IFH 017: Indie Film Distribution on VOD with Linda Nelson

Alex Ferrari 0:00
So without further ado, sit back and enjoy our interview with Linda Nelson. Linda, thank you so much for joining us on the indie film hustle podcast, we really appreciate you taking the time.

Linda Nelson 0:00
Thanks so much for inviting me, it's always a pleasure to have a chance to share with filmmakers.

Alex Ferrari 0:00
Great. So um, let me ask you a question. I know a lot of indie filmmakers don't understand the term VOD or video on demand. They have an idea of it. But can you explain the kind of what exactly is VOD video on demand and what does it entail?

Linda Nelson 0:00
Well, I think in the past VOD video on demand, I think most people thought of cable and movies on demand on their cable network. But as the digital world has evolved, video on demand just means movie. Well, in our case, movies that you can get and watch whenever you want. There are many forms of VOD while they're still cable, VOD. What has become even more popular, our digital platforms like Amazon and iTunes and Google Play and VUDU and Hulu and that type, which are app based. And so I think that's probably the biggest distinction right now. And and the shift is for people to move away from cable and to these app based digital stores.

Alex Ferrari 0:00
Got it. So then, so the different VOD platforms like Netflix, Amazon, those are the kinds of things

Linda Nelson 0:00
And they're all they're all quite different. There are. There are some very distinct different types of models of VOD. And that's a really, really important distinction to understand something like Netflix, which is a subscription based video on demand platform, people pay a fixed fee, and then they can watch all they want. In the case of Netflix, it's not something we're thrilled about for independent film because they pay very low fixed flat rate fees. And once your film is on Netflix, you won't sell or rent movies anymore because people can get it for what's perceived as free. So we that's something that we highly discourage, especially in the first four or five years.

Alex Ferrari 0:00
Okay, so Netflix is generally not what it's all cracked up to be. I mean, they are the kind of the big poster child for VOD, I guess, in some ways.

Linda Nelson 0:00
You're the thing with Netflix is first of all, now they are already 80% serialized content. Oh, yeah, a TV show they are becoming like an HBO. And that is their business model. And, as far as, as movies, studios will give them their older films, because they can get a decent price from them. If you have a name and your film, if you have an indie film with a name in it, they might offer you a fairly good amount. Say for example, you made a 10 or $15,000, documentary or even a $40,000 documentary They might be willing to pay you something comparable to that if it's either a documentary that is a very important topic right now, or if you have a narrative film that happens to have, you know, you caught a rising star, for example. And this person is now blown up for you know, so those there are some exceptions where they will pay a decent amount for an indie film. But in generally, in general, they pay a low flat rate fee that's payable on quarterly installments over a year. And it's usually so low that that you do cannibalize all of your paid transactional. Now. That's not to say all subscription platforms are not good for indie filmmakers, because there's nothing better than amazon prime. Amazon prime is also a is also a subscription platform. However, amazon prime is pays by the view. So really, yeah. So the more you know, I mean, different distributors have different deals, but on certainly for us, they pay by the view.

Alex Ferrari 0:00
So how does that so how does, how does amazon prime work? Because that's really interesting to me. I've never heard that.

Linda Nelson 0:00
Oh, yeah, no, so that's amazon prime right now is probably our biggest revenue earner for our filmmakers. Oh, wow. And, and the biggest mistake, and this is something that I, I used to advise filmmakers to go on create space and do create space themselves. And there are still people that recommend that like, there are several podcasts that I've heard recently where people say, Oh, you can do Amazon yourself?

Alex Ferrari 0:00
Can you can you explain what CreateSpace is for our audience,

Linda Nelson 1:53
Okay. CreateSpace is a company where you send them a DVD, and they will, they will sell your DVD on Amazon for you, you can set the price. And you also have the option to put it on Amazon Instant Video where people can rent and buy it. So now, there there are several problems with this. And this is something that if you cannot get more traditional distribution, or you can't find a distribution company to work with, as a last resort, you can do this, and you still will have your film out there. And we I always you know there there are a lot of people that are recommending totally do it yourself and direct to audience. I'm think it's a really bad idea unless you absolutely have fully researched and cannot get any other form of distribution. Because what happens with Amazon, and CreateSpace was a was the first company to offer this kind of DVD on demand option for filmmakers. And it was great. And so Well, we certainly started with that. And then Amazon bought them. Okay, so that CreateSpace is now owned by Amazon. But it is an option for anyone, anyone can put their film there. The problem is, these days, everybody is making beautiful HD films, either gyuto 2k, or 4k, and they're in their HD. However, when you go through CreateSpace and make a DVD and go on Amazon Instant that route, you can only go in standard definition. And you cannot get into Amazon Prime amazon prime is only available through partners of Amazon, like our company in the REITs. Hmm. So you have you have to go through an aggregator Gator or a distributor. A lot of people think that we are aggregators, we are not we are actually a distributor. So got it there. And there's a big difference. And what is the difference? The big difference is that we are actually direct partners. And we have a direct partnership deal with Amazon and Google etc. And this is a question that filmmakers must ask anyone they're considering doing distribution by because right now there are hundreds of companies out there saying we'll get your film on Amazon, we'll get your film on iTunes, and Netflix, they are not partners with those companies, they are then going to come to a company like us.

Alex Ferrari 2:12
So it's okay. It's a middleman between the middleman.

Linda Nelson 2:12
What's happening is that the old school form of distribution where there are layers and layers of middlemen is being replicated in the digital world. And the reason that that's happening now is because many of these distributors just couldn't fathom that DVDs would dwindle as quickly as they have. And so their main business was DVDs. And if they didn't get on the, on the digital bandwagon, quick enough and now those doors have closed pretty much. In other words, Amazon, they iTunes, they have all the partners they need. So now you have to goes through one of those partners to get your film distributed. So that's really important. But the thing to go back to the original discussion points of about Amazon being amazon prime being a paid subscription base, they do pay per view. So we teach our filmmakers, how to build engagement with their audience on Amazon, so that they then move their film into the recommendation algorithm. And, and what's important there is that you get plenty of reviews. And and you can encourage that with social media. And so we teach filmmakers how to do that. And, you know, we have a number of films that are very high ranking on amazon prime.

Alex Ferrari 2:14
Now, are those are those pay per views? Is that a standard flat rate? Or is it

Linda Nelson 2:14
It is and I'm not at liberty to discuss that?

Alex Ferrari 2:14
Fair enough. Fair enough. I just thought I'd ask.

Linda Nelson 2:14
And that's because, you know, companies have different deals with different people.

Alex Ferrari 2:14
So fair enough. Fair enough. But it's but it's obviously the best deal that you have right now for filmmakers is amazon prime? Well, one of them,

Linda Nelson 2:59
Okay. There are there are exceptions, we sometimes we don't put people on prime right away if we feel that a film has a lot of potential for paid transactional. Okay, so So far, we've talked about subscription. And Hulu Plus is also subscription. So though, and they do pay by the view as well. So Hulu, plus, Amazon Prime, Netflix, those are subscription based programs. And also there are some new ones that cinedigm has out that were participating in like, documentary Rama, new Dov channel, which just really just started last week, it's great. We should talk about that later, too. Absolutely. And those, those are subscription channels. So that's subscription VOD. And then the next type is called paid transactional or P VOD, or T VOD, as some people call it. And transactional means that people are either they're pulling out their credit card, and they're paying to either buy or rent your film. Now, when I say buy, they're not actually physically buying the media. except in the case of iTunes, you can you you can physically buy the medium and download it to your device. But that's not the way people prefer with when you buy on like Google Play, or Amazon, what you're buying is the right to watch it forever. Okay, it's not like a video store, or wherever a couple of months of DVDs are gone. And that's the end know, once you're up on Amazon, you know, could be there for 20 years or 40 years. Who knows, we don't know yet how long that is. But for as long as Amazon exists, you can go back and watch that movie that you've purchased. If you rent it, and that's for a fraction of what you would buy it for. They each platform gives you a certain amount of time for you to watch it like it might be a week, or it might be you get five views, different platforms give you a different, you know, opportunity to but you're actually paying for that purchase, or the or rental. Well that's a paid transactional and there are some films that really lend themselves to paid transactional. Well, and and so when we see a film that we think has that we might postpone putting it on prime, the reason prime does so well is that people don't have to take out their credit card. And any I don't have to tell you people are reluctant to pay for something where they don't recognize the director, or they don't recognize any of the people that are in the movie, of course, right of course so it's you know, like how often do you do that it's rare

Alex Ferrari 3:00
There unless it's a topic maybe that you're interested in

Linda Nelson 3:27
I'm saying there are documentaries for example, that that that you're interested in, and they're topical, or there's a cause behind it. We have one film like by the name of it's called the title is fray and it's about a young marine that comes back from the war with PTSD. And so that film is done well because there it's not a lot of there are a lot of veterans and families of veterans that are really relating to that film. So you know, so you can take a film like that and and sell a lot of DVDs or you know, purchases or rental. So it just depends on the film and what and what you've done with the film prior to bringing it to a company like us. For example. Frey hat we do a small limited theatrical release on select films. That film got the most superb critical acclaim from the LA Times of any movie I've ever seen. I've never seen a review a more glowing review in a while or something like that just, you know, it really raises the profile of your film. Because other papers all over the country pick up those reviews, if they don't have film critics, it's on Rotten Tomatoes with all of these big juicy red tomatoes. And people look to those places, you know, when they're looking, you know, for a film and trying to decide, do I want to spend money to watch this, you know, right, so so so many of those things. So that's the paid transactional. And then the third type that's quite popular now is ad based. Or a VOD?

Alex Ferrari 4:58
Oh, I've heard of that one.

Linda Nelson 6:13
Well, Hulu, regular Hulu is ad based.

Alex Ferrari 6:22
Okay. When you watch like YouTube, like a YouTube almost,

Linda Nelson 10:24
Well, YouTube, yes, YouTube is totally ad based on my shoe have a rental channel, like us where we have just, you know, just like it's just like iTunes, but it's YouTube. And you can rent all of our movies there, or buy them in SD or HD. So, so but but people that don't have that aren't partners with Google, they can put their films up there, they can put their whole movie up there and then have ads every five minutes.

Alex Ferrari 11:38
I've seen the worst starting to do that. And that is that a decent way of generating some sort of income

Linda Nelson 11:43
Millions of views, you have to really, really get a lot of views, we have one filmmaker who makes quite a bit off advertising revenue on his YouTube channel. But what he does, and cleverly so it is that he will take like the first 10 minutes of his movies, and they're so good and so engaging, that people want to watch the whole movie. So he has ads on those 10 minute clips, you'll have an ad before, maybe two in the middle and one at the end. And then he has links to where you can buy it where we're distributing it. Mm hmm. In the description, and annotated at the back end of the film. Smart. So So somebody watches 10 minutes, he does crime documentaries. Okay. his newest one is called killing Jimmy Hoffa. And it's fascinating. I'm so done. Right? And so he makes quite a good income from those clips. Okay, and at the same time, they're advertising the entire movie, so that this total, so if somebody goes, Oh, wow, I want to see the rest of this. They can just click right on that video on YouTube, it'll take them right to Amazon Prime.

Alex Ferrari 12:26
Interesting. That's a great, that's a great business model for the parent, none of the following you have and so I actually, I actually heard of a filmmaker putting out half his movie, or like, at least 40 minutes of his movie on BitTorrent for free,

Linda Nelson 12:37
Yeah, and that's not gonna run ads. Exactly. They're not making an advertising correct. Do it on YouTube. Not only are you you know, having that as an ad. I just, I'm not a big fan of bit tour. Okay. Because I think that it is so abused. Oh, yeah. You know, we have a very bad time with piracy on our library of films courses, especially ones that we put out theatrical, and they use those as teasers. I'll take that movie fray. And they'll even if they don't have a copy of the film, they will use that to get people's email addresses, and then further market to them for the films that they do have.

Alex Ferrari 13:06
Like every industry, there's always a CD.

Linda Nelson 13:08
And I tell people you once a month should check and have a form letter that you send out to them, telling them to take it down, etc. But don't obsess over it. Because there's no way to get around it. There's always going to be piracy. I mean, even on YouTube, you can find full full versions of some of our movies. And what they'll do is they'll throw it into an editing machine. And then they'll put a red square around it, and then the content ID can't recognize it. That's why they do that, because I actually see a red border or even just two pixels all the way around it. And it's not going to trigger. You know,

Alex Ferrari 13:32
The content, the content. I do. Yeah, because I've actually I've actually gone on YouTube. My daughters have gone on YouTube, and they type in like Finding Nemo. And then I come back later and I'm like, and they're like, why are you watching the entire Finding Nemo movie on YouTube? And I look I'm like, Oh, God, so that makes I was like, how is it? How is it Disney taking this down? Like I you know,

Linda Nelson 13:44
Yeah, there's so many. I mean, the second you can get like even a DVD of your film or a blu ray. All the pirates got to do is play it on their blu ray So you're on their television stick a camera in front of the screen and they can get a really good copy of it

Alex Ferrari 13:54
With a with a good nice with a nice camera absolutely yeah yeah it's

Linda Nelson 13:56
So I mean it's you know and it's always been I mean there's always been piracy with D o 's every you know i mean you go around New York or LA and stores with pile stores you know I've seen them and you know and if they're really sophisticated they'll dump them into Spanish and hit that market or whatever

Alex Ferrari 14:09
It's like a little it's like a little business if you will piracy

Linda Nelson 14:13
A big business right I tried just try to encourage people don't obsess over it because be some some of our filmmakers gets upset about it yeah and just say you know, you have to understand maybe 10% of your businesses you're gonna lose because of that

Alex Ferrari 14:22
It's just it's just it's just yeah there's it's it's like a

Linda Nelson 14:24
Has enough honest people out in the world pay for it if you make it a reasonable price

Alex Ferrari 14:27
Well that's what happened with iTunes in general with music like that's everyone was downloading music for free until iTunes came around and made it accessible easy and affordable like oh buck a song I'll pay a buck a song alright. And and they tried to do it now with movies as well and it's I think helped both industries dramatically. Which brings me to my next question.

Linda Nelson 14:38
Oh, yeah, well say one more thing about the ad base Yes. There are numerous channels that are advertising based like TV TV Are you familiar with TV TV?

Alex Ferrari 14:46
I'm not

Linda Nelson 14:47
Do you are you familiar with Roku?

Alex Ferrari 14:48
Roku I am of course yeah that's Yeah, that's like a little box you buy and there's

Linda Nelson 20:58
A little box it's just like an apple tv except it's got like 3000 channels instead of a couple of 100 so right it's a great deal and a lot of people that are you know have cut the cord like myself or people that have never had cable have Roku boxes there's millions of them out there now and it's filled with I'll bet there's 100 movie channels on there that are advert ad based and like snag or Hulu you get to share in the advertising revenue so so depending on how many views you have, you will get a percentage of the advertising that is placed on your film so Toby TV is a really popular one and so if you go to B TV comm you'll see you know there's a there's the film's Aaron and you know for myself personally I don't like to be interrupted with ads but for people that really don't you know are on a budget and and they don't mind because it's like regular television

Alex Ferrari 22:35
Right old school old school television without the fast forwarding

Linda Nelson 22:40
Well you can fast forward

Alex Ferrari 22:41
Oh you know you can't fast forward through

Linda Nelson 22:43
Oh no, not yet. That's what I mean you can't even change channels during the year

Alex Ferrari 22:48
Of course that of course it's

Linda Nelson 22:50
Just that's it

Alex Ferrari 22:52
You know it's mind blowing to me like how quickly it all changed it's it's it's within the last five years that this this is the whole industry has changed so dramatically and people are it's in many ways is the wild wild west still out there? It's

Linda Nelson 23:07
Definitely still in its infancy

Alex Ferrari 23:08
Nobody knows what like it that's why I wanted to get you on the show because I know a lot of people a lot of filmmakers have no idea what to do with their movies you know I come from a post production background I've been doing it for 20 years and I've delivered I know hundreds of movies and and I've seen been front row to so many of these movies that just go nowhere or they have no idea how to market it or they have no idea

Linda Nelson 23:30
For that now is I believe it's the very best time in history yes independent filmmakers there's so much opportunity even if you are have to do it all yourself you can still do it oh absolutely it's there but you have to work without leaving without leaving your house

Alex Ferrari 23:48
Pretty much pretty often

Linda Nelson 23:49
You have to have you know print a bunch of DVDs and put them in the trunk of your car like people used to do right right a no longer necessary you can do it all from home and not just about being industrious and entrepreneur doing your homework and and learning to be an artist entrepreneur

Alex Ferrari 24:06
Which is what we promote in SAM here that's what we promote because I think a lot of filmmakers just want to be artists or they just want to live the the entourage life as a as as I put it sometimes they just want to be you know they want that oh you make a movie you get into Sundance you when they write you a check and the rest is history. It doesn't happen like that and you and the more and more stuff is out there the more and more you have to become more of that entrepreneur as a filmmaker and really hustle that's why we call ourselves indie film hustle because you have to hustle out there and you can make a living as a film.

Linda Nelson 24:36
Of course you can I mean my partner and I we make a living, making and sharing films we have a production studio that's Nelson Madison films and indie rights is the distribution arm of that studio and exam and it's full time it took us a while to get here.

Alex Ferrari 24:53
Oh no yeah, that's the other thing.

Linda Nelson 24:55
Day jobs for a long time.

Alex Ferrari 24:57
Oh, and trust me, I know this. A lot. A lot of filmmakers don't get that like this is this doesn't happen overnight, it takes it's a long, it's a long play. It's not a short flight. So one question I always get asked, how do you get your film on iTunes? And is it? Is it all that it's cracked up to be? And should you even put it on iTunes?

Linda Nelson 25:16
Well, I will say that iTunes is not our strongest revenue generator. It has huge market share for studio films, or independent films, it's much more difficult to get traction on iTunes. But I have to say the first two places that people ask us about when they come to us to explore distribution is can you get me on iTunes and Netflix,

Alex Ferrari 25:42
Of course.

Linda Nelson 25:44
So I always had to go through that explanation, one about Netflix that I already gave you, and why they don't want to be there, especially the first couple of years. And then I tunes part of the issue with iTunes right now. And hopefully they will correct this is that it is not a true streaming in the sense that you have to download data to your device. And you have to run iTunes software on your device. Okay, that's not true with Amazon, or Google Play, or Netflix. Right? You're not right, right, YouTube. So you know, they're not it's not a cloud based system. So people don't like waiting for stuff to download anymore, people will become very impatient. I mean, God forbid, I mean, five years ago, you had to go to the video store. And actually,

Alex Ferrari 26:35
What is this? What is this? What is this video store? You speak of? I don't, I don't understand what is this thing? What's this concept?

Linda Nelson 26:42
So you know, so we've, we've all become very spoiled. So now iTunes, anybody can get their film on iTunes. If you don't sign up with a distributor, you know, like, indie rights? You can there are some pay paid. Ways To Get on I do there several companies, now you pay them 15 $100. And they will put you on iTunes,

Alex Ferrari 27:09
And you'll never make that 15 $100 back?

Linda Nelson 27:11
Well. It depends on a lot of things. It depends on how much you work your social media with a huge amount of, you know, social media effort. You can, you know, but should

Alex Ferrari 27:26
should, should you have you could go to amazon prime, or you could focus all that energy towards another place.

Linda Nelson 27:31
That's right. I think I think there are more productive places. I mean, we always put our films on iTunes, because people want to be there there is a cachet associated with being on iTunes. But a lot of our films, it's almost impossible to find them on iTunes. You know, because the iTunes has a huge market share when it comes to studio films. Not so with independent film. Everybody wants to be there. But it's really hard to find films there. They don't have good search, right? They don't actually they're horrible, terrible search. So they're so the discoverability is low. So we don't particularly focus on marketing on iTunes.

Alex Ferrari 28:14
If it comes something comes up it comes of it, and then you put it on

Linda Nelson 28:18
Filmmakers or filmmakers that it's really important to, you know, we give them the tools and show them how to market on every platform. But But, but they have to be willing to put in the work. So I mean, you know, I think and here's the other thing, I recommend that I definitely think everybody should put their film on iTunes. I'm not saying don't I think they should all all be. I think that people develop viewing habits. And there are some people that only watch movies on national TV or iTunes. There are some people that only watch on Amazon. I used to only watch movies on VUDU which is Walmart's app, right? But I switched to Amazon at some point. Probably about a year and a half ago or something like that. I love Amazon. It's beautiful. I love it. And then also I use I use m go if I want to watch a brand new movie. And I don't want to go to the theater. m go is great.

Alex Ferrari 29:20
What is m ago I've never heard of them go are you on a computer? I am I will obviously we're recording this.

Linda Nelson 29:28
If you can look at m go.com mg.com m go is up probably a newcomer I will call them still even though they've been live for probably close to two years. Okay. What happened was that the studios, this is my theory of what has happened. The studios woke up one day and they said oh my gosh. The first bite out of all of our revenue is going up north to Silicon Valley. The companies like Netflix and iTunes Should Amazon right? All right, well, why aren't we getting the first bite out of our own films? So the six studios went to DreamWorks and Technicolor, and Technicolor built them a video on demand platform called m go, which is for movies go. Okay, right? Uh huh. And be an all six studios have their films there. Yes. Sometimes they have films that are that are still in the theater. Okay, so there is a premium, but like the people that are willing to stand in long line for the next iPhone, or stand in line for the next new sneaker, there's always people that want to get things first. And so even though they might be a little dazed, they'll stay start out their pricing a little more expensive, because you can't get it anywhere else. But then it goes down to the kind of the same prices as like Amazon, or iTunes, whatever. So, so everything's there, now they decided to partner there's a couple of nice things about that they decided to partner with a couple of independent companies, studios, like ourselves. So indie writes, we have about 30 or 40 Films up there. Okay. And, and on top of that, they are the only one that has a decent 4k library,

Alex Ferrari 31:27
Of course, because they actually, of course, the technology is there, and they own 4k.

Linda Nelson 31:32
So we have five, yeah, five films out on 4k there. Now you have to have a 4k television, Samsung, and then you can rent five of our movies in 4k. The only place right now where we're seeing that

Alex Ferrari 31:49
For at this moment, at this moment.

Linda Nelson 31:52
It's going in that direction, of course, and we certainly recommend every indie filmmaker, to shoot and for shooting master and 4k now. There's no reason not to.

Alex Ferrari 32:03
Except for the post cost.

Linda Nelson 32:06
I mean, we wish okay. Our last feature was called delivered. And it's an action adventure. And it's got some you know, special effects in it. Crime Thriller. We made that movie for $50,000. We mastered it in 4k, we shot Mehsud in 4k at home.

Alex Ferrari 32:29
Okay, of course,

Linda Nelson 32:30
We shot on red. Sure. We beta tested Adobe Premiere when it first came out for them. Okay. And so we were able to do all the special effects everything in Premiere,

Alex Ferrari 32:47
And at a $50,000 budget, you'll it much easier to get your money back.

Linda Nelson 32:52
Yes. So so so it certainly it certainly can can be done. I mean, you know, I think I think what's happened with Final Cut Pro, I mean people that just have abandon it for, you know, either premiere or avid. We happen to like, premiere better, because after effects is totally integrated into the timeline. So there's no in re ingesting composited footage. Right? Right, right. Fabulous. I mean,

Alex Ferrari 33:21
Well, I've what I've started doing is actually I've started cutting on DaVinci. The DaVinci, resolves new, the new version came out with its own editing system incorporated in DaVinci. resolve. And I was like, Oh, this is beautiful. Because now i'm able

Linda Nelson 33:35
For the same reason we use premiere premiere. They're all tools. They're all they are but and premiere is so cheap. Yeah, exactly. Okay, for 2995 a month, you have all the tools you need.

Alex Ferrari 33:49
It's amazing. It's pretty remarkable, right? That emco thing is pretty, pretty cool. I've never even heard of that before. So I'll go

Linda Nelson 33:56
And go, Oh, you know, it's an app. on mobile. It's a mat an app on it. Actually, Mo is the default Movie Channel on Roku.

Alex Ferrari 34:07
That's fascinating. And there are some movies that are in the theater still. I mean, I think eventually, it gets us off the thought this isn't off topic. Yeah, this is off topic. But do you actually think that in the future, we're going to that the studio's want to get away from theatrical, and certainly they want to get that window close closer and closer to like a month, as we've seen, do you think in the future, there's going to be a point where going to the theater will just be much more of an issue, because something you can't get at home, you can't get IMAX at home, you'll never be able to get IMAX at home, or maybe that big, but it's going to be more event films and it's just going to be like slowly, just be going more and more VOD and more almost like a week windows two week windows sometimes.

Linda Nelson 34:48
I think it's already there. Really? Sure. How do you know do you know how few movies make it to the theater wide release?

Alex Ferrari 34:56
You know, it's almost impossible. Yeah.

Linda Nelson 34:58
So To me, in the world of independent film, we're already there. Got you a couple of 100 movies a year, getting the theater. That's it, if you're lucky, if you're lucky in that and that's it and, and and the rest. You know, there's 1000s made every year

Alex Ferrari 35:16
1000s 10s of 1000s

Linda Nelson 35:20
I mean if somebody if Sundance gets 11,000 app you know submissions there no it's like

Alex Ferrari 35:27
You know it's a match so that's only Sundance so then add probably another 10,000 on top of that, and they and they all and they all star percentage and they all star Eric Roberts

Linda Nelson 35:39
Well, we just we just got an aircraft.

Alex Ferrari 35:41
I'm sure they're everywhere.

Linda Nelson 35:44
He likes to work.

Alex Ferrari 35:45
I he does I worked on I just I have three features I just finished with Eric. That's why I'm making that.

Linda Nelson 35:51
Oh, yes, we just were putting one out for Halloween while it's already up on Google Play called Halloween hell.

Alex Ferrari 35:58
Oh, cool.

Linda Nelson 35:59
Nice Dracula.

Alex Ferrari 36:00
Oh, that must be fun. It's fun. It must be fun. So let me ask you a question. Do you still think filmmakers should attempt to sell physical DVDs and blu rays as part of that? Yeah, absolutely.

Linda Nelson 36:10
Absolutely. We, we offer physical DVD, retail DVD to select films that we are distributing? I mean, there, you know, I think some are, are better suited for DVD than others. But absolutely, we are we see DVD sales comparable to

Alex Ferrari 36:34
Amazon sales. Okay. So it's all it's all case by case

Linda Nelson 36:38
It is. And so like what I was speaking about with, you know, platforms in your original question about iTunes, people go on iTunes, and my response about viewing patterns. People get into a habit, right? And you know, what you want your film everywhere where people might want to watch it. And whether that's a VOD platform, or or physical, DVD or Blu ray or something, you know, right, or Blu ray. And, you know, so you definitely, you want to get your film out to as many possible places where there's a good chance that people are going to view now that, that being said, there's probably 250 VOD retail stores, and we only do the top 10. Because that's where all the traffic is, of course, you know, so I mean, we don't recommend you're doing all of those, I mean, doesn't make any sense. You know, so

Alex Ferrari 37:35
You can't market you can't market to all of those, right?

Linda Nelson 37:37
You can't market to all of them. And and the percentage that you would get off of the really small ones is it's not worth putting the effort in. Because the delivery process is arduous. I don't have to tell you.

Alex Ferrari 37:51
I'm gonna ask you a question about deliverables a little bit later.

Linda Nelson 37:54
I'll do the things that I want to make sure. deliverables, QC are starting your social media early.

Alex Ferrari 38:01
Okay. We'll talk about that a second. Because I have it that was a very, I wanted to I wanted to get a distributors point of view, because I've been preaching about deliverables forever. But now I have a filmmaker. I have a personal for my good friend of mine, who won Sundance a few years ago with her film, and she's now going to be releasing a new film coming up. And what her plan is, is to do VH x and video on demand and sell directly to her audience. Now, obviously, she has cachet from Sundance, a very bad idea. Tell me Tell me why she did her first point was going to do that. And then try to do you know, traditional VOD and things like that in at the same time, but at least the sell directly. Right. So Tommy,

Linda Nelson 38:47
It's it? And I'll tell you why. It's a bad idea. One, like I said, if she does, like Amazon on her own.

Alex Ferrari 38:59
No, it wouldn't be fair. No, the only thing the only platform she would do my checks VHS and video of Vimeo Vimeo on Vimeo. Yeah, that's it all the other platforms, she would still leave open. And she wouldn't do anything else by herself. But VHS specifically because of the ability to package hats and T shirts and exclusive content and things like that to make that $10 sale turn into $100 sale because her community has. She has a large social media team

Linda Nelson 39:23
If you want if you want to know if a platform is a good place to put your film. You should use a site called compete comm and put in the name of the site. And you will see how many monthly unique eyeballs go to that site. Or you can make a choice of going to a site that has 100,000 a month or a billion which would Where do you want your film? Right? It's not a hard question. It And I'll have you on, let me see if I can send you a link. Right? Alright, hold on just a second. There. We're very excited about Vimeo we have a new Vimeo channel, okay. And part of why we're, we're excited about it for a number of reasons. One is that it is global. Okay. And, and I think that's really important, you want to be able to have your film available globally, right. It's not important for all films, but a lot of films, you know, can do really well in in a global or international setting. And there's a right time to do that. What you don't want to do is do that early, because then you might really damage your ability to work in foreign sales. For example, we're going to AFM, of course have our office for the first time, okay, usually we just go there and try to sell but this year, we decided

Alex Ferrari 41:11
Oh, you got an office fantastic. got enough. I'm hoping I'm hoping to be there. Hopefully, we can catch a coffee.

Linda Nelson 41:17
And having an office is important, because you get the buyers list and you make while you're set up all your appointments ahead of time, of course, you can't get at the buyers list without having an office. So that that's was a huge step for us, you know, to finally make that jump. But when you have international buyers, and they come to you and they're interested in their film and your film, and they find out that you're you're already selling it on Vimeo, in Germany, they're not gonna they're not gonna go for, they want all rights. Most foreign deals are all rights deals. Okay, so you have to be really careful with that. So if you exploit that too early, you could really damage your ability for international sales. For that, that's that's one reason for

Alex Ferrari 42:04
Like Vimeo on demand. Yeah, Vimeo.

Linda Nelson 42:07
Okay, so so. So, if you did do it, you should limit it. But it's up, but yeah, but um, the second problem is that those sites, you must drive all the business correct. All right. And the pool of people that you're driving to is tiny, miniscule in comparison with the traffic that's on iTunes, and Google and Amazon and Amazon, just miniscule. And, but but it is important so that you do have that foreign option. And what's nice about it, and I like very much about Vimeo is that you can geo block easily with a chicken, just one checkbox, you can turn off a country goddess, so so it's possible that you can salvage that situation for foreign sales, you could say, Okay, well, we'll stop selling. And if it's early enough in the game, then then that still works. I think that they're great adjunct sites to do. But I think if you're going to put all your effort into driving sales to those sites, you're going to get burnout. so that by the time you do the big sites, you know, are you going to have any energy left? I mean, yeah, it's all about Yeah, yeah, you know, and then then you're going to get nowhere. Because because you really, if you put the effort into like Amazon, and the end the big sites, you're going to, you're going to have a really good chance at sales, but you're not going to not if it's a year down the line. Right. So and, and, and you won't get the physical DVD with that. Got it. All right. So I just really think it's a matter of opportunity, your opportunity for revenue is tiny on those sites, absolutely tiny, and it's gonna take a lot of effort to drive, drive sales to them.

Alex Ferrari 44:04
It's a case by case basis at that point. And also, if you want it again, how much energy are you willing to put in? Right? And it's a lot easier to drive people to Amazon, everyone knows it's easier. It's quicker VH x, you know, to drive people to that site to try to buy your product. It's gonna it's a tougher sell, but could be lucrative. It all depends on it.

Linda Nelson 44:25
Can I just Vimeo channel Yep, I got it. And now we're, we've worked very hard with Vimeo to create a channel. And there are very few companies that have this. I think there's only like three or four that have a channel like this. And I think slam dance has won South by Southwest and Sundance.

Alex Ferrari 44:52
So your company and Scylla scope. That's right, you're in good company.

Linda Nelson 44:56
So I think because we're going to mark we're We're gonna market this channel. If you're on this channel, you're going to have a better chance.

Alex Ferrari 45:05
Of course, yeah. Because your

Linda Nelson 45:07
Film scene, right, and it's beautiful.

Alex Ferrari 45:12
We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor. And now back to the show. No, I'm looking at it is gorgeous. I'll put it in the show notes. So everybody could go and check it out.

Linda Nelson 45:27
Okay, yeah. And so so um, you know, we're, we're really excited about this. And Vimeo, I think, finally realize that just working with individual filmmakers was not going to bring enough because they have to depend on on individual filmmakers to market their films. And that's just craziness. Right? So they've decided to start working with select distributors. Perfect. That makes it perfect. Oh, so Indy writes, you know, is very thrilled.

Alex Ferrari 45:59
It looks it looks gorgeous. It looks gorgeous. And again, it's at the end of the day is getting eyeballs on films.

Linda Nelson 46:04
It is and and and you know, it's a, you know, they've done a really beautiful job of it. And, and so we're we haven't officially launched it yet, but we're going to be launching it as part of our promotion for ASM. Okay, because it's a great place for all of the buyers to watch all the trailers.

Alex Ferrari 46:28
Perfect. Yeah, you're right. It's global. Yep, you're right there and just go to it. Alright, so things have changed so much.

Linda Nelson 46:37
You know, so this is, you know, that's our plan.

Alex Ferrari 46:40
I remember when I was I was mailing out demo reels on three quarter inch. Because nobody wanted to watch it on VHS.

Linda Nelson 46:47
It's so expensive.

Alex Ferrari 46:49
Oh, God, the costs are expensive. And now the cost is almost nothing. It's just time. It's about time and internet connection time. So, a couple more questions. What is the most effective marketing plan an indie filmmaker should use if they have a small budget like Facebook or Google ads? Or what would you suggest?

Linda Nelson 47:11
Well, if you have zero budget, social media, right? And, and it's, it is a synergistic combination of Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, and possibly Instagram. But if you effectively use those for in concert, you can do it for free, you can get it set up so that you don't doesn't take a lot of time, all of them can be scheduled. You know, so, you know, it wants it takes a little while to get everything all set up and working well. But once you do, then you could do it one, or you can do it like one afternoon a week. You know, and if you spent years you know, I you know, pouring your heart and soul into a movie, that's the least you can do is one afternoon a week, right? should be doing it every day, one evening a week, or half a Saturday or half a Sunday, you know you need to it's like you know, like you're you know, I always compare it to you know, having a child because our movies are like our children in some ways. They you know, you go through this pregnancy, and then you go through the birth, which is your release, and then a lot of filmmakers just like ignore their child they neglect their child you have to nurture your your movie just like it was a child and you have to you know, you have to take really good care of it and raise it and and then it it'll be something for you to be proud of that the world can see. The other thing

Alex Ferrari 48:49
A lot of filmmakers think it the process is over when you win, when you lock the cut, and it's up, but not anymore. You that's just like probably 50% of it. And then then you continue to market and push for another six months to a year.

Linda Nelson 49:04
Yeah, even even you know, I think even more do I mean and the time that you spend on it will decrease but but the better job you do early on more attraction it gets send you the less you have to do down the line. Right, exactly. But but we have films that are 20 years old that are making money.

Alex Ferrari 49:23
If it's good content, it's good content, right, the bottom line. Now can you touch upon split rights for a film, I know that that's a term that's been used specifically now in the VOD, and digital rights arena where a filmmaker might have the rights to sell their their movie on their own website per se, like this avh X. But then they give all the rights to everything else outside of that. Can you touch a little bit? No,

Linda Nelson 49:46
We don't. We don't have a problem with that our. Our contract is actually we still consider it a non exclusive contract. However, we do require that you give us the top 10 platforms. Got it. Dan, if you want to do 20 other smaller sites, you know, that's fine.

Alex Ferrari 50:03
Or if you want to push VH x or or do whatever you want,

Linda Nelson 50:06
Here's the thing you can you can you on your website, you could do VH x or, or Vimeo, but then again, you still got to drive the business, of course. Right. So maybe you're better off to embed

Alex Ferrari 50:23
Google Play, right, or Amazon

Linda Nelson 50:26
Or Amazon and use their embeddable. So you might be better off to do that. Right? Yeah, I make more money doing that. We have people selling our movies as affiliates.

Alex Ferrari 50:40
Yeah. That's a whole other conversation. Yeah, right. Yeah.

Linda Nelson 50:44
And they're making money for us. Right?

Alex Ferrari 50:46
Exactly. Yeah, they'll they'll put it on their site, and they get a percentage. And, yeah, it's just got it. The more I talk to you, the smarter realize how much things.

Linda Nelson 50:57
And the thing is, that doesn't cost. Nothing it does, it doesn't come out of our pocket that comes out of Amazon's pack, they pay that. So which is fantastic. So so you know, so it's, we don't mind if people do that. Also, if someone comes up with a broadcast deal on their own, we don't take a percentage of that we don't. We were filmmakers first. Got it. We started making movies. And when we when we found out how bad most of the distribution deals law, charted indie rights, because we didn't want to give our films away.

Alex Ferrari 51:33
And hope and hope to get money one day, maybe.

Linda Nelson 51:36
And so so we started indie rights in 2006. And we started it with a bunch of filmmakers that were on the festival circuit with us.

Alex Ferrari 51:46
Like, hey, let's just put something else

Linda Nelson 51:48
Yeah, let's all band together, you know, and and it just grew from there, you know. And so it's, you know, I mean, we're filmmakers first, we're very conscious of, you know, what filmmakers want to do. And so we try to be as fair as we can sit not require any digital platforms. But we found that people were going and doing Amazon on their own. And then they would that messes up us being able to do it, and then it's not even an HD are able to go on prime. So we we changed our contract slightly just to say that we do need these 10 platforms. Got it. So so you know, Vimeo is not on there, by the way. And part of the thing with that is that Vimeo, will allow multiple people to have movies video on demand, although I would assume that that may change at some point.

Alex Ferrari 52:47
Yeah. So in other words, if you can have it on indie rights, that I could sell it on the side. It's kind of weird, though. I mean, it would be a bit more censorship right now. Well, one thing

Linda Nelson 52:56
Yeah, I think it I think it probably makes more sense to be on a channel if they start marketing these channels. Right? So I mean, if you go to vimeo.com, slash on demand, and click on discover, you'll you see, you know, the ones that are there, although that's not where the traffic comes from. You know, you still have to drive the traffic for this indie right, this site that you saw there, and then we have to drive that traffic.

Alex Ferrari 53:21
Well, one thing I was talking about that other filmmaker, the one that won Sundance, she actually tells me that she has the digital rights for it. So she had it on Vimeo and she's like, I make a check every month off of it, people find VHS, no, you have to actually push there. But on Vimeo, there's so many filmmakers they're looking for and film fans looking for material that she at least with her case, she found that it's easier. People just discover her on Vimeo a lot easier than other platforms.

Linda Nelson 53:49
But it all depends how much she's making.

Alex Ferrari 53:51
Exactly

Linda Nelson 53:53
Making 20 dollars a month.

Alex Ferrari 53:55
Hey, hey, it's not so much not so much. Exactly. So, um, two more questions. One you wanted to talk about that new VOD platform at the beginning of the show you were talking about that you just started like started a week ago. What was the name of that one? You don't remember if something you just saying at the beginning of the show. You're like, Oh, we got I want to talk about this. This the the new VOD platform that opened up a week ago.

Linda Nelson 54:19
I last week, I said that

Alex Ferrari 54:22
You don't remember. Okay. Um, or something that opened up a week ago. I forgot what it was a marketing something or other that was opening the marketing or distributor. Don't worry about it. I'll edit this out. Can you please go?

Linda Nelson 54:37
I mean, maybe I was talking about Vimeo because,

Alex Ferrari 54:40
No, it wasn't. It was a new It was a new something. But anyway, don't worry about it.

Linda Nelson 54:44
M go is pretty new,

Alex Ferrari 54:47
You know what, I'll go back and listen to it and I'll email you just just for our own clarification, but I'll cut it out the word. So Linda, can you please this talk about the wonderful Have deliverables and specifically as well QC and what that means,

Linda Nelson 55:05
Okay Well, it's kind of a broad topic, but absolutely critical to the success of your movie, and something that you need to be thinking about before you shoot one frame at a time, and we have, we have about close to 350 films in our library now. And I have to tell you, half of them fail preliminary to see that's pretty good, excellent. And it is it's gotten, it's gotten better and better. But, um, we do a preliminary QC here. And then of those ones that pass the preliminary QC that we do once we send them to iTunes who has a very arduous you know, QC program, probably another 50% of those will again not pass that QC it needs some kind of adjustment. So So I think the most important thing to know is that you should have some idea what deliverables are expected from you before you start shooting your film so that as you shoot it as you edit it, you can edit it in such a way that you will be able to deliver what's required and and so, you know, I mean, we were actually thinking about publishing on our site, our deliverables lists so that people can get a better idea that would be what it says because I'll tell you half of the films that we get if they have been edited on Final Cut Pro come to us as dual mono instead of true stereo because the default is not to have stereo pair and we specifically in red type on our deliverable list mentioned this and show you a picture of what the waveforms look like yet still half the films we get our dual mono and no platform will take that so when you when it's and that's that luckily that's something that you as long as you still have your film and can it's on an editing timeline you can render it out in the proper way. But it's very time consuming. You can lose two or three months because about your release date just because of that.

Alex Ferrari 57:47
No I know I've like I said I've delivered I've delivered a ton of movies and I mean before used to be like 15 or $20,000 between just you know HD cam HD SSRS DCP now and then I was doing betas and Digi betas up until last year Believe it or not

Linda Nelson 58:04
Yeah yeah no I know it's like amazing

Alex Ferrari 58:08
It's insanity but nowadays with digital deliverables I mean you just need a good pro rez for to to HQ

Linda Nelson 58:16
Yeah, that's what we use for 4k or not for 2k Okay, oh yeah you know just for just for regular standard HD on like Amazon and all that that's that's plenty if you want to be 4k then you know, I mean there's a new UI HD format spec that we have for 4k films. And but other things that people maybe aren't so familiar with is that it is if you are doing us distribution you must have closed captions and yeah, that's awesome. Captions used to be very expensive you could easily pay 1500 bucks to have a post production house do it oh then the price kind of went down to 800 when it got more more competitive and then 400 and we have for the past year and a half been using a company called rev comm who does it for a buck a minute and they do a fabulous job.

Alex Ferrari 59:10
Wow, that's not many I've heard

Linda Nelson 59:12
Of that. There are $100 and they do a great job and if there's a problem with it, they'll fix it.

Alex Ferrari 59:17
That's That's great. That's actually I'm gonna actually use those guys

Linda Nelson 59:22
So so that's a you know, that's a requirement we have to have it. Most people think that captions are the same as subtitles they are not okay, subtitles do not contain ambient or atmospheric sounds like for example, because captions if a door slams and that's significant to the story you must say in their door slams because captions are for the Deaf. So a phone ringing a door slamming a siren. Those are things that must be in there that would not be in there just for subtitles.

Alex Ferrari 59:57
What was the name of the airline? What was the name of the company again?

Linda Nelson 1:00:00
rev.com rev.com

Alex Ferrari 1:00:03
And they do multiple languages as well.

Linda Nelson 1:00:05
Well they are just getting into the subtitle biz or the the foreign subtitle business and that's more expensive

Alex Ferrari 1:00:12
Of course of course okay

Linda Nelson 1:00:15
So they're great for that so that's that's the number two issue we have if you plan on selling your film foreign you must make separate tracks for dialogue and of course Yeah, and I can tell you this is especially true for small low budget films you get your noise in and dialogue in the same same track Oh, I know you're done yeah. You must isolate your dialogue

Alex Ferrari 1:00:47
And then let's not even talk about five one and a lot of times that whole process as a whole

Linda Nelson 1:00:52
That's difficult because and then probably the rest of the you know what we do now because people have such a hard time with 5.1 is we asked for to progress one with stereo embedded and one with 5.1 embedded if you have 5.1 right because it's really hard to get the 5.1 very few people I can tell you out of 300 Films probably maybe 10 or 10 to 20 have actually mapped the 5.1 correctly so on the first on the first cracks no no I know it's very difficult

Alex Ferrari 1:01:29
It is it unless you hire someone that knows if you

Linda Nelson 1:01:33
Want 5.1 We definitely advise you using a post house

Alex Ferrari 1:01:36
Yeah, or some or post supervisor.

Linda Nelson 1:01:39
Exactly. So so it's you know so that's that's that's really really important. Then there are some other things you cannot people that are used to selling to broadcast filmmakers. They're used to putting color tone color bars and tones on their films. It's strictly prohibited for digital platforms the pro res file that we get cannot have any color cop color bars or tones on the front

Alex Ferrari 1:02:08
But you do slates right of course.

Linda Nelson 1:02:11
You mean production bumper

Alex Ferrari 1:02:13
No just a slate like you know what? No slates either

Linda Nelson 1:02:16
Oh nothing interesting the movie should just start at the end and it can start with your production company

Alex Ferrari 1:02:22
Of course yeah of course of course yeah

Linda Nelson 1:02:23
No nothing on the front okay. Has nothing It should have just a few frames of black on either end

Alex Ferrari 1:02:30
And then information on where all the tracks lead and things like that if there's multiple tracks like I guess not on the video but on the side

Linda Nelson 1:02:37
No, no, no, no, it's you have to map it to our spec.

Alex Ferrari 1:02:41
Oh then that There you go.

Linda Nelson 1:02:42
So then you'll know we're there. Ah, there we have you do eight tracks left toward the left and right stereo.

Alex Ferrari 1:02:48
Got it? Got it. So let me ask you What do filmmakers need to do to submit their films to you?

Linda Nelson 1:02:54
Oh, we have a forum on Facebook.

Alex Ferrari 1:02:56
Okay, simple as that

Linda Nelson 1:02:58
It's very very simple you go to indie writes movies there's a tab that says distribution and then it says submit your film here and you click on here and you'll get a form and you know it's it's that easy and

Alex Ferrari 1:03:13
And where can and where can everyone find you find information about indie rights things like that.

Linda Nelson 1:03:18
You can go to indie writes calm Nelson Masson films calm or you could on you can go to Facebook. But if you just go on Google and you put in indie writer Nelson Madison films we take up the the first five pages if somebody can't find us they got a problem.

Alex Ferrari 1:03:38
I always find that fascinating. I always find that like I couldn't find your mic. Do you not have Google

Linda Nelson 1:03:45
Just put in Nelson Madison films and and if you put in that then it'll take you wherever you need to go.

Alex Ferrari 1:03:52
And so this is the last question is I asked all my guests that come on the show it's a very difficult question. So prepare yourself. What are your top three favorite films of all time?

Linda Nelson 1:04:02
Oh my god. It does.

Alex Ferrari 1:04:04
It can be anything that tickles your fancy at this moment in time because I know that's a really tough question love.

Linda Nelson 1:04:09
We love crime thrillers. Okay. So any of Michael Mann's great we love it. Yeah, you like like True Romance. That type of film. We love. The Good, the Bad and the Ugly.

Alex Ferrari 1:04:26
Oh yeah. Sergio Leone. Absolutely.

Linda Nelson 1:04:29
And of course, we like big films like Apocalypse Now. Blade Runner is one of our favorites. And you know, so we love really, we like big movies. Of course, Blade Runner. And the thing is you can make a big movie and I think it's a big mistake that a lot of first time filmmakers make they think they have to have three people on a couch in an apartment. You know, it's not true. Not $50,000 film we made had had a cast of about 30 and 22 locations and you know, what did you shoot? What did you shoot that by though, oh my gosh all over downtown LA and shot it all LA, all around la out by Palmdale we shot quite a bit of it. And we actually were able to rent this little six room motel for a couple of days to do all of the stuff out there and, you know, everybody slept there and we had all of our equipment there and everything and we shot on red and 4k. And, and using social media was critical to doing that. And we didn't talk much about that. But it's something you better have a Facebook page come day, one of the idea of exactly Okay, not not in production even before then when we like for our next film, the day, we made the first page of the script, and that was our profile picture to start to put it up on Facebook. Because we use social media to help produce efficiently we, we put up descriptions of all the locations we needed. And we told people if you can get us a location for free, put a picture of it up here we gave the descriptions of it. We didn't pay for any of our we had we had sites that charge the studio's $15,000 a day for free. Nice, hey, and then we said you'll get a you get a location scout credit on the back of the film. And that and we did that. That's great. You know, so I mean, just things like that. We did a lot of auditions. We had put upsides for parts. And we had people prepare their own video audition and upload it. Looking at that stuff.

Alex Ferrari 1:06:44
Oh, yeah, of course, the inner workings.

Linda Nelson 1:06:46
No, so you save the cost of you know, like, you know, having casting office.

Alex Ferrari 1:06:52
So you so you cast it, so you cast it everything online,

Linda Nelson 1:06:54
Not everything, but a good portion of it.

Alex Ferrari 1:06:58
Oh, my God, that's accessible. Yeah, it's like thinking outside the box is what you have to do. And that's what a lot of,

Linda Nelson 1:07:04
Believe me, those people are Uber fans. All of the people that you engage during production feel like they are a part of your movie, and they will share your movie with all their friends. Mm hmm. And hopefully, that's something you cannot get after the movies done.

Alex Ferrari 1:07:20
Right! It's harder to build up that momentum. Yeah, that's much harder to build up on that. That's why I didn't we didn't touch this either the crowdfunding thing, but a lot of people go to crowdfunding, and they're like, I just put it up on Kickstarter, but I only made 20 bucks. I'm like, because you have no following you have,

Linda Nelson 1:07:34
I would say you need at least 10 15,000 people ready to go at launch day. If you want a really successful, you know, not if you're only raising like $5,000 No, but I mean, if you want to, you know, raise $100,000 you need you need a bunch of pee, you need a good size audience ahead of time. You can you can get that on by having the page on Facebook and getting as much put together and elements attached as you can early on.

Alex Ferrari 1:08:04
And that's what I think is separating filmmakers. Now as much as much as talent is separating it now because it's so much in quality. It's now who's willing to do the work, who's willing to go out there and hustle that that that get the fan pages up, do all that kind of work. And that's separating people from other filmmakers who just oh, I just wanted to make a movie.

Linda Nelson 1:08:24
And it really factors into our decision on what films we're going to take for distribution I have to tell you why it's so important because what happens is we have a form that you fill in when and then you have to send us a blu ray or DVD screener because we want to watch it the way people are going to walk most people are going to watch it, though we watch it on a nice big flat panel TV. And but in in the information that we asked you for we have a you know quite a extensive form that you have to fill things that that are important. And this is also true when you're trying to get in film festivals. One who's in your film, and just because there's nobody in there, that's all right. To what festivals Have you been in. And it doesn't have to be Sundance or slam dance but we have to see see that you've made an effort to even get it in regional. Sure. So if you if you will come to us and you have no Facebook page, and you're done and no and no festivals, you know, we can see that you're not ready to make the effort that's required. Right? Right. And I don't care how good the film is. It will just disappear into a black hole. Absolutely. Absolutely. So so we those things are important. How many fans do you have on Facebook? It's It's It's important.

Alex Ferrari 1:09:41
It's extremely important. It's extremely important. Linda, I won't take up any more your time. Thank you so so much for being on the show. You laid out so many gold information bombs. On on this on this podcast. I think my audience got a lot out of it. Thank you so, so much

Linda Nelson 1:10:00
You're very welcome. And the more the more they know, you know, the easier Our job is, and the more successful our films gonna be. So we're very happy to share as much information as we can. Thanks again, Linda, thanks for the opportunity.

Alex Ferrari 1:10:14
Hope you guys like that episode man. It was a very eye opening episode. For me, Linda really threw out a lot of gold nuggets and a lot of information about VOD, that I didn't have any idea about before. So I really want to thank her a lot for what for the information she gave us so if you have any questions for her, please head over to indie film rights, or Nelson Madison films.com and get information about her and what her company does. Also, don't forget to head over to film festival tips. com that's Film Festival tips.com where I show you my six secrets to get into film festivals for either cheap or free and helped me get into over 500 Film Festivals myself So guys, thanks again for all the love and all the downloads and all the great comments we've been getting about the show. I really feel like I'm connecting with you guys and giving you guys a lot of great content so please email me or message me on Facebook or tweet me or any other way you can communicate with me. any topics you want me to cover any buddy you want me to try to get on the show any information that you want me to get to you. I'm open to any ideas I really am here to help you guys and give you as much content as humanly possible. Alright, and again if you do love the show, please do me a favor, head over to iTunes and give us an honest review about what you think of the show. It really helps us out a lot and rankings in iTunes. So thanks again guys. And don't forget, keep your dream alive. Keep on hustling. Talk to you soon.