IFH 472: How to Make Money Selling Indie Feature Film NFTs

Alex Ferrari 0:00
I'd like to welcome to the show Trevor Hawkins and Nathan Kincaid, man How you guys doing?

Trevor Hawkins 0:09
Great, man. Thanks for having me.

Alex Ferrari 0:10
Oh, thanks. Yeah, I'm so I'm so happy to have you guys man. It's it is uh, you know, you guys came on my radar a little while ago when when I saw something about NF T's fly by and I was like, wait a minute, I've heard of these NF T's some guy just sold an NF T for $70 million, or some craziness. And I'm like, Oh, wait, there's some filmmakers being involved in this stuff. I'm like, let me let me check out what you did. And I saw some articles that were written about you in your film. And I was just like, well, I got I got to talk about that I got I got I got to get in there. So from the moment that you we actually book this, to the moment that we're actually recording it I of course have done obscene amounts of research into NF T's Bitcoin blockchain and the whole ball of wax. I mean, I've seen every little every documentary ever made about this, the subject matter.

Trevor Hawkins 1:02
You might be more of an expert than we are at this point.

Alex Ferrari 1:05
But your interview you but but the thing is, though, but you guys are in it, like you guys are in the weeds on it. So like all I have is just knowledge but you guys are like in the weeds doing stuff and I want to see how it's working out for you and everything. So before we jump into NF T's blockchain and all these kind of buzzwords that everyone's hearing out there, how did either both of you guys get into the business?

Trevor Hawkins 1:29
I just picked up a camera in high school and sort of filming my friends skateboarding and wakeboarding and love the skateboarding wakeboarding videos more than I liked the actual sport. I fell in love with the art bit and then in high school, I went to my buddy, his name's Brian Freeman's house. And in one week, we watched in his parents basement, Requiem for a Dream, Donnie Darko and A Clockwork Orange and Blue blew my mind. That's a heavy week. Is that a week? I just like? Yeah, and one week and that was I wasn't even really that familiar with cinema at that point. And so it obviously knocked my socks off. And I've been in love with it ever since. And I've been chasing it ever since.

Alex Ferrari 2:07
Wow, that's that's a heavy week, brother. Man. That is a heavy, heavy week, man. How about you, Nathan?

Nathan Kincaid 2:15
Yeah. In high school, kind of similar. I was a kid I had a camcorder in the trunk of my Pontiac Grand Damn.

Alex Ferrari 2:23
Well, well played, sir. Well played. Yeah.

Nathan Kincaid 2:28
I had to go to college. I was like a family stipulation. But here in Missouri, there was no film program. So as a communication major, felt like it just weren't getting straight, scratched, cinematic itches. So I was shooting for the athletic department. I was up on a scissor lift, filming football practices. I was under the hoop shooting basketball games. And then I decided to go to film school for a master's degree. And LA is always it's funny that we're here talking about what we're doing with NFT's from Missouri, because I've always kind of had a side I at Los Angeles, just from reading the trades and down and dirty pictures was a book that made it really impact on me. Yeah. Yeah. So I was like, and then I've always been a huge Coppola fan. And so I went to film school in San Francisco. Yeah. And then it was during a time when digital was really starting to take over. But at the school I was at, they were like, digital will never take over film. And says like, okay, so I learned film and came up in that, and which I'm grateful for, you know, in hindsight, because it makes you pre visualize and be more prepared and all that stuff. But then after school, I didn't want to take the well paved road to Los Angeles. So I came back to Kansas City to kind of figure it out. And it really wasn't soon after that, that I met Trevor. And I found a kindred spirit and someone else who really was like, serious about doing this, and then we just started getting in the local game. And then eventually that led to a lot of commercial work. And so we both currently make a living in this market doing commercial production. Yeah, that's what we've been doing for the last decade basically.

Alex Ferrari 4:26
And I've said it on the show a million times. I think some of the best best ground you can work to get experience is commercials for film because you work the of course you learn the craft, but it's the politics man, the politics, the politics of the set, how to handle clients how to do that. It's just walks right into like how to animate investors that I know producers. If you get into the studios, how do you how do executives and how you balance everything, egos and all of that stuff. So it's a great training ground for for all of that. But now, tell me about your film. If I pronounce it correctly, Lotawana,

Trevor Hawkins 5:03
you nailed it.

Alex Ferrari 5:05
Thank you. Thank you. Yeah. So tell me about your film Lotawana

Trevor Hawkins 5:10
yeah so, Lotawana is a story about a young couple that live on a sailboat. And they're sort of, I guess, over a bit fed up with their superficial materialistic lives they've been leading. And so they sort of recreate this world for themselves. I don't sailboat. And maybe because of a bit of lack of preparedness, that world comes crashing down on them. And so the whole movie is sort of a thought experiment to the viewer of, can we rewrite our own rules of modern existence? Or does society operated a way for a reason as sort of like, ideally, idealism meets realism, kind of, it was born out of the idea that at one point, I was gonna leave for a few years to sail around the world with one of my friends. But that would mean I'd have to give up on my biggest hustle, my own indie film, hustle, my dream of becoming a filmmaker and making films. And I'd have to give up all of that momentum. And so I had this moment where I realized that I had to stay home. And I had to give up on that, like adventure dream to sort of keep my filmmaking dream alive. And so I'm just really interested in that interface. They're like, Can we still live authentic, unique, fulfilling lives while still sort of, you know, like, doing commercial work doing Wendy's commercials?

Alex Ferrari 6:29
to stay alive, bro. Hey, hey, listen, man, I started off in commercials as well, man. So I completely understand it. So it's, yeah, sometimes you're like, if you ever done tabletop? Yo, yeah. Oh, tabletops. That's, that's a whole other level of crazy with the client to like, you know, can you move? Can you move the cup this way? It's not listening properly. And you're like, what am I doing with my life? Like, why am I here? Like, it's not even, like, Really? But then you look at the check. You're like, Okay.

Nathan Kincaid 7:04
I gotta piggyback that man. We had a moment one time and it was slow motion, like fried onion ring bits being and people were analyzing, like, which way they bounced when they hit?

Alex Ferrari 7:15
Yeah, yeah. Oh, no, we lost the production company was that they lost the account, because the catch up, looked too bloody in the shot, and they in no one caught it. And like they did this kind of like this kind of sweep across. And they're like, yeah, this director has no idea how to shoot catch up. And you're like, Wow, man, this is? This is this is a thing? I don't understand. Yeah. This is maybe maybe I should make a left turn here.

Trevor Hawkins 7:45
And I could go down this dark road with you for a long time. No,

Alex Ferrari 7:48
no, no, no, no, this is not this is not this. We're not here to talk about the horrors of working in the garage. And how soul crushing it can be sometimes sometimes it's fun. But it's it's a bit, there's an off balance there. But um, so when you guys finished your movie, I'm assuming you looked at the distribution landscape and said, well, there's only money to be made here during the traditional distribution ways. I'm sure all these distributors are going to just give us lots and lots of money going to be completely transparent with everything. And we should be able to recoup all of our budget and then some so enough to be able to make another movie. Is that what the conversation was like? Yeah. Yeah. So that's

Nathan Kincaid 8:31
Trevor, you know, we got all these amazing offers. We're just I guess we should just close your eyes to pick one.

Alex Ferrari 8:38
All we see is money. all we see is money in like complete transparency everywhere. Like what Netflix absolutely take two of those. Like, it's, I joke about this for everyone who's listening. If it was, this is their first episode. I joke about this because it's the satis situation that we have as filmmakers is to deal with getting our films out there. So when you look at the landscape, and obviously it wasn't probably what you were looking for, because last I checked, Brad Pitt doesn't star in your movie with Leonardo DiCaprio, right? So it's not yet. So it's a tough sell. It's just looking at the movie. From a trailer standpoint. It looks by the way stunning. It's gorgeous. It's beautifully shot. The story sounds fantastic. But in the marketplace, this is going to be it's an interesting sell. It's an interesting sell to get it out there into the marketplace. So what made you guys that said, You know what, let's, let's bet everything on going down a different road.

Trevor Hawkins 9:36
You want to take it, Nathan?

Alex Ferrari 9:38
for everyone for everyone listening and not seeing their videos. Both their faces froze for a second smiles came up on their faces and they just said Where do you want to go? You go you go fight? Well,

Nathan Kincaid 9:48
I mean, what we've been saying is and everyone that's listening to this podcast is gonna is gonna I think align with this and that is we're in this crazy world now. Where It's easier to make a movie than it is to get anyone to see it, you know. And it's just not the same as it was like there are perceived barriers to entry that there would have been to get a film camera and to get film and put it crew together that way. So basically, we've kind of had our own thematic journey as we've gone on making this movie. And we've always done everything. We've always taken every step of the way to think outside of the box. We've considered the traditional options everywhere we could, but we also step back and we're like, Okay, well, because we're not a big machine. We have nimble opportunities to do things that larger budgets and entities wouldn't be able to have. So if you go all the way back to the beginning of the movie, we were entertaining some like presale offers, but those were contingent on us getting well. Not Brad Pitt, but certainly name market. marketable talent. Yeah, we would love to work with Brad, by the way, because we're all from Missouri.

Alex Ferrari 11:09
Hey, Brad. Hey, Brad, if you're listening, we're all willing to work with you, sir. I know, it's tough out there for you right now, Brad. But if you're willing, any three, or any one of us in the West,

Nathan Kincaid 11:19
bucket list, homie. And so basically, once we saw that we could do a pre sale with a certain amount of budget with certain talent, that also then I'm putting together the schedule. And I'm starting to tell Trevor, like, so we can afford, like, 20 day shoot, maybe. And we're thinking, Man, this is our first movie, we want a little breathing room, you know. And so at a certain point, we said, okay, you know, we're going to, we're going to find our own talent. And once we did that, that opened up the playbook for us. And so for example, we decided to shoot on these lakes every season, you know, not just three weeks consecutive in one month that gave you one look, suddenly, our playbook opened up. And it was like, Okay, cool. Let's shoot a week in February when it's snowing, then let's pick up in late spring, let's do you know, and fall and everything. And so, for us, by the time we got to the, to looking at the ways to get this movie out there. Well, first of all, also, there's the whole era of COVID. We were so excited for film festivals. I mean, that's it as an indie filmmaker, that's your reward, kind of Sure. To meet people like yourself and and other filmmakers and to talk about it and stuff. And so that stuff didn't happen. And then basically, when the NFT possibility showed up, like this little dangly sparkly thing. Well, basically, Trevor and Trevor's wife, who's the CO producer with me on the film, their brother in law, had been looking into what NF T's were, and this is like second week of March. And so he was talking to Trevor's wife about her maybe releasing this album, she's been working on musically as an NF T. And then it just the conversation evolved from there. And they spent a weekend looking into it. And then they kind of pitched it to me. And I was just like, Oh, yeah, I see. I see this, what this is, and so, and again, because we weren't, we didn't have investors that we had to get permission from. We just had to decide on on our own if this is what we want to do. And it's it's just like, Well, what do we have to lose? Really?

Alex Ferrari 13:45
So, so Okay, so we've been talking about NF T's NF T's Can you explain to the audience, what is an NF? t?

Nathan Kincaid 13:52
You can do that part, Trevor?

Trevor Hawkins 13:55
Okay. So the way I understand in ft as of the last month and a half is they exist on the blockchain and the blockchain is one irrefutable code that exists in one unit all around the world. And it exists across all types of computers that are always cross referencing and cross checking each other. So if anybody tries to counterfeit the blockchain, it's essentially impossible because they'll get caught. And I don't know the repercussions of what happens. They just can't,

Alex Ferrari 14:24
I can't I can't, I just can't because it it ruins everything else afterwards. Yeah,

Trevor Hawkins 14:29
sure, sure. And so what that's done is, throughout time, if an artist were to paint a painting, and then hold it in their hands, they can take it to a gallery and the gallery can quantify that and say this painting is worth this much because there's only one, but enter the age of digital art where if you create a piece of digital art, whether it be a cat meme, or a movie like us or an album, or a digital painting, you can recreate that digitally an infinite number of times, essentially losing value to everyone. One of the copies there's never been an original. There technically was but it doesn't matter to people because it's non verifiable. And so what happens with the blockchain is, since you can have one blockchain and one blockchain only if you upload your art to the blockchain in a process called minting, then you all of a sudden have verifiable proof that cannot be broken. That that is the original piece of art that has ever existed. So if I were to make a cat meme, and uploaded on to the blockchain as an NF t, then that will forever be the first cat meme that I have that that there's ever been a reason by you bite me. And then the reason why that has value is just like, why does anybody care about hanging original art in their house versus just a replica, everybody feels the value of the authenticity there. And so for the first time ever, digital art has had an authentication process of originality. And so that's why this whole thing is sort of stormed and flared up as all these digital artists are running into this space. And we've been really lucky because we like Nathan said, when this whole thing kind of exploded, we were standing there with the recently completed indie film in our hands. And nobody had done this with an indie film yet. And so we just kind of took the plunge. Like Nathan said, we weren't beholden to anybody, I actually mortgaged my house to make the movie. And so we own the movie outright. Nathan, myself and my wife, Cory. And so we didn't have to ask permission to anybody, and we just threw it up as an NF T. And we have a few different NF T's available. Some of them are copyright NF T's we have a collection of those where if anybody purchases, one of our copyright, NF T's, they will actually become one of the shareholders have the theatrical cut of our movie and join in with decision making, and profit sharing and everything that goes with owning a cut of a indie film. And then we have a world premiere NFT, which we're really excited about as well that if anybody purchases one of these world premiere NF T's, then they're going to be the first people on the planet to watch the world premiere of this movie, like Nathan was saying, we don't have festivals right now with COVID. And the ones that we've been accepted to have all said they're just doing a digital thing. And we haven't been stoked about that. And so this is essentially our festival run, as Nathan's been saying, and what's kind of cool about it is that forever world premieres have been a localized thing and a physical city with physical people going into physical theater. And now anyone from around the world could join our world premiere, we're also offering a couple other smaller NF T's just entry level things like frame grabs in the movie. And we've got a list of mile long of drops that we plan on doing here in the near future. We're excited though, because what we found is that our specific NF T's are turning into what they're calling legacy tokens, because like you said, we were the first through the door, that now people are caring about the first NBA one, the first Ilan must tweet the first, pretty much every type of NF t that comes to the door. And we've secured our place in history in this whole new frontier. And we're honestly, we're not experts on the blockchain. Whenever my brother in law told us about it, we frantically googled what an NFT was just like everybody else. And so we're kind of making it up as we go. But we feel really confident. And we're really stoked about where things have come so far already with it. Because I mean, just in the last month or so, we've made back a fifth of our production budget. And that's just within within the first month. And what's sweet about NF T's is after you sell in enough NFT and then subsequent purchases, like say, if that buyer were to resell that to another buyer, you can set your what's the word

Alex Ferrari 19:03
percent

Trevor Hawkins 19:04
percentage to where you would get, I think the industry standard is

Alex Ferrari 19:08
10%,

Trevor Hawkins 19:09
which is what we went with, we'll get 10% of resale resells down the road. So as legacy tokens raise and value, we will we will see money coming from that down the road. And our end goal is to turn this around and be able to use this whole new marketplace and this whole new frontier to fund our next film that we've already got written and ready to go.

Alex Ferrari 19:32
So Lego so legacy tokens are essentially the rookie card of of the artist essentially. So this is the Mickey Mantle rookie card. Or

Nathan Kincaid 19:42
it's not just the rookie card of a player. It's kind of the rookie card of a sport. Well, you

Alex Ferrari 19:47
have a you have a you have a rookie card of the sport because you're the first out the gate, doing something like this. But then being the one that gets that not only That legacy token, but of Trevor's first film out there, and I, you know, I, the way I've explained it, to some people is like, imagine if, you know, you had Quinn Tarantino's NFT for my best friend's birthday, which is the unreleased first feature he ever did, you know, or the Reservoir Dogs NFT.

Trevor Hawkins 20:25
Right.

Alex Ferrari 20:25
And all of a sudden when quitting blew up that NFT would be extremely valuable. So when you're purchasing an NF t from an artist, which is what's going on here, you're betting not only on the NFT, but you're also offering something else. And there's, there's multiple different kinds of NF T's, which we'll talk about in a second. But you're also betting that Trevor is his next movie is going to be the Avengers, obviously. And then, and then and then he wins the Oscar for the Avengers first time ever, and then you know, things like that, and then all of a sudden that NFT turns into a much more valuable proposition. I know you're he's he's blushing By the way, everyone he's actually blushing right now. But that's it, but that's the thing you'd like, you know, if you're, if you're buying NFT's from Sundance Film Festival, guys and gals, you know, how many of those if we would if there was NF T's in the 90s? How much would add burns Richard Linklater, Spike Lee or you know, Steven Soderbergh all those all this videotape. Yeah, yeah. All those NFT's what would they be worth today? You know, if there was something like that's a woman when I was looking into NFT's, the first that I just couldn't grasp it, I couldn't grasp it. I'm like, Okay, I get it, I get it. But then it just like, Oh, it's a rookie card. Got it. Okay. And then every movie is another season that he's playing in the maybe that that movie, so let's say your next movie blows up. That's the year that you won the MVP, and you won the World Series. You know, but other seasons, maybe other movies don't pop that way. And they're not as valuable because of you know, but it like in any filmmakers career, some movies are much more valuable than other films, depending on

Trevor Hawkins 21:59
I think that's a great analogy. I haven't heard of put that. That's actually quite, I said thing.

Nathan Kincaid 22:04
I've been a baseball card one and then also you think about like, amazing Spider Man number one or

Alex Ferrari 22:09
something comic? Yep. Yep. Well, it's like, it's like a, it's like in comic books, I was a comic book, I've been a comic book collector, most of my life, you know, there's different issues that have more value because of what happens in the issue. So the first the first appearance of venom and the first appearance of the Green Goblin or whatever that you know, the different things are when Spider Man suit turns black, or these kind of things, these events make those issues more More, more popular, and hence more valuable. Same thing would happen with NF T's. So you already have a rookie card scenario, you have your amazing, not amazing Spider Man. Number one, you have amazing fantasies number 15, which is the first appearance of spider man with a lot of wanna, right now. And you're also like, oh, by the way, you're also the first comic book, that's a legacy token. So that's essentially what you guys have in this thing. And then as as your careers continue to grow the value of this not only from the point of view of being the first comic book, and the first appearance of Trevor, as a filmmaker, and, you know, as a creator, or creative creator behind this, and forgive me, if there's other creators, I'm just using you as an example driver behind this, but then the value goes up. But then there's sometimes you might have in 1941, like Spielberg did, you know, he had Jaws, Close Encounters 1941. And then all of a sudden, 1941 might not be as valuable then Raiders of the Lost Ark came up, and then that NFT is gonna explode as well. So that's the kind of, that's the way I see it in my head. And that's the only way I can make any sense of it all. But it's extremely exciting. potential, and I feel that no one's really figured it out yet. No One No One everyone's still trying to figure it out. Literally, by the day, I've been having conversations with distribution guys about figuring it out. They're all trying to figure out how to crack the nut. They all know something's cool here and they all know is the future. But um, like I was just thinking I'm like, this is a no brainer for like Disney. This is no brainer for like, you know, you're gonna buy the Avengers on it. Yeah, I'm sure that like they I'm sure there's going to be an Avengers, you know, you know, or the next Black Panther. Can you imagine an NFT for Black Panther? You know, after Chadwick unfortunately passed, like the value of that, like, Oh my god, how much I mean, what and even before his passing just the explosion of what that movie was, imagine if there was an NFT for that works. I think the NBA guys have been doing that the best the top shot, guys.

Trevor Hawkins 24:28
I mean, there's we've been fortunate enough to talk to some like development companies in ft world right now. And they're talking exactly like you the actual people writing the code and developing this world right now are saying to themselves that we don't know where this is gonna go. We don't know if we're gonna be the ones right now. All these tech companies are rushing in like, the gold rush of 19,000,049 whatever year that was 1490 whatever. Right. But yeah, right now No one knows what's going to happen. It's a brave new world. And we're lucky enough to be the first ones out of the gate and entire film industry.

Alex Ferrari 25:06
That's insane. Man, that's absolutely insane. Now with NF t, so you have there's different kinds of NF T's. So you actually are selling? Basically, points, essentially, you're selling like points on of the film through distribution. And is it only for the theatrical one? Or is it for all of the distribution of your film, because I know Kevin Smith is releasing his next movie, and giving, like literally just selling and auctioning off his entire distribution rights to his films. So what is yours?

Trevor Hawkins 25:34
So yeah, we have a few different types of NF T's and just how we kind of took a note from when we were researching, we kind of took a note from Kings of Leon, when they released their album, and Grimes and a few other folks, when they released their music, you also get these bonus things with them. And so we kind of took a note from their style. And in addition to the, to the NFT itself, the NF T is literally only a chunk of code on the blockchain. So if you buy a normal NF T, that's really all you're getting, you don't own the copyright to the piece of art, you don't own copyright to anything else. But with us, if you buy one of our copyright, NF T's, then the bonus you get with that is an actual share of the theatrical cut of the movie. And so it's you would own that cut of the film. So wherever that theatrical cut goes off and lives in the world, you would own a part of that and own be entitled to any profits to that. The counterintuitive part is that the value of what you're purchasing in ft, is really just the NFT itself. Because as everybody knows, becoming an investor and owner and an indie film has never been a get rich, quick scheme. And

Alex Ferrari 26:52
really quickly, how do you how do you make? How do you make a million? How do you make a million dollars in the film industry? You start off, you start with a billion. Oh,

Trevor Hawkins 27:03
exactly. And so the day if and when lotto Juana turns a profit, then absolutely all of our shareholders who have purchased these NF T's will be entitled to that. But really the value, and the cool piece of this whole bit is just owning that NF t itself. And then, and like I said, the other collection that we've got is the world premiere, the bonus you get with that world premiere NF T is that you'll be the first person to ever watch that movie in the public world premiere of a lot of one. So that's kind of like a ticket stub. The NF T is really the ticket stub, and along with that ticket stub, you get to go to the event.

Alex Ferrari 27:40
Now do you actually Alright, so you don't actually put the entire movie up on open sea, which is the platform that you guys chose to use. It's not like the whole movie is up there somewhere for someone to watch, you're actually just selling rights at this point. So you're selling rights or access to the film in one way, shape, or form like and because you're buying it on the blockchain, or you're buying an NFT. It's, it's there, and it's yours. And you can't get rid of it. And it's done. But there's other ways of going about it. So you're selling distribution, basically selling points to at points and event like, you know, points, basically points in world premiere. So you're selling like a couple different things. But you could also sell it as an art piece. So you could say there is 100 Limited Edition. And FTS, have a lot of Juana as an art piece that you can sell. And if you and there's only going to be 100 ever, so they're like limited edition prints of the film. And there's only 100 of them. So if you had again, going back to that analogy, El Mariachi, the only one of your number, you know, you have one of 100 El Mariachi NF T's. What would that be worth today? So that's another possibility and selling it more as an artwork thing. But there's other the other possibility of selling distribution rights. And also there's another possibility of raising funds for you from a crowdsourcing and crowdfunding and crowdfunding through it as well, as you've heard of that as well.

Nathan Kincaid 29:04
Oh, yes. Yeah, we've been we've we've been thinking about that route for a long time. And, yeah, it's a good point, when you're, you're saying about making an art piece, you know, you think of like certain, say, a criteria on collection DVD that has only a certain run. And we we thought about all that. So you have to you have to remember when, when we were getting this thing minted on March 16, you know, and we're trying to move fast, because we don't know who else is out there trying to do this, right. So you're really quickly trying to decide what we want to do. And you know, we quickly decided that we wanted to give it give, put this real world value on it as well. But we then saw an opportunity. And this is where it gets exciting because this is an experiment as well. So when we when we made the copyright NF T, that opens up this kind of thought process this, you know, you've opened a new organic road of thinking here. And so now we're like, Okay, so what happens when we get an offer for distribution? Do we then and what and where we're getting now and working with lawyers on making real is like, you know, then do those copyright NFT holders get go to a password protected site, and they get to see the deal points, and they get the vote, as well. That's,

Alex Ferrari 30:34
that sounds fun. That's good. That sounds fantastic.

Nathan Kincaid 30:38
Right. And so I know there's I mean, I went to film school, I know there's a lot of film school people out there that don't get to be involved in these kind of conversations. And and they'd love to be, you know, and it could be it's exciting. So it

Alex Ferrari 30:50
is exciting. But also, I think you're in this is, again, being the first one through the door, you're the one that gets shot, or first, whatever the hell you get the arrows in your back. The thing is that you're living in the NFT. And the rights are in the NF are in the NF t but you're still dealing in the in the real world, and like the legacy world of distribution and the legacy world of, of how money is made and everything like that. If the entire system was on blockchain, if everything worked on blockchain, then it would be all automatic. It'd be an automatic payment systems, you wouldn't even have to worry about it do we do we'd be doing smart contracts? Essentially, well

Trevor Hawkins 31:29
are we have a digital strategist who actually probably should be on this call with us. But he he's much more knowledgeable about this whole space. And he's telling us about platforms that already exist, that you can just sort of throw a lot of one as a project onto and then divvy up all this stuff, we actually have plans of releasing the film lot of one a properly to the entire world to view later this year, like fall, winter time. And as Nathan said, In the beginning, we had offers that we weren't stoked about for pre sales and initial financing. And then we decided to go our own route, we had our own production struggles that those are stories all in themselves that we had to overcome. And then after the movie is completed, we had distribution offers that we weren't that stoked about as well. And so

Alex Ferrari 32:16
can you can you can you tell me what those were, I love hearing these, I love hearing these fantastic offers. Well, hey, without names, without names with companies, yeah,

Trevor Hawkins 32:25
without dropping companies, it was just sort of everything you'd expect for an indie film, we had a handful of distributors that were like, yeah, we'll throw you up on all these digital platforms. And then we expect you to see this much money, and they give us these breakdowns of all this stuff. And then we looked at the other slate, we looked at their slate of films that they're currently representing, and maybe they'd have one or two gems in there. But for the large part, they're like, we call them like spray and pray distributors, where they just like, throw a million movies in the shotgun. The

Alex Ferrari 32:57
shotgun distributors. Yeah,

Trevor Hawkins 32:58
yeah, exactly. And so we just did not we put too much time and too much work and too much blood, sweat and tears in this film to just settle for something like that. And we're, we're proud of the film that we made. And so it felt a little bit like settling that we kind of knew that we wouldn't get a lot out of it. And so that's what when this whole NF t thing came along. And we didn't have something we were super stoked about on the table. We'd said, What the hell, why not, and it's paid off for us because we're getting to talk to you, then how many indie films out there would have loved to have conversations. I mean, we've talked to indie wire and Screen Rant and the 30 others or maybe not 30, maybe like $15 or something like that, like, so many indie films would just love that opportunity. And like I said, we're already starting to make money back. So we feel like it's been a success so far. And looking forward to the way we released the movie publicly to the world. We've got some ideas that we're really excited about that is even going to sort of try to transform that space a little bit as well, like be and do something that not everybody's doing and actually getting eyeballs from around the world to watch the movie.

Alex Ferrari 34:06
That's, that's, that's awesome. And it's it's such an exciting thing. And one thing that we kind of talked about, but I want everyone to listen and to understand is that with NF T's that 10% that you're talking about that you've set in the NFT that you know, if someone resells that and resells it, that's revolutionary for an artist that's an absolutely revolutionary idea because it Van Gogh paints a van Gogh and gives it to a gallery and the gallery pays 500 bucks for it. Then Van Gogh dies and everyone thinks that he's a millionaire, or if he doesn't mean doesn't die. He's still alive and everyone thinks, oh my god, this guy's amazing. They could go off and sell that for $60 million, and the artist gets nothing, not upset. But with NF T's the artist continues to generate revenue with every resale so if the artist becomes more popular if the artists become you know comes becomes more expensive. The artist is continuously getting a passive revenue stream For the rest of his life, and I'm not even sure if it continues to go on and on for eternity, essentially, you know,

Trevor Hawkins 35:08
absolutely right, just how Macklemore and sturgill Simpson, when they first started releasing their own music, they kept it. They didn't want to go through the label system because of how many people had their hands in the honeypot. And they decided, hey, you know, this new digital world and new emerging technologies? Why don't we just do it ourselves this way. And they're better off for it. And so now that the film industry has kind of taken a note from the music industry, and a lot of different ways, where we're really kind of letting ourselves be the guinea pigs for all these new avenues of the film industry.

Alex Ferrari 35:39
Yeah, I mean, it's pretty brave what you guys are doing? I mean, because I know, I mean, looking at the film, I don't know what your budget was. But looking at the film, it doesn't look like it was done for five bucks, five bucks. I mean, it looks like it costs it cost a minute. I mean, it costs a bit it costs a bit to make so and you've financed that, you know, you refinance your house and got the money which I've yelled from the top of the mountain in this podcast, don't ever refinance your house to budget, an independent film. I've said it a million times. Because it's usually the first it's a risk. But is it a risk that you're willing to take? So you know, hopefully, I don't think that it's going to you have I say that because you also have a career, you have revenue coming in. But I've seen filmmakers who do that. And they are hoping and praying that this is the only revenue that's going to keep their family alive. And I've seen, I've seen divorces, I've seen every I mean, because that's just stupid. But you're taking a calculated risk. So it's okay. I will, I will accept that you need my acceptance. But I just want everyone to know that yes, that that makes that will take it makes all the sense in the world. Now one other thing that you were doing with, with NF T's as you started putting out stills from your film, as I am assuming art pieces, those are being treated as art pieces.

Trevor Hawkins 36:57
Yeah, so each still that we put out, we put out 20. So far, when we first listed it, they're about five bucks a pop, but a theory has gone up a little bit. So they might be around 10. Now, I don't know what those are. Yeah, sure. And those are just meant to be just little art pieces, entry level things that if people are excited about what we're doing, they can jump in and buy some of those as well. Over half of them have already been bought, there's only nine of them left, so and

Alex Ferrari 37:21
then you're only doing one or one at a time. There's only one NFT personal.

Trevor Hawkins 37:27
Exactly. So and we released 20 stills from the movie that we're stoked about, and I think 11 of them have sold so and I'm not even sure if anybody's even relisted them for sale yet. So those are digital art piece collectibles that people are already owning, and they will always in forever be the NFT owners of that, then there will never be any more. Those are sort of like one off things.

Alex Ferrari 37:50
That's so awesome. Like, I can't believe that. That's like, I don't need to say like, I can't believe that's working. Like, like, I can't believe it. But it makes sense. I mean, if you're into this, and you're if you're really excited about doing it, it makes all the sense in the world. And you are it's just such a you could everyone listening, you have to understand the potential here is massive for the right project for people who know what they're doing how they do it. It's not going to be perfect for everybody. But it's another potential revenue stream. Even if you go traditionally, you could still do NF T's. And I'm already hearing the distributors are adding that into the contracts now like it's this includes NF T's you can't we own everything. Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

Trevor Hawkins 38:32
The music industry is being flipped upside down right now in real time from this. And there's music companies out there that are trying to be the big the next big Spotify for the blockchain world. And everything's changing in real time, because it's sort of a user generated space where you can be the owners of all of your content as where Spotify has been. I'm, I don't really have a dog in this race. But Spotify rips off musicians, you know? Absolutely. Absolutely. They don't pay what they should be paying for all their plays. And artists are getting tired of that. And so entered blockchain and all these new technologies and people are running over there and just like streaming upset the world of like CDs and traditional music purchasing. Now, blockchain is upsetting the existing streaming paradigm. And the film industry forever has had an existing physical DVD, VHS paradigm that got disrupted by streaming. And now, the film industry will probably take a note from the music industry, as it usually does. And the blockchain in all of these new interfaces could be next. And like I said, we just happen to be the first out of the gate. I mean, yeah, like with NBA top shots. I

Alex Ferrari 39:43
mean, those guys jumped on so quickly, and they're doing so well with those NF T's. I mean, in there, the first kind of major organization to really take it seriously. But it was just a no brainer, like it's a it's a it's a sports card, but you're buying highlights. You know, you're you're buying You're buying Imagine if you're buying a Michael Jordan highlight, like you own that highlight, like that's, that's pretty cool. That's a pretty cool idea so if you owned El Mariachi you know as as an art piece pretty cool bragging rights man I gotta, like, you know, like, and like people listening like I got I got a lot of water, a lot of wantagh's, you know, NFT like I'm the I bought the first independent film ever put out on on NFT that's bragging rights. And that's the same reason why you buy an original and put up on the wall, as opposed to buying a poster 100% right. Now, now you also chose I was gonna ask you about gas. Next is a gassing or SP gas fees. Yeah. So explain to the people like if the open sea is the platform you're using, they're arguably one of the biggest platforms for NF T's, right? Yeah. So explain what a gas fee is. And what was your gas for you to put this stuff up, if you don't want me to ask him.

Trevor Hawkins 40:59
Open see is operates a little differently than some of the other platforms you can mint NF T's on and you only pay your gas fees and percentage to the platform which is open see once you're in empty cells. So you can list 100 or 1000 nF T's you don't pay a dime until they say something. And then they just take a percentage of that and what gas fees are. It costs money and human hours to keep to make the blockchain exist and keep going. And gas fees all those are as money going into the honey pot of developers that keep this thing running. So nobody's really making a ton from what I understand. I'm not an expert on the blockchain. But these are literally just like your taxes that you have to pay to keep the roads going.

Alex Ferrari 41:47
And for people it's through my understanding of the blockchain in order for every transaction that goes into the blockchain, and by the way, there are multiple block chains. So everyone thinks that there's just not the one blockchain there's multiple different block chains by you know, aetherium is one. Bitcoin runs on another blockchain, but that's crypto and we'll get to crypto in a minute flow and there's a bunch of different blockchains and then there's now people building block chains internally for companies. blockchain is a concept. But Ethereum is arguably the biggest most well known blockchain to do other tack on other businesses and platforms and things on so it's like the highway that they've put on where you could put you can establish businesses and houses and things like that. So from my understanding with with blockchain hold, I just lost my train of thought because this is tough man this is rough stuff

Trevor Hawkins 42:36
blockchain well, and you're you're getting into the point where you're gonna start schooling us we might be learning some facts from you here.

Alex Ferrari 42:46
Okay, okay. So So blockchain Okay, now just just came back to me. So blockchain every time that there's a, a, a transaction, it needs to be verified. And by the people who verify it are miners, people outside that are all around the world, trying to break down the algorithm, the complicated math calculations to verify that the thing and put it into the blockchain, and there's so many block so many transactions that go into one block before it goes back on the chain. And this is all being done completely decentralized. Without anyone those gas fees, because in the way that why miners do that is because they get paid. And how do they get paid as generally with crypto. So if they're on the Ethereum, they get a little bit of aetherium crypto per transaction that they break, and then everyone is racing, to be the first to break that or to calculate that with their computing power. So they get the they get the money. So there's 1000 people trying to millions of people trying to, to be the first to to do the math. That's why you need bigger and bigger computers faster and faster internet more and more power. And that's how this whole thing goes. So with Bitcoin, Bitcoin, which we'll talk about a second is its crypto, which is a it's an actual currency, every transactions that happens on that is a bit slower because it's getting tougher and tougher to break these codes because there's a limited amount of Bitcoin ever that's going to be mined, where theory there is not a theory that goes on and on and on. It was built like that, because it's not arguably wasn't supposed to be a cryptocurrency. It was supposed to be a platform where people can do that. But now aetherium is exploding. As of this recording, I mean, it's gone up like 25% in the last week or two. But that's the world of crypto now. How much do you guys know about crypto and can you talk about cryptocurrencies a little bit and how that whole works?

Trevor Hawkins 44:38
I'll put it this way. I feel like everything you just said, we've heard from Tucker, our digital strategist who's on our a lot of on a team. And I feel like last time is explained my eyes kind of glazed over a bit and exited the room somehow in my brain. So I feel like that again, a little bit right there. So I think you've reached the end of our

Alex Ferrari 45:01
College. Nathan, you've been very quiet Nathan. Yeah,

Nathan Kincaid 45:05
yeah. Hey Tucker, Tucker, somebody gets Tucker on the phone.

Trevor Hawkins 45:09
filmmakers from the beginning. And that's where our heart and our passion is we got experts on is

Alex Ferrari 45:16
no worries, that's I wanted to get to that point, we've reached that point. And that's fantastic. And I'm glad we've got that. But it's the crazy artists that are the ones who make this stuff possible, man is that, you know, it's, it's pretty remarkable. Now,

Nathan Kincaid 45:31
I'll just throw in there real quick, man, if you're an indie filmmaker, I mean, at some point, you're an entrepreneur as well, like, you're always looking for a way to just get it done. And like your ad says, You're always hustling, you know, you're, you're, you're trying to find a way. And so, you know, this was a way that presented itself to us. And we, you know, we took it. And basically you, because I feel that an independent film that has maybe a bigger star involved or a bigger, you know, no offense more marketable director or something else that can bring an audience, someone who has an existing audience, whether that be a YouTuber, a podcaster,

Alex Ferrari 46:10
or like a, you know, an ED burns or Spike Lee, or someone who has an existing audience out there, I feel that it's gonna be a lot easier for them to generate revenue because they have an existing audience. So that's why I still find it so fascinating with you guys. Because I'm like, well, there's no stars in it. This is his first film. So you're generating this from basically all the press that you've been getting about this, because you guys are the first one through the door, and people are like, this is cool. And now this is new and, and you're generating revenue from this, which is honestly genius.

Trevor Hawkins 46:41
Oh, well. Thanks,

Alex Ferrari 46:43
dude. I did I did I see I've seen everything, bro. I've seen all about indie. I've seen every tactic on how to hustle some money for an independent film. And that's why I reached out to you guys. I was like, Oh, no, no, like, I gotta I gotta get these guys on the phone.

Trevor Hawkins 46:56
Yeah, I mean, we're never in a million years when we have thought this is what a majority of our conversations would be about when lotto Juana started getting attention. And we're actually really excited. We believe in the film itself. And we're really excited to have conversations about the actual movie whenever we do release it later this year. Yeah, yeah, we'll take all of it we can get right now. It's just such a, we're so lucky that we even found ourselves in a situation,

Nathan Kincaid 47:22
right. So many examples in the past, though, like, even when Morgan Spurlock did supersize me, they got these like fat Ronald McDonald dolls, and we're handing them out at Sundance. And that got people to see the movie. And then they said, Oh, that's a good movie. So, you know, yeah, we're not just a gimmick. But you know, this market is so oversaturated if you if you can find a way or think of a way to get through the fray, then if you're really an indie filmmaker, you're gonna have to think of something you got to find a way

Alex Ferrari 47:59
Oh, there's no question about it, man. I mean, you that that's the thing, you've got a quality product, man, look, I've seen Look, if I would have seen the movie, honestly, I'll be I'll be straight up with you guys. I read the story. I read the stories and read the articles. But if I checked the trailer out, and when I looked at the trailer, if it was like some sort of garbage thing shot on, like, you know, a VHS camera or some stuff, and like, if it would have been like, that would be like, No, I can't have him on the show. There's, there's a quality product here. You just, yeah, no, I mean, just from did I see so much, man, I talked independent filmmakers on a daily basis. I'm sent everything every day. So I see so much stuff coming through. So when anything like this comes through my in in front of my radar, I can see quality. So I'm like, Okay, these are these are filmmakers, they know the craft, they can put something together looks really good. So I knew there was quality there. But trust me, man, if it was, if this was like a garbage thing, I would have not had you guys on the show. I'd be like, Look, I'll find another way to talk about NF T's but there's a quality movie here. So it's not a gimmick, because that would have been a gimmick. Like, you know if, if a if a trauma film does this, which I'm sure Lloyd will be doing this any moment now. But if like a you know, like a trauma film, make something like this, which are those like Toxic Avenger films, which he should because they're going to sell out. But a trauma esque film that didn't have the cachet that trauma does, I would have been like, no, not so much. But this is quality man from the poster to the from the poster to the trailer to the website. Now you guys have a solid, a solid presentation of a film and I say I don't take that very lightly. Because most independent films have absolutely no idea how to present themselves how to market themselves how to get themselves out there. So that's another reason why I wanted to get you guys on the show.

Trevor Hawkins 49:45
Well, that means a lot man, especially since you live in breed this world. That That means a lot. That's huge. It's Nathan and I've been hitting our heads together for long enough now because I mean, we're We are proud of the film we made and I mean we'll See what the world thinks of it. We're really excited to hear the good with the Bad's. But I mean, it. We're not famous Nathan and I aren't famous, our actor and actress aren't famous. And we did make a drama that is pretty, not by the books. And we, when we were starting out, we thought we wanted to do something different. But really what happens is is double edged sword where you kind of get penalized when you're in our situation, because we're not famous. If we were famous doing some different people eat it up instantly. Or if we had a top like an alias star in our movie, then people go to see it in a heartbeat. But since we don't have any of that stuff along with the ride, we've got to come up with something crazy like NF T's just to get people to even look at it.

Alex Ferrari 50:46
Right? No, absolutely. And that's the problem with the marketplace today. Like you honestly, anything you said, it's so beautifully at the beginning of this conversation is like, there is no barrier to entry to make a movie now anyone can make a feature film you. You've just cobbled together basic understanding of how to craft the film. It's not hard to do. I mean, look at it. It's hard to craft a good film. We all know that. But the technical aspects of making it it's not the cost is not there anymore. Like you couldn't look at my last couple movies I made for under 10 grand each. And they were sold around the world and God and Hulu and all this kind of stuff. So but those were those kind of stories, those kind of movies. But now it's it's getting it's about getting it seen so and what a film school still teaching, they're still teaching you how to make no.

Nathan Kincaid 51:32
Yeah, I mean, now all the information I got for $50,000 in debt, you can find online. So

Alex Ferrari 51:40
listen, I was I was 20. I was $20,000 in debt, I graduated in 90, okay, something 90 something. So, and I the best, the best two things I learned in film school is how to wrap the cable. And because that's an art form, how to wrap cable properly, and how to make a good cup of coffee. And that got me my first few jobs. That other than that, my teacher, my post teacher said, they'll never edit broadcast quality on a computer. Ever. That's what he said, I remember that. So clearly in my in my head. I was like, wow, okay. And I learned on film, too. I learned on film and on online systems like the CMS 3600. I know you how old you guys are younger than you much younger than me. So I'm like probably calling you talking gibberish to you. But like the online tape, tape, the tape and all that kind of stuff is what I learned on. And the first ad that I jumped on was the meet when it was called Media Composer. And it was like 20 to 60 by 260 or so. Like it was like,

Trevor Hawkins 52:42
resolution was horrible. I'm gonna type stuff.

Alex Ferrari 52:45
Know what I mean? Because the block like no, like,

Trevor Hawkins 52:47
we used to have this editing machine in my broadcasting class in high school called a Casablanca and it was like a VHS to VHS editing machine. I don't even know how it works.

Nathan Kincaid 52:59
We had that too. That was one of the original, like nonlinear editing systems. But then I went so I had that in high school. And then I went to Well, I went to undergrad, then I went to grad and they still have flat beds in the basement. Yeah, they were like cutting for real for real. And, and then the digital technology was I remember like things like p two cards and the the media just kept changing every other year. And it was like, I was like, man, I don't want to spend my time trying to keep up with what the fastest memory card is. Like. So I just went all in on the film and studying the classics and studying the industry and stuff like that wouldn't change.

Alex Ferrari 53:39
The lenses changed so fast. The cameras changed so like now you know now like 8k What is it? 10k or 12k that it's like it's obscene. What is going on right now? And I just, I it's like when I'm ready to shoot something I'll look I'm like Alright, what's going on? What do we got? Alright, let's we'll get picked that we'll pick that we'll pick that and the only thing you should invest in ever is lenses because that doesn't change. You still need good glass no matter what the sensor is. But I mean all you need this guy and I love vintage Personally, I love the nice vintage glass. And I'll geek out for you guys if you if you're into into glass. My last film I shot with a Canon optic 5.8 wide is the little brother to the 9.8 which Kubrick shot Clockwork Orange and shining with all those wide shots that they don't fisheye.

Trevor Hawkins 54:28
Wow,

Alex Ferrari 54:29
that's Yeah, I got it. I got it. I put it on the 16 millimeter sensor of the Blackmagic Pocket. The Smart the first Blackmagic Pocket I shot a movie with him spray. It's fantastic.

Trevor Hawkins 54:37
I'm a little jealous of that I shot a lot of wanna on it was cell finance self shot everything and all we could afford was canon L series glass on the EF mountain that we shot on on

Alex Ferrari 54:49
dude all my stuff's on the EF mount EF mount are are 4/3 four thirds, micro four thirds. Oh yeah, I was. Oh yeah, it's fine, dude, it's fine. I shot my last two features. We're on On, on the Sigma 18 to 35 portrait lens, which is a fan, plastic lens, it looks gorgeous. And it's fine, dude, it's fine. People get all caught up with that stuff. And at the end of the day, imagine, imagine this conversation we're having right now, right? And then there's arguments in production like, No, we need this camera, we need this lens, we need this, this this. But when it's done, they're like, now what? Now what I? Where do I get

Trevor Hawkins 55:23
a sculptor friend of mine who says it's so well, he says that the best painters, the best sculptors in the world, can break a twig off of a tree and make a better piece than everybody does got all the finest toolkits available. And that's kind of how I feel with cameras as well, um, I don't keep up. I'm a dp as well, I shot a lot of one and I do commercial stuff. And I don't keep up minute to minute, like you were saying, because I feel like it's more about the artistry of what you put in front of the lens. You gotta know the lenses do. But yeah,

Alex Ferrari 55:54
at a certain point, you're just like, do I need 55k? Like, I don't need a 55k resolution, which we're going to go there eventually, at a certain point you like, how much more you're going to

Nathan Kincaid 56:05
broadcast it against the surface of the moon? Because the kind of surface you're getting?

Alex Ferrari 56:11
I mean, so I want to get your opinion, guys. What do you think the future revenue potentials are with NF T's and independent films? Do you think that is going to become a mainstay? Do you think it's going to be? Do you think it's going to become an oversaturated marketplace again, just like crowdfunding was when because when crowdfunding showed up, the first few films that crowdfunded did extremely well, but then everyone just got burned out on it. So do you feel that NF T's are going to go the same same route?

Trevor Hawkins 56:36
That's a great question, man. And that's the one that everybody's wanting to know right now. Because, sure, I would believe that some of the prices of some of the NF T's have been sold for those astronomical numbers are a bit inflated. But I do believe that this is a new frontier that's here to stay. Like I said, it legitimate legitimizes digital art for the first time in history. And this people aren't going to run away from that this is a new frontier, maybe things will get more valuable. Like if you get in early, maybe you'll be one of those folks that things just raise in value, which is we've already seen happening with us, and just the short amount of time. But yeah, maybe eventually, the digital art space is gonna get so flooded that it's not, we never even thought of it as a get rich quick scheme, we were mainly just looking to get a lot of water out into the world. And this seemed like a great way to do it. And if we could, the end goal would be to fund our next film, like raising money to make a movie number two that's sitting on the table ready to go. That's That's the dream right there. And I don't know, I mean, your guess is as good as mine. I bet I could see a lot of folks running into this space, but it's still so green, it'll be green for a while it will be Yeah, that hell no.

Nathan Kincaid 57:52
Some problems, but it doesn't solve all the problems. And there's still a market saturation problem with film content. There's too much content out there. And I don't know where you're, you know, I'm not advocating for gatekeepers, because because that that can be frustrating at times. And that can be politicized and monopolize. And, and so you know, yeah, it's tough. It's like, if there's a way here, there, there's a revenue model here that exists and that were going to help find, but it still doesn't solve the problem of, well, what happens when you have more films being made, and people can watch? You know what I mean? To me? And, you know, what, I don't know, I think maybe people need to be a little harsher. In some sense. It's like, you know, just because you can make a film doesn't mean that

Alex Ferrari 58:56
you should

Nathan Kincaid 58:56
worthy of people watching it or that you should. Yeah.

Alex Ferrari 59:01
Look, it's Look, it's the same thing that happened. And I saw this happen. It's when, when editing systems became affordable, and everyone had a Final Cut, when final cuts showed up, and started disrupting avid because when avid was avid was around, it would cost 50 grand minimum to get into a digital editing system. But then at Final Cut showed up in like, you know, maybe 434 grand you you're up and running as an editor and then all of a sudden, my rate from 50 bucks an hour, 75 bucks an hour as an editor, a freelance editor had to drop down to 25 or 30, because I had a 500. Other Yahoo's who had no idea how to edit anything, but they've they've completely saturated the marketplace. And then I'm like, I'm competing with a guy who just got out of film school, who has barely any understanding, but he says he'll do it for 20 and the producer is such an idiot that he goes, sure I'll let up. I'm gonna pay this guy. Obviously the money makes more sense. But then after he screwed it up, they usually come to me anyway. They're like, Oh, this guy's bended up Can you do, but that was the problem. So it's like, it's great that everyone has access to this stuff. But it's it's the solution and the problem all at the same time, because now it opens up opportunities for people who would have never had opportunities to do it. And then, but it also domitian diminishes opportunities for filmmakers who should get it? And I've had that conversation with some of the guests I've had on the show. Like I talked to Edward burns and not to be a douche ego drops names, but but when I was talking to Ed burns about I go, do you think brothers Macmillan would make it today? And he's like, probably not his color. Do you think Clark's would make it today? Do you think El Mariachi would be seen

Nathan Kincaid 1:00:35
or slacker? Right? Right? But see back then those guys, you know, Kevin Smith and Edward burns, and like even Christopher Nolan with some of his early movies, they had a production barrier to entry, that they really had to want it. They really had to have the dream and the passion and they found a way to get it done. So then they broke through to this space where there, there weren't as many. And so you know, that's what sucks now is that you're actually your barrier, your barrier to entry or your gatekeepers are the distributors. But you have this whole tear of them that are letting everything through that right. You know, I don't know, how do you get? How do you separate the wheat from the chaff? How does the cream rise to the top today?

Alex Ferrari 1:01:20
Yeah, well, yeah, because there's distributors out there like, like you were saying, the throw everything against the wall and see what sticks distributor, they're bringing all the they're they're hustling all these kids and these guys in and gals who are putting these movies in, and they're like, Oh, I can make a quick 5000 off of that. And the filmmaker will never see a dime ever. I'll make a quick 5000. So if I can get 10 of those. Well, that's 50 grand this month. And the way I structure the deals is I never have to pay the filmmaker and after that if it makes any money, whatever, but it probably won't. And that's the and that's and they and they have so much content. And so many films that it's so it's it's it's just it's it's a tough man, this is a tough nut to crack brothers. And this is a tough man.

Nathan Kincaid 1:02:00
Maybe it's tastemakers. Maybe it's going back to the 70s when you had a Pauline Kael or something like that, Roger Ebert

Alex Ferrari 1:02:07
or Roger either

Nathan Kincaid 1:02:08
Yeah, exactly. Roger was doing an amazing job. You know, maybe it's Alex Ferrari, he's got it.

Alex Ferrari 1:02:16
Yeah, I'm not that guy. I'm not that guy. But the but the point is, though, that there has to be something and and there are I mean, look, Criterion Collection does a fantastic job. You know, and a 24 does a fantastic job, but look at look at a 24 slate, they do one movie a month, if that a year, they're the Sundance of distribution at this point. You know, right. If you're lucky enough to get picked up by 24 You know, you're going to get seen and people are now watching an A 24 film because it's a 24 You know, it was like Miramax back in the day, like old Miramax released it must be must be pretty decent, if you know if that's been released. I don't know if that world exists anymore. Man. I just don't i don't think i think it's just too many, too many streaming services, too many options. It's, I think the next the next frontier for filmmakers, is not only to be able to make a good movie, but yeah, you need an audience. You need an audience that follows you from from film to film. And that is the next frontier because filmmakers who are successful are the ones who cultivate audiences, and then also figure out how to generate revenue from multiple revenue streams, which is what I wrote my book and all that stuff by being from shoprunner, about creating multiple revenue streams and NF T's are such a great alternative revenue stream that could be potential. And again, it's you could arguably, crowdfund you're moving on NFT sell distribution rights on NFT. And also art pieces on NF T's. And there's three general, those are three revenue streams that are completely outside the system, completely outside the system.

Trevor Hawkins 1:03:50
To make that yeah, that's, that's what we're trying to do. We're trying to be the case study that can recoup our production costs and turn that around and start funding the next film in real time. That's our end goal with this whole space and NFT world.

Alex Ferrari 1:04:06
That's awesome, man. Well, I'm gonna ask you a few question, guys. I asked all my guests. What advice would you give a filmmaker trying to break into the business today?

Trevor Hawkins 1:04:16
I know you want to go first. I know what I would say. Go for it. love what you do. Because to me, there's a big difference between wanting to make good movies and wanting to be the person that's the filmmaker. There's an artist there on one side of it. And then there's kind of like a character type on the other side. And I've in my own personal career. I've never really said this publicly anywhere. So this isn't offensive to anybody. But I've met people that I can tell. They don't really care what the movie is they're making. They just want to be the filmmaker. They want to be the person in the chair. They want to be the they just want to be that person. And I think that the real value that anybody's gonna get out of this career, this industry is gonna be what they create. At the end of the day. My wife is a musician. And she's so self conscious about, oh, what if nobody likes this album when it's getting ready to come out. And I'm like, I don't care if nobody ever hears this album, except you and I, because at the end of the day, when you're 70 years old, All that matters is how you feel about that album, her her entry level to play the game of writing music is a lot lower than making a film. Yeah, that's why we all have to play this lesson, we all got to have our own indie film, hustle. Because if you need an army to make a movie, you actually have to raise a lot of damn money to make a movie. And so we have a little bit different rules there where we have to go inside the industry enough to make it work for ourselves to even be able to make our art, which is kind of infuriating at times, but that's why I say the biggest the biggest piece of advice is love your art love what you do, because at the end of the day, when you're dying, that's all you're gonna have. I just did an arm where am I proud of the pieces that I made? Or did I just make schlocky things to get attention? Oh, no. And before I let Nate before Nathan, I

Alex Ferrari 1:06:14
want to just piggyback on this, what you just said, there's so many filmmakers, and I've met them who want to play the part of the filmmaker wants to play he wants to be or she wants to be the rock star, direct, they want to be turned to let's just call it what it is. They all want to be Tarantino, they all want to be they all want to sit in the chair and tell people what to do and have an walk the red carpet, their red carpet filmmakers. They're not real real filmmakers. They're red carpet filmmakers, they just want to take the pictures, and you know, live the lifestyle. But they don't actually want to do the work. And those guys and gals get they get weeded out. I've just I've been around a few. I've been around a little longer than both of you guys. I've seen it. It happens, the business will weed those guys out because they don't last they can't. It's too hard. This is too hard of a thing to do. You could fake your way, to a certain extent. But after a certain while, if you don't got the goods, I don't care if your last name is Spielberg. Anyone can help.

Trevor Hawkins 1:07:09
Right, right, Nathan?

Nathan Kincaid 1:07:11
Yeah, well, and I'll say something different, because I actually was gonna say something quite similar to that was basically make sure this is really what you want to do. Because it is so hard. But then so something else beyond that. It's probably something people have heard before. But it's like, if you really are committed to this, and you really want to do it, then study the history. Study the craft, look at who came before you. And yes, change the game. But you know, no, no, the groundwork that got you here. And I understand people they watch Citizen Kane, and they're like, okay, you know, I don't get it. I've seen that before. Yeah, but nobody saw before then. You know what I mean? And so it's like, knowing the knowing the evolution of this medium, and not going into things like 3d or, you know, surround screen or something like that, and all that's fine or whatever. But really the medium of cinema and the evolution of juxtaposition and just the craft, like if you're gonna get into this, do something cool. So the rest of us that are also trying to do this can be inspired to like, my favorite stories are like, are like how, after Nolan made memento, he still couldn't get a good deal. And Soderbergh stuck his neck out for Christopher Nolan and was like, yo, you should really use these, you know, I love that kind of stuff. So that would be my just just No, no, the craft no the other artists that came before you and that are in the game and do something different. Do some awesome.

Alex Ferrari 1:08:48
Now what is the lesson that took you the longest to learn whether in the film business or in life,

Trevor Hawkins 1:08:55
trust your team, that was a big one for me, whenever I was always a one man show and then a lot of water came on and having or when we'd made a lot of one I had a crew of 10 and I was just so in the mindset of I had to do everything and Nathan was constantly reminding me no delegated man hat. Let me do this. Let Cory do that. Let like that was a big lesson for me to learn. And then, most recently, the lesson I just learned was lean into yourself, which is a weird thing to say. Because when I wrote a lot of wanna, it was kind of a love letter to Terrence Malick movies, and I live in a rural Lake town. I'm at the real life like a lot of water right now. And I didn't think that that would be something viable to be appealing to like the rural laketown the rural America vibe would be that appealing to a lot of people in the film industry. But lately, the script I've just written, leans into it. 100% and I'm feel like I'm learning right now in real time to try Just my own unique experience and lean into that more instead of what I think other people want to see.

Nathan Kincaid 1:10:08
Yeah, well, and that just, this is why we work together is because what I was gonna say was, you know, the lesson I learned was you can't do it alone. Now, I learned that, you know, a long time ago, but when you're when you are, you know, a teenager or you're your young 20s and you're full of ego, and you're trying to muster up all the power to be a filmmaker. Like, it's gonna take a team, you know, so looking for those other people that you vibe with that you can that you can create with, like, that's so important. Always keeping an eye out for those people,

Trevor Hawkins 1:10:44
and life partners you can trust.

Alex Ferrari 1:10:48
Amen, guys, I mean, if you can find people that's why like Ron Howard and Clint Eastwood, they worked with the same crew for the last 30 years like they This is like, Ron Howard won't shoot a movie until his first ad is available. Like he just like, I'm not, it's this is the guy like I don't have to worry about anything. I know. It's gonna get taken care of. I do the same thing. I have a group of friends of mine and people I collaborate with all the time. I'm like, I just know I don't have to worry about that. When you have them on the on it. It's It's so valuable. so valuable. And three of your favorite films of all time.

Trevor Hawkins 1:11:20
Oh, and you want to go first, Nathan? Oh, man,

Nathan Kincaid 1:11:23
I'll try to go quick without thinking too much. Trainspotting

Alex Ferrari 1:11:27
urraca and the Godfather. Nice.

Nathan Kincaid 1:11:33
so cliche the last one, but I really do.

Alex Ferrari 1:11:36
And I'm gonna and I'm gonna argue that it's godfather one and two, we just put them together. It's fine. It's fine.

Trevor Hawkins 1:11:43
He's for real. He just had a daughter and we got him a godfather onesy for his daughter.

Alex Ferrari 1:11:49
solid, solid.

Trevor Hawkins 1:11:51
For me, it's easy, because I keep a revolving top 50 movies of all time. Wow. My favorite movies of all time lists. And so when I fall in love with the new movie, it's heartbreaking to throw one of my top 50 off just to keep my different level. That's

Alex Ferrari 1:12:07
a different level of Geek man. I appreciate that. That's completely devil. Like, I mean, the for the geek. I mean, and this is a guy who has a life size Jota sitting behind him. That's a full level gig, man. That's good. I'm impressed.

Trevor Hawkins 1:12:17
Yeah, I gotta stop 50 that I'm pretty religious about and my top three are tree of life, Assassination of Jesse James and No Country for Old Men.

Alex Ferrari 1:12:27
There is a theme there. There is definitely a theme in the filmmaking styles of those films. So I can see what a lot of was gonna be like. But will there be but will there be somebody killing people with Eric Eric? or something? Like, from no country from all that? What does that call? Like a bolt gun or something like that? Yeah, the

Trevor Hawkins 1:12:47
air compressor stun gun thing.

Alex Ferrari 1:12:49
So amazing. What an amazing film God such a great film. Guys, it's been a pleasure talking to you, man. It is. I'm so impressed. And just awesome that you guys are doing what you're doing man. And and anytime I anytime I got someone on the show who was the first one through the door on anything. And it's so rare nowadays to be the first one through the door and anything in our business. It's like, it's a tough, it's a tough thing to get. So I'm, I'm humbled that you came on the show to talk about it and share your adventures with us. Please let us know when you make your first million off of it. And then and then and then you're always welcome back. So thank you guys so much, man. I appreciate it.

Trevor Hawkins 1:13:29
Alex, thanks so much. This has been awesome if anybody wants to check out the trailer.

Alex Ferrari 1:13:33
Sorry, Jesus, of course.

Trevor Hawkins 1:13:35
Yeah, no worries. Yeah, everybody wants to stay up to date with what we're doing. You can purchase NF T's from our website, you can watch the trailer, you can see our posters, you can stay up to date with our releases. Like I said, we're going to be releasing the movie later this fall. It's just a lot of one a movie calm. And if you just Google a lot of one a movie probably any way you can think to spell it. You'll probably find it.

Alex Ferrari 1:13:56
And I'll put that I'll make sure to put that yeah, it's right there for anyone watching. It's not hard to spell Lotawana. So I'll put that in the show notes as well. Thanks again, guys. I appreciate it.

Nathan Kincaid 1:14:08
Thank you, Alex.