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BPS 327: Can Short Films Make Any Money? with Kim Adelman · Bulletproof Screenwriting™ Podcast

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  You are listening to the IFH podcast Network. For more amazing filmmaking and screenwriting
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  podcasts, just go to IFH podcast network dot com. Welcome to the Bulletproof
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  Screenwriting Podcast, episode number three twenty seven. With a short film, you
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  can be poetic, You don't have to answer anything, you can make whatever
• 0:21
  you want. You truly have creative freedom with a short film. Tayka,
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  what broadcasting from a dark, windowless room in Hollywood when we really should be
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  working on that next draft. It's the Bulletproof Screenwriting Podcast, showing you the
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  craft and business of screenwriting while teaching you how to make your screenplay bulletproof.
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  And here's your host, Alex Ferrari. Welcome, Welcome to another episode of
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  the Bulletproof Screenwriting Podcast. I am your humble host Alex Ferrari. Now,
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  today's show is sponsored by Bulletproof script Coverage. Now. Unlike other script coverage
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  services, Bulletproof Script Coverage actually focuses on the kind of project you are in
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  the goals of the project you are, so we actually break it down by
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  cover my screenplay dot com. Well, guys, today on the show,
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  we're going to talk about short films, how to make them, what's the
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  best strategy for releasing them, can you make money with them? And much
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  more so. Our guest today is Kim Alderman, who is the author of
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  the best selling book Making It Big in Shorts, Shorter, Faster, Cheaper,
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  The Ultimate Filmmakers Guide, Two Short Films, and Kim and I had
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  a fantastic conversation about short films. As many of you know, I've released
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  many short films, have been in over six hundred international film festivals with my
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  shorts, made one hundred thousand dollars with my first short film selling it on
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  DVD. And if you want to know about that, I'll put in the
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  show notes links to those episodes where I explain all of that. I also
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  tell you how not to make a fifty thousand dollars short film, which we
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  discuss in this conversation as well. So, without any further ado, please
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  enjoy my conversation with Kim Alderman. I'd like to welcome to the show,
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  Kim Adelan. Hey Don Kim, Hi, nice to see you. Nice
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  to see you too, Thank you so much for coming down the show.
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  You are. We're going to talk about something that's very dear to my heart
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  because that's how I got my start, short films. I always have to
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  talk about short films, and I have an extensive amount of experience in short
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  films. I've done many of them. I've I've made a lot of money
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  with short films. I've been in a lot of festivals and short films I
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  think have probably gone into two or three festivals, and it's been a lot.
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  So I do understand a lot about how the marketing and selling of short
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  films and things like that. So I'm dying to hear your perspective on everything
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  and how we're going to get into it. So first question, though,
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  how did you and why did you want to get into this business. I
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  like that saying, l why why this is why I love short films because
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  it's not really a business per se. Right, But I grew up in
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  Los Angeles. Nobody in my family is in the entertainment industry. But you
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  know, it's kind of a default thing. It's in a relate to you
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  fall into doing entertainment stuff. And I'm actually one of the weird people who
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  did a feature first, right, Yeah, I produced a feature with friends
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  of mine and as a result of that and totally no bunch of feature.
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  As a result of that, I got the gig producing short films. So
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  I'm one of the rare people that did it reverse rather than starting with shorts
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  to go to the feature. And then after that, I just love short
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  film so much I didn't want to go back to features, and I just
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  kind of fell into teaching. So I've been doing teaching primarily for the last
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  few years. So that's why your IMDb is just plump filled with shorts exactly.
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  It's like there's never seen so many shorts on somebody's IMDb before. I
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  was like, why she really talks to talk here? She loves short films.
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  Well, in fairness, I was also one of the very lucky people
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  that got paid to pay short films, so I didn't find out how did
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  you do that? I have to know how that happened. Yeah, exactly.
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  I was very very lucky that I was. There's a television cable channel
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  called FXM Movies from Fox as the sister channel to FX and back in the
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  day, they didn't have commercials, so they had to do something interstitially,
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  which means fill up that time between movies, and so because they didn't have
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  any original production, the guy who was in charge of the indistitial time was
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  like, well, let's make some short films. We'll use that to fill
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  up the time. So I was very lucky that. You know, ultimately
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  Fox paid for these short films and paid for me to produce them. So
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  it was d of a Nirvana situation. Oh that's a right place, right
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  time on that situation. That doesn't everyone listening, That doesn't happen. No,
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  it does not happen. And of course they're no longer doing that.
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  And people always say, well, who can I get to, you know,
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  produce my films or finance my films, And there's really not organizations that
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  are doing that. They more little not here in the States. Not in
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  the States, yeah, good point. Yeah, in Canada and Europe well,
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  but also in Canada and Europe it's more of an art they kind of
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  support the arts. More New Zealand. In Australia, there's government actually supports
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  the film industry and here and there to raise up there are filmmakers, right,
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  and the perfect way to make a groom to groom a new group of
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  filmmakers is to have them make short films. So they're smartly investing in the
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  infrastructure to make new filmmakers. Where we're just like happy people will pay for
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  it themselves. Right here, we're just stucky, like you're on your own.
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  And yet so many people make short films, so in a way they're
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  kind of right. And every year I saw somewhere in your in your book,
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  there's like it was a five thousand and eight thousand shorts were submitted for
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  the Sundance Film Festival. Sundance is always very public with the numbers, so
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  we kind of always use those as kind of a way to look at how
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  many shorts are being made. And of course these were international and US but
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  over ten thousand short films were submitted to last two twenty two Sundance Film Festival,
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  and so that just blew my number one, it was the highest number
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  yet. But number two, all those were made during the pandemic. So
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  think about that, right, because they're not like ten year old shorts.
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  These are all fresh shorts. Yeah. So it's like over ten thousand people
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  made short films during the pandemic in one year. Wow. That's it's insane,
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  insane. So all right, so you've seen so many, You've taught
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  a lot about short films. What is the biggest mistake short filmmakers make when
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  they attempt to make a short film. Well, there's actually several mistakes they
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  make, but obviously the biggest always is the shorts are too long. So
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  fifty fifty two minutes short, I think that's a good time for short right.
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  Well, you know a lot of people who don't see short films in
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  their vision of it. They think of those twenty five thirty minute films and
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  they think, well, people won't take me seriously unless I make one of
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  these long films. But the reality is, unless you're in school. Sometimes
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  school there's requirements and you have trading up. But if you're doing it on
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  your own. Nobody wants to see anything that long. Programmers don't want to
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  program anything that long. And really, you can prove and you don't want
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  to invest in producing something that long. You can prove your talent in five
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  minutes, ten minutes. You know, I've always said the sweet spot.
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  I started noticed when I was reviewing films for Indyweyer and watching a lot of
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  short films that way, and I kept on noticing the films I really liked
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  for twelve minutes long. So it's like the swite sweet spot, including credits,
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  and that's another mistake filmmakers make beause their credits are too long at the
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  front and too long at the end. But anyway, so it was.
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  It's interesting because when I made my first short that I was able to generate
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  over one hundred thousand dollars selling DVD and how I made it back into thousand
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  and five, there was no YouTube, there was no information about so it
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  was a different time. But that was a twenty minute short. And also
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  in two thousand and five, there wasn't nearly as much competition for short films
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  in film and film festivals, so I was able to get into like one
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  hundred and fifty think on hundred twenty five hundred and fifty festivals with that short.
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  I just kept going for like a year and a half, two years.
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  As I say, it also was probably good, yeah, I mean
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  yeah, I mean Rodderber reviewed it and it was like it was it was.
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  It was very well that went. I did the water bottle to around
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  in LA with it, and you know and all that kind of stuff.
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  That's there's there's more more than enough information on my show about that that short.
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  I don't want to talk about that much about that short, but but
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  that was twenty minutes short. Then my next big short was ten minutes and
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  I you know, ten minutes short is a really sweet spot because it's the
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  one minute short or two minutes short, like yeah, it's gonna get maybe
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  get programmed easier. But the ten minute short has enough meat on the bone
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  I think exactly to to do something to show you off and programmers from program
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  exactly. And that's the thing that filmmakers don't understand. Like I sat once,
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  I swear to god, it was. It was at it was at
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  Holly Shorts, the Fabulous Film Festival there. Oh No, Danny and THEO
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  they've been on the show. I was at their first festival That's fast Short.
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  I'm one of the original Holly Short shorts, and I'm the only one
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  that they still talked to. They told me that, and I've been there
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  a million times. So I sitting there watching a movie and it was a
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  big I'm not gonna see the movie, but there was. I was the
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  opening night and it was a very big star, very very big star starring
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  in it. It's forty five minutes, and I was sitting there like,
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  oh my god, this is molasses. This is horrible. And then my
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  action short comes on and everyone's like, oh thank god, but it was
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  just this brutal and I was like, I don't care if it's a big
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  giant star in it. It was brutal to watch. We'll be right back
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  after a word from our sponsor, and now back to the show. So
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  anyone thinking about when you're at forty five minutes, just keep going exactly.
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  No, I believe that too, Like, if you have enough money then
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  you can do that. Then this needs to be a feature, and you
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  can make a sixty eight minute feature or something like that. Doesn't have to
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  be a ninety minute and double it or whatever. But Yeah, if you
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  can afford that, you can definitely afford a feature. The only thing I
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  will say, you know, if it's a short documentary, then you can
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  go a little longer too. It's different. It's yeah, the documentaries are
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  a whole other world. You could do thirty minute forty minute documentaries comfortably,
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  but narrative it's very difficult, exactly. And I went I went to I
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  went to the school of Mark du Plus. When it comes to the length
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  of a film, he goes, Yes, anything over seventy minutes is a
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  feature film. Yeah. So when I when I made my two features that
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  I've made, both of them are like seventy three minutes and seventy five minutes,
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  I'm like, that's the story you have to tell. That's enough story.
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  Yeah, exactly, just just getting you know, I think anything with
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  the seven in front of it is technically a feature. When you're at the
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  sixty eight, I'm like, just extend the credits, Just get credits,
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  do some bloopers at the end. Just do something that just extends it just
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  a little bit. And I also say, though I think features are too
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  long as well. You know, I get very tired when they're like twenty
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  two hours and twenty two minutes or something like that, and you're just like,
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  oh my god, how much more of this is gonna go? I
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  was watching was it the New Bond Film? The Last Bond Film, and
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  it's like, that's a two hour and and I think the two hour and
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  thirty minute movie to our forty minute movie. It's a long movie, but
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  there's actually every fifteen minutes. And The Batman was also almost three hours,
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  and that was like, I think it could have been a little shorter,
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  but generally speaking, but there's action going on on that stuff, so you
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  have to keep that going. Now, what a lot of filmmakers want to
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  make a short film? What kind of shorts should they make? What was?
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  Genre? Is? Is something? Is it? You know? This
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  is my problem with shorts and filmmakers with shorts. They put a lot of
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  pressure on short films. Yes, tremendous. I did it. I've done
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  it so many times with my short films. I put an enormous amount of
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  pressure, like this is the short that's gonna change my life, This is
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  the short that some Hollywood producers gonna see and they're like, oh, you
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  want to do? Do you want to do? The next Marvel movie because
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  I get some visual effects, so let's bring it in. That's the kind
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  of pressure most filmmakers put on shorts, and I made I made a fifty
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  thousand dollars short with set bill that don't ever do that, everyone listening,
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  don't ever ever do that. But I was like, I'm gonna show everything
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  off. I had top Hollywood. I had an Oscar winner in the movie,
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  like I had tons of It was like a big event and it was
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  very stylistic, and I was like, I'm gonna show everybody what I can
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  do. And I put so much pressure on that thing. It just crumbled.
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  All these shorts crumbled under the pressure that filmmakers put on it, as
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  opposed to like, let me make the best thing I can make. Let
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  me put it out into the world and they just see what happens. Yeah,
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  And you know, obviously you have to make the right short for you.
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  And at that time, I'm sure you had enough connections and people were
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  kind of expecting you to make something big and expensive and not like shot in
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  your closet, you know, whereas somebody else who doesn't have all those elements
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  to them shouldn't pay money to get all of that they should make the short
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  film that's appropriate to where they are. And really what people are looking for
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  in short films are like a unique voice and some talent and something. But
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  again, that's why I love short films, and they're more interested in shorts
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  and features because features so cookie cutter and so rare that we see an exciting
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  new voice, where in shorts there's always something new and thrilling and exciting and
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  memorable, and that's what people really want to see. But I also think
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  if you are looking at this as something to say this is who I am
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  the world, you should make something that really says this is who I am.
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  So, for example, I could say to you, you should totally
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  make a horror short. There's a whole bunch of horror film festivals that would
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  play it. You know, you can actually probably make the leap from a
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  short to a feature with horror. But if you hate horror, this is
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  not the thing you should do, you know. And if you love comedy,
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  you should do a comedy short. You should not do, you know,
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  a struct and drama short. So I really think you should think hard
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  about who you are and where you want to go and make something that kind
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  of announces to the world this is what I this is my voice. And
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  the nice thing about shorts is that nobody's there telling you you must do horror,
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  you must do comedy. You get to choose everything you want to do
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  there, as opposed to later on in life, where somebody will be giving
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  you money and demanding you do certain things or pigeoning holing you in some way.
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  This is your chance to define yourself. And I think that's shorts in
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  general. You know, like that short, that fifty short got me a
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  lot of jobs in music videos and commercials things like that. It didn't do,
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  yeah, it didn't do what I wanted it to do, but it
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  did other things for me. And still to this day, I'm making money.
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  I make money with all my shorts to this day just selling them and
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  giving access and stuff. And actually, just to go back to when you
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  said, what mistake filmmakers do, they don't do everything correctly so that they
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  could if there isn't any possibility to commercially exploit their film, Like for example,
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  they use music they don't own, and then as you know, then
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  they can't do it, and they can't even put on YouTube because YouTube will
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  you know, they're realizing that there's illegal music to pull you up, or
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  they don't do the right to deal memos with their actors, and then all
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  of a sudden that's a problem. So I mean, I do think although
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  there isn't that much of a market for short films, you should always do
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  it right and be ready in case there is some interest in some way,
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  or you know, later on when you become famous, somebody's like, I'd
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  love to put your short film, you know, you know, show or
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  your shut film now that you're famous, but you don't have the rights to
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  do it. So you know, do everything correctly the first time, right,
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  So when Criteria Collection calls you, exactly that's what they're doing, a
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  retrospective on your work, because you are amazing as a filmmaker. You want
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  to make sure that you don't have a rolling stone song in there that you
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  can't afford exactly, basically. And that was one thing that was very cons
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  even back then when I was starting with my shorts, that all the music
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  was either originally composed and I had agreement signed for it. I was a
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  little delusional, so I had I really approached it. I think the delusion
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  helped a bit because I approached it as like this is gonna blow me up.
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  So then I made sure. I'm like, I'm good, this is
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  going to be huge, and I'm going to have to make sure all these
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  contracts or agreements are in place so I can and that's exactly what I did.
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  So that's the reason why I'm able to exploit it, and I was
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  able to sell DVDs and there all that kind of stuff because I made all
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  those agreements and so the delusion helped a bit. But hopefully you can do
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  everything I did without the delusion. Well, I'm gonna say you're obviously a
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  very confident person. But in a certain way that's great because short filmmakers really
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  have no idea what they're doing, right. I mean, that's why I
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  ended up writing about a book for short filmmakers, because you're you're a novice.
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  You just don't know what's right or what's wrong, or what mistakes you're
• 16:49
  making or whatever. But a lot of people are so insecure where really,
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  it's a short film, how wrong can you go? You know? And
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  even if you do make all those mistakes, Okay, you made the mistakes
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  on that one film, Now your next short film that you make, you
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  won't make those mistakes on. So I do think, you know, just
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  a certain degree. It smart to arm yourself with as much as knowledge as
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  possible, but it's also great to just jump in the pool. You know,
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  don't question all of them, I'm doing anything right or whatever. Make
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  a short film. It's fun, it'll be fine, exactly, No one's
• 17:18
  we're not hearing cancer here, guys, exactly. Let's just let's move on.
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  The one other big mistake I feel that filmmakers make with shorts is that
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  they try to be somebody else. And that might be work that might be
• 17:29
  okay at the beginning. We all do it. Every filmmaker copies and stiles
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  and is inspired by the filmmakers that came prior to them, all of them,
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  even the greats, they all, they all do it. You look
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  at Nolan's work, you look Finches working, and go right back to Kubrick.
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  I mean it's you know, and kuber can go back to other people
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  and so on and so forth. But the mistake I made, and I've
• 17:51
  talked about this on this should before, for the mistake I made with that
• 17:52
  fifty short films, I was trying to be somebody else. Now my voice
• 17:56
  was in there, but I was truly trying trying to be a little something
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  else that wasn't one hundred percent in me. I was trying to create something
• 18:06
  that the marketplace wanted, and not as much something that I wanted to make.
• 18:12
  Things like that, So I think something like Whiplash, which is a
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  really great short film example of a movie of a short that turned into a
• 18:19
  movie. There's there's less of that nowadays. Shorts generally don't jump to movies
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  as much as they used to. But Whiplash specifically, it's so clear Damien's
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  vision and that I mean, it's so so clear, and it's so original,
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  and it's so him, like it just screamed out voice, new voice.
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  And a lot of these, a lot of these filmmakers that do make
• 18:45
  the jump from shorts to features, whether it's a feature version of their short,
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  which doesn't happen as much but a short, a filmmaker that jumps into
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  television off of a short, or things like that does happen a lot.
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  But they need to hear your voice. And also, you know, painters
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  did that all the time. They would paint in the style of somebody else.
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  So that's the learning wretch. I always say shorts or a learning experience
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  for everybody. That's the learning aspect. And in reality, maybe it's not
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  your first short film that does a lot for you. Maybe that short first
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  short film is literally you copying somebody just to get to feel confident. Then
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  you could do it, but it isn't like hello world, this is me,
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  this is my voice. You know, voices don't come right away.
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  You see people when they write screenplays, it takes them a while too to
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  get the screenplay to the point that or the third screenplay finally says this is
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  who I am and this is, you know, something worth paying attention to.
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  So yeah, when you start writing, you might be writing like you
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  know, tar do you try to write like Tarantino or Shane Black or Aaron
• 19:38
  Sorkin, and then that might you might have a couple of those scripts in
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  you get it out and then slowly your voice starts to come out. And
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  that's the thing with shorts, and that's a wonderful thing about shorts is it's
• 19:49
  close to writing a screenplay as you can get. Because it's it can be
• 19:52
  very inexpensive. We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor, and
• 20:00
  now back to the show, and you can knock out a short in the
• 20:06
  weekend with your iPhone and it will look and sound great if you do it
• 20:08
  properly, exactly. And that's the thing that you know, because I came
• 20:12
  from when it was very hard and expensive to make short films, I'm so
• 20:15
  jealous now that everybody there's no excuse not to be shooting something. You know.
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  It's like you've got a fabulous camera in your pocket, use it,
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  But it doesn't necessarily mean what you're shooting every weekend with your iPhone is necessarily
• 20:29
  needs to be shared with the world. But I think just the same way
• 20:32
  writer should be writing, I think filmmaker should be filmmaking and no stop right.
• 20:37
  And a lot of people look at someone like Robert Rodriguez, who was
• 20:41
  a you know, he's he is who he is, you know, legend
• 20:45
  in the indie film space. But a lot of people don't understand that he
• 20:48
  made twenty to thirty shorts before he ever made El Mariachi. So he was
• 20:55
  he was shooting it all on VHS with his family as a cast, and
• 20:59
  he was working it out. He was editing between two VCRs, and he
• 21:03
  was he was learning the craft and then when he made his a school short
• 21:08
  film, which was called BedHead, he had learned so much as far as
• 21:11
  sound effects, and think it looked like when somebody saw that, they're like
• 21:15
  Jesus, this kid is super talented. But he made twenty films and no
• 21:19
  one ever saw other than his family. Yeah, the ref drafts kind of
• 21:22
  thing. They nobody ever saw those elements, right, And that's the thing
• 21:26
  that a lot of filmmakers, I feel that they are so precious right with
• 21:29
  their with their shorts that they're like and I was that, like, I
• 21:33
  can't make something unless it's perfect. Go. You gotta just you gotta turn
• 21:37
  on the faucet, let all the mud clear out of the pipes before the
• 21:42
  clean water comes out and all the good stuff starts coming out. I hate
• 21:47
  when people put a lot of pressure on themselves anyway, because you know,
• 21:49
  filmmaking could be joyous, and with a short film, you're hopefully making it
• 21:53
  with your friends. You know are people who support you and want you to
• 21:56
  do a great job with it, and it should be a story that you're
• 22:00
  dying to tell. So how exciting for you that you're getting to hang out
• 22:03
  with your friends and do a story you're dying to tell and realizing it from
• 22:07
  your head to now existing in the world. It's truly an exciting thing.
• 22:11
  Yeah, without without questions. So all right, so let's say we got
• 22:15
  our short done, all right, and this is this is the opus.
• 22:18
  Like, we've already done our We've done our fifteen shorts, Kim, We've
• 22:21
  done our fifteen shorts. We feel comfortable our voice is out there. I
• 22:25
  think we have a clear idea of our voice. There's so many options on
• 22:29
  how to get this into the world. Yes, how do you launch a
• 22:33
  short? Well, I mean, because I come from festival world and I've
• 22:37
  spent a lot of time reviewing festival shorts, my inclination is always like put
• 22:41
  it on the festival circuit. Now, not every short is a festival kind
• 22:44
  of short, but I always do kind of encourage people if you think you're
• 22:48
  short might be a festival short, to try it. Because you know,
• 22:52
  when we were talking about how fun it is to make films, it's super
• 22:53
  fun to have your film show in front of an office, you know,
• 22:56
  in a theater with people who you don't know who parts do. And and
• 23:03
  also you get to meet other filmmakers. And when you're meeting them, you
• 23:06
  meet them as a filmmaker who has made a film, you know, it's
• 23:08
  like all of that, even if it was just a stupid thing you made
• 23:11
  in the backyard, you know, and you're at the time you're like,
• 23:12
  this isn't gonna be nothing, and yet somehow it turns into being something.
• 23:15
  How fabulous is it that you're showing this something to people and they're excited for
• 23:21
  you, and you're excited for them, and the festivals thrilled to have you
• 23:23
  there, and you're going to parties and as you said, bred carpet it's
• 23:27
  just, you know, such a lovely experience for a short filmmaker, whereas
• 23:30
  feature filmmakers have all the stress about festivals because it matters to them, you
• 23:34
  know, matters where they're premiere. They're trying to get their film picked up.
• 23:37
  They're trying to you know, make the next you know, introduction,
• 23:41
  to make their career or a huge way. A short filmmaker would be very
• 23:44
  happy if anything happens to them and they happen to meet somebody who wants to
• 23:47
  represent them, or they get some sort of offer to you know, license
• 23:51
  their short film. But the reality is more short filmmaker should think of the
• 23:53
  festivals just a fun time, you know, a time to actually be a
• 23:56
  filmmaker, have your film seen by the public, meet other people, and
• 24:00
  also you know, established you some credits for yourself that you've been to all
• 24:04
  these festivals. And then you know, if you make another short film you
• 24:07
  can go to these festivals again hopefully, or if you script together money and
• 24:11
  do an independent feature. Now you already have a base of people who know
• 24:15
  your talent and have supported you once and want to support you again. So
• 24:18
  you know, that's all the bappiest things about the festival world that I think
• 24:22
  is great for a short filmmaker. I mean, I think the festivals I
• 24:26
  always when I talk about film festivals, you know, they don't have the
• 24:29
  same juice that they used to. You know, in other words, in
• 24:33
  the nineties, you got into a certain film festival, two or three of
• 24:36
  them, you automatically got sold, You automatically got a deal. There was
• 24:38
  all these stories every every day almost in the nineties, of these magical stories
• 24:44
  coming out of Sundance or south By or these kind of these kind of festivals
• 24:47
  try back or something like that. But with festivals with shorts, I always
• 24:52
  warned filmmakers and like, festivals are exactly for what you just said, they
• 24:56
  are experience. If you've never gone down the road, you've never had a
• 25:00
  red carpet, you never had an audience. My god, there's so much
• 25:03
  fun, the after parties, the web, but the seven rs that it's
• 25:07
  great, And it's like most of the times we live in a bubble.
• 25:11
  Unless you live in La you live in a bubble of not being in the
• 25:15
  business. And the festival is the first time you're surrounded by people that love
• 25:18
  movies, are in movies and things like that. But not to put any
• 25:21
  pressure on that experience because because festivals are everything you said they should be.
• 25:26
  But don't think that like, oh, just because you got into a major
• 25:30
  festival, which if you do, it's great, it's not that it's a
• 25:32
  bad thing, but it's not going to open the doors. The thing.
• 25:34
  Many times they don't open the doors the way they think you can't. But
• 25:38
  but you could go to a Moose Jaw International Short Film Festival, which it
• 25:42
  doesn't exist, and there might be an acquisition execut there, there might be
• 25:48
  an agent that happened to be there. I forgot what was the story I
• 25:51
  heard? I forgot there was oh God, I forgot the movie it was.
• 25:55
  It was one of these famous indie movies that couldn't get seen. I
• 25:57
  don't know if it was Napoleon Dyna Bier one of these films. But they
• 26:03
  were playing this film feature at this nobody festival, like in the middle of
• 26:08
  nowhere, and they were playing it at a bar at the bottom of the
• 26:12
  hotel. And sometimes. Yes, my first award, by the way,
• 26:17
  was at the at the Crabshack Best Director and I was like, this is
• 26:22
  easy but and fun. So that so it was a nobody festival. Nothing,
• 26:30
  there's no in the middle of nowhere. There was a Hollywood acquisition execut
• 26:37
  who was on vacation and was staying at the hotel and they had nothing to
• 26:42
  do that night, and they're like, hey, there's a film festival going
• 26:48
  on at the bar. Let's just go down there, have a couple of
• 26:49
  drinks and watch something. They went down and watched it and acquired it.
• 26:56
  So those are the magical lottery ticket stories you hear, but you just didn't
• 27:00
  never know what's going to happen. But I just want filmmakers to walk in
• 27:03
  understanding, have fun and if anything happens, great exactly. But also the
• 27:08
  people you meet too, you never know, connections among your peers too.
• 27:14
  Then then all of a sudden, meet all these other filmmakers who might you
• 27:15
  know, help you set faster than you do. And then they help you
• 27:19
  or you can hire them for your you know, there's just a lot of
• 27:22
  Once you're in the you're a professional filmmaker. Now you're meeting other people who
• 27:26
  are in that world. As you said, where you live, you might
• 27:29
  not have that opportunity, and so now how great is it that you will
• 27:33
  so that So that's what I love about festivals. But you know, festivals
• 27:37
  are not the be all and end all, and there are I know many
• 27:38
  people who like applied to a lot of festivals. And it costs money too,
• 27:41
  so you know, this is a money drain and didn't get into anything,
• 27:47
  and just we're really upset. But you know, festivals have a certain
• 27:49
  sensibility and maybe you're the thing you made is more like something that people would
• 27:55
  enjoin the internet, you know, And then how great is that that you
• 27:57
  can put it on vimeo, put it on YouTube, do your own little
• 28:00
  promotion to it and help people see it, and you never know, you
• 28:03
  know, how that might work out for you, But more importantly, if
• 28:07
  you, if you maybe a film because you wanted to communicate with people and
• 28:11
  say to them, this is a vision that was in my head and I've
• 28:12
  now executed it, and I want to share it with you, and I
• 28:15
  hope you get something out of it and you enjoy it. Then you know,
• 28:19
  the way that that happened shouldn't bother you. You know, it might
• 28:22
  happen via festivals, it might happen a YouTube, It might happen be you
• 28:27
  and your buddies putting on your own screening so that people can see it.
• 28:32
  That way, you know you've made something. Share it with the world however
• 28:36
  you can. Yeah, And and I just I just had the filmmakers behind
• 28:40
  Marcel Michelle, which was it short films? Of course, of course I
• 28:45
  didn't know that when I when I had him on the show. I discovered
• 28:48
  that in my research after I saw the feature. I saw the movie first,
• 28:52
  was fascinated. I'm like, how in god screener did this get finance?
• 28:56
  How did A twenty four get involved? I just told I told the
• 28:59
  pr people like get the I want them on my show. I need to
• 29:02
  know what, how is this a thing? And then doing research I found
• 29:07
  out that it was a short film that they put out ten years ago.
• 29:11
  It was two or three. I think they hit three in the series,
• 29:12
  but it was like two years apart or something like that. And then they
• 29:15
  had books. So they created an IP based on a short, a two
• 29:19
  or three minute short that they did as a kind of like and and from
• 29:23
  what I understood, it was a short film that they showed their friends and
• 29:26
  family and then they're like, Hey, is there anywhere online that we could
• 29:33
  so I can share this with my grandma. I think she would really like
• 29:34
  it. And then she's like, oh yeah, okay, I throw it
• 29:37
  up on YouTube. And threw it up on YouTube, and fifty four million
• 29:41
  plays later, they're like, hey, something we got something. That whole
• 29:45
  story is fascinated. It's a really great story on how powerful the internet is,
• 29:52
  which is my next question. We'll be right back after a word from
• 29:56
  our sponsor, and now back to the show. YouTube. So so many
• 30:06
  filmmakers are so precious with their shorts. They're like, I can't put it
• 30:08
  on YouTube. The festivals aren't gonna like it. Oh my god, this
• 30:11
  is that you know. Again, there's a couple of ways to go about
• 30:17
  it. I know, festivals are a little bit more loosey goosey with that
• 30:18
  nowadays than they used to be, especially with shorts, not features special short.
• 30:22
  Yeah exactly, but at a certain point, like you know, at
• 30:26
  a festival, you're gonna get twenty fifty eyeballs on it, you know,
• 30:33
  maybe a hundred if you're lucky. You know, So it's a very small
• 30:36
  audience where if you put it up on the internet, it's it's millions.
• 30:40
  They have access to millions. Less say you're gonna get millions, but it
• 30:42
  could go viral, especially if it's something very specific, it's something very cool.
• 30:47
  Visual effects are really cool, stories, really interesting, even fan film
• 30:52
  short films, which we'll talk about in a little bit, all of that
• 30:55
  kind of stuff. So is YouTube a viable option? And by the way,
• 30:59
  Vino, I'm not sure if you know what's going on with Vimo.
• 31:00
  Vimeo has kind of gone away from shorts and are going away from the creators,
• 31:03
  and they're they're really more now. Their corporate structure has changed more towards
• 31:11
  corporate like video stuff. Before they were trying to do it with all the
• 31:15
  artists. It's a home for the artists. They realized the artists have no
• 31:18
  money, so there. So Vimeo was once a place to put short films
• 31:23
  and it was like you short of the week and all that. That's kind
• 31:26
  of gone now, so yeah, exactly, but now YouTube is still a
• 31:32
  place to go. So what's your opinion of YouTube? How should you approach
• 31:36
  YouTube? What? What? What should you do? Well, there are,
• 31:40
  like you said, some festivals do care. So in the old days,
• 31:44
  I'd be like, ah, don't ever tell them. But you know,
• 31:45
  one little Google, it's not that hard nowadays, it can't hide so
• 31:52
  much and you don't want to hide, you know. So if you if
• 31:55
  you think you want to go to festivals that do care about it, then
• 31:59
  you shouldn't put it off online because you know, online is for the rest
• 32:01
  of your life. So what's the big deal if you hold off for a
• 32:04
  year while you try to do festivals and then put it online. The other
• 32:07
  thing is Oscar consideration, and they still care for Oscar consideration when you have
• 32:12
  your broadcast debut, and YouTube is considered a broadcast. So if you thought
• 32:16
  any chance, you know, I made nineteen short films, none of them
• 32:20
  got Oscar of nominations. So it's like that was not really going to happen.
• 32:23
  But I cared, and so I waited. You know, if you
• 32:27
  care and you think there's even a slight chance, you want to be smart
• 32:30
  about what the Oscar rules are. But we are so administercul and I want
• 32:36
  to bring I want to I want to just point on something on that because
• 32:38
  I've seen so many film makers, myself included wait a year, two years
• 32:45
  because of their delusions. And I say that with all the love in the
• 32:47
  world, because I was a delusional filmmaker in that sense as well, where
• 32:52
  like I'm going to get into this Oscar qualifying short film festival and I have
• 32:55
  a shot. I'm like, it's it's like twenty or one hundred times easier
• 33:00
  to get into Sundance than it is to get an Oscar nomination for a short
• 33:04
  film, you know, and it's astronomical to try to get into Sundance.
• 33:08
  So just do you understand the ratio that we're talking about here? So and
• 33:14
  also ps, the Oscar films tend to really be, as we talked about,
• 33:17
  the better funded ones from other countries, very old Americans get through,
• 33:22
  but you do occasionally, and so you know, it's that's your dream.
• 33:25
  I mean, I know Oscar nominated filmmakers from the short film categories. It's
• 33:30
  totally doable, you know, just in a miracle kind of way. But
• 33:34
  you know, it's your decision what you want to do. But in reality
• 33:37
  is that this is the year that you're trying to get people to pay attention
• 33:38
  to your short film. Do you really want to hold off putting it on
• 33:42
  the internet for a year? Is what kind of your point that you know
• 33:45
  exactly? So you know people want to you know, people want that easiness
• 33:50
  that like can I see it? And you want to be able to quickly
• 33:52
  be able to show it to people, not to say that you can't do
• 33:54
  password protected kind of things. You know, that's different. Yeah, that's
• 33:58
  different. But also I do agree with what you're saying, is like,
• 34:00
  if you want to do a festival run, I'll wait six months. You
• 34:04
  know, go go go six months, go eight months, go around and
• 34:07
  enjoy yourself. Go to Rick Carpus. If you haven't gone down that road,
• 34:09
  My got it so much fun. Especially it strokes the ego in a
• 34:14
  way that's so beautiful. Everywhere you're the greatest. Someone gives you an award,
• 34:17
  You're like, oh my god, I have arrived all this kind of
• 34:21
  stuff. By the way, once you have an award, you are an
• 34:22
  award winning filmmaker, and that's how you should promote yourself. Agree with that.
• 34:29
  I mean, my first festival was the Ocean City Film Festival in New
• 34:32
  Jersey, which was played in the back of the crab Jack, where I
• 34:36
  won Best Best First Time Director. I was an award still claim it,
• 34:42
  so there you go. I still have the certificate that I got somewhere packed
• 34:46
  in a way. But it was a big It was a big deal for
• 34:50
  me and Bat. From that point on, I was an award winning filmmaker
• 34:52
  and people are laugh at that. I'm like, you're an award winning filmmaker.
• 34:54
  You can promote yourself as such. The one other thing I will say
• 34:59
  is it's really hard to get on TV. But there are people, you
• 35:01
  know, there aren't organizations like short TV that will get your film on television,
• 35:06
  and so that also might have be some issues about if you've been online,
• 35:09
  they might they might not want you so much for television stuff. But
• 35:13
  I get very small percentage. And but how that is to be on TV
• 35:15
  too, so you know, and also depends on how bad they want the
• 35:20
  short. So if it's a really down, you know, if it's also
• 35:23
  a really really immune the world that we live in with so much content and
• 35:28
  so much media, right, they're much looser than they used to be before
• 35:31
  that, which is always exception. And for example, if you had made
• 35:34
  Marcel and then they're like, hey, we'd like to put Marcell on TV
• 35:37
  now because the feature it's already had fifty four million people viewed. But sure,
• 35:40
  why not people want to see it. So if you haven't want to
• 35:44
  see aspect to your film, then you know, no question, no question
• 35:49
  about it. Can make your own rules, and you should any you know,
• 35:51
  because it's short filmmakers are used to kind of not necessarily breaking the rules.
• 35:53
  But yes, let's just say breaking the rules. Are making their own
• 35:55
  way, making their own rules. Never think there's a you know, an
• 36:00
  you can always try to know into a yes, right, yeah, exactly
• 36:04
  exactly. Now, the big question that so many filmmakers ask me all the
• 36:07
  time, can you make money with a short film? And I will always
• 36:15
  say no, it's really hard to but you're so an example of some of
• 36:17
  you has made money off of the short, So well, we can be
• 36:21
  the opposite ends of the spectrum. I'll be the person says no, and
• 36:23
  then you can sell you by yes. But you know, number one again,
• 36:27
  you have to be able to have your film commercially exhibited, which we
• 36:30
  talked about previously. There should be no impediments to that. But you know
• 36:35
  there is places is still with license short films and if you have a film
• 36:38
  that also I should have said the other thing for the festival circuit, it
• 36:42
  is a way to connect with the people who do license short films. They're
• 36:45
  looking for these short films on the festival circuits. So it's your kind of
• 36:49
  way of being in the marketplace. But anyway, you know, should you
• 36:51
  get an offer, you know the money will not be what you expected to
• 36:54
  be too. I mean, you mean you're not getting that hundred thousand MG.
• 37:01
  You're not getting it. I'm buying a house, I'm very sure.
• 37:05
  I mean it could be a name as like they do it per minute,
• 37:07
  and they're going to give you like six dollars per minute and you have a
• 37:09
  ten minute along film and you're like, whoa from Poland, I'm getting sixty
• 37:13
  bucks to be you said Poland for a seconds. Well, that's another thing
• 37:16
  I want people to understand, especially here in the States, that there is
• 37:20
  a market for short films outside of the US, much more so than in
• 37:23
  the US. Can you talk about that, Yeah, for sure. I
• 37:25
  mean, you know, in the US again I mentioned the short TV and
• 37:28
  then there's also a PBS, you know, locally does short films. There's
• 37:31
  all these little small pockets in the US that potentially could but they definitely also,
• 37:37
  I should mention it to some festivals have prizes that if you win that
• 37:39
  prize and you go get money. Yeah, but you or you go onto
• 37:45
  HBO or something like that. But that's part of the deal because they're looking
• 37:49
  for new talent of a certain way. But anyway, the money still will
• 37:52
  not be great and so it's very rare to me to fid like who ever
• 37:58
  earned their money back on short films should also say real quickly too. On
• 38:02
  festival sometimes you win prize money. I know people have won more money from
• 38:06
  festival prizes than the cost of making their films, so they actually benefited that
• 38:09
  way from being on the festival circuit. You probably would earn more money on
• 38:15
  a festival prize than you'd win on licensing your film elsewhere. But you remember
• 38:19
  I mentioned that our short films that Fox were made for intersocial purposes that still
• 38:22
  does exist in some other countries that they'll put them on TV in between other
• 38:27
  things if they don't have commercials. So you know there are opportunities out there
• 38:30
  different countries and different amounts of money. And that's also what's the nice much
• 38:35
  short filmmaking, you're learning about international exhibition the same way you would learn with
• 38:38
  your feature film. It's just much smaller and much less money, right exactly.
• 38:43
  So I'll be on the other end of this conversation where I've made a
• 38:46
  lot of money with my shorts over the years, but I've also thought about
• 38:51
  it very much like a film entrepreneur, an entrepreneur filmmaker, where see see
• 38:55
  how I did that film entrepreneur, product placement, product place No. But
• 39:01
  honestly though, it's like I made a short film. And the real quick
• 39:07
  story behind that first short film that we made over one hundred thousand Withith,
• 39:10
  which is I made a short film, action sci fi, a lot of
• 39:14
  visual effects at the time, very kind of cutting edge in the visual effects
• 39:19
  world, especially in the indie space, shot on the mini dv dv X
• 39:23
  one hundred, a Panasonic fantastic camera, and I put it out and I
• 39:30
  made it, I edited, put it all together, and I'm like,
• 39:31
  all right, we have something cool here. I'm like, how am I
• 39:34
  going to make money with this? And I'm like, who Who's gonna pay
• 39:36
  for this? I'm like, I'm I can't tell this to the general public.
• 39:38
  No one cares. I'm nobody. I have nobody in movie I go,
• 39:42
  but you know who might be interested as filmmakers on how I made this
• 39:46
  because I made it look like a film. I color graded it in two
• 39:51
  thousand and five. We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor,
• 39:59
  and now back to the show. Using Final cup Pro, I use visual
• 40:05
  as you shake, the same program that they were using Lord of the Rings
• 40:07
  to do the visual effects. We had over one hundred visual effects shots in
• 40:10
  it. There was a lot of stuff like that, and it was action,
• 40:14
  which was very hard to do in two thousand and four, with gun
• 40:17
  play and fights and all this kind of stuff. So I was like,
• 40:21
  I think people will pay for this. So what I did is then spent
• 40:23
  six weeks editing together three and a half the four hours of a kind of
• 40:29
  a boot camp, and then I put it all on DVD because there was
• 40:32
  no other place to make money. With it, and I created an email
• 40:37
  this is all instinctual, create an email list and started posting a message boards
• 40:40
  about it, and so put the trailer out there and people were like,
• 40:44
  when's this movie coming out? When I want to see it on And then
• 40:46
  when I launched I still remember the day would PayPal. I would just get
• 40:51
  all these emails like ding ding ding ding ding dinging thing. It was fantastic.
• 40:53
  And then we just kept selling and selling and selling these at twenty bucks
• 40:57
  a pop. We're selling at twenty dollars a pop. But they were,
• 41:00
  but they were so it was a different time. That would work today,
• 41:02
  but in the time that I did it, it did work. And then
• 41:07
  now I've created educational so I use education as a way to make money.
• 41:10
  If it's really a high end visual effects movie. I know Film Riot,
• 41:15
  the YouTube channel, they make a lot of short films. Their entire business
• 41:19
  models about making really high end short films with high end visual effects, and
• 41:22
  they show you how they do it, so that's how they're doing that as
• 41:25
  well. So you know, it's also maybe you have an actor the people
• 41:30
  are very interested in and maybe you know people would be interested, like you
• 41:32
  could make your own website and try to get people to pay to see it
• 41:36
  or whatever. It's just hard in this world were so much as free.
• 41:38
  You know. I always tell people, you know, if you ever personally
• 41:42
  paid to see a short film, you know, So it can work if
• 41:46
  you hire, like if you hire an act so I had. I had
• 41:49
  Robert Forrester in one of my films. I had Richard Tyson, who is
• 41:52
  the bad guy from Kindergarten Cop if you remember that, I had him and
• 41:55
  some of these Some of these actors have massive fan bases, right, who
• 42:00
  will go crazy for anything they do. So if you can hire someone like
• 42:04
  that, or hire somebody who has an audience of some sort. So let's
• 42:07
  say it's a YouTube influencer, I'm just using that as an example. Or
• 42:12
  a YouTube or social media star wants to be in a movie. They have
• 42:15
  a three million followers. You cast them in your movie and you go,
• 42:19
  look, let's partner up. We're going to sell access to this to your
• 42:22
  audience, and we're going to sell it for five bucks and you and I
• 42:25
  are going to split it. And now you have a marketing machine putting it
• 42:30
  out into the you know, behind a paywall for the first thirty or sixty
• 42:34
  days behind a paywall, so it doesn't hurt any festivals, doesn't hurt any
• 42:37
  broadcast, and you're making money with it. So there's a lot of different
• 42:40
  ways of doing it, but it takes time and also niches and things like
• 42:45
  that. And I talk about it in my book a lot with features,
• 42:47
  but it can't be applied to shorts. So there are ways to make money
• 42:51
  with shorts. It's just a lot of work and you really gotta it's not
• 42:53
  gonna there's no turn key situation. In other words, he's like, oh,
• 42:57
  here, and you make money, you know. And I was also
• 42:59
  going to say the Academy Award nominated shorts they now put them out in the
• 43:02
  theaters and people pay to go see these films and theaters. So as much
• 43:06
  as I'm like, we based for a short film, the people are very
• 43:07
  excited to pay money to see the Academy nominated short films in the theater,
• 43:13
  you know, which is a fabulous thing that I never would have thought that
• 43:15
  that would come to be, and it has, and so there's interest that
• 43:17
  way, and you know, there might be new venues or new ways to
• 43:22
  do it in the future. And you know, the beautiful thing is You've
• 43:25
  created something you own and you can do anything you want with and no one's
• 43:29
  going to tell you, no, you can't do that. So why not
• 43:30
  trying different things and see what happens. And you know, you never know
• 43:36
  how how your break is going to happen, or what's going to happen,
• 43:38
  or how you might potentially make money. It's I'll just give it a shot
• 43:43
  and see what happens. And you know, keep your expectations low and be
• 43:46
  happy with anything. Right. So let's say you make sixty dollars, you'd
• 43:50
  be like, my god, I made sixty dollars off of this. I'm
• 43:52
  now, you know, making a profit, not profit, but you know
• 43:54
  I'm making money and as people all under seeing my film come on great exactly.
• 44:00
  So it really all depends on how you what's your approach to the making
• 44:05
  of the film. If you're making it to get rich, I'm sorry,
• 44:07
  this is not going to happen. If you're going into it with that,
• 44:10
  is there a possibility that you can make a lot of money with it.
• 44:13
  There's very few examples of short films making I think I'm one of the few,
• 44:16
  honestly, yeah, that I've made. You know, I've been actually
• 44:21
  in case studies and books on short films about understandably so because it's it's a
• 44:27
  rarity and I know that, but doing the shorts that I've done over the
• 44:30
  years, I've seen what they've been able to do for me. And if
• 44:35
  you look at shorts as a way to get your career moving forward, express
• 44:37
  yourself as an artist, get attention for yourself, all that kind of stuff,
• 44:42
  and then the festival circuits all the other stuff, that's the way you
• 44:45
  should approach it, I think, you know. I've also also animation is
• 44:46
  a whole other ball game, so that's a whole other world. People will
• 44:50
  pay for animated shorts and know that some stuff, But I know people who
• 44:52
  banded together and put together programs and kind of put that on the road of
• 44:57
  short films and you know, rented out for a wealthy its and totally turned
• 45:00
  it into you know, their life basically. But you also have to kind
• 45:05
  of look to like how much time are you going to put into this as
• 45:07
  well? I feel like a lot of that kind of stuff you should do
• 45:09
  for your feature. You know, if you're to feature, that's the time
• 45:14
  to invest in all those And if we're talking about documentaries. That's a whole
• 45:17
  other conversation because with documentaries, there are a lot of places where documentary shorts
• 45:22
  can make money. And you can do with thirty forty even fifty minute short
• 45:27
  which can get broadcasted. Yes, and if it's in a specific niche,
• 45:32
  you can actually go on the road going to different organizations. So like if
• 45:37
  it's a it's a documentary about a swimmer with one leg, I'm just saying,
• 45:40
  or a surfer with one leg, or a skateboarder with one leg.
• 45:44
  You know, those are the kind of things that you can team up with
• 45:46
  organizations to set up screenings charge. There's a lot of ways you can make
• 45:52
  money with documentaries. A lot easier to make money then, and also then
• 45:54
  going dying for short documentaries on the festival circuit. They don't have enough,
• 45:59
  you know. So it's hard to do short documentary. I will say that
• 46:02
  I've seen so many people fail at it just because you know, with a
• 46:06
  long documentary you've got a long story to tell. With the short documentary at
• 46:09
  very little time, and so what are you actually saying and showing and doing,
• 46:13
  it's a it's a it's a hard skill. There was there was one
• 46:16
  short that was on Netflix, because Netflix does shorts every once in a while.
• 46:20
  Every once in a while. There was a documentary about end of life
• 46:24
  and about like just hospice and how to approach end of life. And I
• 46:30
  had a friend of mine who's a social worker, and he's like, hey,
• 46:32
  you should look into this short, and like he's in on Netflix and
• 46:37
  he's like, yeah, watch it, and I watched it. I was
• 46:38
  like, oh man. They they as an organization go around using that short
• 46:45
  as a way to kind of introduce people to end of life conversations because it's
• 46:49
  not something it's not something you want to talk about genuinely speaking. Uh,
• 46:52
  you know, it's not a conversation you want to have. But that's that
• 46:55
  documentary did. Apparently that sold to Netflix. So if I got the Netflix,
• 47:00
  I means Netflix knew something that it was valued and Netflix does I should
• 47:06
  have said that to. Netflix definitely has a category of short films, and
• 47:08
  you'll see a lot of the ones that are Oscar contenders are closed to being
• 47:12
  an Oscar contender show up there and they like the longer short film too,
• 47:16
  So that's a very possible thing. And they've done a lot of not done,
• 47:19
  but they've acquired, you know, short documentaries. I don't know if
• 47:22
  any of those are original Netflix productions. I think all of them are acquisitions,
• 47:25
  but they are definitely short films. They're showing on Netflix. Again.
• 47:28
  I don't know how much money people made off of that, but come on
• 47:30
  to be able to say your short film is on five hundred bucks, a
• 47:34
  thousand bucks, two thousand bucks. Are you kidding? It's It's fantastic.
• 47:37
  It depends on the There was a so another another great story of a short
• 47:45
  film that turns turned it into a feature, that turning it into a feature
• 47:49
  and they made up scene amounts of money was Kung Fury. You're familiar with
• 47:52
  Kung Fury. The Kung Fury is a short out of I think it's Sweden
• 47:58
  or Norway or something like that. But it was a homage to eighties action
• 48:04
  movies done in the most ridiculous obscene, like you know, heads being blown
• 48:10
  off, dinosaurs going back in time with North Norse gods, and you know,
• 48:17
  like Thor's there. It was fascinating to watch a thirty minute short a
• 48:22
  lot of visual effects, all Eighties based. These guys put it out and
• 48:28
  they got millions and millions of views. But they had the original soundtrack,
• 48:32
  they had merch because it was all connected to a niche that so many people
• 48:37
  were and they loved the shorts so much. Then I saw a pop up
• 48:39
  on Netflix, then I saw a pop up on l Ray. Then people
• 48:44
  were it's just it was such high production value that people use it. And
• 48:47
  then they they've now earned the process of making the sequel, they had Arnold
• 48:52
  Schwarzenegger come in as they literally he's playing the president in the sequel or the
• 48:59
  feature version, and even they were so understanding of their niche. I talk
• 49:02
  about it. I actually use them as a case study in my book that
• 49:06
  they got David Hasselhoff to do the soundtrack. They paid they paid David Hasselhoff
• 49:13
  a good amount of money to write a song for the movie. And then
• 49:17
  they've released a music video with David Hasselhoff. That's amazing. It's amazing.
• 49:22
  So there's so much creativity with Shorts. You could do so much with it.
• 49:27
  It all depends on you and where you want to where you want to
• 49:30
  go with it. So there it's it's an endless pool of opportunities. Well,
• 49:34
  and you had mentioned ip earlier, you know, that's the other thing
• 49:37
  you do you are creating an IP when you make a short film, Yeah,
• 49:40
  you do create IP and if you're able to like Marcel with the Shell
• 49:44
  on. They actually released three shorts over the course of three or four years,
• 49:47
  and they released two best selling children's books on it. So when Hollywood
• 49:52
  came calling, they were like, hey, let's put Ryan Reynolds with the
• 49:57
  Shell and they're like, no, we'll be right back after a word from
• 50:02
  our sponsor. And now back to the show. This is before Pikachu.
• 50:12
  They were basically pitching and Pikachu, that's what they wanted. But they stuck
• 50:15
  to their guns and they made the movie that they wanted to make. It
• 50:17
  took up twelve years to get it off the ground, but they got it
• 50:20
  with but they were able to make money with it and generate revenue off these
• 50:23
  shorts and then not to mention off a YouTube even just YouTube ad ad sense
• 50:29
  off these things. I mean, first of it's like fifty four million,
• 50:30
  the other one's like thirty four million. And that's something that a lot of
• 50:32
  filmmakers don't know about as well, is if you have a monetized YouTube channel,
• 50:38
  you can't make money, especially if it goes viral. If you could
• 50:40
  make serious money with it. Or if there's another channel where shorts or that
• 50:46
  kind of short that you're trying to do, maybe team up with that creator,
• 50:52
  have them pump it out and they maybe have two or three million followers
• 50:54
  and share the share the money that comes. If they're so many ideas,
• 50:59
  so many. Hair Love is another example. It's an animated short film,
• 51:01
  but he did a book after it too. There's you know, many things
• 51:06
  that there could be opportunities for you if your short film gets attention and that
• 51:08
  is also got Oscar nominated. But the other thing too, that we should
• 51:12
  definitely talk about is you can spend all that time and money and do all
• 51:15
  that, but then when people say, well, what's next, what's next?
• 51:21
  Because it's like you could spend all that time doing all that for like,
• 51:23
  oh now I've got one hundred bucks that I profited off of that,
• 51:25
  but what's next? You know? What am I going to do next year?
• 51:30
  And when people say to me, I loved your short, I'd love
• 51:32
  to talk to you about doing something together or whatever you need to have it,
• 51:36
  what's next? So if I may tell you the painful backstory of my
• 51:40
  experience, I got I got I did the water Ball tour. I was
• 51:45
  being called by Oscar nominated or not Oscar winning producers, and I was it's
• 51:50
  Cya. I was all this stuff went. My first short was going around
• 51:54
  and everyone asked me, so, we love the short, we love what
• 51:58
  you're doing. What's next? Are like, well, I have ideas.
• 52:01
  Yeah, that's not enough. You need scripts. That idea is scripts.
• 52:07
  You need to have two or three of them ready to go. And that's
• 52:09
  what because you can you can pitch up, Oh, I have this movie
• 52:13
  about this, this, this, Yeah, we don't want what else you
• 52:14
  have? Yeah? Because that window, that window is open for that door
• 52:19
  is open for so short of amount of time. And if you don't take
• 52:21
  advantage next exactly, there's always another hot film that people are getting attention to
• 52:27
  seriously want. I mean not that you can predict you're going to have that
• 52:29
  moment, but why not set yourself up for success and have something ready that
• 52:32
  you want to do so that you can be like, hello, I'm so
• 52:37
  glad you love my short. Here is my feature film that I want to
• 52:38
  make next or whatever else it is that you want to know do next?
• 52:43
  And you know, maybe, for example, you really wanted to do at
• 52:45
  commercials or something like that. You know, be prepared with the reel of
• 52:47
  other things that look like commercials that you can be you know, whatever you
• 52:51
  want to do, be prepared. I think that there is a higher probability
• 52:57
  of somebody seeing a short at a festival or online and offering you, Hey,
• 53:02
  I love your style, I'd like to work with you. That happens
• 53:06
  more often than anything else I think we've spoken about. Because it does happen.
• 53:09
  People are like, oh, I want to work with you, or
• 53:12
  what do you want to do next? Those opportunities do present themselves, but
• 53:15
  most filmakers aren't prepared for those opportunities when they core, which is what we're
• 53:17
  talking about. It It does happen. It does happen a lot, especially
• 53:22
  with commercials or music videos or documentaries or things like that. There's always I
• 53:25
  hear story after story after story about filmmakers getting opportunities based off a short film
• 53:30
  that they someone saw somewhere at this or that and boom, boom boom having
• 53:34
  that. I mean, Napoleon Dynamite. It's a short film. Yeah,
• 53:38
  yeah, yeah, Oh. There's many examples of short films. And actually
• 53:42
  there's another recent film called Emergency that was a short and then they went on
• 53:46
  the vessel circuit and people are like, oh, we'd love talking about the
• 53:49
  feature version of it, and they hadn't even been thinking of that, which
• 53:51
  is kind of, you know, more power to them. But then they're
• 53:52
  like, oh, yeah, we're working on that. But if you know,
• 53:54
  if you thought there was a feature version of it, you should probably
• 53:58
  script out the feature version of it before you go on the festival circuit,
• 54:01
  you know, I mean, you can control when you start the festival circuit.
• 54:05
  And in theory, if you think of this is launching yourself, well
• 54:07
  then you know have stuff too. But you are exactly say, you are
• 54:15
  the studio. You know, you need to think of yourself as a studio
• 54:17
  that will be making things, so you know, think about when you want
• 54:22
  to release things, think about what your project is, think about how you
• 54:24
  want your studio to be thought of. You know, exactly exactly. Now
• 54:29
  tell me about your book. Making it big and short, shorter, faster,
• 54:32
  cheaper. Don't you agree that short should be shorter, faster, and
• 54:37
  cheaper. Absolutely. This is actually the third version and this is my subtitle.
• 54:42
  The night assistant for the third version was the shorter chapter, shorter scheaper
• 54:45
  faster, because if you had to ask me quickly advice, you know what
• 54:50
  filmaker should do. It's like you makers film shorter, cheaper. I mean
• 54:52
  it calls me want to hear how much money people spend on its grand.
• 54:58
  But if you but I'm an anomaly, don't don't do what I do Instagram,
• 55:02
  I really don't think so. Also, things are so much cheaper now
• 55:05
  too, you know, I think if you're done it now, it wouldn't
• 55:07
  be as expensive as it was then. Although I also teach and one of
• 55:10
  my students is making her short film this weekend, and you know it was
• 55:15
  It's two thousand, five hundred and she's under budgeted. You know, I'm
• 55:19
  like, you just don't have enough money here. People always think I can
• 55:22
  do it for Nickel, and it's like, well, if someone like myself
• 55:27
  who's been in the business for almost thirty years, says I could do it
• 55:29
  for Nickel, I'm more unlikely I could do it for Nickel because I know
• 55:31
  your favors. You can call him. I know how to I've done it.
• 55:36
  But if you've never done it to say, it's like someone and put
• 55:38
  it someone on set going we'll fix it in post like, no, no,
• 55:40
  no, Only the editor or someone who's been at post can say you
• 55:45
  could fix it in the post. No one else is allowed to say that
• 55:46
  or have zero budget in a post, which she had. Oh really,
• 55:53
  she was just gonna do it on her laptop, was she? It's just,
• 55:58
  you know, fine for student film, you know you probably can get
• 56:00
  away with that. But even so, they're planning on shooting for three days
• 56:02
  and even feeding people for three days. I was like, I don't think
• 56:07
  you could have enough money feeding people. Don't. Don't. Don't feed people
• 56:10
  the spinning wheels of death. You know what the speeding wheels of death are?
• 56:14
  What are the speeding wheels of death? Pizza? Don't do that,
• 56:17
  don't. It's because they just they just they're cheap. But you get what
• 56:21
  you pay for and your and your crew starts to slow down. It's sluggish.
• 56:24
  You want to give them food that keeps them energy going, and pizza
• 56:28
  does not. You energec. Well, also, she made the mistake and
• 56:30
  tell me she was gonna and she was the producer on it, but she's
• 56:34
  going to make the food herself. I was like, are you and she
• 56:37
  was the director too? No, she's only she's only the producer. I
• 56:39
  mean only the producer. She is the producer. But still, you know
• 56:43
  you can't be making food and doing everything as a producer. Oh no,
• 56:49
  that's a rookie mistake. Unless unless, I mean I look, I've talked
• 56:52
  to some really big producers who have done that because they had to do it.
• 56:57
  But you know, it was a different conversation. Raise a little more
• 57:00
  money, put a little thing to put buy something on the credit card.
• 57:04
  Yeah, it's just you know, well you get by the way. You
• 57:07
  could get by the way. And this is another trick I learned, is
• 57:09
  you can get free food. Food is easy to get for free. You
• 57:13
  walk in and go, hey, we're making a short films. We would
• 57:15
  love to promote your place. One, can we do a scene in your
• 57:19
  place? Or can we shoot at least outside of your place and we can
• 57:22
  promote your place. Or two if you give us a free meal, will
• 57:27
  promote you through social media, will promote you through the A lot of local
• 57:30
  businesses will give you free I got free food constantly making short films. See,
• 57:35
  and I do believe that everything for free concept of like, if you
• 57:37
  have the time and the right personality to do that and the right connections because
• 57:42
  again, you're gonna get know a lot too. But if you figure,
• 57:44
  oh, okay, you're gonna know a lot, but there are going to
• 57:45
  be places that know you or want to support you of the right mod honey,
• 57:49
  and you will get a yes out of it. So you know,
• 57:52
  it's just a matter of time and and the right personality to do that kind
• 57:57
  of stuff right. And if you're in a small town, I had filmmakers
• 58:00
  on the show that had the entire town helped them because they know you and
• 58:05
  it's a small town and it's you're making a movie. That's super cool.
• 58:07
  Like a lot of people still get freaked out when you're like, oh,
• 58:09
  you're making a movie, Like people who were in LA, they just get
• 58:13
  like they're jaded, like another movie. Actually, people who in their small
• 58:16
  town they wrote a newspaper wrote an article about them making a short, and
• 58:20
  I was like, I love that. I help that. It's just that
• 58:22
  exactly, you get a lot more attention. It's actually better to be outside
• 58:27
  of an LA or New York in that scenario because people are super excited about
• 58:30
  like, oh, you're making a movie. You know, Like, yeah,
• 58:32
  do you want to have a you know, you want to sit in
• 58:35
  the background and this one shot in the diner. What all we need is
• 58:37
  like three meals. Oh that's fine, you know the little tips of what
• 58:44
  you do. You know, I have just haven't done this in here,
• 58:46
  so it's not the front of my head. But going back, I'm like,
• 58:50
  I used to do that. The biggest thing I used to do,
• 58:52
  I believe it or not, when I was doing I was in school,
• 58:54
  is I heard that every day the bakery we get rid of their stuff that's
• 59:01
  about to inspire now Dale bread Deal, muffins, Dale everything. So I
• 59:07
  would walk in every day I'm like, hey, do you have anything?
• 59:09
  Do you want to get rid of it? And they would just give me
• 59:12
  a just bags full of breads and pastries and cakes, and I would go
• 59:16
  and sell them at the school to make money. But you could arguably use
• 59:22
  that. It's fine, you could eat it. It's not mold your it's
• 59:24
  like, you know, it's not bad, but it's like gonna expire the
• 59:28
  next day or something like that, so they can't sell it, but it's
• 59:30
  good for another two three days. You could take that and use it on
• 59:32
  your set. I'm just saying that's craft service right there. You are indeed,
• 59:37
  mister hustle. I mean that is the mentality, seriously, that is
• 59:39
  the hustle mentality of we're gonna get this done, We're gonna make it happen,
• 59:43
  we're gonna make our own rules, We're gonna do anything we need to
• 59:45
  do. And that is exactly how you need to be really to do something
• 59:47
  for no money. Absolutely absolutely. Now I'm gonna now, I'm gonna ask
• 59:52
  you a few questions. I ask all them. I guess we'll be right
• 59:55
  back after a word from our sponsor, and now back to the show.
• 1:00:04
  What advice would you give a filmmaker trying to break into the business today?
• 1:00:07
  Can I think you know the right answers? You should always just be making
• 1:00:13
  something that you know nobody's going to stop you, and you never know what
• 1:00:16
  the right thing is it's going to really make your break you or you know,
• 1:00:20
  help you develop your voice. So just constantly be making something. What
• 1:00:23
  is the lesson that took you the longest to learn, whether in the film
• 1:00:27
  business or in life. I think it is that it's just a matter of
• 1:00:31
  getting through the nose until you get a yes. You know, it's so
• 1:00:36
  hard to hear that, and it's so hard to constantly run up against the
• 1:00:39
  nose. But the reality is, as soon as you get that yes,
• 1:00:42
  you can stop. You've achieved it. And everybody can do that, right,
• 1:00:46
  you know, the most dedicated person can go ninety nine nose until you
• 1:00:52
  get that one yes. If if, If there's one lesson that you can,
• 1:00:57
  if anyone listening to one lesson if you can take from this conversation is
• 1:01:00
  that the nose are a guarantee. You're always gonna get nose. But if
• 1:01:07
  you can get past that and understand that that's just the rules of the game
• 1:01:13
  that you're playing, and that's life. Let him on the film business,
• 1:01:15
  that's life. Nose are the general, that's the default. If you can
• 1:01:20
  get past that, then you open yourself up for those yeses. But you
• 1:01:23
  have to understand not to get derailed by the nose, because you're gonna get
• 1:01:29
  nose constantly throughout and it happens to everybody at every level. Spielberg got nos
• 1:01:37
  Nolan, he doesn't get nose, but everybody no. But he did get
• 1:01:44
  a note because he wanted things to happen for Tenant and it didn't happen.
• 1:01:46
  Spielberg couldn't get Lincoln Lincoln financed, you know, so he's gonna get Sjendler's
• 1:01:52
  Lin's financed, and he was freaking Steven Spielberg. So everyone gets nose.
• 1:01:55
  It's about how you deal with those nose and how you keep moving forward.
• 1:01:58
  So understand that that is just the default, don't they. And also don't
• 1:02:01
  believe that you are not the great, the great hope of the film industry.
• 1:02:07
  You are not the next Danley Kubrick. You are the next you.
• 1:02:10
  And all of those people that you admire are they all are the true versions
• 1:02:15
  of themselves and that's how you should approach shorts and the film business. You
• 1:02:20
  would you agree? I ever said? You said that so lovely? And
• 1:02:24
  last question, three of your favorite films of all time? Can I say
• 1:02:30
  short films of all time? Well, I mean nobody will know them,
• 1:02:34
  so you can. But I wouldn't like, Oh yeah, Bob said,
• 1:02:39
  no idea, But go ahead. It's your's your answer unless they're very famous
• 1:02:45
  shorts that people know, but that's up to you. Well, sure,
• 1:02:49
  look, but there are shorts that are totally you know, I'm sure.
• 1:02:52
  Look for example, I was just telling somebody else that Taco Wautica that's first
• 1:02:57
  time I ever saw was from short film two Cars One Night, and I'm
• 1:02:59
  pretty sure that is on YouTube or somewhere if you look for it, and
• 1:03:01
  it's a Rachel film and you could totally see his voice in that and the
• 1:03:05
  kind of films that he made later. Okay, and that same year he
• 1:03:08
  was he was nominated for again reward for that short on The film that did
• 1:03:12
  win that year was Andrew Arnold's short film Wasp, and Wasp is like one
• 1:03:16
  of my favorite short films of all time, although it is long, but
• 1:03:20
  it is great and I'm pretty sure that one's available too. You can google
• 1:03:23
  that one. And of course she went on to be a fabulous filmmaker as
• 1:03:27
  well. And then Jane Campion her very wasn't her for sure film, I'll
• 1:03:30
  think, but one of her short film that got her a lot of tension.
• 1:03:32
  It was called Peel and that's a fabulous short film as well. So
• 1:03:37
  there is one short film that I if I'm as you were thinking, like
• 1:03:40
  what's my favorite short film? There was a short film I saw years ago.
• 1:03:45
  I've had the producer on the of the feature since then, I've become
• 1:03:49
  friends with him, and I was when I brought it out He's like,
• 1:03:51
  holy crap, you saw that. I'm like, yes, yes, I
• 1:03:54
  did. I heard about it. Years ago, there was a film called
• 1:03:58
  Darkness Falls released by Universal. It was a horror movie. The director of
• 1:04:02
  that made a short that had nothing to do with the movie, but the
• 1:04:04
  short was so good that they gave him a shot to make the movie.
• 1:04:09
  Now there's a different time period, but it was Universal for God's six.
• 1:04:11
  It wasn't like it was a huge deal, and his feature went on to
• 1:04:15
  do very well, but the short was about what if. It was a
• 1:04:19
  story of basically baby Hitler and and that they could have They actually were fighting
• 1:04:26
  to give birth and to make sure that this baby was born, and it
• 1:04:29
  was baby Hitler at the end of the movie. And we were like,
• 1:04:30
  oh, it was such just so good, so well done. That the
• 1:04:33
  production design was excellent, that the camera it was beautifully lit. It was
• 1:04:38
  really high product, really highly produced, shot on thirty five. It was
• 1:04:42
  gorgeous. But it was like this emotional thing that you're like, oh God,
• 1:04:45
  the baby has to go, the baby has to get born, Oh
• 1:04:47
  my god, all this stuff is happening. And then his baby Hitler.
• 1:04:49
  You're like, oh my god, so good. Can I just say that.
• 1:04:55
  There's so many films that short films that have Hitler or Jesus as one
• 1:04:58
  of the characters. It's always like, Oh, another Hitler short, Oh
• 1:05:01
  another Jesus short. But it's you guys. It's a character we all know
• 1:05:03
  right right away. So when you tell me baby Hitler, I totally know
• 1:05:06
  you know what you mean and why that is universal that we all know absolutely
• 1:05:13
  and one of the famous, the most famous. I argue, the most
• 1:05:15
  successful short film to ever launch anything is the Spirit of Christmas, Spirit Christmas,
• 1:05:24
  Spirit of Christmas. Yeah, the biggest short film of all time.
• 1:05:30
  I'm going to argue to say, I don't think there's any film that has
• 1:05:31
  generated more revenue yeah than that short film, The Spirit of Christmas. A
• 1:05:38
  little bit of cardboard, a little bit of a construction paper cut out,
• 1:05:41
  animated and it was Jesus versus Santa Claus. And it is built. I
• 1:05:45
  mean, what did they sell HBO. I think they say he's one hundred
• 1:05:47
  and fifty million or two hundred fifty million. I mean, think of all
• 1:05:51
  the merchandising alone that's come off of that. They I think they get I
• 1:05:56
  think they get ten percent and they still are loaded can I just tell you
• 1:06:00
  something real publicly, because I know we're running out of time. But I
• 1:06:02
  had a very good friend whose short film played Sundance in the same shorts program
• 1:06:06
  as Spirit of Christmas. Because they didn't bite Spirit of Christmas to play at
• 1:06:11
  Sundance, and nobody remembered it during the screen. He's like, nobody wants
• 1:06:14
  to talk about my film. Everyone wanted to talk about that Jesus Christmas versus
• 1:06:17
  Santa Claus, the water in the festival situation. I still and this is
• 1:06:25
  the power of the short. Back then, this is before the Internet.
• 1:06:28
  I walked into a comic book store when I was at that age whenever that
• 1:06:31
  came out. I was, I think high school or a little bit.
• 1:06:34
  I think it was in high school or a little bit younger than high school
• 1:06:36
  when that came out, and the guy behind the counter or the comic book
• 1:06:41
  guy said, hey, man, you want to see something. They busted
• 1:06:45
  out a bootleg copy of Spirit of Christmas because it was bootlegged all over the
• 1:06:49
  place. And I saw it and my mouth was just like, what what
• 1:06:54
  did I just see? Said said Jesus finding Santa Claus. But it's just
• 1:06:59
  a facing. This is a period, so you know, and if you
• 1:07:00
  want to talk about voices, Jesus, Yeah, and Trey, I mean
• 1:07:05
  there's nobody else. And boy, they've written that horse, haven't they.
• 1:07:12
  Yes, they have. I would too. I'd been riding that horse until
• 1:07:15
  the wheels fell off. When people recommend love a short from so much,
• 1:07:19
  they want to tell you about it and encourage you to see it. That's
• 1:07:23
  just that's winning right there. That's now and now it's a click, not
• 1:07:26
  a VHS going now, it's a click, it's email, it's a social
• 1:07:29
  media post. I guess you got to watch this. But the fact that
• 1:07:31
  somebody's promoting in that way with no you know, financial in on it,
• 1:07:35
  and just want to share with you something they love that is wonderful. That's
• 1:07:39
  the highest Surfi And Kim, where can people get your book and find out
• 1:07:43
  more about what you do well making it big and shorts, build little bookstores
• 1:07:45
  near you. There's not so many bookstores anymore, so let's just say sadly,
• 1:07:48
  Amazon, Hey, Jeff needs to send some more rockets up into space.
• 1:07:55
  We got to support them, some oddly shaped rockets. Anyway, Kim,
• 1:08:01
  it has been an absolute pleasure having you on the show. Thank you
• 1:08:03
  so much for coming on and sharing your knowledge about shorts. Hopefully this has
• 1:08:08
  helped a few filmmakers avoid some pitfalls, and maybe maybe with this conversation we
• 1:08:13
  help launch a few careers. Let's hope we'll never regret it. Thank you
• 1:08:17
  again so much for being on the show. Gam I appreciate you, pleasure
• 1:08:20
  talking to you. I want to thank him so much for coming on the
• 1:08:24
  show and dropping her short film knowledge bombs on the tribe today. Thank you
• 1:08:28
  so much, Kim. If you want to get links to anything we spoke
• 1:08:30
  about in this episode, head over to the show notes at Bulletproof Screenwriting dot
• 1:08:34
  tv. Forward Slash three twenty seven. Thank you so much for listening,
• 1:08:38
  guys, as always, keep on writing no matter what. I'll talk to
• 1:08:42
  you soon. Thanks for listening to the Bulletproof Screenwriting podcasts at Bulletproof Screenwriting dot tv.