Latest / Bulletproof Screenwriting™ Podcast / BPS 470: Why 99% of Indie Films NEVER Get Distribution with Bill Ostroff

Transcript

BPS 470: Why 99% of Indie Films NEVER Get Distribution with Bill Ostroff · Bulletproof Screenwriting™ Podcast

• 0:03
  Speaker 1: You are listening to the IFH podcast Network. For more
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: amazing filmmaking and screenwriting podcasts, just go to ifahpodcastnetwork dot com.
• 0:12
  Speaker 2: Welcome to the Bulletproof Screenwriting Podcast, Episode number four seventy.
• 0:16
  Speaker 2: Your dream doesn't have an expiration date, Take a deep
• 0:19
  Speaker 2: breath and try again. Kat You Whitten broadcasting from a dark, windowless.
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: Room in Hollywood when we really should be working on
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: that next draft. It's the Bulletproof Screenwriting Podcast, showing you
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: the craft and business of screenwriting while teaching you how
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: to make your screenplay bulletproof.
• 0:36
  Speaker 2: And here's your host, Alex Ferrari. Welcome, Welcome to another
• 0:42
  Speaker 2: episode of the Bulletproof Screenwriting Podcast.
• 0:44
  Speaker 3: I am your humble host Alex Ferrari.
• 0:46
  Speaker 4: Now.
• 0:46
  Speaker 2: Today's show is sponsored by Bulletproof Script Coverage.
• 0:50
  Speaker 4: Now.
• 0:51
  Speaker 2: Unlike other script coverage services, Bulletproof Script Coverage actually focuses
• 0:56
  Speaker 2: on the kind of project you are in the goals
• 0:59
  Speaker 2: of the project you are, so we actually break it
• 1:01
  Speaker 2: down by three categories micro budget, indie film, market, and
• 1:05
  Speaker 2: studio film. There's no reason to get coverage from a
• 1:07
  Speaker 2: reader that's used to reading tempole movies when your movie
• 1:10
  Speaker 2: is going to be done for one hundred thousand dollars
• 1:13
  Speaker 2: and we wanted to focus on that. At Bulletproof script Coverage,
• 1:16
  Speaker 2: our readers have worked with Marvel Studios, CIA, w MEE, NBC, HBO, Disney,
• 1:22
  Speaker 2: Scott Free, Warner Brothers, The Blacklist, and many many more.
• 1:25
  Speaker 2: So if you need your screenplay or TV script covered
• 1:29
  Speaker 2: by professional readers, head on over to covermiscreenplay dot Com.
• 1:34
  Speaker 2: Enjoy today's episode with guest host Dave Bullets.
• 1:39
  Speaker 3: On this episode, I'm talking with a man who started
• 1:42
  Speaker 3: one of the largest and longest waring indie film festivals
• 1:45
  Speaker 3: out there today. The first Glance Film Festival actually started
• 1:49
  Speaker 3: in nineteen ninety six, went up the street from me
• 1:51
  Speaker 3: right now in Center City, Philadelphia, all those many years ago.
• 1:56
  Speaker 3: We're going to talk about all that stuff, all his career,
• 2:00
  Speaker 3: making the film festival, getting the word out. How do
• 2:04
  Speaker 3: film festivals work behind the scenes. We're gonna find out
• 2:08
  Speaker 3: with guests Bill Ostrov. Hey, Bill, thanks love for coming
• 2:12
  Speaker 3: on the show.
• 2:13
  Speaker 4: Thank you excited about it.
• 2:16
  Speaker 3: Hey, you know, I'm glad to have you on. Bill. Uh,
• 2:18
  Speaker 3: you know, as you know, as I was saying before, Uh,
• 2:21
  Speaker 3: you know, just you know online. You know, you're a
• 2:23
  Speaker 3: guy I've always had wanted to have on the podcast. Uh,
• 2:26
  Speaker 3: you know, you you've run the First Glance film festival, huge,
• 2:29
  Speaker 3: huge online presence with First Glance and also you know
• 2:33
  Speaker 3: people have you know, talked about it more and more
• 2:36
  Speaker 3: as obviously as you know with film festivals, the longer
• 2:38
  Speaker 3: they're around, you know, the more the the sort of
• 2:41
  Speaker 3: more cash that they carry, if you know what I mean,
• 2:43
  Speaker 3: the more you know, you like, look at sun Dance,
• 2:45
  Speaker 3: You'll look at uh, you know, slam Dance, all all
• 2:47
  Speaker 3: those great film festivals. And you know we're gonna get
• 2:49
  Speaker 3: to yours in a second, and I just want to ask,
• 2:51
  Speaker 3: you know, before we get to the all to talking
• 2:52
  Speaker 3: about the film festivals bills, I wanted to ask about
• 2:54
  Speaker 3: you know, your career particularly and you getting started. So
• 2:58
  Speaker 3: when you were first starting out, you know, in the
• 3:00
  Speaker 3: in the film industry, you know, did you grow up
• 3:03
  Speaker 3: always you know, uh, you know, watching movies and trying
• 3:06
  Speaker 3: to make your own movies as a kid.
• 3:10
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I kind of was. I didn't have the Unfortunately,
• 3:15
  Speaker 4: technology was much different back then. We wouldn't really call
• 3:19
  Speaker 4: it technology. It was couloid, it was film, So it
• 3:24
  Speaker 4: was it was a much more expensive hobby back then,
• 3:27
  Speaker 4: and it wasn't something that I could really afford. But
• 3:31
  Speaker 4: I was a huge moviegoer. I was a comic book reader.
• 3:35
  Speaker 4: I've always been into the fantasy, sci fi, horror, all
• 3:41
  Speaker 4: that kind of stuff. And when I decided what I
• 3:44
  Speaker 4: wanted to do in college, it was make movies. So
• 3:47
  Speaker 4: I went to Penn State and then to Temple and
• 3:52
  Speaker 4: learned everything I thought I needed to know to make movies,
• 3:56
  Speaker 4: and then got into the real world and realized I
• 3:58
  Speaker 4: didn't know anything, and and started paying and working all
• 4:06
  Speaker 4: you know, I did all kinds of stuff. It was.
• 4:09
  Speaker 4: It was kind of interesting. In high school, I was
• 4:11
  Speaker 4: working for local company shooting, you know, going out and
• 4:16
  Speaker 4: shooting like weddings and sweet sixteens and bar mittsfes and
• 4:19
  Speaker 4: things like that. And then I did get the opportunity
• 4:23
  Speaker 4: to do some sort of industrial stuff and things like that,
• 4:27
  Speaker 4: where I was like, Okay, well, even though they're boring,
• 4:30
  Speaker 4: they're a little bit more exciting than a wedding or
• 4:34
  Speaker 4: a sweet sixteen and having to spend you know, fourteen
• 4:38
  Speaker 4: hours with a camera on your shoulder. And back then,
• 4:41
  Speaker 4: cameras weren't like cameras today. You know, we were talking
• 4:46
  Speaker 4: about like a twenty five pound beta camasp on one
• 4:51
  Speaker 4: shoulder and forty pound deck hanging off your other shoulder,
• 4:56
  Speaker 4: and twenty five pound belt to keep it running. So
• 4:59
  Speaker 4: I definitely they learned the nuts and bolts from like
• 5:03
  Speaker 4: high school into college and learned how to use lots
• 5:07
  Speaker 4: of different technologies and cameras, and it was it was
• 5:12
  Speaker 4: a pretty interesting thing for me. I wanted to be
• 5:17
  Speaker 4: a writer, I wanted to be a producer. I want
• 5:19
  Speaker 4: to protractor. I didn't really know what I wanted to be,
• 5:22
  Speaker 4: but I just knew that I wanted to be involved
• 5:25
  Speaker 4: in a movie.
• 5:27
  Speaker 3: So, you know, Bill, you know obviously cause I live
• 5:29
  Speaker 3: in Philadelphia and I live probably about forty, no, probably
• 5:32
  Speaker 3: about thirty minutes away from Temple. You know, do you
• 5:35
  Speaker 3: still keep in contact with Temple? And do they know
• 5:37
  Speaker 3: that you run the first Glenn Film Festival.
• 5:40
  Speaker 4: The you know, they kind of sort of do. One
• 5:43
  Speaker 4: of the things that one of the things the main
• 5:46
  Speaker 4: issues that I feel that that I've had with Temple
• 5:49
  Speaker 4: is that their alumni outreach is especially for the theater
• 5:54
  Speaker 4: and film division, is really minute. You know, I'll get
• 6:01
  Speaker 4: the once a month in the mail, Hey, you know,
• 6:05
  Speaker 4: can you support us? But when I turn around and
• 6:07
  Speaker 4: at them for support. It's kind of hard to get
• 6:10
  Speaker 4: to the red tape and things like that, and the alumni.
• 6:14
  Speaker 4: You would think that there would there would be someone
• 6:17
  Speaker 4: to talk to, someone to call and say, hey, you know,
• 6:21
  Speaker 4: been running the film festival since they graduated. Temple just
• 6:24
  Speaker 4: thought you might want to know, you know, tell your
• 6:27
  Speaker 4: students to come out, blah blah blah. But yeah, it
• 6:31
  Speaker 4: seems to be a hurdle for us. And it's sad
• 6:35
  Speaker 4: because I know I have a couple of friends that
• 6:38
  Speaker 4: have been that I have graduated USC and USKLA and
• 6:41
  Speaker 4: they have very very active alumni. They have student film Festival,
• 6:46
  Speaker 4: they have student film festivals open to the public. So
• 6:49
  Speaker 4: it's like they do a lot more I think. And
• 6:53
  Speaker 4: you know, Temple back then was sort of go to
• 6:57
  Speaker 4: film school after the Big three, which is you know, U, C, L, A, U,
• 7:00
  Speaker 4: S and n y U, and it had a pretty
• 7:04
  Speaker 4: progressive film school. But I just I don't know. I
• 7:09
  Speaker 4: haven't been back to Temple in a long time, so
• 7:11
  Speaker 4: I really don't know if they've kept up.
• 7:15
  Speaker 3: Yeah, you know that That's something I've talked about too
• 7:17
  Speaker 3: with a lot of other guests. Is not specifically Temple,
• 7:20
  Speaker 3: but just their experience at college and sometimes you know,
• 7:23
  Speaker 3: obviously even even with me, you know, uh, the schools
• 7:26
  Speaker 3: are very eager to ask for like alumni donations, but
• 7:30
  Speaker 3: you know, when they when it's come, when it comes
• 7:31
  Speaker 3: time for like, hey, look this is what I'm doing,
• 7:34
  Speaker 3: there's not a lot of support. Uh. You know, when
• 7:36
  Speaker 3: I where I went to school, our communications department was
• 7:40
  Speaker 3: so bad, Bill that they used to ask me to
• 7:44
  Speaker 3: teach the classes for their for the communications professors because
• 7:47
  Speaker 3: they never picked up Premiere and they never picked up
• 7:50
  Speaker 3: you know, like Encore to make DVDs. They never picked
• 7:53
  Speaker 3: up any of that. And it was funny and I
• 7:55
  Speaker 3: started asking, I'm like, am I getting like gonna am
• 7:57
  Speaker 3: I gonna get like two paychecks for this? And they
• 7:59
  Speaker 3: said no, old Dave, you know, and and when when
• 8:02
  Speaker 3: you know, even when I worked there, there was always
• 8:04
  Speaker 3: a bunch of crap about you know, well we can't
• 8:07
  Speaker 3: you know, the alumni association, blah blah blah. I mean, honestly,
• 8:10
  Speaker 3: so I feel your Bill. It's so frustrating. But at
• 8:13
  Speaker 3: the same time, when they ask for money, they want
• 8:15
  Speaker 3: to know why no one's given back. It's like, well,
• 8:17
  Speaker 3: you're you're basically constantly asking and never actually helping at
• 8:20
  Speaker 3: this you know what I mean?
• 8:22
  Speaker 4: Oh yeah, yeah, exactly exactly. And even it's even funny
• 8:26
  Speaker 4: to me that we have to go you know, we
• 8:27
  Speaker 4: even have to go out of our way when it
• 8:31
  Speaker 4: comes to like Twitter and Facebook to try to contact
• 8:34
  Speaker 4: whoever the person is running the social media after time,
• 8:37
  Speaker 4: and you'd be surprised considering you know, I would consider
• 8:40
  Speaker 4: myself and I think that most people in our industry
• 8:43
  Speaker 4: would consider First Glance Film uh an influencer on social
• 8:48
  Speaker 4: media as far as as far as the amount of
• 8:51
  Speaker 4: followers we have in the engagement we have in the community,
• 8:56
  Speaker 4: and we have to beg Temple to even tweet us out,
• 8:59
  Speaker 4: and they'll retweet everyone once in a while. But you
• 9:01
  Speaker 4: get like, well if the quant a Temple you know,
• 9:04
  Speaker 4: sponsored event, and I'm like, well, you know, you have
• 9:07
  Speaker 4: two Temple alumni to run the run the film festival,
• 9:10
  Speaker 4: so it might be who for you to to help
• 9:13
  Speaker 4: us out at TAD. But you know, it is it
• 9:15
  Speaker 4: is what it is that they say in the bud.
• 9:18
  Speaker 3: Yeah, that's very very true. Bill, I've heard that a
• 9:20
  Speaker 3: lot in this business. It is what it is.
• 9:23
  Speaker 4: Uh.
• 9:23
  Speaker 3: So you know, as you know, you sort of go out.
• 9:25
  Speaker 3: You know, you graduated from Temple, you know, you went
• 9:27
  Speaker 3: out to la and you start doing a lot of
• 9:30
  Speaker 3: different you know, productions and stuff. You know, what was
• 9:33
  Speaker 3: sort of the impetus to start the first class film festival.
• 9:37
  Speaker 4: Well, part clip just came out of my frustration again
• 9:40
  Speaker 4: of there being at the time, there were no independent
• 9:44
  Speaker 4: film festivals in Philadelphia. There was the the I think
• 9:52
  Speaker 4: I can't remember what the what they used to call it, uh,
• 9:55
  Speaker 4: the International Festival, World Cinema or something like that.
• 10:00
  Speaker 2: Be right back after a word from our sponsor. And
• 10:06
  Speaker 2: now back to the show.
• 10:09
  Speaker 4: There was that there was like the Jewish Film Festival,
• 10:12
  Speaker 4: the Asian Film Festival, and the Gay and Lesbian Film Festival.
• 10:19
  Speaker 4: I believe those were like the four and they were
• 10:21
  Speaker 4: all pretty huge events. And at the time I had
• 10:26
  Speaker 4: approached what was now the Philadelphia Film Festival and said
• 10:32
  Speaker 4: it them, Hey, you know there's nothing independent. Can I
• 10:36
  Speaker 4: help you build sort of an independent film festival for
• 10:40
  Speaker 4: local filmmakers, for filmmakers that aren't going to get into
• 10:44
  Speaker 4: these big what I like to call film preview events,
• 10:48
  Speaker 4: because that's really what they are. They're not a film festival,
• 10:52
  Speaker 4: They're just more of a film preview of what's coming
• 10:56
  Speaker 4: in theaters in three or four months, and you know,
• 10:59
  Speaker 4: can we grab them characters, the main actors and the
• 11:01
  Speaker 4: producer and the director and have you know, a Q
• 11:04
  Speaker 4: and a after and charge people seventy five dollars a door
• 11:07
  Speaker 4: to get in. So at the time, I was basically
• 11:12
  Speaker 4: hanging out with three or four other Temple grad They
• 11:15
  Speaker 4: were or not tuple grads type of students, and we
• 11:19
  Speaker 4: had a small theater company and we were doing theater
• 11:22
  Speaker 4: musical theater at the uh the BRS building, which I
• 11:26
  Speaker 4: don't think exists anymore, but it was on Fifth and Market,
• 11:29
  Speaker 4: and we used to do all these really cool little,
• 11:34
  Speaker 4: you know, original musical theater productions. We'd run them for
• 11:37
  Speaker 4: four or five weeks in the space I was in
• 11:40
  Speaker 4: the bottom of a sort of a cabaret space in
• 11:44
  Speaker 4: the bors, and I just came up with the idea,
• 11:47
  Speaker 4: you know, why don't we you know, why don't we
• 11:49
  Speaker 4: just do something movie ish? And I was like, I
• 11:54
  Speaker 4: don't have anywhere to show my films. I have a
• 11:56
  Speaker 4: couple of films I want to show that. You know,
• 11:59
  Speaker 4: I tried screening at school, and you know, when you
• 12:04
  Speaker 4: when you screen something in that in front of your class.
• 12:07
  Speaker 4: You never get the kind of reaction that you think
• 12:09
  Speaker 4: you should because you have a teacher that's you know,
• 12:12
  Speaker 4: that's teaching you in critical cinema, and I'm trying to build,
• 12:15
  Speaker 4: you know, stuff that's sort of mainstream. So I decided,
• 12:20
  Speaker 4: you know what, I'm just gonna see what I could do.
• 12:22
  Speaker 4: And this was sort of before the Internet, so basically
• 12:29
  Speaker 4: it was more about just getting the word out through
• 12:32
  Speaker 4: postcards and putting up signs at school and putting a
• 12:37
  Speaker 4: couple of ads and the City paper and the Philadelphia Weekly,
• 12:42
  Speaker 4: and the first year, I'd basically spend my own money
• 12:46
  Speaker 4: and we had a three night event in the Bores Building,
• 12:50
  Speaker 4: in that cabaret space, and I showed my films along
• 12:56
  Speaker 4: with thirty other local films, and that was sort of it,
• 13:01
  Speaker 4: I thought. And then I was starting get film calls
• 13:05
  Speaker 4: and emails about when the next one was going to be.
• 13:07
  Speaker 4: I'd never really planned to have a next one. I
• 13:10
  Speaker 4: just wanted to show my s And what I realized
• 13:14
  Speaker 4: was that there were people out there that wanted any
• 13:17
  Speaker 4: independent a real independent film festival. And that's sort of
• 13:22
  Speaker 4: where First Glance was born, you know, back in nineteen
• 13:26
  Speaker 4: ninety six, and you know now we're as of January
• 13:30
  Speaker 4: of this coming year, it will be our twentieth film
• 13:33
  Speaker 4: festival in Philly, so it's it's pretty huge. And then
• 13:39
  Speaker 4: after a couple of years, I decided I needed to
• 13:40
  Speaker 4: move out to LA because there was no production going
• 13:42
  Speaker 4: on in Philadelphia. And this was actually before and night
• 13:48
  Speaker 4: started getting hot, so there really wasn't anything. The film
• 13:53
  Speaker 4: office was sort of just there. It didn't really do
• 13:57
  Speaker 4: a whole lot there was. It weren't incentives, you know,
• 14:01
  Speaker 4: it was a different time there was there really was
• 14:03
  Speaker 4: no Internet as we know it, you know, eighteen years ago.
• 14:09
  Speaker 4: So I decided to go up to California and I
• 14:13
  Speaker 4: was like, you know what, if I can start something
• 14:15
  Speaker 4: in Philly like this, let me see if we can
• 14:17
  Speaker 4: start something in LA. You know, it took me a
• 14:19
  Speaker 4: couple more years to kind of formulate how I wanted
• 14:22
  Speaker 4: LA to work. You know. We started in a really
• 14:25
  Speaker 4: small space in Burbank and in about three years moved
• 14:30
  Speaker 4: into you know, two hundred seat theaters and come April
• 14:35
  Speaker 4: of twenty seventeen, it'll be our seventeenth event in LA
• 14:40
  Speaker 4: and we'll be at a three hundred and fifty seat theater.
• 14:43
  Speaker 4: For four nights. It's going to be our biggest Los
• 14:45
  Speaker 4: Angeles event in our history. And you know, plans for
• 14:50
  Speaker 4: Philly in year twenty where we have some really interesting
• 14:53
  Speaker 4: ideas and we hope that's going to be our biggest
• 14:55
  Speaker 4: event as well. And you know, we've we've been you know,
• 14:59
  Speaker 4: we've been phildelph Indetendant Film Festivals since ninety six and
• 15:02
  Speaker 4: we're going to continue and we've been we've been really
• 15:08
  Speaker 4: successful at it. I mean, filmmakers love us, they come back.
• 15:12
  Speaker 4: We have hundreds of alumni, thousands of alumni that contact
• 15:18
  Speaker 4: us on a on a almost a daily basis sometimes
• 15:23
  Speaker 4: to let us know what's going on with their films
• 15:25
  Speaker 4: and their careers. And you know, anybody whoever comes through
• 15:30
  Speaker 4: first Glance, if they do get distribution, you know, we
• 15:33
  Speaker 4: end up putting it out there on social media. So
• 15:36
  Speaker 4: it's one of the things that we've been doing since
• 15:40
  Speaker 4: the very beginning. But the Internet has made even easier
• 15:43
  Speaker 4: for us to share that information with the with the masses, you.
• 15:49
  Speaker 3: Know, and it's you know, ties in with what I
• 15:51
  Speaker 3: was saying before. You know about some of these bigger festivals, well,
• 15:55
  Speaker 3: you know, obviously Sundance and Landon's are some of the
• 15:56
  Speaker 3: biggest in the world. But you know, the in my experience,
• 16:00
  Speaker 3: you know, longer that a film festival you know, goes
• 16:03
  Speaker 3: on you know every year, you know, five years, ten years,
• 16:06
  Speaker 3: et cetera. It builds its cash. And that way you
• 16:09
  Speaker 3: can actually say, listen, you know you're you're submitting now
• 16:12
  Speaker 3: to a festival that has a track record of ten years.
• 16:15
  Speaker 3: We've been going strong fifteen years and now, like you
• 16:18
  Speaker 3: just said, twenty years. And this adds, you know, a
• 16:21
  Speaker 3: lot more more to the festival than obviously one that
• 16:25
  Speaker 3: just started. And when I think the benefit of this is,
• 16:28
  Speaker 3: like you just also touched on, is you you have
• 16:31
  Speaker 3: filmmakers that have started at first glance and they said,
• 16:34
  Speaker 3: you know, now we're able to build our career and
• 16:37
  Speaker 3: and keep in touch with you know, all the things
• 16:39
  Speaker 3: are doing at first glance. And I think that's how
• 16:43
  Speaker 3: you know, some of these things, you know, build upon
• 16:45
  Speaker 3: each other, build upon each other, is because obviously you're
• 16:48
  Speaker 3: giving them a space to you know, show their movie,
• 16:51
  Speaker 3: and then in turn, you know, hey, you know that
• 16:54
  Speaker 3: new hot filmmaker, well he started at this film festival.
• 16:57
  Speaker 3: It's so similar to what Elliot Grove did at rain Dance.
• 16:59
  Speaker 3: You know, you know Christopher Nolan, you know, debut following
• 17:03
  Speaker 3: at rain Dance, and you know that that's why I'm
• 17:05
  Speaker 3: I you know, I'm so glad that you know, again,
• 17:07
  Speaker 3: like you said, you started it here in Philadelphia, because
• 17:10
  Speaker 3: in ninety six, you know, you're right, there was no
• 17:12
  Speaker 3: you know, real filming in Philadelphia. And now if you
• 17:15
  Speaker 3: actually flash forward today, Bill, you know a lot of
• 17:17
  Speaker 3: the productions that were in Philly have all gone to
• 17:20
  Speaker 3: Pittsburgh because of just the taxes. And I mean it's
• 17:24
  Speaker 3: sort of this ebb and flow with Philadelphia. And believe me,
• 17:27
  Speaker 3: sooner than later, Bill, I'm gonna follow you out to
• 17:29
  Speaker 3: la And because really there is nothing left here going
• 17:33
  Speaker 3: on in Philly, I'm telling you.
• 17:34
  Speaker 4: But but yeah, I know, I know, we've we've tried.
• 17:37
  Speaker 4: We've tried really hard. We've been big supporters of Sharon.
• 17:40
  Speaker 4: We try to get filming done in uh Philadelphia too,
• 17:43
  Speaker 4: because you know, I want to be able to come
• 17:45
  Speaker 4: back and actually work on these movies. You know, I'm
• 17:49
  Speaker 4: I'm a d GA D and I'm you know, Philly.
• 17:52
  Speaker 4: I would love for Philly to be my home base,
• 17:54
  Speaker 4: but unfortunately there's very little going on and when that
• 17:58
  Speaker 4: one production or two ductions happens, it employees the people
• 18:02
  Speaker 4: that actually need to work in Philly, so that you know,
• 18:07
  Speaker 4: and and it's a shame because it's very piecemeal. It's
• 18:09
  Speaker 4: it's like if Philly were to create something like Atlanta,
• 18:14
  Speaker 4: where there is no cap and the incentive is ongoing,
• 18:17
  Speaker 4: you will never see it die. And I think that
• 18:21
  Speaker 4: that's the key. And Atlanta has built up its community.
• 18:26
  Speaker 4: It's it's skilled crew members, it's building studios and ages
• 18:32
  Speaker 4: all over the place in Atlanta. It also helps that
• 18:36
  Speaker 4: you have a really you know, one of the most
• 18:37
  Speaker 4: popular shows on television being shot there like seven months
• 18:41
  Speaker 4: out of the year with The Walking Dead, And that's
• 18:46
  Speaker 4: something I know that that Sharon has worked really hard
• 18:48
  Speaker 4: to try to get a series in Philly. But again
• 18:51
  Speaker 4: the problem is that if you if you were to
• 18:52
  Speaker 4: shoot a series in Philly, you really can't shoot from
• 18:56
  Speaker 4: like you know, November through March because you know, or
• 19:00
  Speaker 4: the weather. So you you have this this period that's
• 19:04
  Speaker 4: really not it doesn't really behoove most networks because you know,
• 19:09
  Speaker 4: they want to start shooting you know, August through December
• 19:13
  Speaker 4: and then January through March, and you lose you know,
• 19:16
  Speaker 4: you lose a lot of your momentum in the in
• 19:18
  Speaker 4: the winter time on the East coast.
• 19:21
  Speaker 3: Yeah, very true. You know that. That's why Hollywood, you know,
• 19:23
  Speaker 3: obviously was used to be stationed in New Jersey and
• 19:26
  Speaker 3: they finally moved out to Los Angeles because of the weather.
• 19:30
  Speaker 3: Because you've realized, you know, the weather out here from
• 19:32
  Speaker 3: November to you know, February March. You know, it's it's
• 19:36
  Speaker 3: it's tough sometimes, you know, it's tough to do a
• 19:38
  Speaker 3: lot of things. Even October sometimes it gets really cold
• 19:41
  Speaker 3: out here, and it's just it's it's just hard to
• 19:43
  Speaker 3: do stuff, you know. And yeah, again, you know, putting
• 19:46
  Speaker 3: a TV show in Philly, there's always something in Philadelphia,
• 19:50
  Speaker 3: you know, because some you know, some people actually you
• 19:52
  Speaker 3: know asked me about, you know, do they film here
• 19:54
  Speaker 3: a lot? And I said, they film here less and
• 19:56
  Speaker 3: less each season.
• 19:58
  Speaker 2: We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor,
• 20:05
  Speaker 2: and now back to the show.
• 20:08
  Speaker 3: And I think last season, I think it was they
• 20:10
  Speaker 3: weren't here at all. They just shoot the whole thing
• 20:13
  Speaker 3: in LA That's a yeah, it would be tough to
• 20:17
  Speaker 3: get but you know, again, you know, I know, the
• 20:18
  Speaker 3: film office does whatever they can and try to get
• 20:21
  Speaker 3: a series here. You know, it's just you're right, it's
• 20:24
  Speaker 3: just it's it's just tough right now. But but again
• 20:27
  Speaker 3: it is again I will probably follow me out to
• 20:29
  Speaker 3: La sooner than later. But but you know, so you
• 20:33
  Speaker 3: you know, as we talked about, you know, film First Glance,
• 20:36
  Speaker 3: you know, and you know you're just building this up
• 20:38
  Speaker 3: and and you know, building up this this great sort
• 20:40
  Speaker 3: of reputation. You know, where do you sort of see
• 20:44
  Speaker 3: First Glance going within maybe the next five to ten years.
• 20:49
  Speaker 4: Well, you know, if it's been something on my mind
• 20:52
  Speaker 4: over the last few years, because you know, twenty is
• 20:54
  Speaker 4: a big sort of monumental year for us, and I
• 20:58
  Speaker 4: really want to do something different and special and magical
• 21:02
  Speaker 4: in Philly and you're twenty next year. And again it's
• 21:07
  Speaker 4: rough because you know, we are a self sufficient, self
• 21:12
  Speaker 4: funded film festival. We don't get corporate sponsorship, We don't
• 21:17
  Speaker 4: have big companies or you know, big city grant coming
• 21:22
  Speaker 4: in to help us. So it really is powered by
• 21:27
  Speaker 4: the filmmaker and by the attendees. Isn't that how we've grown?
• 21:33
  Speaker 4: And you know, it's like what I would love First
• 21:40
  Speaker 4: Glance to be is an end all be all for
• 21:42
  Speaker 4: filmmakers where we're looking into starting a social media marketing
• 21:50
  Speaker 4: company for independent film. We've been doing it over the
• 21:53
  Speaker 4: last year sort of under the radar through Twitter, you know,
• 21:59
  Speaker 4: and it's been working pretty nicely. We've also just last year,
• 22:05
  Speaker 4: I've helped four campaigns, four crop ponting campaigns, raise over
• 22:09
  Speaker 4: one hundred million dollars. I mean one hundred a million.
• 22:14
  Speaker 4: About what I was trying to say was one hundred
• 22:16
  Speaker 4: thousand dollars. I would wish it was a hundred million,
• 22:21
  Speaker 4: but about one hundred thousand dollars including Film Threat, which
• 22:24
  Speaker 4: we raised about fifty thousand dollars score with Chris Gore
• 22:28
  Speaker 4: for his Kickstarter campaign, which we're really excited about because
• 22:33
  Speaker 4: you know, Kickstarter is going to help film come back
• 22:36
  Speaker 4: next year, and we may have some things that we're
• 22:40
  Speaker 4: going to be getting involved with next year with Tim,
• 22:44
  Speaker 4: which is great for us because our expansion. What we're
• 22:47
  Speaker 4: trying to trying to find ways to expand into is
• 22:51
  Speaker 4: I know from the many years of first glance, within
• 22:56
  Speaker 4: the years of watching the landscape change, is that there
• 23:01
  Speaker 4: are networks out there. There are s vo D companies,
• 23:05
  Speaker 4: VOD companies, you know, straight to DVD that that court
• 23:10
  Speaker 4: me pretty much on a weekly to buy weekly basis
• 23:13
  Speaker 4: to ask us, hey, we want your product. I think
• 23:18
  Speaker 4: the thing that that indie filmmakers need to understand is
• 23:21
  Speaker 4: that nine percent of the films that true independent filmmakers
• 23:26
  Speaker 4: make will never see a theatrical screen. That doesn't necessarily
• 23:30
  Speaker 4: mean they can't make money. There's pay cable, there's cable,
• 23:36
  Speaker 4: there's you know, subscription VOD, there's VOD services, there's syndication.
• 23:41
  Speaker 4: There are you know, YouTube channels that you know, millions
• 23:47
  Speaker 4: of subscribers that could get them you know, tens of
• 23:50
  Speaker 4: thousands of US a day, and and you know, yeah,
• 23:53
  Speaker 4: they're not gonna they may not necessarily make back all
• 23:56
  Speaker 4: of their money, but it is considered legitim distribution. And
• 24:02
  Speaker 4: our goal with First Glance, and we're in conversations with
• 24:05
  Speaker 4: a couple of YouTube channels and a couple of the
• 24:08
  Speaker 4: FVOD companies as we speak, is the possibility to syndicate
• 24:15
  Speaker 4: that product, not exclusively, not taking the right from the filmmakers.
• 24:20
  Speaker 4: Basically sort of a lease deal is I guess the
• 24:23
  Speaker 4: best way to kind of place it in laymanth terms
• 24:28
  Speaker 4: is that these companies want to lease your product for
• 24:30
  Speaker 4: a certain period of time and then you get it back.
• 24:33
  Speaker 4: And I think that that's the direction that a lot
• 24:37
  Speaker 4: of these companies are going in because filmmakers that are
• 24:41
  Speaker 4: making indie films are making them because they don't want
• 24:44
  Speaker 4: to lose the rights to their product or their IP
• 24:48
  Speaker 4: or their web series or whatever it is. And YouTube
• 24:53
  Speaker 4: has sort of become too big for its bridges. The
• 24:58
  Speaker 4: amount of content that goes up on YouTube on a
• 25:00
  Speaker 4: daily basis, you can't market yourself hard enough or well
• 25:05
  Speaker 4: enough to get yourself those kind of views that used
• 25:08
  Speaker 4: to happen ten you know, ten years ago when YouTube
• 25:12
  Speaker 4: first started. So finding an avenue and finding the right
• 25:18
  Speaker 4: distribution partners for first glance and finding the right avenues
• 25:23
  Speaker 4: so that it doesn't cost filmmakers any money, and it
• 25:27
  Speaker 4: enabled them to get onto platforms that are you know,
• 25:32
  Speaker 4: that have cred, that have some sort of equality content
• 25:39
  Speaker 4: and you know not to not to you know, to
• 25:43
  Speaker 4: to downgrade YouTube. I mean, it is a great platform.
• 25:48
  Speaker 4: It gets you know, more eyes than any other platform
• 25:50
  Speaker 4: out there. But you know, you're fighting with cat videos.
• 25:57
  Speaker 4: You know, you're fifteen minutes fifteen minute masterpiece short film
• 26:02
  Speaker 4: isn't going to be watched for fifteen minutes. You know,
• 26:06
  Speaker 4: you're lucky if you can get him to watch your trailer.
• 26:09
  Speaker 4: So it is there is that downfall of YouTube being
• 26:13
  Speaker 4: too big. You know. I think Vimeo is an interesting idea,
• 26:17
  Speaker 4: but again Vimeo also doesn't spend any money marketing, so
• 26:21
  Speaker 4: it's still the independent filmmaker having to do it yourself.
• 26:25
  Speaker 4: And diy is is a concept that's interesting and sort
• 26:33
  Speaker 4: of outdated too, because there's not enough time in the
• 26:37
  Speaker 4: day for any one filmmaker to actually do it themselves.
• 26:42
  Speaker 4: And no matter what you do, no matter what you
• 26:49
  Speaker 4: you know, you need to spend some money. There needs
• 26:52
  Speaker 4: to be some money spent. You're not gonna be able
• 26:54
  Speaker 4: to market your film with no money. And I think
• 26:58
  Speaker 4: that as far as independent filmmakers go, they should always
• 27:02
  Speaker 4: think about if they are crowdfunding, if some of that
• 27:04
  Speaker 4: money should be put aside for marketing once you're done,
• 27:07
  Speaker 4: and probably for film festival entry fees. You know that
• 27:12
  Speaker 4: it's another you know, it's another rough spot because I
• 27:18
  Speaker 4: know that a lot of filmmakers get aggravated in entry
• 27:20
  Speaker 4: fees for film festivals. But I try to explain to
• 27:23
  Speaker 4: every filmmaker that you know, ninety nine percent of the
• 27:26
  Speaker 4: film festival out there make no money. And the ones
• 27:30
  Speaker 4: that you see on the big screen, the sun Dances
• 27:34
  Speaker 4: and the flam Dances and the Tribeca is in, the
• 27:36
  Speaker 4: Philadelphia Film Festival and south By Southwest, and these these
• 27:40
  Speaker 4: are funded, I mean millions and millions of advertising dollars
• 27:45
  Speaker 4: and grants coming from you know, city, state, federal, you know,
• 27:50
  Speaker 4: car companies, the vodka companies. I mean, you know, these
• 27:54
  Speaker 4: these companies spend a lot of money because they know
• 27:57
  Speaker 4: that there's going to be a you know, a type
• 28:00
  Speaker 4: talent at these events. Now, the other ninety nine percent
• 28:03
  Speaker 4: of the film festivals out there are run by an
• 28:05
  Speaker 4: individual person or a couple of people, and you know,
• 28:10
  Speaker 4: and many of them are legitimate. You know, my biggest,
• 28:15
  Speaker 4: my biggest I think pet peeve over the last four
• 28:17
  Speaker 4: or five years is sort of this quest for laurels
• 28:22
  Speaker 4: thing that's going on, and they pop up of all
• 28:25
  Speaker 4: of these I would call fake award type film festivals
• 28:31
  Speaker 4: that aren't actually even film festivals. They're just a dinner
• 28:37
  Speaker 4: and you're spending your hard earned money because you know
• 28:39
  Speaker 4: you'll get a laurel. And it's sad because you're never
• 28:41
  Speaker 4: going to be seen by anyone. No one ever screams them. Yeah,
• 28:45
  Speaker 4: they might be a ten dollars entry fee or a
• 28:48
  Speaker 4: fifteen dollars entry fee, but again, you're only getting digital laurels.
• 28:51
  Speaker 4: You're not going to sit in a theater and watch
• 28:53
  Speaker 4: a movie with anyone because no one's watching. And I've
• 28:58
  Speaker 4: seen them pop up all over the place. And one
• 28:59
  Speaker 4: of the things that we've been doing over the last
• 29:01
  Speaker 4: four or five years with film Freeway is when film
• 29:05
  Speaker 4: Freeway first came out, you couldn't make you couldn't make
• 29:12
  Speaker 4: the decision like there was no there was no checkbox
• 29:14
  Speaker 4: to filter a film festival from an actual just a
• 29:18
  Speaker 4: film awards program. And we worked really really hard with
• 29:24
  Speaker 4: them so that there would be distinctive categories because we
• 29:29
  Speaker 4: feel that it's very unfair for filmmakers to be entering
• 29:33
  Speaker 4: a quote unquote film festival that isn't actually a film festival.
• 29:38
  Speaker 4: And they pop up all over the place. Philadelphia has one,
• 29:40
  Speaker 4: San Diego has one, Los Angeles has one, and I'm
• 29:43
  Speaker 4: sure that if you do your due diligence and research,
• 29:45
  Speaker 4: you're probably find fifty or sixty of them. And they
• 29:49
  Speaker 4: all look the same, they're all promoted the same, they're
• 29:54
  Speaker 4: right up there exactly the same, and their websites are
• 29:56
  Speaker 4: usually pretty shitty.
• 29:59
  Speaker 2: We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor
• 30:05
  Speaker 2: and now back to the show.
• 30:08
  Speaker 4: But it's been aggravating because I get filmmakers all the
• 30:11
  Speaker 4: time they're like, oh, you know, it's you know, I
• 30:13
  Speaker 4: I need a few waver and I'm like, you know,
• 30:16
  Speaker 4: I would. I would love to do that for you.
• 30:18
  Speaker 4: But you know, one of the things that First Glances
• 30:23
  Speaker 4: always been known for is the quality of films that
• 30:27
  Speaker 4: we show, and it's a it's a huge process. We
• 30:32
  Speaker 4: watch everything. Every film is watched by me. I watch
• 30:36
  Speaker 4: every single film and I've been doing it since you're
• 30:40
  Speaker 4: one because it's first Glance and we want the quality
• 30:44
  Speaker 4: to be there. And I'm not just going to let
• 30:46
  Speaker 4: anything through just to sort of lay it through. Even
• 30:50
  Speaker 4: people who become friends of mine, they're like, hey, First
• 30:53
  Speaker 4: Glance is coming. I'm like, yep, go enter, you know,
• 30:56
  Speaker 4: I'm I'm you know. The The idea of the ethics
• 31:00
  Speaker 4: of the festival is that if I had to waive
• 31:04
  Speaker 4: a fee for one person, I would have to wave
• 31:07
  Speaker 4: the fee for everyone who asks. And if everyone who
• 31:10
  Speaker 4: asks get the fee waiver, I can't produce the film festivals.
• 31:14
  Speaker 4: So to me, it is sort of a double edged sword.
• 31:18
  Speaker 4: And I know that a lot of people complain, Oh well,
• 31:20
  Speaker 4: fun dance gives waivers or slam Dance gibs waivers. I'm like, yeah,
• 31:22
  Speaker 4: but clam Damp makes two hundred and fifty thousand dollars
• 31:25
  Speaker 4: a year in entry fees, you know, and up until
• 31:28
  Speaker 4: about three years ago they showed it in a coffee house,
• 31:31
  Speaker 4: so you know, it's obviously not costing them two hundred
• 31:34
  Speaker 4: and fifty thousand dollars to produce their events. So it's
• 31:38
  Speaker 4: been it's been interesting how sort of the growth of
• 31:41
  Speaker 4: the Internet, the growth of sort of film festivals, and
• 31:45
  Speaker 4: then the sort of this hybrid thing called the film Award,
• 31:49
  Speaker 4: which you know, unfortunately, you know, big festivals will look
• 31:55
  Speaker 4: at the laurels on your resume. But you know, if
• 31:59
  Speaker 4: it's like, you know, they bladed a block film awards,
• 32:02
  Speaker 4: like what is that?
• 32:05
  Speaker 3: Yeah, you know, I I agree with you, Bill. I've
• 32:07
  Speaker 3: seen some of these film festivals pop up and it's
• 32:10
  Speaker 3: kind of like what I was saying earlier about you
• 32:11
  Speaker 3: know sometimes hey, you know it's it's the first year
• 32:14
  Speaker 3: of you know, the you know, blah, blah blah film festival,
• 32:17
  Speaker 3: or maybe it's the second year, but that's what I
• 32:20
  Speaker 3: was saying with with something like yours or you know,
• 32:23
  Speaker 3: with your film festival, it holds more cash and that way,
• 32:25
  Speaker 3: you know, people know, oh, this is a trusted film festival.
• 32:28
  Speaker 3: I know what I'm getting involved in with with the
• 32:31
  Speaker 3: festivals that have an actual you know history, you know,
• 32:35
  Speaker 3: they they know that there's you know, a solid foundation
• 32:38
  Speaker 3: there and it's not just some people that are come by.
• 32:40
  Speaker 3: You know, Okay, everyone gets a Laurel or everyone, you know,
• 32:44
  Speaker 3: everyone becomes the Critics Choice Award or where you know,
• 32:47
  Speaker 3: there's certain awards that everyone sort of gets. Now, I've
• 32:49
  Speaker 3: noticed that there was a film festival I entered years ago,
• 32:53
  Speaker 3: bill and they gave out the same award to like
• 32:56
  Speaker 3: everyone who entered. It was so I forget what the
• 32:59
  Speaker 3: hell was called it something like the Critic's Choice Award,
• 33:01
  Speaker 3: And I was like, what the hell is this? Thankfully
• 33:03
  Speaker 3: I've never I've never told anybody I've ever won it,
• 33:05
  Speaker 3: because I'm like, probably eight thousand other people have won
• 33:08
  Speaker 3: the same damn award for just entering. But you know,
• 33:11
  Speaker 3: but but yeah, you know, just to take a step back,
• 33:13
  Speaker 3: I know, Chris Gore was on the podcast and we
• 33:15
  Speaker 3: were talking about we talked mentioned you briefly, and we
• 33:18
  Speaker 3: also mentioned film Threat. But you know, I think Kickstarter
• 33:22
  Speaker 3: is the you know, even when I was doing it,
• 33:24
  Speaker 3: you know, years ago, you know, I think it is
• 33:27
  Speaker 3: the future. And I think, honestly, the only thing I
• 33:30
  Speaker 3: could see that could take it down is is this
• 33:34
  Speaker 3: filmmakers who raise their funds and then never keep anybody
• 33:37
  Speaker 3: in the loop about what happened. And I actually had
• 33:41
  Speaker 3: I've donated to campaigns run by people that I've known,
• 33:43
  Speaker 3: that people that I know, and you know, they they'll
• 33:47
  Speaker 3: they'll they get all the funds, they get you know,
• 33:48
  Speaker 3: ten twenty thousand and thirty thousand, whatever, and then then
• 33:52
  Speaker 3: you know, they get their the fees, it all goes
• 33:54
  Speaker 3: through and then you never hear from them again. And
• 33:56
  Speaker 3: I'm sitting there going, man, these are the type of
• 33:58
  Speaker 3: these are the types of situations that are going to
• 34:00
  Speaker 3: kill crowdfunding for filmmakers. And you know what, and you know,
• 34:04
  Speaker 3: built they never made the movie, so like for instance, yeah,
• 34:07
  Speaker 3: I mean, and it's just it's and it's sad, man,
• 34:09
  Speaker 3: it really is, because then it hurts out, it hurts
• 34:12
  Speaker 3: legitimate filmmakers like you, myself and everyone else, you know,
• 34:15
  Speaker 3: the all the other great people I've had on this podcast.
• 34:18
  Speaker 3: It hurts all of us because then people go, oh,
• 34:20
  Speaker 3: I was burned one time on Quickstarter, so I'm never
• 34:22
  Speaker 3: going to donate again.
• 34:25
  Speaker 4: Yeah. Yeah, But I also think it's due diligence. I mean,
• 34:29
  Speaker 4: you know, look into I mean, look into it. I mean,
• 34:32
  Speaker 4: if you're here's the thing I think, if you are
• 34:34
  Speaker 4: a filmmaker and you've made films. I mean I today,
• 34:38
  Speaker 4: I did a crowdfunding for my own project about four
• 34:41
  Speaker 4: years ago, called Jedi Camp. I raised everything I needed
• 34:45
  Speaker 4: a little bit more, which was great, which helped me
• 34:47
  Speaker 4: to pay for some other outstanding production cot that I
• 34:52
  Speaker 4: thought were gonna come out of pocket that ended up
• 34:54
  Speaker 4: you know, being you know, greatly appreciative of the funders
• 34:58
  Speaker 4: to fund it porn me. But you know, my goal
• 35:03
  Speaker 4: had always been is that if I get this amount
• 35:06
  Speaker 4: of money, we are going to make this project. And
• 35:09
  Speaker 4: I think sometimes people just throw a number out there
• 35:13
  Speaker 4: and think, oh, well, if I guess thirty five thousand dollars,
• 35:15
  Speaker 4: I actually make a future film, and I'm like, nah,
• 35:18
  Speaker 4: I'm you know, thirty five thousand dollars does not go far,
• 35:24
  Speaker 4: and you have to look at it legitimately. I think
• 35:27
  Speaker 4: a lot of times. It's one of the things that
• 35:31
  Speaker 4: me and Chris looked at when because prior to this
• 35:36
  Speaker 4: past year's Kickstarter for film Trait, he had tried the
• 35:39
  Speaker 4: year before and didn't make it. And you know, we
• 35:44
  Speaker 4: sat down and had multiple meetings about what I think
• 35:48
  Speaker 4: sort of the pulpit would be for us if we
• 35:53
  Speaker 4: tried to raise money for film Thread again, and where
• 35:57
  Speaker 4: I felt like the sweet spot was where I felt like,
• 36:00
  Speaker 4: you know, if you could make this anount can you
• 36:02
  Speaker 4: get can you do this? And we sat down then
• 36:05
  Speaker 4: we really budgeted it out to the dollar and I
• 36:10
  Speaker 4: think that that was what enticed people to come back
• 36:16
  Speaker 4: first off, because I mean a lot of contents, if
• 36:18
  Speaker 4: you run a failed campaign, people are like, well, you
• 36:20
  Speaker 4: know they failed last time. Should I put my trust
• 36:23
  Speaker 4: in them this time? And I think that I would
• 36:29
  Speaker 4: say for probably for every one project on Kickstarter and
• 36:34
  Speaker 4: or Indiegogo, you have a hundred that are really legitimate
• 36:41
  Speaker 4: filmmakers trying to make their passion projects, trying to get
• 36:46
  Speaker 4: stuff done, and you know, yeah, it's just like it's
• 36:51
  Speaker 4: just like film a filmmaker who enters a film festival
• 36:55
  Speaker 4: and doesn't get into the film festival they want. You
• 36:58
  Speaker 4: can't blame all the film festivals are not getting into one.
• 37:02
  Speaker 4: So I think that that there there is that like
• 37:05
  Speaker 4: sour case in your mouth. But you know, in most cases,
• 37:12
  Speaker 4: people on average, I think as of right now, as
• 37:17
  Speaker 4: of like the latest numbers, like thirty dollars is about
• 37:21
  Speaker 4: the average crowdfund donation. So unless you've really invested in
• 37:28
  Speaker 4: something like maybe as like an associate producer or producer
• 37:32
  Speaker 4: on a project where you're spending a couple thousand dollars
• 37:35
  Speaker 4: and it's it's a huge amount of money, then I think, yeah,
• 37:39
  Speaker 4: you know, that's that's pretty shitty that you couldn't make
• 37:43
  Speaker 4: that film and that's whoever, you know, the project manager
• 37:49
  Speaker 4: is or the director of that film, what do they
• 37:52
  Speaker 4: do with the money. And that's kind of sucky. But
• 37:56
  Speaker 4: I think if if if you look at Kickstarter for
• 37:58
  Speaker 4: the whole and Indigogo any of the other crowdfunders, but
• 38:03
  Speaker 4: on the whole, the projects get finished. So I don't
• 38:08
  Speaker 4: you know, it's hard. I think, you know, you're always
• 38:10
  Speaker 4: gonna have bad apples and you're always gonna have people
• 38:13
  Speaker 4: trying to take advantage, but you can usually tell within
• 38:15
  Speaker 4: the write up and their video, and you know, I
• 38:20
  Speaker 4: usually look at a lot of things before I support them,
• 38:24
  Speaker 4: especially through First Glance, because we definitely want to have
• 38:29
  Speaker 4: a good relationship with filmmakers, but we also want to
• 38:32
  Speaker 4: make you know, make them understand that you know, we're
• 38:36
  Speaker 4: pretty much an equal opportunity supporter of crowdfunding and you know,
• 38:41
  Speaker 4: it's it's one of the reasons that we created the
• 38:44
  Speaker 4: support Indie Film hashtag back in the day, which is
• 38:49
  Speaker 4: I mean, over the past year has just been gangbusters.
• 38:52
  Speaker 4: It's just it's amazing to me how many people are
• 38:55
  Speaker 4: adopting the ashtag and using it on all media now.
• 38:59
  Speaker 4: I mean, we're you know, we're bigger on Twitter than
• 39:02
  Speaker 4: we are anywhere else because I feel like, uh, Facebook
• 39:05
  Speaker 4: is dying as far as reach, and Instagram is becoming
• 39:09
  Speaker 4: like every third post is a is an ad. But
• 39:13
  Speaker 4: I mean, if you search support indie film on Google,
• 39:16
  Speaker 4: it's everywhere. It's everywhere, And we're really proud of the
• 39:20
  Speaker 4: fact that not only did we create the hashtag, but
• 39:23
  Speaker 4: we also if anybody who wants to look, we use
• 39:27
  Speaker 4: it every single day.
• 39:30
  Speaker 3: Yeah. I actually I think I'm sorry, Bill.
• 39:34
  Speaker 4: Yeah, and I think it's it's it's a it's a
• 39:37
  Speaker 4: it's inspired a lot of people, it really has, so
• 39:42
  Speaker 4: so yeah, we're excited to see where that, you know,
• 39:45
  Speaker 4: that part of the industry goes too. Yeah.
• 39:49
  Speaker 3: I actually, uh, I followed it myself, support indie film,
• 39:52
  Speaker 3: and I use that hashtag whenever I'm gonna you know,
• 39:54
  Speaker 3: tweet out the podcast at all.
• 39:58
  Speaker 2: We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor,
• 40:04
  Speaker 2: and now back to the show.
• 40:07
  Speaker 3: Because you know, I can see that people who are
• 40:09
  Speaker 3: really out there doing things are using that hashtag, which
• 40:12
  Speaker 3: is good. You know, no one has you know, hijacked it,
• 40:16
  Speaker 3: you know, stuff like it, and and none of the
• 40:18
  Speaker 3: film hashtags no one has really taken yet, like you know,
• 40:20
  Speaker 3: hashtag script chat or whatever. But you know which is
• 40:24
  Speaker 3: But I love the supporting hashtag support indie film hashtag
• 40:28
  Speaker 3: you came up with. And uh, you know what I
• 40:30
  Speaker 3: agree with you on Facebook? By the way, Facebook to
• 40:32
  Speaker 3: me is because they want you to pay for everything now.
• 40:36
  Speaker 3: They want you to pay to reach your own fan
• 40:37
  Speaker 3: base that you've built up, and they want you to
• 40:39
  Speaker 3: pay for this. And that's why I stick with you know,
• 40:42
  Speaker 3: like I stick with Twitter, Instagram, and now I'm getting
• 40:46
  Speaker 3: more into YouTube, but I just you know, it's just Facebook.
• 40:49
  Speaker 3: I'm just always like, man, I hate this whole set,
• 40:52
  Speaker 3: this whole network. And again you have to pay, you
• 40:54
  Speaker 3: have to paid it. It's like dealing with the mafia.
• 40:56
  Speaker 3: You know, you want something done, Fuck you pay me.
• 41:00
  Speaker 4: Yeah yeah, I mean it's it's like you spend you
• 41:02
  Speaker 4: spend all this time building your family, and then it's like, oh, well,
• 41:06
  Speaker 4: if you want to contact your family, now you've got
• 41:08
  Speaker 4: to pay us. And it really is an awful concept,
• 41:12
  Speaker 4: and I think they would have much They would have
• 41:15
  Speaker 4: been much better off, especially for everyone who runs a
• 41:19
  Speaker 4: small business is instead of playing that kind of game.
• 41:23
  Speaker 4: And I've said this to a lot of people and
• 41:24
  Speaker 4: most people agree with me. I don't know if it'll
• 41:26
  Speaker 4: ever happen, but I would rather pay them three ninety
• 41:30
  Speaker 4: five or four ninety five a month to get all
• 41:32
  Speaker 4: those people back. Just give me back my Facebook. So
• 41:36
  Speaker 4: I'm willing to take, you know, a monthly I will
• 41:39
  Speaker 4: take a monthly subscription if I can talk to my
• 41:42
  Speaker 4: four thousand followers on Facebook and actually invite them to
• 41:46
  Speaker 4: my events and not be caught at five hundred. It's
• 41:51
  Speaker 4: just it's a really it's a really smarmy way to
• 41:53
  Speaker 4: do business, I think. And you know, to boost a
• 41:57
  Speaker 4: post to get in touch with the same people that
• 41:59
  Speaker 4: you used to get in touch is it's outlandish.
• 42:02
  Speaker 3: Yeah, it really is. And that that's why I've tried
• 42:06
  Speaker 3: to steer away from Facebook. Every time I want to
• 42:08
  Speaker 3: close down my profile, just my main profile, just me,
• 42:11
  Speaker 3: I always have an excuse why I have to keep
• 42:14
  Speaker 3: it open, because someone's trying to contact me or this,
• 42:16
  Speaker 3: that and the other thing. And I'm not, damn it.
• 42:18
  Speaker 3: Because there's only a few groups I actually still use
• 42:21
  Speaker 3: on Facebook, and they're mainly like podcasting groups and the
• 42:23
  Speaker 3: other half is film groups that actually some there's a group,
• 42:26
  Speaker 3: you know, the groups out there, they hold some validation,
• 42:29
  Speaker 3: you know what I mean. And there's actually some validity
• 42:31
  Speaker 3: as of the groups. But but for the most part,
• 42:33
  Speaker 3: you know, if you're on a fan page, you want
• 42:35
  Speaker 3: to get you know, a hold of those thousand people,
• 42:37
  Speaker 3: you have to just you know, y'all have to boost
• 42:39
  Speaker 3: the post. But but yeah, I mean, that's why again,
• 42:42
  Speaker 3: you know, and I'm also gonna link to your Twitter
• 42:44
  Speaker 3: and everything in the show notes and also the the
• 42:47
  Speaker 3: hashtag you know, support indie film that way, you know,
• 42:50
  Speaker 3: people can find it. But you know, you know, as
• 42:52
  Speaker 3: I talk more about, you know, getting into film festivals,
• 42:56
  Speaker 3: I had some questions come in Bill that actually relates
• 42:58
  Speaker 3: to first glance. You want you want to take a
• 43:00
  Speaker 3: few questions. Sure, this one is, by by the way,
• 43:04
  Speaker 3: Whitney Davis. I want to say thank you for all
• 43:07
  Speaker 3: the great questions. She actually sent one in and I
• 43:10
  Speaker 3: love this question. By the way, Bill, she said, what
• 43:13
  Speaker 3: can writers and directors do to set their indie film
• 43:17
  Speaker 3: apart from everything else out there?
• 43:22
  Speaker 4: Wow? Okay, I would say number one. And even though
• 43:26
  Speaker 4: we're we're right now anti Facebook and anti Instagram. As
• 43:31
  Speaker 4: soon as you come up with the idea or the
• 43:33
  Speaker 4: title of your film, buyer, buy theweb dot com. If
• 43:38
  Speaker 4: you can, start a Twitter page, start an Instagram page,
• 43:43
  Speaker 4: start a Facebook group, and start to build your audience,
• 43:48
  Speaker 4: because the only way that you're going to make it
• 43:51
  Speaker 4: stand out from others is that people know about it.
• 43:54
  Speaker 4: And the issue now is because it's so easy to
• 44:02
  Speaker 4: make a movie, and it is. I mean, people are
• 44:04
  Speaker 4: making them on GoPros, people are making them on their highphone.
• 44:07
  Speaker 4: People are you know, you can go to best Buy
• 44:09
  Speaker 4: and for four hundred and fifty dollars by you know
• 44:12
  Speaker 4: a canon T five I and you can shoot a movie.
• 44:18
  Speaker 4: You know, you could shoot it on your iPad? You can,
• 44:20
  Speaker 4: I mean I have. The thing is there's so many
• 44:22
  Speaker 4: ways of shooting them. And yes there are movies, but
• 44:25
  Speaker 4: are they films? And I make a distinction of like
• 44:29
  Speaker 4: anyone can make a movie, but not everyone can make
• 44:32
  Speaker 4: a film. And a film is the beginning, a middle,
• 44:36
  Speaker 4: and end, a story, something that's cohesive from beginning to end.
• 44:41
  Speaker 4: And I think that you know, to make it stand out,
• 44:44
  Speaker 4: there's a couple of things that you can do. And
• 44:48
  Speaker 4: I would say, you know, in your budgeting of time
• 44:51
  Speaker 4: and energy and in hopes of finding yourself a good
• 44:54
  Speaker 4: graphic designer, because a good movie image, good post string image,
• 45:00
  Speaker 4: a good postcard image, something to put on your your
• 45:04
  Speaker 4: Facebook backgrounds and keep it all consistent too. I feel
• 45:07
  Speaker 4: that like for branding purposes, and I think that you
• 45:11
  Speaker 4: know a last filmmakers like, well, I make a movie
• 45:13
  Speaker 4: a year, and I'm like, well that's great. You know,
• 45:15
  Speaker 4: you have to brand every single one of them, because
• 45:17
  Speaker 4: until you're an actual name, nobody knows who you are,
• 45:20
  Speaker 4: so you really need to brand each of those films
• 45:24
  Speaker 4: so that people know where to go, what to see,
• 45:26
  Speaker 4: and then you keep people on the loop. I mean
• 45:28
  Speaker 4: it's similar in a way to a crowdfunding campaign, where
• 45:31
  Speaker 4: from day one and crowdfunding, your goal is to get
• 45:35
  Speaker 4: the word out to get people to join you. And
• 45:38
  Speaker 4: it's really like a snowball. You have one fan or
• 45:43
  Speaker 4: two fans, or three fans, and then suddenly those three
• 45:46
  Speaker 4: become nine and it's like it's that old commercial from
• 45:49
  Speaker 4: TV where it's like that, you know, you tell one
• 45:52
  Speaker 4: person and then I tell one person and then I
• 45:53
  Speaker 4: don't remember it's like a hair product or something I
• 45:55
  Speaker 4: feel like, but it was like an eighties commercial and
• 45:58
  Speaker 4: all of a sudden, you're like seven hundred people on
• 46:00
  Speaker 4: the screen in the Little King of bos. So your
• 46:03
  Speaker 4: goal is is to find champions. And the great thing
• 46:09
  Speaker 4: about what First Glances has been doing over the last
• 46:12
  Speaker 4: few years is that we've found a lot of champions
• 46:15
  Speaker 4: and you can you can find them very easily. You
• 46:18
  Speaker 4: just hit supporting new film hashtag find our list, and
• 46:21
  Speaker 4: that is a huge amount of supporters of ours, Skip
• 46:25
  Speaker 4: Bolden and Patrick Russell and Paul McKee and Russell Southam,
• 46:30
  Speaker 4: and I mean there's there are people from all over
• 46:32
  Speaker 4: the world that follow us, and the reason they follow
• 46:36
  Speaker 4: us is because we're real and because we share. And
• 46:40
  Speaker 4: a lot of people on social media toot their own
• 46:43
  Speaker 4: horn and that's all they do. And social media from
• 46:47
  Speaker 4: from day one, I've always learned social media is social.
• 46:53
  Speaker 4: So if I retweet you, you will likely retweet me,
• 46:59
  Speaker 4: and then it becomes a relationship. It doesn't necessarily have
• 47:02
  Speaker 4: to become a close relationship. But if you like what
• 47:05
  Speaker 4: we're doing and you retweet, well then I'm going to
• 47:06
  Speaker 4: look for stuff that you're tweeting and I'm going to retweet.
• 47:09
  Speaker 4: So it's a community and you're building your community. And
• 47:13
  Speaker 4: for any writer or any filmmaker to stand out from
• 47:17
  Speaker 4: the crowd, they need to create a brand. And to
• 47:20
  Speaker 4: create that brand, you have to use social media. And
• 47:24
  Speaker 4: right now, I would say Twitter is the best place
• 47:27
  Speaker 4: to go because Twitter is the only place that doesn't
• 47:30
  Speaker 4: throttle you, that doesn't push ad. I mean, yeah, pushes ads,
• 47:33
  Speaker 4: but it doesn't push ads on you the way Faithbook
• 47:35
  Speaker 4: and Instagram do. But you know, create a great image,
• 47:43
  Speaker 4: you know, I think one of the things that make
• 47:46
  Speaker 4: some filmmakers stand out. Friends of ours like Jessica Cameron
• 47:49
  Speaker 4: is they push a certain envelope like horror, and they
• 47:56
  Speaker 4: continue to stay in that genre. So you have that ability.
• 48:00
  Speaker 4: But if you're gonna make all kinds of movies, well
• 48:02
  Speaker 4: then you know you need to brand those. And I
• 48:05
  Speaker 4: think that it's really important that you understand that social
• 48:11
  Speaker 4: media is not a nine to five job. It is
• 48:15
  Speaker 4: a seven day a week, three hundred and sixty five
• 48:17
  Speaker 4: days a year, and you got to work at it,
• 48:19
  Speaker 4: and you have to learn how to get good at it.
• 48:21
  Speaker 4: You gotta learn fip some tricks, and there's all a
• 48:23
  Speaker 4: little different things. You know, you got to find champions
• 48:26
  Speaker 4: because you know, you tweeting out, hey, you know, comes
• 48:29
  Speaker 4: see the Day Bullists podcast. If nobody retweets it, then
• 48:32
  Speaker 4: nobody comes to lift it.
• 48:34
  Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, very very true, Bill, And luckily I have
• 48:37
  Speaker 3: been very fortunate people have retweeted it. But you know,
• 48:42
  Speaker 3: you know this question in your answer to you know,
• 48:45
  Speaker 3: it's something that has come up before, and I'm always
• 48:47
  Speaker 3: interested to hear everyone's answer. You know, I've had on
• 48:50
  Speaker 3: like Paul Patito from a script, God's Must Die. I've
• 48:53
  Speaker 3: had on Jason Brubaker from filmmaking stuff, and the list
• 48:56
  Speaker 3: goes on and on about you know, how do you
• 48:58
  Speaker 3: set yourself apart? And you know, one of the things
• 49:02
  Speaker 3: that I go back to of how you can set
• 49:04
  Speaker 3: yourself apart is even before that. And one of the
• 49:07
  Speaker 3: things that I have said on this podcast more so
• 49:11
  Speaker 3: recently is I think the hallmark of our times right
• 49:14
  Speaker 3: now is going to be can you make a micro
• 49:16
  Speaker 3: budget film? Can you take a camera and a and
• 49:21
  Speaker 3: probably one to two or maybe a couple more of
• 49:23
  Speaker 3: the crew members and a few actors in a few locations,
• 49:27
  Speaker 3: and can you make a gripping movie using all locations
• 49:31
  Speaker 3: and resources. You have your disposal right now, at this
• 49:34
  Speaker 3: very minute, and you can sort of test the waters
• 49:37
  Speaker 3: of this movie by just, like what you were just saying,
• 49:40
  Speaker 3: uploading it to YouTube and just seeing you know, I mean,
• 49:44
  Speaker 3: I'm not saying you're going to get a huge amount
• 49:46
  Speaker 3: of traffic, but just to see if it's if a
• 49:50
  Speaker 3: few people can watch it, see if they give you
• 49:52
  Speaker 3: it coms up, see if they give you any comments.
• 49:56
  Speaker 2: We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor,
• 50:02
  Speaker 2: and now back to the show.
• 50:05
  Speaker 3: And you know, if you if you have a built
• 50:07
  Speaker 3: in market, but prior to that, even if you have
• 50:08
  Speaker 3: a social media account, prior to that, you know, obviously
• 50:10
  Speaker 3: use that, But honestly, I think that sometimes build people
• 50:15
  Speaker 3: come into this industry with the wrong ideas and expectations,
• 50:20
  Speaker 3: and I think sometimes.
• 50:21
  Speaker 4: The definitely, yeah, yeah, they definitely do. I think. And
• 50:25
  Speaker 4: I had it too. I mean I came out of college,
• 50:28
  Speaker 4: you know, with you know, five feature lenscripts in the hand,
• 50:30
  Speaker 4: and I'm like, oh, I'm going to go get you know,
• 50:32
  Speaker 4: I'm going to become a screenwriter and bloody, bloody blah.
• 50:35
  Speaker 4: And you know, you come out to LA and you
• 50:38
  Speaker 4: find out that that almost every agency won't take an
• 50:43
  Speaker 4: unfilicited script. So how do you get your script to
• 50:48
  Speaker 4: an agent if they won't take an unfilicited script? And
• 50:53
  Speaker 4: you you you get sort of in a Catch twenty
• 50:56
  Speaker 4: two or Rocking a hard placed kind of thing where
• 50:58
  Speaker 4: it's like, I have this great screen play. I want
• 51:01
  Speaker 4: to make it happen. You know, how do I get
• 51:04
  Speaker 4: an agent? Well, the only way you get an agent
• 51:07
  Speaker 4: is the a referral, and you don't normally get a
• 51:09
  Speaker 4: referral from an agent. You get a referral from someone
• 51:11
  Speaker 4: higher up. So how do you get a producer or
• 51:15
  Speaker 4: director to read your script? Well, if you send it
• 51:18
  Speaker 4: to a producer. The producers like, well, I can't read
• 51:20
  Speaker 4: this because if some way, some time down the road,
• 51:24
  Speaker 4: a film that I make is partially similar cures well,
• 51:28
  Speaker 4: then you're going to assume me. Okay, so producer, I
• 51:31
  Speaker 4: won't read my script. A director a right, how do
• 51:33
  Speaker 4: I get my script man of a director? Directors are
• 51:37
  Speaker 4: too busy in that time. Directors have sixteen other people
• 51:40
  Speaker 4: that work for them. So if you can even get
• 51:43
  Speaker 4: it to the assistant of the assistant or a script reader, again,
• 51:48
  Speaker 4: chances are it's never going to see the light of
• 51:50
  Speaker 4: day because most script readers, as we all know, are
• 51:55
  Speaker 4: aggravated screenwriters and they're you know, they want the script
• 52:00
  Speaker 4: to be read, not yours. So there's a huge catch.
• 52:03
  Speaker 4: Twenty two. There's loss of There's lots of doorways and
• 52:07
  Speaker 4: things that are that are locked. Even for someone like
• 52:10
  Speaker 4: myself who's been out here for fifteen twenty years, I
• 52:13
  Speaker 4: still have unless it's an upstart company and it's someone
• 52:17
  Speaker 4: who says to me, hey, they're this upstart company looking
• 52:19
  Speaker 4: for product and they're small and they're looking for like
• 52:22
  Speaker 4: one to three million dollar films. Well, then I go
• 52:25
  Speaker 4: to my friends that i've read scripts around are like, hey,
• 52:28
  Speaker 4: I have an avenue right now. You know, it may
• 52:31
  Speaker 4: close up any year, because if that small company ends
• 52:35
  Speaker 4: up under the umbrella of something larger like a Comcast
• 52:39
  Speaker 4: Universal or a Paramount or a Sony, well suddenly they
• 52:43
  Speaker 4: can't take those scripts anymore because of lawsuits and the
• 52:46
  Speaker 4: fact that they're you know, everybody's worried about, you know,
• 52:49
  Speaker 4: being sued about this, that and the other thing. So
• 52:52
  Speaker 4: there's this very small du opportunity. And then if this
• 52:55
  Speaker 4: company then develops a film and the film goes out
• 52:58
  Speaker 4: and then it does well well and boom, you know,
• 53:00
  Speaker 4: like for example, like five years ago, you probably could
• 53:02
  Speaker 4: have gotten your horror script in the hands of Jason Blum.
• 53:05
  Speaker 4: Nowadays probably not. So there's that that whole window opportunity
• 53:11
  Speaker 4: where you know, you come out of college and your
• 53:13
  Speaker 4: bright eyed and bushytail and you're like, oh my god,
• 53:16
  Speaker 4: I get this. I'm gonna get this, and then reality
• 53:18
  Speaker 4: hits you and you're like, holy shit, this is not easy.
• 53:22
  Speaker 4: You know. The story is, you know, the stories of
• 53:25
  Speaker 4: like Steven Spielberg, like you know, walking into you know,
• 53:29
  Speaker 4: the Universal lots and walking into an empty office and
• 53:34
  Speaker 4: just setting up office you know, quote unquote, that would
• 53:38
  Speaker 4: good luck, good luck getting into the front gate, you know,
• 53:42
  Speaker 4: you know, and if you got through the front gate,
• 53:44
  Speaker 4: just wake then get arrested, you know, one hundred feet in.
• 53:47
  Speaker 4: So I mean there's there. It's a whole other animal
• 53:49
  Speaker 4: now and I think that the best way to do
• 53:51
  Speaker 4: it now. And quite honestly, like if you have a
• 53:54
  Speaker 4: great script, pull a great scene, pull a great scene
• 53:57
  Speaker 4: from that script, something that that you with your abilities
• 54:02
  Speaker 4: can shoot and it doesn't as start to be you
• 54:04
  Speaker 4: shooting it. You know, find yourself a good deep pe
• 54:06
  Speaker 4: somebody who wants something for the real shoot that scene.
• 54:11
  Speaker 4: Get that scene up, because that scene will show possible
• 54:17
  Speaker 4: investors down the road.
• 54:20
  Speaker 2: You know.
• 54:21
  Speaker 4: You know, there are the chances of it going viral.
• 54:23
  Speaker 4: I mean, Glynn, but you know, I can't tell you
• 54:26
  Speaker 4: how many people contact me about I want to make
• 54:29
  Speaker 4: a viral video and like, well, that's not really hot works.
• 54:33
  Speaker 4: You know, you don't go if someone knew the formula
• 54:36
  Speaker 4: making a viral video, they'd be like a multi trillionaire. Yeah,
• 54:42
  Speaker 4: because there is no rhyme, there's no reason. You don't
• 54:44
  Speaker 4: know why it goes viral. It's just it's one hundred
• 54:48
  Speaker 4: different elements to why something goes viral, and there's no
• 54:54
  Speaker 4: rhyme or reason. It's just like there's no rhyme or
• 54:56
  Speaker 4: reason you know why. Uh. You know, an actor who
• 55:03
  Speaker 4: is on their last dime suddenly gets the callback of
• 55:06
  Speaker 4: their lifetime and for the next ten years works in sittoms.
• 55:10
  Speaker 4: There's no there is no real actual book that tells
• 55:14
  Speaker 4: you how to do these things. I mean there's hundreds
• 55:16
  Speaker 4: of books out there that they try to Potatoes are
• 55:21
  Speaker 4: the grain of salt, because you know, you can write
• 55:25
  Speaker 4: the greatest script, but if it can't get through a door,
• 55:28
  Speaker 4: then it's just it's just paper. Or now it's the pfile.
• 55:33
  Speaker 3: So yes, everything's digital.
• 55:35
  Speaker 4: Right, you'd be surprised I do work in the film industry.
• 55:41
  Speaker 4: You'd be surprised at how much paper we should go away. Well,
• 55:45
  Speaker 4: but yeah, it's it's hard to differentiate yourself and it's
• 55:49
  Speaker 4: not something you're going to do right away. It's something
• 55:52
  Speaker 4: that's gonna take you years of work to do, and
• 55:55
  Speaker 4: you know, get yourself out there and then put yourself
• 55:58
  Speaker 4: in networking situations and go to local film festivals and
• 56:02
  Speaker 4: watch what other people are doing. Because that's also another
• 56:05
  Speaker 4: thing that I tell a lot of filmmakers like, well,
• 56:07
  Speaker 4: what do you guys say accept? And I'm like, well,
• 56:10
  Speaker 4: go to our you know who are YouTube page and
• 56:13
  Speaker 4: look at all the trailers. You can see the kind
• 56:15
  Speaker 4: of films with the accept Come to our film festival
• 56:19
  Speaker 4: and you'll see. I mean I've even invited, you know,
• 56:24
  Speaker 4: enraged filmmakers who didn't get into our film festival like
• 56:27
  Speaker 4: why did we get into your film festival? And I'm like, look,
• 56:31
  Speaker 4: come to it and see and maybe I'll understand why
• 56:34
  Speaker 4: your project you can get programmed?
• 56:38
  Speaker 3: Did they ever take you up? And you know, did
• 56:41
  Speaker 3: do they ever take you up on that offer?
• 56:43
  Speaker 4: I've had one. I'd had one, and they actually were
• 56:48
  Speaker 4: They were apologetic afterwards and they were like I get it.
• 56:51
  Speaker 4: He's like he's like, I alt hit, my film look
• 56:54
  Speaker 4: pretty well on a weak screen. And he goes and
• 56:56
  Speaker 4: I know that I had found issues and I'm like, see,
• 56:58
  Speaker 4: oh no, there you go. You know, but and all
• 57:04
  Speaker 4: that note with sound issues. I am for every independent
• 57:09
  Speaker 4: filmmaker out there that if you're going to gona make
• 57:12
  Speaker 4: an independent film, please if there's one person that you
• 57:18
  Speaker 4: have to pay, pay a sound mixer, because yes, the
• 57:24
  Speaker 4: sound might not be great on your computer when you
• 57:28
  Speaker 4: play it in a small version, but imagine putting that
• 57:31
  Speaker 4: up into a theater that has Adobe Surround or something
• 57:37
  Speaker 4: of the like, and you're hearing this buzz throughout an
• 57:43
  Speaker 4: entire seventeen minute short film. Battle driving money is crazy.
• 57:50
  Speaker 4: So it's one of the things that it's it's my
• 57:53
  Speaker 4: biggest pet peeve, and probably every time we do call
• 57:56
  Speaker 4: for entry and every time we're doing our pre screenings,
• 57:59
  Speaker 4: I will put it up a tip on Twitter. Please
• 58:03
  Speaker 4: hire a found person. You know they are going to
• 58:06
  Speaker 4: be your best investment because you cannot fix bad dialogue
• 58:10
  Speaker 4: in posts unless your lucasfilm and you have millions of
• 58:16
  Speaker 4: dollars to do that, because it's really really expensive. So
• 58:23
  Speaker 4: that would be one thing that I would definitely tell
• 58:25
  Speaker 4: filmmakers to make sure that they do, you know, even
• 58:29
  Speaker 4: if it's come out of your own pocket, because in
• 58:31
  Speaker 4: the end, it's going to come out of your pocket
• 58:33
  Speaker 4: and post and or you're just going to be so
• 58:35
  Speaker 4: aggravated that you can't figure out how to do the
• 58:37
  Speaker 4: film right on your final cut or your Adobe Premier
• 58:41
  Speaker 4: or whatever it is for using because the problem is
• 58:44
  Speaker 4: is that you didn't get good sound to begin with
• 58:46
  Speaker 4: and if you don't get good sound to begin with,
• 58:48
  Speaker 4: you can't make it better.
• 58:51
  Speaker 3: Yeah, very true, Bill, very sure. I've had on Kelly
• 58:54
  Speaker 3: Baker who he runs Angry Filmmaker, and he's a he's
• 58:58
  Speaker 3: all the soundwork for Gus Van and Zance movies, and
• 59:01
  Speaker 3: that's something he always whenever he's doing a sort of
• 59:05
  Speaker 3: film class or you know, teaching sort of like a
• 59:07
  Speaker 3: film seminar, he always says, trust me, guys, as a
• 59:10
  Speaker 3: guy who works in film, he goes, and whose specialty
• 59:14
  Speaker 3: is audio, trust me about this, he goes, You have
• 59:18
  Speaker 3: to have good audio because it's almost like everything because
• 59:22
  Speaker 3: you know, they usually don't think about it until they
• 59:24
  Speaker 3: need it, right, And it kind of ties in with
• 59:26
  Speaker 3: what we're talking about with marketing. Most people don't realize
• 59:29
  Speaker 3: they need it until they most people don't realize they
• 59:32
  Speaker 3: don't have it until they need it, and it's you know,
• 59:35
  Speaker 3: it's like tying into that market. I mean, I've had
• 59:37
  Speaker 3: people on here who said, you know, they they've made
• 59:39
  Speaker 3: movies and then all of a sudden they realize, so like,
• 59:41
  Speaker 3: we don't have any presence, we have no media presence,
• 59:45
  Speaker 3: we don't have a way to distribute this thing. They
• 59:48
  Speaker 3: weren't even thinking about anything until you know, obviously they
• 59:50
  Speaker 3: needed it, and at which point you know it's probably
• 59:54
  Speaker 3: it's not only much harder.
• 59:57
  Speaker 2: We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor
• 1:00:03
  Speaker 2: and now back to the show.
• 1:00:06
  Speaker 3: But it's it's almost like it's tough enough, but now
• 1:00:10
  Speaker 3: you've got to really sort of you know, climb you know,
• 1:00:12
  Speaker 3: two mountains, because now you've got to build it as
• 1:00:15
  Speaker 3: you need it. And then you got to also, you know,
• 1:00:17
  Speaker 3: you're pitching your festivals, you're trying to get this done,
• 1:00:19
  Speaker 3: You're trying to I mean, it's just I mean, you know,
• 1:00:21
  Speaker 3: you obviously you know you've seen it before, as have I.
• 1:00:24
  Speaker 3: And but I think now I hopefully, with you know,
• 1:00:27
  Speaker 3: as I said before you with this podcast, I hope
• 1:00:30
  Speaker 3: to not use it, use this as an education for
• 1:00:32
  Speaker 3: other people, but also as an education for myself, and
• 1:00:35
  Speaker 3: you know, I hope my My goal is that every episode,
• 1:00:38
  Speaker 3: you know, somebody out there, if I can just help
• 1:00:40
  Speaker 3: you know, one person or one person finds this useful
• 1:00:43
  Speaker 3: or whatever, then that episode's success, you know, but thankfully
• 1:00:46
  Speaker 3: more than one. But yeah, but thankfully though I've had,
• 1:00:49
  Speaker 3: you know, more than it's been it's been you know,
• 1:00:51
  Speaker 3: I've gotten a lot of excellent feedback since i started
• 1:00:54
  Speaker 3: this podcast, and I'm really uh but but again, it's
• 1:00:56
  Speaker 3: just for that issue. Man, you know where this is.
• 1:00:59
  Speaker 3: I want this to be a film school where the
• 1:01:02
  Speaker 3: teacher is a different teacher. Every every single week. There's
• 1:01:05
  Speaker 3: a different teacher who is telling you not theory, but
• 1:01:09
  Speaker 3: actual practical advice based upon their years of experience actually
• 1:01:13
  Speaker 3: doing it.
• 1:01:14
  Speaker 4: Oh yeah, yeah, at least I've thought about it. There's
• 1:01:17
  Speaker 4: there isn't a There's like a school I think in
• 1:01:19
  Speaker 4: Philly that does and I think it's Harry Casting or
• 1:01:24
  Speaker 4: something that does it. And they're always looking for like
• 1:01:26
  Speaker 4: production management and and courses like that, and a couple
• 1:01:31
  Speaker 4: of years ago I actually had contacted them and said, look,
• 1:01:34
  Speaker 4: I'll come in and I'll show you. I'll show the
• 1:01:36
  Speaker 4: lever if you have the equipment, I will show people
• 1:01:38
  Speaker 4: that book on how to build a film from beginning
• 1:01:44
  Speaker 4: to end. I mean on top of on top of
• 1:01:46
  Speaker 4: not just social media, but you know, writing a decent
• 1:01:50
  Speaker 4: script and and and getting real actors, because I mean
• 1:01:54
  Speaker 4: the other thing is the other thing is the you know,
• 1:01:57
  Speaker 4: the getting your mom and dad to act in your
• 1:01:59
  Speaker 4: film is it is probably the worst thing you could
• 1:02:03
  Speaker 4: ever do when there are plenty of actors out there
• 1:02:06
  Speaker 4: that would do it for a good script. And you know,
• 1:02:12
  Speaker 4: it's you know, when you've watched you know, almost twenty
• 1:02:16
  Speaker 4: thousand independent films like I have, you you see things
• 1:02:20
  Speaker 4: over and over and over again that just are like,
• 1:02:24
  Speaker 4: oh my god. It's like you know, amateur error error,
• 1:02:28
  Speaker 4: or you've gone into production too soon, or you're like, well,
• 1:02:32
  Speaker 4: you know, I just want to get something. I just
• 1:02:34
  Speaker 4: want to make movie. And I'm like, no, don't just
• 1:02:37
  Speaker 4: I want to make a movie. Make it the best
• 1:02:39
  Speaker 4: move you can, because you're gonna waste your time and
• 1:02:42
  Speaker 4: your energy and everyone else is putting together a product
• 1:02:47
  Speaker 4: that is just going to end up on YouTube, sitting
• 1:02:50
  Speaker 4: there doing nothing, or wherever it ends up. You know,
• 1:02:55
  Speaker 4: a lot of times it ends up nowhere. I mean
• 1:02:57
  Speaker 4: it's still sitting on hard drives, and well, I mean
• 1:03:01
  Speaker 4: from from our inception, it's still sitting on Beta sp
• 1:03:04
  Speaker 4: and sixteen million and thirty five mill and filmmakers have
• 1:03:08
  Speaker 4: you know, there's nothing they can do with it anymore.
• 1:03:10
  Speaker 4: So I think that you know, going back to branding,
• 1:03:16
  Speaker 4: is that you know, you have to think about the
• 1:03:19
  Speaker 4: marketing as a filmmaker. Now they you are your own marketing. Yeah,
• 1:03:26
  Speaker 4: you know, I mean First Glance Film. We are our marketing,
• 1:03:30
  Speaker 4: you know, because we know how to do it best
• 1:03:33
  Speaker 4: and it shows. I mean we're you know, fifty thousand
• 1:03:36
  Speaker 4: followers between Twitter and Facebook, and it's not a mistake.
• 1:03:40
  Speaker 4: I don't buy. I don't buy my followers because I
• 1:03:43
  Speaker 4: know I want real followers on people that are going
• 1:03:45
  Speaker 4: to engage with us. So I think that's you know,
• 1:03:49
  Speaker 4: that's a key. So it's definitely it is a way
• 1:03:52
  Speaker 4: to make yourself stand out. But on top of that,
• 1:03:54
  Speaker 4: you got to make good products. And if you're not
• 1:03:57
  Speaker 4: making good product, you're amongst the million other people making movies.
• 1:04:02
  Speaker 3: Yeah, there was a there was a saying in social
• 1:04:04
  Speaker 3: media that I once read that was with the with
• 1:04:06
  Speaker 3: the invention of social media and how democratic it is
• 1:04:10
  Speaker 3: everyone owns marketing now. And you know too, Bill. You know,
• 1:04:13
  Speaker 3: if if if you're if you're on Twitter and you
• 1:04:15
  Speaker 3: go to a restaurant and the service sucks and you
• 1:04:18
  Speaker 3: hate the food, what do you do? You immediately go
• 1:04:20
  Speaker 3: to Twitter and say, you know, this place fucking blows
• 1:04:23
  Speaker 3: and me and now you know, everyone owns marketing, so
• 1:04:26
  Speaker 3: all your followers.
• 1:04:27
  Speaker 4: I may not fade exactly that way.
• 1:04:31
  Speaker 3: I think you're the Philly has left you Bill, because
• 1:04:33
  Speaker 3: you know that that's it Philly's whats But uh no, no, yeah,
• 1:04:39
  Speaker 3: I'm just kidding. But I'm just having good fun.
• 1:04:40
  Speaker 4: But I may say I may say something like this,
• 1:04:43
  Speaker 4: John sucks, but I probably would not. I keep up.
• 1:04:47
  Speaker 3: I keep up, yeah, John the phill.
• 1:04:50
  Speaker 4: You know you're if you're more if you are more
• 1:04:52
  Speaker 4: like you know, if you're more sly about it, sometimes
• 1:04:55
  Speaker 4: it'll get your free meal like that. But you know,
• 1:04:59
  Speaker 4: I have had my issues with companies, and you know,
• 1:05:01
  Speaker 4: when you have the amount of followers that you do,
• 1:05:03
  Speaker 4: they get that's pretty fast. I have to say. You know,
• 1:05:08
  Speaker 4: it's becomes sort of a customer's always right sort of thing.
• 1:05:12
  Speaker 4: But it's also becomes sort of like I see it
• 1:05:14
  Speaker 4: with the Yelp too. Yeah you can't, you know. I
• 1:05:20
  Speaker 4: see restaurants that have hundreds of great, great, great great
• 1:05:23
  Speaker 4: experiences in five stars, and then you see one or
• 1:05:25
  Speaker 4: two that have like like two and you know, one star,
• 1:05:28
  Speaker 4: and I'm like, I don't know, this seems like the
• 1:05:30
  Speaker 4: person and not the venue. And I think it's just
• 1:05:34
  Speaker 4: like anything else. It's you've got to do your due diligence.
• 1:05:36
  Speaker 4: If you're gonna look at the shitty you know, the
• 1:05:40
  Speaker 4: shitty stuff all the time and the negatives, well then
• 1:05:43
  Speaker 4: you're probably not looking at it the right way. You know. Yes,
• 1:05:47
  Speaker 4: if if the majority of things are negative, then yeah,
• 1:05:50
  Speaker 4: maybe it's not something you want to purchase or buy
• 1:05:52
  Speaker 4: or go to ahead it, you know, if you know
• 1:05:55
  Speaker 4: it already. But you know, every server can have an
• 1:05:59
  Speaker 4: off day, every bar ten can have an off day,
• 1:06:00
  Speaker 4: every cook can have an off day, every film festival
• 1:06:04
  Speaker 4: can have an off day. And it's it's it's unfortunate.
• 1:06:08
  Speaker 4: It's just the way it works. I mean, you're not
• 1:06:11
  Speaker 4: going to get one hundred percent from everybody one hundred
• 1:06:14
  Speaker 4: percent of the time. And you have to think about,
• 1:06:17
  Speaker 4: you know, putting yourself in their their shoes just for
• 1:06:20
  Speaker 4: a minute, just to kind of, you know, maybe understand
• 1:06:23
  Speaker 4: where they're coming from. And I think as a screenwriter,
• 1:06:25
  Speaker 4: it's something you need to do, you know, because what
• 1:06:32
  Speaker 4: does complaining get you?
• 1:06:34
  Speaker 3: Yeah, very true, it's just a waste of time. You know,
• 1:06:38
  Speaker 3: complaining is and.
• 1:06:39
  Speaker 4: May get you're free dunkin don at the coffee though.
• 1:06:41
  Speaker 3: Yeah, it's h Yeah, you might might I you know, Bill,
• 1:06:44
  Speaker 3: I wanted to ask you too, have you ever approached
• 1:06:47
  Speaker 3: Twitter about verifying your account at First Glance Film because
• 1:06:50
  Speaker 3: I know they open up the verification process.
• 1:06:52
  Speaker 4: I'm actually talking with Twitter about it right now. Twitter.
• 1:06:57
  Speaker 4: Twitter is it's it's in a in a weird situation
• 1:07:01
  Speaker 4: right now. It's trying not to verify too many people
• 1:07:04
  Speaker 4: too quickly. They're trying to do They're more about verifying
• 1:07:09
  Speaker 4: individual people at the moment, so you know, TV and
• 1:07:14
  Speaker 4: radio and movies and those kind of people, and the
• 1:07:17
  Speaker 4: big films and that kind of stuff. They verify that
• 1:07:20
  Speaker 4: pretty quickly. But because technically First Plant Films is not
• 1:07:26
  Speaker 4: an individual it's been a little bit harder now that
• 1:07:30
  Speaker 4: they've started to verify at the larger film festivals. Though,
• 1:07:33
  Speaker 4: we're like we're on the cusp. We've been in conversations.
• 1:07:36
  Speaker 4: I know, you know, I already know the people that
• 1:07:38
  Speaker 4: I need to talk to about it, and it's just
• 1:07:41
  Speaker 4: a matter of you know, my goal is to try
• 1:07:45
  Speaker 4: to revisit it when we get fifty thousand, and I'm
• 1:07:49
  Speaker 4: hoping that will happen within twenty seventeen because we tend
• 1:07:52
  Speaker 4: to grow about one thousand followers a month or so
• 1:07:59
  Speaker 4: but yeah, yeah, you know, it's something we're definitely looking into.
• 1:08:04
  Speaker 4: We don't know what verification is going to actually do
• 1:08:06
  Speaker 4: for us. And then I've talked to people that have
• 1:08:07
  Speaker 4: gotten verified and they're like, well, you know, it just
• 1:08:10
  Speaker 4: it gives us more set there's more sets of valuable
• 1:08:14
  Speaker 4: information that you can cull from from Twitter analytics and
• 1:08:20
  Speaker 4: things like that. But otherwise they say, it's not like
• 1:08:22
  Speaker 4: they've seen a massive amount of new people jumping in
• 1:08:25
  Speaker 4: or they're they're still having to do the same amount
• 1:08:28
  Speaker 4: of work to build their communities. But yeah, I mean,
• 1:08:32
  Speaker 4: it'd be cool to be verified, but business wise, I'm
• 1:08:36
  Speaker 4: not exactly sure what it would do for us. But yeah,
• 1:08:41
  Speaker 4: you know, it's definitely something I've looked into. I've also
• 1:08:43
  Speaker 4: looked into Facebook verification, but I don't know that that's
• 1:08:47
  Speaker 4: not gonna do us an any good anyway. I mean,
• 1:08:49
  Speaker 4: you know, we put up a post, put up a
• 1:08:51
  Speaker 4: post on Facebook, and our four thousand people thirty five
• 1:08:54
  Speaker 4: see it. I mean that's awful.
• 1:08:56
  Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, it's I've actually tried to get Facebook, i
• 1:08:59
  Speaker 3: mean Twitter verified. They've turned me down two times. So
• 1:09:02
  Speaker 3: now I'm just gonna sort of put it by the wayside.
• 1:09:05
  Speaker 3: And you know, it's something that I thought that, you know,
• 1:09:10
  Speaker 3: at least I could. I thought there was gonna be
• 1:09:12
  Speaker 3: more of a process to it. But it was basically
• 1:09:14
  Speaker 3: just like, no, we can't verify it this time. Uh.
• 1:09:17
  Speaker 3: And I gave all external links, not for my website,
• 1:09:20
  Speaker 3: and I was like, well, I gave it a shot
• 1:09:22
  Speaker 3: because so other you know so, but uh, oh, well.
• 1:09:26
  Speaker 4: But we'd much I'd much rather be I'd much rather
• 1:09:29
  Speaker 4: be an Oscar nominating film festival than.
• 1:09:33
  Speaker 3: A verified yes I I I concried rather you know
• 1:09:36
  Speaker 3: that that those are the good victories, uh, you know,
• 1:09:39
  Speaker 3: and and as we talk about, you know, all these victories,
• 1:09:42
  Speaker 3: you know, we talked about you know, your career and
• 1:09:44
  Speaker 3: everything like that, and you know, I just want to say,
• 1:09:47
  Speaker 3: you know, Bill, it has been you know, great talking
• 1:09:49
  Speaker 3: to you about you know, all this stuff, because again film,
• 1:09:52
  Speaker 3: because any film is changing so much.
• 1:09:55
  Speaker 2: We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor
• 1:10:01
  Speaker 2: and now back to the show, you know.
• 1:10:05
  Speaker 3: And yeah, and it's just good that you know, we
• 1:10:07
  Speaker 3: were able to sort of again people who have their
• 1:10:10
  Speaker 3: finger on the pulse of what's happening, you know, people
• 1:10:12
  Speaker 3: who you know talk about you know, micro budget filmmaking
• 1:10:15
  Speaker 3: and all and all the good things.
• 1:10:17
  Speaker 1: Uh.
• 1:10:17
  Speaker 3: And you know obviously you know, then you get you
• 1:10:19
  Speaker 3: know this, your budget grows, you know peace Mail or
• 1:10:22
  Speaker 3: peace Mail as you is, you know, as an independent filmmaker.
• 1:10:25
  Speaker 3: You know, the idea is you make a film for
• 1:10:27
  Speaker 3: you know, micro budget, let's say a thousand, and then
• 1:10:30
  Speaker 3: you can build into others bigger budgets as you sort
• 1:10:33
  Speaker 3: of get you know, more cash.
• 1:10:34
  Speaker 1: Uh.
• 1:10:35
  Speaker 3: No pun intended, you know, towards yourself, because again you're
• 1:10:38
  Speaker 3: trying to you know, always further your career.
• 1:10:41
  Speaker 4: Uh.
• 1:10:41
  Speaker 3: Because you'll Bill, We've been talking for about an hour now,
• 1:10:43
  Speaker 3: about an hour and five minutes, and I wanted to ask,
• 1:10:46
  Speaker 3: you know, in closing, Bill, is there anything that we
• 1:10:48
  Speaker 3: didn't sort of talk about that maybe we wanted to
• 1:10:49
  Speaker 3: talk about, or do you have any sort of closing
• 1:10:51
  Speaker 3: thoughts to put a period at the end of this
• 1:10:52
  Speaker 3: little conversation.
• 1:10:55
  Speaker 4: I think, you know, the one thing that that I
• 1:11:00
  Speaker 4: think that we maybe glossed over quickly is the fact that,
• 1:11:07
  Speaker 4: you know, every filmmaker should make their film. It's just
• 1:11:15
  Speaker 4: that they have to understand that not every film festival
• 1:11:19
  Speaker 4: is going to accept their stuff, because every film festival
• 1:11:23
  Speaker 4: has limitations. One of the things that we've tried to
• 1:11:27
  Speaker 4: do over the last few years, which we think has
• 1:11:29
  Speaker 4: been really successful, is we add a short online contest.
• 1:11:34
  Speaker 4: It sort of like goes along with our film festival.
• 1:11:38
  Speaker 4: So we invite between twenty and forty other films short
• 1:11:42
  Speaker 4: that we can't program because we don't have the time
• 1:11:44
  Speaker 4: to program them into an online portal, which is faith
• 1:11:47
  Speaker 4: and secure. You know, it's not like people can share
• 1:11:50
  Speaker 4: your movie. People come in and they watch and they vote,
• 1:11:54
  Speaker 4: and then you know that winning film ends up in
• 1:11:57
  Speaker 4: our next film festival. We've been trying to expand our
• 1:12:01
  Speaker 4: reach both online and offline. We're really close to potentially
• 1:12:07
  Speaker 4: doing and it depends on logistics and things like that,
• 1:12:11
  Speaker 4: but we're hoping with our new partner in Philly, the
• 1:12:14
  Speaker 4: Painted Bride Art Center, that we're going to start getting
• 1:12:16
  Speaker 4: monthly sort of what we call it sort of short
• 1:12:23
  Speaker 4: film networking mixers, and we're looking to do possibly the
• 1:12:28
  Speaker 4: same thing out in la on a monthly Litha to
• 1:12:32
  Speaker 4: allow filmmakers a great screen and a great venue to
• 1:12:35
  Speaker 4: come out and show their film in a non competitive
• 1:12:38
  Speaker 4: and a non judgmental way, so sort of like an
• 1:12:42
  Speaker 4: open mic night in a way, so we're looking into
• 1:12:45
  Speaker 4: expanding there. We're also talking to lots of again we
• 1:12:50
  Speaker 4: talked about this in the very beginning, vod and other
• 1:12:55
  Speaker 4: YouTube channels, which which have millions of subscribers, to potentially
• 1:13:00
  Speaker 4: create a first glance channel YouTube. We have almost a
• 1:13:03
  Speaker 4: million views and we have almost one thousand subscribers, and
• 1:13:07
  Speaker 4: once we eate a thousand subscribers, we can then offer
• 1:13:10
  Speaker 4: independent filmmakers an opportunity on our own channel. So, you know,
• 1:13:16
  Speaker 4: we keep on building and keep on moving forward, and
• 1:13:18
  Speaker 4: we try to stay with the technologies, stay up with
• 1:13:23
  Speaker 4: the you know, the divergence of all the technologies together.
• 1:13:29
  Speaker 4: So you know, we're just we just keep on trying,
• 1:13:31
  Speaker 4: and you know, we change every year, just like filmmaking
• 1:13:35
  Speaker 4: changes every year. And that's always been our goals. We
• 1:13:37
  Speaker 4: don't want to be stale and stagnant. We want to
• 1:13:40
  Speaker 4: continue to grow. We want to be able to give
• 1:13:43
  Speaker 4: value back to filmmakers for their entry fees. We want
• 1:13:47
  Speaker 4: to be one of the best film festivals out there,
• 1:13:50
  Speaker 4: you know, having done you know, has them this year
• 1:13:54
  Speaker 4: thirty eight, you know, producing thirty eight film festivals and
• 1:13:57
  Speaker 4: having watched probably by the end of next year over
• 1:13:59
  Speaker 4: twenty thousand films. I would I would say that we're
• 1:14:02
  Speaker 4: probably one of the only film festivals that does that.
• 1:14:07
  Speaker 4: You know, go talk to the slam Dance and Sun
• 1:14:09
  Speaker 4: Dance directors. I'll bet you none of them watch any
• 1:14:11
  Speaker 4: of these movies that are aired. So you know, you
• 1:14:16
  Speaker 4: have somebody with it, with a kid with an eye
• 1:14:18
  Speaker 4: for indie film watching, and I think that it's something
• 1:14:25
  Speaker 4: that will bring more confidence to a filmmaker knowing, oh well,
• 1:14:29
  Speaker 4: it wasn't it wasn't watched by some seventeen year old
• 1:14:31
  Speaker 4: kid in high school because they raised their hand in
• 1:14:34
  Speaker 4: the class and said they would volunteer. It's being watched
• 1:14:37
  Speaker 4: by me, and you know, they can feel free to IMDb, me,
• 1:14:42
  Speaker 4: LinkedIn whatever, to connect with me to see my experience
• 1:14:46
  Speaker 4: if they don't believe it. But yeah, I mean before
• 1:14:50
  Speaker 4: before the films in our festival go to the screening committee,
• 1:14:53
  Speaker 4: they go through me and they they're watched by me
• 1:14:57
  Speaker 4: first and then they're dropped into the next level. So yeah,
• 1:15:02
  Speaker 4: I mean, it's it's been the amazing experience, and you know,
• 1:15:06
  Speaker 4: I I would love to be able to offer more
• 1:15:11
  Speaker 4: to filmmakers down the road. And it's something that we're
• 1:15:13
  Speaker 4: working on pretty much every day, so you know, if
• 1:15:18
  Speaker 4: if it happens, it happens, that it doesn't, it doesn't,
• 1:15:21
  Speaker 4: but we're gonna keep on keeping on and you know,
• 1:15:23
  Speaker 4: bringing great films to great audiences on both coasts.
• 1:15:29
  Speaker 3: And those are some great ideas, Bill, especially about getting
• 1:15:31
  Speaker 3: the YouTube channel, because I think, you know, that is
• 1:15:34
  Speaker 3: a great avenue that I you know, this direct sort
• 1:15:38
  Speaker 3: of pipeline, you know, and I think that is is
• 1:15:40
  Speaker 3: phenomenal as well. And it's something you touched on too,
• 1:15:43
  Speaker 3: where not every film is going to have a theatrical release,
• 1:15:47
  Speaker 3: but then again, maybe some of these films shouldn't go theatrical.
• 1:15:50
  Speaker 3: Maybe they should go, you know, to YouTube or somewhere else,
• 1:15:53
  Speaker 3: and something Jason Brubaker, to who's been on the show,
• 1:15:55
  Speaker 3: talks about because he says some of sometimes he just says,
• 1:15:58
  Speaker 3: put a big buying out button on a you know,
• 1:16:01
  Speaker 3: or put it on YouTube or Vimeo or something like
• 1:16:04
  Speaker 3: that and go that route. And you know, again, though, Bill,
• 1:16:07
  Speaker 3: I think what you're doing is is phenomenal. And again,
• 1:16:10
  Speaker 3: like I said, you're somebody that I wanted to have
• 1:16:12
  Speaker 3: on this show for a while now and I'm finally
• 1:16:14
  Speaker 3: glad that you could come on and what are some
• 1:16:16
  Speaker 3: of the links so people can find you out online?
• 1:16:19
  Speaker 4: Oh yeah, so you can find us at Facebook, at
• 1:16:25
  Speaker 4: First Glance Film bet with an FS, I believe, you
• 1:16:31
  Speaker 4: can find us on Twitter at First Glance Film. Uh,
• 1:16:37
  Speaker 4: you can find us on YouTube. I believe at First
• 1:16:42
  Speaker 4: Glance Film festivals. You can find us at First Glance
• 1:16:50
  Speaker 4: Films dot com. And you can find us once a
• 1:16:55
  Speaker 4: year in Los Angeles and once a year in Philadelphia
• 1:16:58
  Speaker 4: or at our film festival. Hoping to be back at
• 1:17:02
  Speaker 4: the Painted Ride in twenty seventeen, and our goal is
• 1:17:07
  Speaker 4: we're finalizing the Crest Westwood in Los Angeles for next year,
• 1:17:13
  Speaker 4: so you know, come out and see what we do,
• 1:17:17
  Speaker 4: you know, see the kind of films that we show,
• 1:17:19
  Speaker 4: and see why we have the reputation that we do.
• 1:17:22
  Speaker 4: And c U I ninety seven percent of the feature
• 1:17:25
  Speaker 4: films that we do screening both feature and documentary end
• 1:17:28
  Speaker 4: up with distribution. I have a very keen eye. You know,
• 1:17:33
  Speaker 4: how do you get a keen eye but with experience
• 1:17:36
  Speaker 4: and you know, I've marketed myself to you know, distribution
• 1:17:42
  Speaker 4: companies for the last few years and you know, basically
• 1:17:45
  Speaker 4: film you're not going to find someone who's watched as
• 1:17:48
  Speaker 4: many films as I had.
• 1:17:51
  Speaker 3: Yeah, and you know, you get better by doing and
• 1:17:53
  Speaker 3: you know again again he was saying, billholding, watch so
• 1:17:55
  Speaker 3: many you know films. You know now you're you know exactly,
• 1:18:00
  Speaker 3: you know what to look for. Again, you know that
• 1:18:02
  Speaker 3: they have a beginning. You know your distinction between films
• 1:18:04
  Speaker 3: and movies. You know, films have a beginning, middle, and end,
• 1:18:07
  Speaker 3: and you know there's some production value to them. And
• 1:18:10
  Speaker 3: I'm sure you know, you know sort of by I'm
• 1:18:14
  Speaker 3: sure you probably know within a few what maybe thirty
• 1:18:18
  Speaker 3: seconds to a minute, you probably know if this is
• 1:18:21
  Speaker 3: a professional or an amateur sort of production, right, yeah.
• 1:18:26
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean I but that doesn't necessarily take away
• 1:18:28
  Speaker 4: from the value of the project. I don't want people
• 1:18:33
  Speaker 4: to I don't want people to think that if it's
• 1:18:35
  Speaker 4: an amateur film, we don't put it in because we
• 1:18:37
  Speaker 4: do do student film.
• 1:18:39
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I probably I wear that a little wrong. I'm
• 1:18:41
  Speaker 3: sorry about that. I should have said. I should have
• 1:18:43
  Speaker 3: said maybe one that would get in and one one
• 1:18:45
  Speaker 3: that wouldn't get out, you know what I mean, like
• 1:18:47
  Speaker 3: one that would.
• 1:18:47
  Speaker 4: Well yeah, well yeah, yeah, Well I've also learned what
• 1:18:51
  Speaker 4: my audiences are interested in so I also look at
• 1:18:53
  Speaker 4: it as an audience member, and I look at it
• 1:18:56
  Speaker 4: and going, you know, would would first lance audiences want
• 1:18:59
  Speaker 4: to watch? And I think that it's something that that
• 1:19:04
  Speaker 4: as a filmmaker too, once you make your movie, you
• 1:19:06
  Speaker 4: have to think about that, look at it from an
• 1:19:08
  Speaker 4: outsider's perspective. Would an audience on a big, huge screen
• 1:19:13
  Speaker 4: want to watch what you just made? You know? So
• 1:19:19
  Speaker 4: you know, but again I don't want anyone not to
• 1:19:22
  Speaker 4: make their film because you never know. You never know
• 1:19:27
  Speaker 4: that the chemistry that you pull together in a group
• 1:19:30
  Speaker 4: might turn into something bigger and you might work together
• 1:19:32
  Speaker 4: year after year after year. It's what Trumpa does, It's
• 1:19:35
  Speaker 4: what Kevin Smith did for years. It was like the
• 1:19:37
  Speaker 4: same group of people, you know, go back to go
• 1:19:41
  Speaker 4: back to the sixties and seventies and eighties and you
• 1:19:43
  Speaker 4: got mel Brooks and everyone that he worked with. It
• 1:19:46
  Speaker 4: was almost always the same people. So you will potentially
• 1:19:51
  Speaker 4: learn things and network and find friends that potentially, maybe
• 1:19:55
  Speaker 4: if you're not going to grow, they do, and you know,
• 1:19:58
  Speaker 4: hopefully they take you with them on your journey or
• 1:20:03
  Speaker 4: you that goes on the journey. But it's important to
• 1:20:07
  Speaker 4: have those kind of cobs and those people around you,
• 1:20:10
  Speaker 4: because if you think that filmmaking is to do it
• 1:20:14
  Speaker 4: yourself industry, it certainly is not.
• 1:20:20
  Speaker 3: Yeah, very true, very true, Bill, And it does take.
• 1:20:24
  Speaker 3: It's a Spanish proverb it takes a village to raise
• 1:20:26
  Speaker 3: a child, and each film is like, you know, a
• 1:20:29
  Speaker 3: child onto itself. And Bill, Bill, it's been absolutely phenomenal
• 1:20:33
  Speaker 3: talking to you everyone. I'm going to link to all
• 1:20:35
  Speaker 3: of Bill's social media channels in the show notes and
• 1:20:39
  Speaker 3: his website and all we can find them out on
• 1:20:41
  Speaker 3: Facebook and Twitter and on YouTube. Bill Ostrov, I want
• 1:20:45
  Speaker 3: to say thank.
• 1:20:45
  Speaker 4: You very much for coming on, sir, no problem, Thank you, sir,
• 1:20:49
  Speaker 4: my pleasure.
• 1:20:50
  Speaker 3: I will talk to you soon. Bill, take care it.
• 1:20:54
  Speaker 2: I want to thank Dave so much for doing such
• 1:20:56
  Speaker 2: a great job on this episode. If you want to
• 1:20:57
  Speaker 2: get links to anything we spoke about in this episode,
• 1:20:59
  Speaker 2: head over to the show notes at Bulletproofscreenwriting dot tv.
• 1:21:03
  Speaker 2: Forward slash for seventy. Thank you so much for listening, guys,
• 1:21:06
  Speaker 2: as always, keep.
• 1:21:07
  Speaker 3: On writing no matter what.
• 1:21:09
  Speaker 2: I'll talk to you soon.
• 1:21:10
  Speaker 1: Thanks for listening to the Bulletproof Screenwriting podcast at Bulletproofscreenwriting
• 1:21:15
  Speaker 1: dot tv.