Latest / Bulletproof Screenwriting™ Podcast / BPS 365: Making Money & Cracking the Amazon Code for Self Distribution with Ismael Gomez

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BPS 365: Making Money & Cracking the Amazon Code for Self Distribution with Ismael Gomez · Bulletproof Screenwriting™ Podcast

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You are listening to the IFAH podcast Network. For more amazing filmmaking and screenwriting
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podcasts, just go to ifahpodcastnetwork dot com. Welcome to the Bulletproof Screenwriting Podcast,
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Episode number three sixty five. Sometimes people don't want to hear the truth
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because they don't want their illusions destroyed. Nietzsche broadcasting from a dark, windowless
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room in Hollywood when we really should be working on that next draft. It's
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the Bulletproof Screenwriting Podcast, showing you the craft and business of screenwriting while teaching
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you how to make your screenplay bulletproof. And here's your host, Alex Ferrari.
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Welcome, Welcome to another episode of the Bulletproof Screenwriting Podcast. I am
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your humble host Alex Ferrari. Now. Today's show is sponsored by Bulletproof Script
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Coverage. Now. Unlike other script coverage services, Bulletproof Script Coverage actually focuses
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on the kind of project you are in the goals of the project you are,
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so we actually break it down by three categories micro budget, indie film,
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by professional readers, head on over to covermiscreenplay dot com. Now, guys,
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today we have a success story. That's a story of tvod actually working
1:44
with Amazon and cracking the code of Amazon and making money with an independent film.
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The filmmaker's name is Ismael Gomez and his film is called Death of a
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Fool and he was able to use nine thousand dollars of Facebook ads to generate
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seventy two thousand dollars in sales through tvaugh on Amazon. And in our conversation
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I dig deep in his techniques, how he did it, what his ideas
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were to target his specific niche audience, and much much more so. Without
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any further ado, please enjoy my conversation with Ismael Gomez. I like to
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welcome so Gomez the third. How are you doing this good, Alex?
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Thanks for having me on the show. Ah, thanks for reaching out,
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man, I appreciate it. Anytime there's a filmmaker who wants to talk about
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distribution and the truth behind self distribution, numbers, raw data and all the
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other little warts and all good and bad, I'd like to talk to them
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because it's rare. Like you said in your email, it's a rare thing.
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There is not a lot of transparency out there. So before we get
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into that, how did you get into the film business? Uh? Well,
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you know, I was so. I was born in Cuba, in
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Havana, and I grew Cuban. I couldn't help it, man, I
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have theano. It just comes out, you know. So I was born
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and you know, I was born in Havana, and I grew up watching
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you know, Disney Pixar movies. And actually the first time I went to
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a theater was to see The Lion King, and I was obsessed with it.
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Like when I came out of the theater, I was telling my mom
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and my dad like, this is what I want to make. And it
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started as a cartoon, you know, like animated films. And and then
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my dad, because he was very well connected in the artistic world, he
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would get me into the film festivals in Havana, and I saw Apocalypse Now
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when I was like nine, So if you can imagine being nine years old
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and watching Apocalypse Now, so you know, I got really obsessed with that,
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and and I had the opportunity when I came to the United States.
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So I came to live. Immigrated to the United States with my mom.
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My dad was already here, and I came on a plane in two thousand
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and nine and I went for everybody listening us Cubans we're known for being good
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swimmers, so I came on a plane. My parents came on planes as
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well. Yeah, so I came here, and I always had the passion
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in Cuba. But I you know, I finished high school in Cuba,
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so when I got here, I went straight After one year that I got
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all my papers and everything, I went to the New York Film Academy and
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I started studying film. And it was a great experience because they're very hands
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on, you know, so I really I've never shot I mean, I've
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made home videos, but I was there shooting with bactu film like sixteen millimeters
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and thirty five millimeters, and it was a pretty cool experience. It was
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an amazing experience and After that, I moved back to Florida. I got
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my bachelor's and because my whole family was here already, and uh so,
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after I graduated, I went back to New York and I started working as
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an editor. Uh So, I realized while I was in film school,
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I realized, all right, I don't think people hire directors not very often,
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so you directors end up always working on their stuff. So I have
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to develop a second skill, you know. And I also realized for me,
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in the editing is where really the magic happened. Like I would be
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able to save because my shootings were always super chaotic, and when I got
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to the editing, I kind of like make things work a little bit.
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So I realized, like, this is where the magic happened. So I
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got to learn this skill. So I got very you know, well versed
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in Final Cut seven, Rest in Peace and and and they you know,
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and then Premiere when it came out, and Avid and then finally Cut Tin
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and so I started editing, and I started editing my friends' short films,
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my own stuff, and then I got my first feature film, and then
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I got my second one, and I ended up editing like I don't know,
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like nine feature films, already independent feature films, and yeah, so
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and then after that I moved back. You know, my girlfriend was here,
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my family was here. I was up there by myself dealing with the
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winter. You know, my Caribbean flesh. She's not used to that.
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They don't like that. They don't winter so much. I couldn't deal with
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it. So I came back here and I had this movie, Death of
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a Fool, and I had the vision of my company, Robert Hole Pictures,
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And at that time, Moonlight came out and I was like, I
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saw what Barry Jenkins did in Miami and it was very inspiring, and I
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was like, you know, I can I can do this. I can
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be let's say, big fish in a small pound, right, I can
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start here, try to make fantasy films, which I don't see. Actually,
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when I was doing a lot of research when I made Death of a
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Fool and thinking about all the fantasy films shot in Miami, and I couldn't
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like find anything. So I got very inspired and I was like, you
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know what, and then to open the company here. I'm gonna start making
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films here, and uh yeah, that's kind of like how it happened.
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It's fun It's so funny because you you've walked very similar path that I have,
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because I did the exact same thing. I was like, I'm going
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to be a director, but I see that no one's hiring me right now
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because I am twenty whatever young. And I started getting into the post and
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that's exactly, and it's and I discovered the exact same things and peace found
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a cut seven. But also just everything happens there, and that's sometimes I
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think a lot of filmmakers don't do that. They don't understand that you need
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to have a skill that pays you while you're chasing the dream, while you're
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building those tools in your toolbox. That's street sure, But you jumped on
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your first feature much fatch. It took me twenty years to jump out my
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first feature, So you've jumped much quicker. So I thought, there's a
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lot of begging. Oh, I can imagine, I can imagine, So
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tell me, Yeah, so tell me tell me about your film Death of
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a Fool. Okay, So Death of a Fool was actually based on a
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semester film that I did at NAIFA, the Film Academy, and so I
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have been writing it for two years and I was already in Miami, and
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I started submitting it to screenplay competitions and then I ended up being semi finalists
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in like three of them, and then quarter finals in two of them,
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and then Blue Cat, it's a screenplay competition in la We ended up winning
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it in two thousand and eight, two and eighteen, Joe the co writer
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and I, so we both won the competition and they gave you ten thousand
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dollars is the cash price. So that was kind of like the beginning of
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the funding process of the film. So after we won Blue Cat, we
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ended up like talking to some investors that I have worked with in the past
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for other projects or other businesses that I was running. And yeah, it
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just took a lot of convincing and really and it also I got very prepared
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in terms of, you know, not counting on sundans and or you know,
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the lottery ticket and really trying to think how would I be able to
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recoup this money, you know. So we were able to bring a few
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investors on board. Then I did I would say like thirty percent of the
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financing myself. We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor. And
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now back to the show, and yeah, we got everything together. What
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was a budget? It ended up being like one hundred and three thousand dollars,
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so one hundred thousand, which was really challenging because let me tell you
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the stuff that we pulled with one hundred thousand dollars because it's it's a fantasy
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film, and you know, you got like you have a magic fruit,
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and you have like magical places, and you have it's like flashbacks like the
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seventies, so there's a lot of crazy stuff. And yeah, but you
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know, I had an amazing team, that's what I can say. The
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cinematographer, the producer, everyone was just so awesome. And that's also the
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cool thing about shooting in Miami that not a lot of films are being shot
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here, so everyone was really excited about that. You know, people were
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willing to just work and give you good rates and all that to make the
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film happen. Yeah, that's exactly what happened with me when I made my
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first film there, and it was so excited just to be like, oh,
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someone shooting's, let's do this. You know it's not bad boys,
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but we'll do it. Let's go. Yeah, which is really cool.
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Now you when you made the you finished the film. Now, I'm assuming
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you went down the festival circuit and the distribution path, So tell me about
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what you felt. Did you do the festival circuit at all? What did
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you feel? Well? I sorry, I sent the film to Sundance,
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of course, because we all have to donate money to Robert Reforends retire now.
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So I was like, you know, let me send it here.
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Actually, the cinematographer, Leila Kilborn, she was she had been to Sundance
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like seven times. She even won with documentaries. So you know, I
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sent the film to Sundance, and I did I think sun Dance was the
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film fastal. I had just finished it and I didn't want to send like
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work in progress to film festivals, you know. So I sent it to
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Sundance and then you know, got the rejection letter and around the time I
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had a really tough call. This is the where we get into distribution,
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because then twenty twenty had just started, you know, and I had to
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wait probably till the summer when the film festivals were going to open again,
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you know, like the fantasy film festivals also like yeah, Infantation, Fantastic
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fest you know. Although, so I was like, should I wait until
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the summer, like waste six eight months and wait for the film festival,
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or should I just launch do a theatrical premier in the Coral Gables the Art
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Cinema and launch the film on Amazon, or should I just wait for the
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film festival? So I really hate being passive, you know, and putting
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like hoping that someone else, you know, allows And by the way,
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I didn't. I didn't even you know, I heard about the coronavirus in
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China and all this this was like in January of February. And also I
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had an eye opening experience because I ended up going to Sundance with the co
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founder of Robert Whope Pictures, one of my best friends, Larry. I
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told them, you know, we should go to Sundance, even though we
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didn't get in. I feel that we hear so much about Sundance and I've
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never been to Sundance, so we should go check it out, you know.
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And for me when I went there, and the eye opening experience that
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I had is that even people that I saw got into Sundance were struggling to
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get a distribution deal, oh absolutely, And I saw I saw everyone hustling
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and I'm like, Okay, they need it here, and they're still hustling
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and trying to get a distribution deal and thinking they might get like ripped off.
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So this is not even a guarantee, you know. So I think
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it might be better off just the super in the film, myself learning this
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process, try to do my best and really be self reliant, you know.
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So so yeah, so I I made the call and I told,
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you know, I spoke to my to the producer of the film, and
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I told her like, I think this is a way to go. And
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we had the screening here are Coral Gables. It was completely sold out.
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And then two weeks later, because you know, it was still hot,
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you know, I I released the film on on Amazon Video. No,
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did you did you get some deals? Did you get some deals offered to
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you? Yes? Yes, So I spoke to a few. First of
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all, I saw all the episodes on Indie Film Hustle about distribution, you
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know, and I wrote, like, I actually have a notepad and I
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wrote every time that I had an insight or something that I didn't know about,
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I would write it down and then revisit. You know, you were
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you were prepared, You were you were locked a loaded when these guys came.
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Yeah, so they came, you know, they came trying to bite
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a few of them. I think a few of them had good intentions,
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I would say, But still I was like, even though it so,
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what were the kind of deals you were getting? You know what to say?
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It's just kind of deals. Yeah. So with sales agents, you
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know, I I feel them wanted to wanted to charge me, which I
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thought, I don't know, if you really think the film has potential and
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you can make some money, why would you want to charge me, you
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know upfront? Put I guess, you know, they need to keep their
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business going and all that. But that for me was you know, a
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rep flag. I didn't want to even though if you had good intentions,
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I didn't want to give into that because it was money that I would use,
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you know that I can use some Facebook ads or things like that.
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You know. And with distributors, they a lot of them didn't reply,
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and the ones that did, they had like fifteen year you know, fifty
15:56
year contracts. Yeah, and I was fifteen years, You're gonna own my
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movie for fifteen years. That's a long time with no money up front,
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with no no minimum guarantee and was there any was there any marketing capital or
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of course it was like onered thousands, like fifty thousand dollars every year.
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It was every year. Yeah, And I was like, all right,
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you're gonna spend fifty thousand dollars in my film every year? I as every
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year they had that sun So yeah, and then and then you could you
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could, you know, you could. I was like, is this negotiable?
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And then it was said yes, and then okay, and then they
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would negotiate and bring it out to ten years and you know, twenty thousand
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dollars. But isn't that But isn't that interesting that they I've said this a
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bunch of times that they throw out the worst deal to see if you fight,
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and if you fight, all good, I'm gonna screw you down.
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Yeah, and then if you want to negotiate, I'm just gonna screw you
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a bit less. I'm still screwing at the end of the day, you're
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getting screwed. Yeah. It's kind of like they want to they want to
16:56
stab you, right, and they first put like shoved gun and you're like,
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oh, shotgun, that's really bad. And then they show you the
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knife, and okay, I guess the knife is not that. Would you
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rather get your head blown off or just a little a little stab in the
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back. It's just a little and so so then so okay, so none
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of these obviously, none of these deals. After listening to everything I've said,
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you just said no. If you wouldn't have listened to all these podcasts,
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you might have been probably. Yeah. Probably. That's that's why I
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want that information to get out to as many it's humanly possible, man,
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Yeah, it's they are. What did they promise you? They promised you
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to get you on all the platforms, right, I'll get you on all
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the platforms. I know somebody over at Netflix, so we'll pitch Netflix.
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I know somebody over at HBO. Maybe I could get you an HBO deal.
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I guess I'm going to show Time. Maybe we could do a pay
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cable deal. What what's what's the special placements? We're gonna get special pa
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iTunes? And because if you go with us, like if you go through
18:00
an aggregator, you're just gonna be thrown in. But if you go with
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you get special placement on iTunes. In that whole scenario, it's it's so,
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and it's getting worse. The predatory aspect of distribution is getting worse and
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worse as everything starts to tighten tighten around. So that's why I wanted to
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bring you out because you're pretty fresh. You're like, this is happening within
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the last three or four months. Yeah, all right, So I sorry.
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And even the ones that have good intentions, let's say there's still a
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business, you know, and they still need to survive business model. See,
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and if they have ten films and nine of them are performing better than
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mine, you know, they're gonna they're gonna sell those, They're gonna pay
18:41
more attention to those nine. And it's not only that, it's also like
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I always put this analogy that it's a business, right, And if my
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film is a tangerine, let's say, and people here buy watermelons, they
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will market my film as a watermelon to people who like watermelons because they have
19:00
to sell. And I don't want my like I want people who like tandarines
19:04
to see my film. I don't care about people who like watermelons because then
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that's where the bat reviews come and people and I feel that I'm actually,
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you know, cheating, right, and I'm lying to people because I made
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you think that this was a watermelon and you came saw my film, pay
19:21
for it, and now you're feeling happy, you know, And I understand
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that. So I that's that was also for me, like I wanted to
19:27
have full control. You know, I'm a little bit of a city.
19:32
So yeah, no. And obviously, so you're telling me that distributors might
19:37
lie in trailers to get by the movie. I can't believe that. That
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seems so unlike. Yeah. Uh. And that's the other thing that people
19:48
that filmmakers don't understand is when they do sign a deal with the distributor,
19:53
unless it's in the contract, they have no control of how that movie is
19:56
presented. Will be right back after a word from our sponsor, and now
20:06
back to the show. Poster design, trailer design. I mean it's I
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mean, I remember when I had my I had a short compilation and a
20:15
distributor picked it up. I was able to get it back from him,
20:18
but he put on the cover some woman with a gun who had nothing.
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She wasn't even in the movie. It was it wasn't even in the movie.
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I was like, what what is it? What is this? And
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it's it's it is the nature of what they're trying to do. It's the
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old model of doing things. So it's going to be interesting to see how
20:34
this is all going to keep going. So obviously you decided that that the
20:40
traditional distribution was not going to be your path, and your budget range makes
20:44
it a good viable option for for self distribution. So tell me your journeys
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to your self distribution and what and what's going on. What happened? So,
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you know, I started looking into how would I sell distribute like where
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you know, what platform I would use? So you know, there was
21:07
Vimeo, which obviously has main like an amazing potential because I think you keep
21:14
like ninety percent of the revenues. And then there was Amazon, and then
21:18
there was other things like selling from your website like gum road. I think
21:22
it's called you know a bunch of those. But for me, just thinking
21:27
as an audience, like it's better, Like people trust is a big thing,
21:33
right, So people trust Amazon. People don't trust Vimeo or gum road.
21:38
Not a lot of people, like one percent other people, so not
21:42
movie going people like people buying online products or courses or things like that they
21:47
might want to do gum Road and Video. The filmmaker will understand who they
21:51
are, but general public will. Yeah. So I was like, you
21:55
know, Amazon is the best deal in also, you know, even though
21:57
I could have gone through an aggregator, right, I think I looked into
22:03
film Hub and bit max. You know, I felt like I don't want
22:11
to sparse like the attention, Like I want to just have one place where
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I can send everyone and here's the film watching. Which I also think if
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all the sales go there is gonna help with the algorithm and more people,
22:23
they will promote the film to other people, right right, So so I
22:27
was like, you know, and I actually I did. I did a
22:30
few polls on Facebook groups and stuff like that where do you watch movies?
22:34
And I would see Amazon was always the top one. So I was like,
22:38
okay, Amazon has to be And I thought of myself, I mean,
22:41
I rent movies on Amazon and so so yeah, so I chose Amazon,
22:47
which you know, Amazon is amazing. It's great that they give the
22:52
opportunities to filmmakers, you know, and I had spoken to them before.
22:56
It's kind of you know, it kind of sucks that they take fifty percent,
23:00
you know, I think I wish they would take less, like like
23:03
Vimeo, but you know, it is what it is. You gotta deal
23:06
with so for people to understand, so they take fifty percent of your transactional
23:10
Yeah, like so transactional video t VOD You know, if you if you
23:15
sell, if someone buys you movie for ten dollars, five goes to Amazon
23:18
and five goes to you. So they take fifty percent of them. Yeah,
23:22
and you know what, I have the same I mean, I self
23:26
published my books through Amazon and they're actually worse worse than fifty percent sometimes.
23:32
But the different the problem exposure. Yeah, you are the largest marketplace where
23:37
everybody has their credit card and everyone trusts everything. So a fifty to fifty
23:42
split might sound bad, but the amount of the amount of access you're getting
23:48
for that fifty percent is the only thing that makes sense for that scenario.
23:52
But now, if you would have signed a deal with a distributor, then
23:56
they would have taken a percentage of of of it. So at the end
23:59
of the day you might now you might even get really ten percent. What
24:03
I'm really curious about is like how much like how much Amazon. I wonder
24:07
if Amazon offers that same type of deal to big companies like Disney and one
24:12
of the brothers if they give them fifty to fifty or if they offer because
24:18
I feel like, you know, it's a small business as an entrepreneur the
24:22
starting, they should offer better deals for us than Disney. But you know,
24:26
but that's the way. That's not the way the game. So that's
24:30
not the way the world works. But we can have a whole episode just
24:33
talk about Amazon and how they treat filmmakers. But at the end of the
24:37
day, they have opened up a marketplace that filmmakers. So if you like,
24:41
let's take let's take Amazon off the table that they shut down and like
24:44
no more filmmakers. Yeah, yeah, that really that really hurts a lot
24:49
of a lot of businesses. It's amazing. I'm really grateful. I think
24:52
it's amazing. I think it's amazing what they're doing. But I agree with
24:56
you it should be like seventy thirty is fair. Seventy thirty, seventy thirty.
25:00
I mean, I think it's amazing. I'm really grateful that I can
25:02
do this stuff, you know, but if I have Jim Bezos in front
25:04
of me, it will be something that I will bring up. Also,
25:07
also a Cuban brother, Yeah exactly. So yeah, so I decided Amazon
25:15
and then and mostly right, yeah, I personally, you know, I
25:22
have seen a bunch of my friends gone through distribution and gone through Amazon too,
25:27
And for me, something that I learned is to not undervalue your art.
25:34
And this is something that I learned actually in the theatrical screening. So
25:37
when I had the premiere at core Gables, we sold out the whole screening
25:44
and I actually brought some merchandise and I remember, you know, it was
25:49
like this. My cousin who's an artist, made like this. She printed
25:52
a poster on like this wooden kind of like frame and it was really beautiful.
25:59
And we only made like twenty and I was thinking, you know,
26:03
I'm not going to make it too many, and I we're gonna sell them
26:04
for twenty box or whatever because you know, not a lot of people are
26:07
going to buy it and stuff. And like we got there, we screened
26:10
the movie and right when people came out, it got sold out and like
26:12
literally and one minute, and people wanted like we want more, we want
26:17
more, and I was like, oh my god, she'd have brought this
26:18
more, like I should make more, you know, And that the screening
26:22
was sold out, like they were like, so let's stop, let's stop
26:26
numbers. So let's talk numbers on that screening. So you rented out the
26:29
theater or was it a split? I four walled the screening so I ended
26:33
So what did it cost? It was like, so they do by the
26:37
hour, so it was like two fifty an hour, and I ended up
26:41
doing three hours, so it was like seven fifty. And yeah I did.
26:45
I did like the Q and A afterwards with the cast and how much
26:49
and how much did you and the tickets ticket sales. Yeah, so I
26:53
ended up using event right again, full control, you know. I put
26:59
the price of the takeover thing, and between the tickets and the merchandise,
27:03
I ended up making like thirteen fourteen hundred bucks. So it was a good
27:08
day. You're a profit, you're in profit. And then about the merch
27:12
how much of the merchantdake give over the time? Well, that's well the
27:15
merch was like the tickets were like eleven hundred and the merch was like three
27:18
hundred, so combined they were like fourteen hundred you know the day. Yeah,
27:23
and I thought of I mean, I thought, like, you know,
27:26
I can keep doing theatrical in Florida, South Florida. Maybe you know,
27:30
do like five or ten more of these, you know. But then
27:37
I ended up like two weeks after, on February twentieth, I launched the
27:41
film on Amazon. So the first thing that I did was oh so talking
27:48
about Amazon for me, learning from that experience, I was like, you
27:53
know, I'm going to put my film for sale first, so you can
27:57
only buy it for like only purchase option and purchase just straight first, because
28:03
I knew the people that had just seen the movie were going straight to get
28:08
on teavot that we're going to rent it. You know, there was a
28:11
lot of people I got all their emails that were waiting, so I went
28:15
straight to t vot. I think I put like fourteen ninety nine was the
28:19
first price that I did. And I put no rentals like the first week,
28:26
like the first ten days, because I knew it was going to be
28:27
hot, you know, those people were going to come and buy the movie,
28:30
so I did that. I put it for purchase option only. I
28:36
didn't do any Oh so, I got a lot of you know, uh,
28:40
newspapers, radio everywhere, you know, talking about the premiere or core
28:44
gables like local news. And then a lot of social media and all over
28:51
Facebook and Instagram, and then I ended up just putting the purchase option for
28:56
those ten first days, so and then only the let's say, the warm
29:02
audience, the loyal audience, right, the true fans came those those first
29:07
ten days and they purchased the movie. I can't remember the exact number of
29:11
how many people, you know, but I was, well, that was
29:15
happening. I started learning Facebook ads. I already had, like ran Facebook
29:19
ads in the past and Instagram with some other businesses that I that I had
29:25
in the past, and also with the with rabbit Hole on Instagram. But
29:29
I hire someone to pretty much kind of teach me like all the ins and
29:33
outs, you know, all the tricks and little things. And even though
29:37
I thought that I knew a lot, like this person really taught me a
29:41
bunch of stuff that I was like, oh, wow, that's how it
29:42
works. Okay. So so that gave me a lot of insights and I
29:48
slowly started using Facebook ads and Instagram ads. We'll be right back after a
29:55
word from our sponsor and now back to the show. And for me,
30:06
what I think has worked so far, which I told you in the email,
30:11
Like I feel that a lot of people always want to like, I
30:15
want my film to be seen as many you know, that many people as
30:21
possible see my film, right, and a film that's a big mistake.
30:23
I mean, if they could see it for free, of course, try
30:26
as many people as you can. But when you have to pay for the
30:29
Facebook ads, you have to make sure that the person that watches the film
30:34
right, the trailer, the teaser, they're really you know, they trust
30:41
the brand, and if they don't know the brand, you know, why
30:44
would they click to watch the movie. So for me, the name Miami
30:51
right was that trust. So for example, when I was running ads,
30:55
I realized the copy that would get the most let's say, engagement was when
31:00
I would put like, you know, Miami releases a new mystical adventure,
31:07
a new fantasy film. Because I thought if I put like rabbit Hole Pictures
31:11
releases a new you know mystically, they're like, who's rabbit Hole Pictures?
31:15
But when you put Miami, people somehow in their heads that's what I'm guessing.
31:21
They're they're guessing like, oh so, Miami, it's kind of like
31:25
made this film like the city itself, you know, it's made in Miami.
31:29
So then I only targeted like twenty five mile radios races in Miami and
31:37
that started getting you know, a lot of attraction. Then you know a
31:41
lot of experimenting. I think you have to do a lot of testing,
31:47
like a lot like you know, I had a teaser onder one minute.
31:49
I had a trailer which was a minute and forty. I had pictures.
31:53
You know, I have different copywriting. And also you have to get this
31:59
is a trick that I learned also that you have to have social proof before
32:04
you sent out. So when I would first create the ad, I'd had
32:07
like my small group of you know, friends and family that I would send
32:12
it to them and be like, okay, like this comments that you saw
32:15
that you loved it or whatever. So when the advertisement will go out right,
32:19
you had social proof. So one season they're like, oh, there's
32:22
people coming to there's people liking it, let me check it out right.
32:25
And so what I started doing also the strategy was I would do video views,
32:31
so it's one of the options when you run Facebook ads. I first
32:35
started doing traffic, which was kind of like a mistake that you the traffic
32:42
strategies pretty much Facebook finds people that would click on the ad and would go
32:46
to the website where you send them. But by doing video views, Facebook
32:52
pretty much finds people that usually watch videos, like they watch the most percent,
33:00
let's say, of videos. So I started using the video ads and
33:02
that started getting better results and people will still click on it and go to
33:07
the website. Right. And then I would do video views Monday through Friday,
33:14
and then Saturday and Sunday I would do a reach strategy Facebook ad which
33:21
I would say, Okay, so from Monday through Friday, I do this
33:23
video views, and then Saturday Sunday, I create an audience that everyone who
33:29
watched the video from Monday through Friday ninety five percent of like people who watched
33:35
ninety five percent of my videos, right, I would make that an audience.
33:38
Facebook would find all those people, create a custom audience, and then
33:43
on Saturday and Sunday, I would just target those people again and with a
33:49
reach strategy and be like, Okay, now reach as many people as you
33:52
can within this parameter that I just put that they're already a warm audience because
33:57
they saw the teaser, and find them and show them again, you know,
34:01
the trailer. So that would bring that would bring really good you're using
34:06
but you're using this based off of a fourteen ninety nine price point, not
34:10
when I started. Yeah, when when I started doing Facebook ads, I
34:13
already had the rental option, so I actually brought it down to nine ninety
34:17
nine and five ninety nine. So I started seeing, you know what,
34:22
most of the rentals will be on Amazon, and I saw a bunch of
34:25
like new releases were not five ninety nine for rentals, so I put it
34:30
five ninety nine. And actually, this was really funny because you have to
34:36
you have to test things out. You have to just don't be afraid of
34:39
like sometimes people want to be too like logical, and you think of like,
34:44
oh, my film is an indie film, who would rent it?
34:46
Who would pay five ninety nine? And a lot of people don't know,
34:52
you know, like normal audiences they don't know. They just see. They
34:55
just see a film if it's a cool trailer, a cool poster. Maybe
34:59
they don't all the actors, but the genre itself, right, since it's
35:02
a fantasy kind of mystical supernatural film, the genre itself will sell the film,
35:07
and if they connect with Miami, they will sell it. And actually
35:12
I did a crazy thing for like a week. I didn't make a profit,
35:15
but I broke even. But when the whole coronavirus hit, they started
35:21
doing this whole theatrical premieres for nineteen ninety nine, so I actually for a
35:27
week, I removed everything and I put it for nineteen ninety nine. I
35:30
was like, you know what, maybe people will confuse me with like Disney
35:34
and like The Invisible Man that was also coming out during that time, and
35:40
like, I don't know, like ten people bought it, like ten people
35:43
bought it, and you know, it cost me a lot on Facebook ad,
35:45
so I kind of like I ended up breaking even. So I was
35:49
like, you know, I know that I can find more people, but
35:52
it will cost me more, so let me just let me just bring it
35:54
back to a different price and kind of like what I had it before.
35:59
But it was it was it was a you know, an interesting experience seeing
36:02
that they would actually someone be willing to pay nineteen ninety nine for the film,
36:07
just like they would pay for any of those big studio films. You
36:09
know. So it's about let me ask you. In regards to the Facebook,
36:13
Facebook ads and Instagram ads, a lot of times I found that filmmakers
36:16
who spend a lot of money on those the ROI doesn't make sense the return
36:22
on an investment because they they're either not optimizing properly or their their offer is
36:25
just too low a price, Like you talk about ninety nine cents ninety nine.
36:30
You've got to get volume, you know. So if you spend five
36:35
dollars to get a one ninety nine rental, that's not business. So how
36:38
did you make it work? Well? Yeah, I mean I kept the
36:43
price of five ninety nine, you know, good rental and purchased at nine
36:47
ninety nine. So I knew that every time there would be a sale,
36:52
I would make pretty much three dollars, right, So from five ninety nine
37:00
fifty so I knew that, okay, I have to make under you know,
37:05
under three dollars, and so I would make sure. And this is
37:08
really hard to what happens with Amazon is really hard to track the sales that
37:15
come from the Facebook ads because Amazon doesn't give you the information, right,
37:20
Amazon keeps all the data for themselves. You have no so you can't do
37:22
a Facebook pixel with it for Amazon. No, you can't because it's it's
37:28
on the Amazon page, right, And so they're not gonna let you pixel
37:32
that, so you could I couldn't do a pixel. So it was But
37:36
what happens is that I say, like people, what I'm guessing. Like
37:40
people, a lot of times they try many strategies at the same Like what
37:45
I would do is like I'm gonna stick with one strategy one week to see
37:49
the results of that week, right, and then I will see, Okay,
37:52
so this week I spent this much and this much came in, and
37:57
you know, I wasn't doing anything else, and I have kind of the
38:00
clicks on the Facebook ads, and I saw that, you know, every
38:04
twenty five cents, someone was clicking on the ad. So I started kind
38:08
of like comparing the numbers. And then after one week I would switch to
38:13
a different strategy and that way, you know, I would kind of like
38:15
know what strategy work the most. But again for me, it was all
38:22
about that, like you have to know your audience, you know. And
38:27
for example, I also thought, even though the film has let's say the
38:36
film is about a grandson a grandfather, right, they were like after life
38:38
investigators, So there is a younger audience and there's an older audience. And
38:44
for me, I focused mostly on the older audience because they have funny number
38:51
one. You know, younger audiences. I say it, you know,
38:54
for my sister, they don't like to pay for stuff. They want to
38:59
just free content, you know, because I mean, you know, they
39:01
grew up on YouTube. And even I sometimes like struggle, like I should
39:06
have paid Should I really rent this movie or should I wait until it comes
39:08
out on Netflix or anything? You know. So it's that's the subscription mode
39:15
has changed, you know, people's mentality when it comes to that. Right.
39:19
So I was like, I have to focus on the older audience because
39:22
they're the ones that are really gonna pay for this, right and most of
39:25
the time maybe they'll bring their children, you know, their grandchildren whatever to
39:30
watch the movie. Now, the problem with you also have to think about
39:34
the downsides. Like the problem with the older audience is so so they don't
39:38
leave a lot of reviews, right, Older people don't go and the Amazon
39:44
start reviewing, you know, like, oh I love the film or whatever,
39:49
we'll be right back after a word from our sponsor and now back to
39:55
the show. And which actually, you know, the reviews. It's such
40:01
a tricky game because you know, mostly like people who only have negative things
40:08
to say are the ones that go and review, Like you watch the movie
40:14
as the world did. It's like this was the best movie ever. And
40:16
you don't go on like IMDb or Rotten Tomatoes and you don't review it.
40:20
You're like, this was amazing. But then you know those fascinators, negative
40:23
people, the trolls, they just go there and start like, oh,
40:28
this was awful, you know, but it is what it is. But
40:31
then I try to, like, you know, if I saw someone watched
40:36
the movie or tag the trailer or the post or something, I would message
40:39
them like, please, if you like the movie, leave us a review
40:43
on Amazon because it can help, you know. So. But it was
40:46
a combination Alex of a lot of like work on my side, I did
40:52
a lot of like say, you know, gorilla marketing myself with you know,
40:57
on Instagram. I for example, the core Gables Arts Cinema. I
41:01
went on Instagram and I saw, you know that they had eight thousand followers.
41:06
So I would go to each one of those followers and literally message them
41:09
like, Hey, we're in Miami Film Company. We just make this film.
41:13
If you like you know this type of genre, go check it out.
41:15
Literally every day I would message until like Instagram blocked me pretty much like
41:21
you exceeded like you limit for today, so you know, so it was
41:25
it was a combination of things, you know, and like being on the
41:29
Miami Herald, on the newspaper also you know, brought sales and then just
41:34
combining all that with Facebook, Instagram and just doing a lot of work and
41:39
also, like I told you, trying a lot of different content. People.
41:45
Sometimes you create a trailer and that's it, like they market everything with
41:50
that trailer. Like you know, I had trailer teaser short clips, like
41:53
at least like I don't know, like thirty different types of like assets,
41:59
let's say. You know. The The thing that's fascinating as well is that
42:05
you decided to focus on your local regional market, which is something that most
42:09
filmmakers don't think about because they're like, oh, it's just the local.
42:14
I need to be big. I need the world to see my movie.
42:17
I I need to be as big as Tarantee and Tino and Nolan. I
42:22
need to be that where you focus on the regional, which is extremely powerful.
42:28
That's a much warmer audience, if I can take your term, it's
42:30
a much warmer audience. Uh, And a lot of people will just support
42:35
because you're a local boy. And Miami is not a small town either.
42:38
No, it's I mean it's it's a big city. It's one of the
42:40
big in the in the US, absolutely so. But even with that,
42:45
you were still able to generate interest and revenue from that. So that's that's
42:51
a really great way of doing it. And that's not you know, that's
42:54
also like, you know, this was like I at the same time,
42:59
while I was in post, you know, I really studied a lot of
43:01
like marketing, you know, like Seth godin Sure, you know, you
43:06
know the Purple Cow and uh, there's another guy called Roy Sutherland, he's
43:10
from London, you know, and really started marketing, uh, and try
43:15
to learn as much as possible. And one of the ideas is like how
43:20
you know how ideas like spread, right, and everything starts small, Like
43:24
if you think about Facebook, how did Facebook start? Facebook started in Harvard
43:30
and then it started with only IVY leagues, right, and then once they
43:34
got the IVY leagues, when people see something that they like, they will
43:37
tell their friends, and the friends will to tell the friends and that's how
43:40
things spread. So I was like, I'm only going to focus in Miami
43:44
and then from there on, actually, later on, I started seeing there
43:50
was some sales in the UK where I was doing no marketing, and which
43:54
was really interesting. I was like, I don't know how people in the
43:57
UK are watching this, but I guess they're just because they see as an
44:00
American movie, they're they're watching it. But you know, I really focused
44:04
just on local and make like I would target Miami twenty five miles radius,
44:12
right, and I would say people who liked Pixar, Disney, Harry Potter,
44:15
you know, films that kind of had the same tone that my film.
44:20
And then I would also do besides that and would narrow down down the
44:27
audience that they would also purchase on Amazon dot Com, which it's pretty much
44:30
everyone, but you know, but that would really put it like, just
44:35
find those people that have purchased on Amazon, which you know, they like,
44:38
they have Amazon Instant Video or whatever, and they like these type of
44:43
films that are similar. Now, what, so let's get some numbers if
44:46
you don't mind, What are the returns of all of this work and how
44:51
much revenue have you generated with off of Amazon? So Amazon has been like
45:00
thirty six thousand dollars, which that's insane which is I mean, when you
45:07
really think about it, with seventy two you know, so that's thirty six
45:10
to you, thirty six to me. Yeahy, So you generated seventy two
45:15
thousand grows off of this technique, off of what you're doing, and you're
45:21
and you're one hundred thousand dollars. Yeah, indeed with no stars attached and
45:25
a unique genre being like fantasy is not you know, it's it's it's there's
45:31
less water, there's less sharks or less blood in that water. It's a
45:36
little bit more blue oceany if you want, the fishing is better in your
45:38
area. So it's a niche. It's a niche. It's a large niche,
45:42
but it's a niche. So you've been able to generate And then how
45:45
much does that cost you? And then yeah, and then nine thousand dollars
45:49
in marketing, around nine thousand dollars so far, So the profit ends up
45:52
being like what twenty seven plus the what I've made in the theatrical premiere.
46:00
I don't know about I don't know about you, but I will spend nine
46:02
thousand dollars every day to get twenty seven thousand. All day. I'll just
46:08
continue to feed that beast. So it's fascinating. You're one of the few
46:15
heard of your making it work. Now you have a very there's a lot
46:20
of unique elements, like in every project, like and you mentioned Range fifteen
46:23
in your email, that was a unique set of circumstances in a unique time
46:29
period. Every movie is going to be a little bit different. Like your
46:31
movie might be hitting at the right time with the right movie. That also
46:36
helped, you know the I mean the hope that everyone was stock home,
46:39
you know, stock at home. I'm looking for new, fresh content and
46:43
then you just happen to be I've got fresh content. I also know how
46:47
to market it because I've done my homework. I've done my research, and
46:51
I want you, I want to I want you to tell all the filmmakers
46:53
out there, please, because I've been preaching this for the longest time,
46:57
that filmmakers need to understand marketing. They need to educate themselves on the distribution
47:01
processes, the self distribution process, all the non sexy because everything you're talking
47:06
about is not sexy. It's not as sexy as the new lexap with the
47:08
new the cook lens, yeah, you know, and the techno crane that
47:13
I'm going to work on and it's not the sexy stuff. Can you please
47:16
tell the audience the value that you have found by doing that deep dive into
47:22
marketing, because obviously it's working. Yeah, I mean I would tell you
47:28
this. This is how I think about it. If you know how to
47:31
market, if you know how to distribute, if you know how to sell
47:35
anything, then you can make anything. Right. It's not like you make
47:39
something and then like how am I going to sell this? It's like learn
47:44
how to sell things. Like I think of like Steve Jobs, which I
47:46
think is once one of the greatest marketers ever, right, how he created
47:52
Apple and all those things, and he would find uh how to like think
47:58
about it, like how people hey six times more for an iPhone, which
48:01
is pretty much does the same as a as an android, you know,
48:06
an LG. Like it's just not as pretty. It's just not as pretty,
48:09
and it's the brand because he grew the brand and that he connected with
48:15
a certain type of appeal. And for me, it was like I thought
48:17
about, like you know, I have because people just like to make things.
48:22
You know, as an artist, you just want to think about the
48:24
creative process, but then you end up being you know, at the mercy
48:31
of like, you know, distributor, and sometimes you will find a good
48:35
distributor. But like even if you have a good distributor, wouldn't you want
48:39
to know how that works? And they might not even even you. I
48:44
mean, if you know your audience, if you know your movie, your
48:49
input might be you know, so valuable for them that might help even with
48:53
the sales. So for me, it's like you have to learn, you
48:58
know again, like I was reckoned men Seth godin UH all his YouTube videos.
49:04
He also has a course that I took online. It's called the semin
49:07
the Marketing Seminar uh Roy Sauerland from h from Great Britain. You know garyvy
49:15
it's amazing. Yeah, you know he's actually doing UH tea with Gary Vee
49:20
every morning at nine am. I fought, Yeah, he's he's pretty cool.
49:22
He's got a bunch of good stuff, you know. And and yeah,
49:25
and watching in the film Hustle all the episodes about distribution, you know,
49:30
try to learn as much as you can because that's the only way that
49:36
you can be self reliant and and and not depend again on the lottery ticket
49:42
of getting into sun Dance. And and I also thought about that. I
49:45
was telling Larry, my friend, the co founder, we'll be right back
49:51
after a word from our sponsor, and now back to the show. I
50:00
I told them, like, you know, like I think of Disney.
50:01
Okay, they're so successful, but I think of Disney, I think of
50:06
like you know, Wonder Brothers. They don't go to know, film festivals,
50:08
they don't care about film festivals. They go straight to the audience.
50:12
Why should we And I love film festivals and I have nothing against them,
50:15
right, but you're playing by the rules, So why should we be like
50:20
waiting? I was, I would keep some men into film festival, but
50:23
we shouldn't be waiting for that to be our strategy. We should be just
50:28
getting straight to the audience, you know. So so yeah, so that's
50:31
that's it's it's it's an inspiring story, brother, I really appreciate it.
50:37
You've been able to do the numbers that you've talked about, which is like,
50:40
no one's getting rich. You're not getting you're not rolling around in it.
50:44
But it's you're building a business my investors. That that's the most important
50:49
thing. Now that I'll be able to pay my investors. You know that
50:52
I can talk again for my second feature film that I want to you know,
50:54
so it also creates that you know, trust, which is really import
51:00
and I'm building my audience as well, people who already saw the movie and
51:02
liked it and you know, saw the company in Miami. So I just
51:07
think, just thinking from listening to your story, I think you could definitely
51:12
benefit from reading the Rise of the film entrepreneur. I think your head's going
51:15
to explode getting it, getting it for sure. If I may do a
51:20
self plug, No, I think there's a lot of I think you're leaving
51:22
a lot of money on the table honestly with this. But you're doing fantastic
51:27
by the way, You're doing better than ninety nine point five percent of the
51:30
filmmakers I talked to, So you're doing extremely well. But I think you
51:34
could even do you could take it to the next level. But I'm really
51:37
you know, I'm really excited that you are a good example of what how
51:43
filmmakers can make money on Amazon during COVID. This is all happening. This
51:46
is all happening during COVID. Uh And what are your plans now? Because
51:51
you know you did this all tivot, which is something that unless you know
51:54
how to drive traffic. T VOT is a lost cause unless you can drive
51:59
track, I can target an audience or have an audience to bring along with
52:02
you. Yeah, I mean, I'm gonna keep you know. Sometimes the
52:07
sales are down, sometimes they go up. It's a little bit, you
52:09
know, but I'll keep investing a little. I think I may expand now
52:14
to Florida, try to expand to Orlando, Tampa, you know. But
52:20
yeah, I'm gonna keep it. I actually put you know, I found
52:22
the right spot. Now I have the movie for two ninety nine and fourteen
52:25
ninety nine because I feel there's actually I feel that somehow I'm getting sales without
52:34
marketing. Sometimes I think Amazon is promoting the movie itself. I brought money
52:37
for them, so I guess the the algorithm or whatever. But I would
52:43
tell this also going back to the whole the schuberting and stuff like for me,
52:50
I would never put my movie for free. That's just like, so
52:53
you're not gonna put it in asbad like Amazon price, And I see I
52:58
would suggest to everyone, I mean, put ninety nine cents, you know,
53:00
like that's that's an okay price if you have a movie. That unless
53:06
unless you really don't care about recouping your money because it was your own money
53:09
or something, and you just want to get people to see your film.
53:14
And in that case, I mean, you know, you can also put
53:15
it on YouTube, right if that's your strung. But if you really have
53:20
to make money to pay investors to recoup some money, forget about SVOD.
53:24
Like you're not going to make a lot of money unless maybe you have it
53:28
on I don't know to be like AVOD at all the places, but just
53:32
put it in about about about at a certain point when you're when your sales
53:37
have gotten down to a point, because like, nobody really makes a whole
53:39
lot of money on the spot Amazon platform anymore. That's pretty much gone.
53:45
But a VOD as we speak today is really I've seen the numbers. I
53:49
mean, there's tens of thousands of dollars being made by certain films and certain
53:52
genres. So there is potential there. But I absolutely milk this cow for
53:58
as long as you can. AVOD could wait, it could wait a year,
54:00
it could wait two years before before you go to AVAS. Sorry I
54:07
forgot to mention that I actually I put the film also on film hob now
54:12
as VOD because the rest of like other English speaking countries don't have Tea bod
54:16
So I couldn't the rabbit Hole picture, you know, I couldn't put it
54:19
on the rest of like Latin America to say, also because I do have
54:22
some Hispanic stars that are well known in Latin America. So and I have
54:25
the movie subtitles. Oh that's something that actually bothered me too from Amazon that
54:30
they didn't let me. They didn't let me put Spanish subtitles. They don't
54:35
have that option, which I thought, like you're missing out, Like,
54:38
yeah, they can't deal with that kind of complexity from the masses. They
54:46
can deal with that complexity from distributors who handle two, three, four hundred
54:51
movies and they allow that situation. It's a completely different business model. Well
54:54
no, like if you go and actually no, no, like Amazon doesn't
54:59
doesn't allow how Spanish subtitles on any film doesn't matter, Like oh, yeah,
55:04
now they stopped it. Yeah, you're right, they did stop the
55:06
subtitling. Now it has to be I think it's I don't know if it's
55:08
a legal issue or what, but I told them, like Netflix has been
55:12
doing this for like years, and like, if you really want to compete
55:15
like you're missing on like, you know, the whole like Hispanic audience in
55:20
the United States that would rather, you know, like my a lot of
55:22
my family members, you know, they I actually put the movie with subtitles
55:25
because they understand English. But you know, you will miss a lot of
55:29
little detail. It's not the same reading it in your first language, you
55:32
know. So yeah, that was one thing, but through film Hub that
55:37
now I'm putting it on Latin America. But have you had anything from them
55:42
yet? Nothing come in yet? No, nothing. It's been recent.
55:45
It's been recent. I haven't done any marketing also out there. So I'm
55:49
just letting it to see, you know, see what happens organically, to
55:52
see what happens well, keep us in, keep us updated. In the
55:57
film Hub thing, I'm really curious to see. I haven't heard a lot
56:00
of success stories from film Hub, meaning that filmmaker is actually making a lot
56:05
of money. So I'm curious to see. In theory, he sounds great
56:09
in the in the in the the marketplace sounds great, but I'm curious to
56:13
see real hard numbers come in. But man, you're an inspiration brother,
56:17
without question, I'm gonna ask you a few questions I ask on my guests,
56:21
what advice would you give a filmmaker trying to break into the business today.
56:28
Hmm, I would say, focus on providing value to others, which
56:37
is something that you know me as a director when I started, a lot
56:45
of my friends now that work with me had a really hard time working with
56:46
me because I was sort of a dictator and it was always like, you
56:52
know, I would always think of my movie and this needs to be perfect
56:54
because it's my film and my name is on Is and I'm the director.
56:57
And then I was just bring a lot of suffering really because I would be
57:01
self frustrated and stuff. And when I kind of switched their mentality and started
57:07
thinking about being, you know, a provider's value service to authors, to
57:13
the crew. I want the to really try to have everyone in the crew
57:19
to reach their maximum potential. And the cast. I want the actors to
57:22
do the best performance that they can. I want the DP to have the
57:24
best images, and I'm just the catalyst for these people to really push them
57:30
hard so they can get there, you know. And also for the audience
57:34
that's gonna watch my movie. It's not like watch my film, it's like,
57:37
how can I really make your time worth that. You can spend an
57:43
hour and a half watching my movie and you're gonna have a lot of fun.
57:45
So I just kind of like switching that mentality of, you know,
57:49
providing value to others. And it really you can tell when you work with
57:53
someone who's just there for a paycheck, you know, and don't I don't
57:58
like working with those type of people. I feel. I can see when
58:00
there's someone there who obviously I want to pay everyone, and I think everyone
58:05
should get paid, but they're there because they care about their craft more than
58:09
the paycheck, you know. So I would say that now, and what
58:13
is the lesson that took you the longest to learn, whether in the film
58:15
business or in life, uh, film or or in life, I would
58:27
say, Uh, don't take it personal. That's it. Don't take don't
58:34
take film reviews personally. You don't know who that person is. If they
58:38
like if they like happy endings, then you had a sad ending. Of
58:43
course they're gonna hate your movie, you know, Uh they had. Don't
58:46
take personal the film rejection, the film festival rejections. Maybe they didn't even
58:52
watch your film. Maybe that person had a bad day, God knows.
58:55
Right, don't take it personal. It's it doesn't It doesn't say anything about
59:00
the quality of your craft and or of your film. So that's it,
59:05
you know. And then what are three of your favorite films of all time?
59:09
Uh, that's such a tough question. Three that comes to your head
59:14
right now? Well, I mean definitely The Lion King, you know,
59:20
as a child and in Cuba, I would say I think of films in
59:24
like different stages of my life, so I would say definitely as a child,
59:29
The Lion King and The gold Rush from Chaplain. Yeah. Gold Rush.
59:35
Yeah, it's a fun movie. I always love to watching in a
59:37
movie. Now as a grown up, I think, you know, I've
59:42
seen brilliant films. Uh, you know a lot of brilliant films. But
59:46
I feel that films that like say that I really saw and where like really
59:52
changed my perspective on what a movie could be. Will be right back after
1:00:00
a word from our sponsor, and now back to the show that I was
1:00:08
like, I've never seen anything like this, I would say The Tree of
1:00:13
Life from Terrence Malick in Sinet du Key, New York. From Charlie Kaufman,
1:00:19
which is which is really funny because I see Kaufman, which I think,
1:00:23
in my opinion, he's the most original writer and creator like in Hollywood
1:00:30
when it comes to film, I think his stories are the most original.
1:00:35
And I see him struggling to make it film, to get financing, and
1:00:39
I'm like, I mean, if Kaufman it's like going through this, I'm
1:00:43
okay, you know, it's fine. Exactly now, where can people find
1:00:46
you your movie and your work. Well, the movie's on Amazon, you
1:00:51
know, on Amazon Video, and they can find us on you know,
1:00:55
rabbit Hole Pictures, on Instagram, rabbit Hole Pictures, Rebert Hold Pictures on
1:01:01
Facebook, everywhere, rabbit hople Pictures. Yeah, Ama, thank you so
1:01:07
much for being on the show. Brother, You're an inspiration. I'm glad
1:01:09
to highlight a success story you know, on Amazon in today's world and TVOD
1:01:15
and everything else. So thank you so much for coming on and being so
1:01:20
raw and honest with your with your numbers and your experience. Man, Thank
1:01:22
you, brother, Thank you, Alex. I hope this really helps a
1:01:24
lot of filmmakers out there, and you know, pay hustle. You could
1:01:30
hear at the end that we finished that interview with a thunderous applause background that
1:01:37
lightning strike HAP and wonderful Miami thunderstorms. Oh so well, I want to
1:01:42
thank you. It's my for come the show and dropping those knowledge bombs on
1:01:46
the tribe and inspiring filmmakers that you can make money on Amazon, and you
1:01:52
can make money on ti vod, but it takes work and you really need
1:01:58
to understand what you're doing. In Ismail is an amazing example of that.
1:02:04
If you want to get links to anything we talked about in this episode,
1:02:07
including watching his film Death of a Fool, please head over to the show
1:02:10
notes at Bulletproof Screenwriting dot tv. Forward slash three sixty five. Thank you
1:02:15
so much for listening to guys. As always, keep on writing no matter
1:02:19
what. I'll talk to you soon. Thanks for listening to the Bulletproof Screenwriting
1:02:22
podcast at Bulletproofscreenwriting dot tv.