Markets, Money & Micro-Budgets — Tom Malloy on Real Indie Distribution

 Tom Malloy pulls no punches about what actually moves for indie films — who does what in distribution, why audience traction matters more than festival prestige, and how small teams can make smarter deals and stretch production value without breaking the bank.Aim for a clear, marketable hook — genre + audience beats vague “art-house” positioning when you need to sell.

Treat distribution like part of production: build relationships early and create demonstrable demand.

Put minimums/performance clauses in deals so rights can revert if a distributor doesn’t deliver.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
I'm always talking about distribution and how important it is
for filmmakers to get their film seen by audiences. Today's
guest is a super expert in not only distribution, but
in actual filmmaking, and we're going to really understand from
him what it takes to be successful in the film business.

(00:20):
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 film business. All right, welcome back everybody. Today
we have a very special guest. We're going to talk

(00:42):
about distribution. We are going to talk about production, We're
going to talk about acting, we're going to talk about podcasting.
My guest today does it all and he is very
well connected in the industry and very experienced, so I'm
really excited to have him. Tom Alloy, Welcome to the show.
I'm sure a lot of my liststeners probably already know you,
because they're probably your listeners as well. I will list

(01:04):
the things that I know about you, and if I
forget anything, you let me know. So Tom, first of all,
you are the CEO and co owner of Glasshouse Distribution,
which is an international distribution company. You represent lots and
lots of films. I see you at all the markets.
You've been active in that business for a long time.
You also, you and your associates Jason, you run that

(01:25):
sort of podcast teaching online platform called Filmmaking Stuff, and
you do lots and lots of courses. I've seen you
many many times. You do a lot of seminars and
webcasts and all this kind of stuff. So you're very
active in that area. You're an actor, you are a producer.
You've produced a lot of movies twenty seven. Wow, okay,

(01:47):
so what am I missing?

Speaker 2 (01:49):
I've now got a catering company that's a catering movies. No.
I mean, I've written a guy. I've been the writers
Guild twenty plus years. I've written I think thirty something
screenplays and I have options Solder made and twenty five
of those screenplays.

Speaker 1 (02:01):
So it's funny when I said this before we started
the podcast, I went through with Tom and I said,
what have I visit? He said, well, I don't sleep?

Speaker 2 (02:09):
Yeah? Yeah, I'm missing is the sleep? Yeah yeah?

Speaker 1 (02:11):
Yeah, so yeah, you probably don't sleep. I mean that's
a lot. I mean, you're very active in a lot
of stuff. I mean, let's just start. Let's start with
the distribution side, all right, because because that's sort of
the main focus. You go to all the Marcus you
just got back from Film martin Hong Kong, tell us
how long you've been doing that and kind of what
your experience there.

Speaker 2 (02:29):
So I started a Glass's Distribution. By the way, the
co owner, the financier of the company was a guy
named Brian Glass. So that's where the glass came from. Okay,
I always wondered that. Yeah, but it also became this
double on tendra of full transparency, like you could see
everything we're doing inside, and so that's what it became.
But so I had been going to markets like this
will be my twenty first or twenty second AFM, and

(02:50):
I had been going to markets all these times as
a producer, and then I was like, let me see
what I can do. You know, I knew buyers at relationships,
and so ten years ago I started this company. So
actually it'll be our ten year anniversary at AFM, and
so we'll probably do some big event. And so now
we have over two hundred titles that we've licensed, and

(03:11):
we started as primarily a foreign sales company. Then we
moved into distribution and so now we do distribution in
the US and kind of North America, and then we
sell around the world and so we yeah, we go
to all the markets. There are somewhere that just where
it'll just be me, like film Art and mipcom or
just me. But then some we bring the entire team.
EFM we had the whole team of Berlin, and then

(03:31):
can we'll have the whole team, and AFM we'll have
the whole team. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (03:34):
I mean I saw you at the FM last year
and you had a.

Speaker 2 (03:37):
Whole team there. Oh yeah, for every time.

Speaker 1 (03:39):
Yeah, so you just mentioned something. I I was waiting
for you to come on because I want you to
explain it because I know you know this well. So
can you explain to the audience the difference between a
sales agent and a distributor.

Speaker 2 (03:48):
Sure, so a sales agent if let me just explain
it in the terms of what we do for sales agency,
It's like what we're doing is taking the film and
selling it internationally, and so we would be like a
buyer from UK comes in and they say they're looking
for thrillers and action movies and horror with casts, we
show them the trailers that we have, we make a

(04:09):
deal and it's usually a buyout number and that's that,
you know, So meaning a sales agent doesn't have to
worry about marketing and PR and stuff because that company
that bought it has to, you know, And it doesn't
even put more money territory exactly, it doesn't even put
more money in the filmmaker's pocket to you know, monetize
that or advertise that, unless it's an MG or something

(04:29):
like that where they're just giving a smaller amount and
then there there can be overages. But then a distribution
company is somebody that's putting it out directly to platforms,
like we have platform relationships and the ones we don't
we have other partners that go to those places like
DVDs and things like that, and so we have the
direct relationships. So not only do we put it out,
we run ads, we do PR and things like that.

(04:51):
So it's a different ballgame with distribution and a lot
of companies, at least the ones that I know that
are like like Clay's company, there are kind of hybrids
of both. They don't just do because if I when
we started we were in US, we were reselling, like
so we'd take a movie and then we'd sell it
to another company that would buy it from us and
so distribution company, and then we went, well, we could

(05:11):
do this ourselves, and we had all the relationships ourselves,
so it was like, why put a middleman in there?

Speaker 1 (05:16):
Okay, what about the marketing side. How much marketing does
a distributor do these days, Like you know, as sales
agent obviously doesn't have to do any they're gonna let
the company that buys it. But the distributor, how much
marketing will you do for a film?

Speaker 2 (05:28):
Well, it depends, I mean it really kind of depends
on the success of the film, the initial marketing. Like
when we do we have a PR person. She's great
Ginger is her name, Ginger Lou, and so she will
direct press. You know, we say here's the movies that
we have coming out, and she'll start directing press towards
those movies and seeing what we get. But obviously it
depends on the reaction. You know, you it's very tough

(05:51):
to make a movie that's not getting any traction and
kind of exploded. It's very tough now that being said,
different movies will do better on different Platfor you know,
every once in a while, you have a movie that makes,
you know, two thousand dollars on you know, TV on,
and then by the time it gets to two be
it spikes and it goes through the roof. You know,
So people didn't want to pay for it, but they
do want to watch it still. So in that case,

(06:14):
then we'll run ads just directly for t B you know,
like Facebook, Instagram, YouTube pre rolls, things like that. But
it really is a situation where there's got to be
a snowball rolling down a hill and we can add
more snow to it to make it a bigger ball.
If there's no snowball, it's like kicking a dead horse.

Speaker 1 (06:31):
Because that's a good analogy, But how do you get
the snowball started? Does it make sense for a filmmaker
to support their film with a marketing campaign.

Speaker 2 (06:40):
One thousand percent like the films where the filmmakers have
done their cast outreach, a crew, out reached, done reviews,
got all their family and friends to do it. They
it's it's night and day with the revenue, and then
we notice that revenue and then we go Okay, let's
start putting some more money behind.

Speaker 1 (06:55):
Okay, that's a good analogy that they get the snowball
started and then you can add to it. But you
don't want to get it started because it's too much
of a risk.

Speaker 2 (07:02):
Well yeah, I mean, again, we if we put the
film out there and we'll versus somebody saying putting it
on film Hub and they're just throwing mud against the wall.
We put the film out there. We do have the
relationships with the platform, so we could talk to the
actual reps and try to get better placement on that.
But again we'll wait and we'll see the first couple
weeks how much what is it done? So if the
film just organically does better, which has happened sometimes, then

(07:25):
it's like, all right, let's get behind that movie and
let's really promote that movie. So it's just kind of
like where there's you know, uh, I don't know what
the analogy be, where there's oil, you know what I mean,
there's a well or something like that.

Speaker 1 (07:35):
So yeah, okay, So in terms of the type of product,
I mean, obviously it's helpful if there's a list talent,
but a lot of indie films can't afford that. So
do you represent films that don't have a list talent?
I mean you prefer I'm sure the ones that do, right, Yeah.

Speaker 2 (07:51):
I mean, you know, it's like sometimes the filmmakers don't know,
like say, one what a list talent is, or two
they think they are over valuing, you know, they're Eric Roberts,
you know, or something that I usually call it recognizable
talent exactly. But it's like like I don't mean to
pick on Aeric Roberts, but something like that that's that's
not talent is going to sell, you know what I mean.

(08:12):
There's there's five hundred movies that have him in there
that's not going to move the needle. It's a very
difficult situation and it's something that's you know, one thing
you may want to do in the future is get
a round table with people like me and Clay and
other people that are on and because I'd love to
get other opinions on it. But there's almost like this
medium range of stars that don't really move the needle
that much. You know, there are the stars that do

(08:34):
to a certain extent for the indie films, like a
Scott Atkins or something like that. In your action movie
is gonna help sell it, right, And then there are
stars that move the needle for Avod, like Danny Trejoe,
you know, that type of thing. But we found that
if the movie's really good or genre or something like that,
it doesn't even matter that much. So like like, for example,

(08:55):
we had a movie called art Thief. We still have
there's movie called art Thief and it's about an art heist.
No stars, literally no stars at all, and he killed
it on t vat it was just blew up. And
that was a combination of the filmmakers getting behind it,
us getting behind it, and it being a good movie.
You know, they just worked.

Speaker 1 (09:11):
What kind of budget would a movie like that be?
Do you have any idea if you had to guess?

Speaker 2 (09:14):
We get this question asked a lot from the buyers,
and a lot of times we're like, look, we have
no idea.

Speaker 1 (09:19):
Yeah right, not that it matters, because some good movies
a good movie, but.

Speaker 2 (09:21):
Yeah, well I look at that movie and I go,
that could be done. That could have been done micro budget, right,
that could have been done under one hundred thousand dollars, right, yeah, yeah,
oh yeah, then we would have killed it. Now at
the same time, say, I talked to the filmmakers and
they go, oh, the budget was five hundred thousand. I
don't see that in the movie, but it could have,
you know what I mean. I've seen it where that'll
happen a filmmakers. Yeah, we've spent half a million. I'm like, how, Like,

(09:44):
where is that? No? Oh, we paid this guy one
hundred thousand of this guy hundred you know what I mean.
So they were they weren't budgeting it correctly. And then
I've seen the opposite. We had a great movie that
had some big stars in it, and when I had
lunch of the filmmaker and he told me the budget
was like one hundred fifty thousand, I was like, mouth
to the floor. I thought it was three million dollar movie.
I was like, oh you know, and it's like so

(10:05):
it really it's on them. You know. With every movie
we take, we judge it by the quality of the
movie and then how we can sell it. So I
don't know what the hell the budget is, as it
should be, it.

Speaker 1 (10:14):
Should be, it should be the entertainment value of the
movie is, which should drive it. Yeah. Now do you
represent a lot of indie films?

Speaker 2 (10:20):
Right? Yeah?

Speaker 1 (10:21):
Yeah, So every filmmaker has the dream of being on Netflix, right, yeah, yeah,
and so how real is that dream these days?

Speaker 2 (10:28):
I think we've gotten three projects on Netflix. And this
was years ago when it was a lot easier. I
think they stopped to a certain extent. Maybe they're coming back.
I've heard rumblings of you know, they're starting to acquire
more because people are just tired of the crap that's
going on Netflix. But it's it's tough, and it's not
even the best deal. You know, they'll payout over eighteen months,

(10:50):
so they'll payout over twenty four months, you know, so
you get this Netflix by I know, Oh it's great
twenty four months later, So, like, you know, it's so
that was a dream for a while. But I believe
that dreams fading because people are seeing it's not realists.

Speaker 1 (11:03):
Yeah, but would that be the case for all sort
of major sbo D platforms.

Speaker 2 (11:07):
No, I mean there are some like Peacock, like Paramount
Plus that we do deals with and it's it's easier,
I mean, and they're still looking for content. It's almost
like and you'll see it with two B Right. So
we were one of the companies that got one of
the first companies that got an output deal with two B,
so we have an output deal with them, and then
they stop giving output deals. But the key was you

(11:28):
would take a movie and put it on two B.
They were accepting everything. And then as things went on,
and the same thing happened with Netflix. Same things happens
every platform. They start small, they take everything they get,
so they build up this massive library and then they
start getting picky about it. And then once they started picking,
then it's like they're choosing one out of every five films,
then ten, then one at every twenty. Then they're not

(11:48):
taking movies anymore, you know, and then that's the end
of that.

Speaker 1 (11:50):
Right, Yeah, they're curating a lot more. But the AVOD
platforms are basically out curating as well.

Speaker 2 (11:55):
Yeah now they are, yeah.

Speaker 1 (11:57):
Other than YouTube. I think Amazon just started that as well.

Speaker 2 (12:00):
Yeah, so it's like they used to, I mean, Amazon,
you used to take everything and toob used take everything,
and now it's like, you know.

Speaker 1 (12:06):
Yeah, okay, so should filmmakers not figure and kind of
lose the dream of the SBOD the big Netflix or
you know, hu louse sale. I mean, it's a hope,
it's a hope, but it's not realistic these days.

Speaker 2 (12:19):
It's not realistic for maybe the films that they're making.
I would say, yeah, it's certain, it's a certain extent
because like the ones that would get those usually would
have gotten them before the movie's even made, you know
what I mean, it gotten from the attachments and then
Hulu's involved or to Be's involved or something like that.

Speaker 1 (12:37):
How do you find the movies? Do you get a
lot of festivals?

Speaker 2 (12:40):
I don't personally, So I have a head of acquisitions,
David Josh Lawrence, who's great. People love him, and so
he goes to festivals and so at the same time
when he's at the markets. I mean, AFM is a
non stop stream of filmmakers coming in. But like EFM,
Rob and I were in the booth. Rob is DS
in my head of Worldwide Sales, and so we were
there selling. David was walking around, you know what I mean,

(13:02):
like meeting with filmmakers, meeting with sales agents that again
may may only be selling the distributors. So he's just
picking up movies and so he's getting a ton all
the time. But also I get submitted ones through friends
and connections. Like there's a non stop stream of movies
coming all the time.

Speaker 1 (13:18):
Right, So I asked Clay this, how many how many
submissions do you think you're getting a month or a
year or a day?

Speaker 2 (13:24):
Yeah? Yeah, yeah, yeah, I mean a month, you know,
oh god, it's tough. One. I would say twenty a month,
you know.

Speaker 1 (13:34):
He said a lot more.

Speaker 2 (13:35):
He said more.

Speaker 1 (13:35):
Yeah, he said he's getting five hundred sumissions.

Speaker 2 (13:38):
Five. Well, look, David would be better to say, and
maybe it's maybe I'm I'm low balling it, but you know,
we're picking up maybe three a month. Yeah. So if
he's saying this, saying forty, yeah, I would say it's
probably it's probably forty or fifty maybe more like that
now that I'm thinking it, because he's telling me he's
picking up like one every ten and so it's just

(13:58):
like if that's if we're picking up three or four months,
you're talking out thirty forty minimum.

Speaker 1 (14:02):
Yeah right, okay, so actually picking up less than that
yeh year. But you're only talking about features, right, You're
not talking choice. Then you don't deal in shorts. Is
there any market for shorts? Commercial market?

Speaker 2 (14:13):
I mean, the only thing I would say is if
there's a certain length, I think two b's minimum length
is twenty two minutes, so it's like, if there's something
that's thirty minutes, maybe you can put it on there
like and get some monetization. Amazon won't do it, right,
But yeah, it's tough. It's not so that we'd be interested.
And sometimes documentary some of them we are, like we
have a Versace documentary about Gioanny Versaci, Like we are

(14:34):
just interested in the documentary. If there's like a star
person or IP or band or something like that, then
we can make money. Right.

Speaker 1 (14:41):
So these sort of next questions are gonna bridge between
you and your wearing your distributor hat and you wearing
your filmmaking stuff, filmmaking stuff sort of podcaster or teacher hat.
I got it all right, So because it's one of
the same, because you're teaching this stuff, right. Yeah, So
you're young, aspiring indie film and you want to make

(15:02):
the right stuff. So how do they know what kind
of movie to make that's going to get to the
top of the pile with somebody like you.

Speaker 2 (15:09):
Oh, that's a great question. I would say, Well, first off,
they're this window of the two million dollars to eight
million dollar feature is very much declining, and and and dangerous, right.

Speaker 1 (15:22):
I say, I tell people that's the kiss of death.

Speaker 2 (15:24):
You not go there. It's it's very tough. So but
at the same time, if you go out and you
get an investor to put that money in and you
give it to us, great, we'll sell it. We're probably
not going to make eight million dollars.

Speaker 1 (15:34):
A twenty million dollar movie with some serious talent has
a much better chance of getting their money back then
five million dollars.

Speaker 2 (15:39):
That's an AVI learner said to my We have the
same attorney, and he said, he's yeah, he feels safer.
He goes it's easier to make money of a fifteen
million dollar movie than a two million That's what he said.

Speaker 1 (15:48):
I would agree, okay.

Speaker 2 (15:49):
And so look, you'd have to look at it from
a perspective of stay away from the two films that
every indie filmmaker wants to make, which is like the
edgy drama and the edgy comedy. It's like, okay, we
can't sell those anywhere. Like, so, if you want to
make a drama or faith face, make it as sweet
and non offensive as possible, right, because we've done well

(16:09):
with some of those dramas that were like sweet you
know about a farm. We have a movie called The Farm,
and it's like it's just sweet and it's nice. It sells.
We sell the crap out of it. Airlines sold it everywhere.
So but also make something genre. You know, I have
to understand that horror. There's so much of it. There's
so much horror that it's like it's something unique, would
be cool. An action movie always sells. Thrillers sell. But

(16:32):
I have a course Funny Enough So filmmaking stuff, Filmmaking
Stuff HQ, which is the membership site. We have a
course called Backyard Blockbuster, and it talks about making those
one hundred thousand and under micro budget movies. And it's like,
these are not movies where oh it's you know, it's
one guy staring in his bathroom mirror for an hour.
Like that's not it. They're real movies, right, And we've
done it where we've even produced some I've co financed somewhere.

(16:55):
It's like the movie ends up tripling its budget, right.
And so if you do that as a filmmaker, your
investors are gonna love you and they're gonna want to
do more movies. So I think people need to lose
the maybe I don't want to say lose the attitude
or lose the belief that there is a gold mine
to be made as a film producer. It's like, why

(17:15):
are you getting into this business? I guess that's the question.
And if like, for example, I just did this video
on the YouTube channel about because one of a friend
had put in the group text, Hey, I just lost
my job, you know, and I'm looking for work. Do
any of you have PA work on movies or something
like that, And it's like, that's not some money in PA.
We're like, what the hell? Like if you're so, it's

(17:37):
like I did this whole video about that shouldn't be
your goal like PA work, If that's your goal, should
be to learn the business, learn every aspect and then
advance your career. Right, But if you're doing it to
get paid, it's like, oh, you're doing the wrong damn business,
Like it's not what it is. And so I just
think that maybe there's a disconnect. So if you're a filmmaker,
you have to ask you, so, why are getting in it?

(17:58):
If you want to make movies and have a long career,
that's doable if you do it in the right way.

Speaker 1 (18:02):
The right way being what.

Speaker 2 (18:04):
The right way, being smart about budgets right, making genre
type projects and making good movies and have a path
to distribution, like meaning you could connect with distributors and
sales agents prior to even making the movie and have
those relationships, you know when I like I said, I
was going to AFM for ten years before I became

(18:24):
or eleven years before I became a distributor. And it's
like I had a list of sales agents that I
could go to with any movie that I made, right,
And so that was just through connections and being at markets.
That's if you were to say give me three words
to start a career for any filmmaker, I would say,
go to markets. That's it. Like, that's it. Go to
markets and just started learning. Like I had an old

(18:45):
colleague that she went to markets and just sat on
panels for like ten years, sat on panels, and then
suddenly she was connected and she was she knew what
she was doing. Right.

Speaker 1 (18:54):
So on the filmmaking stuff platform, you do a lot
of this. You talk about I mean I I get
your feed, Oh great, yeah, I see it all the time.
So yeah, no, I see all your videos and everything
like that, and you're doing it. You know, you're working
really hard and doing a good jobs. So what you
know the advice to give to young filmmakers because you

(19:14):
just said, go to markets. But I find the disconnect
is that a lot of people just want to focus
on the art and not on the business. And you know,
you're trying to teach the business. You're trying to find
that balance for somebody who says to you, I'm an artist.
They see it all the time. You know that I'm
an artist. I don't do that. Somebody else does the marketing,
the distribution, the finance. And I say, well, you're gonna

(19:36):
have to find that somebody.

Speaker 2 (19:37):
Else and that's not so easy.

Speaker 1 (19:38):
And what do you say to people like that.

Speaker 2 (19:40):
Well, again, you can talk anybody into financing your movie, right,
And that's a goal for a lot of filmmakers, just
to make the movie. And they think that if they
can make the movie and make the great movie, then
they've succeeded. But it's like it's really not the case.
Like if their idea of what are you going to
do at this point, I'm gonna get into sun Dance
and I'm gonna get a big deal, It's not a
thing that's a lottery ticket, and unfortunately the lottery tickets

(20:03):
that have happened in the past have been promoted you know, yeah,
seven ways of Sunday. So then people think that's that's
a business plan. So they're in for kind of a
rude awakening when their investors burned up. I mean literally
was just on a conversation on the way here and
talking to somebody about it's funny that I said that,
and now my phone's ringing. Let me I know, I know,

(20:23):
it's the thing. I just want to put it on
the like it's on silent, but it's I just don't
want it to vibrate in my pocket. And he was
saying they that he had had these group of investors
and they did five movies, and now they're sitting back
and waiting, and it's like, I want to be like, great, congrats,
you got the five movies out of them, you know
what I mean. I don't know if the law monetize
and make his money back for his investors, but look,

(20:45):
if you're if you're coming into this business saying I'm
an artist, I'm going to do this, It's like, okay,
but then where is your financing coming from? It's only
going to take you so far to be like I'm
an artist and I want this and that and you know,
but I want somebody else to invest in it. It's
like some of them are delusional. But I would say
the better move would be to learn the business first,
learn what the market wants, and then deliver that. I mean,

(21:06):
I've had people make careers out of that. Like I
had a friend that in the TV side was going
to TV markets mip TV not be mipcom and then
asking the buyers what they're looking for, and they would say,
you know, a cooking show, you know where they travel
around the world, and then he would literally go make
that show and then just kind of back deliver it
to him. So it's like he knew what the market wanted.

(21:26):
They could create a whole business from that, right. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (21:29):
I mean some artists will say that's a compromise of
their artistic integrity, but you know it depends, Like you said,
what are you in it for? You know, you get
to still make art, you just have to make it
commercially valuable exactly, all right. So of all the things
that you do, and you do a lot, are there
things you enjoy more? Like do you get as much
thrill at us, say going to a market distributing as
you do, say podcasting, or it's a good question as well,

(21:53):
like if you you know, people often say to me,
if you could just do one thing, what would it be.
And my answer is I would just write and direct
because I love the filmmaking process. But you know, I
realized that in order to do that, I have to
enable myself by doing producing.

Speaker 2 (22:06):
Yeah, I mean I it always used to be like,
I love acting, and I got into this as an
actor to start way back and then and I'm still
I'm like at the level where I've been doing this
since I was like, you know, ten years old. So
in the last couple of movies, they called me one
Take Tom because it's like I just nail it. I've
been doing it so long. So I love that. But
I will say that I've only directed one film. I've

(22:27):
produced twenty seven movies, written a ton of movies, and
it's like, but only directed one movie, and it was
a rom com. And as an actor, writer, producer, I
never branded myself. I did every kind of thing right,
and so as a director, I wanted to brand myself
as I only do rom coms. Right. But recently, I
was just talking to two other sales agent friends that
are also directors, and I said, wouldn't it be great

(22:47):
to have the time to make the perfect You're You're
perfect movie, the best movie that you can do? And
I started to try to think about what budget and
time would that be. It's the whole saying like artists
never finished until you run out of time or you
run out of money. And if I didn't run out
of time or money, what would that be like? Meaning
where you could pour over every frame? Because every movie
I've had to make compromises, right, yeah, and and and gone,

(23:10):
you know what, we have to shoot in and make
this like a hospital, you know what I mean. It's
like if I could just and or I got to
cast so and so because his dad's financing the movie,
and you know, I got to do it, and it's
like yeah, yeah, and so if I didn't have to
make any compromise, I could truly look through, pour through
all the casting and get the perfect cast and then
every shot work with a cinematographer, storyboard everything. Like if
I had all that time to do it, how great

(23:31):
would that movie be? I don't know, but I really
would love to try that.

Speaker 1 (23:35):
It would be enjoyable.

Speaker 2 (23:36):
Yeah, I know, any writer, director would love that. That
would be that's the dream.

Speaker 1 (23:40):
That's the ultimate dream. And even if it was for
to say, a studio and it was a fifty million
dollar movie, not have to answer to a studio.

Speaker 2 (23:48):
Yeah, yeah, that's the problem. Yeah. So yeah, it's that's
the tough and under it you have freedom, you have
the time, you have, you're getting paid enough so that
you don't have to worry about it, and then but
at the same time, yet you're not answering questions.

Speaker 1 (24:00):
Okay, So indie filmmakers are they making money these days?
And you know what's the sweet spot in terms of
sort of the budget levels.

Speaker 2 (24:07):
The ones that I know that are making money are
doing volume stuff. They're doing a lot of movies and
so micro budget stuff. Yeah, they're doing a lot of
micro budget stuff. So like a friend of mine has
a couple of different film funds and he's always putting
stuff together, but they're micro budget things.

Speaker 1 (24:21):
Micro budget meaning less than one hundred thousand.

Speaker 2 (24:23):
Less hundred thousand, Okay, And so those are the ones
making money. The other ones that are are focusing the
way I look at movies is at least the way
I'm perceiving the movies that I'm involved in. Right there,
gears almost and I have, like, I have a thirty
million dollars studio movie that I'm trying to go with
a big, huge producer, and it's like, that's a slow

(24:43):
gear that's going to take, you know, a couple of
years to turn. It's been a couple of years. Then
you have that medium gear of the two to five
million dollar movie, which I produced two of them. I
have one in theaters right now. It's called McVeigh and
it's about the Oklahoma City bomber. And it's actually also
it was dan date across. It was nationwide really and
now it was on iTunes and the last time I
checked it was top five on iTunes, so which is

(25:04):
really cool. Those are the medium gears. And in those cases,
I less start them from the ground up. I usually
come in and you're you're making a you you've put
it together, you need an extra three hundred thousand dollars.
I find that for you, and then I take my
fee and blah blah blah. Right, then you have the
micro budget ones, which can well.

Speaker 1 (25:20):
What about sort of what about the low budget ones
from say, you know, I say from one hundred micro
budgets below one hundred, so from one hundred, say to
a million.

Speaker 2 (25:28):
It depends. It depends on those. You know. Sometimes I'll
help put those together with some EPs and financing, or
sometimes I'll be involved. It just depends. The project has
to be right. I've also said, you know, you can
bring me a fifty thousand dollars project that I go no, no, no,
this makes no sense, and then you can bring me
a six million dollar project that goes, yeah, that's perfect,
that makes complete sense. I want to be involved. So

(25:49):
there's no rhyme or reason to that. On the micro
budget level, I don't go to set or anything like that.
If I'm like, I have one I'm producing in April
and then another one I'm producing in July or August,
and it was like I just approved the script, you know,
give notes, watch dailies when they come in when I can,
and then give notes on the edit. That's it. Like
I'm not They're being shot around the country.

Speaker 1 (26:07):
But as a producer, are you helping the finance or
do you want to even talk about that?

Speaker 2 (26:12):
For the micro budgets, yeah, yeah, no, I mean I've
co financed three myself and my company did one, and
then other times I'll bring investors in and just say, hey, listen,
you want to you know, get involved in that.

Speaker 1 (26:23):
And how do they make their money back? Are they
going straight to AVOD platform?

Speaker 2 (26:27):
No? No, they're I mean, gosh, we had one for example,
like this is what you can do with these, Like
we had one called The Bigfoot Trap. We still have
it that we produced with Glasshouse and the budget was
fifty thousand dollars, right, and it's it's a really good movie.
We sold it to airlines UK, Middle East, Africa, right,
So those are all international sales, right, and we're still

(26:49):
selling it. We also sold the Paramount Plus and then
we were able to do TVOD prior to Paramount Plus,
and it's like triple our money on this whole thing.
Like that's that's an amazing you know, you could do
those all day long and just killing it with that
kind of stuff. You know.

Speaker 1 (27:01):
It's funny as a filmmaker, like I've made nine features,
not nearly as much as you, but I you know,
write and direct and I mean I don't know, I've
directed five of them and written. I don't think I
could do a micro budget film. No, honestly, I don't.
I'm not sure I could even do it. Like just
the sound mix and the music and all that kind
of stuff is gonna exceed the entire budget of the
micro budget.

Speaker 2 (27:21):
All right. So to answer that, it's like, look, this
is something I've been saying to people. It's like, no
one gives a shit how many crew people you had
on No I No, I understand. They just care about
what the movie looks exactly what the movie looks like.
So it's like, say, this is we're shooting you and me, right,
how much could we shoot? But establishing shot medium close
medium close, or we could do we could do some
cool jib arm shit and whatever like okay, fine, but

(27:43):
ultimately a scene is a scene, and things like sound
mix and VFX. I mean, I just a movie that
I produced last year. I just got some VFX off
a fiver for one hundred twenty bucks. It's like top
not shit, man, It's like you know, And it was
the dumbest thing. It was. There's a light in this
avant garde hotel that looks like a film light, but
it was part of the hotel and you could see

(28:04):
it in the mirror and it looks like we screwed
up when we didn't actually screw up. It was just
a stupid prop in the damn hotel. So I have
to paint that out of the mirror. That kind of thing,
even a sound mix is getting easier and easier. I mean,
there are so to give you an example of the
way technology is affecting things, there is two AI platforms

(28:24):
that I know of. Sometimes movies will come to us
that I'll have no M and E track, you know,
for the people listening that don't know what that is.
That's separating the dialogue track from the music and effects,
because you can't dub a movie if you know, there's
a I'm shooting a gun, I'm going f you at
the same time it's on top of each other, so
you'd have to replace the gunshot. And so that was
always just like if you didn't have the M and E.

(28:45):
We can only sell the UK, Philippines, Australia, all the
places that would only take an India that would take
an English speaking thing. Can you believe you can literally
take the wavefile and it'll split it into eminy and
dialogue automatically using AI. Even if the tracks are on
top of each other, no kidding, and it's you know,
and it's and it's nothing. I mean, it's like close
to you know, ten dollars to do, you know. So

(29:07):
it's like, that's what I'm saying is that the technology
is making things, even dubbing so affordable. So that's what's
what I'm saying is that's the reason the budgets can
be brought down.

Speaker 1 (29:16):
So do you feel that like people shouldn't be doing
more than micro budget films.

Speaker 2 (29:21):
I look, there's a piece of me that goes either
do a micro budget or go for the big. Not
the big. It doesn't have to be the thirty million
dollars studio. It could be the one where the medium
streamer is funding it for one point five million or
something like that. Then you're taking care of the reason
I say it, I don't want to be in that
micro budget world. I want to be. When I first
started this business, you know, the movie's three million, was like, oh,

(29:43):
you're doing a low budget, right, you know what I mean? Right?
And it's like the but the market's not supporting it, right,
So the market it's like, go ahead, make your one
point two million dollar movie, make your eight hundred thousand
dollars movie. You're gonna make one hundred and fifty thousand,
and it's like, you know, and it's Anybody that tells
you differently is blowing smoke up your.

Speaker 1 (30:01):
Okay, well, this is this is what I brought you
on for because I want to I want to know
the truth. So you're saying, somebody makes a decent seven,
eight hundred thousand dollars movie and it's good. You know,
it's got all the stuff that you talked about, the
bells and whistles right still, the markets.

Speaker 2 (30:15):
You could be in trouble. You could make two hundred.
You know, you can make you know, five hundred maybe,
but to get to that eight hundred that might be tough.
And uh, for example, like I'm trying to negotiate a
deal literally right now for a seven million dollar animation
movie that was made internationally. Now, mind you, international budgets

(30:35):
can be bigger because every freaking government besides ours, supports
arts and gives money. You know, we get tax credits afterwards,
but you gotta shoot it for you gotta get that money.
Every other government goes, here's a million, make the damn movie.
You know what I mean? And these filmmakers make it
so seven million ar movie. We're talking about acquiring it
for one hundred thousand for US one hundred thousand dollars.
So it's like, just do the math in your head

(30:57):
of US is one of the biggest territories. Now they
don't have to make that seven million back because much
of that was government of course financing, you know, but
just goes to show what them.

Speaker 1 (31:08):
Where would that even come from? Would that be an
SVOD sale or not?

Speaker 2 (31:11):
No, we were trying to at lease it theatrically. It's
an animation. I want to release it big theatrically, so
it's a big play.

Speaker 1 (31:15):
So what's the viability of releasing an independent film theatrically?
I mean that's also super super risky.

Speaker 2 (31:23):
It is it is you know this is we'd have
some outside financing for it. And based on that's why
I actually thought was calling me, so I wanted to check.
I wasn't that I was going to stop the conversation,
but at least I would know call me back. And
you know the amount of theaters, so you have to
have the P and A. But we've done it where
we've done ten theaters, We've done it wre We've done fifty,
done one hundred theaters, Like for Glasshouse itself, we probably
wouldn't do more than one hundred theaters, you know, because

(31:44):
even that's going to take about fifty grand.

Speaker 1 (31:46):
You know, like you you're not a theatrical distributor, you
do like a Fathom or somebody like that.

Speaker 2 (31:51):
No, no, no, in that in those cases that I
just mentioned, we did it ourselves. Really yeah, yeah, but
we obviously.

Speaker 1 (31:56):
Are you four walling the theaters or no?

Speaker 2 (31:57):
No, no, not at all. We have I have a
theatrical booking a guy that I've known for twenty five
years more nineteen ninety seven, I've known him since, and
he books theaters. So it's like these are all percentage
deals on the theaters and so, but you still need
especially with the theater they're gonna want to know, there's
some press, so you still need the pr you need
the in theater marketing, which is different all that stuff.

(32:19):
So you know, maybe one hundred theaters of cosse about
fifty grand, you know, And so you're putting that and
that's doing it cheaply, yeah, very and it's risky. So
but at the same time, like friends with the guys,
the CEO of Econic as a friend of mine, and
they're like Fathom Events, you know, and we're in with Fathom,
and it's like that's the they could come in as
partners as well. So that would be for the bigger releases,

(32:39):
you know, the thousand screen, two thousand screen, right.

Speaker 1 (32:42):
But I mean, you know that's sort of the you know,
the real dream of a filmmakers see their film in
a theater, righty. But just the financial risk and I
mean the fifty thousand that you just said is really
small relative to the P and A campaigns that.

Speaker 2 (32:57):
Oh yeah, I mean for this animation, if we come
and we're trying to go you know, a thousand theaters,
it's like, you know, there's got to be you know,
there's got to be maybe a million dollars of P
and A at least.

Speaker 1 (33:07):
Because otherwise the theaters don't want to take a chance,
they don't want to give up the screen. Yeah yeah,
So how many how many indie films get a theatrical
release and you're not paying for that there, you're gonna
have the filmmaker paid for the P and A obviously.

Speaker 2 (33:19):
Well it depends depends, or you'll get some investor or
something that depends on that.

Speaker 1 (33:23):
Yeah, but realistically a filmmaker listening to this podcast, they
make say, let's say a three hundred thousand dollars film
and it's good.

Speaker 2 (33:29):
Like it?

Speaker 1 (33:30):
Of course it's good. You like it, you say it's good.
No stars, though, Yeah, you know, is it worth releasing theatrically.

Speaker 2 (33:36):
If it's really really good, if it's something unique where
we think it'll fit a market, and we might also
fund that theatrical you know release. It's not like we
would come back. We need this from you guys. So
it's like, and there are other companies too, VM I
I know, just picked up a movie of a friend
of ours and they're guaranteeing X amount of theaters so
and they're paying for it. So it's a situation just

(33:56):
based on the project, and we go, this would fit
this niche and it has an audience. That's all it
is is going would people see this? I mean, you know,
I was pitched a concert movie over in Hong Kong
and it was like, it's a legitimately known music star,
and it's like, well, that would be interesting if we
got that, but that would be more of like a
Fathom release, right, you know.

Speaker 1 (34:16):
Right right, okay, just switching gears to sort of film markets.
Like you know, I've seen you many many times at
the American Film Market. And let's say a filmmaker comes,
they have a project, whether it's in development or even finished.
How do they get the attention of people like you?

Speaker 2 (34:33):
Well, like specifically at AFM, you just have to come
in and.

Speaker 1 (34:36):
I know, but walking into your booth, you know, there's yeah, no, no,
somebody's going to stop you. Hey do you have an appointment? Yeah,
you know, you don't have an appointment? Come back on Saturday.

Speaker 2 (34:45):
Well, with us, like specifically, we're pretty filmmaker friendly. But
the key is if they're coming in with just like
I just have an idea or I have a screenplay,
it's like it's too early for us. There are other
people that may jump on, you know, and you might.

Speaker 1 (34:57):
Have to, but everybody's got an idea.

Speaker 2 (35:00):
Yeah, exactly, that's the problem. Like somebody like so when
we have somebody like a person, that's what that guy
I don't want to say guarding the door, but the
person working the door at AFF.

Speaker 1 (35:10):
She was very polite, but she did a good job.

Speaker 2 (35:13):
She was a gee keeper. Yes, yeah, yeah, and their
mission is is like we're only looking for completed films.
If you have a completed film, it's like great, well,
set on an appointment with David, right, and David's there
to take meetings. And so if they have a completed film,
David's going to want to look at it. You know.
Now if there are say you just have a script
or something like that, I think that you would have
to make the appointment early on, like a month before,

(35:36):
you know, so you do the leg work before, or
just take the person's card. He you know, you have
the card of the person's acquisitions and then you know,
follow up with them afterwards and say, hey, listen, I
just want to follow up your busy at AFM and
you know, and I have this idea for screenplay. We're
going to be shooting it blah blah blah. So I
think that or be social. You know, it's like we're
as I get older, maybe not as much, but we're

(35:58):
at every I use the word every party. Yeah, and
we're at a lot of parties, let's put it that way.
And for us it's just networking and you know, being social,
Like I always joke. At one time it can I
think it was like four thirty in the morning at karaoke.
A Spanish buyer is like, I got to do a
deal with you guys, and he's like, I'm coming to
the booth tomorrow. And it's like, that's why we do this,
that's why we stay out. It's fun, but we're also

(36:20):
working at the same time, you know what I mean.
And so you know, it's I would just say, get
get in that scene, so to speak. But when you
have a completed film, yeah, most a lot of distributors
take a look at it, you know, not the big,
biggest ones, but from the medium down they'll take a
look at it. Yeah, that's what the job of the
acquisitions guy is or ex gal.

Speaker 1 (36:40):
So the dream of getting on Netflix. The other dream
now these days is like a lot of filmmakers say, well,
I'm going to send it to eight twenty four. Yeah,
I mean yeah, I mean they're not can you get
in that door?

Speaker 2 (36:52):
You could? I mean if the if the movie's right,
you know, eight twenty four theoretically, but it's like they
have such a specific movie that they're looking for, right,
But I mean, getting something like shutter, if you got
a horror movie, I think that's a pretty decent goal
and you know, get it to Emily over there, and
it's like, I think that's a that's a goal that's
achievable if you have the right.

Speaker 1 (37:11):
Movie do deal it all in the faith based market.

Speaker 2 (37:14):
We have two faith based titles, one called About Hope
that we did very well on and so it was
right before we did distribution ourselves, and so we're always
looking for potential faith based movies that work. The reason
I'm saying out because I believe that we did it.
We resold it to Vision in US and then they
released it. But now we would we wouldn't do that, obviously,

(37:35):
we would take it out ourselves. But we still did
very well internationally and and and Visions made money for us.
So we've done extremely well on the movie. And but
it was it was really sweet and non offensive, so
I think what else and a well made movie. I
think that also had it going forward that it was
that it wasn't you know, in your face like this
is you know you're going to hell, you know, do this.
It was just a very sweet movie.

Speaker 1 (37:55):
So yeah, a lot of filmmakers complain about distributors, say
that they get a deal or it's a bad deal,
and you know, I say to filmmakers, first of all,
you got to understand what a good deal is. You
got to know how to ask for the right things.
But then they say they get screwed or you know,
it doesn't work out. Why is that their expectations to whack?

Speaker 2 (38:12):
Yeah, somebody will tell me like, yeah, so and so
company screwed me, and then I'll go away tell me more.
And then I find out they just didn't make the
million dollars that they thought. And it's like, not the
company didn't screw I guarantee they were selling trying to
sell the movie, you know, And so there's there are
ways around that to an extent, right, two hundred plus
films we've I guarantee there's some movies that are pissed

(38:34):
at us. I'm sure of it, you know what I mean,
Like and and I try not to think about those things.
I know there's like, you know, I'm sure I could
find somebody that's pit like you know, it's the famous
Bernie Berlstein quote, which I love, You're nobody in this
town until someone once you dead. I think that's the best,
like one of my favorite Hollywood quotes of all time.
So and so, but what we do is like, so

(38:56):
we will go to a market like the FM, the
last one, the last big one we were at, and
we have our meetings. I think we had sixty something meetings.
And so a movie that we are pitching, we send
a report of all the places that we successfully pitched
and they said, yeah, let's see a screener of that.
So for example, like this action movie that I was
just talking to on the way here, we have like

(39:17):
twenty five places. Now, first off, no other sales age
does that that I know of? You know, it's shows
all their meetings, right. And the second thing is if
there are no sales from that, that ain't on us,
you know what I mean. Now you can still blame
us afterwards, But I'm showing you all the places we
successfully talked about your movie, like was the best thing
since sliced bread. Now they're gonna watch it, and if

(39:39):
they don't buy it, what the hell else can we do?
And I get again, still filmmakers are something He's pissed off,
you know, because again they had these grand expectations for
their movies. Am I saying? There are not distributors out
there that are somehow putting extra marketing fees and high
I'm sure yes, And but the ones that I know
that at least I'm friends with, are really trying on

(39:59):
every movie because for us and a lot you know,
like film Mode and you know who was here just before. Yeah,
we don't make money unless the film makes money. So
it's like with that, it's not a business. It's not
a viable business unless the movie is making money. So
we also have something that I don't believe any other
distributor or sales agent has. We have yearly minimums and
if we don't hit that, you could take the movie back,

(40:20):
you know, except for the where we sold, Say we
sold Turkey in Latin America and then you we didn't
hit the minimum, take it back. It just now Turkey
in Latinum off the table for anybody else in the future.

Speaker 1 (40:28):
Oh you do have that, Yeah, I call those performance thresholds.
So if it doesn't hit this certain level, then frankly,
you're probably not interested.

Speaker 2 (40:35):
That's the other thing is that I don't want to
keep a movie you can't sell for ever one, but
also number two as a filmmaker. Being a filmmaker myself,
I just know it's like I wouldn't want to sign
a deal and then oh, what's gone for fifteen years?
And them screwed? So we put those in there for
a year, one, two, and three a lot of times
if we believe the movie is good enough, and then
if after three then it goes to seven years, because

(40:56):
it's like, I mean, we're happy for three years. I
haven't imagine you're happy for seven years. But yeah, yeah,
and so but at least there's something that is in there.
And they're not projections, they're minimum thresholds, you know what
I mean. So it's just like, at least they know
we're going to do something with the movie, you know.

Speaker 1 (41:10):
So how do you feel about, say, distributors who are
at most of them now are asking for ten, twelve,
fifteen year terms. And I'm saying to a filmmaker, like,
if you've signed for ten years and they don't do anything,
you're gonna be in trouble.

Speaker 2 (41:24):
Yeah, I would say, try to get some minimum thresholds.
They may not they're most likely not going to do it.
We do it, but they most likely wouldn't do it.
Why do you do it? Because again, as a filmmaker myself,
I don't want that horrible feeling of oh, universe screwed.
Now now that the movie's not doing anything and we're.

Speaker 1 (41:38):
Tied up with this person, I think it's great that you.

Speaker 2 (41:40):
Yeah, thank you, thank you. And again, we don't want
to keep something that's just sitting there as an albatross.
So the other thing I would say would be, you
could potentially put something in there that if after five years,
like you get all the unexploited platforms back. I think
I did that years ago in an agreement when I
was just a filmmaker. But bottom line is there all

(42:00):
these platforms they hadn't they'd only released to like five,
and so I was able to get all the rights
for everything else. Fine, keep the damn five and then
I'm going to everybody else, right, you know right.

Speaker 1 (42:09):
I hear lots and lots of complaints from filmmakers about
that kind of stuff, and I say, like, you just
signed the wrong deal.

Speaker 2 (42:14):
Yeah. Well, another thing that David runs into is being acquisitions,
is that he'll lose out a movie to go why
did you go with so and so? And it's because
they paid an MG of like five grand And it's like,
I feel bad for some of these filmmakers. I want
to talk to him and be like, you know, you
realize that's the that's all he'll ever see. They paid
you that you're gonna paid ones, right, versus if say
we're paying you zero MG, but we're legitimately. That was

(42:35):
always my thing is I really wanted to have a
split with the filmmakers. Every dollar we get a quarter,
you get seventy five cents. And it was like that
in the long run is gonna make more, but they're
he'll lose movies to places that will pay like, you know,
five grand MG or which we would do as well,
but they went with that. Or they give these ridiculous
projections that are bullshit projections, but they're giving it. And

(42:56):
then filmmakers, you know, it's never gonna make that. We'll
give real balistic projections and they'll go, well, so and
so predicted that is going to make one point five million.
It's like, you idiot, you know, but what can you do?
It's it's it's just experience that they got to learn.
You know. Another thing that happens to us too is
a movie you'll come at a FM and they'll say
we want, you know, six figure minimum, that's minimum guarantee.
Six figures for us to give it and then okay,

(43:18):
good luck, we don't We're not going to be able
to pay that because the market's not got to support it.
Then a year later they'll be back with the same movie.
You know, hey, trying to still that movie.

Speaker 1 (43:27):
So these days you're competing also, you like, distributorr slash
sales agents are competing with what I call the aggregators
like film Hub. Yeah, so what's the advantage you know, like,
you know, the film hubs are taking twenty percent and
there's no fees or anything like that, which sounds like
a nice deal. I mean, what's the advantage, say, of
going with a distributor or a sales agent as opposed
to that.

Speaker 2 (43:47):
Well, a couple of things. One is that they're working
with you specifically on the movie. Right. Film Hub is
not going to redo your trailer're not going to redo
your artwork or anything like that. They're not going to
try to position the movie. They're not going to do
press on the movie. They're just going to throw five
hundred movies a month to the to the outlets and
blah blah blah, here's the list, blah blah blah. So
and the other thing that they don't do is the
international sales as well, so you know they're not going

(44:09):
to run ads as well in the US. I forgot
to mention that, But so you'd have to be sold
on that were we believe in your movie and we're
going to put a lot of effort in marketing and
behind it and run ads and things like that to go,
we'd rather do you versus film hump for us, right,
And I would say also to the other issue is
that the amount of movies that they're pushing, you know

(44:29):
that they're just throwing mud against the walls. So that's
that's where that is. But internationally, there's no comparison. They're
not they're not at markets pitching movies, you know what
I mean. It's like, so internationally, you know you're gonna
want to go with you know, a real sales that
you're distributing.

Speaker 1 (44:43):
For like a low budget indie film, what percentage is
going to come from international went from domestic? An American
English film?

Speaker 2 (44:50):
It depends, like because an urban film ninety five percents
coming from US, right, But then another like a thriller
horror movie, it could be you know, it could be
fifty fifty or sometimes even seventy five international twenty five US.

Speaker 1 (45:02):
So, right, do comedies the American like comedies travel?

Speaker 2 (45:06):
Well, they're very sweet. If there's no cursing, it's super vanilla. Yes.
If it's the second it's edgy. It just doesn't play
the right way. We had a comedy horror movie that
I loved and it just couldn't get any international sales.
I mean I would literally start pitching it. It's like
I wish sometimes the filmmakers would see this, the ones
that come and see that the markets at times, they
could see how hard we're working, right, But it's like

(45:27):
I would start pitching it got this great comedy harmit
they would stop me. The buyer Nope, not interested. It
was like, oh so they didn't even like I couldn't
even get to the pitch on the movie. They would
stop me. And it's like, what are you gonna do.

Speaker 1 (45:39):
The buyers being other distributors in other countries, and or
do would you sell directly to say, streaming platforms in
other countries.

Speaker 2 (45:45):
Yeah, potentially, like we'll have you know, meetings with like
Sky in UK directly, but then we'll also have meetings
with distributors in the UK that also deal to Sky,
you know, so it just depends. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (45:56):
I think a lot of filmmakers don't understand that there
are rules and regularly in certain territories, like for instance, France,
if you want to go on French television or Canada,
you have to go through a Canadian distributor or French distributor,
that type of thing. Those are cultural things. I don't
want to I could go on for now, a guy
like you, I could go in so many different directions. Okay,
here's what I'm going to let you do. This is
because I appreciate you coming on. You can take a

(46:19):
minute and pitch both you know, your distribution company, so
that you tell us why filmmakers who are listening shouldn't
come to you. I can tell you already. I didn't
realize you gave those thresholds that filmmakers who are listening.
That is a very big deal. I mean, do you
understand again, I didn't even understand the Glass House they

(46:40):
I'm gonna explain it on your behalf. So what Tom
is saying here you correct me if I'm wrong, is
he's saying they're going to take your film and if
after the first year they don't hit a certain amount
of sales, they're going to allow you to take your
film back and the second and the third year. If
after the third year they've done the sales that they
say they can do, then they're going to want seven years,
which is fair because they've hit the levels that they

(47:00):
told you they're going to hit. Is that correct?

Speaker 2 (47:02):
One percent?

Speaker 1 (47:02):
Yeah, I don't think anybody else does that.

Speaker 2 (47:04):
We want to be different. We wanted that is that
is very new.

Speaker 1 (47:07):
I didn't know that about you. Thanks, all right, And
then you can also pitch filmmaking stuff because I know
that you do a lot of that. You work hard,
and you do a lot of courses and interesting stuff
for filmmakers, So tell us about it.

Speaker 2 (47:18):
Well, yeah, I mean filmmaking stuff started to god maybe
eight years ago now, and we have all kinds of
courses on there from what our specialty is. This is
is finding money from film financing and then film distribution.
And I mean there, I think there's fourteen or fifteen
modules now that all have video courses broken down into
four or five minute chunks and so you can go

(47:38):
back to them and they all have downloads and things
you can keep. And on top of that, we have
this Mastermind group that meets twice a month and it's
on Zoom and or it's actually on Google Meet and
you have everybody on there and everybody talks about their movie.
They can get advice right there, and so the community
helps them. Everybody jumps in and that's like, to me,
that's a value alone. And it's only ninety seven dollars
a month, which I think is insane. Like there's always

(48:00):
times where all said because Jason, my partner, he does
all the emailing, he does all even though I say
my name, it's not me, and he'll he does all
the marketing, and I'm like, God, we gotta start raising
our prices because there's so much value for that amount.
Even if you can you say you sign up for
the years, I think it's nine ninety seven for the
whole year because you just saved two months or something
like that versus going to film school or something like that. Man,

(48:21):
it's like, these are people actually making movies and I'm
out there. That's the Jason loves when I'm out there
making more movies because I'm doing it.

Speaker 1 (48:27):
You know you're there, You're at the face of that.

Speaker 2 (48:29):
So no, but thanks filmmaking stuff. We put a lot
of pride in saying once they join, you know, we
retain the people because they know the values there. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (48:37):
And on the Glasshouse side, do you take a second
to just I mean other than what I just said.

Speaker 2 (48:41):
Sure, sure, Well Glass's distribution we have over two hunder titles.
The glass House is again it was started by a financier,
Brian Glass. But at the same time it's this double entender.
You can see everything going on full transparency that we
pride ourselves on being available on the phone, emails, we
get back to everybody, you know, because that's a problem
too that I faced even when I was a filmmaker.

(49:03):
You know, you'd email the distributor or call and you
never heard back from them. Yeah. And the things that
we do, like we give reports of the buyers that
we're interested in your movies. We give minimum thresholds for
year one, two and three that we have to hit.
And for us, it's it's just we're a boutique enough
that every movie we have to make money from. So
that should be a good thing for filmmakers because they know,

(49:24):
if we're taking your movie, you gotta make money. We
also have a partnership. I should mention with Insurgents slash
v Channels. It's the same company for smaller movies that
are like really small, we'll pay an MG to that
movie and then they'll get fifty percent of the revenue
from worldwide and we'll just release it on platforms everywhere

(49:44):
and it'll be platforms. But these are I mean, like
you know, super small movies and stuff like that, just
because we want to be able to give opportunities to
every filmmaker that's putting it out there. It's like it's
an amazing feat to make a movie, and we just
love when they can they can happen.

Speaker 1 (49:57):
That's good. Well I can vouch for I've seen that
tomorrow markets, you're working it. You were working it, all right,
Tom Alloy, thank you very much for being a guest.
You were super insightful and I'm sure that hopefully our
paths will cross many more times. All right, thanks so much.
Having Okay, so you heard it from an expert. I mean,
Tom is as I said. Tom's out there, he's working

(50:19):
the markets. I see him all the time, and he is,
I'm going to say, a true industry expert who has
gotten his hands dirty. And what he's telling you is
the truth, so good luck