Distribber News + I Plow Forward

I'm gonna be seeing a lot of this come November...

First things first. I've heard a couple of reports about problems with Distribber. For those who don't know, they're an aggregator that helps place movies to different platforms(like Netflix, Itunes, etc) for filmmakers.

I've talked about them before in this blog. I've considered using them, but never really wanted to pony up the thousands of dollars to try it.

I've talked to one of the head guys there, Jason, and he's always seemed pretty straightforward and up front.

But my deal is that I'm always looking for a PARTNER for my movies, a partner being someone who benefits only when I benefit. That's how you know they believe in you.

And the problem at Distribber was that they'd profit even if my movie didn't. This is also why it's a little hard to understand how they're failing.

Anyway, it sounds like they aren't returning calls to filmmakers, and have missed payments. Also sounds like Jason doesn't work there any more. You can find the details at indiefilmhustle, which is a good web site in general for indie filmmakers.

https://indiefilmhustle.com/distribber-review-bankrupt/

It certainly appears this has been going on for a few months, so I'm surprised I'm just hearing about it now.

NEW regarding Netflix:
https://www.indiewire.com/2019/11/netflix-distribber-godigital-1202188326/?fbclid=IwAR0VTO14JE5M0fDVOpphWY_JFJ5Ge1tb00FnnDPpWEHmYaiFfugxNxewUl0

NEW Variety Article 11/1/2019
https://variety.com/2019/film/news/distribber-creditors-refunds-not-coming-2020-1203389718/

Indiewire Article (10/5/2019)
https://www.indiewire.com/2019/10/distribber-aggregator-independent-filmmakers-bankruptcy-1202176434/

ANOTHER UPDATE(10/2/2019) - A Warning
https://indiefilmhustle.com/film-aggregators/

VARIETY ARTICLE(10/1/2019)
https://variety.com/2019/digital/news/independent-distribution-companies-distribber-close-down-1203354408/

MOST RECENT UPDATE(9/30/2019):
https://nofilmschool.com/why-distribber-died
(this one goes pretty in-depth behind-the-scenes)

UPDATE ARTICLE(9/20/2019) : A new article on nofilmschool also raises some points.
https://nofilmschool.com/is-distribber-really-bankrupt

ANOTHER UPDATED ARTICLE(9/23/2019)
https://stephenfollows.com/what-kinds-of-movies-did-distribber-attract/

I haven't looked into these yet, so do the diligence first before submitting.

A couple of other options to explore are:
https://www.themovieagency.com/submit-your-film
They claim to charge no fees upfront whatsoever, and take a small commission when they sell your flick. That sounds reasonable. In fact, one guy that works there named Phil Galliano posted this on FB:

Hi guys, I am not an aggregator but as a sales agent, I am willing to offer you a six month contract with no fees with my sales agency. If you aren't satisfied after 6 months, you are free to go. I am offering you to represent your movie, sell it wherever I can. If I get you an offer, I let you know and you make the decision. You may decline an offer, no pressure.

I don't sign any contracts for you or without your prior consent. You will be able to deal direct with the distributor, and even get any money transfer directly from them. Once you get paid, the only thing I am asking is to pay me 15% commission.

No hidden fees, no upfront fees, no deduction whatsoever! 

I mean, that sounds exactly like what you want. I'd still look into it first to see if I could find a filmmaker that would vouch for them. Some people are like "Why would you want to give a cut of your profits, instead of just paying money upfront?", and I'd point DIRECTLY at the Distribber debacle as proof that my way is better. My way, you don't need additional money, and there's no way you can lose any more money than you've spent on your film. The other way, you just paid $3K-$5K, and got NOTHING.

These people below say they're completely legit, and basically dare you to go ahead and ask any filmmaker they've worked with. (which is sound policy with ANY distributor)
https://www.indierights.com/distribution

Here's another company that's thrown its hat into the ring, but they sound suspiciously like Distribber in their model. Would need to look into it more, and I just don't have time.
https://www.bitmax.net/

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I've decided to go full steam forward with this new film. I'm not sure exactly HOW it's all gonna get done. The script was finished a couple of weeks ago and I sent it to most of the people I've already cast. They all liked it a lot.

I've created a schedule--an 8 day schedule--that will be tight, but doable. I'm working on the shooting script now. That's reverse of how I usually do it.

Usually I do the shooting script first, then you allocate enough time to each scene depending on how many shots you have to get done.

This time I've given myself some time, and then I have to figure out how few shots we can do in that time.

I've got to cast some of the roles that are open, find some locations that I don't have right now, gather props, figure out how to do some special effects that I wrote into the script, and some other stuff.

I may not talk too much about it, because there's a good chance I'm going to have to crowd source a small amount of money to finish the film, and I figure I'll make a $1 tier where people will have access to a private blog with not just the details on the making of this film, but some other crazy stuff I haven't shown publicly before.

Also, did you know that I did a limited run of TERRORTORY 2 and GARDEN OF HEDON on dvd for that convention I did last month? Only 100 copies of each exist.

I didn't quite sell out, so if you want a copy you can paypal $19 to cs@kangaskahnfilms.com with the name of which one you want, and I'll ship it to you anywhere in the US. Or, if you want both, send $34.

If I refund your money, it's because they sold out before you ordered.

If you'd rather buy it from our square store, leave me a comment and I'll add them there. The store is here, in case you were wondering.
https://squareup.com/store/kkfilms

Will I Go Gently Into That Good Night?

 A screen cap from one of the videos we shot.

I'm still not sure.

I've been working on a script now for about 6 months. If you're just writing a screenplay then you have only to worry about things like character and plot and structure, and how to be entertaining. You can write whatever your imagination tells you to write.

Now, if you're planning on actually MAKING a movie of your screenplay, then your process is about 1000 times harder. Everything you write needs to be something you can shoot.

EVERY location has to be one you know you have access to. EVERY prop has to be something you can get for cheap, or make. EVERY action that a character takes has to be something your actors can do.

It's a nightmare.

Anyway, I've set most of this movie in an abandoned asylum. I've been to one such abandoned asylum a few times just to shoot pictures and explore.

My brother and I went back last month to do some tests.  This time we went during the evening, and stayed into the night. This asylum has guards that drive around on carts on occasion. I was curious what they'd do if they saw lights on in a building. I brought my lights.

We had only been there in the fall/winter months before. You have to walk about half a mile through the woods to get to the asylum. The trail is normally pretty clear. This time...it was not.

This is the trail. We had to crawl under this, dragging my camera bag, my slider, and a bag full of lights. Not fun.

It's downhill to the asylum. We get there and start doing some tests. We get some interesting shots, and some promising results to what I was looking at. (no details yet)

One of the tests involved a road flare. I have a shot of a guy lighting one, and then throwing it down the hall to light the hallway. I wanted to see how it would look.

Well, the flare being lit looks cool. Walking with in slo mo looks good.

The toss? Well...not so good. When a road flare hits the ground, it goes out immediately. We tried it twice--same exact result.

And road flares aren't cheap, considering they only last about 15-30 minutes each.

I lit up some of the hallway to see how much it would take to work. It's easily doable with two big lights, plus either a flashlight the actors will use or the road flare(which is only in two scenes).

We heard a chopper at one point flying pretty near the building, but no spotlight ever hit us. No guards ever came to see what was up. It'll be stressful as hell to shoot there, but I've done worse.

The tough part is the in/out of the place. Parking is non-existent. There used to be a parking lot across the street to park in, but they've blocked it off now. Most of the other places near there say they will tow you if you park there.

The walk in is long. The walk out is worse, as it's uphill. So after working some grueling hours, we gotta carry the equipment uphill and out every morning. (we'll be shooting mostly nights)

We won't be dragging in a cooler, I can tell you that. So everyone's gonna have to carry in their own food/drink. That's not fun.

Since we're filming this so cheap--I mean, 80% cheaper than ANY movie I've ever made--nobody's getting paid. I'm relying on actors who are willing to do me a favor here, but I'm at the mercy of their schedule. I'm trying to keep it to 8 shooting days, which is nuts, but even that's hard to get everyone's schedules in line.

Will it happen? I'm not sure. I'm starting to get a little more serious about it though.

Been A While

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Thing is, I don't like being the doom and gloom guy. I wanna have some good news on occasion; I can't help it that things aren't turning out that way.

On the Amazon front, not much has changed. I pulled a couple of my movies from free play. They don't make it easy.

Easy would be simply unchecking the Free on Prime tab and clicking DONE, and they change that.

However, they make you republish the entire title and they recheck it all. Why is that a problem, you say?

Because Amazon keeps changing their policies. At one time, you could put CAPS words in your title. Like, the word TERRORTORY is capitalized in the description. Well, I tried to change its status but they responded--two days after I tried to republish without it being free--to tell me that NO CAPS.

Other movies that have been on there for years now need actual GERMAN subtitles, or they won't go through in Germany. Shit like that.

The odd thing is that I don't seem to be losing much money with this new policy of theirs. I'm not sure why. I can't even figure the new policy out, because they TOLD US in print that our movies would ranked--in a way we can see--on whether we'd get penalized or rewarded depending on how popular it was on Amazon.

I have seen no such thing. I've looked.

So I dunno. I have no suggestions on how to proceed if you want to put your movie on Amazon. Perhaps that's their purpose--they don't want you to be able to make informed decisions.

Clearly if your movie has a very small budget but a good trailer and poster, you CAN make money. How much is a crap shoot.

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On the personal front, I'm still writing something I may try to shoot in October or November for the tiny amount of $2K. (and maybe I'll kickstart another $2K to finish it)

But if you know me, you know it's not gonna be a talky thing. I plan on doing the same crazy shit, plus some. Can I do it? I don't know.

Right now I feel old and tired. Most of my friends are like "Come on, man, you can do it!" I appreciate the sentiment and their encouragement, but I wanna say "Get back to me when you've spent literally 20 years chasing a dream, and pretty much have nothing to show for it."

And sure, I've got seven feature films to show for it. However, I also have bills, a family, no vacations, a small house and no savings.

That's why I tell wannabe filmmakers to be cautious. There was a saying I'd heard that I used to tell myself was good advice: "Those who have something to fall back on, inevitably do."

Well I lived my life on that, and at the beginning it DID seem like it would work. Then the internet hit and it all went away.

So by all means when you're young, go for it. But perhaps keep SOME other job in your back pocket. Some back-up plan, because the road ahead is hard, and getting harder.

Maybe find yourself a rich wife. That would work.

Amazon Oddness

So if you read my last blog, you know it's looking bleak for us indies.

As for me personally, our numbers have gone down pretty dramatically after January, like a switch was turned off.  With the new pay reduction, I'm all ready to turn my titles to pay-only...

...and then on March 2nd our numbers spiked big time on Terrortory 2. (and slightly on the other movies)

This is the current graph on Terrortory 2. You can see the spike--it's around 3 times the previous numbers, and then as you can see at the end, it REALLY spikes to about 10 times what we were previous doing on average.

It's going to lead to my best month since December, which leaves me with the question...should I leave one of my movies up just to see what happens? And which one?

The obvious seems to be Terrortory 2, but I have to ask myself...how many of these people who are streaming it for free would have paid $2 to rent it?

What if the graph KEEPS going up? I'm not sure what's driving it all of a sudden--we got a good review at the end of February, which triggered a small bump, but that was weeks ago--so I don't know what to expect.

It's a tough call, and I have to make it soon.

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Sudden thought: What if, instead of premiering my next flick for free on Amazon Prime, I went ahead and launched it on Amazon only, pay only? Would be an interesting experience, but could fail mightily.

If I put it up for pay at first(figuring I'd make it free later), and it doesn't do well, and then I make it free, it may have fallen too far on the charts to ever get back to the top.

But if I do this next flick, it may be the perfect film to try it on, being SUPER no-budget.

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FB buddy Rob Hagans has started a Vlog titled "How To Make A Movie For $1000".
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eQM7G2tu4bE

I don't agree with some of what he says, but what do I know? I'm a dinosaur. But either way I'm interested to watch and see what he comes up with.

Amazon Sticks It To The Indies. AGAIN.

Actual Footage of An Amazon Rep Replying To Filmmaker Concerns

So today Amazon sent out yet ANOTHER email to the filmmakers they're now going to fuck even more. Apparently, making over TEN BILLION in profits in 2018 while simultaneously paying ZERO in taxes is not enough to make Jeff Bezos happy.

The new payout is now going into a sliding scale based on a metric THAT WE CANNOT SEE.

To boil it down, you still start at the pauper's base rate of $.06 per hour viewed. That would net you on average about $.09 for every time your movie is viewed. (assuming an average running time of 90 minutes)

Imagine if Red Box charged a dime for every rental. Sound fair?

BUT, under the new metric(called the Customer Engagement Rating), you will be either penalized or rewarded for such vague and nebulous things such as:

• Unique Customers:   Current and new Prime members who view your title. 
• Streamed Hours:   The time each customer spends engaging with your content. 
• Title Popularity:   Notable talent, relevant genres, an IMDb presence and rating, and box office performance. 
• Title Caliber:   Compelling and high-quality poster art, accurate and representative copy and metadata, localized subtitles and key art. For more information, review the publishing steps for standalone and episodic titles, art requirements, and caption (timed text) information.

Oh, don't worry, Amazon's gonna let you know what your CER is, but I assure you that they're not going to back it up with any kind of facts or figures, or details about why your title's CER is going to be low. (and I assure you, it's going to be low)

And if your title is low? You will lose up to $.02 per hour viewed. In essence, you're now going to be earning $.04 per hour.

You thought we were getting bent over before...well Amazon was like, "Hold My Beer".

Amazon also notes at the bottom of all their new bullshit:
Note: The above list is provided as general guidance and could change over time, as our policies and program may change over time. Prime Video Direct reserves the right to make judgments and implementation of the practices above doesn't guarantee engagement.

So yeah, if you don't like, too bad.

Also of note, and buried in the new details--they won't be putting up any estimated stats for any movies during the month you're looking at it. So no more real-time stats. You'll get to see what your movie did last month. Good luck reacting in real time to anything, if you're stupid enough to continue to go on with this charade.

It all starts April 1st. I'll be pulling all my movies from free streaming on the last day of March. Enough is enough. I already canceled my Amazon Prime, though that's more because of their price hike plus the commercials I was being forced to watch during some of the videos on their service.

So it appears we're all back at square one on the distribution crap fest. No bright lights. Distributor are still paying nearly nothing for advances, and the back-end will never appear.

I dunno, man. I wish I didn't feel like Jake Gyllenhaal in Brokeback Mountain. I'm like, "I can't quit you" to filmmaking, while filmmaking spits into its hand and gets ready to bend me over again.

Urban Exploring Plus Other Stuff

Yeah, so I can't stop my brain from thinking about making a super cheap movie that I wouldn't be embarrassed about, but would for sure be able to at least make back the budget.

Cool locations where we can fuck shit up and not care. Spreading blood in locations, ie friend's houses, is not fun.

I've been thinking about maybe shooting something at this asylum I've explored a couple of times. Long abandoned, it's got like 22 buildings that are all creepy and different. That's production value right there.

Plus, I'm trying something else that may make me some dough. Testing it. If it works out, I'll share it here.

So my brother and I went back to the asylum. Got there about 1:30pm. As soon as we came out of the woods we saw two young girls walking our way. They said something to us about one of the buildings and I said, "Yeah, we've been here a couple of times."

Then they started asking questions--what was the best building to go to? The main one, we said. It's got the morgue and some cool hallways. Are we going there, they asked? Yes. They're like, Can we tag along with you?

I'm thinking...Jesus...this is how young girls get killed. They don't know my brother or I, and he's a huge guy. I'm not small, but he's bigger than me. Then I'm thinking, "I don't want these girls hanging around, getting in shots and stuff."

My brother said, "Well, we're not going to that building right away..." They got the hint, and took off.

We went into the "entrance" building. It's the one that cuts toward the center, so you can stay hidden from the guards better. You won't have to cross as much bare land.

 That's my brother and I posing in a cool dark hallway in the entrance building.  Today was an unseasonably warm 62 degrees on Feb 6th...yet this building is so cold it's uncomfortable. You gotta understand, there's tons of giant windows all over, and parts of the roof are caved in.

So how does it stay so cold? I figure it's the ghosts.

Then we headed off toward the church...

We got to the church. I didn't take many pics. My brother did, so I'll post some of those here when I get them.

Then to the main building. And my complete failure as a person.

We shoot a lot of cool pics and video. Here's some:

The buildings are falling apart a lot more than the last times we were there. There were also downed trees, like BIG trees.

We hear voices outside. Kids.We keep shooting. They're approaching, and being very loud and stupid. It's trespassing, and they're acting like they don't know it. There are signs EVERYWHERE.

I hear them getting closer so I walk toward the front door. I can't exactly tell where they are or how close, so when I come around the corner they were RIGHT THERE.

Two guys and two girls, probably around 17 years old. The girls SCREAM and run, as does one of the guys. The other guy had started running but I guess it registered that we weren't machete-carrying murderers, and he'd stopped and turned back.

My brother and I are smiling at the scene, but the running guy fell and hurt himself. He was limping. They all laughed, we told them we were just taking pictures. They said "So are we!" and held up their iphones, and my soul died a little at that.

And I'm kicking myself for not rolling video on the whole thing. Stupid. Would have been viral gold.

We went back to taking photos downstairs where the morgue is. (it's the fourth picture from the bottom one above) We heard them talking upstairs, and then we didn't. I guess they decided it wasn't smart to go into a building with strangers, even if they have convincing props that make them look like photographers.

It was getting dim, so we knew we had to get out of there .If it got dark, we'd have a hard time navigating the woods to get to our car.

Anyway...more to come.

January Update -- Amazon Strikes Again At The Indies

So the numbers have been going down pretty steadily on all titles, Terrortory 2 included. It was like a switch got turned on January 1st.

Then I notice when I look at my titles that two of my published titles are both showing up with warning exclamation points on them. When I hover over them I get this:

"We are unable to offer this title on Prime Video because we found that the following title contains content that doesn't meet our customer content quality expectations"

I'm thinking that's pretty weird. Both are "Making Of" segments that I put up a long time ago. They've been published for well over a year. Now, if they took off all the Making Of segments, then I'd chalk it up to them not wanting any kind of supplemental stuff under movies. It would be dubious, since they're basically just mini-documentaries, of which Amazon has plenty.

But they didn't take all of my Making Of movies off, so it's not that.

I sent an email to customer service to ask them why they took them down, and here's where it gets the way it ALWAYS gets with Amazon customer service. They reply with a form letter saying this:

We’ve confirmed that your titles contain content that violates our Content Policy Guidelines and we cannot offer this title on Amazon Video. We reserve the right to decide what content is appropriate, including content within your video, video title, key art, etc. Your video and other content must adhere to the Content Policy Guidelines outlined in our Help page: https://videodirect.amazon.com/home/help?topicId=201986500 

Thank you for your understanding.

So the strange thing here is that they say in this message that my movies have violated a content policy guideline--even though that's not what their other message says. I sent them a reply that says "Which is it, did I violate a guideline, or was it that the content didn't meet quality expectations, as you first said?"
UPDATE: There has been no response to this message--it's been 2 days.

There's really no way to read any of what Amazon has done over the past two years as anything but hostile to indie moviemakers. I'm not sure why they did the about-face, after being a pretty decent place to stream at first--and let's not get crazy, because remember they were still only paying FIFTEEN CENTS per hour streamed. It wasn't amazing, but it was decent.

It was glorious compared to what they now offer.

Anyway, will keep you updated. I know a lot of other indie filmmakers are getting their movies pulled also.

UPDATE 1:
They just pulled one of our BEST-watched movies, "Garden of Hedon". Here's their message about that:
We are always listening to customer feedback and iterating on their behalf. During a quality assurance review, we found that the following title contains content that doesn't meet our customer content quality expectations. As a result, all offers (“Included with Prime”, Buy, and Rent) have been removed. We will not be accepting resubmission of the impacted titles. This will not impact any royalties accrued through the date it was removed and will follow standard payment timelines.

Yeah, that's gonna hurt. I'm with some of these other guys--let's start suggesting to our fans that they cancel their Amazon Prime. I mean, the funny part is that I just did this this month. I wasn't using it all that much for the shipping, and I was getting pretty irate that they're playing the SAME goddamn commercial for Mrs. Maisel on EVERY episode of EVERY TV show I watched.

So I said fuck it--they can take their price hike and shove it.

UPDATE 2:

Articles are popping up all over about Amazon's shitty new policy:
http://dailygrindhouse.com/thewire/prime-purge-amazon-prime-cutting-lifelines-indie-filmmakers/


http://www.scaredstiffreviews.com/amazon-prime-video-declares-war-on-indie-film-censorship-at-its-worst-digital-giant-exposed-breaking-news/

UPDATE 3:
A reddit petition that I've probably unwisely decided to comment on.
https://www.reddit.com/r/horror/comments/ahzwfk/amazon_has_removed_hundreds_if_not_thousands_of/

UPDATE 4:
Another reddit thread I haven't gotten into yet:
https://www.reddit.com/r/cordcutters/comments/ai2c0q/amazon_prime_video_apparently_removes_many_indie/


UPDATE 5:
A uk news article that may tangentially touch on why this is all happening(Amazon's new attitude regarding indie films vs big budget stuff). Interesting that Amazon continues to have "no comment".
https://www.businessinsider.com/amazon-studios-cuts-indie-movies-big-budget-film-2018-1?r=UK

UPDATE 6:
Amazon got back to me. It's INSANE. Go ahead and read the above, then the below, and then let me know WHY THE FUCK THEY PULLED MY MOVIE, because apparently, they don't know. (and the three they pulled are still unavailable...)

Hello, Thank you for your feedback. 

Please disregard the previous message. Upon further review, your titles do not rely on a video experience (for example, a video content consisting of static images and/or looped content). Please note that further violations of our Content Policy Guidelines may result in suspension of your AVD account. 

 Please ensure all titles are wholly compliant with our Content Policy Guidelines: https://videodirect.amazon.com/home/help?topicId=201986500 

 This email was sent to all listed Administrators in your Amazon Video Direct account. Thanks for using Amazon Video Direct.

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Well, I feel pretty confident saying that we did NOT get the bonus for November. I think we would have gotten an email about it by now.

So I'm thinking over the options now.

This is an interesting list--it's got a TON of distribution options. Do they pay? Some of them. But it's definitely a good list to keep handy, look into.
http://trulyfreefilm.hopeforfilm.com/2011/08/how-would-you-use-all-27-new-platforms-available-for-direct-aka-diydiwo-distribution.html

Another interesting article with some resources. I haven't heard of bidslate, so will look into it, but I'm not too confident if it's anything like kinonation.
http://filmcourage.com/2018/11/24/self-distribution-on-a-micro-budget-releasing-your-film-worldwide-without-spending-a-dime-by-john-folan/