BPS 429: The Unfiltered History of Film Distribution with AFM Co-Founder with Michael Ryan

Michael Ryan started his career working in the TV industry for Sir Lew Grade’s UK company, ITC. In 1978 he formed J&M Entertainment with a colleague, a distribution sales agent for independent films. As J&M grew, it developed its business model to also take responsibility for financing new films & providing production finance.In 1980 Ryan and J&M were founder members of the American Film Marketing Association (AFMA) – later to be renamed Independent Film & Television Alliance (IFTA) – which was formed to provide an annual film market based in Los Angeles. Michael served two terms as Chairman of IFTA (2004-2008) and another three terms from 2015-2021.In 2000, Ryan partnered with Guy Collins. Between them they have financed, sold and produced over 200 films, including The Wild Geese, The English Patient, The General, Whats Eating Gilbert Grape, The Osterman Weekend, the Highlander series, Planet 51 and more recently, at GFM Films with Fred Hedman, Toei Animations Harlock, Absolutely Anything starring Simon Pegg and Simon West-directed action thriller Stratton starring Dominic Cooper. On July 15, 2022, GFM’s Paws of Fury: The Legend of Hank, an independently financed and produced animated feature is based on Mel Brooks iconic Blazing Saddles that launched as a project by GFM Films at AFM in 2014, was released across 4,500 U.S. screens by Paramount.

Please enjoy my conversation with Michael Ryan.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:03):
You are listening to the IFH podcast Network. For more
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Speaker 2 (00:12):
Welcome to the Bulletproof Screenwriting Podcast, Episode number four twenty nine.
The greatest lesson about filmmaking is to never take no
for an answer, especially if you have a lot of
passion and inspiration to do something.

Speaker 1 (00:24):
David o' russell broadcasting from a dark, windowless room in Hollywood.

Speaker 2 (00:29):
When we really should be working on that next draft.

Speaker 1 (00:31):
It's the Bulletproof Screenwriting Podcast, showing you the craft and
business of screenwriting while teaching you how to make your
screenplay bulletproof.

Speaker 2 (00:39):
And here's your host, Alex Ferrari. Welcome, Welcome to another
episode of the Bulletproof Screenwriting Podcast. I am your humble
host Alex Ferrari. Now, today's show is sponsored by Bulletproof
script Coverage. Now. Unlike other script coverage services, Bulletproof script
Coverage actually focuses on the con of project you are

(01:01):
and the goals of the project you are. So we
actually break it down by three categories micro budget, indie film,
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from a reader that's used to reading temp pole movies
when your movie is going to be done for one
hundred thousand dollars, and we wanted to focus on that.
At Bulletproof Script Coverage, our readers have worked with Marvel Studios, CIA, WME, NBC, HBO, Disney,

(01:25):
Scott Free, Warner Brothers, The Blacklist, and many many more.
So if you need your screenplay or TV script covered
by professional readers, head on over to covermiscreenplay dot com. Well, guys,
today on the show, we are going to talk about
the history of film distribution. We're going to go into

(01:46):
all the dark corners that we all hear about, and
we're gonna hear it from somebody who is there at
the modern age beginning of film distribution. We have on
the show today Michael Ryan, who is the co founder
of the American Film Market or AFM, and Michael and
I had an insanely productive conversation about not only film distribution,

(02:12):
but the different decades and how we were making money
back then, how things have changed, what we can do
in today's world, traps and pitfalls that people fall into,
and I ask them some really hard questions about why
Hollywood accounting exists, why are there so many thieves in
film distribution. How can you protect yourself? Because Michael is

(02:34):
not only a co founder of AFM, but he is
a very very successful film financier and producer in his
own right and has dealt with a lot of the
problems that independent filmmakers are dealing with today. So I
can't wait for you guys to hear this. This is
a fantastic, fantastic episode. So without any further ado, please

(02:54):
enjoy my conversation with Michael Ryan. I like to welcome
to the show, Michael Ryan. How you doing, Michael, I'm good.

Speaker 3 (03:03):
Thank you, Yeah, very good.

Speaker 2 (03:05):
Thank you so much for coming on the show. I'm
excited to talk to You've lived a very interesting life
in our business. You've done a bunch of different things,
and my very first question is how and why did
you want to get into this business? Is how did
you get into this this insanity that is the film industry.

Speaker 3 (03:22):
Yeah, well that's a very good question. I started working
for a guy called Colonel David Sterling, who there was
a man who founded the SAS in the Second World War,
so all of that stuff I didn't have anything to
do with that. I was just working as a little junior,
making sales of TV programs and blah blah blahune known

(03:43):
to me. He had all sorts of places in hotspots
around the world which were all based in television stations,
so basically it was supplying private armies. So that was
all quite interesting. I didn't join for that. I just
joined because I liked the idea of being in television
and radio. And then it kind of went from there
and somebody offered me a job. I worked for Lord

(04:05):
then Sir Lord, Sir lou Bray, who was a wonderful
man and taught me a lot of what I gathered
for my knowledge, and I just loved it, and I went.
He went from there into making movies, and some really
big movies too, and I got the opportunity to travel
the world and you know, do the can Film Festival

(04:26):
and all of that stuff, which which which I love.
I have to say, and as you said earlier that
it was the golden age of independent film, and some
of those independent filmmakers became the big major filmmakers that
we have today. And I kind of got into it
almost by accident, but knowing that I wanted to be
in something where I had contact with people around the

(04:49):
world and travel and all of that. So it kind
of worked out that way, and then that led to
producing and financing movies, et cetera, which is basically the
whole of my career, I suppose.

Speaker 2 (05:04):
So you were so when you're talking about the golden
age of independent film, you're talking about the seventies, eighties
and that kind of world.

Speaker 3 (05:12):
Yeah, I mean, there was this period. There was a
sort of glorious period where if you want to see
a film out to go to the cinema. But that
soon became video the invention of the VCR, and at
that point all of us guys that were packaging and
making and selling TV programs and films realized that there

(05:32):
was a secondary and third and fourth value to these things.
And that's when it became obvious that you could do anything.
Because the money was enormous in those days. It was
a brand new, brand new invention, and people, the big
video companies were competing like crazy, much much bigger hunting

(05:56):
area than what we have today with THEOD and so
the value was in library, the value was in production
and sales, and can at that point was just a
money making machine.

Speaker 2 (06:11):
It was ridiculous, No, but I have a little bit
of experience of the eighties in the sense of the
distribution space because I worked in a video store, so
I saw the product moving in, I saw what kind
of movies were being made. To my understanding, at the
beginning of the VHS revolution, just kind of like streaming

(06:31):
as well, and kind of like DVD and everything else,
the main major studio stayed away. They were very kind
of they were kind of like, oh no, I don't
want to just do no, I can't do that. And
because of that it allowed companies like New World, Trauma,
The Full Moon, these kind of B and of course Canon,
these kind of B movies companies to come out and

(06:53):
just own the VHS, own video market. I mean, Cannon
was built. I mean he was making God, those guys
were making scene amounts of money with Ninja Ninja movies.

Speaker 3 (07:04):
For guide's sakes, there were those days wre and it
literally in those days, the Cannon boys, you could literally
put a poster on a wall with nothing else, a
couple of names, a title, literally a poster, and you
probably make enough sales during the cam Film Festival in

(07:25):
less than two weeks to finance the movie. So you
sold it on a poster, you ended up with a film.

Speaker 2 (07:32):
Fromm what I understood talking to some of those boys
who worked with Cannon during those days, like sometimes they
would just put the name of the actors up and
they didn't have the actor.

Speaker 3 (07:44):
Oh no, that was the last thing they did. Mean,
it really was cowboy time. But bless them, you know,
they they spawned a huge industry. They kept Variety, Screen International,
those industry magazines going. You know, you'd have a special
issue which would be two hundred and fifty pages and

(08:05):
about one hundred and eighty pages that was canon advertising,
each page a different movie, most of them not made.
Probably most of them never got made, but it was.
It was an extraordinary time, and out of all of
that somehow came some really quality movies that were totally
independently financed and would never have got made in a
major company, which in those days was the only way

(08:28):
to make a movie. So you're right, they did stay
away from it. So consequently it became Gunfight of the
OK Corral. You know, everybody was at it, Mario Casara,
Andy Vanya making First Blood, which made them into multimillionaires
in one swoop with Stallone. I mean, just extraordinary time.

Speaker 2 (08:50):
Yeah, the Determinator too in the early nineties as well,
and all recall the Caracal Boys. Yeah, Mario that, yeah,
it was, it was, it was. It was really the
wild West. And of course we can't speak about the
eighties without Oriyan. I mean they they were pumping out
Oscar winning movies and RoboCup.

Speaker 3 (09:11):
I we were doing a movie with called The Hotel
New Hampshire, which was based on John OAN's book, and
I went had to go to New York to meet
Arthur Krim, who was old dead and he wanted the
movie for North America. And I sat in a big boardroom.
It was all it was, you know. I was a
kid and we were doing the day and he said,

(09:35):
you know, have you've got all these people you say
you've got And I said yes, I'm crossing my fingers
under the table. And he said, well, if you have,
then I'm happy to go into business with you. And
I said, yes, we have. And he said, have you
got a moment And we walked outside into the corridor.
He said, young man, you're either very brave or very stupid.

(09:57):
I hope it's the former.

Speaker 2 (10:02):
We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor
and now back to the show. You know, in that comment,
I have to say, is exactly what the film industry
is all about.

Speaker 4 (10:17):
If you're trying, like you're either very brave or very stupid, yeah,
to get into this business.

Speaker 3 (10:23):
And sometimes you do those two in concert with one another.
It worked. I sometimes still wonder whether Alfur Krim was right.

Speaker 2 (10:33):
So and so, you know, I always I always tell
filmmakers about the eighties because I mean, I was a
young man in the eighties, but it was just so
much money flowing around in the eighties, and then in
the nineties when DVD showed up, that exploded in a
way that it's hard to comprehend today as a filmmaker

(10:54):
and an independent filmmaker, how much money and how easy
it was to make money using those formats internationally. And
I always used to tell people because I remember seeing
these movies come into the video store in the eighties
and early nineties and literally in the eighties. And please
correct me if I'm wrong. If you've finished a film,

(11:17):
just finished it on thirty five, Yeah, it got a
release of some sort, you made some sort of money
with it.

Speaker 3 (11:24):
Well, there was there was a plethora of you know
that they were video video based or DVD based companies.
That's the way they financed themselves, and there were hundreds
and hundreds of them. They could always get a domestic release,
You could always get a release in the major countries
around the world. And those were the guys who eventually
became if they were good at it, I mean, if

(11:45):
they if they weren't very good at it, they went
back to selling second oart cars, which is what they
did in the first place, is true. And because of that,
because of the opportunity, there was some there were some
really good companies struck during that period, and it was
you're right, I mean, I I suppose the reason I

(12:06):
sold my company successfully originally the original company, was because
we had a very big library, were making some quite
quality movies, and people were falling over themselves. You know,
in the days before cell phones. We'd have screenings in
can of whatever we were screening, and people would literally
leave the screening early and sprint down the clasette to

(12:30):
the Carton Hotel to try and get there before their competitor.
It was ridiculous, like the gold Rush, really, and it
was extraordinary time. Yeah, it was. We were very lucky
to live through it. And I suppose to establish ourselves
with it, and it really did work very well. We
were it was a It was a wonderful period, and

(12:52):
it did spawn some really good companies and some really
original filmmakers. And you know, if you we all know,
if you've got a big bang field, there should be
a good team coming out of it. You're picking a
few players, and it did and it worked very well.

Speaker 2 (13:08):
Now in the nineties, as we come up, I'm kind
of going through the history of distribution from basically the
early eighties to where we are today. But in the nineties,
there was this movement that happened that wasn't around in
the eighties, which was in a big way, which was
the true independent filmmaking movement, which was more the sun
Dance movement that the rich link Letters, the Clerks, the

(13:32):
Robert rodriguezz of the world, those kind of you know,
Spike Lee, those kind of filmmakers that came out during
that time. When I was talking to forgive me for
dropping a name, when I was talking to Rick link
Letter on the show. He was one of the first
to come out the gate in the ninety I think
it was ninety or ninety one one, Slacker showed up
and he said, when we released it, there was all

(13:53):
of a sudden a business infrastructure to support this kind
of filmmaking, which was the VHS world, the video store world.
They needed product because there was I know, it's hard
to believe now there's we are in a sea of
product now because it was so cheap to make movies now.
Back then, I told people, I'm like, I used to

(14:15):
watch every week what came out, Like I could literally
watch all the releases of the week, which was maybe
three four five, It was a crazy week, and I
would be able to watch every movie that got released
in the United States, which was that money. So there
was a lack of that. So there was this infrastructure
for that moment in independent film. How did the markets

(14:39):
work with these kind of films because they didn't they
weren't genre. Some were, but you know, like the John
Pearson's of the World and obviously the Weinstein's and what
they were doing. How did the markets work with this
new movement the nineties, that kind of sundance independent movement.

Speaker 3 (14:54):
I think it was almost a reaction against the sort
of rather crass approach to filmmaking them.

Speaker 2 (15:02):
I mean, the cannon boys the cannon exactly.

Speaker 3 (15:05):
And there was that kind of cheapness to it and
shabbiness to it, and they were just making films that,
as I said, just you stick a title on the
wall and you make it. There was no real content.
And then people, I mean, you know, we all talk
about Harvey in derogatory ways, but there was the positive
side to him and the Weinstein Company Miramax before then,

(15:28):
and they began to concentrate on quality because they realized
there was sustainable market out there for small movies because
very little money was one or two actors, quality actors
who weren't necessarily big marquee stars, and it became a business,
and it really was a business, and those people were
able to make movies out of price, and they were

(15:48):
sustainable movies that proper film buffs like yourself in those
days would be able to go and see and enjoy.
So I think it also spawned that spawned sun Dance.
You know, I went to the first Sundance. I lectured
at that he's you know, placed there on the mountains. Yeah, yeah,

(16:09):
I did all of that stuff, and that that was
spawned by all of all of those days. Of course,
Sundance concentrated on the quality and the uniqueness and the quirkiness.
But it was all there to see. So, as I
said earlier, you make enough movies and some of them
are going to be little nuggets. And that's how it started.

(16:30):
And people like Rodriguez and all of those guys, Guarante
and but yeah, they all, they all came out of
that that pool and established themselves as a sort of
shining example of how to do it rather than do
it in a crass way. And I and I think
really it's established what we have today, which is a
huge gulf between the big massive movies that the Marvel

(16:55):
movies and things like that, that the Tempole movies that
the majors make and some other companies, and that the
golf in the middle is enormous, and that that was
created in those days, I think by all of the
shlock that was being made and then those little diamonds
that came out of it, which people like Harvey Weinstein
and others, Bob Jay people kind of recognized that, hang

(17:17):
on a minute, there's a bit quality here. This isn't
going to disappear down down the DVD drain. We can
make money out of this and it's sustainable and it
will carry on and then it becomes worthwhile on the
shelf of your company, if it's part of your library.
And in a way, that's what we did at my company.
And we had three or four hundred movies, but there
was a there was a top twenty or thirty that

(17:39):
anybody would kill to get hold of. So you know it,
it were all of that huge gold rush formed the
quality and those guys benefited from it. I did too. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (17:53):
And then and then also the opening of the international
market which was bringing over international films, and I know,
the Weinsteins and Merrimax did a fantastic job of bringing
in like a Life Is Beautiful and and a lot
of these directors that we had really never heard of
in the States in the West and spotlighting them and

(18:13):
spotlighting them in a way that that that didn't exist before.

Speaker 3 (18:16):
That's right, I mean, you have you know, direcsores like
Chavrol and you know Kislowski. Yeah, I mean, and that
the international marketplace opened up and people realized it wasn't
just to sell American independent movies. It was actually it
was actually spurring those people in those differrance germanys wherever
they were actually spurring them on to make more internationally

(18:38):
acceptable movies even though they were local stories. And I
think that helped enormously that the marketplace that Can, the AFM,
that Venice, Toronto all benefited by that. And you had
this huge conglomerate of people turning up desperate to buy rights,
and that became a market and that became a proper business.

(18:59):
So film markets became not just a sort of cheap
film festival. It became a proper sustainable business. And I
think that's why the AFM was formed forty years ago.
But it was formed by all of the professionals in
the movie industry thinking we can't just rely on Can
and Berlin and Venice. We've got to create something ourselves.

(19:22):
And it was that that made it work. And still
does you know, they all of those people, it's still
a traveling circus and they go to three four five.
Everyone really is a circuit three four or five of
those events a year, And it still surprises me actually,
in the days of doing things like this, that it

(19:45):
still works, you know. I mean, yeah, a particular person
that likes human contact and I think I can do
a deal or make a co production far better if
I'm sitting down opposite somebody, We'll.

Speaker 2 (20:00):
Be right back after a word from our sponsor. And
now back to the show.

Speaker 3 (20:09):
That I can on a camera and a screen, and
that still works, I think, and that human equality. That's
basically we make films so that we can entertain as
many people as possible. But in order to do that,
you've got to have a team.

Speaker 2 (20:24):
So you were, and you were one of the co
founders of AFM.

Speaker 3 (20:26):
If I'm not mistaken, I was indeed, yeah, we yeah,
there were, there are a few, there are very few left.
And it was just literally we realized that at a
certain point in the year, which then happened to be
February March, we're thinking of there's nothing there in the calendar,
was a big hole. We could make use of this.

(20:47):
And they're about ten or fifteen of us that got
together and we put up I think it was twenty
thirty thousand dollars each, which in those days was actually
quite a.

Speaker 5 (20:57):
Lot of money. God, really, that's a lot of money.
How do I do that? Anyway, we did it. A
lot of us did it. A handful of us did it.
That created funder enough money to make it work, and
it worked very well. You know, will it will it
survive and prosper as it has done with the pandemic
in the middle.

Speaker 3 (21:16):
I don't know. I mean, you know, people have discovered
this and they can use this as a tool very effectively,
but I think people will still turn up to do
what they do there.

Speaker 2 (21:27):
Well, it's kind of like what happened with the film festivals, Like, yeah,
you can watch a movie on your screen, but there's
a thing about a film festival that is is it's
very difficult to replicate in a virtual world, at least
at least until my generation dies off. Maybe the generations
behind me won't understand it.

Speaker 3 (21:49):
But I don't know. I mean, I still you're right,
I mean it is it is a generational thing. And
i'd still my friend's kids, some of them, some of
them like you and I are still becoming dumbuff. So
maybe there's hope. But there's still that sort of collective
sense of seeing something special in a special place, and

(22:09):
whether that's all.

Speaker 2 (22:11):
Communal, a communal and a community, it's.

Speaker 3 (22:14):
A communal experience and it works for a lot of movies,
especially forrilla horror comedy, But that collective experience really works,
So I don't think that will disappear. What might disappear
is is like film festivals in certain places that aren't
going to work. You've got to be very special to
have a film festival that people want to travel thousands
of miles to and spend loads of money. But if

(22:36):
you're a producer, it's by far the best way to
look to launch a movie. If you're launching it, to
launch it to the world and press, that's one thing.
If you're launching it to sell it as a whole
other exercise. But all of those things are possible at
the right festival at the right time, and if you
get it right. I've done it hundreds of times. You

(22:56):
time it right, and that's in the lave of the
gods most of the time. Is not because you're so clever.
It is it is it ready in time. And if
it is ready in time and it's the right festival
and you get the right reaction, then it works. And
it still does work, and I think that will continue
to work as a marketing tool. And it works the
other way. I had a movie. I had a movie

(23:17):
with Timothy Dalton and Valerio Galino. It was a historical
thing and a very good director whose name now escapes me.
And we got into can because it was a French
co production. So I think the friends strangled giljac God
to get it in and having got it in, and
we had a great screening in the if. I thought

(23:40):
the movie played terribly, I was there the following morning
in the press. The one of the reviewers, very clever,
he said, I thought it was strange that in at
a strange point in the movie, in the middle of
the film, there was clapping until I realized that people
were leaving the cinema. It's the sound of the seats

(24:01):
doing that as they left. That was it. The film
died that very morning. It died and there was no
way back. So that's the gamble, isn't it. You know,
it's a great opportunity. You get it wrong, Jesus, you're
really screwing well.

Speaker 2 (24:18):
And I think what you're saying is there's value. What
you're saying in regards to festivals. There are five, maybe
ten in the world that matter. Yeah, and the rest.

Speaker 3 (24:29):
But what's happening now is which is kind of encouraging.
It kind of works alongside local production, and you know, Netflix,
the streamers are getting involved in this. They're making films
in strange places where they want to launch their own service.
So you're getting Portuguese language movies at the Kino Faso

(24:50):
Film Festival. So that's that can work, and it can
work in a in a sales producer type way in
that you identify it, make small film, you get, go
to the right places within a twelve month period, and
you can make sales and find distributors in each of
those places. So as a kind of local exercise, it

(25:12):
still does work. If you've got you plan it properly
and you're lucky, it does work, and so I think
that part of it will carry on. I think that's
part of an exercise and marketing exercise that that we
can still use and if you use it intelligently, it works.

Speaker 2 (25:29):
Now, I love to talk to you about the Netflix effect,
because when streaming showed up, just like everything else that
happens in our business, when VHS showed up, everyone's like
as a fad, when DVD shows up as a fad.
When streaming showed up, they're like, oh, this is never
really going to take off. I mean, because I remember

(25:50):
logging into Netflix streaming. Oh it's horrible. Their movies were horrible.
They had nothing, They're no licenses there, nothing was It
was atrocious. I'm like, how is this. I ain't gonna
go anywhere I even did that. It was in twenty twelve,
I think it was or twenty eleven when it came out.
But the impact is I haven't seen an impact so

(26:12):
massive on our industry in a I mean, you could
argue VHS was it was kind of like a if
VHS was an atomic bomb. Streaming was basically the nuclear
version of that twenty times Hiroshima kind of seismic shift.
And it has completely changed our business model. It is

(26:34):
devalued the movie because now before the movie, I always
tell filmmakers this, I go, look before our movies were
worth twenty four ninety nine then retail, then they were
worth three ninety nine for rental, and then when t
VOD showed up, okay, we still can get nine ninety
nine and maybe two ninety nine if your HD maybe

(26:57):
three ninety nine, and there was still some value there.
But now are movies, generally speaking, and we could talk
about the details of it, are worth less than a
penny per view. And before it used to be three
nine and nine. So it's become almost unsustainable as a
business in the independent world unless you go down bigger
stars selling internationally. You have to become much better at

(27:19):
your job. Where like we were talking in the eighties
and nineties, a car salesman could come in and make
a fortune and not really know anything about the business.
Throw up a couple ninjas and we're ready to rock
and roll. Yeah, So what would you as your thoughts?

Speaker 3 (27:33):
Well, I think you're right, I think, but I think
what the sort of secret ingredient, if you like, is
is enormous public funding, very clever people who've structured proper companies,
and that the car dealers and the VHS traders were
as you said, originally, you know, they were from nowhere,

(27:55):
and in a way the majors shunned it because it
wasn't a business that they understood wanted to be, and
it was rather tacky. Netflix and the others, Amazon whoever,
have made it into something massive. Obviously, I mean, it
is so huge. Nobody really understands it. I don't think.

(28:15):
I'm sure they do, but it's the money is utterly massive.
It's mind boggling, and I think that's it. They've got
a corporate structure that works. They've got banking and shareholders
and investors that work, and it's become a beer moth
that that it just carries on working, and I think
it's kind of indestructible. It's very difficult, despite what they say,

(28:41):
to sell a movie to Netflix, because they want to
own the world. And if you're doing what I do,
which is co production, et cetera, you're putting together that
jigsaw puzzle all the time, and at a certain point
in time when a Netflix comes in, it doesn't really
work for them because they're going to own the world.
Who said, hang on, I've got France, Germany, Spain and

(29:02):
Italy already in I'm not going to kick them out
because they're part of my structure. So it kind of
doesn't work together. Occasionally we do big business with them
on a North American deal or a UK deal or
a part of Europe, but generally it's very difficult to
do that. And despite their announcing that they're spending you know,
twenty five thirty billion on acquisitions, it's more we'll buy

(29:27):
that and what we'll own it and we'll take it
off your hands guff, you know, and will maybe include
you for a little share, which they don't, so that
that that will carry on, I'm sure, and they'll keep
making those movies and some of them, let's face it,
a bloody good you know, we're at a time now
where you're looking at I don't know.

Speaker 2 (29:48):
Or stranger things just that alone.

Speaker 3 (29:51):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. I mean, look at what's that
that's done to the world, what it did for Kate Bush.

Speaker 2 (29:57):
We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor,
and now back to the show. I was about to
say Keith Bush, I'm like, who was Kate? Like I
heard of her, but now my kids are like, oh
I need to hear Keith Bush. I'm like, what, We're
in the upside down, Michael, We're in the upside.

Speaker 3 (30:19):
It is. I mean, I used to like her way back.
I thought she wrote great music, and now she can't
believe that. She's like, I'm a bloody grandmother.

Speaker 2 (30:28):
For I'm the hardest song in the world.

Speaker 3 (30:33):
What exactly, And by the way, it's a bloody good song.

Speaker 2 (30:37):
It's just I listened to it almost every day. I
love like my kids have it playing all the time
in the background.

Speaker 3 (30:42):
Yeah. I think Netflix will carry on, it will change it,
and only the biggest will survive because we're at the
point now, I mean all the early days, I suppose
right now where people's own home economies are really struggling,
when you see what is happening in the UK and
where people can't afford to heat their bloody homes. So

(31:04):
the last thing in the world they're going to do
is to have more subscriptions to more streaming platforms. So
it's going to slim down to one or two and
h three, that's all it's going to be. Everybody's going
to have Disney as they've proved. Yeah, yeah, probably everybody's
going to have Amazon and Netflix, but I'm not sure.
I'm not sure about the rest. The rest will be specialized.

(31:26):
I guess there's always that room.

Speaker 2 (31:28):
Yeah, like it's I mean, HBO Max now they're bringing.
They're going to combine it with Disney Channel and the
Disney Discovery Channel, so that's going to be a much
bigger beast. Maybe like HBO might be in that mix.
But I agree everyone has Prime. I mean, so Prime
is already there. Netflix is Netflix. Netflix's Netflix, and you're right,
Disney Plus came out like a like a juggernaut, and

(31:50):
if you have kids, Disney Plus is and if you
want Marvel, if you like Marvel, Star Wars, any of
those other It's not like.

Speaker 3 (32:02):
If you said to your kids, you know, okay, I
can't afford to go out and buy dinner. So it's
either dinner or Disney Plus.

Speaker 2 (32:11):
They be Disney Plus. There's a question.

Speaker 3 (32:15):
It's kind of sad, but I get it, and I
think that will carry on. But it's going to be
interesting how I mean, we've seen how many people Netflix
are laying off, you know, so there is going to
be a swimming down. I don't know how that works,
or how they then trim their production acquisitions budgets or
maybe they boost them. I don't know. I mean, it's

(32:36):
my way of thinking. If we are making a movie
and we're financing it and they can buy the rights,
that's a hell of a lot cheaper for them than
spending they you know, I find mak a movie for
twenty five. They're making a movie for fifty five, and
that's just the way it is with the overhead they've got.
So it makes sense to me that to carry on

(32:57):
acquiring I suppose I would say that wouldn't I but
it still does make business sense to me, and we
still do do it that you can't rely on that.
So what you can rely on is selling a few
major territories with the talent you've got and the director
you've got, the script you've got, it's always a story.

(33:20):
And then at that point you have the basis to
go to a finance or a bank and say, here's
the collateral we want to borrow a gap from you.
Here's the given, here's the way we do it. Here's
the jigsaw puzzle. That's still possible, thank god. And that's
how most of the independent movies get made now, so
that will carry on, But I don't know which way

(33:41):
we go. We still well. Even today we were talking
to Netflix about a movie that they've just brought from us,
about changes in cast and all of that. So they're
a good partner to have. Let's basically they've got deep pockets.
But it's very difficult at the end of the day.
I suppose what I've always lear action to people, and

(34:01):
what I have always the thing I've tried to drill
into people is that it's all about quality. It's about
the story, and if you make a film, you make
a good story. People are going to come and see it,
aren't they. So I think I don't think that will
ever change. I think that the financial financing structures will change.
And you know, banks come in and out of the

(34:22):
movie industry like they go in and out of a supermarket.
It's it's a strange business being a bank or a
financial entity within the film industry because you have to
be you have to be a real expert. I mean,
you know, I've I've worked with banks who when they
when I've either sold my company or they're out of

(34:42):
the business, that you look at the bottom line that
they've made. It's huge, and that's my movies. You know,
they've made much more than me. But in a way
they deserved it because they've been financing it. So it
still works. I mean, there are banks that are still
wanting to be in it. Thank god.

Speaker 2 (34:57):
Well, let me ask you this. So and the elephant
in the room in regards to what we're talking about,
which is distribution in general. And I've talked heavily about,
you know, distribution and protecting yourself from bad deals and
all that stuff. I'm assuming in your day you might
have signed a bad deal here or there, you might

(35:17):
have been taking advantage of I'm just guessing along your
journey as a film producer and financier. So I just
i'd love to ask you because you've you have this
history in the business, and you know you were there
at the beginning of AFM and everything. The concept of
Hollywood accounting, which has been talked about forever and is

(35:41):
before AFM. I mean, they were doing Hollywood accounting back
in the thirty I think the second Chaplain showed up,
they were doing Hollywood right. That's why they started United Artists.
That's why they started United artist because they got they
got what they So in your opinion, I mean, you're
at a different level. You're dealing with you're at a
professional level, at a higher level. You have the contacts

(36:03):
of different territories you can sell and get paid. But
for independent producers coming up in today's world, how are
they expected to build a business that is sustainable if
they're constantly being taken advantage of or just opportunities aren't
as relevant as or open as they used to be.

Speaker 3 (36:21):
Yeah, it's very tough. I mean, reputation is one thing,
because if you're supplying product and somebody tries to screw
you that you're not going to go back to that person.
So that that's but that you have to build, and
that's a reputation you have to build. There's belonging to
i FTA, which is the organization that organizes the American

(36:43):
film market. They have a structure where they'll go out
for you and write letters to people and say you
don't do this, you're not going to be going you'll
be barred from the next American Film market whatever. There
are certain procedures that you can make. It's very difficult
there there. If you go through a bank to finance

(37:03):
your movie, they'll have a certain amount of power to
because they will be borrowing against the contract that you've
made with this particular person. I think it's all about
background and knowledge research. It's it's very important to know
who you do it, who you're doing business with, and
how they're doing. You know, if they're doing badly, are
you going to go in and do a million dollar

(37:24):
deal with them, because they're probably not gonna be able
to pay you. So you've got It's all about knowledge
and knowledge that is the thing that takes you through
the bad times. And I think that really matters a lot.
At the end of the day. If you're a little
independent and you go out and making a film and
you know nothing about anything, and you don't use a
sales agent who then will do that job for you,

(37:48):
it's really really difficult. You might have some sound interference
because there's a huge rainstorm going on there.

Speaker 2 (37:53):
Fair enough, you're in able, and I expect that, sir.

Speaker 3 (37:56):
It went from a Sunday afternoon to boring with rain
and hails. It's very nice. So I think it is difficult.
I think there are certain procedures that you could process,
that you can go through, and protections that you can
give yourself, and a lot of that is choosing the
right sales agent to work with, because they'll have a

(38:18):
You're a one time filmmaker. Each film is made on
its own and you're not going to be churning them
out or selling them, you know, five to six every
film market. So I think that's probably important, just talking
to the people that know how to do it. It
will always happen. There'll always be a company that goes

(38:38):
bankrupt without you knowing that it was ever going to happen.
It will be surprised for everybody. You know, Sinny world,
I mean tell oh yeah, it's a difficult business, but
there are things that you can do. Most of it
is talking to the right people. And I think if
you're a first time, second time independent filmmaker, you have
to go through a sales agent with a report good.

Speaker 2 (39:01):
A good, good reputation with the salesge Yes they can take.

Speaker 3 (39:05):
You to Yeah. I mean you get into trouble with
going to a sales agent and just won't give you
the money, and I know lots of those occasions. You know,
it's it's it's a shame and it's something the stains
that our industry. But let's face it, every industry has
their thieves. But I mean there's there so you can

(39:28):
go to ifter and say I've approached this sales agent,
what do you know about them? And they'll tell you
you know. So it's it's using all of the checks
and balances are out there. You just got to use them.
If you just go out there and sell your film
just sort of bits and pieces, it's going to be

(39:48):
a mess. So it's all about organization.

Speaker 2 (39:51):
Now. The other thing I love about the whey you're
presenting your this conversation is that you look at movies
as a business person. First you're looking at it as product.
We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor,
and now back to the show. It doesn't seem like

(40:13):
you have emotion attached to your project. I'm sure you
enjoy them, especially some of the higher you know, the
bigger acclaimed ones that you have as emotional, but at
the end of the day, you still it's this is product,
and you're approaching it that way. Where so many filmmakers
walk into a FM or a can or venice with
emotion leading with emotion of their movie this is my baby,

(40:35):
and nobody wants my baby. And then when the first
shark shows up and go, oh, I love you, Oh
like someone likes me, and all of a sudden, I'll
sign whatever you want in your movie is God for
twenty five years.

Speaker 3 (40:47):
That's exactly right, that's exactly You're exactly right. And when
we're supposed to be there to look after those movies,
if we if we foster those movies and take care
of them, we hopefully will do the next one, the
next one, the next one. What I love to do
and we need people to be passionate about their product.
I'm passionate about certain things that we do at the day.

(41:08):
It has to be a sustainable business if we're going
to keep carrying on, and they've those people have to
understand if you're spending five hundred and six hundred million
dollars on making your passion project, you aren't just going
to make it for your mum and dad. You're going
to make it for people to see it. And in
order to get people to see it, you've got to

(41:28):
get people to get it out there and give them
the ability to see it, and that means selling it
and selling your baby. And there might be things that
you don't like, but they somebody like me might know
better than them about how to market it. And you know,
a lot of the time we do. You know, it's
like I don't say that, that's ridiculous. You know, here's

(41:49):
here's the way it should be sold and oh I
don't like that image as I shut up, this is
what you do.

Speaker 2 (41:57):
Let me put the poster that's going to sell this.
Which leads me to a great I was. I was
consulting a filmmaker the other day and they had a
film that was under one hundred thousand, beautifully produced, nice genre,
not a very genre esque. It was an action wasn't
this you know, has a little music in it, and

(42:18):
it's kind of you know, it did a little bit different,
a little bit different. And they said, what do I do?
How much do you think I can get for this
in the marketplace? And I said, you're not going to
make any money. I straight, like straight, I'm like, look,
you will not barely make If you make one thousand dollars,
I'll be impressed. And he's like, what do I do?

(42:39):
And I go, okay, so this is what you need
to do. Because I go and since it's such a
low budget, I think Avod is a really great place
for him to make some money. But he has no stars.
So I said, go out, find a star, pay them
ten thousand for the day, shoot them out in the day,
get permission to put them on the thumbnail throughout the

(43:00):
movie so it doesn't look like you just shot up
for two minutes and put them on the poster. Really
make a part of the movie and do that. And
that's exactly what we're doing right now. We just locked
in the actor. We're talking to the distributor who I know,
and we're packaging this whole thing and they're like, if
you have this guy in your chances of making money.
There's no guarantees, but the chances of you actually see

(43:22):
because now you have a face on that thumbnail that's
passing through that you go, oh, I love that guy.
And you know, unless you're unless it's Brad Pitt.

Speaker 3 (43:33):
Uh.

Speaker 2 (43:34):
You know, because at the end of the day, unfortunately
where we are in today's world, it's all about the
sixteen x nine thumbnail flowing by in either TVOD, AVOD
s FOD. It is so so important and filmmakers don't
understand that. Would you agree with me.

Speaker 3 (43:51):
Yeah, I would, especially at that level. We have a
small division called Evolution Pictures and we concentrate on around
that level, and there always has to be a recognizable
actor otherwise it will not sell. And the only way
for you to sell it if it's good is to

(44:11):
go to film festivals and to spend money promoting it.
That's going to cost you more than getting an actor
in for a few days, right, So it does pay
it if you can do it well, do it professionally
and with those sorts of movies. I think I understand
the sort of movie you're talking about. It's fairly easy
to do if you can get the right guy, and
it just gives a face to the campaign and it works.

(44:34):
I mean you you can't do that in a you know,
I've got I've spent seven million. What do I do now?
It's like what you're on now, you know you're done.

Speaker 2 (44:42):
If you spent seven million done.

Speaker 3 (44:45):
But smaller budget movies, it gives you. It gives you
scope to be able to do that. You can you
can say to everybody, Okay, stop, you know we're going
to get this guy in and we're going to fit
him in here, here, here, here, and here. You know,
you're you're seven million on a filmmakers it. You can't
do that to my movie, but you can with this,
and I think you're right. It does work. The only

(45:05):
other way is to spend huge amounts of money on publicity, and.

Speaker 2 (45:09):
Even then you it's it's such an echo chamber right
now that the studios are having problems getting awareness for
their two hundred million dollar ten poll films. That's why
they that's why they buy brea ip that everybody knows.
You're like, you know when Thor is coming out, because
everybody knows Marvel, you know, the next Star Wars or

(45:31):
the next Star Trek or the next Harry Potter, because
these are all ips that we all know, so it
becomes easier to market that. That's why something like Avatar
that was done over a decade ago wasn't anomaly a
brand new, five hundred million dollar, brand new IP with
no major major stars in it. I mean, I mean

(45:51):
obviously Sigourney Weaver and any but winners, that does justify
five hundred million dollar movie.

Speaker 3 (45:57):
No, it's and it was still a pump because the
actual take thinks they were using with groundbreaking and nobody
did ever do it. So would they do that again?
Probably not. I mean I can't see them spending that
sort of money today, it just.

Speaker 2 (46:10):
On a new ip.

Speaker 3 (46:12):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (46:12):
But like talking about the marketing, a lot of filmmakers
are like, oh, I have thirty thousand. I'm like, take
that thirty thousand, hire an actor that we all recognize,
and that's your marketing budget. You've already invested in your
marketing budget by hiring an actor that people recognize, because
that's going to do more than thirty thousand dollars in

(46:32):
Facebook ads when you really don't know how to do
Facebook ads.

Speaker 3 (46:34):
No, you're absolutely right, and it will. It will appeal
to those distributors that distribute those sorts of movies, and
the first question will be, well, who's in it? And
you know, if you ain't got the one person that
they might be looking at, then you're dead. So you're right,
it's the ideal way to structure it. And if only
they thought about it in the first week, they have,
they've thought about it in time now and you're okay.

Speaker 2 (46:56):
There was this one movie I worked on when I
was doing post production super vision where I was posting
on a movie and I was fascinated to see this
that they they had one the main star who was
not the star of the movie, but the face that
we all know, right, And they shot him out in
one day and they were in they were in a
parking lot, so it was the way that he was

(47:18):
like the informant or something, and that the cops had
to keep coming back to this to the garage to
meet with them. So he was beautiful structure. He was
dabbled throughout the entire movie, so you don't feel jypped.
And then the rest of the movie, which was very
well produced and very well shot with actors that we
just don't know, worked out great and because his face

(47:40):
is on the cover sold so like that easily. And
that's what filmmakers don't understand when I try to just
yell from the top of the top of the hill,
please hire somebody that we recognized. Even my short films
that I did as a director ten years ago, I
had Robert Forrester in it, Hendrickson in it. I had

(48:01):
you know, other faces that people recognize. That it gives something.
And by the way, if you're trying to get into
film festivals, film festivals love having faces and stars in
their movies because they're in the asses and seats business.

Speaker 3 (48:18):
Yeah, you've got You've got lots, Lance Fredrickson, who who says,
you know who, I'll come you know, And you say
to you know, say to the festival director, I can
get him to come for three or four days. Great,
you're in.

Speaker 2 (48:30):
Can you fly him out? Can you fly him out?
Put them up and lands like, yeah, sure, I'll come out.

Speaker 3 (48:34):
That's the way. That's the way the business works. A
lot of people don't understand that. It's it's that's a
fairly simple structure. You get him to agree to go
to the festival, he'll probably have a great time.

Speaker 2 (48:44):
They'll treat them like they'll treat him off like loyalty.

Speaker 3 (48:47):
Yeah, he'll he'll be treated like brag pit brad Pitt,
which doesn't always happen. As we know, it's it still
works and it's still it's still that tob something thing.
It's back to the Cannon boys, you know. They they
they did it all all the time, and it worked
every single time. You know.

Speaker 2 (49:03):
Michael the Path just showed up and Chuck Norris just showed.

Speaker 3 (49:06):
Up there you go. I mean we did it way back,
god long time. The First Highlander, which we did, ye yeah,
Christo turned out to be a classic movie, but we
we won. It was such a strange movie because it
was we had a Frenchman playing a Scotsman and we

(49:28):
and we had Sean Connery, a Scotsman playing a Spanish nobleman.
But we we thought.

Speaker 2 (49:34):
We needed Michael, Michael, there can only be one. There's
only could be one.

Speaker 3 (49:39):
You see, you see how well that campaign worked. But
we needed Connory and he was going anyway. We agreed
and it was half a million dollars a day for
five days, yeah and any any and any days after
that was a further half million. So we said, okay, fine,
and we did it.

Speaker 2 (50:01):
We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor,
and now back to the show.

Speaker 3 (50:10):
Obviously presold the movie did very well, and during the
shooting of the movie there was a technical problem and
we needed him for two extra days. That was another
million dollars.

Speaker 2 (50:21):
I mean, it's good money if you could get it.

Speaker 3 (50:23):
But it worked, and you know, if we hadn't had him,
it wouldn't have been half the film it was, you know,
and he was really worthwhile. And he you know, the
guy was great, and he's Shank Connery. I mean he
was shot going her exactly. And out of that I
got a call from a Japanese advertising agency his Suntery

(50:45):
whiskey mhm, and they said we want him as you
know in his highlight the costume, which is magnificent. I
wanted to advertise our whiskey. So I went to him
and said, you know what do you think that I
don't do adverts?

Speaker 5 (51:00):
Okay?

Speaker 3 (51:00):
So I went back and they said tell him it's
a million dollars and he said, no, no, no, I
don't get out of bed for him a million dollars. Anyway,
this went on over a week. In the end they
in the end they paid five million dollars and the
stipulation was that he wouldn't speak, he wouldn't have to

(51:23):
drink the whiskey. And the only place it could play
was in Japan and Southeast Asia, and they said yes,
And it must have worked because it's still playing the
bloody air every time I go, every time I go
to Japan going like that, and he doesn't drink the whiskey.

(51:45):
I guess for him it was quite a nice experiment.

Speaker 2 (51:47):
Do you remember do you remember? I don't know if
you know this. This is just a side note. Do
you remember in the eighties, Madonna was hired by Pepsi
to promote to promote her. Do you remember that whole story? Well,
she she went on the set and they're like, okay,
now drink the Pepsy and I'm like, I'm not drinking
the pets. They're like, but we need you to drink
the Pepsi. We hired, You're like, hired me, but no
one told me I had to drink it. And she

(52:09):
they they scrapped the whole thing, and they still paid
her like ten million dollars or five whatever it was.

Speaker 3 (52:15):
They didn't do it because.

Speaker 2 (52:16):
They didn't do it because she wouldn't drink it. She
was so really, I mean, I don't know why she
did that, but she knew that she had that power
and she just wielded it and she just got paid.
And they never because contractually and never said that she
had to drink the pepsi.

Speaker 3 (52:33):
I don't know how many lawyers got fired over that.

Speaker 2 (52:36):
Oh lawyers, ad executives. Oh my god, are you kidding me?
The whole thing wasn't.

Speaker 3 (52:40):
I didn't I knew about the Pepsi thing. I didn't
know that they canceled the whole thing because of that.

Speaker 2 (52:45):
I don't think, I mean, they might have done something
else later, but I know that spot was changed, Like
you know, because I started off in commercials and it
was legendary. It's one of those legendary stories.

Speaker 3 (52:53):
You're like stick story. Probably she probably said I only
drink Coca Cola.

Speaker 2 (52:59):
I only drink coke. Now, if you want to put
the coke in the Petsican, I'll do that.

Speaker 3 (53:05):
Can you imagine?

Speaker 2 (53:06):
Can you imagine? So with the with AFM, I wanted
I wanted to ask you. Now, you're obviously one of
the co founders of it. You've seen a change over
the years. I being in the in the glorious golden
ages of the eighties, when how many days was it
was like ten days or something like that was like.

Speaker 3 (53:23):
It was ridiculous. It was far too long.

Speaker 2 (53:25):
It was long and money was flowing.

Speaker 3 (53:28):
Yeah, yeah, you could do what you like and you know,
you'd stay in fancy hotels in Santa Monica or you know,
I'd stay in the bel Air hotel. Ridiculous things to do.
And now we've cut it down to I think it's
five plus a building day or something like that, right exactly,
dimmed right down. It's the right length. People can go

(53:50):
home at the weekend, you know, it's just in the
midweek period. It's much more, much more doable. I think
now I've looked at the number and there's a lot
of people surprise me actually be thinking about the economic
world at the moment. But it's building quite nicely. All
the bigger companies have signed up for attending, so it

(54:13):
might be I think it'll be a nice surprise. I think,
you know, the Can Film Film Festival this year was
wonderful because it was like going back to those those
the heydays of can even though the money wasn't falling
all over the place, but people were there and people
were doing business and people were enjoying themselves. I think
that's the thing. This is a hard business. And if

(54:35):
you're going to somewhere like Santa Monica, you you quite
like to get out and go and have a nice
meal somewhere. And that's yeah, it's part of what we do. Otherwise,
we'd do it in a boring exhibition center somewhere.

Speaker 2 (54:49):
Right, you'd be in Vegas somewhere or somewhere, and.

Speaker 3 (54:52):
You'd lose all of the Hollywood nish about it. You know,
it just wouldn't It just wouldn't be the same. And
we find that a lot of the international clients will say,
don't take it downtown, and they don't don't take it
anywhere else. People we go to Hollywood once maybe twice
a year, and if we want to go, we want
to go to Hollywood. We you know, we want to
go and see the people that we normally see. Plus

(55:14):
go to the AFM. So that's where it's going to stay,
provided that you know, begin to come.

Speaker 2 (55:20):
The first year I went to AFM, uh, it was
so fascinating. I was I was there covering it for
the show, uh, and it was before I started did
I started doing talks there and things, and I just
remember walking into the hotel and I looked up and
I saw a chi banner that was Mike Tyson versus

(55:41):
Steven Seagal, and I said, oh, oh, I understand where
I am. Now I'm like, okay, this is and that's
And then filmmakers come in expecting to see art and like,
this is not art. You are not in an art
place anymore. This is business on business. Don't bring your
art film here. Don't bring your backyard you know, you know,

(56:04):
personal film here. That's not where. This is your No,
unless you've got Steven Stagall fighting Mike Tyson in your
personal drama, no one cares. No one cares that I
can't remember. Oh yeah they made it. Oh no, that
movie came out. Oh yeah, yeah, I mean I mean Stevehn.

Speaker 3 (56:21):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (56:22):
I won't talk about seem scall that he has enough
stuff talking about him. But let's not let's not let's
just leave that as this. But look, but look at
Mike Tyson, which is such an interesting guy. He's not
an actor, but he's one of the most famous human
beings on the planet. And now he's like, I'm gonna
do action movies that wasn't.

Speaker 3 (56:42):
People will turn up for that. I mean, of course
they will fascinated by him.

Speaker 2 (56:46):
Here I saw the fight. There was the movie. He
was a bad guy fighting. Oh god, I forgot the
kung fu master from China. But he's a legendary actor.
He's up there with Jackie Chan and he fought Mike
Tyson in a beautifully worriograph fight sequence, and I was
just like, see, that's just it, just you know there,
that's the kind of movies you're going to find at AFM.

(57:07):
You're not going to find these art house films. You
may find some, depending on the distributor that might be
interested in that, but generally speaking, it's all about money,
selling territories, making deals.

Speaker 3 (57:18):
You're exactly right, And it's the deal making that people
like me go for because I don't do you know,
shark movies or whatever. I just don't do that for you, sir.
And I know Paul Paul who makes those movies, and
he makes a lot of money, and he does a
brilliant job and they're really funny. I can't do that.
It's not me so and you'll find and that that's

(57:40):
the problem with publicizing the AFM. You know, variety will
go in and see all this stuff sharks and Mike
Tyson's and Steven de Gal and but it shouldn't be
because there's a business there. And if you look at
some and if you look around that the attendee companies,
the people who are who were exhibiting there, there's some serious,

(58:02):
bloody companies there, so they might like. So what happens
is that people will turn up and they'll buy those
little bits and pieces, you know, the shark maadows and everything.
But at the same time that they're there to do
business with age twenty four, they're there to do business
with the bigger companies that make quality movies. And that's
still going on because it when we formed it, the

(58:26):
sort of twelve thirteen fourteen companies that were the original
investors and the original creators of it were very classy companies.
There was no block then. But the shlock came in
because they saw an opportunity. And it's still part of
our business and it's a legitimate part of the business.
And I kin'd of cherish it because I love those

(58:49):
shark movies. I mean, it's a great idea and they've
made I don't know, six of them, seven and eighteen, I.

Speaker 2 (58:54):
Mean always I sort of like the priest that was
a velociraptor, the alligator that turned into like I mean,
it's just that it's that spawn sornadles, spawned an entire genre.

Speaker 3 (59:06):
It's of these these films.

Speaker 2 (59:07):
And then there's the Asylum Boys or are are are
basically the the the children of the Cannon Boys.

Speaker 3 (59:16):
It's a good company assignment, but they're doing it really
well and nothing wrong with that. And as we said
much earlier on, you've got enough of that stuff bubbling
away and there's bound to be the quality filmmakers coming
out of it, and you cherry pick those. You've got
another business, So it does. I'm glad that the bigger
MGM are coming, you know, they're all signing up now,

(59:39):
and I'm really pleased because it means that it will
carry on. And I you know, we didn't build it
to just have a little, you know, a little market
that runs for a few years, forty odd years, and
I think it will survive and I think it will
carry on, and I'm just pleased to see that quality
companies are supporting it.

Speaker 2 (59:59):
Will be right back after a word, from our sponsor
and now back to the show. So you'll get everything
from Asylum to A twenty four and everything in between.
And that's because that's filmmaking. I mean, there was. Roger
Corman was around for quite some time and he was

(01:00:19):
making very interesting films, to say the least.

Speaker 3 (01:00:23):
When I was first chairman of IFTA, Roger was on
my board and I'm thinking, hang on a minute, Roger
Corman is on the board that I'm chairman of. That's ridiculous.
But he he was. Oh I'll tell you, I could
sit there and listen to those stories forever.

Speaker 2 (01:00:40):
The man's om and you want to talk about filmmakers,
he spawned all of them.

Speaker 3 (01:00:45):
Yeah, I know, I know. He really is the godfather
all of it. Is an extraordinary man, softly spoken, really classy.

Speaker 2 (01:00:52):
You know.

Speaker 3 (01:00:53):
I found there were like it was a big board
at that point. It was about twenty people, and they
hung on his every word because he's very quietly spoken
and so that they'd sit and listen. Rather different from
Lloyd Kaufman, you were.

Speaker 2 (01:01:05):
In my mind, I was about to say Lloyd A
little bit different approach Lloyd, But you know, I mean
I've spoken to Lloyd on the show, and then I
tell you, like, he's an interesting guy because he makes
those kind of trauma esque films. Yeah, but when you
go back and watch, like Toxic Avenger, the first one
that was shot on thirty five, released theatrically and had

(01:01:27):
a social commentary to it.

Speaker 3 (01:01:29):
Toxic Avenger was really you know, it was a socially
aware picture. Not not that I really appreciated it because
I had an office at the Carlton Hotel at that point.

Speaker 2 (01:01:41):
Now, oh god, he.

Speaker 3 (01:01:44):
Organized these bloody great, big parades of all these monsters
and that I was awful. Every fucking day, twice or
three times a day they'd stand in front of my.

Speaker 2 (01:01:54):
Own But he made but he was able to do
what he I mean, I love him, God bless him. Man.
He's able to do what he's able to do, and
and he can't take anything away from from him.

Speaker 3 (01:02:09):
You know, he speaks god knows how many languages he speaks, Cantonese.

Speaker 2 (01:02:12):
I mean, he's so smart.

Speaker 3 (01:02:14):
He's fascinating.

Speaker 2 (01:02:15):
He's an intellect. That's what's so fascinating about someone like Lloyd.
And like when I talked to him, I was like, yeah,
I think he's like Ivy League. You know he has
an Ivy League education. He's extremely intelligent, but yet he's
like Lloyd. He plays this part. It's it's just fascinating
to me.

Speaker 3 (01:02:35):
It was in the same year I think it was Yale,
same year as George Bush Right.

Speaker 2 (01:02:43):
He told me that yeah, yeah, yeah, he.

Speaker 3 (01:02:44):
Kind of said, don't tell anybody that for me.

Speaker 2 (01:02:48):
He was he was he shot behind the scenes of
Rocky did he. I didn't know that he actually was
there during the step scene because there was the first
time they were using the steady cam and in a
big movie, right before Shining, and he was there shooting it.
And then he's like, oh yeah, MGM just called me
up and they're doing some new release and they were
asking for my footage. I had to go into the

(01:03:10):
archives and find all this footage I shot of that stuff.
I was like wow, I mean, like, what what is
going on?

Speaker 3 (01:03:20):
He kills me?

Speaker 2 (01:03:21):
I know he's fantastic, But Michael, listen, I'm gonna ask
you a few questions to ask all of my guests. Well,
first of all, before we get to that, when is
the AFM. How can people sign up? Where do they go?

Speaker 3 (01:03:34):
They can go to the IFM website. I think it's
Americanfilmmarket dot com. They can sign up there. It starts
on the first of November for I think five days,
first six that's right, and it's very simple and we've
kept the price down for individuals registering. If you're a

(01:03:57):
producer and you've got something interesting and you want to
pack digit, that's a reason to go. You'll find people
like me sitting there and you know, why not come
and say, oh, by the way, I've got this thing.
I might say not now, thanks, but there's everybody you
will want to see, from filmmakers to bankers to equity investors.

(01:04:18):
That everybody's there. So it's up to you to take
that opportunity. It's really not very expensive if you join,
if you pay your full entry price, you'll get access
to over one hundred panels and speeches and stuff like that.
So you' and that's really worth it just for that.

Speaker 2 (01:04:37):
I mean, oh, I know I'm doing I'm doing some
of the panels. It's it's so valuable stuff.

Speaker 4 (01:04:41):
Though.

Speaker 3 (01:04:43):
I think for anybody who wants to make a film,
has made a film, is in the middle of making
a film, just go and even if you're just soaking
up the atmosphere of it there. It's just worth it.
And yeah, I mean there are so many people that
you can see in in five or six days, so
I think it's worth it and easy to buy a ticket.

Speaker 2 (01:05:03):
And it's so educational just even if you walk the
halls and see what people are doing and selling and
how they're marketing it. It is such I always tell
filmmakers you haven't gone to AFM, go to FM. Just
take the day path and walk around, and that alone
will show you what the marketplace looks like for independent

(01:05:23):
film in the world that we live in.

Speaker 3 (01:05:26):
You're absolutely right. It just changes your whole focus. If
you think if your tunnel vision making your movie, don't
do that. Just go and see how this business really
works and how it's financed and how it sustains itself.
And it is fascinating. And the ticket price alone is
worth it. For the panels and discussions and if you

(01:05:47):
can sit there all day learning stuff, I'd like you.
I'm on a few alex and you see the people
that turn up something, Wow, that's amazing. You know, they've
got these panelists and it's great, great people, the people.
As an independent filmmaker, you won't have access to as
an individual. But you can sit there and listen to
what they're saying, and I think it's great. It's it's

(01:06:07):
really valuable information.

Speaker 2 (01:06:09):
Now I'm going to ask you those few questions. I ask, well,
my guests, all right, what what is the lesson that
took you the longest to learn? Whether in the film
industry or in life.

Speaker 3 (01:06:20):
Oh, I suppose it's a film film business centric. It's
the time that you should say stop. Whether it be
in the middle of the process or whatever. You come

(01:06:40):
to a point where you're trying try and try and
try and trying, and the best thing to do is
to say, you know what, let's stop right now. So
one of the one of the financers might say, well,
but we're going to lose one hundred thousand. You say, well,
if we carry on like this, we're going to lose
one point one million. So is it best to stop here?

(01:07:01):
And that took me a long time, and I've done
it only, thankfully on two or maybe three occasions. Where
you get to a point where you're pushing a square
peg into a round hole, it's just not going to work.
That all of the actors are saying no, you're compromising
In every single place, whether it be the production assistant
or the accountant or the designer and the actors. Then

(01:07:23):
you just stop, don't do it. That's so, that's it's
a brave thing to do. It took me a long
time to be able to do it.

Speaker 2 (01:07:31):
So being able to be brave enough to cut, you know,
cut the line and go stop. Yeah, very very good advice.
Now let me see here three of your favorite films
of all time.

Speaker 3 (01:07:47):
I knew you were going to say that. I think
Cookoo's Nest probably. It is usually a lot of my list. Yeah. Uh. Second,
in the it's it's probably I mean, this is really crass,

(01:08:11):
but it's probably Citizen Kane simply because you kind of
look at it and think that's perfect. And thirdly, I
don't know, interesting, very difficult to choose, isn't it.

Speaker 2 (01:08:25):
Mm hmmm.

Speaker 3 (01:08:25):
I think I think The Shining is probably.

Speaker 2 (01:08:31):
I literally have a cinematographer of the Shining up behind me.
I'm a huge I'm huge Koober. Yeah, I'm a huge,
huge Kubrick fan. And that is a masterpiece.

Speaker 3 (01:08:42):
Yeah, I mean, I just I think that's probably quite
a good three.

Speaker 2 (01:08:47):
That's that's a solid three, sir, that's a solid three.
And lastly, what advice would you give to a filmmakers
starting out in the business today.

Speaker 3 (01:08:59):
I think story is really the basis of everything that
you're going to do, and if it's not, if it
doesn't hang together as a good story, that anybody you're
pitching the story too would sit and listen. If you
don't have that, you're never going to have an audience
or watch it anyway. So why why put yourself through

(01:09:21):
all that misery? I think story is it And also
there are two parts to it. One is the story
in the first place, in the very first place, and
almost just behind that squeaks in just second is what's
the audience? Who are you making it for? And that's

(01:09:44):
I find I mean a lot of film schools and
stuff like that, and so many people don't ask themselves
that question. Who's going to see this? Right? And how
many films have you watched? Thinking why the fuck did
they make that? What's the point?

Speaker 2 (01:10:02):
Oh my god, we'll be right back after a word
from our sponsor, and now back to the show.

Speaker 3 (01:10:13):
So many what were they thinking? Who on earth would
want to go and see that? I literally the first
the first sort of rounds of you know, when you
do those speed dating things at film schools and you know,
you have like twenty meetings in a day, and it's
I remember, I remember a couple of times when I

(01:10:34):
was pitched. There's supposed to pitch you the story that
you don't know anything about it, And there was one
I went to the Gorway Film Festival and I had
two Swedish director producer team and it was basically the
pitch was a it's a murder story and it contains

(01:10:56):
it's about a brother and sister and it's incestuous relationship.
Oh good, that's very marketable. Okay, fine, okay, thanks, Next,
there are some very strange things.

Speaker 2 (01:11:08):
It's Chinatown and it's not is what you're saying, Yeah, yeah, exactly, yeah,
And you really have to struggle to find out what
the hell it's all about and why you would make it.

Speaker 3 (01:11:17):
In the first place. So I think those two things
are it's a story because what you had to do
in that story, and secondly, what's the audience. I don't
know why people, anybody would make something without figuring that out.

Speaker 2 (01:11:31):
Oh that's a that's very simple. It's ego.

Speaker 3 (01:11:34):
That's always I think, you know, it's fascinating to me,
So that's going to be fascinating to everybody.

Speaker 2 (01:11:38):
Wow, you know, yeah, I mean look, even people like Spielberg'scorsese,
Coppola have fallen to that trap where they think I
can make a movie and everyone's going to love it
because I love it. And then you look at something
like nineteen forty one and you go ooh, that.

Speaker 3 (01:11:57):
Was nineteen forty one was the one I would cite
as well.

Speaker 2 (01:12:00):
Well, right, I mean, Spielberg has a pretty flawless filmography
generally speaking, but nineteen forty one was that He's like,
I could do anything. I could even do comedy. Let's
bring the biggest comedy start. We're going to do this.
It's going to be great. And it boy did a
die on the Yeah, it was shocking. Shock and then

(01:12:21):
so and then then and then you have something like Cats.

Speaker 3 (01:12:24):
Oh Christ Listens reminded me of It was the worst
worst explores of my life. And I was one of
the My wife at the time was an investor in Ivita,
so she got invited into all these different lifts. So
I went to the very first premiere of Cats on stage.
No Cats, the Cats, the musical. It was. It was amazing. Uh,

(01:12:50):
and then to many years later get to go and
see that movie. It was excruciating.

Speaker 4 (01:12:57):
I have I had to just really with the best,
the best quote ever for Cats, the best review it's
the worst thing to happen to cats, to cats and dogs,
and that was.

Speaker 2 (01:13:06):
Like the best, the best. There was a Twitter review
and I was like, that is brilliant, and I with
something like when something like Cats comes along and it
doesn't come it comes once in a generation really, where
you have Oscar winners around, all the money in the world,
everyone is just moving forward and it comes out being

(01:13:29):
so bad with so many good people in it and
behind it. It's not her, it's really it's the Heaven's
Gate of of exactly that. But I actually only saw
twenty minutes. I couldn't I couldn't pass the roach dancing
scene or the cat anuses flying around. I'm like, what

(01:13:50):
is what is? What is going on?

Speaker 3 (01:13:53):
They ever look anatomically at a cat? I mean the
tales growing out of their assholes. I mean it's just.

Speaker 2 (01:14:02):
Did you see did you see when? If the effects
weren't finished on duty Dench and like her digital wristwatch
you can see her watch or something like that, because
I didn't finish the effects.

Speaker 3 (01:14:13):
And Judy Bench curled up in a cat basket. I mean, really,
I can't.

Speaker 2 (01:14:20):
I mean it's it's it's maybe one day, uh, you know,
I'll take some sort of substance and watch the entire thing,
but I just can't. I could. I just like, I
can't do this to myself. I'll watch I'll go back
and watch The Room, which is arguably one of the
worst films ever made, but yet it's so bad. It's good.

Speaker 3 (01:14:38):
Yeah, well there are those, but this this was just
excruciating me bad and I again, I went to the
bloody premiere so I couldn't leave. You were stuck there,
Oh my god, and worse.

Speaker 2 (01:14:51):
Michael, it has been such a pleasure talking to you.
Thank you so much for coming on the show, and
thank you for all your your your you're champion of
filmmakers and films over the course of your career and
trying to help filmmakers make some money what they're prot.

Speaker 3 (01:15:06):
That's what we're all trying to do, you know. I say,
it's great to be in this business, it's great to
have an artistic bent, but christ you've got to make
some money somewhere. And I'm trying to I'm trying to
help them do.

Speaker 2 (01:15:17):
That as am I serve as am I my friend?

Speaker 3 (01:15:20):
Thank you, my friend, Thanks a lot, see you.

Speaker 2 (01:15:23):
I want to thank Michael so much for coming on
the show and sharing his knowledge with the tribe today.
Thank you so much, Michael. If you want to get
links to anything we spoke about in this episode, head
over to the show notes at Bulletproof Screenwriting dot tv.
Forward slash for twenty nine. Thank you so much for listening, guys,
As always, keep on writing no matter what. I'll talk
to you soon.

Speaker 1 (01:15:44):
Thanks for listening to the Bulletproof Screenwriting podcast at Bulletproof
Screenwriting dot tv.