Film and Family
Ep. 96 - Self Distributing on Film Hub with Lenni Uitto
Director of the post-apocalyptic film, Permafrost, Lenni Uitto takes us behind the scenes and shares his experiences making and ultimately self-distributing his first film with Film Hub.
Join us as we unravel Lenni's journey from coding to creating post-apocalyptic films. From making camping videos on YouTube to experimenting with After Effects and even taking acting classes, Lenny's story is a testament to how following your passion can lead to unexpected and rewarding paths. We explore how his love for storytelling led him to create short films that have garnered impressive online viewership, followed by his first feature film.
Reflecting on his own experiences, Lenni shares the highs and lows of quitting a stable job to chase the dreams of acting and filmmaking. The importance of financial stability became evident as he navigated the challenges of an industry hit hard by the COVID-19 pandemic. With a touch of serendipity, a friend's intriguing story idea sparked the creation of his post-apocalyptic film, showcasing creativity and resilience to produce meaningful art amidst adversity.
Expect an in-depth look at the nitty-gritty of indie filmmaking, from budgeting and resourcefulness to the crucial role of collaboration. We discuss practical tips on managing costs, securing essential equipment, and feeding a cast and crew on a budget. We also dive into film distribution, marketing strategies, the process of audience targeting, and specifically Lenni's experience and results so far partnering with an aggregator, Film Hub, to release his movie.
Free "Make Your Feature Film" Checklist
Schedule my Greenlight Call
Director of the post-apocalyptic film, Permafrost, Lenni Uitto takes us behind the scenes and shares his experiences making and ultimately self-distributing his first film with Film Hub.
Join us as we unravel Lenni's journey from coding to creating post-apocalyptic films. From making camping videos on YouTube to experimenting with After Effects and even taking acting classes, Lenny's story is a testament to how following your passion can lead to unexpected and rewarding paths. We explore how his love for storytelling led him to create short films that have garnered impressive online viewership, followed by his first feature film.
Reflecting on his own experiences, Lenni shares the highs and lows of quitting a stable job to chase the dreams of acting and filmmaking. The importance of financial stability became evident as he navigated the challenges of an industry hit hard by the COVID-19 pandemic. With a touch of serendipity, a friend's intriguing story idea sparked the creation of his post-apocalyptic film, showcasing creativity and resilience to produce meaningful art amidst adversity.
Expect an in-depth look at the nitty-gritty of indie filmmaking, from budgeting and resourcefulness to the crucial role of collaboration. We discuss practical tips on managing costs, securing essential equipment, and feeding a cast and crew on a budget. We also dive into film distribution, marketing strategies, the process of audience targeting, and specifically Lenni's experience and results so far partnering with an aggregator, Film Hub, to release his movie.
Free "Make Your Feature Film" Checklist
Schedule my Greenlight Call
okay, all right lenny welcome to the welcome to the podcast podcast.
Speaker 1:I like, at this, like moment of doubt, welcome, where are we? What is the name of this podcast?
Speaker 1:because I was at film and family, which is the name is the name, but we have changed've changed the name a couple times. Well, now that we all are agreed that we are on the podcast called by its name, which is Film and Family Welcome, lenny, thanks. So you're based out of Utah and you directed a film recently called Permafrost, which we'll get into and released it, and we're going to talk about your distribution journey as well as your filmmaking journey. But first, before all that, I'd love to get a little background on your like early, early filmmaking journey. So so I didn't always want to make movies.
Speaker 3:That's the funny part about it. I went to college in computer science so I was thinking I'm going to make video games or something. And then I was like I decided I kind of strayed away from that idea because I heard that video game making was really time consuming and I was like, oh, if I ever do that, I'll never have a family or this or that. You hear about video game makers back then where they just sleep at their office, anyhow. So I was like, oh, yeah, video games cool and stuff. And so I got into that. I got a degree in computer science and then I started working as a software engineer, which is completely different than any path in filmmaking, right. And then, yeah, you know like it's, it's just different. It's not, as, at least I don't think it's as creative as, uh, filmmaking and telling stories. Um, so I did that.
Speaker 3:And then I started making these little videos in the forest. This is like my whole story, I guess. Yeah, yeah, but um, so I started making these little videos in the forest. This is like my whole story, I guess. But um, so I started making these little like camping videos and I post them on YouTube and there's still a channel out there, please don't look for it, but just me like camping in the woods and just making a fire and and I do like I just like a little GoPro or whatever. It was really shoddy filmmaking, and trust me when I say that it was shoddy, and so I was doing that for the longest, for the little while, and I found that I really enjoyed it. My editing was horrible back then, though. I'd have these really long takes of like you're just like, why would anyone watch this?
Speaker 3:And then I started. I was like, well, this is really fun. And I started playing with after effects after that. So it kind of was like me dipping my feet into filmmaking and then I started doing after effects, you know, lightsaber effects and stuff, like fun things that people want to play with when they're first, like you know, getting want to play with when they're first, like you know, getting into that, and they go right, yeah, you can make a lightsaber, yeah, um, so I did that and, like, none of those videos are online anymore.
Speaker 3:I had some really, really, uh, ridiculous videos I made. Uh, they're still on youtube but they're all like private now. And so I did that and, um, I started taking an acting class with a local, jim Stevens. His class was like Actors Anonymous, aa, which it was, you know, aa for actors, and yeah. So I started taking that and I think I like, I really like acting, because it's a form of storytelling from the actor's point of view, and I did that for a while.
Speaker 3:And then I was like well, I want to make a film. And I had a friend who was an actor and so I was like there's a little short film, you know directed this thing and that kind of was, I guess, where I was like, okay, I really like doing this and I felt like I was pretty good at it too. I knew I wasn't making like really horrible stuff at that time and it was post-apocalyptic and that's kind of like what I really enjoy watching, and so that's kind of a lot of my stuff has been post-apocalyptic and I have done some stuff that's like not so post-apocalyptic but um, it's just. Yeah, I'm just drawn to that genre because it's the storytelling I like doing. I think also, having a world where things aren't normal allows you to take more extreme measures on circumstances with different characters and, um, in a normal world sometimes there's logic that says that doesn't make sense and so from that standpoint, I think, um, I, I enjoyed doing the post-apocalyptic thing and so that's kind of where I sort of started doing these short films.
Speaker 3:Um, I'm trying to like not be like super verbose and just say so much that you're just like wow but that's kind of getting into. Sorry, do you have any questions?
Speaker 1:Oh, I was just saying that's kind of leading into this like um like. Does that lead straight into your first feature, or did you do a lot more shorts after that?
Speaker 3:No, so I did a good amount of shorts. There's actually a series of videos called W R O L the channel, my youtube channel, and that's where I kind of like was making these shorts and uh, one of them got like 300 000 views and another one got like a million. It was almost to a million views now, but it was like it was closer to 700 000 it got um. So I had a little bit of success with those and it was still me just like dabbling and trying things and I'm still trying things. Honestly, like as a filmmaker, you're always learning.
Speaker 3:Um, so, like, I just did two shorts. Uh, it was like january, like december january, I think. I shot two things and I released them. Uh, what, like two months after shooting them. Uh, so just recently there was one that was released as well. Um, but I shot these two shorts with the idea of I want to try out these new lenses. You know, I just want to do something with, like some choreographed fight scenes and I've done fight scenes before, but it's like's like it's it's so much to learn in that like realm. To go into a feature and start putting that out there, like putting fight stuff in there, is really complicated, I feel like. So I do short films more as like a playground.
Speaker 3:It's like let's test this out and um, I've kind of come to the conclusion it's it's almost impossible to make money off of short films and so, like a lot of the conclusion, it's almost impossible to make money off of short films and so, like a lot of the time, it's friends of mine from class I'll do an acting class on Thursdays and a lot of my friends will be there that are actors, and so it's like, hey, you want to make a short film, let's go and do this.
Speaker 3:And, like, a lot of them are totally down to do it because it's usually quality stuff and people can use it on their reels and stuff like that. So kind of saves me of having to spend money to learn something new and at the same time they get some. It's a trade, you know. Yeah, I think at the phase that you're at as a filmmaker, you kind of sometimes have to do that. Like you have to trade for you know different things. You can't always be paying, you know, 100, 200 bucks a day because you may not have the budget for it, um, but you still want to be able to be creative and learn these things and so like.
Speaker 3:Why, why have that be the reason that you didn't do it?
Speaker 2:you know, yeah, yeah so I'm curious, this whole time as you've been experimenting and delving into acting and film, are you working a day job? You know how are you?
Speaker 3:Yeah, so I was working my day job, I took a year off. I was honestly like I was like I really want to do this, I really want to do this, and you know me being naive. I was like I'm going to do this and do this full time and so I stopped my day job. I literally quit. I was like I'm going to do this and do this full time and so I stopped my day job. I literally quit. I was like, hey guys, I'm done. I quit my job, which is stupid, because it's like okay, you're not going to get any unemployment. Like funding is cut off completely.
Speaker 3:So and money is important to a degree when you want to do this stuff, because you got to live, you got to have I mean, you have bills, it's just part of life. Yeah, so I did that for a year and I kind of lived off my, my savings and stuff. And then I was like I'm getting less done while I'm doing this than when I was working my job. So I was like no, I need to work a job so I can get more done. You know, just because I think that like if you don't have that funding, it slows you down quite a bit, but also you're just I don't know what it is, but I for me, personally it just slowed me down and so working the day job keeps me on the hustle.
Speaker 1:I know it's a lot more work, but it just keeps you way more active and like you're working for your dream and do it and like and try harder to to to make it happen and actually get like, get your dream of making that as your career like I want to dig into that a hair just because I think it's really interesting, like, do you feel like the the lack of productivity was coming from a place of, like you were spending time trying to raise finances because you were worried about money, or was it like a discouragement, that kind of hit now that it was your, now that you were doing film full-time for a year? Like what?
Speaker 3:I don't remember if my full focus was I want to do acting or if I want to do filmmaking at the time, and it might have been like, oh, I want to do the acting thing. So I was auditioning, I was doing my stuff. But, like anyone who's been an actor knows, it's like it's very sparse. When you hit like you get a role. It's like you put in, I don't know, 100 auditions and maybe like 10 of those will actually lead to something or a callback or whatever, and then five maybe that would be high.
Speaker 3:Yeah, like it's really I forget what the ratios are, but like, the amount of bookings you get as an actor compared to the amount of auditions you do is crazy.
Speaker 1:I think it's like 60 to one or something.
Speaker 3:Is it 60 to one? Okay?
Speaker 2:Big actor said it was like for every 64 auditions she got a role or something.
Speaker 1:But yeah, he was a bigger act and those aren't even like necessarily big roles. It might even be like a decent good commercial, you know it'd be like you'd get like that day player role.
Speaker 3:You know that like which, that can't float you. So I mean like that's where the job is really important because, yeah, that's what floats you. The the other stuff is your passion. It's like what you want to do and as soon as you can do that full time, then you you can say goodbye to the job. But I think until you're you're funding like how much you're making from that passion, you can't just drop that day job and say, hey, I'm going to do this.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:Otherwise, you're just going to be that starving actor, starving filmmaker for the longest time and you're going to hate life because you can't enjoy it without I don't know, just the ability to live in society, which requires money.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:So how did we wake up one day and say permafrost.
Speaker 3:Well, covid had hit and I had a friend of mine, a good friend, rochelle. She was in class as well and she was like I really I would want to see you in this story. And she had this idea which was basically this guy that saves his little girl, and that was like her idea for a story. And then, you know, covid hit which was like okay, acting, stuff's all frozen right now because COVID's here, and I think this was like before even like they started allowing reshoot, like actually starting to shoot again, you know, with restrictions and stuff. And so I was like, well, it's, it's winter as well, like that's another reason in Utah no one's shooting things because it's just snow everywhere, unless your film needs snow. And so I was like, well, I want to shoot something. So I was like I'm going to write this, start writing it. And you know, post-apocalyptic sort of just went into that. My creativity of that I like kind of flowed into it, because I think originally her idea was like kind of more modern, float into it. Because I think originally her idea was like kind of more modern. It was like some guy saved, like a military guy saved this kid, um some car wreck where her parents died or something, and I forget exactly what the details of her original idea were, but I was like I had like this I had like some dream about bounty hunters and stuff and I had probably been watching mandalorian. There's a lot of things that I'm like my storytelling uh, unconsciously or subconsciously, whatever you want to call it, and so like I had some dream and it was uh, I put a part of it in the film. It's like put your chain up, son, and it's one of the things the, the characters in the, the story says to him and um, and so the characters didn't have this, like the bounty hunters have like a big old fat chain with this hammer on it, and so that's kind of what that was referring to. But, um, yeah, so like now I'm like going down a rabbit hole, but like basically, a lot of like ideas and things kind of got put in that story, wrote it, and then we started shooting it.
Speaker 3:I think it was around December or so I had some time off from work and so I spent like a week or two just shooting stuff that only required myself, so I could get a really small crew out to shoot this. So you just need your DP and the sound person, and you know, that's more or less all you need, uh, to shoot a lot of it. So, um, when I could, I was like, okay, I'm free, um, I can get friends who are free as well, let's go shoot this. And we'd go and shoot a bunch of different little things that needed to be shot. And then, uh, for the days that we needed more actors, we still kept really small crew.
Speaker 3:Most of the time people were paid. If it was a good friend or whatever or whatnot, we would do trade or it's like, oh, I owe you one. Most of the time it was paying the DP, it was paying the AC, it was paying an actor to come out, depending on the actor, obviously, because some actors, like I said, they're just really good friends and so they come out and do it because they want to, they want to help out and make the film happen, um, which always grateful for for that, you know, um, and that's like from an indie uh place that that's coming from. I know, if you a budget, obviously you want to pay everyone on set, right. When you don't have a budget, you kind of like have to do something to to make your, your dream project happen, and so yeah.
Speaker 1:So so if we get into some logistics here, like what did that look like from ideation to script, to green light? Did you guys start with zero and just kind of like trickle the dollars in, or did you Like save up some money or did you?
Speaker 3:raise. So there was. There was like okay, so I had I. There's always a little bit of money that I'd have and over the time that we shot it it would. It was enough to pay whoever needed to come on set and perform. Obviously, at the end of the year you have your taxes and if you get money back it's kind of nice, you know, and so some of the time that that money was very helpful to help finance it as well. Like that's just.
Speaker 2:Tax return yeah.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so like there'd be like that, like it was two years when we were actually just still shooting, so we kind of like two tax returns, but it's winters that we're shooting, so those go over during tax season and get a little bit back. So yeah, by no means do we have like a huge budget. We were, uh, we were under, I'll say we were under 50 000.
Speaker 3:Let's just say conservatively which which just is a very indie budget and and I think anyone can kind of agree to that, because people shoot short films on the budget we had.
Speaker 2:Yeah, from way more Well and all the best filmmakers start making a feature with a super, super low budget Right. There's very rare exceptions, but most of them are. That's their history, if you go back and look. They all made Christopher Nolanolan, made following for 6k and six to nine.
Speaker 1:I hear the number floating differently and, like rodriguez, is 7k well, and they're trying to translate it to today's and then none of it translates well, because it's like what is that in today's dollars, right? The? Point is it's super cheap, it's out of their pocket, kind of stuff yeah, lois jao is a good example of someone more recently making two films for probably both under 50 K, like they were very cheap.
Speaker 3:I and, yeah, that's kind of where a permafrost came about. We did not have any kind of big budget, it was kind of just a lot of passionate people who came together and, you know, took words into an actual movie. I will say my day job did help a little bit in terms of, like we shot on a Komodo red Komodo and I was able to purchase one of those because of my day job. And then lenses. I picked up some iron glass lenses if you're familiar with those and like at the time they were still kind of like unknowns, they hadn't been used by batman.
Speaker 3:uh, because I know there's like a couple scenes where batman used the iron glass lenses yeah, yeah yeah, um, and then dune, just recently uh used them as well, but like at the time I I just sort of heard about them. I was like, oh cool, these, these sound really cool and they look pretty cool. I mean vintage lenses like these it was like zeiss glass from like the cold war kind of like is what they uh advertised it as, I think, and um, yeah, so I picked up a set of those and then that's what we shot it on, and so, like, a lot of the equipment I already had, so I didn't have to spend money on the equipment, renting it, um, and so a lot of the money went to, like I said, it went to cast and crew, um, and to wardrobe. Like wardrobe was mostly, uh, army surplus stuff which is also affordable because it's it's surplus, yeah yeah that's awesome.
Speaker 1:I I mean. I know this is a random question, but it's something we always forget about when we're making like these in our minds and we're like zero dollars, how do I do this for no money? What did you guys do for food? Oh, so food? Just foraged it in the winter.
Speaker 3:We do like okay. So chili works really well. I mean, if you bring out a stove into the woods and like propane and you cook chili or hot dogs, like that's one way you can really, uh, decrease the costs that you have to spend on food. Um, recently, on the last few shorts I shot, I just like went to Costco, bought a thing of chili. Like they have those tubs of chili at Costco, I don't know at least in Utah they do um where you buy, like I don't know, it's like 20 bucks for a thing of chili, and so you can buy like two of those and then just get some vegetables, cut them up, throw them in it as well, and you can kind of make a little bit more gourmet, just with a little bit of extra effort and, um, it's affordable, uh did you make the chili like the chili, it's just a tub of chili but like did you?
Speaker 1:did you prep it, like you brought it to say?
Speaker 3:I mean we just throw it in the slow cooker or on the like a what's it called, one of those dutch ovens or whatever you know, cook it over a stove um so I mean that's mad props because I feel like I love it.
Speaker 1:Even just like picking up pizza sometimes if I'm in the middle of production feels like the straw that will break the camel's back like that's too much for you. You're just like yeah, man, I just brought the food myself and you make that sound like pizza?
Speaker 3:is that like everyone's like? Oh, they're bringing little scissors, it's always like a negative connotation to it. It's kind of funny. But like you get like a tub of chili from costco and all of a sudden it's like people are like, oh yeah, meat, that's if they're not vegan, obviously, but yeah, yeah, I mean costco, I think could be. If you do it right, you can get something for cheap food-wise.
Speaker 2:So you did provide food for your actors on set.
Speaker 3:And it was chili most days. I'm trying to remember we had hot dogs one day. I think we did burgers another day. It was just like you get things that you can cook over a barbecue that's hooked up to a propane and you can take that wherever you. You can cook over a barbecue that's hooked up to a propane and, like you can take that wherever you need it. And we show a lot of stuff in just the middle of the woods.
Speaker 1:So it's like I love bathrooms honestly Well those are things to consider when you're right, Cause we had, we, we worked on a movie that never actually happened, but it was. It hadn't happened yet, but it's a post-apocalyptic in the woods kind of thing, but that is like where are people going to go to the bathroom?
Speaker 2:Where are they going to park If you have to?
Speaker 1:do overnights. How do you sleep? You know where do you sleep. How do you eat? We had to get to the location on four wheelers.
Speaker 2:So we're like how are we going to coordinate, like getting everyone over there? It gets crazy.
Speaker 3:It does fast. So that's why I'm like, you know, you kind of say like we're just going to spend on these very few things, and so that's why I'm asking, like, what'd you do for food? You know, because like when you have a lot of money, it's like you hire someone and they figure it out. You know it's like, yeah, food wasn't too bad. Bathrooms so like we had a bathroom right there. Um, we tried doing the tent porta potty. I don't know if you've ever seen or used one of those. A lot of people just never used it. People are not down with going in there and doing their business. But uh, yeah, the most of the times we had the actual bathroom there. It was it. It was nice Cause it was cold outside.
Speaker 3:So yeah those are an actual building, so it's like somewhat warmer.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but that's awesome. It's true, I love it. You have to rent a porta potty as well.
Speaker 3:I've done that before as well, Renting porta potties. It's like I forget if it's like you if you rented it for a month it'd be 300 bucks, but for a day it's just the same price, because they don't really rent it or they have to, like go and clean it out and prep it and everything.
Speaker 1:So I think they charge you the same amount for a month or for a day, I don't know more than I thought it would be.
Speaker 2:It's like dang, that's but if that's how much it is for a month, that's yeah, yeah for a month.
Speaker 3:It's not bad at all, like, yeah, then two, three hundred bucks and you got a port-a-potty for the whole month yeah, yeah, yeah one of our locations required it because they were like, oh, we don't have a bathroom on the grounds. We had like a there's like a cave in one of the scenes and it was on this uh haunted uh house um location and the location was cheap, like they didn't charge as much to shoot there but to get the port-a-potty it cost more like oh, we need that, so okay, that's good, but that's funny.
Speaker 1:That's funny. Um so, so this is your first feature, permafrost, and so I'm I'm curious to know, like what were your goals with this? Was it just like I going to have made a movie, or was it like I really want to make my money back on this? Or was it like I don't know, I want to get discovered with this, like what was?
Speaker 3:your. It was mostly I want to tell the story. That was like my drive. It was not thoughts of I'm going to make big bucks on this. There's always that thought like maybe you can, but like maybe you can, but like realistically, there was no expectation of that for me. It was mostly I want to tell this story and the acting part.
Speaker 3:I kind of looked at a few different actors. It wasn't like, oh, I'm going to make this so I can be the lead. And it was not that, because when it came down to it, I was like I'm fully available and if I get a different actor, I don't know how their availability and that's also a really big problem with, uh, shooting with actors is what's their availability? And some actors you're like, oh, this person's perfect for the role and then you find out that they're just not available ever and you're like, well, what gives? Like you know, it kind of sucks.
Speaker 3:So, having myself in the lead role, like the person who needs to be most available, I'm available. And, um, the little girl who was the second person that's needing to be most available, rochelle was the mother and she was totally excited for her daughter to be in that and she was available whenever we needed her. So, um, yeah, when you're shooting something that's low budget, you know you have to kind of get people who are passionate, that they're like yeah, I'm, I'm in this, let's do this, because otherwise you're going to take like probably would have taken us longer than three years to do this thing.
Speaker 1:But yeah yeah so that was the other thing I was gonna ask was like you shot over two winters and then how long did post take?
Speaker 3:post was a year because I was working and I I want to say that that probably was kind of. The negative is that when you're working you get exhausted and then it's like you got to come home and do some editing. I'm at a computer all day and it's like come home to a computer and do more, it's like, oh man, not my, not the most exciting thing to do, at least. If you're like going out and shooting, then it's different. You know, you're on set, you're with people, you're having fun computer it's just I don't know. So if that's like, if all I did was edit and I didn't have the day job, it would be easier, but there's like a little bit I did was edit and I didn't have the day job, it would be easier, but there's like a little bit of that. I think, um, what is it? Attrition, or are you get tired of just being at a computer all day? And it's like come home and have to do that more?
Speaker 1:It's like, uh, but no, I feel you there.
Speaker 2:I mean than ours. But the uh oh was it? Oh, ours. Ours took three years almost. It was so quick that we filmed it and that kind of shot we shot ourselves in the foot with that and then it took yeah like three years to edit we did, we were script fast, green light fast shot was it uh you guys editing, or was it someone else?
Speaker 1:um we brought. So danielle thompson bova did um a lot of editing with us, but we started and finished the editing process ourselves, and so it was a lot of weeks of us just looking at it.
Speaker 3:It's not easy. And I think the other thing is like when you watch it so much, like at some point it makes it hard also to see what needs to change. And I did bring in other fellow filmmakers that are friends of mine. So I'd be like, hey, can you come over, come watch? You know the edit. And they were super helpful and nice and came out and like participated and gave good feedback that like went into the final product. Yeah, and I think that's important, um, kind of just having that open mind and collaborating with other filmmakers. Uh, and I also hear that, like you know a lot of these big hollywood studio guys. They do the same thing with um, friends of theirs, oh yeah, like big directors who we know or we watch their films, and it's like they're they're collaborating with other directors to hey, check out my film, what do you guys think?
Speaker 1:and then they get feedback and they make changes and improve the film, so I had this yeah, I said this thing for a while where I kept hearing filmmakers talk about like when. When steven spielberg watched one of the early cuts, he gave us this feedback and I was like right we're getting steven spielberg damn movies and then I kind of realized that all those people actually had spielberg as an executive producer on the movie, because it was like an amblin movie or like a movie like, oh, that's why spielberg was watching all these cuts. But at first I was like, is he just watching everyone's movies?
Speaker 3:like you get to like a certain level and he has like this I don't know I was like frustrated, because I was like I don't have know, I think if they're friends too, like I think there's that. Hey, can you check this out, make sure it's like good, and I think that a lot of those guys are all very like connected, like right, this was like a young guy that was like first man spielberg was watching like early cuts on first man, but I think it's because first the dreamworks film.
Speaker 1:I think well, and I love that for all the people I went to film school with who also wanted to be directors, like I did and it's like well, we're never going to work on the same project together because we want to do the same role right and then I realized that we can still work together actually a lot, because we're trading feedback on each other's screenplays and edits and there is that collaboration still and ann and I are huge believers in testing, testing, testing, testing and what we got really good at on the loved and lost, our first feature was testing the edit, but what we wish we'd gotten that good at, what we've learned is test the script like that, like have everyone you know trust read that script and test it, and test it, and test it until you feel yeah, I think after you make your first feature, you realize the importance of the script yeah, like that's the same thing I like I kind of realized with mine is I'm like, yeah, I need to come up with a story.
Speaker 3:that's like I think permafrost is fun, it's I. I look back at it and I'm like it's's very character-driven the story. There isn't a whole lot of plot there, other than like this guy saves this girl. That's like the plot. But like now I look at my next, like I'm working on other stories in my head as well as like writing these little shorts, and I'm like I want these to be, you know, at a level that you know it's just better. The script needs to be there, though, for that to happen, and like that's like where I think I failed, if I was to point it out?
Speaker 1:Yeah, no, and I appreciate you saying that.
Speaker 3:Still, it's a really good film, but like I know that that's like where I failed in turn, like I didn't fail, I think it could have been better. That's the better way to put it. Like that's where I could have made this film better is had I, like, done a lot more work with that script and made it like that much better there.
Speaker 1:And that's, I think, how first features do Like you can't skip it, you couldn't have like just known that stuff you know, everyone's told me that too.
Speaker 3:They tell me the script is king. You know, you hear all these things about the script, the script, the script, and I make my feature film and then I'm like man the script yeah, right, like everyone was telling me that, but like I didn't get it in my head, like until I did it myself and learned, like you know, put it all together.
Speaker 1:So I guess, what about the script? You know, that's also what you learn. You kind of go oh, these are the things that I could do, strengthen this and, and you know, whatever, once you've done it, all the principles land different when you hear them, you know, and you start to learn those principles so much faster because you have some context in your life to to give it some meaning.
Speaker 1:And so like, yeah, my producing classes in college, I was like man, this just sounds like overkill. And then when I started making stuff, I was like oh, over and over again, plans do fall through.
Speaker 1:Now I know why we do that paperwork and why we write those things and why we hire that person and, like all this stuff started to make sense where I was like before it was like I don't know. But then I've also been able to see like, well then, here's how you can save money, here's how you can break some rules. But like.
Speaker 1:Sometimes it's not necessary to get done and why and what is it? Yeah, so I want to talk. Let's pivot into um. So when did you release the film and how did you approach releasing it? Because you have this movie, it's done now. Did you have like a plan on the forefront where you were like I know how I'm going to release this, or did you kind of finish the movie and say, okay, now I need to figure out what to do with this thing?
Speaker 3:Um, I think before I finished it I was. I was trying to figure out the best um plan for distribution, trying to get it out there. Um, I knew I know how to get it onto amazon. I'm pretty sure, like most people who get to that point of making their feature film, they know how to get it onto amazon with, uh, amazon direct. Um, not necessarily the best way to do it, but like everyone can do that, it's, it's. It's there. You know, it's just a process and making sure you upload the right stuff and right sizes of posters or whatever.
Speaker 3:But, um, I, I think I had heard a film hub from a friend and I had told a friend about it who had already done some feature films. He had put his on there and he had an a good experience with it and he, he was like, hey, this is actually not that, but like this is pretty good. So I heard from him and so I was kind of like, ok, this is my backup plan, this is where I'm going with this if I can't find any other place to put it out there and get distribution. So I think I had talked to a few distributors, but I, I, I just didn't get the right response with them. I don't know what the reason was.
Speaker 3:Um, anyhow it came down to okay, film up is the way I want to do it. Like I said that my friend had given me a lot of good advice and I felt like I wasn't going to get like cheated out of money or any of that. Because you hear all these stories about like going with a distributor and then, like they don't, they end up making you pay for stuff that you know instead of getting any money for your film, so they're the ones that make money off of it. And so I was like, okay, well, let's do this. And uh, we did it. Um, any any other questions about that? Before I start going into film hub and stuff, I guess uh, I don't think so.
Speaker 1:I think yeah. I'm just curious to know, like, um, maybe for those who don't know, like, what is film hub and how do you manage? How did you manage your film?
Speaker 3:and basically, what was, yeah, so they're like an aggregate uh is what they call it. I think an aggregator. An aggregator, yeah, and I think they're, but they're different. They're also like a distributor. So it's like a distributor slash aggregator, because they kind of have a sales team that pitches your film to various platforms. They get new platforms on there as well that want to start up a streaming service, and a lot of times you get licensed immediately by those um and so I think there's like just pop this up real quick. So like right now we have 17 different um channels is what they're called for distribution where actually 16 where permafrost is at and some of them are just I don't know some random one, random one here and there, like called autumn titus popped up on the 28th, that I go look it up and I'm like I have no idea, I've never heard of this.
Speaker 3:So, so, some of them are like that. But then then there's like I mean you could you get on YouTube movies and TV free with ads, which is like YouTube's channel has 181 million subscribers, and so you get onto a platform like that and, um, it's, it's eyes on your film. You know, when you have that many subscribers, um, amazon is honestly one of the coolest, I think, so far, like in terms of, uh, earning some money back. Okay, so, so, before I go, but film hub is like, yeah, it's like an aggregator. Uh, my experience with them has been positive.
Speaker 3:You kind of have you can't take a proactive approach with them, though I feel like you're kind of you're one fish of many as part of FilmHub. So I know, when you put it out there, you're like it's your baby and you want to like put all this effort towards, you know, getting it to every channel possible and you want to like tell the person who's in charge, like your manager to, to, to send it to all the people. What, why is it not on here? Why is it not on here and like, um, I think with film hub, you kind of just have to put it there and you have to trust in the process, and if you have a product that is good, uh, it should float on its own. That's not to say that you're not going to put any effort.
Speaker 3:The effort you're going to have to put in is more like marketing, which is nothing that has to do with film hub, and we can talk about marketing after film hub, though, but yeah, yeah yeah, so film hub, like I, I think they're cool and there's not like there's not a whole lot of great places to go, like there's uh indie I think it's indie rights, is it, or indie something yeah, indie film.
Speaker 2:Yeah, indie Film Rights.
Speaker 3:Indie Film. There's another one that's supposedly decent in terms of you're actually going to make some money off your film, I think I don't know too. I haven't got anything on there, so I won't say anything. But FilmHub. You have a performance. Basically, there's different schedules for each platform you're on, and so you end up getting earnings back, um, sometimes weekly or sometimes every 30 days, and so you see the earnings, but then, like, you don't get paid out until sometimes 90 days, and so, yeah, it's pretty visible. Um, I think, uh, in terms of visibility, like seeing how much your film is making is really it's really hard, honestly, depending on some platforms, because, like Tubi, they're really consistent. Every week you see your number come back, Boom, boom, boom, like, oh, I made 400 bucks this week, oh, I made 200 bucks this week. I made 200 bucks this week, you know, they're always there every week, amazon, for some reason.
Speaker 3:Um, and I'm like going into details on this already, hopefully, everyone knows it's great, this is really good okay so amazon, like sometimes you'll go three weeks with no, no report, even though they're, they're expected, their expectations is to have one every week. And so how do you market your film when you don't get a number to back up the market spending? And that's like one of the hardest things that I I've been trying to, like my. I think that's where I made the mistake with Permafrost. I put it out there. It was doing super well, it was making $1,300 a week, which to some people is like, oh, it's really good, especially with the amount we were spending. We still haven't made back our money for the film. We're still red.
Speaker 3:And that's because, like, at some point Amazon I don't know if it's the algorithm or what it is or if, like, there's a reset that happens every single month or something, but like it's like it was doing really great and then all of a sudden, boom, you drop and you're like whoa, why did it drop so much? Or you don't get a report back from Amazon. So you kind of pull back on marketing because you're like, oh, this didn't do so well and I'm spending this much or that much. So Amazon can be finicky, but like, I think consistently, like I'm spending five bucks a day marketing on Amazon, which is like 35 bucks a week. So, but I still won't sometimes get to see um a number which can be frustrating because you're like, is it working? Especially with your first one, like, is this helping it? And there's other platforms like apple. I put I don't know 200 something bucks into it and it didn't do anything to it.
Speaker 3:So, like the algorithm there is just I don't know 200 something bucks into it and it didn't do anything to it. So, like the algorithm there is just I don't know if, like, it doesn't get help from uh, or just people don't want to buy Apple who are on Facebook, cause all you do Facebook. See this gets crazy Like.
Speaker 3:I don't want to lose everyone, but, like, there's Facebook ads, uh, there's Google ads, there's Amazon ads, which's google ads.
Speaker 3:There's amazon ads, which are like on their own app and, um, I tried all three of those and I think amazon, uh, the amazon, like app ads can help, but they're really expensive and and the reason they can help is because, in a way is like when someone's on the app and it has a banner that has your film, it gives you credibility in a way that, like people are like oh, what's that? You know? So that way, if the thumbnail pops up or is suggested to them, they saw that big ad and I think, in a way, it gave it credibility, so that they're like Oh's, check that out. So you get a, you're, you're gonna get an easier click from it, I think. But again, this is just me basing it off of, like I don't have like solid evidence to say it does help, but it like the cheapest you can spend on Amazon ads is like 100 bucks, bucks, I think, a week or a hundred, something like that a week, and that gets expensive, especially for an indie filmmaker, you know.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:But I know Facebook ads. I'm pretty sure that's like one of the solidest places you can spend money. The results with Amazon and Facebook for me have been good. I'm still waiting on numbers for this whole month because I started like playing with a. I was throwing a hundred bucks on Saturdays at it to see what would happen and I was seeing like pretty good changes in my numbers and then, like Amazon reports stopped coming in and I was like what do I do?
Speaker 3:And the last time that happened I kind of stopped spending on it and then the thing just sort of fizzled out. So I'm still spending five bucks a day and doing the hundred bucks on Saturdays in hopes that the next number that comes in is, you know, a positive, like a really good number, because I've been consistent with it. But again it's it's it's just kind of like, I don't know, marketing is expensive but it's necessary and it's kind of what gets your film in front of eyes.
Speaker 3:Yeah, if you didn't do it, then you're just kind of letting your all that time and money and everything you spent, like if you want people to see your story, it's like sometimes you pay for it rather than them yeah yeah, but the hope is that it'll, you know, do well, that someone will see it and then another person will see it, another like hopefully it'll snowball a little bit so you don't have to so about how much were you putting into ad spend in the beginning, when you were making 1300 a week?
Speaker 2:were you.
Speaker 3:I want to say I spent two. I can literally pull up ads here and look at that. I don't mind discussing this stuff. A lot of people I feel like a lot of people are kind of hush-hush on all the.
Speaker 1:Especially when you're still in the deal-making process. You're pretty tight-lipped, but it's interesting because you're like I'm just putting, you're pretty tight lipped, but it's interesting because you're like, I'm just putting it out there you're doing it yourself and hopefully some listeners check out yeah, that's true.
Speaker 3:Like yeah, if you were involved with a lot more money, you probably couldn't go and discuss the numbers as easily, but I feel like, as a, it helps everyone else who's doing this to get a little bit of insight yeah, I appreciate it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so I spent how much?
Speaker 3:else who's doing this to get a little bit of insight. Yeah, I appreciate it. Yeah, yeah, um, so I spent how much is this? I think I tested a few. So you have to target audiences and stuff through facebook. If you've ever done a facebook ad, um, and so you kind of need to do some research and figure out what audiences you want to target, like so, for perafrost it's post-apocalyptic. I was like Walking Dead Last of Us. I kind of targeted a prepper audience because I think preppers are probably the most likely to enjoy the post-apocalyptic genre. So I targeted those and I tested around a little bit with them. I want to say it was like close to so. On the us, I was spending. Like in the first month I spent 271 bucks, which was about 7 300 clicks. Uh, four cents a click, and a click is basically. They clicked your ad which was a link to amazon's page with permafrost.
Speaker 2:Okay, so just direct sale and the trailer.
Speaker 1:That Amazon's page? Did you have like a TVOD that phased into AVOD and then phased into streaming, or what was that like? Or was it like streaming, or?
Speaker 3:So right now it's only transaction for Amazon, so this is purely Amazon that I'm discussing with you. Yes, yeah uh, I did do a 2b campaign for a little bit too. Um, I I don't think I did that one correctly, but I also think 2b is harder to influence with ads and also 2b is just like they were purchased, I think, by fox or something. Oh, really, go on to 2b.
Speaker 3:Now they've got like the new batman, they've got aquaman they've got big films on there which is, in a way, going to take away from all the indie filmmakers that they had a platform that was um, heavily watching all their films. Now, all of a sudden, like these, hollywood films are being shoved in front of everyone, so, like the, the indie filmmaker kind of is getting a back seat in a way on that platform. It used to be different. I think you'd still make some decent money there. It's one of the better money makers is to be Amazon and supposedly, youtube. The YouTube movies and TV is also a good platform for making some money. Yeah, there's 181 million subscribers on it.
Speaker 1:And then you said the YouTube was a VOD that was free with ads. Yeah, so two. That's how they're generated.
Speaker 3:Right, amazon's the TVOD and it's, I think there's a possibility of getting onto prime through through a film hub. They used to have it. There was the possibility of getting onto prime through uh through uh film hub. They used to have it. There was the possibility of getting on freebie, but it seems like freebies kind of uh phasing out because uh, amazon started showing ads on prime and freebie was basically advod and they're like why do we need two advods now? So I think they're phasing out freebie, supposedly.
Speaker 1:I just noticed that I started watching an amazon original and it showed me an ad at the beginning. Yeah, I was like watching with my son and I was like why are there ads? And I was looking and I was like it didn't even say free with ads, it just said free with prime. Yeah, and I was like, wait, so now I'm paying my prime membership to have an ad in front of. So you, you're right. Just recently I feel like they're starting to put ads. They started putting ads.
Speaker 3:They can pay a little extra to remove those ads on prime. But I think they're just realizing why do we need this other you know freebie that they purchased? I'm pretty sure they bought it thinking like, oh, let's get on the ad bodude. Um, you know platform as well. And then and they're like why don't we just put it on prime?
Speaker 1:right, well, but free. It was like a lot of ads, I mean it would you use? Always a lot of ads sometimes you'd have like two whole minutes of ads, whereas this one was like 30 seconds at the beginning of the movie for like a different movie, and then it was pretty much ad free from. I haven't finished the movie yet so I'll see if they're jump, if ads jump back in.
Speaker 1:But but, like my son and I watched a great escape, long movie, right like three hours, and it took us forever because there was an ad for 10 minutes and it was like two more minutes and I'm like you just added like 20 of the watch, the length you know, to that movie and so we I felt like I was watching you know like tv again with my family growing up in the early 2000s where, like you'd literally mute the commercials and just hang out talk, which actually made for like a nostalgic viewing experience you know you're talking to right like we're watching this world war ii movie and we have to mute the commercials and like, I don't know, there's something about burger king now and yeah
Speaker 3:muted it's kind of you have a reason to get up and go use the bathroom or go get some popcorn or something.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, but you win an ad but you lose that like yeah, like, uh, literally, uh.
Speaker 3:So I released that uh short film and on youtube you can choose where you want your ads and I I was like there was an ad right in the middle and I was like I don't want that there, cause like it breaks up that the whole uh like fill and everything you bring them to like buy into. If you throw an ad right in the middle, you're going to cause like a uh I don't know like a cut in that, like yeah.
Speaker 3:Like they lose that and all of a sudden they're coming back and then like if it's a super emotional scene or something, if the ad pops in there, you're just like people are going to be totally really knocked off with like yep, knocked off kilter. When they go from like oh, it's like super emotional, and then all of a sudden, oh, buy this, the whatever pharmaceutical product or whatever and they come back in and it's like oh someone crying. Like okay.
Speaker 3:I don't think they're going to be in the emotional mood for this now after that ad. So I just was like out at the beginning and end Boom, like yeah, the ads. In a way I think they do that. They kind of ruin your film a little bit.
Speaker 1:It's interesting.
Speaker 2:So I know a lot of people are worried about when they're releasing their film and it comes out on Avod, or how do you say it?
Speaker 1:AVOD or Avod.
Speaker 2:AVOD or Avod.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And it's still transactional in some places. Did you feel like that, that less people were buying it because it was available?
Speaker 3:No, a lot of people have that thought and, uh, the? So there's a lot of. There's actually some Facebook groups I don't know if you guys are part of them. There's like distribution ones and stuff like that, where they talk about the stuff, Cause some people are like, oh, I don't want my film on YouTube, Like then then it's just going to take away from all these other platforms, and most people believe is that each platform is almost like its own ecosystem. So people who are on Amazon buying their films and watching their films there, they will buy and watch their films there even if it's on YouTube, Because they're not like. I mean, some people may go and Google it and look up the film and be like, oh, can I watch it for free? Which that's fine.
Speaker 3:And then there's also people who don't want to watch ads, which those people exist and they don't want to have to like to see any kind of like ads, and I kind of prefer it that way too. And then they'll buy it on amazon because they don't want to have to experience that. Um, amazon is also like at least hd. All right, yeah, the least amount I think is hd on amazon don't quote me on that. So, like you usually get it, you can get like 1080 quality or 4k or whatever.
Speaker 1:But like um 2b is 720, so your quality degrades a little bit being on an ad vaude because they're just not looking to well, and I know I'm I'm a rare person, but I literally like if I really want to see a movie, I will go see in theaters and if I really passionately love that movie, I will buy it on blu-ray. And everyone says discs are dead.
Speaker 3:Maybe they are for all economic and like intense, you know yeah well, I I still buy them and nolan is still pushing yeah phase, you know so yeah, discs, like I feel like, um, there's probably become a resurgence in people wanting to buy discs because on streaming platforms, people pull them down and they put up a new one. Quite often too. I think you're still that, you still have it in your purchases, but I don't know at some point, like, what if they just decide, oh, we can take it down whenever we want, even if you bought it? Then it's like now my discs are gold because, like, you can't take my disc away from me.
Speaker 1:Well, and we? We lost the sound of music for like a few months.
Speaker 2:It was gone buy it and it wasn't streaming it wasn't streaming on disney plus anymore.
Speaker 1:you couldn't buy it on it. You couldn't even buy a disc on Amazon. Hardly we had to find a used copy. Was it used?
Speaker 2:Yeah, they were only selling you. Sometimes they're new, but they were like yeah, basically like sold yeah.
Speaker 1:But it was in the plastic. Still, we found a copy on Amazon somewhere and we had it, but it was like not through a retailer, it was through like some random thing. And we got our hands on that because we were like, oh my gosh what's happening?
Speaker 3:silencing their sensory sound of music out of the culture, removed. It's weird like, uh, I had the same experience with a movie called the grand canyon with danny glover in it. I remember, when I was younger, like I really liked that movie. It was cool, like it had like some really cool moments in it and I couldn't find it on streaming and I was like what the heck? So I had to like find it on Amazon, purchase the DVD, you know, and so like yeah, some of the stuff isn't available and what the reason is.
Speaker 1:maybe they just don't want to distribute it, or Well and like, and so they started editing movies on Criterion, which is like antithetical to the whole idea of what Criterion does, which is preserves movies the exact way they were, and so now people are like buying those discs too, because they're like you can't edit the French connection, but they're editing scenes out of the French connection when you stream on Criterion.
Speaker 1:And so there are disc lovers and I am I'm still one of them. The only way you can can get the Atmos mix of the Creator, which is a brand new movie, is to get the 4K Blu-ray. So we bought the 4K Blu-ray so that we could get the Atmos mix, because you can't get it anywhere else, like streaming or otherwise.
Speaker 3:That's the other thing with streaming. How do you get the versions that are for surround and like these different theater systems when it's like a streaming? I?
Speaker 1:mean amazon will tell you for like a very limited, usually amazon originals. They'll say, like this is an hdr atmos like super great, right, and it'll look pretty good if you have good internet. But like, I've always just feared that, like, like. But what if I want, like the best version of this movie from the 50s, like, yeah, amazon's not going to take care of that, so I'm gonna buy, like the criterion version, because they remastered it in 4k or whatever and you've got, like the 70s the black stallion that the director helped criteria remaster and put it on blu-ray and so anyway, that was a huge tank and I apologize.
Speaker 3:Yeah, no, you're fine. Uh, where were we at?
Speaker 2:so I just wanted to ask a few more questions about your experience. Do you feel like because I know you said you were considering doing amazon direct and then you decided to go with filmhub um?
Speaker 3:I feel like it's worth it. Direct was available, but I I was already in my. I was thinking I'm gonna definitely go film hub. I wasn't sure, I guess for amazon, if I was doing director or film hub for it, because I'd heard two things.
Speaker 2:But yeah, I kind of decided let's do film hub so film hub has been worth it to you, even though they take a a cut yeah, they take a cut.
Speaker 3:I think it's. What is it? 20 or something is it 20 or 30? I forget.
Speaker 3:I think it's 20 okay yeah, amazon's still taking 50 from there so I was gonna say the platform probably takes it do you see, that on your numbers too, you can see you don't get to see that the visibility that's the biggest thing I'd complain about is visibility on like your numbers. It just you don't get that from streaming platforms. They don't give it to you. It's not film hubs fault, it's like I said, amazon sometimes doesn't report for a month or two and you're just like like the movie's out there, but how do I, how do I know if it's like performing?
Speaker 1:do you have any way of knowing how many people approximately have seen permafrost like? Do you know like, oh, at least 10 000, or maybe a million or 12, you know?
Speaker 3:there is like I mean you could take your number and like calculate dollars, because like it's, I think it's the rental.
Speaker 1:Well, I mean, even that doesn't even work. Avod, is there any way of knowing like they don't give?
Speaker 3:you those either? Yeah, tubi did not give me any numbers on that and like, and the amount that you get per view is really hard to figure out as well, because, like, how much is that ad worth versus this ad? Like, clients are paying different amounts, I think, for some ads, and so so are you running separate ads for each platform, like some ads targeting?
Speaker 3:because, like I did, I did at the point that I'm at right now. Um, my 2b is like really throttled down and I think it's partially due to the fact that 2b is kind of converting to more of a hollywood you know place to watch hollywood films. It used to be like mostly indie films, it was just every film got on there. But like where that's at now? Like I think it was like 20 bucks the last thing I made for the last week and so I kind of was like well, it's not even worth running much of an ad for it. So I've kind of just removed my ads for that. I was trying to see if I could get some Plex ads running, but that didn't really do anything this last week. I'm just I test things here and there. Most, most, like I said, is the Amazon. That's like the most success I've had with ads week that their film gets onto Amazon.
Speaker 2:I would say like spend any word anywhere from 500 to a thousand uh, on your ad is what I'd say. Um, just because when it's a new release it's kind of it's new release.
Speaker 3:Uh, I think the algorithm gives it preference, um, and then you're giving it people who, if you, if you're targeting the right audience and you have a good thumbnail and like, and those people on facebook are the real audience like. That's why it's important you choose like. Okay, so, walking dead people, they like post-apocalyptic like. You feed those people over to amazon and they go and watch it and if they have an amazon account, they it knows what they've watched previously, right? So so if they watch a lot of like you know, post-apocalyptic stuff, then it's going to go okay, this is, this is similar to what this film needs, and so that way I'll grow. The algorithm knows how to share it. But, yeah, you have to feed it those people and that's what the ads are going to do, so the algorithm can do something other than just go. I wonder if this person wants to watch this and if all those like don't get likes or ratings or whatever, then decide that's not the right audience. Well, if I go and give it a thousand people who are both watching the walking dead or something and like let's say, 700 like it the algorithm is going to know okay, this is probably the audience for it. So then I don't have to put as much money towards it.
Speaker 3:So that first week I I haven't tested this, so like technically my advice may be wrong, but I spent 271, 71 bucks and it worked pretty well. Just off of that, um, and I had a friend he he's, he didn't uh he had two films he released and they were. They went to Amazon but he didn't do any spending on them and they didn't really perform all that well. So if you just put it out there and don't spend a lot of money on it, you're probably not going to get much. But if you're going to like, if you want to uh, in a way it feels like a gamble, but I mean like you put a lot of time to make the film like, you might as well do that like see if it applies, you know if people don't know it exists, like the chances of them seeing it are very low.
Speaker 2:So by marketing you give them that choice so that's that.
Speaker 3:That's where my number comes from, the 500 to a thousand that if I did another film I'd probably spend a thousand just on the first week of marketing because, I know that amazon's going to do something with that and yeah, given you do that through amazon ads or through facebook ads, sending them to the amazon. I I personally think I'd put the amazon ads to the least amount possible, because you get to choose a bid amount and that's where the cost comes from. If you're a higher bid, you start showing up more on the banners.
Speaker 3:But if you do a low bid, then you show up once in a while, but at least it will give a little bit of, like you know, like I said, some clout.
Speaker 2:For the right people, yeah yeah.
Speaker 3:So I think, if you, if that first month running the amazon ad is probably really beneficial, but after that it might slow down because, I don't know, people maybe have seen it enough, or or something to that effect but yeah, I guess I'm just wondering too, like as time has passed, have you seen that like gradually, the amount coming in is going down?
Speaker 2:is the amount you're spending on ads going down? Do you feel like it's going to make its money back in the end? How long do you think that'll take if it does?
Speaker 1:That's seven questions.
Speaker 2:I know, I know, I know you're asking.
Speaker 3:It's basically like are you going to make your money back?
Speaker 2:Are you hopeful? Yeah, what do you think?
Speaker 3:Well, at the moment, my Amazon reporting is broken.
Speaker 3:Right, that's hard I'd love to have visibility into all this, like YouTube has. If you have a YouTube account, you can see everything, like all these details. I would love if Amazon had that as well, but I don't think they'd ever give that to us, just because maybe they don't want us to be able to see that much detail, especially if, like, let's say, the reporting's off or something and they have to like recalculate. They don't want to be like oh yeah, you made ten thousand dollars. Oh, never mind, it's only five thousand.
Speaker 3:You know that would cause lawsuits or something you know from people who are like I saw my report, so I was making a lot. So I don't think they'd ever give us that visibility, um, but I'd love it if we did have it, because then you could advertise appropriately like oh, the film's taken off right now and I spent this much, okay, let's try and spend more, it's taken off even more. Like you'd have numbers to back up everything you spend on marketing. But at the moment, um, I'm kind of just being consistent and, like I said, I'm spending about 100 bucks on saturday and then during the week, I spend five bucks, um daily and that's on facebook ads facebook ads yeah, and it's the same ad, so it kind of builds up itself as well, because people will like it, they'll share it, and so those will show up.
Speaker 3:So, like you got 500, 600 likes, other people see it. They go oh, what's this, you know? Rather than if it's got one like or something, then they're like eh, scroll past.
Speaker 3:I also think Saturdays are better, just because, if you're advertising during the week, people are at work, they might be scrolling Facebook and so they see your ad, but are they going to go watch your movie? They're probably going to, maybe click it, you know what's this and then they'll probably go back. But on Saturdays it's like people are free, they, you know, they're probably looking to watch a movie. It's like, oh, what's this?
Speaker 2:Okay, let's go watch it, you know that's smart to boost it when people are watching movies more.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so I've slowly been just learning these little things and trying different things. That's, I think, the marketing journey, or whatever. It's like test things, but you're testing with money which is not fun to test with because you might be like just throwing money into thin air and it disappears.
Speaker 1:But it's education, no matter what.
Speaker 3:Oh yeah, it's education, yeah, especially with the first film.
Speaker 1:Like you're learning this business and gaining valuable experience.
Speaker 2:So I love that about your approach, that you're kind of like, let's try this, let's try these ads.
Speaker 1:Let's just figure out what works, and then on your next one, you'll know a little better how to go into it and that's the value of making a living while you're doing this is that you're not like, yeah, that's where the job is, or I could buy this ad.
Speaker 3:You know that's the other thing if you have a job and you're producing a film, it's like, oh, now I have an income to throw at marketing on on this film. If you're an indie filmmaker, you know. So it's like you can continuously advertise your film and try and put it out there so that hopefully it takes off.
Speaker 1:But so I want to wrap this up because I think we need to wrap up, but really quick maybe. Maybe two things that you would do differently. I know we've talked a lot about everything you've learned, but two things that pop up in your mind that you do differently, and then after that, your three favorite movies right now.
Speaker 3:So first the things you do differently and then after that, your three favorite movies right now. So first the things you'd do differently and then your three. Okay, so first of all, script. I think that's like one thing I totally do better if I was to do another one, which I am going to do, another one, um. And then marketing would be the other thing. I feel like I know how to shoot a film and I know how to create a filling and convey that to the audience really well. If I was to redo or do another film, I'd work on the script and get that to be at a place that I know this is going to have an overall. I don't know it has meaning behind it and all this like better plot and all that stuff. I try and get a perfect script that, like I know, is going to do well. And then, uh, marketing wise, I'd market better. That first month honestly, like that's the way. That's my biggest regret is not marketing enough, even though when I was like doing this, I'm like I'm gonna do this right.
Speaker 3:Like I had that attitude like I'm gonna spend a bunch of money and this and that, but like even after I did that, I feel like I didn't spend enough. So that's why I'm like 500 to a thousand, like first week, because I feel like that would be a solid guess as to if it would help or not interesting.
Speaker 1:Yeah, all right, so top three favorite movies right now right now no it always changes probably yeah, it does always change.
Speaker 3:Um. I really enjoyed um. I don't know if you guys seen that film, uh, prospect no uh, pedro pascal's in it.
Speaker 3:No, it was kind of this indie film. Uh, give it a watch. That's one of my favorites. It's a sci-fi. Um, it's done really well. I just I loved how the directors there's two directors for it um, they're both friends and I loved how they like for their approach for the spaceships and stuff was a lot of analog controls. It wasn't digital, you know. It was like you see all these new sci-fis and everything's like a either like some pop-up screen, you know, or this or that like super futuristic. Theirs were like analog little click, click, click and like I don't know. They did a lot of work with that and a lot of their stuff was done in camera, like I think they had. I think one of them are. Some of their people have mechanical engineering degrees, so they'd like make a lot of their stuff. Oh, but that's one of my favorites Prospect. I don't know. Heat's really cool.
Speaker 1:It's on criterion right now. Yeah.
Speaker 3:I guess he too's in pre-production or something.
Speaker 1:I also heard that.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, I saw, I saw that on IMdb. I was like, oh cool, um, I really like post-apocalyptic stuff, so like, ah, fury road was really cool. Um, I watched furiosa as well. I really enjoyed furiosa, but I feel like fury road was I like that better.
Speaker 1:I think everyone's like saying that I feel like everyone's saying Furiosa was really great, but like Fury Road is like the gold standard, it's maybe, it's, maybe his best.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, that Fury Road was just like wow. I think that one's better. For me, furiosa is more like a. It's got like a story to it in a way Like it. Just Furiosa or Fury Road is like this three-hour event of cars exploding and stuff, which is very entertaining too, but it doesn't have like the same kind of storytelling that Furiosa has. But I preferred Fury Road.
Speaker 1:I don't know. I get it though the time frame created with this three days and two nights thing. I think probably added a lot of velocity to that movie. That yeah, the odyssey of furiosa was totally different.
Speaker 3:Approach you know, I really like the beginning of furiosa. I don't know if you guys have seen it.
Speaker 1:I mean, I have not seen either of them oh, you haven't seen either oh man.
Speaker 3:I just loved how george miller told that story. It made me want to see a film about her mother. Because they made that like I felt like her. Her character was such a strong character, like a female strongly like, like strong woman going to save her daughter from these biker dudes. Like that, like I was like so well, since I had made my film about this guy saving this girl, I was like, dude, you could totally make a movie about some mom saving her daughter and it would like be it's.
Speaker 3:It's one of those. Uh, it's like mandalorian, you know, he's saving the little. Uh, yoda, yeah, and like um, what is it?
Speaker 2:lone wolf and pup basic well, and we love george Miller, so we should see it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I'm just kidding. My favorite George Miller is probably like Babe. Babe Lorenzo's Oil is so good it's such a beautiful film.
Speaker 2:Very different. But yeah, I'll go and bring that up to people.
Speaker 3:I'll be like, hey, you know that he did Happy Feet and Happy Feet 2? Yeah, those guys that out to people. I'll be like, hey, you know that he did happy feet and happy feet too, yeah yeah, those guys the honest trailers were like from the director of babe pig in the big city.
Speaker 1:And happy feet comes this year's hard, our event of the summer, right respect anyway. Well, thank you so much, lenny, for being on and for sharing.
Speaker 3:Sorry if I just rambled way too much.
Speaker 1:No, no, it's helpful because those are the things that everyone acts like. I made this piece of art and the world accepted it and loved it and it's like no, like I was. People put a ton of effort and a ton of time and learning and money to get this thing out into the world. That you don't know about a movie unless a team of people brought it to you, you know.
Speaker 3:And permafrost had a team Like it wasn't just me.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 3:Like there was a whole crew. I mean, if you look at the cast, there was like 39 people in the cast. I mean the crew there was. We had like how many DPs, because you know they weren't was. We had like how many dps because you know they weren't always available. Yeah, we had one that was like kind of the main one, yvonne, and then, uh, there was other backup ones when she wasn't available. So we had like four, five maybe dps throughout the whole thing, which is kind of not normal. Usually you got one person, but for the most part the cinematography I felt stayed consistent along the whole thing. That's kind of more of my job as a director, you know, is to make sure that my vision's happening here and that everything's consistent.
Speaker 1:So I think I did my job and the DP did their job and I kept them along what needed to be, and they had two DPs on the creator and that was something that greg really did?
Speaker 1:greg frazier dp'd like everything in pre-production, where, like he, prepped everything oh, that's right, okay, yeah, so he, he pre and then oran software was on set kind of managing as dp and they co-dp'd in the end and, like frazier was a huge fan of it. He was like I really hope that more studios recognize the value of having multiple DPs and being able to like trust that that can actually still produce like a consistent result Right, which I thought was fascinating. I still am curious about how exactly they executed that, but I think what you did was similar to like what Chris Nolan did on his first feature, which was Shoestring, and he said if they were in town they were on they were on that weekend.
Speaker 2:You know, we shot weekend. We saved enough money to buy a lot of our shoots for weekends.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, yeah, we're huge fans of weekend filmmaking. We can.
Speaker 2:he financed it as he went, so it was just like most people have jobs is the thing and that's the other thing, I think what gets in the way, when you're like I'm gonna do this full time, it's like oh, I'm working I'm working.
Speaker 3:Okay, I guess we gotta shoot in the weekend. So now it's like why are you not working? Yeah, yeah, do the weekend, weekend, uh filmmaker yeah, you know, well, it's awesome, well, awesome. Thanks so much yeah, thanks for having me.