Couple interesting notes about independent distribution

Joe Falcon was nice enough to point out this case study about another aggregator I'd never heard of called Quiver. The article is here:
http://nofilmschool.com/2016/11/cents-feature-film-distribution

Also, Jason got back to me again about Distribber. There's a podcast about one of their better-selling low budget zombie movies here that I haven't listened to yet, but am planning on it.
http://filmmakingstuff.podbean.com/e/ep-100-how-self-distributed-film-range-15-leveraged-distribber-to-access-itunes/

He says that Hulu is in a bit of a transition period right now--changing their deals up, so they're actually holding off making new deals there I think.

I really would like to find some other filmmakers with super-low budget movies who have tried Distribber, just to see what we might expect. Haven't found any yet though...

And as a note--you may have noticed me removing numbers in the other posts. The powers-that-be really don't want any metrics shared as far as minutes and whatnot. Getting kind of dickish, but don't wanna bite the hand that feeds, you know?

Especially when it's currently the only hand that's feeding...

As for Terrortory--while it's going down quite a bit in the minutes category, it's falling far slower in the countdown. It's still #16 in Horror, still top 150 overall.

So...What Now?

No, not that. Not yet.

(Though I HAVE finished writing the wrap-around in case I do it)

I'm still talking the first flick. I think we're still on course to do about REDACTED minutes for November. Sure, it's a big down-tick, but it's NOVEMBER. People are getting into the OTHER holiday spirits...

One thing slightly concerning is Amazon's dashboard states it's all "estimates", and they don't appear to be kidding. Bounty in its first month, according to their dashboard, did 1.1 million but on the actual earnings chart they claim it's actual 957,000 minutes...

They also sent me this regarding a DIFFERENT month than that:

This message is to notify you that we made an adjustment to your estimated revenue for the month of September to be more accurate and align with the actual payment you can expect to receive. The royalty revenue displayed on the Dashboard report is an estimated amount. From time to time, you may notice an adjustment has been made to your estimated revenue, like the one in your account for September. 

As you might expect, that adjustment was not in my favor. Not a HUGE difference, but still less.

At a certain point, sure, you start wondering WHO'S auditing these guys to make sure they're honest...

ANYWAY

The question now is, do we pursue a distributor? (I've technically sent one screener out to a company I heard still gives advances, but haven't heard back yet)

Or do we use an aggregator to get the movie out elsewhere? I contacted Jason Brubaker on Distribber. He's always been a pretty upfront, reachable guy. I had talked to him before when he was working on Chill, another distribution service.

I asked him about Netflix, and submitting Terrortory to them now. He said that if it was exploited on Amazon Prime it probably won't get picked up by Netflix.

Now, it's not a big deal to me. I mean, let's say Netflix is going to give us $10K for 6 months or a year...and believe me, it could be less than that. Guess what, we just made that on Amazon in ONE month. So if I'm only going to put Terrortory on one of those, I'd just as soon it be Amazon.

He suggested trying Vudu or Hulu. Vudu costs around $1200 to submit through Distribber and Hulu costs $1000. If the outlets don't accept your movie, Distribber gives you all but $120 back(for processing).

I have NO idea what Vudu pays--doesn't seem to be details on the percentage. I don't like that they set their own prices(you can recommend, but it doesn't necessarily matter).

Hulu pays by the view OR by ads in your movie--if it's per view it's eighteen and a half cents per view...which is actually worse than Amazon unless your movie is under 70 minutes long...

Is it worth it to go through the rigamarole for those two outlets? Let's say I submit to one and they accept...am I ever going to make that $1K-$1200 back?

Questions I'm mulling over now...

Amazon Video Terrortory Finals

So we got to #6. Pretty incredible.

We're currently at #8, still hanging in the top 10.



In-freakin-credible.

We had a talk and decided to leave it up for free until we all decide to make it pay-only. At this point it still looks to be on track for a lot of minutes in November, and the odds that we're gonna make that much money on paid-streams...just not sure.

And to take the chance and make it pay-only, and then have to wait for Amazon's analytics to tell us how it's doing(and they've been up to 5 days behind on minutes, and they're currently 3 weeks behind on Earnings)...it could be dangerous.

What happens if we get very few paid streams, and we drop out of the top 100 super fast? Even if we switch it to free again, it's not likely we'll catch it in time to stop the drop.

And at this point it should all be profit, so why not make what we can? I'm thinking about sending it to a couple of distributors to test those waters. I'm sure they will frown at us exploiting the film on Amazon already, and I'd give a shit if they were paying any kind of reasonable advances nowadays, but...they're not.

---

On my other movies' front, Hunting Humans continue to out-perform Fear of Clowns 2. I really can't explain it. To be honest, FOC2 is the least-watched of ALL of my movies on Amazon when I was pretty sure it would be the most-watched.

Not sure how to explain it, especially when it's still selling on DVD.

#7? #7? WHAT'S HAPPENING?

Uh...man. Just when I think we REALLY can't go any higher...

It's going to be bittersweet if we push Tremors down to move up to #6, because I love that movie. (I totally won't mind pushing Zombie's Halloween out, FYI)

On top of that we've almost broken into the top 50 popular movies, which is way harder to do since you're competing against ALL movies, not just horror(as you can see, over 9,200 movies).

On every front Terrortory has exceeded our expectations.

Big thanks to everybody who has checked it out and left a review!

#8 Plus The Review Game

Wow, just when I think it can't go any higher it moves to #8...exciting! We're at #70 on the popular chart, so moving up slightly on there too.

Anyway, thought we could play a game that I played on FB last week where I show you why reviews don't matter. It's a quiz...but a fun one. I've got some new ones in there just in case you were one of the ones playing along on FB.

These are ACTUAL AMAZON REVIEWS for movies. They are all 1-star reviews for movies that are, by all measure, excellent movies. Yet, someone out there has seen fit to not only rate it a one, but to talk shit about some of the amazing things in them.

The answers will be way down below if you want to see how you did.

1) --"If Zero Stars were possible...
I'm normally a sucker for movies like this, but this one was so bad I didn't even finish. And that really means something."
   --"Not what I expected. ..it was lame"
   --"Very weak writing and flat affectless acting and all the actors wear way too much make-up, looks very silly."
These are reviews for _________________________

2) "My wife wanted this for her Amazon video library. The language is horrible, the plot pathetic and the acting lousy. I don't get the appeal."
This is a review for _________________________

3) "Weak plot. Bad resolution" and "The book was better". I'll give you a hint--think Hitchcock, but your first guess is probably wrong.
This is a review for _________________________

4) "I have always liked ACTOR but my goodness he didn't always pick the best of films during his career. This one is no exception. Don't get me wrong, it has an interesting story line but the effects are so cheesy that it ruins the whole film for me. It had the makings of a great movie but then their effects just kill it."

This is a review for _________________________

5) --"Terrible. These movie makers owe me $4 and 90+ minutes of my life back...i can never recover the wasted times pent hoping this would get better. Did mention that i had wished that the "moviemakers" had decided to hire a qualified audio engineer after they looked at a few filmed scenes? Absolutely unwatchable, unlistenable, useless movie."
   --"Stupid don't waste your time."
These are reviews for _________________________

6) "Lots of foul language, Also quite a bit a sexual hints, promotes sleeping together in high school. And lots of blasphemy (God.d , Jesus/Jesus Christ) all this even within first 5-10
of beginning. Was very disappointed, thought this was an older movie with some values boy was i wrong. went in garbage. Definitely won't buy the rest in this series."
This is a review for _________________________

7) "I am amazed that this film gets so many positive reviews. I love horror films, and I want them to be scary, frightening, etc. I'm not a big fan of the horror comedy genre. There are a few good ones. But, this is not one of them. This is simply a bad comedy, and there are no real jokes here -- just kind of "stupid comedy": the characters constantly simply act stupidly, and that is supposed to be funny. There is nothing clever here. There is no believable character, with the exception of ACTOR. He is the one saving grace, and his professional acting ability shines way above the rest. But the plot, the other actors, the "jokes" are really bad. The special effects are mostly consisting of "melting faces", and were done on the cheap. Good special effects for the time and for a low budget -- but, not very good for scaring the audience. At the time this was made (1985) perhaps it deserved good reviews as a send-up of horror films. But, it really does not stand the test of time, in my opinion."
This is a review for _________________________


8) --"I went in to this expecting to like it, I even paid to rent it through amazon instant movies and I can't get past the first 45 minutes. The acting isn't good, the plot is really lame so far and I just can't even get in to it enough to finish it. I had heard from quite a few people that its a 'great movie of the 80s' so I thought I would try it and definitely am disappointed."
   --"This is a kid's movie. I can't understand that anyone over 14 thinks this is a great movie! Even the main characters are kids."
   --"I'm not one of those who criticizes other films because other people liked them, but I HATED this film. I rarely hate a film. I even liked MAD CITY. But this...this is not cinema! This is filming people and adding bad dialogue! Quite obviously a no-star movie and THE worst I have ever seen. I'm sorry if I offend those die-hard lovers of the film, but that's my opinion."
These are reviews for _________________________

9) "I was a huge fan of the original. This was a disipiontment. Though it has better FX the plot isn't very good unlike the firsts very unique and original plot. This is a very good DVD and I hope other better movies get this kind DVD treatment. If you want a mindless Special Effects film this is for you."
This is a review for _________________________

10) "Terrible flick with horrid plot and bad postproduction synthetic 3D. The CREATURES were well done, but the rest of the movie was very poor."
This is a review for _________________________

11) --"This movie is just not good, it wasn't scary, it was, uh, it was dumb. There were probably two frightening moments in the film, but it was almost more of a weird fantasy film than horror? I don't get why I've heard so many people say how scary this is, like i have a very low fear-threshold for horror films and this one just was annoying to be honest."
     --"Terrible."
This is a review for _________________________

12) --"really boring it's like a big crime investigation. I didn't get startled at all."
      --"This movie deserves zero stars, it's awful. Absolutely not suspenseful, it's completely predictable and B O R I N G. This movie is a waste of your time and money. Snorefest zzzzzzz"
This is a review for _________________________ 




SCROLL DOWN FOR THE ANSWERS
And the reason that filmmakers shouldn't taken reviews too seriously...













1) Tremors
2) Jaws
3)  The Birds
4) The Thing
5) Shaun of the Dead
6) Back to the Future
7) Fright Night
8) The Lost Boys
9) T2
10) Jurassic Park
11) Insidious
12) The Ring

Terrortory at #9 and Reviews

Terrortory's doing pretty amazing on Amazon--it's hanging at #9 in the top 10 Horror--not sure it'll be able to push past the big-budget fare above it, but here's hoping. It's actually up to #73 on the Popular list of over 9,000 movies.

Also of note, we've busted through not one million minutes but TWO million at this point. It's very encouraging.

The only downside to all of this is that many of the reviews are, let's say, less than kind. On the one hand it's impossible to ignore, though I try. Many of the reviews I ignore offhand. The ones that mention that it looks like we shot on an iphone or a "90's camcorder" are clearly from out-right idiots.

On the off chance they'd like to know, we shot on: Canon 5D Mark 2 with various L Glass(Smiling Jack) and 5D Mark 3 with rented Zeiss lenses(Wraparound), Panasonic GH4 with rented glass and my cheap Rokinon lenses that I love, Canon 70D(Prowler and Drone) and Canon HV30 and HV40(yes, actually using mini-dv tape).

So if they think the picture looks like an iphone or a 90's camcorder then they're just flat out stupid. (or--as I'm coming to think--they watched it on a phone or kindle with a really bad connection...the movie DOES look like crap if you're watching it that way, but pretty much any movie will)

Those who say the movie "makes no sense"...that's so vague I can't really comment. While there may be a few things that aren't spelled out(like who or what exactly Gotz is), most of it's pretty simple.

SPOILERS - WATCH THE MOVIE FIRST
1) Siren is about a hunter who goes into the Terrortory and is drawn to the Siren's call. As soon as she speaks to him, everything he sees is only in his mind as she draws him closer and closer to her so that she can eat him.

2) Prowler isn't mine, and to be honest Mark and I had a conversation early where I had script reservations. My problem was that it was going to appear, from the way it was shot, that we were hiding the Prowler's identity. That would appear to the audience like it was one of the people in the group doing the killing. So by the end when it turns out to be a stranger the audience will feel ripped off.
But Mark liked it that way, and that's the filmmaker's prerogitive--to do it the way you want to see it. It would have some cool gore and more humor than the other segments.

3) Smiling Jack - The 1st segment I did. It involves a clueless couple that goes out into the woods camping, with the guy planning to propose to his girl. They're being stalked by a pumpkin-headed man, Smiling Jack.

But surprise #1 is that they're not clueless at all. They're there hunting HIM. To either get some great video or actually citizen's arrest this guy who scares kids out in the woods.

They get attacked, but they go after him and eventually discover surprise #2--Smiling Jack is not a man at all. He's a supernatural entity that opens up the skulls of his victims and adds the brains to his empty pumpkin head.

One reviewer mentioned they thought it might have been better if Jack had an actual pumpkin on his head. I guess he didn't understand that THAT would clearly have revealed that Jack wasn't a man at all. (the review also blows the fact that Jack's a creature rather than just a guy with a plastic pumpkin mask)

4) Drone Collector - This was Dan's and is pretty self explanatory. Our only worry, which I think is valid, is that people watching will think that little walking drone at the end is controlling all of the flying drones. That was not our intention--we just wanted to explain the typing sounds heard earlier(which we had to add to sell the fact that the drone collector wasn't dead).

5) The Midnight Clown - Again, pretty self explanatory. Other than an FX snafu involving a decapitation and another FX shot that we just couldn't make happen due to wind and logistics, it went okay. It was the cheapest of the segments to do because it had to be--I was basically completely out of money by this time.

The Wrap - Couple rents a house in the Terrortory. Lot of life-size dolls around the house. Power goes out, and someone outside the house makes his way INSIDE the house. Goes into their son's room, then attacks her husband while she's passed out downstairs. She wakes to find a black trash bag bulging in the corner--goes upstairs and finds the doll where her son should be. Goes downstairs to see what's in the trash bag, but her husband is outside the door, bleeding. He's stabbed, falls to the ground, and the figure outside gets in. She strikes the figure, knocking its mask off and we see it's a deformed thing with one eye who can only say "Gotz". She kills it, but still doesn't know where her son is. At that moment, something taps on the glass window--it's her husband, who's now in the midst of turning into a life-sized doll(which is what the creature Gotz does to people when it stabs them).

Then she wakes--this is sort of a "Final Destination" moment. Whether I ever address why she in particular has this vision, in a sequel or whatever, who knows?

All that said, I'm pretty happy with the final movie. We shot it for WAY cheaper than any film I've ever done. The reviews who swipe at it for being "low budget", well hey, guilty on all counts. Anyone who doesn't like low budget fare isn't going to like the movie. Lucky for them, the Ghostbusters remake is still available for them to check out.

Next post we'll play a little game that we had fun with on Facebook about reviews.

Breaking the top 10 and the top 100 at the same time...

I'm pretty happy to announce we just moved into the top 10 in horror on Amazon Prime. It's been slow going, but we're there. I'd be lying if I didn't say the movies above us are pretty intimidating. Can we move through them? Through Cloverfield? Through Halloween...in October?

Fingers crossed.

But check this out:

We're at #93 on the Popular list, out of over 9,000 movies. This is a feat none of my other movies have managed, and there's more competition now than there used to be. I think the highest Garden of Hedon ever got was 129, and that was when it was #8 on the horror list.

The scary thing is that the Amazon metrics are STILL stuck on last Tuesday. I'm pretty sure that as soon as we see Wednesday it will show that we broke a million minutes in 12 days, which will be amazing. That's 6 days faster than Garden of Hedon, and it puts us on a track toward 3 million.

I sent support an email to see what's up. The warning about metrics being delayed is there, but it's starting to get worrisome. Like, they ARE keeping accurate records, right?

It's just my luck that the month we have a legitimate chance at the bonus, the whole system goes down...