Alex Ferrari 2:49
Now guys, today we have a success story as a story of TVOD, actually working with Amazon and cracking the code of Amazon and making money with an independent film. The filmmakers name is Ismael Gomez, and his film is called Death of a fool. And he was able to use $9,000 of Facebook ads to generate $72,000 in sales through teavana on Amazon. And in our conversation, I dig deep in his techniques, how he did it, what his ideas were to target his specific niche audience, and much, much more. So without any further ado, please enjoy my conversation with Ismael Gomez. I like to welcome him so his Ismael Gomez III How you doing?

Ismael Gomez 3:43
Good, Alex, thanks for having me on the show.

Alex Ferrari 3:46
Oh, thanks for reaching out, man. I appreciate it. Anytime there's a filmmaker who wants to talk about distribution and the truth behind self distribution numbers, raw data and all the other little warts and all good and bad. I'd like to talk to them. Because it's rare, like you said in your email. It's a rare thing. You there is not a lot of transparency out there. So before we get into that, how did you get into the film business?

Ismael Gomez 4:14
Well, you know, I was, so I was born in Cuba in Havana. And I was oh,

Alex Ferrari 4:23
I couldn't help it, man I have. It just comes out.

Ismael Gomez 4:28
So I was born and you know, I was born in Havana. And I grew up watching, you know, Disney Pixar movies. And actually, the first time I went to a theater was to see the Lion King and I was obsessed with it. Like when I came out of the theater, I was telling my mom and my dad like, this is what I want to make. And he started as a cartoon, you know, like animated films. And then my dad because he was very well connected in the artistic world. He would get me into the film festivals in Havana. And I saw Apocalypse Now when I was like nine See if you can imagine being nine years old and watching Apocalypse Now. So, you know, I got really obsessed with that and, and I had the opportunity when I came to the United States. So I came to live, immigrated to the United States with my mom, my dad was already here. And I came on a plane in 2009. And I went

Alex Ferrari 5:23
To everybody listening. Us Cubans were known for being good swimmers. To play my parents came on planes as well.

Ismael Gomez 5:33
Yeah. So I came here. And I always had the passion in Cuba, but I, you know, I finished high school, and Cuba. So when I got here, I went straight. After one year that I got all my papers and everything. I went to the New York Film Academy, and I started studying film, and it was a great experience, because they're very hands on, you know, so I really, I've never shot I mean, I've made home videos, but I was there shooting with extra film, like 16 millimeters at 35 millimeters. And it was a pretty cool experience. It was an amazing experience. And after that, I, I moved back to Florida, I got my bachelor's in film, because my whole family was here ready. And so after I graduated, I went back to New York, and I started working as an editor. So I realized a while I was in film school, I realized, all right, I don't think people hire directors. Not off the bat. Not very often. So directors end up always working on their stuff. So I have to develop a second skill, you know, and I also realized, for me in the editing is where really the magic happened. Like I would be able to save because my shootings were always super chaotic, chaotic. And when I got to the editing, I kind of like make things work a little bit. So I realized, like, this is where the magic happens. So I've got to learn this skill. So I got very, you know, well versed in Final Cut seven, rest and peace, and

Alex Ferrari 7:09
The recipes.

Ismael Gomez 7:11
And, and then you know, and then premiere when it came out in avid, and then Final Cut 10. And so I started editing and I started editing my friends, short films, my own stuff. And then I got my first feature film. And then I got my second one. And I ended up editing like, I don't know, like nine feature films already independent feature films. And yeah, so and then after that, I, I moved back, you know, my girlfriend was here, my family was here, I was up there by myself dealing with the winter, you know, my Caribbean flesh, she's not used to those.

Alex Ferrari 7:45
They don't like to fiddle with her so much.

Ismael Gomez 7:47
He couldn't deal with it. So I came back here. And I have this movie death of a fool. And I have division of my company, rabbit hole pictures. And at that time, moonlight came out. And I was like, I saw what Barry Jenkins did in Miami. And it was very inspiring. And I was like, you know, I can I can do this I can be, let's say a big fish in a small town. Right? I can start here. Try to make fantasy films, which I don't see actually when I was doing a lot of research when I made death of a fool and thinking about other fantasy films shot in Miami and I couldn't find anything. So I got very inspired. And I was like, You know what, I'm going to open the company here. I'm going to start making films here. And yeah, that's kind of like how I happened.

Alex Ferrari 8:39
So it's so funny because you you you've walked very similar path that I have, because I did the exact same thing. I was like, I'm going to be a director. But I see that no one's hiring me right now. Because I'm 20 whatever young. And I started getting into post and that's exactly and it's and I discovered the exact same thing recipes found that seven, but also just everything happens there. And that's sometimes I think a lot of filmmakers don't do that. They don't understand that you need to have a skill that pays you while you're chasing the dream while you're building those tools in your toolbox. That's extremely Sure. Well, you jumped on your first feature much patch took me 20 years to jump on my first feature, so you've jumped in much much quicker. So a lot of begging. Oh, I can imagine I can imagine. So tell me so tell me. Tell me about your film death of a fool.

Ismael Gomez 9:29
Okay, so death of a fool was actually based on a semester film that I did a nyfa the the Film Academy and so I have been writing it for two years. And I was already in Miami and I started submitting it to screenplay competitions. And then I ended up being semi finalists in like three of them and then quarterfinals in two of them and then blue cat it's a screenplay competition in LA We ended up winning it in 2008 2018. Joe, my co writer and I, so we both won the competition and they give you $10,000. It's the cash prize. So that was kind of like the beginning of the funding process of the film. So after we won blue cat, we ended up like talking to some investors that I have worked with in the past for other projects or other businesses that are that I was running. And, yeah, it just took a lot of convincing and, and really, in it also, I got very prepared in terms of, you know, not counting on Sundance and or, you know, the lottery, the lottery ticket, and really trying to think, how would I be able to recoup this money? You know, so we were able to bring a few investors on board, then I did, I would say, like, 30% of the financing myself. And yeah, we got everything together

Alex Ferrari 11:06
What was the budget?

Ismael Gomez 11:09
It ended up being, like, $103,000. So 100, 100,000, which was really challenging, because let me tell you this stuff that we pulled with $100,000, because

Alex Ferrari 11:21
It's a fantasy film,

Ismael Gomez 11:22
And you know, you got like, you have a magic fruit and you have like, like magical places, and you have it's like flashbacks, like the 70s. So there's a lot of crazy stuff. And yeah, but you know, I had an amazing team. That's what I can say the cinematographer, the producer, everyone was just so awesome. And that's the also the cool thing about shooting in Miami that not a lot of films have been shot here. So everyone was really excited about that, you know, people were willing to just work in give you good rates and all that to make the film happen.

Alex Ferrari 11:56
Yeah, that's exactly what happened with me. When I made my first film there. It was so excited just to be like, oh, someone's shooting. Let's Let's do this. You know, it's not bad boys. But we'll do it. Let's go. Which is really cool. Now, you when you made the fit, you finished the film. And I'm assuming you went down the the festival circuit and the distribution path. So tell me about what you felt. Did you do the festival circuit at all? What did you feel? Well, I I sent the film to Sundance, of course, because we all have to donate money to a reference retailer now.

Ismael Gomez 12:31
So I was like, you know, let me send it here. actually listen to my tog refer. Layla Kilburn. She was a she had been to Sundance like seven times, he even won with documentaries. So, you know, I sent the film to Sundance and I did. I think Sundance was the Film Fest, I had just finished it and I didn't want to sound like work in progress to film festivals, you know? So I sent it to Sundance and then you know, got the rejection letter. And around the time, I had a really tough call. This is the when we get into distribution, because then 2020 had just started, you know, and I had to wait probably till the summer when the film festivals were gonna open again. You know, like the fantasy film festival salsa like Fantasia. Yeah, Fantasia Fantastic Fest, you know, also, I was like, should I wait until the summer? Like waste six eight months and wait for this film festival? Or should I just launch? Do do a theatrical premiere in the Coral Gables the art cinema and launch the film? And on Amazon, or should I just wait for the film festival? So I really hate being passive. You know, and putting, like, hoping that someone else, you know, allows in by the way, I didn't I didn't even you know i i heard about the Coronavirus in China and all this. This was like in January, or February. And, and also I had an eye opening experience because I ended up going to Sundance with the co founder of rubber Hill pictures. One of my best friends, Larry. I told them, you know, we should go to Sundance even though we didn't get in. I feel that we hear so much about Sundance, and I've never been to Sundance, so we should go check it out. You know, and for me when I went there. And the eye opening experience that I had is that even people that I saw got into Sundance, were struggling to get a distribution deal. Oh, absolutely. And I saw I saw everyone hustling. And I'm like, okay, they made it here and they're still hustling and trying to get a distribution deal. I'm thinking they may get like, ripped off. So this is not even a guarantee, you know, so I think I might be better off off just distributing the film myself learning this process, I try to do my best and really be self reliant, you know? So So yeah, so I made the call and I told you know, I spoke to my, to the producer of the film. And I told her like, I think this is the way to go. And we had the screening. Here Coral Gables we it was completely sold out. And then two weeks later, because you know, it was still hot. And I I released the film on amazon video. Yeah.

Alex Ferrari 15:32
No. Did you? Did you get some deals? Did you get some deals offered to? Yes, yes.

Ismael Gomez 15:37
So I spoke to a few. First of all, I saw all the episodes on indie film hustle about distribution, you know, and I wrote, like, I actually have a notepad and I've wrote every time that I had an insight or something that I didn't know about ever write it down and then revisit. You know,

Alex Ferrari 15:55
You were prepared. You were locked, locked loaded. When these guys came? I thought,

Ismael Gomez 16:00
Yeah. So they came, you know, they came trying to buy a few of them. I think a few of them have good intentions, I would say. But still, I was like, even though,

Alex Ferrari 16:13
What were the kind of deals you were getting, you know, don't say names, just kind of deals

Ismael Gomez 16:18
With sales agents, you know, I feel them wanting to wanted to charge me which I thought, I don't know, if you really think the film has potential and you can make some money. Why would you want to charge me? You know, upfront, I put, I guess, you know, they need to keep their business going and all that. But that, for me was a, you know, a red flag. I didn't want to, even though if you have good intentions, I didn't want to get into that because it was morning that I would use that I can use some Facebook ads, things like that, you know? And with distributors, they a lot of them didn't reply them. The ones that did, they had, like 15 year, you know, 15 year term contract. Yeah. And I was 15 years, like, you're gonna own my movie for 15 years. That's a long time with no money upfront. With no, no minimum guaranteed.

Alex Ferrari 17:09
And it was there any? Was there any marketing capital? Or? It was like

Ismael Gomez 17:13
100,000 $50,000 every year? It was. I was like, Alright, you're gonna spend $50,000 in my film every year, I guess, year they had that sunset. Yeah. And then and then you could you could, you know, you could, I was like, is this negotiable? And then there was said yes. And then Okay. And then they would negotiate and bring it down to 10 years. And you know, $20,000. And,

Alex Ferrari 17:40
But isn't that isn't that interesting that they said this a bunch of times that they throw out a worse deal to see if you bite and if you bite? Oh, good. I'm gonna screw you now. Yeah. And then if you want to negotiate, I'm just going to screw you a bit less scoring. At the end of the day, you're getting screwed.

Ismael Gomez 17:57
Yeah, it's kind of like they want to they want to stab you. Right? And they first put like a shotgun. You're like, Oh, shut down. That's really bad. And then they show you the knife. And so Okay, I guess a knife is not.

Alex Ferrari 18:09
Would you rather get your head blown off? Or just a little, a little stab in the back? It's just so so so. So then So okay, it's none of these. Obviously, none of these deals. After listening to everything I've said. You just said? No. If you wouldn't listen to all these podcasts, you might a bit Paulie. Yeah, probably. That's, that's, that's why I want that information to get out to as many as humanly possible, man. Yeah, it's a waste of me. Sure. What did they promise you? They promise you to get you on all the platforms, right? Yeah, we'll get you on all the platforms and somebody over at Netflix. So we'll pitch Netflix. I know somebody over at HBO, maybe I could get you an HBO deal. I guess I'm gonna Showtime, maybe we could do a paid cable deal. what's what's the special placement, well, then I get the special nice iTunes chart and all those goods. If you go with us, like if you go through an aggregator you're just going to be thrown in. But if you go with to get special placement on iTunes, and that whole scenario, it's it's so and it's getting worse. The predatory aspect of distribution is getting worse and worse, as everything starts to tighten, tighten around. So that's why I wanted to bring you on because you're pretty fresh. You're like this is happening within the last three or four months. Yeah, you read these off and

Ismael Gomez 19:26
Alright, so I had sorry, and even the ones that have good intentions, let's say they're still a business, you know, and they still need to survive

Alex Ferrari 19:35
Business markets.

Ismael Gomez 19:36
And if they have 10 films, and nine of them are performing better than mine, you know, they're gonna they're gonna sell those, they're going to pay more attention to those nine. It's not only that, it's also like I was put this analogy that it's a business right and if my film is a tangerine, let's say and people here buy watermelons. They will mark him Fill them as a watermelon to people who like watermelons, because they have to sell. And I don't want my Pete like, I want people who like tangerines to see my film, I don't care about people who like watermelons, because then that's where the bad reviews come and people, if I feel that I'm actually, you know, cheating, right, and I'm lying to people, because I made you think that this was one hell. And you came, saw my film pay for it, and now you're feeling happy. You know, and I understand that. So I that's, that was also for me, like, I wanted to have full control. You know, I'm a little bit creepy. So,

Alex Ferrari 20:35
Yah know, and obviously, so you're telling me that distributors might lie in trailers to get by the movie? I can't believe that, that seems so unlike. Yeah. Um, and that's the other thing that that filmmakers don't understand is when they do sign a deal with the distributor, unless it's in the contract, they have no control how that movie is presented. poster design trailer design. I mean, it's, I mean, I remember when I had my I had a short compilation, and a distributor picked it up, I was able to get it back from him. But he put on the cover some woman with a gun, what not? She wasn't even in the movie. It was it wasn't even the movie. I was like, what, what is it? What is this, and it's, it is a nature of what they're trying to do as the old model of doing things. So it's gonna be interesting to see how this is gonna keep going. So obviously, you decided that stuff, the traditional distribution was not going to be your path and your budget range makes it a good viable option for for self distribution. So tell me your journeys of self distribution and what and what's, what happened?

Ismael Gomez 21:47
So, you know, I started looking into how would I sell distribute, like, where you know, what platform I would use. So, you know, there was Vimeo, which obviously has an amazing, like, an amazing potential, because I think you keep, like, 90% of the revenues. And then there was Amazon. And then there was all the things like selling from your website, like gumroad, I think is called, you know, a bunch of those. But for me, just thinking as an audience, like, it's better, like people trust is a big thing, right? So people trust Amazon, people don't trust Vimeo or gumroad. Not a lot of people like 1% of the people so

Alex Ferrari 22:34
That movie going people, like people buying online products or courses or things like that, they might want to do gumroad and Vimeo, the filmmaker will understand who they are, but general public Well,

Ismael Gomez 22:44
yeah, so I was like, you know, Amazon is the best deal. And also, you know, even though I could have gone through an aggregator, right, um, I think I looked into film hub and bitmax. You know, I felt like, I don't want to sparse like, the attention. Like, I want to just have one place where I can send everyone and here's the film, watch it, which I also think if all the sales go there is going to help with the algorithm. And more people, they will promote her film to other people. Right. Right. So So I was like, you know, and I actually I did, I did a few polls on Facebook groups and stuff like that, where do you watch movies? And I would see, Amazon was always the top one. So I was like, okay, Amazon has to be and I thought of myself, I mean, I rent movies on Amazon. And so so yeah, so I chose Amazon. Which, you know, Amazon is amazing. It's great that they give the opportunities to filmmakers, you know, and I have spoken to them before it kind of it's kind of, you know, kind of sucks that they take 50% You know, I think I wish they would take less like like Vimeo, but you know, it is what it is you got to deal with.

Alex Ferrari 23:58
So first so for people to understand, so you they take 50% of your transactional?

Ismael Gomez 24:02
Yeah, like so transactional video. T VOD. You know, if you if you sell if someone buys a movie for $10.05 goes to Amazon and five goes to you. So they take 50% of them.

Alex Ferrari 24:15
Yeah. And you know what, I have the same. I mean, I self published my books through Amazon. And they're actually worse, worse than 50% sometimes. But the different that probably exposure. Yeah, you are the largest marketplace where everybody has their credit card, and everyone trusts everything. So a 5050 split might sound bad, but the amount of the amount of access you getting for that 50% is the only thing that makes sense for that scenario. But now if you would have signed the deal with a distributor than they would have taken a percentage of that. So at the end of the day, you might have 15% and now you might even get really 10%

Ismael Gomez 24:54
if you're not what I'm really curious about is like how much like how much Amazon I wonder if Amazon offers that same type of deal to big companies like Disney and Warner Brothers, if they give them 5050 or if they offer because I feel like, you know, a small businesses entrepreneur, the starting, they should offer better deals for us than Disney. But you know, that's that's not the way the game. So

Alex Ferrari 25:23
that's not the way the world works, but and we could have a whole episode talking about Amazon and how they treat filmmakers. But at the end of the day, they have opened up a marketplace that filmmakers, so let's take let's take Amazon off the table that they shut down into, like no more filmmakers. Yeah, that really, that really hurts a lot of a lot of businesses. So I'm really grateful. I think it's amazing. I think they're doing but I agree with you. It should be like 70 7030 is fair. 70 Yeah.

Ismael Gomez 25:51
70-30. I mean, I think it's amazing. I'm really grateful that I can do this stuff, you know, but if I have a basis in front of me, it would be something that I will bring up

Alex Ferrari 25:59
also also a Cuban brother. Yeah.

Ismael Gomez 26:05
So yeah, so I decided Amazon and then

Alex Ferrari 26:09
TVOD mostly right. Yeah,

Ismael Gomez 26:11
I personally, you know, I have seen a bunch of my friends gone through distribution and gone through Amazon too. And for me, something that I learned is to not undervalue your art. And this is something that I learned actually in the theatrical screening. So when I had the premiere of Coral Gables, we sold out the whole screening, and I actually brought some merchandise. And I remember, you know, it was like this, my cousin who's an artist made like this cheap printed poster, and like this wooden kind of like frame, and it was really beautiful. And we only made like, 20. And I was thinking, you know, I'm not gonna make too many, and we're gonna sell them for 20 bucks or whatever. Because, you know, not a lot of people gonna buy it and stuff. And like, we got there. We screened the movie. And right, when people came out, it got sold out in like, literally in one minute. And people want to like, we want more, we want more. And I was like, Oh, my God, I should have brought this more. Like, should we make more, you know, and the screening will sold out? Like, there were like, let's,

Alex Ferrari 27:17
let's talk numbers. So let's talk numbers on that screening. So you rent it out the theater, or was it a split?

Ismael Gomez 27:22
I for wall, the screening, so I ended up? So what are the costs? It was like, so they do by the hour, so it was like 250 an hour, and I ended up doing three hours. So it was like 750. And yeah, I did. I did like a q&a afterwards with the the cast?

Alex Ferrari 27:41
And how much? And how much did you end ticket? sales?

Ismael Gomez 27:45
Yeah, so I ended up using event rights. Again, for control, you know, I put the price on the tickets, everything. And between the tickets, and the merchandise I ended up making, like 13 1400 bucks. So it was a good day.

Alex Ferrari 28:02
Your, your profit, your profit, and about the merge how much the merchant take you over?

Ismael Gomez 28:06
Well, that's what the merchant was like. The tickets were like, 1100 and the merchant was like, 300. So combined, they were like, 1400 you know, today. Yeah. And I thought of I mean, I thought like, you know, I can't keep doing theatrical in Florida, South Florida, maybe, you know, do like five or 10 more of these, you know, um, but then I ended up like, two weeks after on February 20, I launched the film on Amazon. So the first thing that I did was Oh, so talking about Amazon for me, learning from that experience. I was like, you know, I'm gonna put my film for sale first. So you can only buy it for like only purchase option,

Alex Ferrari 28:53
and no rental.

Ismael Gomez 28:55
Just strictly because I knew the people that just seen the movie. We're going straight to get on T ball and we're going to rent it you know, there was a lot of people I got older emails that were waiting. So I went straight to T VOD. I think I put like 1499 was the first price that I did. And I put no rentals like the first week like the first 10 days because I knew it was going to be hot you know, those people were going to come and buy the movie. So I did that I put it for purchase option only. I get into any Oh, so I got a lot of you know, newspapers radio everywhere you know talking about the premier Coral Gables like local news. And and then a lot of social media and over Facebook and Instagram. And then I ended up just putting the purchase option for those 10 first day so and then only the let's say the warm audience the loyal audience right the true fans came those, those first 10 They purchased the movie. I can't remember the exact number of how many people you know, but I was. While that was happening, I've started learning Facebook ads, I already had, like ran Facebook ads in the past and Instagram, with some other businesses that I had in the past and also with the with rabbit hole on Instagram, but I hire someone to pretty much kind of teach me, like all the ins and outs, you know, all the tricks and little things. And even though you I thought that I knew a lot like this person really taught me a bunch of stuff that I was like, oh, wow, that's how it works. Okay.

Alex Ferrari 30:37
We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor. And now back to the show.

Ismael Gomez 30:47
So, so that gave me a lot of insights. And I slowly started using Facebook ads and Instagram ads. And for me, what I think has worked so far, which I told you in the email, like, I feel that a lot of people always want to like, I want my film to be seen as many you know that many people as possible, see my film, right? And I found that's a big mistake. I mean, if they could see it for free, of course, try as many people as you can. But when you have to pay for the Facebook ads, you have to make sure that the person that watches the film, right though the trailer, the teaser, they're really, you know, they trust the brand. And if they don't know the brand, you know, why will they click to watch the movie? So for me, the name Miami, right was the that trust. So, for example, when I was running ads, I realized the copy that would get the most, let's say engagement was when I would put like a you know, Miami releases new mystical adventure, a new fantasy film, because I I thought if I put like rabbit hole pictures releases a new, you know, Mr. They're like, Who's rabbit hole pictures. But when you put Miami people somehow in their heads, that's what I'm guessing they're guessing like, Oh, so Miami, it's kind of like, made this film like the city itself. You know, it's it's made in Miami, so then I only targeted like 25 mile radios, racism and miamian. And that started getting you know, a lot of attraction, then, you know, a lot of experimenting, I think you have to do a lot of testing. Like a lot. Like, you know, I had a teaser on the one minute I had a trailer, which was a minute and 40 I had pictures. You know, I have different copywriting. And also, you have to get this is a trick that I learned also that you have to have social proof before you send out. So when I would first create the ad, I'd have like my small group of you know, friends and family that I will send it to them and be like, okay, like this comment that you saw that you love that or whatever. So when the advertisement will go out, right? You have social proof, someone sees and they're like, oh, there's people coming to you. There's people liking it. Let me check it out. Right. And so what I started doing also the strategy was I would do video views. So it's one of the options when you run Facebook ads. At first I started doing traffic, which was kind of like a mistake, but you the traffic strategies pretty much Facebook finds people that would click on the ad and would go to the website where you send them. But by doing video views, Facebook pretty much finds people that usually watch videos, like they watch the most percentage, let's say videos. So I started using the video ads, and that's sort of getting better results. And people will still click on it and go to the website. Right? And then I would do video views Monday through Friday, and then Saturday and Sunday I will do a reach strategy, Facebook ad, which I would say okay, so for Monday through Friday, I do this video views. And then Saturday, Sunday, I create an audience that everyone who watched the video from Monday through Friday 95% of like people who watched 95% of my videos right? I would make that an audience Facebook would find all those people create a custom audience and then on Saturday and Sunday I would just target those people again and with a reach strategy and be like okay, now reach as many people as you can within this parameter that I just put that they're ready a warm audience cuz they saw the teaser and find them and show them again you know, the trailer so that will bring that will bring really good

Alex Ferrari 34:57
You're using a you're using this based off of a 14.99 price point not that I started

Ismael Gomez 35:03
Yah when I started doing Facebook ads, I already had the rental option. So I actually brought it down to 9999 and 599. So I started seeing you know, what most of the rentals will be on Amazon and I saw a bunch of like new releases were not 599 for. So I put a 599. And actually, this was really funny because you have to you have to test things out. You have to just don't be afraid of like, sometimes people want to be tooled, like logical. And you think of like, Oh, my films, an indie film, who would rent it who would pay 599. And a lot of people don't know, you know, like normal audiences. They don't know. They just see. They just see a film and it's a cool trailer, a cool poster. Maybe they don't know the actors, but the genre itself, right, since it's a fantasy kind of mystical supernatural film, the genre itself will sell the film and if they connect with Miami, they will sell it and actually, I did a crazy thing for like a week. I didn't make a profit, but I broke even. But when the whole Coronavirus hit, they started doing this whole theatrical premieres for 90 9099. So actually up for a week, I removed everything that I put it for 1999. I was like, You know what, maybe people will confuse me with like Disney. And like any, like, the invisible man that was also coming out during that time. And, and like, I don't know, like, 10 people bought it, like 10 people bought it. And you know, it cost me a lot in Facebook ads. So I kind of like I ended up breaking even. So I was like, you know, I know that I can find more people, but it will cost me more. So let me let me just bring it back to to a different price. And I like what I had it before, but it was it was it was a you know, an interesting experience seeing that they were actually someone be willing to pay 1999 for the film, just like they would pay for any of those big studio films, you know.

Alex Ferrari 37:02
So it's not let me ask you in regards to the facebook, facebook ads, and Instagram ads, a lot of times I found that filmmakers who spend a lot of money on those, the ROI doesn't make sense to return on investment because they they're either not optimizing properly or their their offer is just too low of price, like you're talking about 99 cents, and when 99 to 9399, you've got to get volume, you know, so if you spend $5 to get a 199 rental, that's not business. So how did you make it work?

Ismael Gomez 37:33
Well, yeah, I mean, I kept the price of 599, you know, good rental, and purchase a 999. So I knew that every time there will be a sale, I will make pretty much $3. Right? So from 599 50%. So I knew that Okay, I have to make under, you know, under $3. And so I would make sure and this is really hard to what happens with Amazon is really hard to track the sales that come from the Facebook ads, because Amazon doesn't give you the information. Right? Amazon keeps all the data for them.

Alex Ferrari 38:13
So you have no so you can't do a facebook pixel with it.

Ismael Gomez 38:17
with Amazon, no, you can't because it's on the Amazon page, right? So pixel that right? They're not gonna let you pixel that. So you could I couldn't do a pixel. So it was, but what happens is that say, like people what I'm guessing like people, a lot of times they try many strategies at the same, like, what I would do is say I'm going to stick with one strategy one week to see the results of that week, right? And then I will see, okay, so this week, I spent this much. And this much came in. And you know, I wasn't doing anything else. And I have kind of the clicks on the Facebook ads. And I saw that, you know, every 25 cents, someone was clicking on the ad. So I started as kind of like comparing the numbers, and then after one week, I would switch to a different strategy. And that way, you know, I would kind of like know what strategy worked the most. But again, for me, it was all about that, like you have to know your audience, you know, and, for example, I also thought even though the film has a, let's say, the film is about a grandson, the grandfather, right? They're like afterlife investigators. So there is a younger audience and there's an older audience. And for me, I focused mostly on the older audience because they have money. Number one, you know, younger audiences I say it you know, for my sister they don't like to pay for stuff they want just free content, you know, cuz I mean, you know, they grew up on YouTube and even I sometimes they struggle like oh, should I pay it? Should I really rent this movie or Should I wait until it comes out on Netflix or any? You know? So it's that's just the subscription mode has changed, you know, people's mentality when it comes to that, right? So I was like, I have to focus on the older audience because they're the ones that are really going to pay for this, right. And most of the time, maybe they're bringing their children you know, their grandchildren, whatever, to watch the movie. Now the problem with the also have to think about the downsides, like the problem with the older audiences so so they don't leave a lot of reviews, right? Older people don't go on Amazon and start reviewing, you know, like, Oh, I love to film or whatever. And which actually, you know, the reviews is such a tricky game, because, you know, mostly like, people who only have negative things to say are the ones that go and review. Like you watch the world that is like this was the best movie ever. And you don't go on like IMDb or Rotten Tomatoes, and you don't review it. You're like, this was amazing. But then, you know, those pesky haters, negative people, the trolls, they just go there and start like, Oh, this was awful, you know, but it is what it is. But then I tried to like, you know, if I saw that someone watched the movie or tagged the trailer, or the post or something, I've messaged them, like, please, if you liked the movie, leave us a review on Amazon because it can help you know. So but it was a combination, Alex of of a lot of like, work on my site. I did, I did a lot of like, say, you know, guerilla marketing myself with you know, on Instagram, I, for example, the Coral Gables art cinema, I went on Instagram, and I saw you know, that they had 8000 followers. So I will go to each one of those followers, and literally messaged him, like, Hey, where am I am film company, we just make this film. If you like, you know, this type of genre go check it out. Literally every day, I would message onto like, Instagram blocked pretty much like you exceeded like your limit for today. So, you know, so it was it was a combination of things, you know, and like being on the Miami Herald on the newspaper, also, you know, brought sales and then just combining all that with Facebook, Instagram, and, and just doing a lot of work. And also, like I told you trying a lot of different content people, sometimes you create, we create a trailer and that's it. Like they market everything without trailer. Like, you know, I have Trailer Teaser short clips, like I least like out of my like 30 different types of like assets, let's say

Alex Ferrari 42:39
Right now. The the thing that's fascinating, as well as that you decided to focus on your local regional market, which is something that most filmmakers Don't think about because they're like, Oh, it's just the local, I need to be big. I need the world to see my movie I, I need to be as big as Terran to Dino and Nolan. I need to do that, where you focus on the regional, which is extremely powerful. That's a much warmer audience. If I can take your tournament, it's a much warmer audience. And a lot of people will just support because you're a local boy and Miami's not a small town either know, it's some big city, it's one city, it's one of the big in the US. Absolutely. So but even with that, you were still able to generate interest and revenue from that. So that's, that's a really great way of doing it.

Ismael Gomez 43:32
And that's not you know, that's also like, you know, this was like, I at the same time, while I was in post production, you know, I really studied a lot of like marketing, you know, like Seth Godin. Sure. Yeah, you know, the purple cow and there's another guy called Roy Sutherland he's from London you know, and really started marketing and, and try to learn as much as possible and one of the ideas is like, how, you know how ideas like spread, right and everything starts small like if you think about Facebook, how did Facebook start Facebook started in Harvard. And then it started with only Ivy League's right. And then once they got the ivy League's when people see something that they like, they will tell their friends and the friends will tell the friends and that's how things spread. So I was like, I'm only going to focus in Miami and then from there on, actually, later on, I started seeing there were some sales in the UK where I was doing no marketing, and which was really interesting. I was like, I don't know how people in the UK are watching this. But I guess they're just like because they see as an American movie. They're they're watching it but you know, I really focus just a local and make like I would target Miami 25 miles radius, right. And I will say people who liked Pixar, Disney, Harry Potter, you know, films that we've kind of had the same tone to my film. Um, and then I would also do besides that, and would narrow down down the audience that they would also purchase on amazon.com, which is pretty much everyone, but you know, but that would really put it, like, just find those people that have purchased on Amazon, which you know, that, like, they have Amazon Instant Video, whatever. And they like these type of films are similar.

Alex Ferrari 45:25
Now what? So let's get some numbers, if you don't mind, what are the returns of all of this work? And how much revenue Have you generated? With off of Amazon?

Ismael Gomez 45:35
So Amazon has been like, a $36,000 which That's insane. Which is, I mean, when you really think about it was 72 you know, but that's 36. To you. 36. To me, yeah. 30. So

Alex Ferrari 45:53
you generated 72,000 gross, off of this technique off of what you're doing. In your in your $100,000? Yeah, indie with no stars attached. And a unique genre being like fantasies, not, you know, it's, it's, there's less, there's less sharks, or less blood in that water, it's a little bit more blue ocean, if the fish is better in your area. So it's a niche. It's a niche. It's a large niche, but it's a niche. So you've been able to generate, and then how much does that cost you?

Ismael Gomez 46:27
And then yeah, and then $9,000, in marketing around $9,000. So far, so that profit ends up being like, what 27 plus the one I made in the theatrical premiere. So

Alex Ferrari 46:40
I don't know about I don't know about you, but I will spend $9,000 every day to get 27,000 Oh, yeah. All day, I'll just continue to feed that beast. So it's fascinating. You're one of the few heard of, you're making it work. Now you have a very, there's a lot of unique elements, like in every project, like and you mentioned range 15, in your email, that was a unique set of circumstances in a unique time period, every movie is going to be a little bit different, like your movie might be hitting at the right time with the right mood that

Ismael Gomez 47:16
Also helps in you know, the I mean, the whole vacation that everyone was stuck home, you know, stuck at home,

Alex Ferrari 47:22
looking for new fresh content, and then you just happen to be fresh content. I also know how to market it. Because I've done my homework, I've done my research. And I want you to I want to I want you to tell all the filmmakers out there, please, because I've been preaching this for the longest time that filmmakers need to understand marketing, they need to educate themselves on the distribution, process itself distribution process all the non sexy, because everything you're talking about is not sexy. It's not as sexy as the new Alexa with a new cook lens. Yeah, you know, the techno crane that I'm going to work on, and it's not the sexy stuff. Can you please tell the audience the value that you have found by doing that deep dive into marketing? Because obviously it's working?

Ismael Gomez 48:06
Yeah, I mean, I will tell you this, this is how I think about it. If you know how to market, if you know how to distribute, if you know how to sell anything, then you can make anything. Right? It's not like you make something and then like, how am I going to sell this? It's like learn how to sell things. Like I think of like Steve Jobs, which I think is once one of the greatest marketers ever, right? How he created apple and all those things, and he would find a how to like, think about it, I help people pay six times more for an iPhone, which is pretty much does the same as a as an Android, you know, an LG, like,

Alex Ferrari 48:48
It's just not as pretty

Ismael Gomez 48:49
Its not as good. And it's the brand because you grew the brand change by he connected with a certain type of appeal. And for me was like I thought about, like, you know, I have because people just like to make things that you know, as an artist, you just want to think about the creative process, but then you end up being you know, at the mercy of like, you know, distributor and sometimes you will find a good distributor but like, even if you have a good distributor, wouldn't you want to know how that works? And they might not even you, I mean if you know your audience, if you know your movie, your input might be, you know, so valuable for them that might help even with the sales. So for me, it's like you have to learn, you know, again, like I was recommend Seth Godin. Ma all his YouTube videos. He also has a course that I took online. It's called the seven the marketing seminar. Roy solid land from from Great Britain. You know, Gary Vee Gary Vee. It's amazing. Yeah. You know, he's actually doing tea with Gary Every morning at 9am I thought, yeah, he's, he's pretty cool. He's got a bunch of good stuff, you know, and and yeah, and of watching the film, hustle all the episodes about distribution, you know, try to learn as much as you can, because that's the only way that you can be self reliant and, and not depend, again on the lottery ticket of getting into Sundance and, and I also thought about that I was telling Larry the my friend, the co founder, I told him like, you know, like, I think of Disney, okay, there's so successful, but I think of Disney. I think of like, you know, Warner Brothers, they don't go to no film festivals, they don't care about film festivals. They go straight to the audience, why should we? And I love film festivals, I have nothing against them. Right, but you playing by the rules? So why should we be like waiting? I was I will keep some minutes of Film Festival. But we shouldn't be waiting for that to be our strategy. We should be just getting straight to the audience, you know? So So yeah. So that's that's it.

Alex Ferrari 51:03
It's it's an inspiring story. But I really appreciate it, you've been able to do the numbers that you've talked about, which is that no one's getting rich, you're not getting you're not you're rolling around in it. But it's a you're building a business, you're saying,

Ismael Gomez 51:17
Pay my investors that that's the most important thing now that I'll be able to pay my investors, you know, that I can talk again, for my second feature film that I want, you know, so it also creates that, you know, trust, which is really important, and I'm building my audience as well, people who already saw the movie and liked it. And, you know, saw the company in Miami, so

Alex Ferrari 51:37
I just thinking just thinking for listening to your story, I think you could definitely benefit from reading Rise of the film entrepreneur, I think your head's gonna explode. For sure, if I may do a self plug. No, I think there's a lot of I think you're leaving a lot of money on the table. Honestly, with this, but you're doing fantastic. By the way, you're doing better than 99.5% of filmmakers I talked to. So you're doing extremely well. But I think you could even do, you could take it to the next level. But I'm really, you know, I'm really excited that you are good example of what how filmmakers can make money on Amazon during COVID. This is all happening. This is all happening during COVID. And what are your plans now? Because you know, you did this all t VOD, which is something that unless you know how to drive traffic t VOD is a lost cause. Unless you can drive check traffic and target an audience or have an audience to bring along with you.

Ismael Gomez 52:33
Yeah, I mean, I'm gonna keep you know, sometimes the the sales are down. Sometimes they go up. It's a little bit you know, but I'll keep investing a little I think I may expand now to Florida. Try to expand to Orlando Tampa, you know, but yeah, I'm gonna keep in. I actually put, you know, I found the right spot. Now I have the movie for 299 and 1499. Because I feel there's a actually I feel that somehow I'm getting sales with a marketing sometimes I think Amazon is promoting the movie itself. Sure. I brought money for them. So I guess the, the algorithm or whatever. But I would tell this, also going back to the whole distributing and stuff like for me, I would never put my movie for free. That's just like,

Alex Ferrari 53:24
So your not, we're gonna put it it's about like Amazon Prime.

Ismael Gomez 53:26
And I see I would I would suggest to everyone, I mean, put 99 cents, you know, like, that's, that's an okay price. If you have a movie they unless, unless you really don't care about recouping your money because it was your own money or something and you just want to get people to see your film. And in that case, I mean, you know, you can also put it on YouTube, right? If that's your strength, but if you really have to make money to pay investors to recoup some money, forget about as VOD, like, you're not going to make a lot of money. Unless maybe you have it on. I don't know to be like a bought at other places, but just put it

Alex Ferrari 54:04
AVOD AVOD at a certain point when you're when your sales have gone down to a point because like nobody really makes a whole lot of money on the S VOD Amazon platform anymore. That's pretty much gone. But AVOD, as we speak today is a re I've seen the numbers. I mean, there's 10s of 1000s of dollars being made by certain films in certain genres. So there is potential there, but absolutely milk this cow for as long as you can. AVOD could wait, it can wait a year. It could wait two years before before you go to AVOD.

Ismael Gomez 54:36
Sorry, I forgot to mention that I actually I put the film also on film hub now, as as VOD because the rest of like other English speaking countries don't have T bot. So I couldn't rabbithole pictures. You know, I couldn't put it on the rest of like Latin America have to say also because I do have some Hispanic stars that are well known in Latin America. So and I have the movie subtitles. Oh, that was something that actually bothered me. from Amazon, that they didn't let me they didn't let me put Spanish subtitles. They don't have that option, which I thought like you're missing out on like

Alex Ferrari 55:12
they're they can't deal with that kind of complexity from the masses, they can deal with that complexity from distributors who handle 234 100 movies. And they allow that situation. It's a completely different business.

Ismael Gomez 55:25
Like if you go and actually no, no, like Amazon doesn't doesn't allow Spanish subtitles on any film doesn't matter. Oh, yeah.

Alex Ferrari 55:33
Now they stopped it. Yeah, you're right. They did stop the subtitling and now it has to be I think

Ismael Gomez 55:38
it's so I don't know if it's a legal issue or what but I told him, like, Netflix has been doing this for like, years. And like, if you really want to compete, like you're missing on, like, let you know, the whole like Hispanic audience in the United States that would rather, you know, like, my, a lot of my family members, you know, they when I actually put the movie with subtitles, because they understand English, but you know, you will miss a lot of little details, not the same reading in your first language, you know, so, yeah, that was one thing, but through film hub, that now I'm putting it on Latin America.

Alex Ferrari 56:10
But have you had anything from them yet?

Ismael Gomez 56:12
Nothing come in yet? No, nothing. It's been recent. It's been recent. I haven't done any marketing also out there. So I'm just letting it to see, you know,

Alex Ferrari 56:23
See what happens well, keep us keep us updated on the film hub thing I'm really curious to see. I haven't heard a lot of success stories from film hub, meaning that filmmakers actually making a lot of money. So I'm curious to see, in theory, he sounds great in the in the in the marketplace. Sounds great. But I'm curious to see real hard numbers come in. But man, you're an inspiration, brother. Without question, I'm going to ask you a few questions asked all my guests. What advice would you give a filmmaker trying to break into the business today?

Ismael Gomez 56:56
Um, I would say focus on providing value to others, which is something that, you know, me as a director, when I started, I, a lot of my friends now that work with me had a really hard time working with me because I was sort of a dictator. And it was always like, you know, I would always think of my movie. And this needs to be perfect, because it's my film and my name is on is and I'm the director. And then that was just bring a lot of suffering, really, because I will be so frustrated and stuff. And when I kind of switched their mentality and started thinking about a be, you know, a provider value service to others to the crew, I want to, to really try to have everyone in the crew to reach their maximum potential in the cast, I want the actors to do the best performance that they can I want the DP to have the best images. And I'm just the catalyst for these people to really push them hard, so they can get there, you know, and also for the audience's going to watch my movie, it's not like watch my film is like, how can I really make your time worth that you can spend an hour and a half watching my movie, and you're gonna have a lot of fun. So I just kind of like switching that mentality of, you know, providing value to others in it really. You can tell when you work with someone who's just there for a paycheck, you know? Yeah, I don't I don't like working with those type of people. I feel I can see when there's someone there who obviously I want to pay everyone. And I think everyone should get paid, but they're there because they care about their craft more than a paycheck, you know?

Alex Ferrari 58:41
So I would say no. And what is the lesson that took you the longest to learn whether in the film business or in life?

Ismael Gomez 58:50
On film, or in life I would say, Don't take it personal. That's it. Don't take don't take film reviews personally. You don't know who that person is. If they like, if they like happy endings, and you had a sad ending, of course, they're gonna hate your movie. You know, they had don't take personal the film projects, the film festival rejections. Maybe they didn't even watch your film. Maybe that person had a bad day. God knows. Right? Don't take it personal. It's it doesn't. It doesn't say anything about the quality of your craft and all of your film. So that's it, you know?

Alex Ferrari 59:36
And then what are three of your favorite films of all time?

Ismael Gomez 59:42
That's a tough question.

Alex Ferrari 59:44
Three that come to your head right now?

Ismael Gomez 59:45
Well, I mean, definitely The Lion King, you know, as a child and in Cuba, I would say, I think of films in like different stages of my life. So I would say definitely as a child The Lion King and the gold rush from Chaplin.

Alex Ferrari 1:00:03
Yeah

Ismael Gomez 1:00:05
Yeah. It's a fun movie. I always loved watching the movie now, as a grown up, I think, you know, I've seen brilliant films, you know, a lot of brilliant films, but I feel that films that let's say that I really saw and were like, really changed my perspective on what a movie could be. That I was like, I've never seen anything like this, I would say the tree of life from Terrence Malick and synecdoche, New York from Charlie Kaufman. Which is, which is really funny because I see Kaufman, which I think in my opinion, Jesus, he's the most original writer and creator like in Hollywood, when it comes to film. I think his stories are the most original. And I see him struggling to make to get financing and I'm like, I mean, if Kaufman is like going through this, I'm okay. You know? Yeah, it's fine.

Alex Ferrari 1:01:05
Exactly. Now, where can people find you your movie and you work?

Ismael Gomez 1:01:09
Well, the movies on Amazon, you know, Amazon Video and they can find us on you know, rabbit hole pictures on Instagram. rabbitholepictures.com. Rabbit Hole pictures on Facebook everywhere. Rabbit Hole.

Alex Ferrari 1:01:25
Yeah, it's my thank you so much for being on the show, brother to you. You're an inspiration. I'm glad to highlight a success story, you know, on Amazon in today's world, and teavana and everything else. So thank you so much for coming on and being so raw and honest with your with your numbers in your experience, man. Thank you, brother.

Ismael Gomez 1:01:42
Thank you, Alex. I hope this really helps a lot of filmmakers out there and you know, keep hustling.

Alex Ferrari 0:16
I'd like to welcome the show Simon Swart, man, thank you so much for being on the show.

Simon Swart 3:39
It's great to be here.

Alex Ferrari 3:40
I appreciate it. Man. You are you've been around the block a few times. Yeah, I know that you have some shrapnel in the from the business without question

Simon Swart 3:49
And experience.

Alex Ferrari 3:52
Some battle scars, some shrapnel? Absolutely. So before we get into it, how did you get into the business?

Simon Swart 3:58
Wow, I've got to tell you. I got into the business by sending my resume to every record company and music company on the west coast and being completely rejected. And I ended up meeting a guy at a party and turns out they were hiring somebody they were looking for someone at Warner Brothers and that was it.

Alex Ferrari 4:16
Isn't that the way it works?

Simon Swart 4:18
Younger generation out there. You've got to send your resumes out there and do that stuff. But ultimately, it's probably all relationships and your contacts are going to get you a job. And by the way, you don't get your dream job out the gate. You take whatever job is going and you do it to the best of your abilities.

Alex Ferrari 4:32
Wait a minute, see you. So you mean to tell me that at a film school, Kevin Fay he is not going to call you to direct the next $200 million Marvel movie, like right out of film school as a 10 year old, a 15 year old 20 year old? Probably not. I think it's a long shot. The golden tickets do exist. They're just rare. But then and I've spoken about this golden lottery ticket mentality of filmmakers are so along because that's the one story that you hear. I mean, we're still talking about El Mariachi. I mean, it's, I mean, it's like that these mythical stories. And these filmmakers think that that's the way it's gonna work. And that's not the way this business runs.

Simon Swart 5:12
You, you've got to put in your 10,000 hours plus, and you might be getting coffee, you might be driving people to and fro, but you do what you got to do. And you learn along the way,

Alex Ferrari 5:24
Without question. Now, what did you do when you got over to Warner Brothers?

Simon Swart 5:28
Well, so here's the funny thing. By the way, I studied accounting and auditing, I was actually a chartered accountant by trade, so Okay, you know, how did that all work out? Well, I was an art student who realized that I could, I could probably emigrate better with a business degree than with an art degree. So I did that basic math, and I forced myself to learn business and things like that. And when I started at Warner Brothers, I was a manager of international finance. It was a glorious position.

Alex Ferrari 5:54
It sounds very creative.

Simon Swart 5:59
As much as you would think. But But I would say my I worked through Warner Brothers, I then worked for a small independent, I worked at Disney. And then I spent the last 20 years at Fox and doing different roles in different functions, but but gradually getting into more and more creative roles, where I eventually became the head of sales, the head of sales and marketing. And then I ran the distribution division for the home entertainment side of box for the last decade or so.

Alex Ferrari 6:26
So since you were at Fox, there was a few movies that they had, they had ownership of that, of course, now Disney because they Disney owns everything. But at the time, you were responsible soon, yes, soon, I think I should be getting my check from the mouse at any day now just to buy me out at this point. But, but while you were there, you got to work on a very prestigious, you know, franchise, which is called the Star Wars. So how was that? What was the stories behind marketing Star Wars? And you were there when the rerelease was happening, which was the 97 rerelease was was basically our first look, there was a whole generation we never even seen Star Wars in the theater before.

Simon Swart 7:08
Yes, it's pretty remarkable. I mean, actually, what I loved about the gueguen Fox on that side of the business was, you were the curator of the studio's history, you and the great filmmakers all understand that, that their movies will be remembered not necessarily on the big screen, there are launches on the big screen, and we're all making movies for the big screen. Because it is such a remarkable experience as a consumer as a fan, when the lights go out, and you've got your popcorn and this, the imagery, the journey you go on is so remarkable. But the legacy is going to be on the home screen, whether it's digital, and whatever format, you're going to get it. That's the legacy issue. And you're the curator of all this film history. And yeah, 97 we had a whole generation of Star Wars fans that, you know, your access to the movies was so limited. Now you get to rerelease it and you're you're, you're creating a whole new group of fans, you know, whether it's Star Wars, or it's fair to remember or Sound of Music. You know, it's it was I loved that part of the job was working on the older movies and working on these classic franchises and keeping them alive. And it's a privilege to get to reintroduce them to new audiences, frankly.

Alex Ferrari 8:24
Now, how can you talk a little bit about the marketing mindset about around relaunching Star Wars in the theaters because that was a I remember in that time that it was considered a risk. I still remember it was considered a risk they were talking about like why would they do this? It's available on VHS you know what it kill obviously admitted, obscene amount of money.

Simon Swart 8:46
Sure. You know, honestly, Luke Lucas Film was integral in everything that we did. And you know, thing and one thing about George Lucas and the guys at Lucasfilm, as they were so protective of their fans, right, they wanted they, they respect their fans, they everything was about protecting the fans and giving them giving them what they wanted. And, you know, listening, I mean, that they're one of those brands that always had a dialogue with their fans, and they've had those fans for a reason. So everything we did was about servicing the fans. And yeah, releasing the movie of the I want to say if I remember correctly, we did something like a million over a million units of it of a trilogy, people like there's no way you're going to sell a million units of a trilogy that's from a movie that was released sort of, you know, 30 years ago, you know, everyone's moved on, it's like, not so much, you know, like we were sitting and and we love proving people wrong.

Alex Ferrari 9:47
Here like we were saying, like I was saying before, when we were off air is like I've purchased the Star Wars movies on pretty much every format ever released.

Simon Swart 9:56
Yeah, and honestly, the Marketing Challenge in that process. was always making sure you were giving the fans a reason to buy it again, not buying just the same product again. Right? So where that when there are technological advances like we were able to digitize and remaster like when we moved to DVD and blu ray and rerelease them on those formats, you know, we were able to go back and actually, you know, Lucasfilm went back and fixed some of the scenes because the VFX weren't, weren't translating properly and technology and advanced so much. And that was pretty controversial as well. So, I mean, one of the marketing decisions we had to make is, I think, when we did the DVD, we released it in the original format and the original resolution, and in the enhanced version, where it had been digitized, and some of the digital effects have been cleaned up, and so on. So that, you know, the fans were very clear. They wanted both, they wanted the original the way I saw it in theaters way back when, but I also would like to see the new updated version, too. So that was kind of rare we did, we did some some really some pretty creative things back then, you know, releasing the releasing, releasing both movies and the same package, you know, you can have both versions.

Alex Ferrari 11:06
Now you you were in charge of a lot of marketing of a lot of big franchises during your tenure at Fox and at Disney. Can you talk a little bit about what it's like working with the studios and what a typical marketing plan is for a blockbuster film? Because, you know, the rollouts, the understand, because we on the show, we've talked a lot about independent film marketing, and your niche audiences and grassroots and all this stuff. But I would love to hear from the inside. What is the plan, like, okay, we're going to spend X dollars on billboards, and this kind of ads and these kind of ads. And of course, technology has changed a bit since probably a lot of those earlier releases, but just curious.

Simon Swart 11:45
So I think one of the biggest things is, you know, back back in the 90s, you had a slightly more homogenous plans, right, you would have your billboards, you'd have your radio, you have your print, you have your trailering, right, and you had television, so you knew you knew who the audience was that you needed to open the movie, obviously, there's a lot of testing done in those days, even pre digital, we'd test the movie against the audience's so we knew what the rating was. And every marketing plan was different, depending on the genre, the size and the scope of the movie, okay, so you know, the worst thing you can do, and sometimes you can see studios getting a little lazy about it is there's the cookie cutter approach, right? This is the way we've done it. And that kind of strategy went out the window quite a long time ago, especially now with the challenges of mass market marketing. So if you're buying media on TV, you now have to supplement it with social media and online media. And that becomes a much bigger piece of the budget. So the marketing of these movies has always been dynamic, and it's always been risky, right? That hasn't changed. It's just a matter of where you're spending the money and where you're taking the risk. And it also depends on who your target market target audiences. If you go back 20 years ago, the sweet spot of opening blockbusters was males 18, to 34. But like, if you could get the fanboys in to go see a movie you were made, you knew you'd make a number, you get the butts and seats. And now you know, 2019, you know, that's just not the case anymore. Because those fanboys Are you know, they're they're, they're add, basically, on the media world, you don't have wet they're everywhere. And I think one of the coolest thing that's actually occurred in the marketing space is, you know, the old school marketing, demographics don't work. They don't work anymore. We we don't identify the audiences don't identify based on ethnicity, social class, gender, as much as we'd like them to. Audiences identify based on interests, behaviors, passions, so and it's not, it's very hard to do mass marketing anymore. You know, the, the, it's diminishing returns on what you're getting out of TV, you've got to advertise on certain cable channels, and you've got to be in certain events. I mean, Superbowl ads are probably one of the rare exceptions where everybody's got to see your ad. And then you've got to supplement it with online and social media. But you online and social media can't just be a replication of what you're doing on radio and what TV they've got to be unique to that format. And I think that's one of the one of the cool things that's going on in the marketing space right now.

Alex Ferrari 14:20
But is it I've noticed this just from just being a watcher of the industry, I've noticed that from the days of when I was coming up in the 90s. To today, the studios are having a more difficult time, even them with their massive resources to actually get to the audience to get because there's so much more competition. I mean, those those fanboys a lot of them are just sitting in front of a video game for 15 hours a day. They're not interested in going to the movie theater anymore. So it's much it's even difficult and challenging. With hundreds of millions of dollars.

Simon Swart 14:53
How do you how do you break through even with the $80 million spend, and by that, by the way, you've got to recoup that too. So you know Spend $300 million making the movie. Now you got to spend maybe another 100 and $50 million marketing it and most people don't understand that whatever the box office is, you got to cut it in half right off the bat, because exhibition takes half. And then you've got to recoup your marketing costs, and then you've got all these other expenditures in there. So it gets pretty crazy. Because when you start having to spend again, social media and stuff, is that an incremental spend, or you taking $1 away from your mass market TV? Yeah, and the reality is, you can't take away the dollar, because you still need that mass market TV. And by the way, you still need those cable spots, because that might be where your target audience is, is as well, right? And you've also got to spend money on PR and publicity to break through. So really kind of your your your marketing campaign is almost it's a military campaign of sorts, but it's all geared towards opening weekend.

Alex Ferrari 15:55
Right, right. But But I've noticed that opening weekend, I mean, depends, of course, on the on the on the franchise, or on the blockbuster that's coming up, but opening weekends aren't what they used to be. Sometimes they will explode. And we'll have the $200 million $150 million and $90 million, like the Joker did recently. You know, you know, those are that was a surprise. But But those those numbers aren't as much as they used to be in box out, like, look at that will smith movie, the Gemini man that just tanked you know, yeah. Which is a whole conversation about movie stars to even matter anymore.

Simon Swart 16:27
I think movie stars definitely matter. I think that the model is changing where you have those, you know, the classic star driven vehicles, the content still needs to be really good, right? You can't just do those vanity projects. I think what's happened is there's this massive you know, the days of the studio chief being the thought leader or the or the tastemaker for the whole country? Yeah, I'm going to do, I'm going to I'm going to create a relationship with a movie star, and I'm going to give them 30 to 40% of the budget or something crazy like that, because it's there in it, it's automatically going to open, you know, those days are long gone. Right? The content needs to deliver it needs to be good. Right. And I think that's that's one of the many changing things that's going on in the film space. I mean, you know, in the industry, we laugh about the the backhand participation, right, because it's invisible. The whole point, kind of backhand participation was that to allow your talent to share in the upside of a movie. So you keep them engaged. The reality is, with the studio accounting being what it is, that back end, never materializes. Okay, so, so stars have to figure out a different way to get paid. So what they would do is they take a disproportionate share of the budget, all that does is shift all the risk back to the studio, in essence. So I think these economic models are all changing as the reality has changed. And the technology is changing that as well. And the reality is, everybody doesn't fully understand or not say nobody fully understands what the future of media consumption is going to be. It's not going to be one thing, it's not going to be just the Africa, it's not going to be just streaming, it's going to be a balance of all of these technologies.

Alex Ferrari 18:06
And now where does the the humble, independent filmmaker fall into all of this, this this conversation in general?

Simon Swart 18:13
Well, it's fascinating. I think the challenge for the independent filmmaker has been that as studios have moved away from the mid level star driven movies and the smaller movies, they're focusing more on the big franchises, right? The reality is two in my mind, that's a Disney game. Disney wins that game every time because there are a licensing franchise machine. That's what they do, right? Even Bob Iger says, I love I love the movies we're making, but also love great indie films and those arthouse films, which is ironic, but he goes, but he's clear that those are not the movies that Disney is going to be making. Right? Okay. And, and that's, that's obviously very, very revealing, but it's insightful. He knows what their core strength is. And he plays to it. And he's brilliant at that. But for the other studios, that leaves a lot of in between, right? If you don't have the theme parks, and you don't have that big licensing machine for all that all the toys and the T shirts and all the other stuff that goes with it, you know, where does that leave you with the independent films and those mid level movies because there is still a market for them. But but the risk is the risk is what has always been the reality is the studios aren't going to put out that money. So as an independent producer, you have to go raise the money to make the movie, you can then partner up with a studio for a distribution deal or a service deal. And that's the way to go. Then the challenge is when you have to raise as an independent filmmaker, you got to be thinking about how am I going to raise the money to actually make the movie, but at the same time, how am I going to raise the money to actually market the movie because if you don't think about that until you've finished the movie, you're at risk. Because that guy who comes in and puts up the PMA will then take control of the project that is the model right now. And I think the innovation is going to come with your releasing strategy. So the challenge for the independent filmmaker is, I'm not making a movie for Netflix, per se, I'm not going to make a movie for Amazon per se. But I've got to structure my financing in such a way that I know how I'm going to get to market. And the higher your budget goes over $10 million, the only way out as the theatrical release, or you've got to have, you've got to have covered your most of your negative with your foreign pre sales, right. So you structure your financing creatively. But most people don't think that way. Right. That's, that's not always there's a few people that get that. But for most Indies, like you've got to figure out what your strategy is, to me, Netflix is a great strategy. But just remember, with Netflix, there's not a lot of upside, there's a great business model and they're okay, paying the premium, if they own the IP, if they own your IP, that's, that's the way they're working right now. But they're but they're predominantly focused on big, big names to know if you can get that golden ticket, you know, Martin Scorsese with the Irishman, you know, that's a good deal, you, they pay you a big chunk of money for the movie and the rights and you make it for less than that, you know, the margin is what you get to keep type of thing. So the independent film model is actually a pretty exciting place to be right now. But you've got to really understand the distribution opportunities that are ahead of you, at the point that you're creating your budget. And you've got to know who your audience is

Alex Ferrari 21:22
That Yeah, that was about to say, and because I mean, I speak to independent filmmakers on a daily basis. And I'm gonna say 95% of them are the creative producer, the creative director, and they're not the business person, they, they're creating a product and have no idea where to sell it. And I'm yelling at the top of my lungs from the top of the mountain I can and going, look, if you're a real estate developer, and you make condos, you know who you're going to sell those condos to you don't just make a condo, you know, a 20, you know, 20 unit condo and go. Now let's see what we're gonna do. You don't do that.

Simon Swart 21:58
Yeah, what what? What's your business plan? Who's your audience? Who are you making this for? What are you hoping to accomplish by making this movie? Right? Because if you can answer those questions, and yeah, the first question I'll ask any independent producer, or non independent producer, director is, what is this movie most like? What What do you believe your end product is going to be most like, Can you name five movies for me that you think this movie is like? And part of that is understanding expectations? Right? It's also understanding tone. But oftentimes, if you've got an indie filmmaker coming and saying, I've got an $8 million budget movie, or a $4 million budget movie, and it's most like Star Wars, and or it's most like,

Alex Ferrari 22:40
Avatar

Simon Swart 22:42
Okay, that had like a $300 million budget, and you're going to do it for eight, and James Cameron. It's probably Yeah, and James Cameron, and, and, you know, and john Landau and studio behind you, and so on. It's like, you've got to level set expectations, right. Whereas if you're making a movie, that's a $10 million budget and want a good conscience, Juno, and one of them's Napoleon Dynamite, perhaps now you go, Okay, I'm listening. Right now I'm listening could you know, if you're gonna spend $10 million making a movie and you've, you've laid off half of it with foreign your net exposure is $5 million. And maybe you've got a one one and a half million dollar tax credit, take advantage of all that your exposure for you and your investors is three and a half million dollars. At that point, a great streaming deal, gets you into a pretty good place and gets everyone to see your movie. It's kind of like understanding how you're going to go to market what's your perfect end goal, right? And here's the thing is for us and for for where my company's at right now, for MTB pictures and tiba is, we really want to make movies for the big screen. And I know that's counter intuitive with what people are talking about in the industry and so on. But we're going to make them for the big screen wanting to be big and cinematic, we're not going to do the big budget, you know, that our biggest budgets, probably 10 to $15 million. Because at 10 to $15 million, you can get a great cast, you can get a great director, you can make something that's beautiful and deserves to be on the big screen. And by the way, if you fumble and the movie doesn't end up as good as you wanted it to be at that budget range, you can make money still without a theatrical release with a certain cast, obviously, with a certain cast. And if you patch on if you know who your audience is, you know, again, again, the challenges you need probably a minimum. And there are a lot of people that'll say you need $25 million minimum to open a movie in the US. I disagree with that. I think if you know who your audiences and you build your audience early, and you're creative on the social side, you can open for much less than that, you know, probably around eight to 10 for a relatively wide release. You but you've got to figure out where you're going to get that money from and how you're actually going to get that get that into the model. Good place, right?

Alex Ferrari 25:01
Yeah. And you could also I mean, there's there's so many different ways of doing it. I mean, I've had multiple, I've had multiple guests on, and I've done case studies of films that heart are low budget, they're a Miller $2 million, but they knew their audience so well. And they targeted them so well. And they worked on them for a year, year and a half cultivating that audience. By the time that movie came out, they killed it. They were pulling three for theatrical, and a lot of it was self theatrical where they were doing, you know, neither for walling, or on demand screenings, and they were just killing it. It was it, but there's a lot of work. And you really need to understand so many elements for that to happen. And most of those films by the way, were not star powered. They were not genre powered, or story power. Yeah,

Simon Swart 25:49
I think for for an indie you build the audience while you're shooting, or before you're shooting. You know, don't don't give up the movie, don't don't trip anything that would turn off a potential future distributor, but start building an audience as soon as possible.

Alex Ferrari 26:03
Now, can you tell me I mean, you've had great success going after niche audiences, specifically, your film, I can only imagine which was a runaway blockbuster in the realm of what you do, which is faith based films. And can you tell everybody a little bit about that film? And then how much it grossed? And because it was it was a fairly impressive movie? And what was the budget of that film? If you don't mind me telling you asking?

Simon Swart 26:27
God I think a lot of the all the credit on that movie should go to to the Irwin brothers, Cindy bond, I mean, they made something amazing. And you know, the obon brothers I'd worked with when I was at Fox and we set up a whole third party distribution model at Fox and the the twins were young filmmakers who I came across there and they had a little movie called October baby. And it was very much a faith based movie, but it was really beautiful and well shot and that was where our relationship with them started. And they've just come along so much as filmmakers you know, they've got to to a cinema scores going in in the faith based space to general market a cinema school so great filmmakers. And I think I can only imagine what worked with I can only imagine is we had a built an audience it was based on number one contemporary Christian song of all time. So it was a massive audience. Most people didn't know the story behind the song.

Alex Ferrari 27:24
Generally, most people don't care about this is the story behind the song for this song. But this song did I even know the song. And it's not that's not the music, I listened to use it. But I heard that song 1000 times.

Simon Swart 27:34
It broke, it broke out of the out of Christian music, because people just love the song was inspirational and just for, for for for giving people hope and music. I mean, it is the power of the medium. So we so we knew we had a built in audience on that one. And, you know, the Owen brothers did magic. You know, they, they they grew up shooting, you know, doing sports and music anyway. And and they were the right guys to do this project. And this in this movie is a universal story it is about so you got a built in audience, that's a major plus factor. Our budget was less than $10 million. They started building the audience a year, over a year out with limited screenings, and so on. And you know, the movies kind of a bit of a love letter to Nashville as well. But it deals with these fundamental issues of forgiveness. It doesn't become overly preachy, but it's really a father son story. But there's a love story in there also. And I think when you look at that movie, it delivers on all the beats that it set up. So no matter what you believe, it doesn't force you to enter a certain belief paradigm. You do believe in forgiveness, you do believe in love, you do believe in redemption, right? We all love those kind of underdog stories. And that's what this is, you know, it was basically a story about a kid who gets beaten by his father, who's a heavy drinking, you know, abusive dad, and eventually he he has to come to a point where he's, he can reconcile with his father, and he does this beautiful reconciliation is based on a true story. And I think, you know, that's the power of a true story, too, is that you go Yeah, that actually happened. That guy got through it. He did that this is what he accomplished. If he can do that, I can do that. You know, and that's that's something that's kind of cool about the story driven pictures.

Alex Ferrari 29:26
Yeah. And that movie, if I'm not mistaken, made about 84 million domestic and in the theatrical which is for a few days

Simon Swart 29:34
Automatic and, and again, it was a very limited marketing spend the team at Lionsgate Roadside did a great job releasing that and, you know, we had a lot to the producers had a lot to do with the releasing of that movie.

Alex Ferrari 29:49
And you understood. But the producers also understood their niche so well, that they understood that I'm I'm I'm assuming that any marketing spend wasn't just billboards and TV ad buys. They were going to churches, they were going after where that niche audience lived.

Simon Swart 30:08
Yeah, we some of the best sort of agencies in the in the business were hired on that and help guide that with, with roadside and Lionsgate. And yeah, that was an example of everything going really well. And yeah, I think I think the omens have another movie coming out, I forget the name. I still believe I think, which is coming out in March. And every every indication is, it's going to be another hit. It looks amazing. The anticipations there, if you look it up on social media, you can see the kind of following it's got already. And again, that's just an example of building your audience early on. And it's a story that people know about in the community. And you know, it's going to be a well made story, because you know, what this these filmmakers brand is?

Alex Ferrari 30:51
And, and yeah, exactly, and they are building a brand around there themselves as the Irwin brothers, just like Spielberg is a brand and Scorsese is a brand. Yeah. And they're also doing it for a smart number, too. It's like, it's not like they're making this $400 million.

Simon Swart 31:06
Right? Right. budgets, the budgets very rational. If you've got a very targeted audience, you know, I again, I think as an indie filmmaker, you've always got to rationalize your budget, that's part of knowing who your audience is, and how you're going to go to market. So maybe making a movie for $20 million, when you can get the same result for eight or nine. You know, that's just asking for trouble. I mean, you know, one of the most famous indies of recent memories get out. I mean, look at how, look at Jordan peels brand, look at how he's exploded, you know, but he didn't just show up. He paid his dues. You know, he took some creative risks, but, you know, I want to say get out was made for what less than $5 million? You know, and that did I think they did over 100

Alex Ferrari 31:50
Oh, no, It didn't it I think it did, like 200 something.

Simon Swart 31:54
Some it was some crazy number and what a brilliant movie it was, it was just so fresh. Right?

Alex Ferrari 31:59
Right in But with that, that's one of those, you know, he was with the Blum house, guys. So then that's a whole other conversation with Blum house has been able to do and they've been so smart.

Simon Swart 32:11
So that's one of my other points as an indie filmmaker, don't compare yourself to a lightning strike.

Alex Ferrari 32:17
Okay. Oh, that's great. I like that. Yeah, like, Oh, yeah, movies, just like paranormal activity. Movies, just like Blair Witch Project.

Simon Swart 32:26
Yeah, we're all aware of the outliers, right? It's like, you know, what, actually, when I was working at Disney, the first movie I got to work on was Lion King. Okay. And this is something I learned. Every other movie animated movie that came out after Lion King was the next Lion King. And the problem is, they are all very successful. But they didn't do what Lion King did. So they were deemed failures. And so it's kind of like dog bent, your mark yourself. For an outlier. I think the key thing in independent film is that you've got to set yourself up where singles and doubles are a good thing. But if you hit a home run, you're great, right? But you're playing for the singles and doubles, like get on base, just get on base, you know, that that sets you up for your next project, your next thing, and if you hit a home run, you're you're ready to go. And it's kind of like, every project I look at now. It's like, how do I get back to break even? Right? failure should be breakeven. And I want to know that I've got a plan for break even. And then how do I set myself up? Well, this is this movie capable of a disproportionate return. Right? And the disproportionate return is that big, you know, the Juno type number, the Napoleon Dynamite type number, the guitar type number. So but you're not banking on the breakout? You're banking on a single or double?

Alex Ferrari 33:45
Have I? Have you been listening to my podcast, sir, because you literally said the exact thing I've said so many times with my baseball analogy. I go, everybody wants to go up to bat and hit a homerun. But most people when they make their first movie, haven't even been in a baseball stadium or picked up a bat before. And they're expecting to hit a home run at the beginning where there's that other guy or girl who's been in the batting cage, just hitting away hitting away hitting away and just practicing until they finally get their shot up at Pat. You know, it's it's fascinating the the egotistic mind of the filmmaker which there is a few egos in our business, just a few now many. But we we have these delusions of grandeur, as filmmakers I definitely had for many years. You know, I was going to be the next this or my film was going to do this thing. I'm sure you've run into this many times.

Simon Swart 34:39
So in fairness, indie hustle, I want to reveal my sources. Okay,

Alex Ferrari 34:43
I appreciate that.

Simon Swart 34:44
Yeah. run into it all the time. It's a process right? And you're gonna pay your dues you've got to learn, right? And by the way, there's a ton of people out there that will help you. As an indie filmmaker, you've got to build up your network, find the people that can help you and advise you. There's a lot of people that will give you advice for relatively free, don't pay for the advice yet, you know, verified so I see a lot of people getting suckered by paying people to to market their movies when they haven't fully vetted them and they make bad deals and so on. There's a lot of people out there that will advise you as an indie filmmaker, there's a lot of resources out there available, too. But remember, it's a slog. And yeah, I mean, my hat's off to anyone actually makes a movie because a movie even if it's shot on your iPhone, and it's edited and put together, it's a it's a pretty significant creative accomplishment, no matter you know, just to actually pull it all together, right people to perform and so on. I mean, when when you've been on sets of on Indies, you know, I enjoy indies because there's, there's a lot less, less a lot less room for waste. So everybody's very mission focused. And usually that crew is tight, man, it's like they will do they're in battle man, and they're going to get the shots, they're going to get the coverage. And you know, that the your indie director is, is the ultimate team leader, because he doesn't have money to throw around the way a big studio director might have, right? Like, you got to do this for the passion, you've got to enroll your entire cast and crew in your vision for what you're doing. And, and that isn't easy. That takes a lot of practice. That's why it's like working on other people's movies is really one of the best ways to learn because you you're in this together, you problem solve together,

Alex Ferrari 36:27
Without without questions, a preach, preach. Now we want to talk a little bit about distribution and distribution options for independent filmmakers. You know, I've talked a lot about distribution on my show. And on my other show film shoprunner, where is about how to get your film out there. And it's the landscape is changing so rapidly, every other month, there's something new what was true, last year is no longer true today, in every it's streaming and theatrical and on demand, and DVD, all of it. You know, these legacy models, I call it the legacy distribution models, which were basically designed by the studios, and the larger distribution companies to keep more money in their own pockets, because their businesses, I get it. And we've all heard those kind of predatory stories of the filmmaker signing the bet their movie away for 15 years and never seen a dime. We've all heard those stories. What are the distribution options that we have his district as independent filmmakers moving forward from your point of view?

Simon Swart 37:28
Oh, look, the number one predictor of downstream revenue, you know, ironically, right, everyone's talking about all the disruption, all the stuff that's going on the chaos of streaming with Amazon, Hulu, Netflix coming on board, how the studio's are struggling, and so on. But still, the number one predictor of downstream revenues for a movie is the US domestic box office. And it's like that, that brings a lot of clarity to all the discussions that are happening around the world and in the space, right, that is the number one predictor of overall profitability. And what I mean by that is, it still sets most of the downstream revenue streams. So if you have a guaranteed domestic release with a reputable domestic distributor on say, 1000 screens, your foreign value goes up by four or 5x, maybe even more, depending on the package, right. So that is still the number one way to go. But the problem is, it's really hard to get there. Which is why you want to have the option of bringing your own PMA if you can, because that gives you the option to release yourself and manage it yourself. However, if your budgets right, you can still get enough money out of foreign and if you structure a draft, taking advantage of tax credits and things like that. Yeah, you can, you can then release also directly to an HBO or a Netflix or Hulu or an Amazon right. Now you can also get audit, you can also get your product ordered and paid for ahead of time, in some cases, by those guys, if you if you're hitting something that they know that they have a need for or niche. But if you're an unknown, that's pretty hard. You know, so so at the end of the day, you can you can self released digitally, you can put it on a digital platform yourself. The problem is you still need someone to find your movie. You know, the the marketing, you can't release a movie without marketing, you have to have a marketing plan. You might have the best movie in the world you might have be, you know, you might have the next Napoleon Dynamite, for example. But if people can't find it and don't know about it, you're never going to build up that word of mouth. So you've got to have some kind of strategy for releasing when you're making the movie. Right? So you've got a couple of marketing and with it, I mean, the distribution landscape is really complex right now you've got windows collapsing. So it's kind of you know, it used to be that you would make a fair amount of your money on the theatrical release if you could recover most of your marketing money and that theatrical release, that was a good thing, because then you could try and recover your negative in the downstream, right? You know, the streaming services used to pay a percentage of the domestic box office, this TV syndication would pay a percentage of the domestic box office. And then your your, your digital and DVD and blu ray, you know, digital being transactional, if you pay to watch it again, like pay per view, or you you buy digitally on iTunes, that used to be most of the profit of a movie. Right. But that's collapsing with the advent of streaming. That's, that's, that's where that's where the industry is in a scramble, because all that secondary transactional revenue is shrinking. And what I call transactional revenue, as again, if a consumer pays to watch it again, either by renting it on on video on demand, or buying it on iTunes or buying a DVD or buying a blu ray. And by the way, you know, people are still buying DVDs and blu rays. If you have a, if you have a big screen TV, and you've got the biggest high Ultra High Definition screen, the best way to watch your best sci fi movie, these Marvel movies, I would argue is still on a blu ray. It's the best way to replicate what what you saw in theater, because of transfer rates, buffer rates, and all of that stuff is changing. But you know, each of these individual segments, so I still think I still think physical media of some form or digital media is that's the legacy platform. That's where as a filmmaker, you get to explain your journey you get, that's where people will discover your movie. And I think that's something we do have to solve for. And I know previously that a lot of talk going on about blockchain and how that can apply to how consumers can transfer rights and how they can renew right?

Alex Ferrari 41:45
Explain. Explain that to people. Because I know a lot of people don't understand blockchain.

Simon Swart 41:49
So I don't understand it fully. So I'm going to qualify, but what I understand is that it's basically it's this amazing certification where if you have a share certificate, or it's like having $1. And as I'm not talking Bitcoin, but if you buy the right to a movie, so let's say you buy the right to, I can only imagine you pay $12 or $15, right? Through blockchain technology, it'll identify that I'm the legal owner of that digital copy of that file. That means copy parts that can't be taken away from me. But that blockchain also identifies that the obon brothers own the copyright to that, that that file as well, right. So it's kind of like this perfect aligning of rights, where it's encrypted and protected. So I have the right to that movie, I can now sell that to you. If I want to, I can sell it to you for $7 or $8. But I own that right. And I can certify that I have that right. So

Alex Ferrari 42:43
Like DVDs, blu rays, or VHS, any physical media, you could do that with as well.

Simon Swart 42:47
Yeah, except with blockchain, you won't be able to rip it. And I won't be able to share it. So so for the studios and for the people that are making movies. I mean, let's face it, piracy has been a Bane on the business since since since smart cams and VHS right? And piracy is not is a major issue. Because the creators, we have so many challenges actually making money on our movie anyway, getting it through the traditional system, people are taking it for free and actually making money off of what you've created. So you know, piracy is not one of those victimless crimes, I really don't. I don't believe it's a victimless crime. People are selling it and making money without actually putting the investment and the time and and people that have worked on the movie are therefore not getting paid. I mean, that is a fundamental problem. And I think that is one of those things that the blockchain technology can actually help address and fix. I don't think it's there yet. But I think that's the promise of it. That's that's the way studios are looking at it. That's the way content creators are looking at and distributors are going. Okay, how do I make sure this happens? I mean, the irony is, you know, you broke the story about the digital platform, the aggregator

Alex Ferrari 43:57
Yeah, the distribute platform, yes,

Simon Swart 43:59
That kind of went sideways, or went under and people lost a lot of money. The funny thing is, is that when you're selling blu rays and DVDs, there's an audit trail that goes with that, like, I know that I shipped these discs to that retailer, and that retailer, then sold them and I got paid and I can trace the money all the way coming back, right? with digital technology. Ironically, even with the downloading and the you know, the the digital downloading on iTunes and Amazon, it's almost impossible to audit. Even though there should be one relationship, there should be a trail that says my credit card was charged $14 for the movie, therefore the studio should be able to know that, you know, they can follow that revenue all the way through the system. It's not it's not that's how it should be. But it doesn't work that way.

Alex Ferrari 44:46
Yeah, I was always wondering that myself because I'm like, who like, you know, how do I really know how much money is coming? There's no way to actually check it. There's no way to audit it. I'm trusting Amazon, I'm trusting iTunes, I'm trusting all of them. That could easily be siphoning off. I'm not saying they are, but easily by either by error or whatever. But we can't really prove that we got all the money that we get. We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor. And now back to the show.

Simon Swart 45:20
Right? There's, there's quite a few opportunities to leakage in the current system. Yeah, there was an opposition. Well, there was there was leakage when you're shipping DVDs, because people could make copies of DVDs. And they could rip them and then they put them they put them on the internet, and then sharing them through bit torrents and all that kind of stuff. And you know that that's a constant process. And you know, that's where I think, again, just coming back to my limited knowledge of blockchain, that's where blockchain is the promise to actually shut that down. But it also will, I think, it also has the potential to create a whole secondary and tertiary market for the content that we've all bought, right? So the days of us having our big physical libraries, you know, of us owning all our favorite movies and having them on DVD and blu ray, I think what's going to happen is, we're going to have a digital library, I think our absolute favorite movies we're going to want on whatever the the hottest format is, that's going to give us the best experience at home. So there's a handful of movies that we're going to want to own physically and we'll rebuy all our star wars, right, going back to your first question, right? When Star Wars comes out again, and it's ultra high definition. And there's all these interactive features, and you've now got a, you know,

Alex Ferrari 46:32
A hologram holographic George Lucas, who will talk through the entire movie for you.

Simon Swart 46:38
Exactly, and your TV's the size of the wall in your house. And it's a high definition. So you're gonna want to buy it on that format for that movie. But the vast majority of other movies, you're probably going to be okay just to streaming, write things out, or to wait until it comes on syndicated TV, you'll pay TV, that type of thing.

Alex Ferrari 46:56
If there's even TV then who knows?

Simon Swart 47:00
It's all going to be a series of channel absence, everything's going to be over the top.

Alex Ferrari 47:05
Without without question. I mean, things are changing so rapidly. I mean, I mean, I again, I talked to independent filmmakers so often, and I'm always getting these questions like how do I make money? What do I do this or that? And I've really tried to stay on the cutting edge and I love this, this blockchain idea of yours, you know, or the or the or the promise of it? Because it's basically Well, you know, for people who don't understand blockchain blockchain it is the basis of cryptocurrency. So it so that that then you have to, you know, whoever wants to learn about cryptocurrency, please go do so that's a that's a deep well, that we will not cover in this episode. But that, but that technology does have so much promise that I always got pissed about that, too. Because I come from the video store days, when I worked in a video store where I could buy my VHS or buy a DVD, I'd hold it. And then what I didn't want anymore, I would sell it on Amazon or eBay, digitally, that does not exist anymore. It's you can't sell a digital copy unless they bootleg it. And even if you bootleg it, you can't really sell it in a digital way. You can. There's other ways as other business models,

Simon Swart 48:12
Inherently as a consumer, I should have the right to sell that right. I could sell it to you. And you know, and that's that's the stuff that I think blockchain actually enables. And I think it's it's high time because the reality is when you do buy a digital file, now you're not actually buying it. You're kind of renting it. Oh, yeah. I don't have it all to put on your hard drive. But it's not like something else you buy that you can sell to someone else. That's basically Yeah, I'm renting it. By the way, if I change my cable company or something like that, God forbid, I'm probably going to lose it. I just that's it. That's the reality.

Alex Ferrari 48:45
Yeah, without question. Now, do you? Do you think and I believe it is. But do you believe that niche based films are the future of independent filmmaking? Because I always tell people all the time, that film independent filmmakers can't do a giant like a romantic comedy, a broad spectrum film, you know, a $10 million romantic comedy unless there's some major star power in it. And that story has to be really, you're now you're really trying to hit that target. So perfectly. You risk a lot. Whereas if you I always use the vegan chef movie, you make vegan chef movie that's romantic. And you could target that demographic a little bit, but I'd love to hear your thoughts.

Simon Swart 49:25
Yeah, I think you have to have a clear idea about who your core audiences. But you know, the exception to that is, you know, you take a movie like the big sick last year, right, even Napoleon Dynamite it's just one of my favorites because it's illustrated. It's a small movie, you know who your core demographic is, but it has the ability to break out because deals with the human experience, right? And that for me, so it depends on your on your genre and what you're doing right. So I tend to focus on content that unites and inspires people. And I gravitate towards stories which have a broad appeal, even though I will know exactly who my core audience is. Right. So if you're going to do a sci fi movie, that's a high tech, and that's going to appeal to that subset. Yeah, you always got to know who your core audience is, and you got to know where they are and how to get to them. And you've got to know that at the script stage, frankly, but you're always hoping that you're doing like, again, for me, I'm looking for movies that have that breakout potential, and they only break out if they connect beyond that niche. Now, not faith based movies are interesting, because in a way, they're their ultimate niche. So much like horror movies are kind of a niche, they're a bigger, more commercial niche, right. But if you're going to do a faith based movie for a niche, then you must do it for a budget.

Alex Ferrari 50:47
A smart number a smart,

Simon Swart 50:48
You got to do it for a rational number, because that's your core. And you know, that, you know, that's going to be narrow and deep. Right. Saqqara, you know that if you get the core and it'd be narrow and deep, but it has the ability to run? Right?

Alex Ferrari 51:01
It's like get out, like get out?

Simon Swart 51:03
Yeah, exactly. I mean, that's just, I wouldn't even consider that exactly hard. But you're right, it was that blumhouse model, and it's like, this is they know what to do, you know? So So yes, I think I think independent, I don't think independent film is just as just niche, but I think you you've got to have a hook that you can hold on to, right? Like when I read a script, I'm I read scripts backwards from most creatives. I'm thinking if I'm thinking of it from a distribution standpoint, and how am I going to market it? Where are the scenes that are going to be my trailer? You know,

Alex Ferrari 51:37
what am I thinking that way?

Simon Swart 51:38
That's, that's what I'm looking through. That's what I'm looking through a script looking for. Does that help?

Alex Ferrari 51:45
Yeah, it helps. I mean, I think that I agree with what you're saying. And that potential to break out is that home run. So we, you know, as well, as I do, we get one, maybe two of those a year, you know it, and then there's multiple levels of that breakout. So it could be you know, if I, if I could only imagine a 25 or $30 million, you would have been, you know, they would have been ecstatic, like, Oh, my God, you know, because it was a super hit up, but then you occasionally get the Grand Slam, which is, you know, tenfold of what the budget is or something along those lines. But I do, I do truly believe that gatekeeping that, but when you're when your budget goes higher, you've got to have something to, to, to hedge your bets. So it's either cast, it's either it's either cats story, niche genre, something that's going to hedge those bets, the higher that budget goes, Oh, sure, then, and I'm always telling people to drop the budget as low as you possibly can, while still being able to create an MVP, a minimum viable product, to get to realize your dream and realize your vision, but get a product to the marketplace and not just look at this as an art form. It is an art form. But it is a business. And it is a very expensive art form to work with.

Simon Swart 53:02
Do you agree? Absolutely. I mean, there's so many independent creatives that I've come across that know exactly how to make a movie for a budget. And that's, that's a massive skill by itself. But these days, you have to know how you're going to get that money back to, you can't just know that you have to know the other party as well. So it's kind of like, like you're saying, if I'm going to do a niche movie, you know, I'll use an example. If you're going to do an inner city basketball movie, okay, it's probably not going to travel very well. You're going to have to make your money in the US now. The markets are changing. Don't get me wrong, it's changing. Maybe you can sell it in China, if they stopped tweeting about it. You know, the NBA and they said lead hash but but you know what I'm saying it's like if you do a very local movie, you've got to know that it's probably not going to travel well, therefore, you make it that way. And your distribution plan fits that accordingly. Right. So you know that you're going to make all your money in that local market. And then anything you make overseas is going to be gravy. It'll be incidental, but that's not core to my business plan, right? It's like a baseball movie. Do a baseball movie. There's only a few countries in the world that is really going to work. If you do a movie about NFL football, you know blindsides. Probably like an exception that traveled really well because it wasn't really about football.

Alex Ferrari 54:23
No, Sandra Bullock to and Santa Bocas international star.

Simon Swart 54:26
Yeah, so that's not the example. But it's like there are certain genres that you know that you know, a pretty nippy, and they're probably not going to break out. And you've got it, you've got to, you've got to have that plan and that understand, you're going to be honest, in the development stage of your movie.

Alex Ferrari 54:41
It's kind of like if I use another analogy, if you're in a, let's say, you're in Colombia, and you are a baker, and you make this certain Colombian pastry that is very well known in that segment of the country, not even the whole country, just that segment of the country. It's a niche product. But then you say I'm gonna throw 30 million on this pastry because I think the rest of the world is gonna we've seen how many products like that we've seen that are culturally great. But the second they tried to break into the American market or another market, they just like I would never eat pig, like, yeah, it's trying to sell like a Big Mac in India didn't go well.

Simon Swart 55:19
Yeah, well, well see now that gets into the heart of the DNA of the creative, right? Again, coming back to what our company strategy is, our game plan is to make movies that will work in the US marketplace. That is one of the lenses that we use. It's not everyone's lens, that's just our lens, there are going to be filmmakers that are going to go I only want a movie that's going to appeal to the African audience, or it's only going to work for the Indian audience. And by the way, I've got a business plan, that's going to work just fine. Right? There's nothing wrong with that. That's, that's totally those are all viable options and plans, but you calibrate and scale your production appropriately. Okay. But again, for us, we're creating content that we believe will and we're going to cast it, and we're going to package it, we want it to work in the US marketplace. Because generally, if you can break it in the US marketplace, that is a pretty good indicator that it will travel elsewhere.

Alex Ferrari 56:14
Yeah. And it's, it's just fascinating. I've just seen, I mean, I know filmmakers, like Isaac namaha, who is a filmmaker in Uganda. And he makes films locally, and he created a whole industry in Uganda. And he makes his films for $200 $200. us. I think that's really exciting for us. Yeah, exactly. And now Africa is turning into a whole thing. I mean, there's a lot of Nollywood and all these kind of wonderful.

Simon Swart 56:45
There's so much media growth potential right now. And it's a it's a great thing.

Alex Ferrari 56:51
But the funny thing is that with with Isaac's example, he made these little $200 movies that were actually really just fun and action and the visual effects are horrendous, and you know, according to our standards, but his audiences loved it. And then he had a cult following worldwide. So now he travels the world with these little movies. But he had breakout potential, but I I promise you this I interviewed him. He had no indication of ever getting out of his little town.

Simon Swart 57:20
But he but he's gonna break out he Yeah, he did already. He already asked people like, where did this guy come from? Well, he's been doing this for a long time he got here it is.

Alex Ferrari 57:29
Right 40 features under his belt.

Simon Swart 57:32
Tyler Perry's a brilliant example that, yeah, just brilliant, right? just unbelievable. He saw a niche that was completely underserved, which is the African American woman. Right? Nobody was catering to them at all. And he saw that opportunity. And he saw the opportunity for positive messaging. And he filled that gap. And it like, kudos and credit to him as he saw that niche, and you recognize what it was worth, and he committed himself to it. And it's just one of those amazing success stories. But it wasn't an overnight success. It was it was it was a lot of blood, sweat and tears and just a lot of courage. Frankly,

Alex Ferrari 58:12
No, I remember seeing diary of the black of a mad black woman when it first came out, which was a big, huge deal when it came out. It was like how can they make this movie? There was a lot of controversy and all this stuff. I remember that was like in the 90s if I remember. Yeah, it was in the 90s when that came out, and he was just getting started. And now fast forward. 2019. He's got a studio in Atlanta that's bigger than Disney Warner's at Paramount I'll put together.

Simon Swart 58:36
Yeah, Isn't it cool? It's like saying, stories that get me really excited. I mean, you know, frankly, I mean, there's a lot of that stuff going on. So like ntb, our company to talk about my company a little bit. Sure. Our headquarters is in South Africa, because there's exciting stuff going on South Africa, but most people don't know is that all the major studios, Netflix and Amazon included, are shooting down there. Because it doubles for just about anywhere in the world. The exchange rate is fantastic. There's an incredibly strong local crew down there. And there's a great exit incentive. Yeah, the problem is it's a long way away. But it's like, there's something exciting to me about building these industries in places in these more remote places where technology is possible, it makes it possible, right. And you get these great crews and the quality of the production happening down there is remarkable. So we're not exclusively producing movies down there. We just have a very strong proclivity to want to do more down there. Because all the studios are doing it down there. They see what we see. But what happens is all the IP and all that the upside goes comes back to the stage. So it goes back to Europe, etc. And it's like, we can do this. We can cast it this way we can create movies that are made for the American market, because it's already happening in South Africa now. And yeah, South Africa has just been a country that has consistently hit above its weight class, shall we say. And we This message of diversity, it truly is a remarkable place right now, given its history. And I actually think South Africa, being a former South African, has a message for the world right now in terms of diversity in terms of unity in terms of, you know, kind of a message of humanity and bringing people together. And I think it's what we all need right now. And, again, you can tell that's the kind of content that really draws me that draws me out is stuff that brings people together where we share our common humanity and challenges us

Alex Ferrari 1:00:31
And and there's there needs to be more producers like you out there. So doing doing the good work that you're doing. So I thank you, I thank you very much. I wanted to ask you, can you tell me about your new project, I am all girls.

Simon Swart 1:00:44
Yeah, this one's a very cool little project we did. It's a it's a great indie, had a very talented director, Donovan Marsh, who did hunter killer with Gerard Butler that released last year. And coming off that big movie, he wanted to do something that was kind of small and personal, but had an impact. And in South Africa, I don't know, a story of broken a couple of years ago about this human trafficking that was going on, in South Africa. And it became very clear that human trafficking is a global plot. It's a massive problem that people don't want to talk about. And it's happening in the US, it's not a South African problem. It's not an Asian problem, or a Middle Eastern problem. It's truly a global problem. And, you know, slavery has been a problem since the beginning of time. So we wanted to create a movie that was commercial, it was entertaining, but we wanted to explore the world of the people that actually go into the human trafficking world to try and stop it. And, and ascertain what, what the impact is on those people. So this is kind of a crime thriller, it starts off as kind of a vigilante movie. And you realize it starts off as a serial killer movie, but then you realize it's a vigilante movie, and as a conflict between the investigating police officer who realizes that this killer might actually be doing her work for her, where she is constrained by the rules and the regulations, this, this vigilante is going to the place that she can't go and you know, she's she's torn by by duty, and she wants to do it the right way. Now, she's like, Okay, do I bring this person in, and then she discovers the identity of the killer. So it's kind of a very commercial thriller, we have two, two female leads to great South African actresses. And it basically is based on relevance. It's based on stuff that actually occurred in South Africa in the 90s. But when you look at the me to movement, you look at what's going on, we wanted to create a movie, that one that would wake people up and want to get them more involved in anti trafficking, and just being aware of what's going on in their own communities. And that's one of the reasons we created this movie, but we recognize it's entertainment as well. So we're going to entertain people, it said, the cinematography is stunning. We tested it in front of a US audience, we tested just above the norms, and above and well above the norms against the female targeted audience. But, you know, it was really gratifying to us as more than 85% of the recruited audience in the US said they wanted to get more involved in anti trafficking activities. That's, and ultimately, for us as independent filmmakers. That's the Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval for us. And actually, we've got a song from Pearl Jam on the soundtrack. That hit daughter, and, and Nancy Wilson from heart soul, one of the rough cuts of the movie, and she was so moved, she actually did a cover of it, that will just blow you away. And she is, she is so talented. But the song just captures the energy and the defiance and the brokenness and the strength, but just, it really epitomized what we created in the movie. And you know, and then happens, it's really magical. That's amazing.

Alex Ferrari 1:03:55
I look forward to seeing that movie. So you're doing good work out there. And I'm so I'm so glad that you were able to come on the show and talk, drop some knowledge bombs on the show, and I'm gonna ask you a few questions. I asked all of my guests. Sure. So what advice would you give a filmmaker trying to break into the business today?

Simon Swart 1:04:12
Get into the business, do something and find people to learn from build, build a network, start building your network right now, where you are, whoever you went to film school with? Those are probably the guys you're going to work with again in the future, and make sure your networks all supporting each other?

Alex Ferrari 1:04:28
What is the lesson that took you the longest to learn whether in the film business or in life?

Simon Swart 1:04:34
Sure, if it's not coming together correctly, you know, be patient. And sometimes it's not. Sometimes if it's not coming together, there's a reason why. And you've got to be open to the possibility that maybe it's not meant to be and then you move on to the next slide, cut your losses. There's kind of a balance between cutting your losses and being the stoic champion of the movie, right? If you're hearing the same answer again and again, for many people, it's Probably about right. But you know, but but don't don't let that crush your creative instinct. And I know that Allen's but yes and and you don't have to win every battle.

Alex Ferrari 1:05:11
Yes, yes. Especially in this in this business it's very difficult to win every battle,

Simon Swart 1:05:17
Figure out which ones you must win and be okay to lose a few.

Alex Ferrari 1:05:20
It's okay. Now what was the biggest fear you had to overcome when making your very first feature film?

Simon Swart 1:05:28
The biggest fear I had to overcome in making it was actually it was it was based on a true story. And for me, my biggest fear was that we would accurately portray the life of this person whose movie we didn't have as a movie called six below. Okay, and we wanted to accurate you know, because because to me when you're doing a true story of someone's life, it's a sacred trust. And and I really wanted to make sure that we delivered on that and and of course made it on time,

Alex Ferrari 1:05:57
Ofcourse, and I'm on time and on budget, sir.

Simon Swart 1:05:58
And I've been on budget. Yes, sir.

Alex Ferrari 1:06:01
Now, what are three of your favorite films of all time?

Simon Swart 1:06:05
Oh, that's a rough question. I've got to say Apocalypse Now is up their passions up there. There's definitely a couple of thing going there. Apocalypse Now mainly because one of my favorite books growing up I was a peculiar kid was Heart of Darkness. You're very popular kid. That translation of it, it was just stunning. And and yeah, that's that's probably not and I've got this is this is not good, but probably Dumb and Dumber. Hey, good thing about Mary. I mean, I love the foreign labor. Early work. Yeah. And the fact the fact that Peter Farley is Ed just did the Green Book too, is stunning to me. And as a filmmaker I love I love his work. And he always has something more in his movies, even his his crazy comedies, this there's something just there's just such a great heart in there.

Alex Ferrari 1:07:01
The wouldn't have been interesting, though, to see Apocalypse Now by George Lucas, who was originally slated to direct that movie. Yeah, that would have been interesting film.

Simon Swart 1:07:12
Well, you know, one of my anecdotes with Francis Ford Coppola. So we're working on the DVD set, this might be the segment you want to cut. But it's like now, what I'd say to young filmmakers, just remember that the thing that you're doing, that gets you fired might be the thing you're remembered for. And the reason why I say that is that my we did this whole thing with Francis Ford Coppola around the making of pattern. And, you know, we did a special edition and so on. And he talked about that opening scene and pattern and that opening monologue. And he was actually fired. He was about to be fired off of godfather. Apparently, the sob story goes, he was fired off of patent. And he was about to be fired off of godfather when he won the Academy Award for patents. Okay. And that. So it's kind of funny how that works, right? This industry is not as predictable as you would seem. It's not a straight line. And, and you look at what the great filmmaker like that and the creative risks that he took, and conventional wisdom at the time was that this scene sucks. Why are you doing this? This is terrible. You got an Academy Award for it. And he got to finish the Godfather as a result of that. And that's that's true story stuff. And imagine, imagine the Godfather without Francis Ford Coppola.

Alex Ferrari 1:08:29
You can't there is no godfather without Francis Ford Coppola,

Simon Swart 1:08:32
You know, so so. So I guess to the young filmmakers out there, it's not a straight line. It's it can be a pretty bumpy road, and stay the course men.

Alex Ferrari 1:08:42
Without the question. I promise you everyone listening right now, whatever you think is going to happen in your career, it is not going to happen. Not like that.

Simon Swart 1:08:50
It's got to be different. Exactly. And if it does happen like that, God bless you. Be thankful. But if it doesn't just remember, it's a it's a marathon, not a sprint.

Alex Ferrari 1:08:59
Exactly. Without question, Simon, where can people find you and more about your work that you're doing?

Simon Swart 1:09:05
Um, well, I'm pretty much on LinkedIn. And we have a company website in teba pictures. So it's a bit of a mouthful, and

Alex Ferrari 1:09:12
I'll put it on the up, put it in the show notes or

Simon Swart 1:09:14
Show ntb pictures. You can see more about us and the stuff that we're working on. So yeah.

Alex Ferrari 1:09:20
Simon, thank you so much for being on the show. And I do appreciate you taking the time out, man.

Simon Swart 1:09:24
Cheers thanks, Alex. It's been a lot of fun.