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The Hallmark Movie Formula: Indie Filmmaking Tips We’re Weirdly Thankful For · Indie Film Podcast

0:00
Welcome to Indie Film Podcast. I'm Vic.
0:02
And I am Chuck. It is the month of November.
0:04
Holiday season is fast approaching, and you know what
0:06
that means? We're all going to be eating
0:08
slight variations of the same thing, usually involving Turkey
0:13
or ham or cranberries. You know what else is kind of
0:17
the same thing over and over and over and over again, just with
0:20
slightly different packaging and maybe different spices?
0:23
Hallmark Movies. Hallmark Movies.
0:25
Ah yes, so before I give you all a Hallmark movie quiz and.
0:29
Before we go into some actual takeaways that you can garner
0:33
from these films. Let's talk Hallmark movie facts.
0:36
OK, Chuck. In 2024, Hallmark produced 52
0:41
films. Oh, that's it.
0:43
That sounds weak. That doesn't even account for
0:45
like Netflix and Hulu and the other Hallmark style movie.
0:48
That's a good point. And did you know that the
0:50
average production time is 2 to 3 weeks for a Hallmark feature
0:54
film? So all of you out there indie
0:56
film makers that takes you 30 plus days to do it, What are you
0:59
doing wrong? OK, but all of these films have
1:02
an average of a 1 to $2 million budget, which as an indie does
1:06
sound like a lot of money. I get it.
1:09
But collectively, they account for a $350 million ad revenue
1:14
every year. That is a lot of cash.
1:17
That is 1 hell of an ROI. Yeah, and that doesn't even
1:20
count like how much money they make from their cards.
1:23
So the films obviously, you know, it's a raining cash from
1:27
them creating the same thing every single year, multiple
1:31
weeks throughout the year, usually during November and
1:34
December. So completely makes sense that
1:37
they can make so much money from the same recipe.
1:39
Well, I personally think it's the suspiciously handsome
1:42
carpenters and farmers that are making all the money.
1:44
Oh. Well, I guess I didn't put them
1:46
into the equation. Well, I am literally the target
1:48
demographic of the 25 to 40 year old woman living in the United
1:52
States. Awesome.
1:53
Well, I'm glad that you are enjoying your Hallmark films.
1:57
Clearly, then I. Don't know if I said that.
1:59
OK, well. I did watch one, all right, And
2:01
so this is the quiz that I'm going to give you.
2:03
I got to open it up here real quick.
2:04
So what I did was I watched a film that was called Harvest
2:09
Love. It was produced in 2017.
2:11
I'm. Already angry at it?
2:12
And I took notes on this movie, detailed notes about plot beats
2:18
and and things that happened in the story.
2:19
And then I went to AI and I asked it just to come up with
2:24
some ideas for a Hallmark style movie, starting with the title.
2:28
And I want you to be able to choose which was an actual
2:32
Hallmark movie trope or a Hallmark movie story beat and
2:37
what's AI and also what was the thing that Chuck came up with?
2:44
So those are going to be your three choices.
2:46
So for. Example Am I allowed to pitch a
2:47
new title for the film? No, it's just harvest love.
2:51
What do you think it should be? Called It should have been
2:53
Love's Harvest. Are you kidding me?
2:55
They obviously workshop the title.
2:57
It's Hallmark. Are you kidding?
2:58
Me. Yeah, they have.
2:59
They showed they. Showed the market research
3:01
budget. They had they had like 200
3:03
people all look at the different ideas for the movie and they
3:06
came up with the most popular answer.
3:09
So the what is the 2017 Hallmark film Harvest Love Log Line?
3:17
Is it a A doctor from Seattle returns to her family farm to
3:21
reconnect with her son and finds more than she can imagine.
3:26
As it be, a big city executive is forced to return to her small
3:29
town family farm to oversee its annual harvest festival, where
3:32
she quickly falls for the charming down to earth farmer
3:35
hired to help save the struggling season.
3:39
Very similar or is it C While lost in a corn maze, a young
3:42
artist realizes she may have found her forever home, but
3:45
harvest season is coming. Will she be able to stop the
3:48
combine? Or will the agricultural
3:49
industrial complex destroy her newly found peace and murder the
3:53
community of rodents reliant upon her sharing the tall the
3:57
tallest ears of corn? Are we like attacking the rats
4:01
of Nim in the third one's yours? OK, well, good guess.
4:05
Lucky. Guess that could have been AI
4:07
too. OK.
4:07
I actually I think I think A is the AI version and I think B is
4:17
the hallmark. Well, I want to Thanks.
4:19
OK, Well, my justification was my justification was use it to
4:25
reconnect with her son, I think at the first one, Yeah, which
4:29
implies that she has abandoned her son to go be a doctor in
4:33
Seattle. And I don't think Homer would
4:36
support that like. Oh no, That was, that's what it
4:38
was. That was the Seattle doctor was
4:41
the one. So she left her son on the
4:42
family farm. No, she didn't leave her son.
4:45
Her son, she's AI don't want to give too many of the story beats
4:48
away 'cause it might come up in later questions.
4:50
OK. Let's just move on to the next
4:51
question basically, and then I can fight about my answer.
4:54
She needs to. She needs to reconnect.
4:56
That doesn't mean that she's her son is long lost.
4:58
It just means that maybe she's not paying enough attention.
5:01
To her, like now they're going to have one-on-one.
5:04
I definitely interpreted that as abandonment.
5:06
You can unpack that however you need to.
5:08
OK, let's move on to the next. Question.
5:09
Better movie, all right. What is the name of the town
5:13
where Harvest Love takes place? Is it a Pineview, B Orchard
5:17
Landing, or C Dungville? OK.
5:21
Well, C is definitely yours. OK, good guess again.
5:25
What was the first one? Pineville.
5:27
Pineville, Pine View or Orchard Landing.
5:33
I'm going to say Pine View is the actual place because Orchard
5:37
Landing sounds not good. OK, well, yeah, it's right.
5:42
It's Pine View. OK.
5:43
Yeah. Orchard Landing.
5:44
Orchard Landing doesn't roll off the tongue as well as Pine View
5:47
does. And Pine View just, I mean, that
5:49
sounds picturesque. Yeah, it was AI was was was
5:52
Orchard. Came up with Orchard.
5:53
Well, AI needs to Orchard Landing doesn't.
5:57
I did try. It was like Orchard Grove, which
6:00
I see is very repetitive. I understand that, but then I
6:02
might have fallen for that one. Yeah, good point.
6:05
Yeah, well, so just so you know, my first draft of the quiz was
6:08
to have AI finish movie script lines from the film.
6:13
But The thing is, is like the AI line by line dialogue writing
6:17
just isn't quite there yet because it was throwing all
6:19
sorts of wild stuff coming from left field into the dialogue.
6:22
So it's it's it's better at story beats, especially if it's
6:25
a Hallmark movie. All right, What is the lesson
6:28
learned in the film by protagonist Dr. Luna Gilson?
6:32
Is it? OK, hold on.
6:34
Is that just the given? Her name is Doctor Luna Gilson.
6:39
That is, that is what I entered into AI.
6:42
These are I answered these questions into AI.
6:44
So what is the lesson that she learns in the film Harvest Love?
6:49
A Family and community matter more than her career.
6:52
B True fulfillment and happiness aren't found in a job title or a
6:56
busy schedule, but in grounding herself in community,
6:59
appreciating life simpler, slower rhythms, and allowing
7:02
herself to be truly vulnerable in love.
7:05
Or is it? C Hospitals are full of know it
7:07
alls but small towns have just as many less but less educated.
7:15
Once again, I think C might be yours.
7:18
Yeah. OK.
7:19
All right. I'm glad I can pick yours apart
7:21
from the AI. OK, so this one I'm kind of torn
7:24
on. OK so where did the answer come
7:34
from? Like when when you were?
7:37
Is this like in the movie description on the IMDb?
7:39
Page or something like. Is this verbatim?
7:42
They say this is what she's learning.
7:44
I'm pretty. Sure, I pulled it from the IMDb
7:45
page because it was really hard for me to succinctly figure this
7:48
stuff out and so the AI ones actually are very similar, so
7:51
this is tricky. Yeah, I they say when it's a
7:55
multiple choice quiz, you're supposed to go with the longest
7:57
answer. OK, but that feels so long.
8:06
Like. That's a lot, and homework has
8:10
to pay by the word, but ChatGPT doesn't, so that's great.
8:16
I'm gonna go. We'll we'll go with A as AI and
8:18
B as Hallmark, no. Wrong B was definitely AI should
8:23
have. Gone with my gut.
8:23
It was too long. Should have gone with my gut.
8:26
You ready? For the next question, yeah.
8:27
Oh, there's more. Yeah, we.
8:29
Still got we still got 3 left. Oh.
8:30
No, so we don't. We don't have to dwell on these
8:32
too long, OK? Yeah, I don't need to beat
8:34
myself up over this quiz. Yeah.
8:35
There's no prize. You're not going to win any
8:38
money, but you might lose some. No, I'm kidding.
8:42
It was. Like my my dignity is on the
8:44
line for sure, but other than that, I think.
8:47
The point is that AI and Hallmark movies are very
8:50
similar, so. This is hard to tell.
8:52
Apart so romantic interest, Will Nash is the manager of Luna's
8:57
family pear farm. He's hiding something in the
9:00
greenhouse in the film. What is it Top?
9:03
Farm. Let me.
9:05
Give you the options here. Good guess though, that's a
9:09
very. Different movie, yeah.
9:10
Yeah, that's not what I came up with.
9:12
A Will is researching a new breed of pear.
9:16
B Will is restoring the greenhouse to which to its
9:19
original state to grow a rare vegetable her late grandmother
9:23
loved. Or is it?
9:24
C Will is developing a Moss that more quickly decomposes.
9:28
Animal. Animal remains.
9:31
Luna finds a hand in a pile of dirt.
9:33
She recognizes the ring on its finger.
9:35
It belongs to her missing husband.
9:38
Which one is he hiding? OK.
9:39
One please tell me the husband is actually missing and not just
9:42
like gone that to be husband. 'S husband's dead, Yeah.
9:46
But there's always a tragic spouse death.
9:48
But they don't. They don't actually talk, they
9:49
don't address it. No, it's just like given.
9:51
OK. So C is definitely you?
9:53
Yeah. You know what?
9:55
I'm going to say that the real answer is A and the AI one is B.
9:59
Yes. Correct, It is a he's trying to
10:00
make a new type of pair. Yeah.
10:02
Because of course everyone loves GMOs it.
10:04
Was it was quite the mystery when she was trying to get into
10:06
that greenhouse. Great movie.
10:08
Don't it's not don't watch it. I.
10:09
Feel like that makes loves to harvest make even more sense.
10:13
Oh, nice. And actually.
10:16
Miss Hallmark, we need to help with harvest.
10:18
And makes more sense that he would just be like taking
10:20
decomposing bodies and then using it to harvest, you know?
10:25
All right, so what's the name of the annual fall festival in
10:29
Pineview? Is it A the Harvest festival, B
10:33
the Orchard Landing Harvest Moon Jubilee, or C doomsday Prep
10:38
Fair? Love doomsday prep fair.
10:41
Congratulations on you crafting that beautiful one.
10:43
I already know it's not Orchard Landing so it's definitely not
10:46
B. That would be A IS version and I
10:48
agree that just the harvest festival makes the most sense
10:52
for that. Very classic Hallmark tropes.
10:55
A is the Hallmark 1 you. Got it.
10:57
Nailing them now. OK.
10:59
Luna is pressured into entering the Harvest Festival pumpkin
11:02
carving competition because her son Andy this.
11:05
Cannot be a real block point this.
11:08
Really happens in the movie. This is great.
11:10
So so she's pressured, pressured into entering the the festival's
11:15
pumpkin carving competition because her son Andy jokes she's
11:19
a surgeon and she carves all day anyway.
11:22
What? What is the outcome of the
11:24
pumpkin carving contest? A Luna wins.
11:29
B Luna and will, initially carving separately, end up in a
11:33
frantic last minute partnership. Their combined effort blending
11:36
her precision with his farm rooted design knowledge wins the
11:40
grand prize or C. Unaccustomed to the dull carving
11:44
instrument, Luna slips while working on her orange spherical
11:47
canvas and manages to give herself a deep gash in her hand.
11:50
Initially she wraps the wound in a towel and tries to play it
11:53
off, but the bleeding doesn't stop.
11:55
Unwilling to allow herself to be embarrassed in front of her son
11:58
and love interest, she signs up for the embroidery competition.
12:02
In a display of sheer willpower, Luna fights to remain conscious
12:05
as she closes the wound in her hand.
12:08
The crowd gasps as she reveals she was not only giving herself
12:12
sutures, but her palm is now beautifully embroidered with the
12:17
words Pineview Harvest Festival 2015.
12:22
Which one of those happened in the movie?
12:27
I'll be honest with you, I wanted it to be that she lost
12:30
because based on where it's at in the typical flow of a
12:32
Hallmark film, she should lose, right?
12:34
Because she's got to have some stuff that she's trying to
12:37
overcome. It almost feels too sappy.
12:42
But I'm going to say B really happened, C was yours and A was
12:45
AI. No, she she actually did like
12:48
embroidered. She embroidered her palm in the
12:49
movie. No, I'm kidding.
12:50
No, that was obviously that was mine.
12:52
No, Luna won. She did win.
12:54
She she just, she just wins. It was really boring.
12:56
It was anti climactic scene. You know, some of them they just
12:59
got a they got to get to the minute marker.
13:02
Well. That had to be in the first half
13:04
of the movie then. No, it was in the back half,
13:07
really. And she's still just one.
13:09
Yeah, it was. Just over.
13:10
It was really usually by the. Second-half the leading lady,
13:13
which is what, 70 some odd percent of all Hallmark movies
13:15
like she's struggle busing, no. She was not.
13:19
She was not struggle busing. This was not a lot of struggle
13:21
busing. This was definitely they were
13:23
just checking off plot points real quick.
13:26
So final question, Are you ready for it?
13:27
I. Thought we were done.
13:29
No, this is it. Will's new breed of pear wins
13:32
the Harvest Festival Fruit competition.
13:34
Luna's parents decide to sell the family farm, Luna.
13:38
Luna is offered a promotion to lead surgeon at her hospital in
13:41
Seattle. So there's a lot going on here
13:44
at the end of the film. OK, So what is the resolution?
13:47
So you have Will winning the Harvest Festival Fruit
13:51
competition. Luna, her parents are selling
13:55
this farm and then she gets offered job head surgeon.
13:57
OK so a Luna opens a practice in Pine View and Will buys part of
14:03
Luna's family farm with the money earned from investors
14:06
interested in his new pair. The two kiss with expectations
14:10
that they will begin life together.
14:12
Is it B Everything stated above except Luna started a private
14:17
practice. She and Will join forces to farm
14:21
together. So she's just join in the farm
14:24
there? So no private practice
14:27
basically. So I misstated that, sorry.
14:29
So either she has a private practice or they just farm
14:31
together. Or it turns out that Will's
14:35
experimental pair carries a rare parasite capable of passing the
14:38
blood brain barrier. Several days after the harvest
14:41
festival, anyone who ate the pair begins showing bizarre
14:44
symptoms, such as hanging from tree branches and demanding to
14:47
be removed by hand. Although innocuous at first,
14:51
once off the tree and quote UN quote ripening, the infected
14:54
individuals begin to produce cyanide in their body cavity,
14:57
which is expelled with explosively lethal results.
15:01
Anybody nearby risks infection. Will, feeling guilty about his
15:05
careless genetic manipulation, attempts to remedy the situation
15:09
himself. He successfully stops the spread
15:11
of the parasite before reaching the nearby metropolis, but at
15:14
the cost of his own life and nearly half of the towns.
15:18
The film ends with Luna commenting the loss of two
15:20
lovers and a forgotten crate of pairs labeled for shipment to
15:24
Seattle. Chuck, I got to tell you, I'm
15:29
pretty sure you spent more time on this quiz than anybody spent
15:32
on this script. Oh.
15:37
So so. I'm going to get C is probably
15:39
still yours, yes. So does Luna farm or?
15:43
Does Luna open a open a surgeon or, excuse me, a practice in the
15:48
town? I'm going to say she opens the
15:50
private practice in the town, but will buys in on the family
15:53
farm. Yeah.
15:54
Yeah, because. Otherwise, it's not quite
15:56
empowering enough for her if she gives up her career entirely.
16:00
Yeah, yes. So you got to toe that line for
16:02
your female audience that. Is correct.
16:04
All right well, I I forgot to keep track of how many you got
16:07
correct and how many you didn't, but basically I didn't change
16:09
the order. So A was always the real movie,
16:12
B was always AI. Oh.
16:13
Wow, you figure out what it caught on to that pattern at
16:15
some point? No, that's.
16:16
OK, it's only 6 questions so that makes sense, but I thought
16:20
there was. Going to be some variety in the
16:22
movie of where it was at. Oh well.
16:23
I. Thought I came up with some good
16:25
ideas if Hallmark, if you ever wanted to kind of like, change
16:28
the demographic that you're selling movies to, then let me
16:31
know. I'd be happy to write an
16:32
alternative outline. I do.
16:35
Really like the case of Pears. Like the that she forgot she's
16:39
just so mourning. We'll see.
16:42
There's a there's. There's harvest love, too.
16:46
The case of Paris gets I. Think you should just make the
16:49
movie and call it Loves Harvest and then and then we'll see what
16:53
really goes down. Hallmark Challenge competing.
16:57
This will be like. There many many multi $1,000,000
17:01
attorneys will come after you. This will be.
17:02
Like those really crappy movies in the 90s and and 2000s where
17:06
they would just make fun of the other movie that exists like the
17:11
like the horror movies, like they made like a it wasn't
17:13
Scream, but it was like called something kind of like Scream
17:15
and they would just base it on the screen Scream.
17:18
Oh, like. The Not Another Scary Movie,
17:19
Yeah. Yeah, there it is.
17:21
Yeah. So yeah, exactly.
17:24
Should we talk a little bit about the Hallmark movie formula
17:26
that we we found out I Yeah. Actually, because those are some
17:30
fun stats. Because keep in mind the only
17:34
reason that we're really discussing Hallmark movies, not
17:37
necessarily because either one of us is a huge fan.
17:39
Yeah, good point. No and no shade.
17:41
If that's your jam, just enjoy it.
17:43
Don't let anybody throw shade at you for what you like.
17:45
Just enjoy what you like. Some people.
17:47
Like mindless movies, sometimes you got to turn something on and
17:50
be able to be distracted and then get back to it.
17:52
And if you missed 5 or 10 minutes, you can get right back
17:55
into the story know exactly. What's going on?
17:58
And realistically, they make great drinking games.
18:00
So, you know, you've got options, yeah.
18:04
So we went through we. We're because these do so and
18:07
they do some things very well. The fact that they are creating
18:12
these constantly and with two to three-week production time for,
18:16
you know, relatively low budget for all things considered, for
18:20
what you'll typically see made out of a studio film like they
18:24
have, they do some things right. Even if you don't love the
18:27
movies, you can still find something good.
18:29
It feels like if it's that you don't want to write these tropes
18:32
now you don't have to because, you know, Hallmark's doing it
18:34
for you. So that's a good reason to say
18:36
thank you, Hallmark. Well, it's it's.
18:38
Got to be I have never worked at Hallmark, but it has to be 100%
18:43
business decision because they have X amount of money coming in
18:46
from it consistently. They have probably done the math
18:49
on how much money they need to spend every single year to
18:52
produce new films so that they can continue to have people
18:55
watch their stuff and keep that. ROI up and.
18:59
Hallmark, it's got to be better than just paying for ads in some
19:03
ways. Because when people think of
19:04
warm sappy crap, they think of Hallmark.
19:07
And then that way they know when they're at the card aisle, if
19:11
they have a family member that likes really sappy crap, they go
19:16
to the Hallmark selection and they give them one of those
19:18
cards and everybody's happy. And they only spent 10 bucks or
19:20
whatever it cost for one of those.
19:22
Well. It's kind of the value of the ad
19:26
spend as well, right. So when a Hallmark movie is
19:30
being watched and, and depending on the slight variations in said
19:36
Hallmark movie, yeah, that will adjust your demographic.
19:39
But they know exactly who is on the other side of that screen,
19:42
which makes it really easy to find advertisers to fill that
19:46
space because it's like, oh, are you selling jewelry?
19:48
Are you selling a new face cream?
19:50
Are you selling slippers that are customized to look exactly
19:52
like your cat? Yes, you should advertise on
19:56
Hallmark. So like the ad revenue, I see
20:00
why it's 350 million. If they made 52 movies, even at
20:03
$2,000,000 each, that's 100 and. $4 million I think I'm bad at
20:09
math You. Doubled it so.
20:11
I can do that. I mean, that's a $248 million
20:17
profit, $248 million profit every.
20:20
Year for making a plethora of generic films about love and we
20:27
actually found an article really, really well written by
20:30
Andrew Nordstrom and he's at medium.com.
20:33
So if any of you are really interested in doing a deep dive,
20:36
this guy did some statistical analysis on these films.
20:40
One of the one of the numbers that he came up with that was
20:43
wild was the bit just basic breakdown right.
20:48
So the formula that he came up with was strong female leads
20:53
appear in 73.4 of productions. And he compared this to like, it
20:58
looks like there was a total of 350.
21:00
The overall, the overall analysis was over like 400 and
21:04
some Hallmark films. So he broke all these things
21:06
down. OK, so like almost 75% female
21:09
lead. Yep.
21:10
Small town magic. That's another important thing.
21:13
That was Harvest love. Small, small town magic.
21:16
Yeah. Wait.
21:17
One quick question on Harvest Love.
21:18
OK, so it was a family farm in small town Washington.
21:24
Yes, outside. Seattle and they grow pears and
21:27
not apples, Yeah. It's a special little farm.
21:30
Yeah, I. Didn't see that coming.
21:31
OK, all right. Anyway, small town is a is a big
21:35
part of. So if they a lot of times they
21:38
don't specify the size of the town, that's 70% of the time.
21:42
It's just like unspecified locations.
21:45
So makes sense because I watched another one and it was, you
21:48
know, just we're at the restaurant, we're at the
21:50
whatever. Like the town isn't there, but
21:53
if the town is featured, then that's 20%.
21:56
So basically it's either small town or unnamed town in size.
22:02
And then there's the genre blend.
22:05
So romance forms the foundation that of the films that tracks
22:10
85.8% eighty. 6% of Hallmark films are romance film.
22:16
That track, yeah. And then they strategically
22:17
blend them with drama, comedy and family themes.
22:21
So obviously like like. An abandoned child with your.
22:24
Family yes you got to go find Oh my God he was out picking pears
22:30
and I forgot about him and moved to.
22:32
Seattle to become a doctor without him.
22:35
I'm sorry, I don't know what I was thinking there.
22:36
No. That was that was that would
22:38
have been a much better. No, it wouldn't have mattered.
22:39
It's it. Would have been.
22:41
It would have. Been pretty rough.
22:42
It did make me laugh though. I mean, that's one of those
22:45
things. The Hallmark movies, they're
22:47
laughable in the way that they're they're poorly written.
22:51
It's almost like, you know, CWS, the flash.
22:54
I used to love watching that show because I would I would be
22:57
rolling laughing at how unrealistic.
23:00
And then the very sudden emotional shifts, like, you
23:04
know, they'll be in the same room and then they'll just cut
23:06
from like a close up to a wide. And then the actor will be like
23:09
forlorn after just having a very positive.
23:11
And then they change the music like on cue.
23:13
And it's just elevator music that's supposed to convey an
23:17
emotion. It's it makes me laugh.
23:19
Yeah, the Zak, Yeah. Good Muzak.
23:22
But anyway, so that's kind of the formula that the that the
23:25
Medium article broke down, but and.
23:27
To be fair, there are. There are some that are really
23:30
tongue in cheek. They know exactly what they're
23:32
doing. They know because the Oh no.
23:37
Was it Lacey Chabert? Chabert I.
23:40
Don't. I don't know.
23:41
How to say her name? She was Gretchen in Mean Girls.
23:44
Oh yeah. She is one of the top performers
23:47
on Hallmark movies. She is.
23:49
She's in a lot of them, which is delightful that they call her
23:52
the Queen of Hallmark. And I'm like, no, that is
23:54
Gretchen. That is, that's big hair and
23:58
holds all the secrets of the whole school.
23:59
Yeah. But they use the same actors and
24:01
actresses throughout the entire series of.
24:03
Movies they do. It's a lot of overlaps.
24:06
But she was in one that Netflix made called Hot Frosty I'm
24:10
pretty sure is the title of it. Oh.
24:12
Yeah, that's right. Yes.
24:13
And it's. It's actually PG rated Hot
24:17
frosties PG rated. Yeah, it's not some like,
24:19
sexual. Deviant.
24:20
No. Yeah, it definitely sounds like
24:22
a hot. Frosty it could be taken a lot
24:24
of ways not. Really good.
24:25
OK, no, it's not. And it's just a Hallmark movie,
24:29
but it was made by Netflix. You can Google it.
24:31
And you don't have to worry about like, putting it on
24:32
Incognito mode. Hot Frosty.
24:35
But they had all What's a hot? Frosty what's 6-7?
24:38
What are all these things these kids are coming up with these
24:40
days? Don't.
24:40
Google things, don't Google things.
24:42
Not your anyway. Anyway, they had an entire scene
24:45
where she Laci. Man I wish I knew how to
24:51
pronounce her last name for sure.
24:52
I think we should. Speculate about it for another 2
24:54
to 3. Minutes OK all right so she
24:55
walks into walks into a room and she sees something with with
25:03
Lindsay Lohan, who is the lead of Mean Girls and they make some
25:08
kind of a joke like Oh yeah no that's just some girl I went to
25:12
high school with and it was it was really it was a fun little
25:16
nod a. Little a little meta moment,
25:17
yeah. It was cute.
25:18
It was for people that really liked Mean Girls.
25:21
It was cute. It was fun.
25:23
Anyway, OK, so some lessons from Hallmark.
25:26
Yes, I think there are. What should we take away not?
25:30
Acting for sure. Don't try to act like you're in
25:33
a Hallmark movie unless you're trying to be hilarious.
25:35
There's a way to do it. There's a way to make it work,
25:37
but maybe it's probably not for every film.
25:39
Not. Actual drama no.
25:40
But some things that could be for every film would be like
25:44
limiting your characters. You you can have big scenes
25:47
where you maybe have, you know, an extra handful of people on
25:50
set or whatever. If you really need to, or you
25:52
really need a day where you have a big crowd of something like
25:55
that, that's totally fine. But let your story really
25:57
revolve around a select few people.
26:00
And that's going to keep the complexity of your shoot down.
26:03
That's going to keep your budget down.
26:04
And it's going to give you a lot more space in the edit to make
26:08
meaningful connections for your audience with those fewer
26:11
actors, as opposed to trying to build out this entire world of
26:14
30 people and hope everyone loves all of them.
26:17
Yeah. Which we kind of talked a little
26:18
bit about that last week like pairing things down yeah, but
26:21
maybe even and I don't know if we actually mentioned this
26:23
specifically last week, but maybe just taking a accounting
26:27
of I have this location, I have these actors I have them for
26:31
this amount of time I can get this many shots down let's write
26:35
a script around that I'd. Be really surprised if Hallmark
26:38
movies didn't start that way. Like they get which actors and
26:41
actresses can we get what locations maybe, which is
26:45
probably. Why they film, I don't know if
26:46
they film them around Thanksgiving time, it's just
26:48
like, oh spirit, Halloween's shut down.
26:50
We can go into their warehouse now.
26:52
We can film for like the next couple months.
26:54
It's. Hours.
26:54
We need this, Yeah, it's. It goes from it goes from old
26:58
Shopko to Spirit Halloween to Hallmark set.
27:03
That's what these toys. R Us Toys-R-Us buildings are in
27:05
the rotation as well. It used to be Kmart, but.
27:08
Yeah, Once Upon a time, Yeah, OK.
27:10
I like that, yeah. So keep account lower character
27:13
count, yeah. And.
27:14
Lower sat count, obviously, and then they have really consistent
27:18
branding. Yeah.
27:20
They know exactly who their target demographic is.
27:23
They know who they want to be watching this movie, and they
27:26
know how to make something that really sells for it, and they
27:30
set up all their branding for it really early.
27:32
And yes, it's typically Hallmark movies.
27:34
So guess what? The color palette's going to be
27:37
a lot of red and green, a lot of fall autumnal colors.
27:40
But like, yeah, but there's nothing wrong with that.
27:43
There's nothing wrong with keeping your color palette or
27:46
your branding in general very simple.
27:49
Give yourself one big fancy curly font and then one straight
27:53
sans serif font and then there you go.
27:56
That's everything you need. That's all the fonts you need to
27:58
deal with. Pick your two favorite colors
28:00
and ask Canva to auto generate someones that look good with it.
28:03
It's a hint it's probably going to be black and white Beautiful.
28:05
That works great. Like, don't overcomplicate
28:08
things. You're on an indie budget and
28:10
you're trying to keep things tight and succinct.
28:12
So just wrong with that and. Moving forward with your indie
28:15
film, if you have some of those ideas in place, what type of
28:18
font you want to use, maybe your poster idea, trying to keep it
28:21
simple, then creating other assets in the event that you do
28:25
get into a larger Film Festival. And then all of a sudden you are
28:28
responsible for having things like a press kit and different
28:33
types of posters and different sizes of thumbnails, so you're
28:36
not just rushing to get all this stuff done the weekend before
28:41
the Film Festival requires it to be handed in, right?
28:45
Not that I know of anyone who's ever done that before.
28:48
Absolutely not. I would never do that but.
28:52
You know, having having some of those ideas and having them
28:55
creative, like, yes. Is Hallmark branding lame?
28:58
Absolutely. It's lame.
29:00
It needs to be lame. It's just hitting on whatever
29:03
chord hard chords there's. Going to be mistletoe, there's
29:07
going to be a dog, there's going to be sweaters and there's going
29:09
to be red and green and either silver or gold.
29:12
They don't usually put them together.
29:14
It's formulaic, but that doesn't mean your movies branding has to
29:17
be formulaic. It can be, it can be unique.
29:19
And you know, I've been on a film, Stockton Table Rock, where
29:24
we try to do that. And then we made the
29:26
handwriting, the font. That was not the easiest way to
29:29
do things because then we realized we didn't create the
29:31
font correctly because we didn't put all the special characters
29:33
in the font that we made. And then suddenly.
29:35
You need an apostrophe. You can't get one.
29:37
Well, we don't. Have capital letters in lower.
29:38
We didn't spend all this time trying to figure all this stuff
29:41
out and then all of a sudden our branding was thrown out the
29:43
window. So it made it a lot more work to
29:45
come up with other posters and other assets for the film.
29:49
So keeping that in mind early on, I do I think that is good.
29:52
Well, Mark. Knows what they're doing and
29:54
then what else you got. They know exactly what the ROI
29:57
is going to be. They have the market research
29:59
that they've put in and put in that time, which means that and
30:03
obviously it's homework. So I don't think they're
30:05
pitching to a lot of investors, per SE, But when their film
30:09
department is pitching like, hey, we think we can accurately
30:13
and effectively make 52 films this year, and this is exactly
30:17
how much it's going to cost, They can pitch that to the rest
30:20
of the executive team, knowing hands down that they can show
30:22
exactly how much money it's going to make.
30:24
And if you put in the time to do your market research and can
30:27
tell your investors how much money they expect to make,
30:29
you're probably going to get more investors.
30:31
Yeah. You would.
30:32
You would hope so. Yeah.
30:34
I do want to point out along the lines of the bulk movie
30:37
production. So they did start out with one
30:40
to two holiday movies annually. Yeah, in the 90s was where
30:44
Hallmark started and then they ended up at the 52 count,
30:47
although it might be 51. I have different notes here, so
30:50
that's not good. But over 50 but.
30:53
Anything over 50 is just. That's a lot so.
30:55
Their average review is a solid 6.4 out of 10 on IMDb which is
31:01
IMDb which is even crazier to think about that like if you
31:05
just average all their movies, they're just sitting like right
31:09
at D level of reviews. So they don't vary.
31:14
Like none of them are killer. None of them are so horrible
31:17
they get rid of their fans. They are a video content
31:21
producing machine. They know exactly where their
31:25
lanes are and they know if they take the if they uptick to a
31:29
certain point, it's got to be worth it on the revenue on the
31:32
back end. Having it for their they have a
31:34
Hallmark Channel you can get their their own streaming
31:37
service and they you get like a free greeting card every month
31:40
or something stupid with it, which OK.
31:42
That's actually really cute because like, Netflix doesn't
31:44
send me cards. Yeah, that's.
31:45
A good point actually. You know, for the same price as
31:47
Netflix, I'm assuming, I don't know, it couldn't pass more than
31:50
that. But you know, you can only watch
31:52
it two months out of the year too.
31:54
But the no. They have those.
31:56
There's other horror stories of like women being kidnapped and
31:59
tortured and stuff. They have plenty of those on
32:01
there. The women will watch that for
32:02
the rest of the year. Oh.
32:03
Right on. Or some dude going through a
32:05
rough breakup, he might want to watch that too.
32:07
But yeah, so, so they obviously have the math figured out and
32:12
they have been kicking up production.
32:13
So they must have been the accounting department have been
32:15
seeing a kickback on oh, if we just do a couple more movies a
32:19
couple more movies because I don't imagine their budget
32:22
varying too wildly you. Know well and some of the older
32:25
ones don't. They just throw up for free on
32:26
YouTube now on their YouTube. Channel that's what I that's
32:29
harvest love is just on their YouTube channel which.
32:32
They're also getting ad revenue from.
32:34
So it all adds in there. Yeah, yeah.
32:38
So that's, you know, there are lessons to be learned there.
32:40
Is it gross and is it not artistic at all?
32:43
Absolutely. That's how I feel about it.
32:45
But is part of the creative aspect of well, is, is movie
32:53
making, how much of it is creative and how much of it is
32:56
business? And now that the studio systems
33:00
aren't the barrier to being able to get your product seen or your
33:05
film seen by people, how much of that do you do we all have to
33:09
take onto ourselves and consider, rather than just
33:12
hoping that somebody with a bunch of cash sees your movie or
33:17
sees your script likes you, is going to fund all the stuff?
33:20
Because I don't know if you all have a story about that, share
33:24
it, but I don't hear it happening super often.
33:26
Usually there's a lot of nepotism when it comes to money
33:29
in film production. Or you had connections that that
33:33
were there for a long time already.
33:35
Or you work your way up through the studio system.
33:37
Yeah. You know, so which to?
33:39
Be fair, though. Like, it's not as though there
33:41
isn't any artistic side to, like, I don't know, I feel like
33:46
on a Hallmark movie, it might not be the best acting that's
33:50
going to change your life performances.
33:54
But they're also not, like, the worst actors I've ever seen in
33:57
my life either, you know? Like, they're there, they're
33:58
showing up every day, they're putting in the work, and they're
34:00
building these at least somewhat believable characters despite
34:04
how unbelievably they might have been written.
34:08
Yeah. It's like the and the.
34:10
Set designers do a good job and the costumes are usually fun.
34:13
It's it's like a mediocre band. Yeah, it's.
34:17
It's like, yeah, I'm not going to be upset that I watch this
34:20
and I'm not going to say that they're not artists.
34:22
Yeah, because they are. It's.
34:24
The art there isn't quite as important, but that doesn't mean
34:27
that if you have an artistic idea for an actual film,
34:31
unfortunately, it's probably good that you take some of these
34:33
Hallmark lessons and alley it to what you're doing hoefully on
34:38
the not on too much on the front end.
34:40
Like, think about things creatively, don't come back and
34:43
then, you know, hack it up by trying to do some corporate bull
34:47
crap to your film that you don't add.
34:49
Elevator music over the top, Yeah.
34:51
Yeah, be, be creative, come up with a vibe, but at the same
34:54
time, you know, think about things like ROI, think about
34:57
things like how to do this inexpensively so that I can
35:00
potentially make money back. You know, that's, that's what
35:03
the Hallmark does. They're cheap.
35:05
The writing is super formulaic. You can't do that with your
35:09
indie film because you're going to be fighting a corporate beast
35:13
with Hallmark. So you know, that's, that's out
35:16
the window. So whatever your creative idea
35:18
is to apply some of these these tools, I don't see the harm in
35:22
that. So we'll we'll be working on
35:25
that in the meantime in the upcoming year, we will.
35:27
Be I'm trying. To front end some of this thing
35:30
with some of the feature films that we have on the docket.
35:32
So we'll figure. Out time.
35:34
Time is probably limitless. We just haven't figured out how
35:38
to do it yet. Yeah, it's probably fine.
35:40
Yeah. It'll it'll happen or it won't,
35:43
and then we can just keep telling people how it didn't
35:45
happen. That also we'll just tell you
35:47
how miserably we failed on scheduling and.
35:49
Then you'll know what not to do. Exactly.
35:53
Awesome. Well, do you have anything else
35:54
that you want to add about Hallmark movies?
35:56
In that case, shall we succinctly say farewell?
36:00
I think so. Goodbye.