entertainment. I stayed
at peace Arch for another year or so, I was
under contract, and then I was able to cut a
deal with them. It was a very fortuitous, lucky, creative
deal where I was able to take on a couple

(05:19):
of their shareholders who one of whom was suing them,
as well as workout a deal with CIBC with the
bank here where they were in special loans, and I
was able to buy the assets of the Canadian US
distribution businesses and in April two thousand and nine, I
amalgamated them into a new company called Phase four Films.

Speaker 1 (05:39):
Which because it was the fourth phase of your entertainment career,
that's why you called it that correct.

Speaker 2 (05:43):
The fourth iteration of my film tenure. And one of
the things that we had done really well is that
we had established a joint venture with a company in
the US that had a Walmart vendor number. In those
days of DVD, Walmart was the preeminent retailer, very difficult
for independence to get in. You had to go through

(06:03):
an aggregator in Texas called Anderson Merchandisers. So we were
able to establish a JV where we ran the business
through the Walmart number, and then over time we bought
out our partner and we became the sole owner of
the vendor number, and that really helped drive our business
in video as well as across all media. It was

(06:24):
a fantastic operation. We had incredible people. The business grew
rapidly over five years, and then in twenty fourteen I
sold that business to a large Canadian entertainment company called
Entertainment One. I went to E one to run their
US film business. Enjoyed it in the beginning, but culturally
it didn't fit with what I was looking for. And

(06:47):
then a couple years later I had a parting of
the ways with E one in a friendly, respectful way.
And during this time I had a board of advisors.
One of my advisors was a friend of mine named
Jeff Sackman. Jeff and I would talk a lot about
what the future Held.

Speaker 1 (07:06):
Who also is from the film industry, spent most of
his career in the film business.

Speaker 2 (07:10):
He owned the company that sold in to become Lionsgate.
He ran a company called Think Film, which was a
leading independent theatrical distributor, and then he was a sole
proprietor for many years, producing films, consulting, raising financing. And
when I was in the process of leaving, we discussed
what would look like for us to come together. I
had a couple of projects that I was bringing with

(07:30):
me from the one. He had a couple of projects,
and we ended up setting up a new business that
launched officially in twenty seventeen, and we actually started off
by producing films in order to sell them to global
distributors such as the Studios or Netflix and Amazon were
just then getting into buying movies for multiple territories, and

(07:53):
we produced twelve movies over a three or four year period,
most of which were sold one time to Amazon or
Netflix or Sony or Paramount. And it was a straightforward business.
But the last couple of movies we could not sell
all rights. We were only able to sell the US

(08:14):
pay TV rights, and then we had to license the
ancillary rights to independent distributors who were friends of mine.
We all grew up together, and we recognized that if
someone was going to buy it for, for argument's sake,
one hundred thousand dollars, that means they were going to
generate two or three hundred thousand. So why should we
license the rights out when we know this business and

(08:35):
I know this business really, really well. So the next
year we set up Quiver Distribution as a full service distribution,
production acquisition business headquartered in Toronto. The focus of the
business was and continues to be the US market. Fast
forward to today, We've just had our five year, six
year anniversary. We have an incredible team of people located

(08:58):
in Toronto, Los Angeles, and Ashville, and we are trying
to punch above our weight in a very complicated competitive
marketplace right now where it's truly a buyer's market from
the platforms where DVD doesn't exist anymore in real numbers,
where pay per views only good for live events, and

(09:18):
where the video on demand marketplace is also very taxed
because so many consumers have multiple subscription services which have
basically rendered the value of content to not be worth much.
And that is really the biggest problem we face in
the business. There's two issues. Number one is when you're
watching a program a movie on Netflix and you don't
like it, you can switch to another movie and there's

(09:41):
no cost of switching. So consumers do not have an
appreciation for paying for content like they used.

Speaker 1 (09:46):
To, or a loyalty to any type of viewership.

Speaker 2 (09:49):
Yeah, and the second component is with social media now
and YouTube and so many different methods, the pie is
so much bigger than it ever used to be. So
for young people especially, but for people of all ages
to commit to spending ninety minutes to watch a film,
that's valuable time for them, and we need to make
it worth their while. So we need to continue to

(10:11):
enhance our offerings by producing and acquiring higher caliber films
to compete with the studios, and that continues to be
a very challenging proposition. Yet we always find angles. We're
a very entrepreneurial team and we can pivot much more
quickly than the studios do. And we are very customer
friendly and meaning our customers. The platforms like iTunes and

(10:32):
Netflix and Amazon and studios to a degree sometimes we
sell to them. Our goal is to be the best
partners that we can in the business, and sometimes that
means punching much higher than we would like to. We
are in market right now with a film called Cleaner.
It's an action movie starring Daisy Ridley from Star Wars

(10:52):
and Clive Owen. It's a twenty five million dollar production.
We acquire the North American rights. It was a significant
acquisition for us. We are finishing our theatrical run this
coming weekend, you know, end up grossing in the eight
hundred thousand dollar range, and now we are setting it
up for premium video on demand on March twenty first,

(11:13):
which is where all of our focus is, and then
after that it will go to one of the platforms
for our pay television window.

Speaker 1 (11:20):
So you didn't make that movie, You're just acquiring it.

Speaker 2 (11:22):
We were the beneficiary of someone else acquiring it and
being able to acquire it at a number that made
sense for us in the current marketplace.

Speaker 1 (11:31):
Right, So you're going to put a lot of marketing
prowess behind it, obviously, I mean you did for the
theatrical release. How wide was the theatrical release? How many We're in.

Speaker 2 (11:39):
About three hundred and fifty screens in the US marketplace.
We have put in a lot of marketing, and we
will continue to put in a lot of marketing as
we lead into the Pivot release on March twenty one.

Speaker 1 (11:50):
Okay, so here's what Barry. You and I obviously have
a long history, and you know I focus now, as
you know, on smaller independent productions like the stuff I'm
My Sweet is less than a million dollars, so I'm
not dealing in twenty five million dollar movies with theatrical releases.
That's more or less what this podcast is for for
that audience, indie filmmakers who want to try to make
something and get it out there. But you are super entrepreneurial.

(12:13):
I know that. I always like that about you. That's
why we got along so well, you just you take
charge and you pivot, like you said, quickly. You're able
to kind of assess what goes on in the marketplace
and deal with it accordingly and realistically. Remember the name
of this podcast is Indie Filmmaking, Truth and Reality. So
you know, like you don't, You're not delusional. You say, guys,
maybe because it worked before, it doesn't mean it's going

(12:34):
to work in the future. So you pivot. But let's
look at let's focus on the low budget indie film,
like the five hundred thousand dollars indie film that. Okay,
first of all, we both agree a lot of them
are garbage. Those aren't going to get any distribution. So
let's look at the ones that are decent. Because there
are filmmakers who can actually make something that is decently
entertaining at that budget level but is not going to

(12:54):
have any recognizable talent. Is there a market for that?

Speaker 2 (12:57):
Absolutely there is. We have seen a couple of our
friends partners excel in this area, specifically on AVOD on
advertising video on demand. What's happened in the last few
years as the linear broadcasters like Showtime and Peacock are
having a much more difficult time or they're not buying

(13:18):
as much, it has really provided way more buying power
to Netflix, Amazon, Hulu for the most part, those three
specifically for independent film, so the bar is much higher,
so we continue to sell to them, we try to
make deals with them. At the same time, AVOD has
really taken off over the last five years. And AVOD,

(13:40):
as I'm sure everyone knows, is the same looking platform,
but it's advertising interspersed into the programming. It's similar to
watching television and AVOD has grown rapidly where the biggest
players are to be which is owned by Fox, and
Amazon has an AVOD service also that is very six
US well, and YouTube.

Speaker 1 (14:01):
Is right free v previous Amazons and Pluto is owned
by Paramount, you know, and CBS.

Speaker 2 (14:07):
Pluto is fantastic. It's they do more in the TV
series side than the feature side. But absolutely Pluto is
a big player in the space.

Speaker 1 (14:15):
But this is all vertically integrated. These are all all
these platforms are owned by bigger studios or media companies.

Speaker 2 (14:21):
Correct, correct, And they've had to be even That's why
the studios are owned by multinationals, because you can't afford
to take a loss of one hundred million dollars on
a movie and survive if you're a one trick pope. Right.
So a ROD has really grown significantly, and we have
some friends of ours and we do a significant AVOD
business today, But we have friends of ours who simply

(14:43):
acquire movies strictly for a VOD and we do a
portion of this as well. And it's not about the actors.
It's about the genre. It's about the creativity of the director,
it's about the key art, the poster art and it's
about the trailer. We had a movie in December of
this year that generated eighty thousand dollars on one of
the avond platforms back to us just in one month.

(15:05):
So if it works, it works. There's also other movies
that generate one hundred dollars back to us. You never
really know what's going to work. But if you position
the movie and make it properly where you're actually thinking
about the assets that you need to exploit the film
before you make the movie, that is where you were
best positioned to be successful. The challenge with low budget

(15:28):
independent films, so say undred million dollars, is for the
most part, producers are just scraping to raise the money
and put the pictures on screen. They're not thinking about
what assets am I going to use to market the movie.
So a lot of the time when we acquire a
smaller film, they didn't do a photo shoot, they didn't
do a gallery shoot. They had someone with a camera
shooting b roll on screen. It's not particularly usable. So

(15:52):
we have to then go into the movie and do
what's called screen grabs from the movie, which is not
the best way to do it. It's costly, time consuming
and you don't get the best material. So we have
been advising and frankly, we've actually partnered with one of
our friends and we're in the process of finalizing a
movie that costs substantially less than half a million dollars
as a test for us, and we went into it

(16:13):
as we would any other movie that cost five million dollars.
We put together a creative brief. Here are the selling
points of the movie. Here are the still photography shots
that we want, here's the background, here's the trailer that
we want. We did that all before the first day
of principal photography, and then we hired someone to be
on set to make sure we captured every single one
of those things while the shoot was happening, and we

(16:35):
carved out time in the schedule to do a proper
gallery shoot. Ninety percent of independent movies don't do that.

Speaker 1 (16:41):
No, ninety nine percent, not ninety ninety nine.

Speaker 2 (16:44):
I'm trying to be nice. Yeah, So that there is
definitely a marketplace for it. And if you're a creative
producer and you can find a director's got talent and
there's a market for it, there's infinite consumption from the
world right.

Speaker 1 (16:57):
Now, okay, but it's those AVOD platforms are very crowded.
I mean you're talking to be could have two hundred
thousand movies, of which say fifty thousand are studio movies
in you know, third, fourth, fifth release windows. So you know,
my little indie five hundred thousand dollars film is going
to be competing with Jurassic Park as people are going through.
You know, that's a trump that's tough too, right to

(17:19):
get noticed and stand out from the crowd.

Speaker 2 (17:22):
Definitely to be as an example, they were on track
close to your number, but not quite. They're on track
for one hundred thousand titles, and now they they're stopping.
I think they're in the sixty thousand range. It doesn't
really matter, sixty two hundred, it's still thousands. So it's
about what we can do to ensure that the marketing
and merchandising team on the to B front recognize that

(17:44):
this film can work with their audience. So is it
similar to other movies of the same genre. Is it
from a director who's done well before, But also a
lot of it is the distributor that is positioning the movie.
You know, we have hundreds of movies on to b
right now we're able to have a conversation with him
about why this makes sense, how to introduce it, what's
the right date for it, what's the right seasonality. Is

(18:06):
there a theme that we can tie into on launch
Because it's a romantic comedy, we want to do it
to around Valentine's Day. There's all these different nuances that
we try to bring to the table to help the
filmmaker position their movie, and then we're at the mercy
of the gods. You Sometimes you just don't know how
it's going to perform it. And that's why I said,
sometimes our movies generate one hundred dollars and sometimes they

(18:27):
generate eighty thousand. It's a bit of a crap shoot.

Speaker 1 (18:29):
Okay, do do filmmakers ever come to you and say,
I'm gonna get involved in marketing. I'm very passionate about
my movie. Obviously, I feel like I made a decent
film and it's entertaining. But now I realize, because I've
listened to enough podcasts, that I need to be involved
in the marketing side because the distributor just doesn't have
the time to focus on every movie or the resources.
So I'm going to spend you know, fifty or one

(18:51):
hundred grand on doing a very robust a social media
campaign with some influencers and help you position my movies
that people are actually aware of it. When it goes
on to twob does that ever happen?

Speaker 2 (19:02):
It does. The majority of the cases are filmmakers who
say we want to help you, what can we do,
and we point them in the right direction in terms
of social media and stunts, anything we can do. It
is rare for a producer or filmmaker to come to
us and say we have allocated a portion of our
budget for marketing and merchandising. It has happened before, but

(19:24):
it doesn't happen often, and it's a great way to
approach it that if you're going to raise one hundred
thousand dollars for a movie, try to raise one fifty
and keep that fifty aside to market the movie, because
you will be head and shoulders above everyone else who
has one hundred thousand dollars movie.

Speaker 1 (19:39):
So if I tell filmmakers to do that all the time,
but it's painful for them to do that because they
get the other fifty, they're going to want to spend
it on making the movie, you know, then they'll try
to They'll say, well, figure it out later marketing, but
they never do. So if somebody were to come to
you and say, you know, I spent half a million
dollars on my movie, but I tucked away another one
hundred thousand for marketing, is it better if they spend

(19:59):
it themselve or give it to you to spend it.

Speaker 2 (20:01):
It's a coordinated effort, so typically we get better deals.
We have better access because we advertise regularly with all
the sites. We have a deal with publicists. So typically
we'd put it together and collaborate with the filmmaker to
ensure that here's how much we're spending on publicity, here's
how much on events, here's on social here's on paid media.

(20:22):
Are we going to do at an event for it?
So we work on it together.

Speaker 1 (20:26):
Okay, I am going to ask you the tough question
right now, This question I'm going to ask you, and
I'm going to ask it to you because we've known
each other a long time and I can be straight
up and honest with you. But this is a question
that every filmmaker should ask. But they actually don't even
know to ask this question. And if they actually did
know to ask this question, they would probably be too
intimidated to ask it. Here's my question to you. So

(20:49):
these you just talked about AVAD and how robust it
can be if you know, film catches a spark or
something like that. You gave the example of eighty thousand
dollars in the first month and everything like that. Somebody
makes a film for a half a million. Are filmmakers
making their money back like AVAD? That's a lot of views.

Speaker 2 (21:05):
No, it's very difficult to make your money back if
you're just relying on AVAD and in the domestic.

Speaker 1 (21:11):
Market, thank you for your honesty.

Speaker 2 (21:12):
But if you're making a movie for one hundred thousand
dollars and it's a genre like a horror film or
an action movie that can play, and that's one of
the things that I have right now working on. Right now,
our team is working on that with another partner is
producing a movie for less than a half a million
dollars as a test for us. Yeah, then it's possible
because the key is, first of all, make a film

(21:32):
that can travel around the world. Comedies don't typically travel internationally.
American comedies different nuanced, different language, different sensibilities, what travels,
action travels, sci fi to a degree, thrillers travel, family
movies travel. You want to try to have a film
that can be sold everywhere around the world, whether it's
dubbed or subtitle. So on the film that I'm referring to,

(21:55):
it was being sold in Berlin, and I think we'll
end up doing fifty thousand.

Speaker 1 (22:00):
So when you say Berlin, let me just clarify, the
European film market was recently. That's when you say Berlin.
That's what happens the European film market in Berlin.

Speaker 2 (22:07):
So we brought this movie and you're getting five thousand
from a market or you know, maybe Germany, the biggest
international market's paying fifteen thousand. Like you're just cobbling together
nickels and dimes to try to add up to something
that's real, because then it reduces your reliance on recouping
from the US and Canada, which is the biggest market.
So at five hundred thousand for an AVAD direct movie,

(22:30):
that's tough. It's happened before, by the way, they have
lots of examples of it happening, but it's it's rare.
At five hundred thousand bucks, you'd hope to have some
kind of talent in the film TV stars, someone who
can make it higher profile, and then you're going to
try to get it on TVOD. You're going to try
to make the transactional business happen, and you're gonna before
you go to AVAD, you're going to try to see

(22:51):
if you can put it into a package with one
of the bigger platforms. So if they want a big movie,
you can say, okay, please add in a few others.

Speaker 1 (23:00):
You mean on SVOD, you're talking a package on SVOD.
All right, let's just talk about TVOD for a second.
So that's transactional video on demand. When people say rent
for four ninety nine or buy for ten bucks or
eleven bucks? Is there business there for these kind of
movies that really nobody knows about.

Speaker 2 (23:14):
It's purely opportunistic. You know, in the old DVD days,
we would you know, try to position them at the
cash and it was an impulse purchase. It's similar today,
it's a much deeper healthy because consumers have so much choice. Right,
so if you have subscriptions to Amazon Prime and Netflix
and Hulu, are you going to take the risk on
buying a movie for four ninety nine renting it for

(23:37):
four ninety nine for forty eight hours. Cleaner, as an example,
is a big ticket item. We're putting it out a
premium video on demand, which is twenty dollars rental for
two days, and then it'll go down in price over time.
So we have films at every level of the equation,
and it's similar. Some films do very little business and
we continuously wonder doesn't make sense, and then some films

(23:58):
surprise us, and so we believe it's a great way
to not have to wait for films. If you see
something and you're on the platform and you're looking for
something to watch on a Saturday night, and you see
the art that is appealing to you, and you watch
the trailer and it's something you're interested in, it's great value.
It's it's the best value of entertainment that there is.
But it's getting more difficult as consumers have so much choice.

Speaker 1 (24:22):
Everybody, all filmmakers have this sort of delusional dream that
they say, I'm going to make a great film and
then Netflix is going to buy it. What's the odds
of that happening? And when I say Netflix, I'm talking
any big SVOD platform you know, Paramount plus Hulu, any
of them. I think you're being kind.

Speaker 2 (24:38):
Actually, I don't like going in decimal.

Speaker 1 (24:42):
And why is that? Why is that?

Speaker 2 (24:43):
Barry? Well, if you think about it from their perspective,
they have a calendar that they're trying to schedule. They
have output deals, which means contracted deals with the studios
other and larger companies, where they have a set amount
of films that come to them on the studio's release schedule.
They have also acquired a lot of library content over

(25:05):
the years, so you know the Shawshank redemption you may
you'll see on Netflix, et cetera.

Speaker 1 (25:10):
I just watched Missus Dubfire the other day, you know,
I mean, these are gigantic, high.

Speaker 2 (25:13):
Quality library titles. They make their own movies. They're in
the original's business. They produce their own films. So and
now sorry, the other thing that's happening. If you look
on Netflix in the US, you'll see way more foreign
language content than you've ever seen before. It's a huge
piece of their business that's grown because they're making a
lot of local language content and acquiring it or producing

(25:35):
it where they will also have the domestic rights. And
that's becoming a much more popular viewing type as well,
because there's amazing content from International squid Game.

Speaker 1 (25:44):
I mean, you know, Parasite, all these.

Speaker 2 (25:46):
When you look at all of that and you put
it together and you look at their slate, they'll say,
you know what, we don't really have much budget left
for the rest of this year, but we always find
room for something that's spectacular or something that we want.
And that's really our goal is trying to find something
that fits with what they're looking for. But it's very difficult.
It's a buyer's market for them. They have all the

(26:07):
card too, right.

Speaker 1 (26:08):
So you're exploring and experimenting with this low budget indie
film now that you're you know, told us about a
few minutes ago, what would you say to indie filmmakers. Listen,
people are going to make films. We know that. Okay,
this is a dreamer's business. I deal with people all
the time, and all my students, all aspiring young filmmakers
with starry eyes, who are only thinking about the making

(26:30):
the filmmaking part, not the business part, obviously, because if
you were to think about the business part, it wouldn't
be as rosy a picture. So people are going to
continue to make movies. If somebody wants to kind of
give themselves a better chance, you know, a little bit
more of an advantage maybe at the end sight, what
should they be doing and thinking? We talked about maybe
talking away money from marketing, what other things like what

(26:53):
genre is? What? What should to be as successful as possible?
And I'm talking financially. What would you advise.

Speaker 2 (27:00):
Once the filmmaker has a script that they're happy with
that they can make up the number that they have
raised or that they can raise, I would put the
script aside and put together a marketing plan for the
movie before you shoot one day. In principle, I would
sit with the team and say, okay, what are cool
events stunts? What can we shoot during the production where

(27:22):
we can use on social media? Because no one does that.
It's critical because we sometimes acquire these movies, we have
no assets to use. So whether you're going to do
it yourself, you know a lot of people say, oh
I'm gonna do it, diy, I'll do it myself, or
will you'll give it to a distributor? Like us, we
need assets, so for us to go and make spend
money making assets, it's kind of a waste of time.

Speaker 1 (27:42):
Okay, let me just clarify assets meaning poster like key
art as you call it, trailer and production stills like
you know, like shots of the actors and different poses
and stuff and.

Speaker 2 (27:53):
Different executions of art. Don't just do one thing. Do
different looks, do portraits of all the leads, do behind
the scenes interviews with it, like as much video and
still content as you can. So we have an arsenal
with which to use to try to monetize the film,
promote it, and then to your point, what are the
best genres? And that requires research, but it also requires passion.

(28:16):
You know, if you're a horror guy, you're not going
to make a romantic comedy. You got to make a horror.
So look at all the horror movies that have been
successful in the last couple of years and take the
best parts of those that you think you can emulate
with your budget. The other thing is the market is
changing rapidly all the time, so what was successful six
months ago is a whole different world today. So you
also have to think ahead and project as to where

(28:38):
the market's going. And maybe you know, for twenty five
thousand dollars, you go and find someone who's made a
really good horror movie, and you bring them on as
a producer or an executive producer to get a name
on the movie. There's different creative ways to do it
that don't cost too much money, that give you the
best shot at rising to the top of your peer
group of films.

Speaker 1 (29:00):
So let me ask you this. So, now somebody makes
a film, you know, low budget, any film. I keep
saying five hundred thousand, you're saying one hundred thousand, you know,
whatever the number is. First of all, we both agree
the film has to be good. It has to be entertaining.
All right, you make a crappy film, nobody's gonna want
to watch it.

Speaker 2 (29:14):
So in the first ten minutes have to be good.

Speaker 1 (29:16):
They have to be good. They have to be engaging,
because otherwise people lose interest.

Speaker 2 (29:20):
Put everything into the first ten minutes.

Speaker 1 (29:22):
Okay, So now they have this film, they've done well,
they've made a good film. Now they're going to go
try to find a distributor. How do you choose who
the right distributor is? I mean, it's it's a tricky,
tricky I mean for filmmakers who've never done distribution before,
they got to go choose like first of all, source
its distributors and then and then meet them and choose

(29:43):
the right one. How do you know what you're getting?
I call it like dating on steroids.

Speaker 2 (29:48):
Right, And similar to my mention that it's a buyer's
market for the streaming platforms for low budget films, that's
a buyer's market for distributors. I think our acquisitions te
and probably looks at ten to twenty finished movies a week.

Speaker 1 (30:03):
A week a week. Wow, and we're talking features. We're
talking features feature films.

Speaker 2 (30:11):
Yeah, even ten say think about that's five hundred movies
a year.

Speaker 1 (30:14):
And that's just your team.

Speaker 2 (30:16):
Absolutely, Well, I'm sure they're going to everyone. Yeah, So
it's really we have to connect with it. So number one,
it has to be someone who's presenting it to us
that our team responds to. So that's one thing. But
obviously we watch the movie and we think, can we
sell it? Can we make money? If we can't make
money on it's not worth my time or your time
to do this.

Speaker 1 (30:34):
But what is It's a gut thing. It's a subjective
thing like some day.

Speaker 2 (30:38):
So we also look we look at comparable titles that
we've had in the past and try to say, okay,
well this is similar to that we made this much
on that movie. Maybe we can do this. You know,
here's a couple good looks. I see the art looking
this way. It's also about how much do we want
to commit in time and money to position the movie.
That's why I'm saying, the more that the filmmaker does
to give us a finished deck of materials, we really

(31:02):
respond favorably.

Speaker 1 (31:03):
Okay, but you're just said that from the perspective of
the distributor to the filmmaker. Put yourself in the shoes
of the filmmaker who is kind of intimidated by the
whole process of distribution. And they're meeting with you and
your colleagues, your acquisition people. What are they looking for?
I mean, I would say, you know, obviously if you
have to have the experience in the skill set and
you know, good history, but is there chemistry, like, what

(31:24):
should they be looking for?

Speaker 2 (31:25):
Yeah, listen, this is a people business. I wish I
could say that what we do is so different than
my three biggest competitors, the grand scheme of things. We
all do the same thing. I happen to believe we
have the best team and that's what makes a big
difference for our company, and we take care of our
customers at a degree that no one else does. That's
important to me. So there definitely has to be chemistry

(31:46):
from the filmmaker side. I would also look at I'd
go deep into the websites and social media of the
distributors they're talking to and see what kind of films
they distribute, See if they can find movies that resonate
with them, that are similar in tone or genre to
the one that they've made, and try to position it.
Because they should be presenting to us why their movie

(32:08):
makes sense in our catalog. We have to take the
time and say, you know what, We're willing to invest
in you in your movie because it takes up a
slot and our slots are very valuable.

Speaker 1 (32:17):
Okay, now let's say there's a match. They like you,
you like them, you like their film. Now comes the
deal phase. So I don't know if you've ever been online,
but I deal with this all the time. Is filmmakers.
You know, I do these consultations and they all said,
I'm gonna get screwed by my distributor or I being screwed.
I have the worst deal. It's terrible. Why did I
sign it? What's your take on that.

Speaker 2 (32:40):
Don't sign a bad deal. You know, we're very transparent.
So the way that we are operating right now is
for these lower budget movies, we will put up a
small energy or we will do a deal where it's
something like costs off the top and then we share afterwards.
So it's really open, transparent. We're very clear with them

(33:01):
as to what we're gonna do, how much it's gonna cost,
where we think it'll fit in our portfolio, and how
to release it properly. You said, what can the filmmaker do.
We're not going to release this movie theatrically for the
majority of the time, but maybe the filmmaker wants to
do a premiere with all their friends and family and crew.
We want to film some of that. We want to
film reactions afterwards. We want all that to be used

(33:24):
for social media to promote the movie. So the more
assets the better. But I really do think it is chemistry.
You know, we have a team that love independent movies.
While we would love to have more Cleaners of the
World twenty five million dollar Diehard esque movies, right you know,
Star Wars Star and Clive Owen, those aren't run of
the mill, you know, we don't. We're not able to

(33:44):
acquire a lot of those every year. So we fill
our slate with movies, some that are lower budgets, some
that are five million dollar movies, ten million dollar movies.
We have them at all ranges. Someone will always say
to us, what's the budget of the movie when we're
selling it. For me, the answer is, what's the difference exactly?

Speaker 1 (34:01):
Just look at the movies or play at place.

Speaker 2 (34:04):
So if I tell you it's five million, you can
offer me half that, because the domestic market should be
half of the world. It's silly. So the goal of
a filmmaker is to have their movie be of equality
where no one's asking us what the price of it
is because it looks low budget, right.

Speaker 1 (34:20):
So yeah, that's why I said, you have to you
have to be in the game. You gotta at least
make an entertaining movie, and who cares how much you
made it for as long as it's entertaining. Because you know,
there's different talent levels in filmmakers. Some people can stretch
a dollar way further than other people can.

Speaker 2 (34:34):
Absolutely different places that our guys are making this movie
in Texas They've stretched a long way to make this happen.
I would also suggest it also in preparation, you know,
whether it's AFM or Berlin, or go to one of
the film markets and just walk around and educate yourself because,
as I said, the ten movies a week that we're
seeing or twenty, you won't believe how many films are.

Speaker 1 (34:56):
Yeah, I've taken filmmakers to markets and they were super
intimidated by it. I mean they were just marveled. They
had no idea how vast the market is, how many
of the same movies are there from different countries. Let's
just get back to the terms of the distribution agreement
for a second. What do you think is a fair
period of time for distributors? And I'll set the stage here.
Distributors asking for you know, ten twelve fifteen year terms,

(35:18):
and I'm saying, like, why do they need that most
of the revenue on a film is generated in the
first four to five years hopefully, because if it isn't,
I don't think it's coming at all. So why do
you need ten fifteen year terms if you're going to
generate ninety to ninety five percent of the revenue at
that time, and you know, maybe there's an automatic renewal
after that.

Speaker 2 (35:36):
So the perspective in the industry has always been if
you're paying fair money for the movie, you should have
a long run.

Speaker 1 (35:43):
To okay, and I don't disagree with that, but the
people aren't paying fair money anymore. The MG's are either
zero or super small.

Speaker 2 (35:51):
Right, So we understand that we want the filmmaker to
make money. We want to make sure that we have
recouped all of our and we've earned a fair fee
before the rights go back. And you to your previous comment,
we do automatic renewals all the time, but on lower
budget films we are open to doing much shorter.

Speaker 1 (36:11):
Terms, which would make sense because you're probably not going
to give a big MG or any MG at all,
because you don't want to take that financial risk. And
is it fair to say that the revenue, if it
doesn't come in the first three to four years or
four to five years, it's probably not going to come.
Is that a fair comment?

Speaker 2 (36:26):
That is one hundred accurate? Right?

Speaker 1 (36:29):
Okay? So I advise filmmakers all the time not to
sign contracts with long terms on low budget indie films,
and if they do, I talk about these performance specials.
So if you're going to sign a ten year term,
say after four years, if you haven't received this much money,
then you have the option to terminate because fair is fair.

Speaker 2 (36:47):
Agreed the lowest will go as five years. Sometimes you
know we do seven, but all in that range. As
long as we're made whole, we've earned a profit. We
want the produce. We want to be writing checks the producers.
That's the name of the game, us the movie with
success right.

Speaker 1 (37:00):
The other thing that like, if you read on these
filmmaker websites and blogs and stuff like that, a lot
of people complain about costs. So some people don't put
a cost cap in their contracts just they don't know
to do that. Like a filmmakers, they don't know they know,
you guys do distribution contracts every day. A filmmaker does
want in their lifetime maybe and they don't get represented
by a lawyer or something like that, so they just
don't know what to ask for. So some people say, ah,

(37:21):
they sent me this report and there was you know,
eighty thousand dollars in costs, and that ate up all
the profit. I say, you want your distributor to actually
spend money because they have to release the film and
delivery delivery cost money and they you know, maybe they're
going to do a little bit of marketing and they
got to go to markets and represent it. So you
actually want them spending some money, but you don't want
them overspending. So how would you advise a filmmaker to

(37:44):
handle that?

Speaker 2 (37:45):
Exactly with what you're saying, let's come to an agreeable
number that we think we need to spend. You're in
agreement with it. It also is good for us to
target a spend because that helps us with our budgeting
and where we want to spend the money. It keeps
us very focused on it. And if we need to
go above that number for whatever reason, we have to
go back to the filmmaker for written approval.

Speaker 1 (38:05):
Right, which is right in the contract. Okay, let's talk
about delivery. Like a lot of filmmakers just don't even
understand how to deliver a film to a distributor. It's
a nightmare because they didn't prepare it. They just don't
know delivery. So can you just talk a little bit
about that.

Speaker 2 (38:20):
You're right, I mean, we have a fantastic delivery executive
and this is what he deals with every day, the
inbound and the outbound. But obviously in order for there
to be outbound, there has to be enough bound to
be able to make the materials right.

Speaker 1 (38:33):
So can you explain sort of just some of the
materials that people should be aware of.

Speaker 2 (38:37):
Well, you know, we need the right master. It's all
about the master. So I think the key is to
make sure that when you're making an indie movie, you
spend money on a post production executive who knows what
they're doing, and you go and partner with a lab
who can help you and you need And what we
see on indie movies is most of the time they
don't budget properly for post production. They put their money

(38:58):
on the screen, they finish the ball, and then they say, okay,
now what we're done. No, no, no, no, Now the work's beginning.
You know, the sound, the music, the VFX. Putting it
all together is a complicated process. It is an art
and you need to have someone on your team who
really knows what they're doing, because you don't want to
be fumbling around with us. And if we don't receive

(39:20):
what we need from you, we have to go make
it ourselves, which is really costly, which just delays how
long it takes for you to get any money back.

Speaker 1 (39:27):
Yeah, delivery is complicated, folks who are listening. I mean,
you don't take it for granted. You've got to deliver
the assets properly and the assets that they require. Otherwise
they can't send it to a streaming platform. They just can't.

Speaker 2 (39:38):
They can't agree with the distributor in advance exactly what
they need. Right, we have a very robust delivery schedule.
We don't need every single item on a low budget
movie because we're not releasing it theatrically, we're not dubbing it.
So depending on how the movie's going to be released,
the delivery schedule can be paired down. That's really the

(40:00):
important thing to go over with your distributor to make
sure that you've budgeted for everything that we or they need.

Speaker 1 (40:06):
So what about filmmakers that kind of go in and
what you just said earlier, spend all their money on
production and don't have anything left over for post production.

Speaker 2 (40:13):
If the movie is if we see a cut of
the movie and we think it's fantastic, maybe we'll take
on that obligation or burden. For the most part, we won't,
So they need to go and raise another fifty thousand
dollars to put it through posts and make sure it
happens right.

Speaker 1 (40:29):
You are a domestic distributor. I know you know the
international business, but primarily you specialize in the US and Canada.
As we talked about, should somebody give you worldwide rights,
can you sub distribute it to other people, or should
they split the rights and do different territories. What do
you would you advise?

Speaker 2 (40:44):
We are doing global distribution now. In some territories we're direct.
In some territories we distribute through a partner. Well, we
have found even for our own films, so we've produced
a number of films in the last five years. We
keep the domestic rights we sell be foreign rights. The
independent foreign sales market has been really struggling the last

(41:04):
couple of years. Our movies did not perform at the
level that we and the sales company hope that they would.
So for the most part, we're taking back all of
our rights and we're exploiting them ourselves. So it depends
on the film. If our team responds to the movie
and thinks that we can sell it internationally, then we
would say, okay, let's do a global deal. But we

(41:26):
don't want to take a movie on and have it
just sit idle if it's not going to be exploited
and internationally fair enough.

Speaker 1 (41:34):
Self distribution I mean, I say to people, it's hard
enough to make the movie, distributing it is ten times harder.
Believe it or not. People think, oh, distribution, how hard
it is. You put it out there. They buy it.
Like I say, the making the movie, I call it
the party. You're spending money, you're having a good time,
you're being creative. Like I say, the two hardest parts
of the business are getting financing to make the movie

(41:55):
and then selling the movie and marketing it properly. Making
it is the easiest part. So on the selling sites
sometimes people can't find the right distribution company, they can't
negotiate the right deal, or they just feel like they
want to take a little bit more charge, so they
do self distribution. Me being one of them, but I
kind of know distribution, right. So what's your advice to
a filmmaker who wants to consider doing it themselves.

Speaker 2 (42:18):
I would say not for your first movie. We come
across this all the time. We can do it better, cheaper.
It just doesn't work like that. In our business. You know,
I have friends of mine from outside of the industry saying, oh,
you're going to LA all the time, are you finding
new customers. There's no new customers. We are in a
closed circuit environment. So we sell to these people every

(42:38):
single week. We deal with them in LA, in Seattle
and New York. For someone to come in, that customer
is not going to take their call, which means that
they're going to have to go through an aggregator, not
necessarily a distributor, an aggregator. All they do is take
indie movies and put them through. There's no personalization. It's
literally a handoff. So my advice would be, and we're

(42:59):
actually going through this right now. We were trying to
require a movie there was a significant budget, like over
a five million dollar movie through one of the big
agencies and the financing company. The people who made the
movie decided that they didn't like the offers, and we
were transparent. That's what we do. And then they're going
to release themselves. And I just saw the agent recently

(43:19):
and it's going to be a disaster for them. But
people think that they can do it better because they're
going to approach it differently. And that's the movie business, right,
whether it's low budget movies or mid level movies. You know,
we always say that the uber uber wealthy people buy
sports teams. Other rich people just want to get in
the movie business. If you're successful in another industry, whether

(43:41):
you're in real estate or cars or tires, you always
think you can do it better because you're smart, and
you come into the business and you realize you can't.
You have to work with an established team who've been
doing this for a while, whoever experienced, and have the relationships.
So for DIY, I think the best thing that can
happen is for the filmmaker to say, we want to
be your partners in the marketing. What can we do

(44:03):
as an extension of your team, Whether we have a
few dollars to spend or we've just got a lot
of you roll up our sleeves, we're going to be
really creative. What can we do to help you. That's
a huge asset for a.

Speaker 1 (44:13):
Distributor, right, just and gain one more thing on the
on the distribution deal, so on the fists that you said,
you know, sometimes we'll take a fee, sometimes we'll go
cost off fifty to fifty. How does a filmmaker choose
what would be like, what would be a fair fee?
Is thirty percent?

Speaker 2 (44:27):
Fair?

Speaker 1 (44:27):
Of these days? Is lower?

Speaker 2 (44:29):
Higher? We really won't do a small movie for less
than that. It's not worth our time because if you
think about the revenue on the movie, a home run
would be doing two hundred thousand dollars in revenue. We're
not going to do that for twenty for forty thousand dollars,
just that doesn't pay us to do it. So thirty
sort of our floor that we want to be in.
Depending on the circumstances the people, maybe we'll make a

(44:50):
deal somewhere, but that's really where we're going with.

Speaker 1 (44:53):
And what about on this cost off fifty to fifty deal, Like,
how how do you feel like that? Does that tend
to work out or not?

Speaker 2 (44:59):
It does because that's really where everyone's aligned. So we
set a budget. This is what we want to spend too.
We all want to be efficient in our spend because
after we spend, we're all earning profit from dollars one right,
So the cost off how fifty to fifty model works
really well with us. We're doing it much more frequently lately.

Speaker 1 (45:18):
Okay, So for the indie filmmakers who are processing all
this information and their heads are spinning. Right now, I
can assure you what's the future. Like I, as I
said to you, movies are always going to get made
because people like watching them, and people are passionate about it.
And you know, I loved your analogy about just super
rich by a sports even in other ways, you make
a movie. So there's always going to be those people

(45:39):
who want to play ball because it's a sexy business.
The movie business. It's very fun and sexy, and people
want to be in it. And you know, people buy
lottery tickets making movies. I have a lot more money,
more financial risk, but people are willing to take a
shot because it's a dream and dreamers like to take shots.

Speaker 2 (45:56):
What's the use a dream? Sorry to interrupting, not only
as a dream, but what just happened last week? Anora?

Speaker 1 (46:01):
Correct, But okay, look at people say that. So a
lot of my students said, oh, look look at you. You
know you're always talking about how hard it is. Look
at a Nora. I said, first of all, that's an anomaly.
But secondly, that didn't happen in a vacuum. Okay, they
made a film. It's six million dollars. Still I understand.
So it's not a cheap film, but it won the
Palmdor and you know, like it was picked up. I
think Neon put eighteen million dollars behind that film. That

(46:24):
is like, that is a big, big, high risk financial
So this is not like a low budget indy five
hundred thousand dollars film that won the lottery. That's a difference.
That's like saying, look at the Blair.

Speaker 2 (46:35):
Witch Blair Witch Moonlighting.

Speaker 1 (46:36):
There's lots of em, tons of them, tons of them.
So everything. Every once in a while, something comes along.
But I'm gonna say Anora is not like one of
these other sort of Cinderella stories because it was Neon
stepped up and spent some serious money.

Speaker 2 (46:51):
And you have repetitor, youre Sean Baker, he's had he's
a terrific indie director, so you know that you're gonna
get a high quality film.

Speaker 1 (46:59):
Yeah, so that's not the Cinderella. Hey, where'd that come from?
Out of the blue? You know, from nowhere? That's not
lightning in a bottle. That's more of a strategic plan,
I would say, And they're taking a lot of risk. Now,
the risk obviously paid off. Hopefully it will. I'm sure
it will. They put the money in before the Academy Awards,
so they didn't know it could have. You know, it
goes zero with the Academy Awards. It's not going to

(47:21):
be the same. A lot of people's jobs are going
to be on the line if that's the case. So
that's you know, that's the entrepreneurial part of the business.
It takes risk and reward. But just you know, to
kind of conclude where are we going? Is the business
going to I mean, we don't know what distribution is
going to do. AI is going to obviously turn things
on its head and probably already is I mean, just

(47:41):
to actually take a second, what is AI doing to
change the business? What are you noticing?

Speaker 2 (47:46):
And we use it as a tool to try to
be more efficient. I haven't seen a good scripture generated
from a eye yet. So the question is can it
help us to become more effective, be more clear with
our marketing material, help us develop artwork comps. We're doing
all that now and learning every step of the way
because it's new for us. We think it'll be an

(48:07):
enhancement to the marketing of the films. By producing films
with AI. That's not something we've gotten into.

Speaker 1 (48:14):
Okay, it's coming. Trust me. The tools that I am seeing,
it's outrageous. I mean one of my sons, as you know,
is in AI or I don't know, Sammy specializes in that.
I mean, he told me the stuff we're looking at
right now was created ten years ago. You know, I'm
looking out the window here in LA and these waymoad
cars are driving by. I mean, that's ten years old
technology and we're looking. Wow, that's unbelievable. The stuff that's

(48:36):
common is crazy. But anyways, that's another podcast. But for
the regular dreamer indie filmmaker who you know, yeah, can
they make a film at fifty one hundred thousand, Yeah,
but they're not going to make a great film. I
can assure you that. I mean I specialize in that area.
You know, you can pull in some favors once in
a while and ask people to work for free, but
you can't. That's not sustainable long term. People can't always

(48:57):
work for free for you. You've got to spend some
real money to make a decent film. So even you know,
half a million is the future there, look at. I
know filmmakers are still going to do it, and I'm
going to advise them and I'm going to give them
tools to try to be successful. But what do you
see as the future, like five ten years from now.

Speaker 2 (49:14):
Well, first, I'll say that we're also seeing a more
frequent trend where young creative filmmakers are making a short
that's a proof of concept. So someone has fifteen minutes
to see about how they can write, direct, the lighting,
the whole story just comes to life. And if it's

(49:36):
something you respond to, you're at least buying into something
that you know there's some pedigree there.

Speaker 1 (49:40):
Okay, but you're not buying a short. You're not buying
and releasing the short.

Speaker 2 (49:44):
It's a proof of concept, that's it.

Speaker 1 (49:45):
It's just giving credibility to the filmmaker.

Speaker 2 (49:47):
Correct. The second thing I would say is we're also
in a golden age of television as we see the
TV series that have been produced in the last ten
years or unbelievably high quality and the per episode budgets
the same budget as future films. So there's a lot
of great television out there, which is also eating up
the viewership pie. But there's nothing like movies. There's nothing

(50:09):
like the Academy Awards, it just doesn't get trumped by
any other media, TV, music, anything. Films have a special
heart in the lives of consumers and it just means
that we have to do a better job finding films
that they're going to respond to, that they're going to
want to talk about, that's going to touch them. And
it's much more difficult to do that today because we

(50:31):
have less opportunities to distribute the films on platforms for
mass audiences. So we all need to collectively be better.
We need to find better movies, we need to be
better marketers, filmmakers need to do more, stretch their dollars more.
So it's a it's a unified front. But I don't
think we're going to see I don't think we're going

(50:52):
to see any wavering of the film business. And I
do think that with technology and this next crop, I've
seen some incredible young filmas that are making high quality
productions with just their phones and a five hundred dollars camera,
and it's unbelievable so that the cost of entry, the
barriers are way reduced and they ever were. But you

(51:14):
need to have someone who's trained on the back on
the back of that to be able to put it together.

Speaker 1 (51:18):
What about on the distribution side, though, how people are
going to consume the films? Like the audience is how
they're I mean, there's technologies, you know. I always say
to my students, and you know, I say it and
they all say, like, that's not a joke what you're saying.
You know, like at some point, you know, Elon Musk
gonna have a chip insert in your head and you
blink and you change channels and you change movies. He said, Like,
that's the technology is being worked on. Do you see

(51:40):
anything coming down the road, like in the next few
years that's going to change, you know, like streaming turned
obviously home entertainment on its head.

Speaker 2 (51:48):
Nothing that's revolutionary yet that we've seen. What we' we're
hoping for is is that video on demand is such
an important component of the business, and we would like
to see films released at a lower cost on video
and demand so it becomes an impulse buy because seven nine,

(52:08):
nine ninety nine. You know, if it's a high it's
a big budget studio movie, like like Cleaner for us
over twenty dollars. Okay, that's one thing, but I believe
there should be way more volume of movies at three
ninety nine forty nine to get people consuming and getting
used to buying content. Again, we're pricing certain consumers out
of the marketplace. If you look at what the studios
are doing today, you go on and you want to

(52:29):
rent a studio movie, it's only available for purchase for
the first while for twenty five dollars, and then you
can rent it for twenty dollars. People aren't doing that
to the at the degree that we need them to.
So we have to change consumer habits, and it's really
hard to do that when they've got these all you
can need subscription services. We need to have more channels
in order to exploit our films. And vod's going away,

(52:51):
we need to keep it as long as we possibly can.

Speaker 1 (52:53):
Yeah, well that's going to take lots of disruption. I
have a couple of things brewing, which i'll tell you
about another time. As you, no, I do crazy things.
I go off the charts and go in different directions
because I like to try things. I believe I agree
with you that something is going to have to give,
just because right now I just don't think it's definitely
not serving the filmmakers, it serves the audiences. Like you said,

(53:16):
it's a buyer market, not a seller market, in all levels,
at every level. In terms of audience. Also, the audience
has so much choice at such low prices that the
value proposition, like the perception of quality, has actually gone dead.
Even though these films are really, really good, people say, well,
it's not they compare it to these hundred million dollar films.

(53:38):
It's not that therefore it's not worth anything, And I say,
it actually is worth something, you know, But you're right,
that's going to involve a whole kind of psychological change
and we'll see what direction that takes. Any final comments
about you know, to filmmakers that you want to say
and advise.

Speaker 2 (53:55):
Or I would just reinforce that films are so important
for people. It's one of the most affordable forms of entertainment.
When someone's going through a hard time, there's nothing like
getting into a film for ninety minutes of escapism. When
the economy is in rough shape. Films are affordable. It's
a great way to spend time with your family. So

(54:18):
I don't think films are going anywhere. We just need
to figure out and continue to hone how we're going
to get them in the hands of consumers so they
can watch them and talk about them, which is a
really important piece. And I would just say to filmmakers,
if you're really passionate about this, it's not for the
faint of heart. You have to really go for it.
You're going to get probably one shot with friends and

(54:38):
family to beg borrow and steal, borrow money, get free posts,
get people to work for a low cost, and you
have to make the most of it. So think about
the marketing of the film before you make it, and
do it in a cohesive way that you are actually
approaching it like a business, not just as a passion.

Speaker 1 (54:57):
I think that's great advice, Absolutely great, and I say
to people, look, the film business is only going to
be in trouble when people stop wanting to be entertained.
And at that point, when the human beings stopped wanting entertainment,
we got way bigger problems, way bigger. That means we're
in the matrix and people don't even have minds anymore.
So that's going to change the whole landscape of human

(55:19):
the human condition, and we'll worry about it then, but
hopefully that won't come, certainly not in the next thousand
years or so. That's hoping exactly. Okay, Barry, it was
always great to chat with you. Thank you for taking
the time. This was a wealth of information. We really
appreciate it. I'm sure the viewers have thousands of questions
after this one, so maybe you'll have to come back

(55:40):
on and answer them all. But anyways, great to see you.
Thanks a lot.

Speaker 2 (55:44):
Okay, Thanks Jeff, all right, take care.

Speaker 1 (55:46):
Well, what a great episode that was. I mean, Barry
is a wealth of information. Obviously. I've known him for
a long time and he is not only very knowledgeable,
but very honest about what's really going on in the business.
That advice that he gave about doing a marketing plan
and planning out your strategy for release in the film
before you make it is something that I've been talking
to students and audiences for years and years and years

(56:08):
that gives you a strategic advantage. So take that into
account and see you next time. As always, we welcome
you to send in your questions and comments. If you
want more information about a topic, just email me directly
at Jdevrett at Devretmedia dot com and hopefully we can
respond to them, and hopefully I can af forward them

(56:29):
to our guest speakers as well.