IFH 245: How to Get a Theatrical Release through Fathom Events with Caleb Price

Alex Ferrari 0:38
I'd like to welcome the show Caleb Price, man, thank you so much for jumping on the show, man.

Caleb Price 2:40
No problem, Alex. Thanks for having me.

Alex Ferrari 3:33
So first of all, before we get into your the distribution model and your movie Connect, how did you actually get started in the business?

Caleb Price 3:43
I'm glad you asked that. Because you always ask you ask your guests that in the beginning and they always have different stories. Well, um, I feel like my, my journey into this business might be similar to yours in that at a very young age. I remember specifically, my parents had one of those old camcorders. Do you remember when the Sony camcorders were that you you held and it was like a giant screen? Yes. Like the whole thing was just a screen and you know what I mean? Like, yeah

Alex Ferrari 4:08
That was my first camera.

Caleb Price 4:11
I remember my parents when I was in middle school said, Hey, anytime you want to use the camera, you can and I can't explain it to you, Alex. That's probably how all of your listeners feel. But like a switch switched in my brain. Like, Oh, this is so cool. And I remember I had my friends come over my guys and we can use the camera and they were just like, so you know. So that but I was like, but we can tell stories now and we can like we can make our own stuff. And so that's that's what had happened. But my dad was a firefighter. My mom was a stay at home mom. No connections to the industry whatsoever. So I did what a lot of kids did which your podcast is actively preaching against praise the Lord is I took out on a more enormous Oh, no, you did it. They went to I went to film school. Okay, yeah. So I'll be paying, I'm paying off that debt right now.

Alex Ferrari 5:05
I'm sorry, I'm sure. I'm sure.

Caleb Price 5:07
So there you go, Alex, that's how that happened. I didn't know. Um, you know, clearly, like, you know, it's not a normal career path. So it was very, and my parents were in the, er, I think the early 2000s is probably when the most amount of kids and teens probably took out the biggest loans. Because I feel like now, people like you are kind of getting the word out, like, Hey, you don't, you should not go into debt for this type of industry. And I feel like there's more people preaching that now. Like, not just film school, like, but other schools too, like, Oh, my gosh, like, don't spend $130,000 to go to Harvard to learn how to weave baskets.

Alex Ferrari 5:42
It doesn't it makes it makes no financial sense. Like my my wife's a social worker, and she, you know, she went to school, and it was a little bit of debt, but nothing crazy to get her master's degree. And she was having her interns come in from USC. And they had $140,000. In in debt, or a social worker. Oh, and I'm going, it doesn't make financial sense. So as a filmmaker, if you're going to go to film school, if you can go to like your community college, you can get if you get my film education cost me 20,000 bucks. Okay, that's, that's fair. Yeah, that's fair. And where'd you where'd you where'd you go? I went to full sail.

Caleb Price 6:30
Okay, I've heard really, really good things about them.

Alex Ferrari 6:32
I went to full sail back in when it was only like, five, the film department was only five or six years old. And it's not what it is today. Now it's like Disneyland. But right then it was not. And now it costs like 80 grand or 100 grand or something like that to go. Nope. Nope. But, but that made sense for me. But if you come out of film school, and I know these guys, I know them. I know many guys that do this, that they have 180 100 $120,000 in debt. And they're literally taped, you know, their dubbing tapes, or, you know, they're working as you know, editors in have, you know, like just grinding. Yeah, right. Right. Not doing the wrong stuff, but grinding, and then they're never gonna get out of that. It's like having a mortgage. But when no house

Caleb Price 7:20
Oh 100% like I was just listening. You just did an episode recently. And I was glued to it. What do you do you did the collection collections agency guy. Oh, yes. Yes. Okay, so So like I said, I did not take that for granted cuz I was like so this type of information how this guy is breaking it down for Alex on what this guy like people pay a lot of money to just learned that this type of service exists. Yeah, like that's what film school was. So yeah, not to get way off track. But yes, I went to film school. And here's, here's the kicker. Here's your this is gonna make you throw up. So So I did all this stuff. Right, the $20,000 loans 20 2020 I think I graduated like rally around 86 $90,000 in debt. I went I went to Brooks Institute in Ventura. I don't know if you've heard of it. Probably not. But sorry. Oh, it's okay. Because they went bankrupt and they closed. Of course, why would they?

Alex Ferrari 8:15
But you still owe the money.

Caleb Price 8:17
Oh, this is the worst part. So I still own money this other brookey I ran into a couple years later he's like, yeah, check this out. So the way loans work, they only they only the banks take out insurance policies on their loans to cover them in case a school goes under because you're paying for a degree and if your classes are non transferable, which almost 98% of film schools are non transferable credits right? You get all your money refunded because they see it as oh you're working towards a degree now you can't get it so this kid no joke he was one semester away from graduate Oh gosh, awesome. took all the loans like maxed them out all of them alright, school closes he gets the letter you can't go to school anymore. Boom gets a letter from all his loans. All of your loans are forgiven none of them have to be paid back so he got the entire education pretty much for free.

Alex Ferrari 9:07
You know, sometimes you're just born under the lucky star. What can you do?

Caleb Price 9:10
Yeah. So that there's your answer. That's how I got into this business and been stumbling around and trying my best

Alex Ferrari 9:16
Hey man look, you know, sometimes, like when I when I went to film school, there was no educate. There was no other options. There was no YouTube there was no right there was nothing there was nothing to teach you film other than going to film school. Today is a different world. Like it just totally makes no sense to go. Unless again, if it's affordable, go for it. But you know, or if you can get into a big school like USC, the connections alone are one yeah,

Caleb Price 9:42
That's that's a strong You mean you make a really strong case for that. I still would say to your listeners, all your teens out there, go if you can get into USC, I would at least flirt with the idea and and see what but I would strongly recommend don't just throw throw it up to the wind and say to Expensive just taking out loans. You can, you can almost always figure something out. You know,

Alex Ferrari 10:04
There's like, there's a lot of financial aid. There's a lot, there's a lot of stuff that you can do to go to a big school like that. But I noticed, I mean, I'm speaking there next week. I'm doing it. They invited me to do some lecturing there. And I've been to USC a few times now. And it's, it's, it's amazing. Yeah, I mean, it's USC. That's amazing. But is it worth 150? grand if you don't have 150? grand? No. Right. So that's, that's the thing. I mean, we have gone way off topic. Yes. All right. Let's get back on. All right. So your film Connect is a documentary that stars Kirk Cameron, can you tell me a little bit about the film?

Caleb Price 10:39
Yeah, sure. So Connect is about social media and technology in this generation, and basically how parents and adults for the first time are really starting to wake up to the fact that it's not just a harmless technology, and it is a completely different world. Snapchat, Instagram, Facebook, not LinkedIn. But the Twitter Yeah, Twitter, Twitter, they go Twitter, and giving your kid giving the studies that are out now the average age of a kid first gets a cell phone now is 10 years old. a smartphone, we're talking full access iPhone, or Android stuff, a 10 year old. So it's basically when we talk to a psychologist, he said, that's kind of the equivalent of taking a 12 year old or the 16 year old, driving them to Las Vegas, giving them $10,000 in the fake ID, and just being like, I'll see you later. Like, it's almost the equivalent with the amount of stuff that's out there. And so that's the longest part of its the documentary goes into that. But instead of it, freaking parents out or freaking freaking us out to like, just take the phones away. It's more like no, this is this is a, we live in the most amazing time in history. I mean, you can connect to anything in any one at any moment. However, doing it on guided unbridled, your kids are going to go down a very dark path or their brain isn't there, their brains are going to be underdeveloped. They're going to their social skills will be Zilch to non existent. They won't know how to have long lasting, effective relationships, friendships, you know, romantic relationships. And they're the the phones are literally rewiring their brain. So we go on this journey with Kirk Cameron, who's who has six kids. So he's learning this stuff himself. So he kind of talks these experts. So we talked to a brain surgeon. We talked to some therapists, some psychologists and pastors, a lot of parents interview a bunch of kids in their 20s. So yeah, that's basically it's the whole the whole thing. And then we'll probably get into this because this is really helpful is I made it for a very specific target audience.

Alex Ferrari 12:38
Yeah. And we will definitely get into that. But let me ask you, so what was the distribution plan? Like when you when you sat down with Kurt and like, okay, we're gonna go make this movie? Did you guys already know that you were going to go down the distribution plan you went to are you did you go? Did you try to go to a traditional distributor, because you obviously have some star power, and in a very lucrative, niche is going after so just curious.

Caleb Price 13:05
So here's what happened. So obviously, so I'm 30. And my, the movie I want to make is not was not necessarily a documentary for parents about social media technology. And so what I would say is this answers your question is to a lot of your listeners, keep your passion project, but keep your peripheral vision open because your peripheral vision is where the opportunities are going to happen. And if you don't take them because you just have the movie you want to make good luck ever getting to do anything in this business. Absolutely. So percent. So what happened was a mutual friend introduced me to Kirk stars kind of aligned as they say, and he he was looking for the new media guy, so he put me on staff were hanging out and then he actually had done some fathom events before with documentaries and documentaries do really well traditionally and as fathom events, because the

Alex Ferrari 13:58
Well, before we continue, let's talk please tell everybody what is fathom events.

Caleb Price 14:02
Oh, right. So I always talk about his father around here. So I see. So anyone can just go just google fathom events, but essentially fathom is a different way to broadcast things and events entertainment into movie theaters traditionally fathom his live events, so think a big UFC fight, a big boxing, the opera, tons of opera, so much opera. So over this so Kirk was actually the first one several years ago He's like, I want to do a documentary about the founding of America. They approached him and said, Hey, we're looking to do actual regular you know, movies, especially with a niche and so that's how that relationship started so to people listening fathom does do regular movies the same night that connect aired in theaters fathom was also airing a movie called Primal Rage. Luckily, totally different audience because it's about a Bigfoot that like, tear people's heads off so it wasn't too concerned about

Alex Ferrari 14:58
Yeah. cannibalizing your audience if you will.

Caleb Price 15:03
But that's what fathom events is Alex? So it's a it's a new way to get into theaters usually. I'm actually not just usually, but you need to have something special with your movie to to legitimize it being a fathom event.

Alex Ferrari 15:18
So yeah, well, so what is the process? How does like a filmmaker go approach them? pitch them? How does it work?

Caleb Price 15:26
Well, so back to the peripheral vision thing Kirk already had the relationship with fathom. So he said, I want to do a new project for fathom. So he already had that relationship with them. However, I do know, they're always looking for content. So you can't necessarily you can even just go to the website and like, start emailing them. But you have to have an audience, you need to have some sort of audience Kirk Cameron has a very loyal Christian, she mom, a Christian mom and dad audience. So you need a niche audience. And you basically you get, you can just email them at their website that fathom events. And then, but you can't just have a just just a movie. You know what I mean? Like you need to have, like, for us, Kirk did a special welcome message at the beginning. And he did this like special thing at the end, where the audience got a discount on. Circle. It's this device that helps you monitor your kid's social media stuff. And that then that kind of made it a fathom event. Does that make sense?

Alex Ferrari 16:22
It's kind of like okay, so alright, so because I'm trying to I'm trying to grasp because I've heard a fan of them. And it's because I've been in a movie theater in the last 10 years. So I know what they are. And I've seen like, you know, the room, and like a couple other movies that do like fathom events, because their audiences are big. But I always wonder like, how do you approach them with like an independent film. So a perfect example. And I'm going to use myself an example, I have an audience, not nearly as big of an audience as Kirk does. But I have an audience and I have a movie that is aimed at that audience, which is the new movie on the corner of ego and desire. Is that something that you could literally walk in to them and go, hey, look, this is what we've got. We've got kind of a niche here. We've got an audience. Does this even make sense? Yes. And here's what I would say for you that works in a mince mount of your favorite. I would have to think if I legally I can say this, I'm gonna say it anyways. Hopefully we get fired. So basically, fathom is based in Colorado. So if you Alex Ferrari approached them with your film on the corner of ego and desire, especially. And you kind of show the numbers of your website and you got the podcast, all this stuff, you know, compiled into a pitch. It doesn't cost you anything up front. Yeah. So that I've heard that that's, that's, that's public information.

Caleb Price 17:41
So that part is humongous. Because like, it doesn't cost you anything that's now here, right. Now. Here's the downside. So Kirk, even the first one he did was, I think only in three or 400. theaters sold out. This is years ago, right? monumental sells out all those theaters. So they give him a quote, encore date, and then they bumped up the theater count. So the downside for for you, since you haven't worked with them before is they would look at your film with your audience like, yes, it's cool. Let's work out a date. But you're probably only going to get two to 300 theaters. That's a shame.

Alex Ferrari 18:23
She only two or 300 I'm walking

Caleb Price 18:26
But think about it, they're not going to give you any money. You're the adult you make up you make a marketing video for them. They'll run it in their, you know, their theater stuff, they'll run it on their page, but you're kind of in charge of marketing almost entirely on your own, of course. So there's that. And you got to think yes, it's two to 300 theaters. But it's only one night. Not only is it only one night, it's one time at that night. Not only is it one time that night, it's gonna be a Tuesday or Thursday.

Alex Ferrari 18:51
Got it.

Caleb Price 18:52
So those things do kind of stack up against you. But like you said, it's like, Look, if I can make $100,000 film or a $50,000 film, and go to fab in this way, the chances of recouping that are relatively high.

Alex Ferrari 19:06
What is the you allowed to tell you what the cuts are? Is that something that's quiet? Like, is it a 5050 7030? Is anything like that, um, I can say, well, the I mean, I'm sure Kurt has a better deal than everybody else, but I'm just curious.

Caleb Price 19:19
Um, I do know well, so here's the weeds. You You have to split it a couple times. Because there's so fathom did a big chunk of the legwork for you and got it into the theater, right? Which you didn't pay for. So the theater chains take their cut first. And I don't know like, I don't know what the exact number but I mean, a theater chain cut is anywhere from 30 to 50%. Fair enough, off the top. And then fathom takes their percentage after that.

Alex Ferrari 19:48
Right so so once you get 50% off, let's say take 50% off $1 so now it's 50 cents, and now out of that 50 cents you have now a new 100% and then fadem takes 30 or 40% And you're left with whatever's left. So you're left with maybe 20% of the take.

Caleb Price 20:04
Yeah, so you're seeing it's it? Yes, yes, you. That's exactly right.

Alex Ferrari 20:08
Okay. Which is not bad for theatrical release. And it's only one night. It's one time one night. So that's the tough part. Yeah, it's one time one night, but even if you could make a little bit of money that night, that's not bad. And it's a theatrical.

Caleb Price 20:23
Right! I think a good way to look at it is have your heavier secondary plan ready to go your home entertainment? Like this actually, probably would, could really work for you on the corner of ego and desire. I don't know, like, you have the time set up when you would like it to release on like, you could use distribute, if you wanted or whatever, have it ready to go on those. But make sure it's not available on those until you can do the theater release. And then I believe in the fathom II stuff of your theater release, you can you can say, hey, it's coming out on home video on these days or? Or you might even be able to pull it off where it's available, like the next night?

Alex Ferrari 20:58
Yeah, sure. Of course, then, right?

Caleb Price 21:00
Fathom is pretty, pretty sticky with what they want you to not say about what else is available. Fair enough. Fair enough. Like that makes sense.

Alex Ferrari 21:09
So that was the distribution has it was never a conversation about going through a traditional distributor?

Caleb Price 21:16
Well, we had a traditional distributor Providence films, which is owned by Sony Pictures. But you You mean a traditional like path? Right, right.

Alex Ferrari 21:24
So you have a traditional so you do have a traditional distribution path, besides the fact of events?

Caleb Price 21:30
Yeah. And I can talk a little bit about that. I just got hit with all these deliverables. And oh, yeah, fun, fun, bro. It's not fair.

Alex Ferrari 21:40
You know, I know.

Caleb Price 21:42
So the plan was, we'll do a fathom event, we ended up being in the theaters for nights, which was awesome.

Alex Ferrari 21:49
Oh, by the way, I looked up how much you made, according to Box Office Mojo is over $830,000.

Caleb Price 21:55
And that was just the two nights they didn't report the other two nights. So you've, which I will? So yes. So here's that. So here's what's good about that, that gives you some that gives you some baseline numbers, because I can tell you what the other two nights we were pushing closer to a million, maybe a little lower. But again, you know, the theater chains off the top, anywhere from 30 to 60%. So what does that Wait, let's, let's say you pulled in 2 million on this or 1,000,008? You really are going to take home? Probably two to 300 grand? That That sounds more more correct. And then think how much money to drop in marketing?

Alex Ferrari 22:34
Yeah, and that's the thing, how much how much do you spend on marketing?

Caleb Price 22:37
Um, so I don't know if I'm, they gave me those numbers and also to talk about it, but I can definitely say for a fathom event, you're gonna see people spending anywhere from nothing, you know, they're just hoping on the word of mouth. Like I bet you Alex, you probably would have a good shake and not spending too much if you just like, redirected all of your social platforms for a couple of weeks and just did like a blitz. But most people will probably spend anywhere from 100 to $500,000 on marketing.

Alex Ferrari 23:04
Yeah, that's not happening.

Caleb Price 23:07
And then that's those are the numbers. I've heard from fathom events. And then Kirkwood I mean, Kurt hustle like crazy. He did show the Steve Harvey show he was they had him on the Today show three times. They did what they do. And then like all the affiliates, you know, ABC LA, and like New York, and then they had them on the dr. oz show. which ties in to, I know, you want to talk about distribution. But when you're when you're like to the tribe, as you say, when you're looking at your film, man, I know you've talked about this a lot. But you've got to think of that target audience. Mm hmm. Because if we would have just made a fun. Let's call it just like a faith based sure adventure film with Kirk. He's not he's not going on the Today Show. No, they won't have him on there. Like why would we have Kirk Cameron on here to talk about his religion? Right? Obviously I you know, to me personally, I think it's deeper than that. But they don't. Right. However, oh, Kirk Cameron's got six kids Kirk Cameron's pretty famous, and he's doing some about social media and technology and how parents need to wake it up. Yep. That's boom, you now you've got a niche. And now Steve Hart, like he had never been on the Steve Harvey show or dr. oz. Right. But because it was such a niche topic.

Alex Ferrari 24:17
They wanted it. And he kind of broadened his base a bit by by doing exactly as opposed to just being in his niche. He kind of opened himself up a little bit in that. That's right, exactly. It's very, very fascinating. Because I was gonna I was gonna ask you about the marketing. So you and you were in charge of all the marketing.

Caleb Price 24:34
So Provident Films as a marketing director, and we worked with a guy that you had on your show, because this industry turns out Kyle Yeah, we I worked with Kyle and Evan, but yeah, they're both part of ribault I believe. Yeah. I was gonna people. I don't know if you want me to say their company names on here because I know they pay for marketing and all that. So we, we worked with ribault but um, yeah, that's another Good thing that filmmakers need to understand. So even though like I saw I wrote the home I wrote the movie and then I cross referenced pieces of it with Kirk make sure he liked it and then he would give his you know, input. I looked up all the experts and like got it all kind of squared away and organized. But on any, any production I'm finding that's under 2 million and a half to become even under 3 million, the director if your your job is extremely lengthy, like so after I finished the Final Cut, we used a studio in LA to do the editing. I mean, I must have made 4550 different types of trailers and it just never stops. So to answer your question for marketing, we work with Revo media and they handled all the social media stuff. Plus I have to work with Kirk Cameron organically perk Instagram Facebook page, then I have to work with all of the third outlets which is the today show Steve Harvey blah blah blah blah blah

Alex Ferrari 25:59
What they want in the states that they want to promote.

Caleb Price 26:02
Exactly, then I have to think okay, this is Steve Harvey show people people like Steve Harvey because he's fun He's funny. probably need to give them a little some content that has got some humor in it. Dr. Oz pretty serious pretty heavy. Talking about the phones and how it's you know, causing kidney

Alex Ferrari 26:19
Neurological stuff right? Yeah. So you got to customize each outlet you have to be someone has got to edit that someone's got to put that package together someone's got to put it on on a I guess a tape or would you just send a file over nowadays? Yeah, yeah.

Caleb Price 26:33
So again back to the day we live in is so much easier they always want pro res The higher the level of show the more demanding their thing is I did learn this is also for your tribe out there whenever you make something just always when it's finalized and you like it always have a split track ready to go which I didn't know they all these places wanted split tracks which basically means they want all your music and sound effects panned hard right and they want all of the voices and dialogue panned hard left because they they on there and need to Yeah, didn't know that

Alex Ferrari 27:02
Put their music on if they want to put their music on bumpers and things like that. Yeah. And just have more control. So yeah, exactly. And now you were just talking about deliverables? What are a few of those deliverables just so I know we're talking about we're supposed to be talking about distribution but I this is part of distribution is that deliverables list and since you just got that list, what are a few things that they're asking for?

Caleb Price 27:24
Okay, so here's the deal so when when when y'all make a movie a lot of times it feels like a pro res four to two HQ export isn't enough. And you're you're you're right and wrong at the same time. I found out so I so we're dealing with the orchard

Alex Ferrari 27:43
Ofcourse orchard

Caleb Price 27:45
This this industry is so weird man like so provident, funded, the project is owned by Sony. And then I bought a ton of Sony gear, which is also owned by Sony. And then the orchard is a subsidiary of Sony, who's also doing the distribution separate through with Providence so it's like this and then Sony Pictures owns everything so it's like this. Yeah, it's just crazy. So but the higher up you go with a distributor like the orchard is pretty top level. I've never worked with them before and show this so their deliverables are much higher. So here's an example I get this email here. They want the video master to be Apple pro res HQ. So shortage HQ. Fair enough. And then of course they want you know make sure your audio is 40 to 48 kilohertz 16 bit audio which is pretty standard. Sure. And here's the stuff I didn't know they need three version they want texted clean and textless

Alex Ferrari 28:33
Of course

Caleb Price 28:35
I've never been asked for this before so if past Caleb could listen to future Caleb talking to Alex this time,

Alex Ferrari 28:42
Texas ofcourse people don't think about Texas at all.

Caleb Price 28:46
No. And so I had to we had to pay more money to go back to the post house text did his title cards, credits, lower thirds and primitive texts burnt and burned in subtitles

Alex Ferrari 28:55
And a clean and a clean one without it

Caleb Price 28:56
Yeah, and then clean exclude the burned in subtitles but include the title cards, credits, lower thirds in the formative text. And then the third version is text list which is elements to be included at the end of the text that are clean video or as a separate feature file. So it's like oh, yep, yeah, and then you have to do it again for the all the trailers

Alex Ferrari 29:15
Because Don't forget about the audio. The five one mix. Oh stems.

Caleb Price 29:19
So it's, I would I would highly recommend right now to anyone's listening if you're doing your own audio mix. Don't even I highly recommend don't even attempting a five one unless you 100% know what you're doing. You are an audio person but don't don't start YouTube and how to do a 5.1 mix to make it correct for don't do not do that. Yes, but you're right we had to do all that as well.

Alex Ferrari 29:43
So and then you got to split and then don't forget the m&e. Yeah music and effects and dialog tracks all those have to be separate. And if there are five one, you got to do them separate for that. So that's like 16 1520 files alone. Just Oh, it gets it gets stupid.

Caleb Price 29:58
Exactly, and not All distributors want that like the early distributor we were working with for Amazon iTunes and stuff like that. They were like, give us a pro res file and an SRT for the subtitles, and we're good.

Alex Ferrari 30:12
We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor. And now back to the show.

Caleb Price 30:23
But the orchard which is essentially like Sony's top level digital distributor arm, yeah, like they want everything you said they will all of it and like, Look, they're not going to they will you're going to miss your distribution window if you don't get this stuff. Oh, absolutely, this stuff is huge. So I highly recommend the workflow I found to work and this would probably help your listeners too, is find a good post house that can handle the heavy heavy lifting. And do all of the offline edit yourself. That's what I found to be the most cost effective. or hire someone like Alex Ferrari. Who does that stuff anyways. So yeah, that's because all of these headaches, I was able to just afford the email to the post house and they just took care of it.

Alex Ferrari 31:05
Right? If you have he definitely get professionals to do it. And by the way, that list used to be worse, because then you used to have ADHD SRS, and then how you lay out the audio tracks on the HDR tape. Then for foreign, you have to have Digi betas. And then you got to do standard depths. And then you got to do a pan and scan and a crop version. And then even worse, you go down to beta SP for some other places. Yeah, I haven't had any those tape deliverables in a while. But that's what it used to be in addition to everything you just said, Oh, and also sometimes they want a Dolby mix, which is a mix that goes onto a tape but you have to rent the Dolby system. So it compresses the five one into two tracks. And then it could decode that on the other end by a decoder by Dolby. Dude, it just can't Oh my god. Oh, he just gets cray cray. And then on top of all of that, then that's just the physical deliverables. Let's not even get into E and O insurance.

Caleb Price 32:02
Oh, yeah, got that right. I got a I got a rapid fire list for that because Austin have this. Okay, I shouldn't say didn't have this because that makes us look very unprofessional. I do have to dig it up. I got you have to have no chain of title agreement, chain of title proof of payment, copyright notice copyright registration copyright report, all of which are different, by the way. Yep. Title report, Certificate of Origin instrument of transfer, residual documents. And then if if anyone's doing a documentary out there or using stock footage, log it for like, Where did you download it from? Who is the author? Like you have to wire the rights? And

Alex Ferrari 32:36
Where are the rights? And who has the rights to? And do you have theatrical rights, all rights? And you're always you're in big trouble? If you don't? Yes, it becomes a problem. So that is a small lesson, boys and girls on deliverables and going through all of that. Now, let me ask you, when you were doing your fathom events, did you did Kirk ever go out to any of them? Did it? Was it like an like, did he show up? Or did you guys sell anything at those places as well? like did you sell any other you know, ancillary products, t shirts, hats, whatever. So that's actually really clever idea, I should probably write that down at Tucker, he could have for free.

Caleb Price 33:16
So um, so this one was a little tricky. So I convinced him this time to do a pre recorded intro and a pre recorded outro. So none of it was actually quote live. Which means we would have been able to do what you just said. So maybe next time, but um, no. So we were in 756 theaters the first night we went, we had like a party here like little wrap party. And then you know, the whole crew went. And then that night, I had to film people at the movie theater. So I could run back to the office that night edit a new trailer to upload to all the media outlets that same night, so I could have like audience reactions, because then they can they needed to run that to promote the Encore dates. Which I would recommend if you ever go this route, or anyone does fathom absolutely do that, because it gets fathom fired up that knows that you liked working with them and there's much higher chance they're gonna give you another day.

Alex Ferrari 34:06
And they and they are always looking for collaborators are always looking for for product and movies that can draw an audience.

Caleb Price 34:14
Yeah, I would I'm privy to say that they are changing a lot of things. And I mean, that really good way I think that I just saw them doing right now that I think is genius is they're looking at high level TV shows. And they're convincing the network's to do their finales or premiers as fathom events a day or two before they're on TV. And they're really doing a good job of making it fun like they're doing I don't know if you saw the thing they're doing for the walking dead. No, I

Alex Ferrari 34:41
Didn't know that. They did something for the Game of Thrones. I thought I heard a while ago.

Caleb Price 34:46
Yeah, so I didn't see that one but the I don't watch the walking dead. But I saw the big I mean they had a big cut out poster in the theater and it wasn't fathom was plastered all over it. And it's genius. Basically, you can like come in character, and there's going to be live there you No quote live like q&a is with the actors and the producers and the directors a little behind the scenes featurette and then boom, they're going to you know, play the season finale of The Walking Dead, which is going to go straight into the season premiere of Fear the Walking Dead, which so you're seeing a lot more of that so they're really open to to not just doing opera. It's like you're, I think you're gonna see a lot of indie films. Oh, actually, you should. You should look up that Primal Rage movie. Just if you type in Primal Rage fathom, you should go down the rabbit trail because that would be closer to yours. Not that yours is a horror slasher, but they did an indie film. And they had a full fathom release think they were in like 300 400 theaters.

Alex Ferrari 35:42
And now Do they? Okay, so just out of curiosity, though, do they? I mean, who pays for the posters in the theaters? Do that.

Caleb Price 35:50
You don't have to pay for that. However, it's going to be the chances of you having a poster in theaters are a lot slimmer. We got lucky because I mean, Kirk had done six. I mean, he'd done let's see monumental unstoppable. Revive us and he had done four or five events show he had he had a pretty big you know, relationship with them. Sure. Yeah. No, the PMA traditional PMA you're they'll take care of it for their for like their little world that they're in. But you're not gonna see a poster for your movie in theaters most likely.

Alex Ferrari 36:21
More so but but then but they will be running ads.

Caleb Price 36:24
There'll be running ads before Yeah, so for me they figured that out for you which is kind of nice. So connect the trailer for that ran before a lot of like family films like The Greatest Show. This actually was cool. So fathom work to deal out with So pretty much every theater that was showing the greatest showmen connect a trailer for Connect ran before it. Oh, that's awesome. Which really worked out because the greatest showmen had a super laggy release runs. Yeah. So yeah. So if you did on the corner of ego and desire, I could see it being run at like, you know, any, I don't know if there's any romance in your thing. But it seems to be kind of a buddy movie. Would you say it's

Alex Ferrari 37:02
It's it's a it's it's aimed at the at the film industry without question. So it would have to be Yeah, comedies, it would be under in front of a comedy without Yeah.

Caleb Price 37:11
So you would get you'd probably be exactly. So there you go, which is always in theaters, so they probably put yours in front of as many comedies and dramas that they could. That would be

Alex Ferrari 37:20
That's very interesting. Very, very interesting. I might, I might, I might think about that.

Caleb Price 37:26
The risk is significantly lower than doing a traditional theater release. Because a traditional theater release just to get there, you're out between three and 5 million. And I believe three to $5 million gets you like three to 400 theaters for like a week.

Alex Ferrari 37:41
Right? Exactly. And if you don't know if you know what you're doing, you're done. You're done. Yeah, it's just so but there's other options as well like tog and other things like that, that you can do that can kind of like go out and you can like build out the screen by screen theatrical release, you know, but this is a lot bigger. This is a bigger thing. You know, you've got a company behind you. You've got free, basically free marketing inside the theaters. And you're doing a 300 screen release. That's pretty massive.

Caleb Price 38:12
Yeah, yeah. And so I mean, like, after the show, I could probably give you some contact information. You know, Rob, I appreciate that works. But I think there's, I mean, I saw your trailer, and it definitely feels like it would be part of that part of that niche. So yeah, I mean, very cool. But the big thing that I would say to take away is it is possible, you got to have a niche, like what you've already preached on before. Like, you've got to have a niche target audience.

Alex Ferrari 38:38
Yeah. Who is this for? Yeah. In other words, let you know everyone listening. If you make a movie, that's a broad comedy. That's not this is not gonna work. They're not going to take on a broad comedy with no stars.

Caleb Price 38:49
Yeah, no way, then you shouldn't you probably shouldn't be making that movie anyways, and that

Alex Ferrari 38:53
You should be doing more of a niche situation where you can then really focus. You know, I knew my audience, I built ego and desire strictly for my audience, which are filmmakers and filmmakers and cinephiles. So those are two fairly large niches. Not huge in the grand scope of the world, but they are they are niches.

Caleb Price 39:16
I think they're I think those niches are a lot bigger than I realized, though, because I'm so on your page to looking at these master classes.

Alex Ferrari 39:22
Yeah. I mean, they're making just tons of money.

Caleb Price 39:25
Yeah. And I mean, it's Ron Howard teaching how to direct like, that's a extremely specific audience, by the way, that's

Alex Ferrari 39:32
The best of all of them.

Caleb Price 39:33
Okay, I need to watch that one. I was to watch that one all growing up. I was called Ron Howard. So

Alex Ferrari 39:38
Ron Howard. By the way, anyone listening if you're going to buy a masterclass on directing, I know Scorsese is there. And I know Werner Hertzog and stuff and Spike Lee. No, it's Ron Howard. Is you literally sit there for, I think an hour of the masterclass and watch him direct. A scene from frost Nixon on the fly in in every way. Budget range you can think of so he does the big budget where he's got the the steady cam, and he's got all these other cameras and you know, he's got time, all the way down to like, we're gonna do this Indy style one camera, how much coverage can we get in this amount of time? Let's go. And he and you see the man just think on his feet. It was magical to watch.

Caleb Price 40:19
Yeah, I wanna I really want to take that course the but I think the fact that they even exist and I think their budget so buddy mine worked on him oh they're I've seen I think they're around a million, right? They

Alex Ferrari 40:31
Yes, about a million per and I know they pay to my knowledge, they pay like 250 to 500,000 upfront, and then they get a piece of everything off the back end small piece after that, also, so they spend between 1.2 and 1.5. No, just just like the production of it. I think the production of it is not a mil. But I think the total, including the payment to the to the instructor and the production Pro. I mean, I could say that productions, probably they're gonna they shoot for two or three days. Probably about half mil. And right. And it's because they got like an insane director. And I mean, they look gorgeous, and this and that includes post, like, you know, trying to get all the posts of it all done and all that stuff. So yeah, they're spending a lot their spend, it's a lot.

Caleb Price 41:18
So it just kind of proves your point, like niche, niche audiences are worth it. Especially long haul because I could see something like on the corner of you go and desire, like that will, at least from the trailer, I saw you shot a semi timeless, like so I mean, next year, you could probably still watch it as a filmmaker and still get inspired and still feel like you're one of those people. You could probably do it again next year.

Alex Ferrari 41:38
Yeah, yeah. Other than the, you know, all the signs that say Sundance 2018 Well, other than that it is timeless. You know, that's the only thing that kind of dates The movie is that they you know, there's 28 deed everywhere while we're shooting, but there's nothing I could do. Maybe I could go in digitally and remove all that later. 19 Yeah, just can't it just constantly kind of go in and paint everything up. But very cool. So now what's the next step in the distribution plan for the movies, you're going to now go through after this next encore, is you're going to go down traditional distribution path, which is svod tvod.

Caleb Price 42:13
So multiple things happen. And this is also worth noting for any of you guys, so any of your listeners who I don't even like her cameras are dying, or like just don't want to do anything related to family or fate. This is still something you should know is if an audience shows up for a movie, it's because they liked liked the movie or a topic or the something about it. So give them I mean, make quality stuff for that world anyways, like there's a reason any film hustle is not just a podcast, like, like, Hey, I really like hanging out with Alex and the way he talks to these people. I'm gonna go to the website, Well, look, there's videos, there's all this stuff, that's you, filmmakers need to be thinking like that more. And that doesn't just mean you make a shirt. Like it might be, it might be appropriate for your film, like the corner of ego and desire. Even your example. I mean, that's a cool name. So I could see that like even just being printed on a shirt. So here's, here's the next path for us. So we do the documentary. This has gotten parents fired up. Like, I talked to a 10 year old on the phone for about half an hour. made me cry. I'm gonna try not to cry now. But he he is his mom is friends with my mom. And my mom said, hey, my friend Lindy, like her son wants to call you. He went and saw the movie and loved it like Oh, is he like older? Like No, he's 10. Like what? Cool. And he called and he was just like, man, like seeing how a dad really cares. And, you know, I want to be a dad like that one day and understanding the understanding the brain and knowing like, wow, like, I gotta be careful how much I'm on this phone. It just kind of blew my mind. That's awesome. And so and so his grandma was just like, yeah, we went, we went to both nights. And then so that, you got to think like, Okay, how can I help these people more like if they liked more if they loved ego and desire, if they loved this is like, what can I do to give them more of this world? So what we're doing for distribution for the download line? Step one, there's an E course coming out. And the my friend next to me right now is actually editing it like right this second. Sure. And so that's going to be available on engage your kids calm, and, and so that's not the movie, but it's an ecourse around the movie, there's a lot of new content, it's a lot. It's more money than a movie. It's like 3540 bucks. But we found really good success with that because parents the parents see the movie, they're like, I want to get more hands hands on this. And then boom, there you are to offer an ecourse six or seven lessons hosted with Kirk and some experts. And they're going to get really specific about Instagram and their phones and here's exact guidelines you can do and here's the right ages and you know, hey, you know, your, your kids 13 years old, this just happened in their brain that you should be aware of, and they're going to be start noticing these types of things. That's, that's brilliant.

Alex Ferrari 44:47
It's kind of like my example of that. I always use the vegan chef movie. Yeah, the the vegan chef, which I got to make one day, but the vegan chef, the vegan chef movie, like if they liked the movie, they go find out about the movie and all All of a sudden, oh, look, there's cooking classes. Yes. on how to make you know, X amount of you know how to how to make tofu tastes like steak, you know?

Caleb Price 45:08
For those seriously, that's exactly right. That's huge. Like if someone showed up for the vegan chef the movie, like, I feel like, um,

Alex Ferrari 45:16
Even if they watch this for free on Hulu, exactly, it doesn't even matter if it's a loss leader, it's a lead magnet for them to come into your world. And once they're in your world, and you if you have other things that you can offer them, that is a value to them, then that's and you'll make much more money off ancillary as George Lucas says, The

Caleb Price 45:36
Money's in the in the lunchboxes. 100%, one eights and like, it's so I think people, myself included have so often thought about that in terms of Star Wars, like Well, duh, lightsabers and starts, you know, blaster pistol. Sure, sure. Sure. Horse. It's like, Well think about that for like, there's tons of movies like that. I love that you just have to figure out what is the ancillary product that makes sense for this. That's, that's like a benefit, right? Like I could see on the corner of ego and desire navigating to the Sundance Film Festival or on the corner of ego and desire

Alex Ferrari 46:09
To make how to make how to make a micro budget feature film.

Caleb Price 46:12
Yeah, then boom, that's exactly so we're doing the E course. And that's already it just launched actually today at engage your kids calm for some shameless promotion there. Absolutely. And then the they're doing, because there's a big schools care a lot about this topic. So the DVD Home Entertainment release is in June. So before that, we're doing a special theme, not theater. I don't really call it institution release. So we're selling Provident Films is working with both churches and schools, homeschool networks, private schools, charter schools, to give them advanced screenings, and then those education sectors pay for it. So basically, they can do their own screening. Nice. So really, that's almost three distribution models off the top, you've got a secondary, I don't know if you want to call it a theater market or what but it's like a secondary big screen market, an E course. And then the home entertainment.

Alex Ferrari 47:10
And then then you've got s, VOD, t VOD, and all the other traditional and just DVD sales in general and all

Caleb Price 47:17
Yeah, which for us will all hit in June, pretty much simultaneously. We stay away from Netflix and Amazon Prime for a while for a while I would recommend. So basically at the top level, you got theaters and then you have physical DVDs. And then you have on demand paid on demand. And then you have amazon prime and iTunes and Google Play and then way down at the bottom. You have Netflix and Amazon Prime that Hulu or something who that Yeah, you just got to be careful how quick you jumped to that. Because you can't it's once you've gone to that ring in the ladder. You're done. Yeah, that's it. And for some people, that's that's fine.

Alex Ferrari 47:54
Although, look, you know, if you offer this movie to Netflix, Netflix, like I'm gonna give you 2 million bucks for this. Yeah, totally different story, then you're like, then you're like, um, well, how much money are we gonna make on going the traditional route with all these DVDs and stuff? Or should we just slap it over to Netflix right now?

Caleb Price 48:11
Exactly. You have to or if you've decided as a team, like our ancillary products are so strong. It's worth it to us to have this easier for people to see to sell this stuff.

Alex Ferrari 48:22
Right, exactly. And it all depends on what your end goal of your movie is. If it's if it's to make a lot of money. That's one way if it's, if it's to also make money and help people. That's another thing. There's all sorts of different ways of going about it. But but it's been really educational. I'm really glad you you jumped on the on the on the podcast, man. Thank you so much. Yeah, absolutely. Now everyone now I've got a few questions I asked all my filmmaker all my my guests. So are you ready for the rapid fire questions? Yes, fire away. What advice would you give a filmmaker wanting to break into the business today? Just start doing it. You know what, that is the most common response everyone's like there's just go make a movie. Just go make a movie.

Caleb Price 49:05
There's short films or Poupon I would say that Kirk asked me to join his team because he saw my short films. So I don't to pa them entirely.

Alex Ferrari 49:14
Right I'll meet Oh, I mean, I got big jobs because of short films I've done but Yeah, you did. You did one that was huge. What was it called? Red Prince's blues are broken one of those two, I think it was broken that I saw right. That opened up but that was also 2005 so it was a whole other world when I made that short I would not do that today and nor will it be that successful today because it was just you know, just different times. But in today's world, go make a feature.

Caleb Price 49:42
Yeah, go go do it right now grab your friends and be prepared for it to suck one of the and be okay with that. The biggest one of the biggest things I advice I would also give to is even though it's gonna sound backhanded at the same time, what write your script and if you Find yourself skipping over a portion of the script. And in the back of your mind, you just say, oh, we'll figure that out on set, or Oh, we'll figure that out in post. That's a humongous red flag, and go back to that part of your script and fix it. I'm sure there's someone listening right now, who has been doing that. Don't do that.

Alex Ferrari 50:15
You're like there is you're only allowed to say I'll fix it in post, if you are the person who's capable of fixing it in post.

Caleb Price 50:21
Yeah, don't. Because I wrote a Connect had a pretty script, a pretty strict script. Because this is a lot of information. I want to get it out in an hour, I want people to talk to a brain surgeon first, then parents, then they're like, there's a very specific reason. But there was a particular interview. And every time in the script, I breezed over it. Like I'm sure that'll work. And I'm sure you can guess which interview landed up on the cutting room floor and wasted a lot of time. So yeah, so get out, make the film. be okay with it not being good. And then go make another one. Like if you want to, if you want to break into the business, do it now and for the love of all that is holy. Do not take out a loan to go to film school.

Alex Ferrari 51:05
I mean, if you're going to take out a loan, at least go make a movie with it. But don't even do that yet. But don't do that either.

Caleb Price 51:12
Yeah, read read the I don't care. What about Kevin Smith story about clerks? Of course. Great. Yeah, read that read. You know, the Rebel Without Rebel Without a crew get inspired by those. But do not do those financial models.

Alex Ferrari 51:28
There's a different world and those are the 90s Yeah, you can't. You can't think about becoming you know, you can't go down the same path that Spielberg and Scorsese did like that those paths don't exist anymore.

Caleb Price 51:39
No, they don't. Which is probably why the Scorsese masterclass might be a little harder to translate to today. Right. But

Alex Ferrari 51:45
It was it is pretty good. I mean, he does talk about some cool stuff, but you're on Howard was Ron Howard. Just watch out.

Caleb Price 51:51
So that's there's there's some advice there. Do you want to break into the business today? And honestly, you if you're listening to this and you live in Montana, you don't have to move to closer to LA but it's highly recommended.

Alex Ferrari 52:03
From someone who lived in Miami for a lot of my life. The second I got here, I was like, Oh, I get it now.

Caleb Price 52:10
Yeah, it's hard to explain Alex like I live in Ventura. Which is just beautiful. But I still have to commute to LA to get some stuff. I mean, when you're down here, there's everyone's in on it. Everyone's trying to hustle. There's equipment houses. I mean, down here, you can get an Arri Alexa with like, lenses, like, nothing. Yeah. If you're all there, I'd say get to LA find some roommates start writing and start shooting. There you go. Sorry. I'll stop talking.

Alex Ferrari 52:39
Now, what is the lesson that took you the longest to learn whether in the film business or in life?

Caleb Price 52:45
Oh, boy. Okay. I knew you're gonna ask that. So it's, it's two things. One, when I was in film school, I, I started only dipping because I thought I didn't, I hadn't lived enough life to direct something. And I would say that lesson is, you will never have learned enough to do anything. Well, you're never gonna This is big, philosophical thing here. I'm learning. I have two kids. You're never gonna, quote, be ready to have kids. No, you're never, you will never, quote, be ready to direct that film. You, you won't, that won't happen. So what you need to do is you just need to like, tighten up your knuckles, and just go do it. And I'm looking back and I could have I mean, when you when you don't have kids, and you're not married. I mean, you can sleep whenever and wherever. Yeah, and have so much freedom. Yes, you need to grab a camera and you need to start shooting, you need to stay up till three o'clock in the morning writing. You need to read as much about listen to any puzzle from beginning to end.

Alex Ferrari 53:54
That's, I would say that's the biggest thing. And I'm still learning it, like, try to always go in a little above your head. Because that's the only way you're going to move forward. And it's also I mean, I remember before I met my wife and before I had kids, I mean I i would work 12-15 hours a day sleep for hours and, you know, do things that you just can't do now. Just know, you know, life is different now. All right now what are three of your favorite films of all time?

Caleb Price 54:20
That's easy hook. Scott Pilgrim vs. the World and once once Oh, good. I love I love hook. I would say I would say you need to watch hook to remember that it's okay to feel like a kid forever. Yep. And it's just to see how like, I mean, to me that's like the quintessential large budget studio adventure film of the 90s. I would say watch Scott Pilgrim to get inspired, that you can blend genres sometimes. It works seldomly, but for me, it worked very well.

Alex Ferrari 54:50
It worked very well not financially well, but well artistically without question.

Caleb Price 54:55
Right in the box office, not financially, but long, long term it did actually took place. took a long time.

Alex Ferrari 55:00
It's one of those movies that took a while to everyone go Hey, that's a really good movie.

Caleb Price 55:04
Exactly. And then I would say watch once to get fired up to do a movie for no money. Oh god cuz I mean, that movie was made for nothing on an X decam and looks like crap. And I mean, they were at the Academy Awards, accepting you know, best best song

Alex Ferrari 55:23
It was It's ridiculous. It's ridiculous article and where can people find more out more about the movie and about you?

Caleb Price 55:31
So the movies Connectmovie.com. That's been updated. So yeah, and for me, you could just email me at Caleb c a le b @Calebpriceproductions and then the only social media I'm on now, especially after doing that movie is Twitter. So that's p as in precision f as unfortunate. Caleb c a le b so PFCaleb,

Alex Ferrari 55:51
Caleb, and thank you so much for being on man. You dropped a bunch of knowledge bombs on the tribe today. So I truly appreciate it, man.

Caleb Price 55:57
Thank you, Alex, this is a lot of fun.

Alex Ferrari 55:59
Want to thank Caleb for coming on and dropping some nice knowledge bombs on the on the tribe today. Caleb thank you again, man. And you know, this is just another revenue stream. This is just another way to make money with your movie, it's not going to be for everyone. Not everyone's going to get in, but it's just something I want you guys to be aware of. Because if your movie is the proper fit for this, this is an amazing opportunity to generate revenue for your film. Now if you want links to anything we talked about in this episode, head over to indiefilmhustle.com/245. And if you haven't already, please head over to filmmakingpodcast.com And leave us a good review on the show. It really, really, really helps us out a lot and I really would appreciate it. And also, if you guys like screenwriting, don't forget about bulletproof screenplay, a new podcast that I launched around three months ago and it's already in the top five of all screenwriting podcasts on iTunes. So thank you, for all the tribe members that have already signed up. But if you're interested in signing up for that podcast, head over to screenwriting podcast.com and as always, keep that also going keep that dream alive and I will talk to you soon.