IFH 591: How NOT to Get Screwed Over by a Distributor with John Kim

John Kim 0:00
As we flip from from riches to rags, and and a lot of people just can't deal with it.

Alex Ferrari 0:06
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John Kim 0:59
Good. Thanks, Alex. How you doing?

Alex Ferrari 1:01
Good. Thank you so much for coming on the show my friend. I I appreciate you reaching out to me. I get I get hit up by a lot of you know, distributors sometimes I think distributors are scared to come on the show now. But many, many of them are. I've had producers reps on the shows. I've had sales agents on the show. And I've had a few distributors on the show as well who are brave enough to come on the show to just have honest conversations no other reason. And after doing research on you and looking you up, you've done you've done a few things in the business. You've been around for a while. This isn't your first barbecue sir.

John Kim 1:36
You know i i got nothing to hide. That's my whole shtick is because you know, I have been around I would have been selling for 20 years, I was at Paramount. I was at Disney did the independent distributor thing. And then I set up my own shop five years ago, and it's been a 30 year answered prayer. So you know, I I'm thankful. I'm very thankful.

Alex Ferrari 2:02
And you've seen this business changed so dramatically from the moment you started in it to where we are right now. I mean, I always love telling people ohh the 90s

John Kim 2:13
I was just trying to think back 90s Yeah, I was still alive. I was still doing this.

Alex Ferrari 2:17
Oh, the 90s in the early 2000s Where DVD was King and you could put out sniper seven.

John Kim 2:24
Yeah, I was putting I was converting VHS to DVD for Disney catalog stuff. So that was an amazing thing. I mean, you just you just pack a DVD and it could be riddled crap. And you know, you sell two main units. I mean, it's crazy.

Alex Ferrari 2:42
It was a different it was a different world. And I know a lot of times, filmmakers still think that we're in a different world. So I know a lot of filmmakers think that we're still in the 90s for like the Sundance scenario, where you gotta get to a film festival, and then someone's gonna discover you and someone's gonna give you billions of dollars and then you're gonna become rich and famous. And because in the 90s that happened almost every month, there was a there was El Mariachi, a clerks of Brothers McMullen. She's gotta have it all these kinds of filmmakers and directors a slacker. And if since then I've had a lot of those filmmakers on the show. And I asked them, I'm like, what is it like having that lottery ticket? And would you make it today? If that movie came out? And every one of them like, it? Probably wouldn't. It wouldn't. If slacker showed up today, if slacker showed up on your doorstep, and it showed up on John Pearson store your doorstep? Could you do anything with slacker today?

John Kim 3:40
Yeah, I mean, it's, it's, it's amazing. What I tell people is, you know, it's a lot easier to go from rags to riches versus riches to rags. And basically the whole industry started from riches. And, and when you start from the riches and all sudden, you don't want to hustle and you don't want to kill for your own food, and right now you gotta shoot for squirrels. But if you've been feasting on, you know, five class meals, it's hard to like get down and dirty in a bit. You know, in any other industry. In progressions starting from that way gives you that discipline gives you the understanding versus the flip. And it's hard to deal with and I think that is the best kind of analogy right now where we're at is as an industry is we flipped from from riches to rags, and, and a lot of people just can't deal with it.

Alex Ferrari 4:32
And you're absolutely right. Oh my God, that's a great analogy, because, you know, we're shooting for squirrels, where before used to be eating, you know, big game, and it was easy. And they do just bring it like it. We were just saying, you know, you put out a crap movie on DVD and you'd make two you sell 2 million units. I would tell people back in the 80s because I worked in a video store back in the 80s when I was coming up as a kid. I used to see VHS show up and I'm like, oh, so if you just finished a movie In the 80s, it got distributed. Right? If you just finished a movie on 35, you had a minimal theatrical release somewhere. And it would go straight to video. And, you know, the Puppet Master series and full moon and all of those things and trauma and, you know, Toxic Avenger got a theatrical release, you know, things, things like that. So, the world is so, so different now. And so many filmmakers still live in the, in the, in the magical times where those those times don't exist. And even five years ago, I mean, I've been doing this show now seven years, from when I launched in 2015. To where we are now. I mean, it's so dramatically different.

John Kim 5:43
Yeah, I mean, it's it's a, it's unbelievable. I mean, if people really knew how hard it is, and if they really looked at the realities of the situation, as far as you know, how many people actually make money on on a movie, you know, and if they had a, you know, a total total right brain, you know, strategic brain and checking off all the risk scenarios that they wouldn't do it. So, but at the same time, innovation only happens with with those people that you know, that can dream and go beyond, you know, the realities of the situation. And then you get a Slumdog Millionaire, but people don't realize that's a one in a millionaire once in a month.

Alex Ferrari 6:26
But that's an anomaly. Yeah, there's that's apparently there's apparently and then let's let's let's dish them out paranormal activity, Blair Witch, you know, then all the movies from the 90s, you know, clerks, El Mariachi, all anomalies they are not there.

John Kim 6:43
I mean, as long as you know that, I mean, you know, you're, you're going for a lottery ticket is a good analogy as a lottery ticket, because people don't realize it is that hard. And for some reason. They think that, oh, this is my movies just as good as that. And this is a greatest thing. They don't realize that the marketplace doesn't care if you if you mortgage your house, or if you you know, you gave your left arm for something. It's just like, show me what you got. Because I could care less. You know?

Alex Ferrari 7:13
That's, that's the reality. Let's I want to give you an example. I want I want this to be laid out because I want people listening to understand. I'm going to give you an example of a film. And you tell me what you professionally think the film could do in the marketplace, if anything at all?

John Kim 7:29
Oh, don't give me don't put me on the line for estimates. No, no, I'm just giving you a thumbs up, I can give you a thumbs down.

Alex Ferrari 7:35
Give me just give me just give me a rough just give me a rough. Alright, well just give me a rough no name that No, I'm not gonna throw any. There's no particulars. This is just off the top of my head. We're going to make a kind of like a low budget film that has a respectable production value. So let's say it's $250,000. Okay, quarter million dollar and indie film, we're going to throw it in the genre of I'm gonna say, if it's a drama, I know no one's gonna buy it. So let's say it's a horror movie, a horror movie, okay, a $250,000 horror movie, with no stars in it. But respectable performances, the production quality is solid, the effects are solid, they got one of the effects guys from Nightmare on Elm Street or something. It looks good, quality trailer, not bad, very solid trailer poster, not bad has a nice little gimmick to it as a horror project. Now, I have no audience. Meaning that I personally as a filmmaker, don't have an audience, the actors in the film don't have an audience that we can we can kind of attach on to. So we're basically coming in cold. So if a movie like the N festival is on a horror movie doesn't really matter that much anyway. But let's say one scream fest, or one fan Gaura or something like that. So let's say wins a big horror festival or an audience award or something. What is the value of that product? in the marketplace today? And what kind of return? Can that filmmaker expect to make? If, if any at all?

John Kim 9:14
Well, first of all, like I said, I don't give estimates because one, you know, I don't I don't. I mean, it's just out the window at this point. There's no transactional value. No one's paying for anything because consumers have 50,000 titles at their American consumers. 50,000 consumer titles at their, at their fingertips with Netflix, Disney, and then Amazon alone. Right. And so, you know, even with Star Power stuff people aren't renting because they're looking at 499 Is that's too much because I already am paying 100 bucks per month, whatever between these services. I mean, I think the best, the best indication of like how much value inherently If your property I wouldn't touch this with a 10 foot ball. I wouldn't touch it with I would not take on this business because one. I don't feel good about you spending 250 And you come in not even close to making your money back. I don't want to hear you know, and I feel I feel bad for I would, I wouldn't, I'd much rather just not participate at all, and deal with your disappointment, because it's not even close. Not even close to coming back. This is again, this is what you just said, I would be like two seconds. Sorry, go go see someone else that is gonna tell you what you want to hear, which is oh, this is a greatest moment. Oh, we're gonna do this everything.

Alex Ferrari 10:43
So there's so there's no emoji for this?

John Kim 10:47
I don't do emojis myself.

Alex Ferrari 10:48
No, no, but you but you know, you get thinking that you as a sales agent connecting it to a distributor?

John Kim 10:55
Don't count with all the platforms.

Alex Ferrari 10:58
Right! Okay. So you wouldn't give it?

John Kim 11:01
I don't know, I don't want to, I wouldn't want to make me make a commission off of 20,000 bucks, right? It's just, it's just not worth the headache of all of that, you know, I thankfully, I'm not in a position where I need to chase you know, where your commission, you know, 10,000 and I will make money off 20% Off 10,025% Off 10,000? You know, 20,000 bucks. So what would that cost of like, a gigantic. What? That that causes way too much on me. So it's much easier just for me to say forget about it. Because,

Alex Ferrari 11:37
And so and then with a minimum guarantee. So a minimum guarantee is basically a number that a distributor will pay upfront for a

John Kim 11:43
No one given out MGS because it's hard, there's no guarantee in this business.

Alex Ferrari 11:48
Right! Unless, unless you're at a different level of of product. 100% Yeah, so So like, if you had you know, we just had Thomas Jane on the show a couple of weeks ago. If a Thomas Jane project comes across with, you know, Wesley Snipes, or some other, you know, starpower at a certain budget range, they are getting in Geez. But, but a different level of there's a different level,

John Kim 12:13
You know what that's like saying, Well, you know, the NBA is thriving. And I got I got LeBron on my side. You know, I got to LeBron movie. I mean, yeah, I like I like reading about this stuff. But I have no business like being in the same court. And, you know, I could play some good street ball, I you know, I shut the winning basket at the YMCA. But I have no business even dreaming or competing. But in the movie business is completely different. Because there's no score. There's no size, there's no like, objective, like, time or anything. Everyone just projects and thinks, Oh, my movie is 100 times better than this crappy movie. You know? What, how come I can't get a $21 billion of Netflix etc. And it's just but that analogy in comparison of what I just said with the NBA is really like how can you compete your case? If we're saying 250,000? That's a lot of money for a small person. It is. But it ain't nothing compared to million dollar per episode. So or 10 million per episode $100 million Doctor Strange million dollar movie. You know how, you know, how can you even you wouldn't do that with LeBron. I can play one on one with LeBron. No, but it's the same kind of comparison.

Alex Ferrari 13:27
And so there's a delusion which I talk about constantly on the show. There's a delusion in the sense that filmmakers come in thinking like I love movies, this is all I need to make it in the business. And that's what you need as a fuel to keep you going. 100% Without question, but like I was telling you earlier, before we got on the show is like my job here in the show is to let people know what they're going to need to do to go on this journey. And what what the reality of the road that they're about to walk is from people like yourself who've been down this road, and up this road and down this road and up this road and down this road. And we've seen so many heartbroken filmmakers along the way that we're trying to warn people, or I mean, I'm trying to warn people about the whole not horse. Sometimes there's horrors, but the obstacles that they're about to face, and there's nothing saying that you can't do it, but just be aware of what you're about to do and try to do it smartly. That's, that's all I tried to say.

John Kim 14:27
Yeah, so I'm a little bit different from your stamp from from where you're sitting. Because, you know, time is money for you. Yeah, yeah, time is money. And it's like, I'm not in the business of educating. You know, why of going through that speech, you know, and I'm not, you know, don't call me Doctor No, you know, I, if you don't want to hear what I don't want to what I'm about to say, you know, please, you know, move on and, and and speak to someone that that that that will tell you what you want to hear. You know, I'm not in a business again. I If this is more than, it's more than a business, like I said, it's like, yeah, I could make money doing that, but it's not worth it to me. It's like, you know, I just want to live the last chapter my stress free and where everybody's happy, right? And I don't feel good about knowing that someone's put in 250. And they're looking at 20,000 Odd return. And like me being a part of that, if you're lucky, if you're lucky for crying out loud, right? And so that's, so I, as a general rule, I mean, as a real rule, because I don't want to do this up and down. Like you were talking, like, I don't take on first time filmmakers, because it's like, it's just, it's just too hard. As far as they don't know what they don't know. You know, God bless you for not knowing it. And because you maybe didn't know, that's why Yeah, push forward. But that's not my that's not my, my, my dream of just, you know, killing a dream. You know, I'm Dr. Kill dream killer. That's not my I don't get any joy from and you can pay me 10,000 20,000 or $100,000. To, to be a part of that, you know, process of seeing your dream just not happen. That can't happen. But that's just not my but

Alex Ferrari 16:11
That's the dangerous and that last sentence is the dangerous part of our business is, there's always a maybe it's like going to Vegas, maybe I'm gonna hit it big this week. But But how many people hit the jackpot in Vegas every week. You know how many people win the lottery every week? Why win, but millions and millions and 10s of millions of people who try. So if your game plan is the lottery win, you will fail. If you're looking and I use baseball analogies all the time, if you're looking for a grand slam home run, every time you will fail. If you're looking for a bunt, or a single and constantly looking for singles, you might have a chance at the business because that means you're you're looking at small increments to get you to an update. So you make one movie for $50,000, you make $60,000 on it, holy crap, you are in the top one, one 1% of a 1% of all filmmakers. next movie, you get 100,000, you make 150,000 on return on that, holy crap, now someone gives you 300,000 Now you'd get some star power involved. And all of a sudden, now you've got a career. And I've seen filmmakers, friends of mine, who literally have done that start off with a $10,000 movie. But even in a $10,000 movie, they were smart enough to get Danny Trejo for for 15 minutes. And like I don't know how much he paid, they paid him back. That gold right there, gold. And now he was able to get $50,000 for his next movie. And then they brought Danny back and brought somebody else in there. And then all of a sudden, after you've done four or five of them, you look around town, you're like, well, there's not a lot of these guys around. Let's give him a little bit of money. And now we could put energy behind them. And now you've built a career up. But that's the mistake that so many filmmakers make the thing that the one movie that they're making is the one that's going to blow them up. You can't look at that like that.

John Kim 18:05
You're just going back to the sports analogy. It's like, you know, LeBron wasn't LeBron on day one. He went to high school, he progressed there, and he did it in college, and he didn't do anything in college and the other pros need college, you know, then it is a progression. And it's a skill, and it just isn't they didn't become, you know, a multimillionaire, you know, superstar overnight. And you're right with films, people just want that one magic bullet. And so the lottery scenario is what what they're chasing. But that progressive thing is, is exactly. I endorse that because I mean, it's a skill and you can't win overnight, just can't. And that's in any business, you know, outside of the movie business. You can't you can't or any sports team, you can't win on grand slam home runs every time at bat, you're just gonna fail. Right? You do have to regress. And so you know, back to our earlier conversation in the early studio days. Yeah, it was like a Grand Slam hit every time.

Alex Ferrari 19:05
You could literally be you could literally have the worst era and show up and hit a homerun. Exactly. You didn't even it was so easy to make money back in the 90s and the early 2000s. Because that was just a marketplace that we were in at that moment. 100% It was just the market and then now it's not it's actually the toughest time to make money as a filmmaker ever in history with the same caveat now, it's easier than ever to distribute your movie Get your movie out in front of an audience and make a movie is cheaper than ever. Because before the the barrier to entry was the cost to make the movie. My first commercial real was I'm 35 I had to pay 50 Grand i should force for commercial spots. You know back in the day to do it properly. To be a real commercial director. You had to shoot 35 Because there was no other option. And then now I can make an attitude for commercials for like five grand if I'm lucky.

John Kim 20:03
And by the way you can you can you can get worldwide distribution. But you're worldwide, I mean, easy. I mean, you can just take a couple 1000 bucks, and you can be in the world, which is amazing to your one little pebble across a 50,000 rock universe. So how you gonna stand? So, I mean, most people, they can't even make their delivery cost, but at the same time, you're right, what kind of access it was never there before worldwide access to 12 year old kid, you know, something?

Alex Ferrari 20:38
Oh, even putting it up on YouTube, which we'll talk about YouTube in a little bit. But even you could put something up on YouTube, you have worldwide distribution for your product. And and then also, you're not just competing against other filmmakers, you're competing against cat videos, you're, you're competing against kids, unwrapping toys. Those are eyeballs, that's time for people's lives.

John Kim 20:59
People, people, even when it's free, if you think about it, free is it's not a cost. It's a this. This is a consumers time. I mean, you bring it to me, I and even for 99. Again, everyone just thinks oh, all I got to do is you know, it's fine. And that was nothing. But it is something even when there's no time, it was on time. Right. So it's there's a lot of like fallacies and just theoretical hypothetical thinking. But it's like, you know what, I have my lemonade stand. And you know, why can't I make a billion dollar business? Right?

Alex Ferrari 21:38
Because everybody could put up a lemonade stand.

John Kim 21:40
Everybody can put up a lemonade stand.

Alex Ferrari 21:41
And it's a commodity as well. There's nothing special about it. Unless you're putting CBD oil or something like that.

John Kim 21:48
I mean, that's the thing. I mean, every story has been done, except one of those few exceptional ones, right? And everything is I mean, when you have to describe something and say, Oh, it's it's like this movie, but you know, like that. It's like, it's already been done that.

Alex Ferrari 22:02
Oh, no, it's just it's it's about it's about execution. It's about the combining of stars that align at the right moment with the right director, the right script, the right actors to become something that's bigger than ever. Look, there's I was looking at waiting, because I haven't seen James Bond, the new James Bond yet. I haven't seen it yet. And I'm waiting for it to come on Amazon. It's James Bond. It's the last Daniel Craig. And I'm like, I got too many other things to watch. I don't wanna spend five bucks right now. It's not about the five bucks. It's not it's not for me. It's not about I'm not like hurting for five bucks. But that mentality. I'm like, do I really need to watch it right now? Or can I watch the 50 other things that are in my queue right now? That are pumping out on Netflix on HBO? Max on this? Oh, the Batman just showed up? Okay, I gotta go watch the Batman. Oh, this new series just came in the full series, the full season came out. Just gotta go watch that. Do you see? So it's not just independent films. It's like, even even, even unless you're really a big huge giant James Bond fan. You're you can wait.

John Kim 23:04
That's obviously there's 50,000 movies out there. There's only 24 hours in a day. And as you said there's other forms of entertainment that was never there. There's cat videos and you know what the funny thing that the the finally kind of like hits home when you know I'm talking with you know, some some some filmmakers who just think it's easy. We don't know. Is it okay? And all sudden there's like, oh, you might be right about the sports analogy. Right? Then the other analogy is, is is what do you do? When's the last time you pay for movie? The independent filmmaker is like totally incentivized that you know, for the industry for himself, you know, to just make it good for everybody. But he's watching it for free. He's watching a pirate he's not paying for anything. Right. So, so think about it, like, you know, Joe, Joe consumer, your consumer could care less. They just want to make I want to be entertained now, right? I'm not in the mood for you know, some independent I want to help him out, you know, you know, stick figure animation. I want to watch a Pixar movie. There it is. So like, there's no incentive really.

Alex Ferrari 24:12
Exactly now. And we're I was going to ask you about TVOD. And I know the answer already. Which, you know, the answer is, is there any money in TVOD for independent filmmakers today?

John Kim 24:50
There are some some genres that that survived. There's always exceptions to the rule. Okay, so it in general I tell my clients without any star power, you know, without any, any, any any star that has, you know, millions of followers without any, you know, don't even bother going to your blog, which is crazy, right?

Alex Ferrari 25:12
And by the way, everybody who doesn't know tiebout has transactional Video on Demand,

John Kim 25:16
Which is straight to AVOD, which, you know, which puts all of this windowing over, you know, your original scope theatrical, and then you're supposed to go in a theoretical world, right? But you don't have any other ingredients. So you're gonna make more money on the AVOD straight up, you know, then doing all that wasting of time and money, you know, again, you need to do your objectives you think number one objective is to make money then then that would be the way if you're trying to brag to your your aunt that you're going to a movie worldwide, then you Okay, put it on iTunes, you're not gonna make any money. It's like, same thing with it's all changed so much. You know, it's like I used to be, it used to be a real like, honor, whatever a bragging point rather, if you were in, in Walmart,

Alex Ferrari 26:01
Right, yeah.

John Kim 26:04
And then on the back end, no one tells a story about a year later, where everything has been returned, and you're actually upside down losing money, right? Again, there's a lot of like, facts and details that people you know, choose to, to ignore or not tell. So it's always somebody who's always like, oh, yeah, I know, somebody did. This isn't like Yeah, right. And then those were putting in the frickin statements.

Alex Ferrari 26:25
And then those those return DVDs are then sold pennies on the dollar to Big Lots to Marshalls to all these outlets, all these outlet places that sell it for that's why you see the blu rays for $2 or $3. And that starts with tape.

John Kim 26:39
Yeah, Blu Ray was supposed to be the save of you know, did it you know, 3d was supposed to be a save, it's just like one it's like a bunch of 10 year old soccer, you know, soccer team, they're all just chasing for one thing and everyone's grabbing and you know, it was nothing is replaced to replicate the conversion from VHS to DVD. And since that, you know, everything is mission and all I wish we could just do that.

Alex Ferrari 27:04
The physical media and the physical media space, HD, you know, 3d, by the way, okay. It's like really, I need to see I need to see the extra pimple on that surface for the for some of these some of these older movies and 4k, do not do it. Because you can see the makeup you can see the cracking. It's like you don't it's old movies from the 70s. You've got to go in and clean it up digitally. If not, it just looks horrible. Some of the stuff again,

John Kim 27:31
I am I'm a widget salesperson. I just saw widgets. So you telling me that I really need the fifth version of a 1970 movies that I already have in DVD that I can't even tell you.

Alex Ferrari 27:43
How many godfathers how many Star Wars? How many Star Wars? Do we have 40 versions of the Star Wars films? How many? How many versions of The Godfather? Can we buy?

John Kim 27:51
Why I worked on like two different iterations of the Godfather boxing, right? It's how many times can you like come up with a 2030 agenda and a 25th and a 50th. And just like enough Hudson River

Alex Ferrari 28:03
Lease or Director's Cut,

John Kim 28:05
That was my, that's what I had to do is just make something spin on on the catalog of titles. But you know, at the end of the day, when am I going to feed my family? Am I going to you know, or am I going to get the 33rd version of something I already have? It's it will splitting hairs and you know, unfortunately, you know, so that's the reality of the situation. You know, when and if you're on the studio side, it's like if you if you you got to drink the Kool Aid otherwise just just don't show up for work.

Alex Ferrari 28:33
There's no question. There was one filmmaker that had on the show and he's actually gonna, we're trying to schedule him to come back on he's an anomaly. He's one of these anomalies I was telling you about. He reached out to me he had a million spent a million dollars. No stars except for Neil. God, I forgot his last name. He's a face. He's not a name. He's a face that everybody recognizes. Okay. Well, killer robots in the jungle. ex military have gone wrong, all this stuff. On paper. It sounds horrible. The pitch, right? It is easily one of the most insanely executed films I've ever seen in my life. He's been a commercial director for 30 years. He's a visual effects master. He did everything. It looks as good of quality as any studio movie ever made. That's how good the robots are. Because you know how hard it is to make robots look good in real life. In three months in T VOD, he made his money back.

John Kim 29:31
Okay. There's, like I said, there's always exceptions to the rule. But

Alex Ferrari 29:35
I'm saying that because the execution of that was so massive, and by the way, he has a marketing agency as well. So he understands how to do marketing. He understood how to do Facebook ads and targeted ads. And he had explosions and robots and he sold it for 399. And he pushed it to Amazon, and he was making money off of Amazon. He was making money off of T VOD. And he's still making money to this day, he's done very, very well with it. But he told me he's like I had a deal on the table. From big eight big Netflix wanted to buy it, but they were gonna give him nothing. Big studio, a big distributor wanted to buy it, who will remain nameless, was gonna give him a million something, mg. That's how good the movie was like a million to mg. He turned it down because of the contract. He's like, I'm never gonna see it, it's gonna take me forever to get this money. So so he's like, Screw it, I'll just do it myself. And he paid for everything out of his own pocket. So he didn't care. It was it was like, whatever. But that isn't in that, but that I'm using that as an analogy that has to be that is as perfect of an execution on all avenues, as I've ever seen in my life, because when he reached out to me sent me the trailer, I'm like, Who the hell are you? Like, I get some trailers for movies all the time, you get sent trailers for movies. If I sent you that trailer, you would go, I want to rip that movie. I'm sure I promise you and I'll send it to you afterwards. It's so good. But that's an example of perfectly executed, and even then he had less than a 20% chance of actually making any money. He was he he was just really good. Really good at what he was doing. Right.

John Kim 31:17
So I mean, again, if you aren't sure. I mean, how many? So what's that one and

Alex Ferrari 31:22
One, one in 30 years I've never seen a movie. So one in 30 years. I've never seen a movie like that in the way.

John Kim 31:29
Is that? Is that a good business model of? Like, I'm gonna compare myself to that, you know,

Alex Ferrari 31:35
Right. Well, yeah, and don't you love i love it in the it when people are trying to raise money, they always put Blair Witch and paranormal activity in their business plans. I'm like, Are you? It's it's come on. It's kind of like, Oh, if Tom if Tom Brady was my quarterback many years ago?

John Kim 31:54
Well, yeah, sure. If I had that defensive line. Yeah, sure. Like, yeah, it's like more power to him. I'm not gonna wait gonna, you know, get in the way of anyone's dreams.

Alex Ferrari 32:05
I don't view. But so. So let me ask you, my friend, you we talked about star power, how important is star power now and what kind of star power is needed to really make a dent in the business because I always tell people like, it's all based on budget. So if you get a certain kind of star, but the budget is so high, you need a, you need a star or group of stars to justify the budget to make sense financially. So if you get a Danny Trejo and you put him in a $10 million movie by himself, the chances of you making your money back are gonna be probably very, very difficult. That's right. But if you put in a Bruce Willis, in a $10 million movie, the chances of you're making money back is higher, because Bruce has a much bigger market value than Danny Trejo does for that budget range. Does that make that is that fair statement?

John Kim 32:58
I think so. I mean, let's be clear. Because there, I'll talk from a business because we're in the b2b to see game, right. So I sell to a platform that then sells to consumers, right? So there's a perspective of the buyer and there's your perspective of a consumer. So when you're flooded with this is a greatest movie ever. Now watch this. Watch this. Uh, yeah, right. I'm talking as a buyer, let's just say as a buyer of Netflix, okay. So it's like, yeah, yeah, I've heard this many times. Okay. So the easiest way to just kind of filter, you know, the aisle, maybe even think about it for just forget it. So I can just kind of have my own day is like, you know, used to be like, Okay, what's the theatrical but there's no theatrical. So, okay, so who's in it? So right away? It's like, no stars. Okay, there. Okay. So who, you know, that is of just a quick swath? It's a filtering filtering process. Right. And we know that, you know, just because you have Brad Pitt in a movie doesn't mean it's going to succeed.

Alex Ferrari 33:58
It depends, it depends on the genre of the movie.

John Kim 34:01
Exactly. So you know, but you also know that rapid isn't going to be an opponent. Right? So you've kind of gotten that's a kind of a surrogate filter for just that, as far as and also kind of a pseudo for production value. Okay, so he's not going to do some schlock.

Alex Ferrari 34:15
He's right. He's not going to do $100,000 movie.

John Kim 34:18
Yeah, exactly. Right. And so, so that is a first like, kind of suas then from a consumer standpoint, when you're just scrolling and you see 30 You know, movie after movie in your computer screen, it's like, you're gonna have you're gonna go into shock of all this stuff. So you have one second to like filter. If you see something that is familiar to the eye, subconsciously, it's gonna be a star. So from that standpoint, it's like helps you right and so, you know, the Super Bowl of advertising for any independent filmmaker, and you've probably done a lot of second is the package, right? If you're gonna if anything is going to spend, it should be on your packaging, because that is it. I mean, it's not looking at a poster The sideboard that you see when you're reviewing a creative is a thumbnail stret sketch. So if you're trying to put a tree at, you know, a montage of this, and that and mini movie, you know, it's like, it looks like a black box, forget it, right, but having one profile of the star boom, that catches your attention. So, you know, there are a number of stars that, you know, Danny Trejo is, is, is valuable, you know, he's valuable. I mean, if he just showed up, you know, for two seconds, and maybe in the end credits, you know, in the AVOD. Well, I put him on the cover, let's just put it that way.

Alex Ferrari 35:34
I know. That's, that's the yeah, that's that you're in a gray area there.

John Kim 35:39
But yeah, again, I'm selling widgets. It's what do you want me to sell for you? That's what you do. I'm not talking about like, all the rules, and, you know, MPa and Omni. That's not my thing. My thing is, I will sell you more units. He's in the credit, put them on the package. But to your point of like, you know, I mean, again, when you're talking even under $200,000 movie, I mean, that is just a drop in the bucket of your competition for Crayola, which is, you know, major studio millions of dollars. Right. So, yeah, there's definitely like Danny Trejo is, is very, very strong and AVOD. Very, oh, huge enabled.

Alex Ferrari 36:20
Right, and Thomas Jane, those kinds of guys, those kind of caliber of guys have value, major value.

John Kim 36:29
I mean, you know, again, if you can just make him show up for, you know, 15 minutes, or whatever, you he'll pay that back easy. That's a number of stars like that. But it's not, I mean, to be surprising how limited and by the way, depending on what platform you're at, you know, there are there are some stars on some of these platforms where the general public has no idea who they are. But they they meant gold. Right? They mean gold. And again, it's like, no one would know them except, like, if they're on a certain platform, and, and, and it's crazy. And, you know, again, the whole gamut of, of, of AVOD versus t VOD, and people paying you know, a BA, it is free. So, the cost of entry really is you know, I'll click on this I yeah, I like I hate my boy, Trent, Danny Trejo. I'm gonna watch what he's got, you know, if he's watching the grass, greener, you know, just watching the grass, cutting the grass. It didn't cost me anything. But I like my boy, Danny trail,

Alex Ferrari 37:30
Right, or Snoop or Snoop Dogg? Snoop Dogg. Snoop Dogg?

John Kim 37:33
His goal? His goal?

Alex Ferrari 37:37
Right. So So and I won't tell you how I know, you probably know this number, but I won't say it publicly. But I know how it costs a day to show up,

John Kim 37:48
Just to make them show up for 10 minutes.

Alex Ferrari 37:50
So the question is, and that's another thing. So, you know, I worked on a project years ago, years ago, where I was doing the post on it. And they were smart enough to had a million dollar budget and about 600,000 went above the line. But that was the only thing that sold that movie. Because they had an Oscar winner. They had some name actors in it, they had like it peppered like with a bunch of faces, and people they knew and some name power in it. And they were able to sell that movie. And I was and that was the first time I saw that the power of star power because the movie was okay. So, but the star power is the only thing that sold that movie. And when people to understand that, you know, it's like, oh, how can I get someone like Danny Trejo, like, if Danny's available and you're shooting in LA, and you're willing to pay his day rate for two or three days, it's more affordable than you might think in a scope of a grand scope of things that like I don't have a million dollars. I'm like, well, Danny's not a million dollars. You know, Sylvester Stallone is for a day. But you know, there are some like Nick Nick Cage for a while he was a million bucks a day, just straight up. But you put in a cage in a movie that you're sold internationally like that, because Nick Cage was in the movie. So there was moments of time though he was pumping out movies because he needed to get make money. So the want people to understand that you can have name talent in your movie. If you bring them up for a day. Some people I've seen I've seen some of these name actors. Five grand 10 grand a day 15 grand a day, right? Am I wrong?

John Kim 39:34
No, no, no, you're absolutely right. And that is that is much better money spent then you know trying to get it just right the whatever, you know, scene of of a car crash or whatever I mean, it's again it's that is well money, good money spent. There's there's actors that that will more than pay for themselves on those little small daily rates. And I would tell them, I Would I advise people just to do that? Because, again, you know, how, how can you compete against against projects that are spending millions of dollars? It's like, you can't put a name a name like that is crazy. It's a lot more affordable than you think. I agree with you. 100%.

Alex Ferrari 40:17
Yeah, and you were saying that, like, you know, you're scanning through and you see that little thumbnail of the actor. There's a reason why Adam Sandler, is Netflix is one of Netflix's biggest stars. And, and everyone thinks, oh, Adam Sandler, he's a silly guy silly movies. But the it this is a lesson for everyone listening. When you're scanning through and you see Adam Sandler, or you see, Kevin James or Rob Schneider, any of the group in the in the Adam Sandler universe. This is not for independent filmmakers, but just in general. You know, if it's a Friday night, and you're at home with your wife, you know what you're gonna get with one of those movies, there's no surprises, you know, you'll get a silly comedy, it's going to be somewhat enjoyable, and you'll have a decent time. There's no what's what you know exactly what you're going to get with an Adam Sandler movie generally, unless he's doing his drama stuff, like he has the new movie hustle out that he's goes off or, or gems. But generally speaking, if it's a comedy, you know what you're getting. And that's why he keeps getting these 100 million dollar deals from Netflix, because everybody just watch them again and again. And it's just one of those things like I just know what I'm going to get with Adam Sandler. So that's kind of the concept of my boy, Danny Trejo, my boy snoop. If snoops in the movie, I just want to see snoop. If, if Danny's in the movie, I just want to sit down and kick some ass for 510 minutes. And I'm solid, I'm good. But you know what you're gonna get when you get you see that cover. And that's what the audience is looking for. Whereas in that movie that I gave you the example of $250,000 horror movie, you know, that has no stars in it, I have to try to sell you on what my story plot is, I have to try to sell you on like, hey, take a look at my trailer. If you've lost, it's so difficult in that space. In the in the I need your money space, it's just so so difficult to do.

John Kim 42:18
Well, in the I need your money space in our consumer space. I mean, you got two seconds, because they have again, people don't realize it until they actually live it. I mean, they realize it until they see in their own household. Even at that level. It's like we got 1000s and 1000s of choice, you got your two seconds to catch your jet. No one wants to hear a whole buildup and storyplot when someone comes in with you as like, forget, I don't even need to just let me see your cover. And I can know right away whether it's gonna sell it and are saying your IMDB page, IMDB page that is, you know, for your audience, I am assuming is your is is a major, major selling vehicle for you. Because that is a Bible for people like me and buyers who just just want to know what the guy is not a consumer angle. Consumers don't know about it. I mean, look, Amazon even changed his name, you know, from IMDb to the freebie. Because of that, right? Even though it's all we got 10 million users and all that stuff. But yeah, it's not a consumer thing. But you know, having for a simple tool for so many users, if you're trying to get some, you know, someone to buy it or take a look, make sure your IMDB page things, you got the good cover, and you've got all the people in it. It's like okay, so that's the first power, we're talking about filtering and streaming, right? That's just an immediate filter.

Alex Ferrari 43:32
Right! And then you'll look at star power. So like, where's the ranking on the star power of the task? And even if you haven't heard about them, maybe they're the new hot guy that's coming out on top and Top Gun who's blowing up right now, but he doesn't keep up in about six months, his value is going to go massive, because our gun is going international. Right?

John Kim 43:51
Oh, yeah, I tell. Again, my arena is way way downstream. But when you know, my my clients are looking at some new movies, whatever they hate, you know, what do you see? Why should I care? I look at that star meter. The relative ranking is important, not the, you know, the rank in 5600, whatever, that doesn't mean anything. But if you have an act, all things being equal an actor with a 3000 score, so our meter versus a 10,000 you go with the higher the lower rank you want, which is higher the 3000.

Alex Ferrari 44:20
But again, when right, but there's a reference, there's a there's a caveat to that, because let's say there is a Danny Trejo and Danny Trejo happens to be in 10,000 that week, for whatever reason, and there's other kids who just showed up, it's 3000 because he's the new, young hot thing, but Danny has more value in general. So there's a balance you have to kind of look at as well.

John Kim 44:39
Yeah, I mean, it's a complex algorithm, but I don't, I don't know how it calculates, but it's, you know, internet mentions and press and all of this stuff. But it's, it's a nice tool. It can you know, you gotta look at all of the different points, but it's a very valuable tool just to say, Hey, this is, you know, again, all things being equal, you know, abilities and know that that is better to go with someone who's just more well known, even if, again, it's for people like when, like you, we don't know about them, but at least it's theirs. That's as as an objective measurement as there is out there. In the absence of anything, really. I mean, there's no like ding ding, ding. I mean, you got rotten tomatoes. But even that, it's like, who cares?

Alex Ferrari 45:20
Right, so so do you remember a time because you and I both have similar vintage? Do you remember a time where you could literally watch everything that came out that week?

John Kim 45:30
I mean, it's, it's changed. It's just yeah, like,

Alex Ferrari 45:34
I remember I remember working. I worked out and I remember working a video store. And I would literally watch every movie that got released that week, every week, because we had everything. There was like seven movies.

John Kim 45:44
What were we what would what

Alex Ferrari 45:47
Was a mom and pop was a mom and pop shop. That's the best time the mom and pop shops. So I just everything that came out. I would watch. And I tell people that like really? I'm like, Yeah, because it just it would cost too much money to make movies back then you just cost too much you would you wouldn't even begin to have a conversation with less than a couple million like that was and there used to be $20 million movies, real $20 million dollar movies. They used to be $50 million dollar movie $30 million movie studios would put out What About Bob? That cost them 30 million bucks. Right? It cost them that was tentpoles didn't show up until in the 90s is when it really started to really blow up like the 100 million dollars. And I mean $200 million. That was insane money back in the 90s. Remember Titanic those $200 million and if it was losing their mind now. That's the starting point for that tentpole you can't even have a conversation about a temple without a couple 100 million 150 170 5 million to start the conversation. Right. It's, it's insane. Now I want to I want you to demystify something for the audience, my friend, Netflix, everyone thinks that Netflix is this amazing Holy Grail. They have so much money they're spending and you see all these 21 billion 18 billion 15 billion? Obviously, everyone's like, well, I all I need is 100 grand? Obviously, Netflix didn't give that to me. Can you demystify the Netflix deal currently, because not the Netflix deal from five or 10 years ago, which is very different than the Netflix deal of today, for the audience.

John Kim 47:24
So in so the headlines of this 21 billion and all that stuff, that the world has changed, because there is just so much competition, right, and there is a there is now as you're seeing in the headlines, there's a finite audience, not a finite, but there's a there's a there's a cap to the number of people that are going to subscribe, and they're moving, they're moving from, and then they're moving in the new term that was never really talked about. Other than just subscriber growth is churn, you know, and that turned into like, Hey, thank you very much, I got the free month promotion, I saw my whole series, I binge watched it, thanks for giving it all available. I'm watching it, you know, and then I'm moving, I cut it off, and then go and then just kind of moving from service to service. So all of that million, all of those millions or billions they're spent on if you really look at it, they're spent on original programming TV shows, you know, the water cooler, you know, again, it originally was house of games, because and there's because they wanted people to subscribe to change services, and then stay there to watch you know, the whole episodes, the whole series, and the whole seasons, you know, a movie if you unless it's a Disney movie, a family movie, it's like, you know, you watch it one and done. Okay, feed me more. Right? So all those money, all that money acquisition is really spent towards that across the board. So you know, for them buying a little indie movie, you know, one, no one's gonna write about it. Number two, you're not going to get you know, you know, millions of people wanting to subscribe to Netflix for this little indie 100,000 movie you're talking about, right? So it ain't 100,000 I mean, it's like 10 15,000. And it's just, you know, a nice to have kind of thing, maybe 1% chance to get like a six month deal for 10,000 bucks. Let's just say, I'm not saying you know, but it's just change all that money is going to original programming TV, or you know, big name.

Alex Ferrari 49:19
You know, movies read notice I read

John Kim 49:21
Again, so the indie player, like, how can you compete again, it's just a different world, you know, to you three and a two to a small, independent first time filmmaker, whatever. 300,000 is a lot but that's like the lunch budget for what we're talking about on these $21 billion spent at Netflix. So it's just it is when people actually really understand I mean, all they read the headlines and they realize like, what is the actuality it is a demystification. Oh my gosh, like you gotta be kidding me kind of situation. Right, right. I mean, it's an even get that is like a miracle. Miracle. Yeah, it's a miracle. I mean, you're it's one in 100 but At the same time, again, it's a different objective, if you need to prove, you know that you got the street cred, you have instant credibility, if you have a net, if you're a Netflix producer, right? Oh my gosh, you're able to screen that out, you didn't make a lot of money on it. But that means you're good. And in fact, you are thing about progression as a, as a as a, as a filmmaker, that is a definite feather in the cap. You know, again, if you want to make money, that's not necessarily but all sudden, you're gonna get investors interested, you're gonna, you know, invest buyers, and she's like, Oh, look, and this guy's got some some skills. But it's not like, you know, it's not like this, you know, he got a seven figure deal that was, you know, Netflix is just like a little piddly thing. But, you know, you got some credibility. Good, great job. You know, I'm gonna I'm gonna talk I want to talk to you.

Alex Ferrari 50:46
So as a distributor, when you do with the Netflix deals, I mean, I'm hearing is telling me if this is true, or not, Netflix deals start paying at the end of the deal. Quarterly, they pay quarterly upfront, or they pay at the end, because I've heard different chord.

John Kim 51:01
I mean, yeah, every deal is different. Everything is different, everything is different. But again, congrats, but congrats to the person that gets a Netflix CEO, because that is a major, major accomplishment. You know, you know, then then the mate then the next big thing is, like, if you were able to get some actual money from,

Alex Ferrari 51:20
Right, like, if you got a Netflix deal, and you made money, holy cow, here's my here, they'll just start throwing money at you at that point. Yeah.

John Kim 51:27
I mean, it's all relative. But, you know, in the absence of, of any known figures, and all that, and everyone making things up, you know, that is definitely a feather in the cap is right. Okay. You're a player.

Alex Ferrari 51:44
Is Amazon a thing anymore for us as filmmakers?

John Kim 51:47
Well, everyone was I gotta like, make sure I don't say anything that

Alex Ferrari 52:00
I don't want to get you in trouble, sir.

John Kim 52:01
So the facts are, the facts are back in the day. People were, were very happy with with Netflix, I mean, with Amazon, then it's been cut, cut, cut cut of the, you know, down to a penny per hour. Again, this is all public information. speaking slowly. So everything was down on, on on Amazon again. Why? Why is because everybody in their city, a 10 year old kid could upload stuff. It's like that just the whole quality control is just not there. Right? It's back to your thing about, you know, back in the day, there were only 20 movies, but now anyone can make a movie, right? And so then you've got a glut of stuff. And I think how do you differentiate yourself between all sudden the 1000s of movies, right? But now that a VOD is becoming a thing. It's always been a thing. By the way, when we were watching cheers and friends. It was a VOD on network TV. It's just been an artificial we don't want to do that from a from a studio content provider. Because it the eyeballs weren't weren't wasn't there and you can train $100 bill for $1 Bill and make money.

Alex Ferrari 53:18
Right. And also and also the other thing was that before in the windowing schedule,

John Kim 53:24
AVOD was like way late it wasn't even contemplating a lot of contracts it was just so beyond right but now that it's like off now that we're looking for every nook and cranny money that we can get because theatrical was done you know, DVD theatrical, you know, and, you know, big checks so we're looking for every little thing AVOD is is is is starting to really become something where it's where it's worthy of being at launch right and not just you know, bottom of the barrel 20 years from now kind of thing and that's

Alex Ferrari 54:00
Hard but that's hard for filmmakers egos to handle.

John Kim 54:04
That's a thing is it an ego? It's a thing. It's you got to leave your I mean, do whatever it takes to make the movie, but I'm just telling you the realities of how you're going to make money right? So if you don't want to hear what anyone have to say, then then Okay, goodbye, fine. But you know, if you want to make money then you know and then and I think you can make money then then I'll talk to you but your greatest strength is also your greatest weakness when it comes to you know, your your right you're saying it's a just Yeah, great. You did that. But just you know, you want to make money. Listen, if say, otherwise, I don't want to waste my time. So what I'm saying is just just a reality, and you can choose to ignore reality fine, but just because you put your head in the sand doesn't mean reality isn't happening. Okay? And there's always exceptions. Okay. So again, there's always exceptions, right? I'm not an exceptions business. I can't I can't feed my family. If I'm just like, Wait Paying for exception to happen every 30 years,

Alex Ferrari 55:03
I just I just had a filmmaker who made a documentary about Michael Bidston, the MMA fighter, the the legendary MMA fighter. He fought with one eye. He literally lost his sight. And everyone's like, Oh, you can't fight and he won a championship with one eye. Is that saying now that all fighters with one eye can win the championship? No, it's an anomaly. There's, there's always an exception to the rule, always. But you can't look at the exception as the that's the way No, that is the exception. And they have to look at it that way. And I try. I tried to yell that at filmmakers so much. I'm like paranormal activity is not going to happen again. That was that movie at that time. At that moment? It just, you know, it was just a specific moment, El Mariachi will never happen again. It was that moment in time with that filmmaker with that film. At that in that's right product, right time. And right time period in history to make it by the way, it also by the way.

John Kim 56:05
I mean, it's a major accomplishment to one get funding and the greenlit get greenlit a movie for crying a lot, Major, because everybody you know, and by the way, everything looks good on paper. Until you know, then, how many? How many failed? How many failed? Movies are there that look great on paper? You know, I mean, right?

Alex Ferrari 56:28
Even the studios aren't going to read all the time.

John Kim 56:31
That's why they survive it is because they're in the numbers game to make 20 movies and hope that two of them succeed, the pay for the sins of all of the rest.

Alex Ferrari 56:39
Basically, the sins, I love that the sins of all. That's a great term.

John Kim 56:43
I mean, everyone's gets married, you know, but what is the divorce rate? 60%. But we're still getting married.

Alex Ferrari 56:49
Right? Because someone's making it work. There you go.

John Kim 56:53
But the stakes are even higher, or harder in the film business, you know, yeah.

Alex Ferrari 57:00
So let me ask you this, during the your time in the business, before you became a distributor? I'm assuming you've might have run into some nefarious people along the way. Some distributors who might have not been upfront with you on a lot of things. How and why, in your opinion, do you think that filmmakers gets almost always, almost always not always? So always exceptions, but the and I would I would fare that would be a fair statement to say that the majority of them either get the short end of the stick on purpose because there's something nefarious going on? Or because of lack of just it's nothing nefarious, it's just the business the way it is. And they're like, oh, they screwed me like, no, everything we've just been talking about. They took the movie, they did the best they could they couldn't make your money back. Life goes on. Why do you believe that there's so much monkey business with that with the Hollywood accounting and all of this kind of stuff. And it's from every, every place every bit in their studio. I mean, Hollywood accounting is a thing. Just like the cat. Just that's a that's a term you could look up that you could look it up, it's called it's there's an actual term in the dictionary, Hollywood accounting, is that they just like the casting couch was the thing prior to the metoo movement. Right? It was a joke. It was a running joke in movies like, oh, that he got it, she got the part because he was on the casting couch. So in the filmmaking side of things, oh, the distributor screwed me. That's just, it's just oh, that's just the way the business is. Why do you believe it is? And is it sustainable at this point, to continue moving forward, for filmmakers and for distributors?

John Kim 58:46
So I have 150 clients, and I would say 90% have been screwed over? More than more than twice. I mean, it's crazy out there. So they're, it's a crazy business. There are there are crooks, and then there are, you know, people that are making people that are legitimately making money. Yet the filmmakers aren't seeing a dime of it, but legitimate, contractually, they're making that money. Right. So, so as far as the crooks I'm not gonna name names. However. However, it's I always scratch my head. It's like, why did they keep on notorious? Everyone knows.

Alex Ferrari 59:30
Oh, yeah. Hey, Dave, unless you start I could start listing off names. And you'd be like, yep. And they just and they've been around forever, right?

John Kim 59:36
Like, how do they continue to do this? You know, and, and the reason why I believe they just continue is because there's a sucker born every minute. And these suckers because they gave their soul and their, you know, their house and a mortgage. They need to believe that what they're being told is going to is true. So they want Have to be they want to be misled fear wanted to say, hey, I don't even want your business I'm sorry. Sorry. And they're like, Oh, you don't see it, whatever. Okay, I'm dealing with the generalities. But you know, they just like, hey, this is great. And I can do this, I can do that. Oh, yeah. They want to be, that's how these the crooks continue to last for years and just find a new, there's a new filmmaker born every minute, right? So, you know, shame on you for not listening and doing your due diligence and all that stuff. You know, you had to call me and actually, I've had scenarios where I warned some people, you know, because it was my fiduciary setup, you know, this human right thing. Like I see an accident, do not go pull the key out of the way, right. I'll say that they just don't. And they're like, no, no, they believe me, John, I can do it. I've seen the projections. The projections, you know, I seen the contract. I see it, you know, and then two years, two years later, John, you're right. And out. 100,000? Yes, seriously, it's like, are you? I told you,

Alex Ferrari 1:01:05
I literally, I literally just consulted on a project. And I kept telling the producers and telling the producers don't do this, don't do this, this is what's gonna happen. Don't do this. This is what's going to happen. Don't and what happened. Six months later, a year later, they come back to me into like, we're never going to see a dime.

John Kim 1:01:23
Oh, my God, I'm like, a human thing. You told them and they didn't want to hear it.

Alex Ferrari 1:01:29
They didn't they didn't want to hear it. They didn't want to hear it. It was it was just fat. It never ceases to amaze me. It never ceases to amaze me. It really never does. But because

John Kim 1:01:41
That's a it's a greatest strength is their greatest weakness. They were congratulations, you got investors, you've made a movie, you know, you did. And then then on the other side is like you want to hear you want to hear reality. So the reality is, I mean, again, that's perfect example. People don't want and so you know what, these people the crooks just continue to survive, because they say what they want to hear. Right. And then the other thing is, there are some contracts, real things that I'm like, just scratching my head, like, Are you Are you kidding me? Right. And so the things that I've seen, you know, from like, a lot of my, a lot of my clients that were there, it's like, you know, run, if you ever see a, you know, $30,000 marketing cap, you know, and then pay for expenses, you know, and, you know, social media campaign, you know, our delivery, you know, 30,000 is a lot of money. And that is is an excuse to never get paid. Right? And then the other trick is like, oh, yeah, we're gonna we're gonna have this a 15 year contract, 15 year contract. I mean, we're babysitters, right? And we're paid on an hour, we should be paid on an hourly basis. And this is your baby, and you don't give your babysitter a 15 year you can do whatever and come back to me in 15 years, don't buy we'll get back to you when they're grown and done, whatever. So those are like two like, easy, like, legal ways of just getting screwed. Right.

Alex Ferrari 1:03:11
I was at AFM walking around. And I get recognized when I walk around AFM, and filmmakers come up to me and they're like, Alex, I have this deal. Can you can you? I want you to can you look at it for me. I'm like, I just told me that the bullet points. I'm not a lawyer, but it was always go to always go to a lawyer, entertainment attorney. But give me the bullet points. And I'll tell you and the bullet points. And I've never seen anything like this. John. This was so blatant. 25 year. Wait a minute. 100,000. Marketing cap. There you go. Wait a minute, yearly. Yearly. So it'd be a $2.5 million. Wait, because the little there's a little word that says yearly on and I'm like, are you 2.5 Like so. And they had the they own the IP, as well. So they had IP and they get executive producer credit. And they get their logo up front. All of this and I told him like, you need to run away as fast as possible. So I go listen to it. She was like, Okay, I'm not gonna do this deal. I'm like, No, this is what you should do go back and counter it. I want to see what they say. So we countered, and they get back and they go, all right. 10 years, and $50,000 total. And I'm like so you were literally just trying to see you throughout the worst deal possible to see if you would bite and if you bite, it's on you. That's immoral.

John Kim 1:04:41
I mean, and people sign you know, because they've heard the company because they've heard of a company. Okay. You know, it's like, it must be okay. Um, I heard of them. But I Yes, it was that's just it's right there and straight up like legally stealing from somebody.

Alex Ferrari 1:04:56
It's legally stealing from somebody and I love what you just said because you've heard of them, or they've represented another movie in the past. That gives them the credibility, you're like, I want to be on the same company that released that movie. 10 years ago, when the owners might have been different, the world was different their, their business practices might have been different. All of that. And I hear that so much like, Oh, I just want to be on this, this big companies name or this company's name, because I've heard of them before, or because of they have this, this this, or they have this Oscar nominated movie at one point or another. I'm like, from when 97 late.

John Kim 1:05:36
Again, it's just a different reality. I mean, think about how much due diligence people do on on allows the, you know, $25, Amazon purchase, you know, let alone level, look at your reviews, go look at, look at this comparison shop, you know, selling your, you know, selling your house, having a real estate agent, sell your house, you know, you're gonna die, I want to see your references, and I want to watch them, you know, selling movies like, Oh, they got a great website. And look, they saw this one like 10 years ago, let's do it. This is gone.

Alex Ferrari 1:06:06
And it's and you're talking about the same amount of money of buying a house, right? You know, like, you know, buying a house, depending on where you live in the world. But you know, $300,000 buys a house 400,000, half a million, that's a lot of money net, for an individual for I mean, look, if I saw half a million on the floor, I'm picking it up, I don't know about you. I know. It's a lot of money. And they don't do the due diligence. They don't do the education. Look, when when I was buying my very first house, I educated myself on the process of buying a house back in the day when I did it. So and then understanding the ins and outs and who's this and that and, and think that's a more regulated industry.

John Kim 1:06:45
This is an unregulated industry.

Alex Ferrari 1:06:48
That's why there's it's such a wild wild west of all the time and it and you go to AFM, I mean, and you just see it, you see walking around, you see the same players doing the same games, and you see the movies, and I'm like, I know that filmmaker, I know he's got screwed. And I know that filmmaker, Nick, I know that movie, that guy behind that movie in it. So I hear the stories on both ends, I hear from the front and the back, you know, from the filmmaker and from the distributor, and look not to just shit on distributors, because there are good distributors out there. There are good there are people who trying to help and but a lot of times too, it's just the nature of the marketplace. You do the best you can sometimes as a distributor. And it's just like you were handicapped the moment you took the film on like that, if you would take on the movie that I gave you the example of when you're smart enough, you're smart enough not to take it. But there are distributors who will take that movie on, promise things that they truly believe possibly could possibly happen. And when they don't happen, then the filmmakers like the distributor screwed me now unlock the true. Very true. There is there are those those are rare, by the way, that doesn't happen all the time. I think it still leans more towards the the other angle of things. But it's just the business is so crazy and changing. Look in the 80s and 90s. In the VHS times in the DVD times. Everything pretty much stayed the same. For years, right? Like you made a movie. This was the output. This was the windowing, BPPV that stood like that for years. And prior to VHS it stood like that for 60 years. Like and

John Kim 1:08:27
There was limited and the projections were were spot were very good. Because there was a limited number of comps that you could then project and there's no variables work today is just like, there's no just throw out the concert COVID There's 1000s It's just there's no comps, right. And so, yeah, that's why I don't want to provide estimates because it's going to be wrong, they're going to be wrong. The question is, is do you? The main thing is do you trust that you're going to get paid? Do you trust that he's going to do what he says he's going to do? Do you trust that? You know, that it's trust? Essentially, that is it? Because everything else? I don't know variable, right? It's just, you know, it's like I can lead the decision maker is gonna see the movie, right? It's gonna be placed here, you know, you're gonna get placement, you're gonna get paid. And that is a lot unfortunately, in this business. Like in any other business, that's just the cost of entry, you expect that, but because there's so many bad apples just that is like, Wow, I can't tell you how many of my clients like why I'm not getting paid. I haven't been paid, you know, in year kind of check. To check. You know, I'm saying I mean, it's, it's sad, but, you know, I've been able to benefit just by doing that by doing what I'm going to say I don't go to the bathroom without your approval. You know, and that's why I want to be working only with people that I want to ask for approval. Otherwise, I don't I don't want to work with you.

Alex Ferrari 1:10:07
Because I've seen a couple of filmmakers with some egos. Just a couple, just a couple of a couple, a couple of delusional filmmakers along the way. By the way, I was one of them. When I was starting out, we all go through that we all go through the process. If you're smart, you go through quickly, and then you move on, and you grow up pretty quickly. But when you come into this business, you come in with stars in your eyes, and I love movies, and Scorsese, and Cor, Salwa and Spielberg and Lucas and and you see all these stories and you want to like I'm going to make the Godfather I'm going to make you know, Inception, I'm going to make Nolan film or Fincher. So that is what you need to get this. It's so difficult to get. Yeah, you need that kind of energy to make it. But once you're done making it, then you really know it's another step that they don't tell you at film school. They don't Hollywood doesn't sell that story. They don't tell it. They sell you the oh, look, this guy went to Sundance and sold the movie for $17.5 million. Oh, great. And now the Dow that's everyone's like, Oh, well, you know, Palm Springs sold for $17.5 million. I go. And I spoke I had that guy on the show. And we went through the whole process. And Hulu paid $17.5 million for that. Amazing. And you know why they paid 17 point 5 million won. I had Adam Sandler and Adam and Adam Sandburg in it. So that was JK Simmons. And they knew that based on their algorithm that Adam Sandberg is going to do very well on their platform. But more than that, the free press that they got for being the highest paid movie ever at Sundance, they estimated it to be like $100 million worth of free advertising for Hulu. So that was a strategic move. was the movie that valuable? At the end of the day, they probably not. But was it valuable for marketing to get more eyeballs on Hulu to get? You see, but that's no,

John Kim 1:12:06
That's the stuff that no one knows. That's my point to is like, no one really knows why. And just to say my movies better than movies, like according to you. But they don't know all these other things out and back to the you know, the waiting days. They don't know, like what actually made them might have happened. And that Cassius or to make it happen. Not that is still happening, right? It's like to just put your head in the sand and say, Yeah, I saw something. I see a Beverly Hills house. So what I'm incompetent in my house is incompetent. It's irrelevant.

Alex Ferrari 1:12:35
Right! Like, yeah, exactly. Like, I'm in Bakersfield. And I have a house, you know, but I saw a house sell for 4.5 million in the hills of Hollywood.

John Kim 1:12:46
And with that exact scenario of what we're talking about,

Alex Ferrari 1:12:51
You're absolutely I never thought I'd never thought about that. But filmmakers think but my house is good that they have a bathroom. I have a bedroom, they have a bedroom. I don't understand. I don't understand why mine is not worth the 4.5 million. And then you're like, oh, you know who lives in that house. Danny Trejo, Danny Trejo, Thomas Jane, Michael Madsen, Eric Roberts, and a few other guys live in that. And they were able to sell on Bruce Willis also lives in there as well. So now, that movie that that house is sold for point five 1.5 million, but your house you live in it. So it's not worth as much.

John Kim 1:13:31
We laugh at this scenario, but it is exactly what's happening to a lot of filmmakers.

Alex Ferrari 1:13:36
Wow, I've never I'm going to use that constantly. It is so brilliant of analogy, because there's there's two houses, but the two houses are not built on the same playing field. They're both houses. Yes. They're both films. Yes, exactly. But they're not equal. They're not equal in the market place in the marketplace. And the marketplace, you can live in it. You can live in that you can watch this movie, you can watch that movie. That's where the similarities end.

John Kim 1:14:10
But there's no such thing. There's no like, objective measurement. Right? You can say it's just like, Well, I think it's a great book. Well, I think it's a great. It's like, look at that. It's just chasing when, you know, unless it's like someone reads like, you know what, I don't I gotta make money. I'm only gonna sell I and I always want to work with people I want to work with. Right. So there you go.

Alex Ferrari 1:14:35
I mean, listen, John, what advice Listen, what advice would you give a filmmaker? What's that? What's that one piece of advice? What would the filmmaker that has a movie that wants to make a movie and wants to get into the marketplace right now. And once the makeup just wants to make it they haven't made the movie yet. So we're catching them before they make their movie. And let's say they could find a couple 100 grand $1,000 to $300,000 they can raise that one is the advice you give a filmmaker at that stage right now? And then what advice would you give a filmmaker who has that $300,000 movie with no stars in it? If there's any advice you could get?

John Kim 1:15:12
It's really hard to speak in generalities.

Alex Ferrari 1:15:14
Right, you really, it is case by case.

John Kim 1:15:16
You're right, whatever it is case by case, but I mean, a central tenet is make the cheapest possible movie you possibly can. Right? And because the return down downstream is just not it's just not their exception. Unless you're an exception. I'm talking you know, generalities, but you know, it just make it for the cheap. Get the best stars that you possibly can for your money. That's more important, any special effect anything whatever, because then you can put it on your your ad spend money on your, your, your your key art, that that's much more important than any little you know, then and that's your Superbowl advertising right there. That's more that's a big line item in your $300,000 movie. Get the best Star get the get the best art possible. And trailer trailer I mean, you know, there's some there's the trailers important because an o on a trailer, don't make your trailer a mini movie. It's called a teaser. Right? It's the T. Everyone wants to like little mini movies. Like you know what? I just saw the whole movie in two minutes. Thank you very much. I'm not gonna buy it. I'm not gonna see it because I saw it from beginning to end. All the best parts, too. I know. Those are your best parts. All the explosions are in a 32nd teaser, like, Oh, that looks interesting. I'm gonna do it. Right. It's just it's like, I mean, again, I want to say get in trouble with the, you know, it's a striptease, you don't show everything right. You just do a little bit that get him interested.

Alex Ferrari 1:16:58
You tease him? Exactly. You tease them.

John Kim 1:17:01
Right. So that's another thing again, I've seen that's the number one thing. Mistake is everyone makes a little mini movie a two and a half minute trailer, you're done in 10 minutes, 10 seconds. You know, it's just get someone they take another look. Right. So that's number one. Number two on the art piece, everyone thinks they gotta do this montage thing when they realize it's a two by two inch thing. And it's just like a black box. Everything on

Alex Ferrari 1:17:22
That's not the one that's standing on your wall. That's different. Like, you know, the poster, the poster you want to build for your wall so you can show people. That's a different poster than what you're dealing with your demanded thing.

John Kim 1:17:34
And by the way, on your thing, you could take a picture of me and you can say that the Jackie Chan is in your movie, because no one's gonna tell the difference.

Alex Ferrari 1:17:43
Why Wow. No, but you write so small, it's so small.

John Kim 1:17:49
And no one's gonna like fact check you but you take a picture. Actually, maybe it's Bruce Lee, not Jackie Chan. Because everyone puts you know, and then they put a whole like list of all the faces and it's like, it really is indecipherable. It could I'm joking, but it looks like that.

Alex Ferrari 1:18:04
So look at Netflix, if you if you just study Netflix right now, I was just watching this the other day, studying Netflix. And there was a movie that I watched and had like two or three stars in it. They choose a star. Like if you seeing red notice flashed by they either put the rock or they put Ryan rentals or put they'll put Galka got on it. They won't put all three generally speaking once the movie is because then because you just Oh, is that the rock up because you don't want to confuse them?

John Kim 1:18:34
Because it's a two thing and it's a squirrel so fast. You've got to catch up. And by the way, they know the analytics of exactly what's who sells what sells. Again, this is all stuff that behind that no one knows. Right? But I mean for the indie people for the end, here's another advice that you back to your thing. Don't do that. Don't do that. Because it is a pipe dream to get on Netflix, go to to VT go to most popular and look who who like look at all the stars that are selling on most popular and to beat those people. That's the chance where you can see stars like, you know, Joe Blow that you had no idea about, there's actually a star because he's selling more than Brad Pitt on the a VA channels. Right, that's more reachable because on a on a VA channel, you're competing. The love the playing field is a little bit less than it's not like iTunes, where you're competing against and vendors forget about you're competing not only to the production by 10 million of advertising, etc, etc. You can't compete. However, on the AI channels. There is a point of theories. It's a little bit late into it because you feel like you're competing against 10 year old 20 year old studio movies. Alright, so I've already seen that, right? So if you look at all the most popular, they're not the Titanic's because everyone's already seen them for. But you look at the most popular look at those stars all sudden you're seeing stars that you've never heard about. Right, and they're next to, you know, they're majorly bracket. Like this is the only playing field We're an independent indie benefit maker can actually compete, right where your your, so that's what I'm saying. Just know, know your limits, you know, again, it says you can dream. But if you want to get that first base, you want to get that bump start here and then go higher and AVOD is the place again, I'm, I'm talking sacrilege to every, you know, filmmaker and you know, all the windowing, and I've said it before you that is, is looking at what's selling and by the way that computers are in line, this is a straight up, like, what are the best sellers, right? And then also, you're gonna see stars in there that you don't know who they are, but you might want to hire them, because you know what algorithms pick them up, they're in your movie, they're gonna pop up in the two V's of the world. And by the movie, you know, I have 600 movies on TV, right? I was with two people and they were 40 I got three kids. You know, if I had another kid, I'm naming them to movie boy or girl. Till we can, boy or girl if to be and I've told them that you know, my friends that to be I've told everyone this because to be is going, I mean free. My number six might be freebie and number seven. Number seven is going to be YouTube. Okay? And that's gonna be you or two or whatever boy or girl because no one's gonna stop that YouTube engine. You got 5 billion people out there, right versus whatever. But, you know, these are little insights. Again, it's you can live in dreamland. But if you want to like really get some some some some some some points on the board. You got to play in this area because a $300,000 movie can't compete against $100 million movie period and no matter what we're except by these AR platforms, because the

Alex Ferrari 1:21:43
100 million because Dr. Strange. Multiverse is not on duty right now.

John Kim 1:21:48
There you go. You're not competing. That's why I'm saying don't even bother with iTunes because you're competing against Dr. Strange for crying out loud. How can you do that?

Alex Ferrari 1:21:55
James Bond?

John Kim 1:21:57
Dr. Strange 10 years from now. Okay, so I've already seen that. So I'm hoping it's free. So I'm open up for you know, watch something for Kerala different?

Alex Ferrari 1:22:05
What is it? What is the return? Give or take? Because I know like Amazon's like a penny. What do we is there is that public knowledge as far as what you get paid on to be but it's decent enough that you're happy?

John Kim 1:22:16
It's a it's a CPM

Alex Ferrari 1:22:19
Can you explain what a CPM is real quick

John Kim 1:22:20
CPM is is is what you're paid per 1000 views. Right, so. So when you think about it, it's like, per 1000 views, you know, you got it, you're gonna need millions of people to watch something, to vert to me of significant value. Right. So the big, the big, big fallacy, there's just the train wreck is happening now. And I just laugh right now is the buzzword is fast, channel faster, and all Avon, I'm gonna, I'm gonna direct consumer, I'm gonna fast channel, everybody and their sisters approaching me. They see me on LinkedIn, whatever. And they say, Hey, I want your movies, you know, you know, we can share the money. And we can have this direct channel and I'm going to be on the Roku box, and we're going to be on fire stick and all this. I'm like, Yeah, you will find people. So why would I use my clients movies to fund your business, that then we share five cents? You know, I'm saying because you can't get 5000 people, you can't get 5000 people to walk

Alex Ferrari 1:23:22
I have a million if I have a million or 2 million or 3 million subscribers, that's a different conversation, even

John Kim 1:23:26
Then WooCommerce even then, I mean, we're not talking subscribers. I mean, even we're even seeing the, you know, the big boys, Disney Netflix saying they gotta go to this AVOD market, because its number of subscribers is not even close to the number of people that want to watch free. by Amy.

Alex Ferrari 1:23:42
So you mean like television, television,

John Kim 1:23:46
That's what I'm talking about before. It's just I tell people, it's just back to the future. We're just going back to TV where it was free for ad supported. But people just you know, as content providers, it's hard to get millions and millions of people to watch something for those numbers to pay out. But they're not even close to what it was before on theatrical DVD. It's subscription, you know, money, which is all going away now. I mean, it's a matter of time. You know? So it really is just knowing your strengths. Thank you for me. I don't do theatrical. No, that's not my thing. I stick to my lane. This is what I do. Again, I'm squirrel hunting. And then, you know, then a elephant gets in the way and I sell it, you know, to, you know, a Sigourney Weaver, you know, a movie that just came out of nowhere, right, but I'm not like just waiting all day for that elephant to come in. I'm shooting squirrels, you know, and eating squirrels or eating and like I said, it's significant, but it's not I don't have my own lot. I don't have you know, 1000 people working for me, I don't have the DP of the bathroom do the payoff. You know where you know, the squirrels ain't gonna feed anything. But you put enough squirrels together and you got a major league meal. And then again, you know, an elephant comes in the way and, you know, that feeds the village. But this business model doesn't work for any studio, it doesn't work for even, you know, a lot of these distributors with lots of staff, whatever, right? It just doesn't. Right. 10,000 $20,000 You know, we can add up a lot. I mean, you were talking about I would, I would pick up $5,000 You know, if it was just there, you know, all day and night, but a lot of people because their costume, they can't even afford it, and they won't do

Alex Ferrari 1:25:29
It cost them more money to pick up that 5000 that it does. That's exactly it, make it exactly it. Yeah, just to have them run there. It's a different world. And I think and filmmakers really need to understand that that, you know, a giant distributor won't pick you up, if you're a small movie, unless they feel that they can make money with it, because it's going to cost more just to put you in the workflow, the funnel of getting everything ready into the assembly line of what they normally do to put movie out, it's going to cost them X amount of dollars, just to release your movie legit, why they have a marketing cap 33

John Kim 1:26:05
I'll take your 30,000 you know, that's my insurance, if that doesn't happen,

Alex Ferrari 1:26:09
Right. And they really cost them about three to four or 5000 to do what they're gonna do. But it's not even

John Kim 1:26:15
It's making you cry in my little portfolio folder. So I can have my you know, my office in one of the film festivals that didn't cost me 30,000 of marketing. And by the way, 30,000 mark up, you might as well just spit in the ocean. I mean, really? What can you do for $30,000?

Alex Ferrari 1:26:31
Not it's gonna be Yeah, it's gonna it's gonna be tough. It's gonna be tough. It's gonna be very tough

John Kim 1:26:36
Talk in general, I don't want to talk in studio. So I'm talking about you know, more, you know, independent filmmakers, where 200,000 is a lot of money. Let's just put it that way.

Alex Ferrari 1:26:44
Right. And can you really quickly? Well, how valuable is a film festival to you? Are you a laurel at Sundance, or at South Bay?

John Kim 1:26:53
Okay, so what? No stars outside outside of the, you know, outside of the name brand ones? Yeah, no stars, no stars didn't book to film festival. It might as well be, you know, junkie in my underwear. Having a screening. It doesn't matter. The only people that are making money on those film festivals are the film festival makers, because they're charging five to $10,000. For for your event, you know, so that thank you very much. And then I mean, it's almost a joke. I'm talking, I'm not I'm talking about non con, you know, non.

Alex Ferrari 1:27:27
So the Alright, so let's say everybody else everybody else is like other than the top 10 film festivals.

John Kim 1:27:37
As a salesperson, it's the last thing I talked about. Because you know what, most people could care less. They're not going to watch a movie of like, oh, this was the film The Audience Choice winner in the set in Timbuktu Film Festival. Who cares? It's hard enough to get someone to watch a movie, when you know, on on much bigger measurements, it's elastic. I mean, I don't even visit film festivals, because it's a joke. I mean, I almost wanted to have a test where I just put those little film morals, you know, you know, on the screen and just call it like, you know, festival just because you know what it's like Jackie Chan is gonna be gone. Who knows all his laurels look the same. People are not buying because it wants some awards. Those film festivals exist for these filmmakers to want to feel good about, about themselves that at least hear one on award. But it's not leading to a darn sale. Again, I'm talking general, I'm not talking generalities. Right. But even the top one is a con this that they can't sell me even Academy Award. Some of those movies can't sell more than 5000 bucks, you know, the crappy Academy Award? Okay. No, you're right. You're absolutely the names. It's just absolutely, you know, they make 10,000 points. You know, no one's talking about the actual money. But again, that's serious credibility, like I was talking with St. Do you want? Do you want an Oscar? Here you go. But a lot of those movies, they're making nothing. So if you've got the creme de la creme, that's nothing. What do you say about Timbuktu Film Festival and you know, Wisconsin or this and that. And

Alex Ferrari 1:29:07
I just wanted you to say it out loud, man. Because I talked about that constantly. And look at film festivals are great, and they have their place and it's fun, and it's great. But if you're thinking that that's going to bring dollars to the bottom line, there's there's probably three or four festivals in the world that might bring a little bit of money to the table. And that's still dependent on the movie still dependent on the genre. So dependent on a bunch of because I know films have won Sundance couldn't get sold and that was 10 years ago. When and that's still I think that's a holdover from the 90s though because in the 90s you put up a Sundance Laurel it was sold

John Kim 1:29:46
You also the DVDs to write so again, right different world it's a different world but you know, so if someone comes to me and says, Hey, man, I want these all I was like, Okay, who's in it? Nobody. Oh, what is the greatest I was like, oh, Okay, sorry. Go go go to someone who is going to tell you they're gonna make a lot of money on that movie, but I ain't taking it. Right. I know, because I I've tested this crap myself, you know, to the point of where I am joking, like putting a Jackie Chan it's calling a car, you know, Jackie Chan's Film Festival for grandma. So all the morals, and I've had, you know what I thought were like, Okay, this sounds pretty good winner of this, you know, in a big market film festival like major market, you know, and I couldn't, I couldn't give it away. Right? Because all those films and no one's buying and I'm in the mood tonight to watch a winner of this. The Timbuktu felt so good to watch this video, I made a movie based on that no consumer does.

Alex Ferrari 1:30:41
Right. Now it's a small, it's a small market of film of film lovers. That might care. But that markets so small, little, track them down

John Kim 1:30:52
And just call them up and say watch my movie, because I know you'd like these kind of

Alex Ferrari 1:30:55
Criterion Collection couldn't make their streaming service work. They go. And they are Criterion Collection. Like they switched it over they they joined another service, because they just couldn't make it work financially. And that says everything you need, because criteria collection means something to a very small group of film lovers. You know, you and I both know who Criterion Collection is. But if you walk down the street 9.9 out of 10 people are not going to give a crap about a Criterion Collection release. They don't care. So not that there's anything wrong with that, but they understand their lane and they do it very well. As far as the distributor is concerned Criterion Collection like they, you know, and that's another feather in the cap. If you got a movie, one of your movies and Criterion Collection you go. I'm there with Richard Linklater, I'm there with Kurosawa. I'm there with Coppola there with all this kind of stuff. So it's, listen, it's been a fantastic conversation. I have a couple questions I asked all my guests I want to I want to ask you before we go. This is these are fun, though. These are fun. What is the lesson that took you the longest to learn whether in the film industry or in life?

John Kim 1:32:06
Man, that's that's, that's, that's deep. That's what we all go personal on that I'll just go. I'll just go film. Sure. I'll just go film and every every movie has a price. And just because, you know, you you think that it's worth something doesn't mean it's what the majority thinks. Right. And I think that that's the arrogance of major studios, you know, that make decision making based on on you know, the head saying I know this and you know, that's how quickies happen. Right? Yeah, they're not very worrying. They're ignoring, you know, what reality what the heartland what people want. I mean, they could care less about Steven Spielberg. You know, he's, he's a legend of filmmaking. But you know what, today's to the younger consumers today. It's like, who's Grandpa is this? I don't care. I ain't gonna pay more we care.

Alex Ferrari 1:33:04
We care about like, Oh, my God, let's go see West Side Story. And nobody loves the West Side Story

John Kim 1:33:08
And what happened right?

Alex Ferrari 1:33:10
And it was an Oscar nominee. And it was an Oscar nominated film. And everyone says it was like an amazing piece of cinematic. And it didn't do well.

John Kim 1:33:19
Exactly. And Steven Spielberg is, is the father of filmmaking. That is a perfect sample. So again, just you have to divorce yourself, you know, and just because what you think doesn't mean that's what everybody else in the world thinks, right? So every film has, at the same time, like I said, I have movies where I'm embarrassed to be selling them. They're not on my website. But they're selling millions. Okay? So it goes both ways. And you just have to be able to, like, try to divorce your own emotions and your own involvement. I mean, Spielberg Yeah, that's great. And then look at the marketplace, no reaction whatsoever, right or Academy Award back to the film festival. Okay, so how did that translate? So back to like, if the greatest filmmaker in the history of mankind is having that how are you stack up to that, you know, in your budget in your filmmaking abilities, and they can't work? And it can't work? Right. I mean, it's a hard, hard lesson to learn to accept that fact. Right, okay. You're telling me you really are like you're better than Spielberg? No, I'm not. Well, you're asking me to make more money than Spielberg. That's just your deep silence. Crickets. Again, I'm not in the business of Doctor No, I don't want to kill anyone's dreams. I don't even want to have this conversation with anybody that just even thinks this.

Alex Ferrari 1:34:42
Hopefully. So hopefully, this interview, you could just send this to people. This is you. Here's, here's me. Here's everything I'm gonna say to you. Watch it, don't watch it. It's up to you.

John Kim 1:34:56
Whole length is short to have these

Alex Ferrari 1:35:00
That's why you do it with someone

John Kim 1:35:02
That doesn't want to hear it. Oh, but my Aunt Millie likes this. Oh, but this this is different than

Alex Ferrari 1:35:07
That Millie have 10 million she wants to throw out your way because last question three of your favorite films of all time.

John Kim 1:35:18
Oh my goodness!

Alex Ferrari 1:35:19
Come on three of your three that come to your mind today.

John Kim 1:35:23
Today. I can't you know what it's become such a widget to me that

Alex Ferrari 1:35:29
I'll go back to the young, the young man who love for this business before you got jaded.

John Kim 1:35:37
Jaws. So jaws. Right? Yeah. So yeah, so again, it's all that baggage of all that and then, you know, now it's like, I'm going back to the last one to use that. But but he Okay, back in when I didn't even know about, you know, Hollywood and all that. Okay, very good. But yeah, it's just one painful to like. Because there's just, there's just so many like, you know, I saw so many movies now. It's just I, I am not the film critic, and I am not a film producer. And I could care less about the storyline are, you know, the beautiful special? That's not me. I just, that's why I can't even like answer your question other than Jaws, which was when I was like, you know,

Alex Ferrari 1:36:22
Look John, it sounds to me that you you're journeyman, you've gone through this business a while you've seen a lot of carcasses along the way. And you've seen dreams get shattered, you've seen egos get destroyed, you've seen, you've seen successes as well, you've seen people do well and grow in this business as well. But you've seen too much, to not look at things differently. And it's similar to me where I just been through so much in my career, that when when young filmmakers or new filmmakers that could be 65. And show up by the way, I talked to many of those who show up and have no understanding, they might have been a doctor that had money and I want to be a really what I really want to do is direct, and they show up and they just get destroyed. Because it don't understand what they're walking into. And I always use the analogy of a fight. Whereas most people, most filmmakers walk into this business not knowing that they're walking into a ring. And you're walking in with Mike Tyson in 1987. And most people don't even know that they're in a ring, let alone an arena, let alone in a fight. And all of a sudden, while they're walking around going look at the pretty lights. Mike Tyson comes in and knocks them out. And they're like, and they're like, what happened? Where did this come from? And that's what I'm here to do is to let you know you are entering your inner ring with Mike Tyson and 1987 is to prepare prepare yourself for the punch. Because and I always say this too. I don't care who you are. You always get punched. We just talking about Steven Spielberg. He got punched, he got an Oscar nomination for Best Picture, and multiple other nominations. And he still got punched, everybody gets hit. But if I make but if I may quote the great Rocky Balboa, it's about how hard you can get hit and keep moving forward. There you go. I gotta get him on the show. One day. I really because I know sly wood. Because you want to talk about a journeyman Holy crap. Can you imagine what slides gone through in his career? Oh my god.

John Kim 1:38:31
No, but let me just since you're talking about about about Sly Stallone, I want to just just say this story because it's also illustrative what we're just talking about going up. I watch rocky every day. I wasn't I wasn't. I was drinking the eggs. I was like doing. I was good. I was you know, in the tiger.

Alex Ferrari 1:38:53
Why the tiger? I have the tiger.

John Kim 1:38:55
Right. So then dial it back 30 years and then I have my own son who was also playing tennis, you know, at a high level nationally ranked, you know, top 100 in the country and like okay, maybe you could kind of watch rocky mint got right. And he's like, No, I don't want you for three years. I was telling you to watch Rocky. You gotta watch the car. Watch. This is a greatest movie. So finally I think is my birthday is I'm fine. I'll watch Rocky. Okay. We pop it in. We're watching it. And you know, we he's in the pet store and he's talking about you know, they will start fighting until like, an hour later. He goes, this is boring. And I'm watching it. I'm like one. This is boring. You know, things have changed. And you know, so things have changed. And then my point is it took me three years and I had my son to like, I'm not giving the car to make him watch it. He only watched it because it's my birthday. Right? It is hard to get To someone to watch a movie, right? That it's hard and then even when I got him to watch it because this is boring

Alex Ferrari 1:40:09
Because you needed to start with Rocky for much faster, much faster, much faster rocky three much fat and then Rocky Balboa even. Yeah, yeah, there you go. So Rocky was a drama Rocky's a drama.

John Kim 1:40:25
So it's like today's consumers don't have three years and a father like hammering him to watch a movie.

Alex Ferrari 1:40:33
Did he like it? Right? Did they enjoy the rest of the movie? Did you watch the rest of the movie?

John Kim 1:40:39
We turned it off. Oh my god, I died.

Alex Ferrari 1:40:43
I was eating raw eggs. Okay, you died a little bit that day.

John Kim 1:40:47
And then I watched and he goes, this sucks. I'm like, Oh my gosh. And I just kind of see where his point was. Right. That's how much things have changed from when we're just talking about the D days today. To today's consumer, if they're in a killing in like the opening credits, you lost the consumer. That's why dramas don't work in general, because these today's kids, and they could care less if it's on a big screen or a two inch screen. It's not like our days when we needed to be on the big screen.

Alex Ferrari 1:41:18
It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter a lot. So now the world is AVOD. It could be watched on an iPhone. It doesn't have to be in the theater. Film Festivals don't really have that much in the market anymore. All these kinds of things. That world has changed so much. And I hope this conversation has shaken people to the core a little bit and really opened people's eyes about what this market place is right now. Because in six months, something else might come out and then a year.

John Kim 1:41:48
And that's not an exaggeration, because

Alex Ferrari 1:41:52
I remember when I went to AFM like three or four years ago, and everybody was talking about Ott, oh, everyone's OTT Oh TTL TTL. TT, and then afterwards like oh, it's that's my that's my that's my that's fine. And then Avod, Avod, Avod, Avod. Everyone's just trying to figure it out. Even the professionals don't know what the hell's going on.

John Kim 1:42:09
YouTube is the next thing.

Alex Ferrari 1:42:13
I've been hearing I've been hearing about YouTube, from my friends in the distribution space for a while. I'm going to do an episode about YouTube in the future. And that's the ultimate like if you think AVOD is like the end of the road. YouTube is an insult to a filmmaker, or it's an it's an insult to throw. Because that's where cat videos go.

John Kim 1:42:32
No, that's I was there. But now I am not. I am a proponent I saw in my own checkbook. Bam. It is the future when you think about it to make money. You got to zig when everyone is zagging. You got to be there before but I was there five years before we were in the Avon thing I had all those contacts because everyone's making fun of it. Myself included when I was at Paramount. Now everyone's going apparently Avon now that's getting now that's gonna get crowded. We never too busy everybody comes in YouTube is the next big when everyone's laughing and wait

Alex Ferrari 1:43:03
Until the studio's finally jump onto YouTube. And then it's again

John Kim 1:43:09
With what's the next thing

Alex Ferrari 1:43:11
What's the what's the next thing? Oh videos on Snapchat? I don't know. Like I have no idea. I have no idea it's it's so amazing. But I really John, I want to thank you so much for your time my friend thank you so much for your so your CAD being so candid and your rawness about the conversation and I hope this helps some filmmakers and please send this this interview to all the filmmakers that you talk to you guys if you want the truth just I'm not gonna do this watch the video just watch the video. This is not my business. This is Alex teaches. I don't teach just go there. Thank you so much.

John Kim 1:43:50
Thank you. Thank you