$42 Billion + plus still on the table for linear

Over $42 Billion is still on the table. Claim it?

The business is shifting, but the money hasn't disappeared— On this episode of Film Hustlers, we’re breaking down the cable movie - 15 days, 10 locations, and 8 or so characters. High-concept hooks lift eyebrows. Let's talk about a strategy to stay relevant.

Key Highlights:

• The Outline is King: Why you should stop writing scripts and start perfecting the 21-page outline.
• The Cable Shift: How to make a $500k movie look like $5M.

Transcript

Davie Dave 0:00

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to Film Hustlers.

Mark Roberts 0:04

Hey, but the the great people of Earth. The great people of Earth. Well, no, welcome to uh Film Hustlers. We are the hustlers. We do hustle. That's hustle. We do hustle every day. Filmmaker, comedian, kind of does it all. Producer, director kind of does it all. Titty, rod tootty rinks. He does uh makeup, but he's also uh creative. He does uh writing, he produces, he acts, he directs, you do it all.

Davie Dave 0:30

Act like a foo.

Mark Roberts 0:31

Acts like a foo. He is a foo for real, part of the foo crew. Yeah, you know, welcome to the show. It's been uh pleasure and an honor. So if you guys like the show, please like and subscribe. Subscribe. Send us questions, whatever you whatever you uh are questioning about uh the business, or if you need paperwork or releases or whatever, I'll send them to you.

Rod Rinks 0:51

You'll do that for that.

Mark Roberts 0:53

I'm not afraid of that. Well, yeah, just watch the show. Um, but yeah, today what I wanted to get into, and I need we need to get into this.

Rod Rinks 0:59

Remember the show used to be called Let's Get Into Yeah, let's get into it.

Mark Roberts 1:01

Well, let's get into it today because I want to talk about filmmaking in general. Like people are are there are people making movies? Are people distributing movies? Like, what's happening? Call Clay Epstein. He's gonna be he's mad at me. I don't think he's not calling me back. There is things are shifting, but I do know this, and I don't think people understand this that much, but you know, cable television is still pulling it for pulling in 48 billion dollars a year. Is that a lot of money? 48 billion is a lot of money, and they can't just keep taking the money, they've got to create content. Yeah, they have to have people uh creating content, so it's available, it's out there.

Rod Rinks 1:45

You know what I'm hearing, Roberts? I'm hearing there's there's uh screen fatigue. Have you heard that? No, people are getting sick of just you know, they want to go like for instance, Coachella was this weekend. No, I didn't go.

Mark Roberts 1:57

Um I want to see Coachella, but on my phone.

Rod Rinks 2:00

All those events, those live action events, they're saying that more and more people are wanting to have social experiences versus just being social on their phone. They want to be in festivals, they want to be around people, they want to go to concerts, they want to, they want to do stuff. Even they're talking about I don't know if you've read this, but like theaters, the the rebound of theaters, the resurgence. Now, what they gotta do is lower those damn prices and get rid of those ads in the beginning. If they came back old school, I remember in Chula Vista we had this place called the Vogue and Fiestra.

Mark Roberts 2:31

Double feature?

Rod Rinks 2:32

Yeah, it was like five bucks for a double feature. Dude, it was packed. If they came back, and again, I'm not a theater owner, but imagine like imagine if there was $10 movies. Five dollars maybe better, but ten dollar movies, I'd go all the time. $50, I could take my family.

Mark Roberts 2:47

What has to happen for there to be a fifty a $10 movie, though?

Davie Dave 2:50

I mean, it's just it's smarter though, don't you? Let me tell you something. You can join the AMC Club and you can buy a membership, it's like $25, $30 a month, and you can go four times a week. Yeah, but it's AMC. What if I don't want to see a movie there?

Mark Roberts 3:06

They have everything. But remember when you were little and you were you just go to the movies, you wouldn't even know what's showing. I know you walk in and you'd be like, I'm watching Island of Dr. Moreau, but I'm only 12. It doesn't matter.

Rod Rinks 3:15

But you know what? I get that, Davey. Like, yeah, okay, but wouldn't it even be better if you're like spontaneous? You're like, oh, dude, there's a movie theater. You want to go watch a movie? It's only 10 bucks. Yeah, what's playing? Oh, you know, Hail Mary. Hail Mary, let's go watch it. How much is popcorn? Oh, it's it's 15 bucks. All you could eat, done. All you could drink, sodas, boom.

Mark Roberts 3:34

What about this? What about this? What about you charge for the movie you're watching based on how much the filmmaker spent on the movie?

Rod Rinks 3:44

That's interesting. So if you go, I mean that's kind of cool.

Mark Roberts 3:47

If you go see Hail Mary, you gotta pay extra money because it's got they spent a bunch of money on it.

Rod Rinks 3:52

If you go see Made of Mexico, it's like 50 cents. Yeah, 50 cents.

Mark Roberts 3:56

Just buy the food and come on in for free. Actually, I think there's a there's a plan there.

Rod Rinks 4:00

That could be cool. Hey, I you heard it here, you saw it right here. Yeah, well film hustlers.

Mark Roberts 4:05

Film hustlers. No, but let's let's talk about cable for a second because I know there's a lot of filmmakers out there that have amazing ability.

unknown 4:14

Thank you.

Mark Roberts 4:14

Shoot, there's people here that have amazing ability. You guys have a lot of the ability to make movies, distribute movies. Maybe okay, I'm not, I'm sorry, not distribute, but you have the ability to make them and deliver them. So let's talk about the opportunity that's I think is sitting out there. I'm dealing with it as a producer that has to keep lowering his budgets to do cable. Uh, it's no one's fault. It's the way the business is. The business is changing. There is $48 billion being paid to cable uh television for all those linear stations, but you know, every quarter it's going down to $46 billion, $42 billion. You know, it's going to keep going the other way. So the less money they have, the less money they want to still spend on content, but they still have to provide content, no choice. So if you're a filmmaker and you're thinking, oh, I wonder how I fit into that equation, if you can find a way to have a conversation with executives or junior executives at Lifetime, Hallmark, GAF, GAF, places like that, I'll bet that there is a deal and there's a number that they're willing to converse about. If you walk in and you say, I want to do a movie that's in your wheelhouse, like the work that you do with Christmas and Faith or whatever it is, you could probably come up with a number that makes sense to them where they will purchase your movie and you potentially can make a little bit of money, and you can probably retain the rights to the film, which means that it becomes part of your library. So let's I'll give you an example. If they're making $2.5 million movies with stars, but they can't make every movie at that level, then for a million dollars, they'll probably let license another movie with maybe not as big a star, maybe a couple of people from the Brady bunch. I don't know. But you know what I mean? Like something like that, then you've got a movie that is worth something, and maybe they'll pay you a million two for that movie, or you got go even lower. I've heard I've heard rumors that you know some of these networks are suggesting that producers make movies for $400,000, $500,000. Now, there was a time when I'd make that movie, you know, when I was younger. So if you're capable of doing that, of making a movie, now the story still has to be decent and the story has to fit within the wheelhouse of what they're doing. You can't just go like, hey, you're only paying me $400. I'm gonna do whatever I want. No, that's not how it works. You still have to negotiate, you still have to, you still have to develop with them. They still have to help you pick the star. Yeah, it may not be a big star, but they'll still want to know, oh, you know, who's the star you're thinking of? And you give them the name and they say, Oh, cool, Erica Estrada's enough for us or whatever. Punch? Punch? Old school punch. Yeah, old school punch.

Rod Rinks 7:06

Um be a cop Christmas.

Mark Roberts 7:09

So I think, and it's not just Christmas, people are looking for true crime, people are looking for faith, people are looking for, you know, gospel movies, they're looking for musicals. No, they're not looking for music. Unfortunately, no one's looking for music. You love musicals, I do. Coming of age, they're looking for coming of age. No one's looking for coming of age.

Rod Rinks 7:26

Everybody, how can you be an independent filmmaker and not like coming of age?

Mark Roberts 7:29

That's like I don't not like them. I just don't think anyone buys them.

Rod Rinks 7:34

Davy? I watch them.

Mark Roberts 7:36

Stan. I watch them too. By me oh that's a great movie. Wait, what was it? What was it? The late Rob Reiner.

Rod Rinks 7:43

That's right. Rest in peace. But what was that movie? Davy, do you know what that movie was about? Sandlot. Coming of age.

Mark Roberts 7:48

Yeah, good stuff. You got Sandlot?

Rod Rinks 7:51

No, Standby Me. Stand by me, that's right. Yeah, you said coming of age. Again, coming of age. I don't know. Sandlot wasn't coming of age.

Mark Roberts 7:57

I think it takes I think if you're pitching a movie and you're someone of note and you've got a great script and you've got some actors, maybe. I I think it has to, I think it's director driven. I think if you're doing a uh movie that has that element to it, like coming of age, I think it's director driven. I think people will be like, oh, I like this director, I like your vision of it. Yeah. Uh, you know, because there was movies like Spanking the Monkey. You ever see that movie?

Rod Rinks 8:26

No.

Mark Roberts 8:27

No, okay. Well, Spanking the Monkey was a coming of age movie that went to festival. I think I did.

Rod Rinks 8:31

What was it about?

Mark Roberts 8:32

Did Extreme Wasn't it weird? It was about Spanking the Monkey.

Rod Rinks 8:35

No, it was somewhere else. Yeah, Little Miss Sunshine. That wasn't a big festival.

Mark Roberts 8:41

That was a uh but it had Steve Carell in it. I mean, they had Was he a big star then? I mean, it didn't matter. He was a decent star, it doesn't matter. Like I I sent a pitch over to Amazon the other day because I was like, oh, I really like a million miles away. And I have something like this. So I sent it over to the executive there and I said, Hey, when I met with you, we talked about a million miles away. I have something like it. Uh, here it is. I think it's really cool. And she wrote back and she was like, Look, this is a great idea. This is a really cool idea. The subject's amazing. But even though we talked about a million miles away, we're not really doing that, we're not heading in that direction anymore. So yeah, uh, here's some suggestions about where it could go. So that was kind of cool, you know, got some feedback. It didn't go to them, it wasn't for them. You gotta know that as a filmmaker, you're gonna go to people, and as good as your idea is, they may not be doing work like that, they may have changed their direction. Faith is a big piece of the business now. Yeah. You know, you talk about faith all the time. Yeah. What kind of faith movies?

Rod Rinks 9:47

I love faith because it's more like a redemption. Mine aren't heavy into faith. Like I'm not, I don't know if they would necessarily be, you know, they have the faith-based undertone, but it's more for me like like water to wine, the one Davy and I wrote.

Mark Roberts 10:03

Yeah, you guys are doing a um, you guys are doing uh a vertical.

Rod Rinks 10:07

We're doing a vertical. That doesn't have that doesn't have anything to do with it.

Mark Roberts 10:09

We just had Tommy Harper on the, you know, working with uh Brad Pitt of verticals, and now you guys are doing a vertical. Ours is a little different. Working with the George Lopez of verticals.

Rod Rinks 10:19

Ours is a little different, though. It's not so much like we're doing more of like an Instagram TikTok show, kind of like in the vein of like Brooklyn Coffee Show. The episodes are quick, it's with Concrete, he plays the lead, and it's just various takes place in the liquor store, Gus's liquor store, played by Davey, he's gonna be Gus. Um, yep. And Concrete's name is Pruno Perez, he's a winemaker, a total winemaker.

Mark Roberts 10:45

Hey, Ronaldo McDonald's, dude.

Rod Rinks 10:47

That's so funny. Yeah, it's kind of like or like the first 48, kind of like based on that character. That was a good one. But um that's an AE show.

Mark Roberts 10:55

But it's all copyright infringement.

Rod Rinks 10:57

Are you gonna let me finish or just keep it up?

Mark Roberts 10:59

Well, because I gotta throw it out for I gotta take care of AE.

Rod Rinks 11:02

Oh, do you though? Um, yeah, so we're gonna do this show right around the corner, Universal Liquors. They hooked us up.

Mark Roberts 11:09

Well, how come I don't have a part in it?

Rod Rinks 11:10

You don't care. We don't prepare.

Mark Roberts 11:12

Can't I go in like this and be like a preppy Mexican or something?

Rod Rinks 11:15

There is a preppy, but that's gonna be Davy's boy, right? The preppy guy.

Mark Roberts 11:18

Okay, if he doesn't show up, give me a call.

Rod Rinks 11:20

I asked you to be a made a Mexican.

Mark Roberts 11:21

I feel like I could be in it. I feel like I could do a good job.

Rod Rinks 11:23

Hey, are you even gonna you're gonna show up though the dude?

Mark Roberts 11:25

I'll show up in my Jaguar.

Rod Rinks 11:27

You're gonna like come watch, right?

Mark Roberts 11:28

No, I'm not gonna come in.

Rod Rinks 11:29

What a dick. We're fucking making a show.

Mark Roberts 11:31

I don't want to be, I don't want to be in it. Look, I don't go to festivals I'm not in, and I don't go to shoots I'm not in.

Rod Rinks 11:37

Oh my god. Fair enough. Well, you know what? Talk to the producer. Close set.

Mark Roberts 11:44

Maybe I can come in and do like an you know what I'll do? Here's here's something that all you filmmakers should get your pencil and paper out. You want to pick up the paper. Get your pencil and paper out.

Rod Rinks 11:52

He's just being a wise guy.

Mark Roberts 11:53

Here's what I think we should do. Work me into the schedule where I get there, do a quick thing. Yeah. And then if it's good, you guys use it. If it's not, you don't use it.

Rod Rinks 12:00

We could do that. Yeah. I can we can do that seriously, because it all unfolds either at the counter where Gus is at or at the uh like the beer or whatever.

Mark Roberts 12:08

I could walk in and say, like, yeah, like uh an opus one. Do you guys something have some like an opus one?

Rod Rinks 12:13

And then concrete would what are you talking about? But did you try this?

Mark Roberts 12:17

Did you know that opus one is made all it's all like made by robots? That's not true, I'm kidding. I know, you're lying.

Rod Rinks 12:24

So AI but you had a great idea. I wanted to talk to you about this. Oh, I have a great idea. I know usually it doesn't often, but um, I really think because I've been looking at these uh I showed Davy too, these Instagram shows that are built around brands.

Speaker 2 12:40

Uh-huh.

Rod Rinks 12:41

So, like um, you know the chubby guy from the office, I forget what it is, Baumhauer or something like that. Do you know that character?

Mark Roberts 12:48

I know the character, yeah.

Rod Rinks 12:49

Yeah, he does one with like a liquor, it's like a liquor brand. Uh-huh. And he's like the most uh like um who was the guy from those segments who kind of plays that. It's funny. There's one uh the magazine in style does called the intern. Uh Canva does one where there's there's these little short shows, and there's their production value is good and and it's scripted and everything. It's not all the time, but getting to what I was getting at is I want to do one with Casameico. House of Agave. You had a good idea. Great.

Mark Roberts 13:20

I already have House of Agave.

Rod Rinks 13:21

Let's make it as a vertical, yeah. But uh see, do you see that? No, there's a problem. There's a problem, it's a problem.

Mark Roberts 13:28

It's always a problem.

Rod Rinks 13:29

It's all he comes to us and he's like, Oh, oh, dude, I got this thing, and then two weeks later, what do you well?

Mark Roberts 13:36

Because you know, like like most business people and most filmmakers, what I do is like I'll come up with an idea, and then Spielberg said this. I'm I stole this from Spielberg. We're in good company. Copyright infringement. No, what I what I have to decide is, you know, you come up with an idea, and you have to decide, is your idea filled with adrenaline, or is it a really good idea? Like, is it an idea that you can commit to, or is it just adrenaline that gets you all fired up? How many times have you had a conversation with someone, told them an idea? You guys are all like, yeah, high-fiving, we're gonna make it. Everyone's drunk, you go sleep it off, and you wake up the next morning, you're like, Did I say I was gonna do that? Because that's not a very good idea today. So, my point is that as much as I like the agave idea, yeah, it would require the company that I'm thinking about to put up some money.

Rod Rinks 14:25

Right.

Mark Roberts 14:25

And they don't do that for that type of stuff. I've already broached it.

Rod Rinks 14:29

It's foolish, it's foolish it. Based off your conversation with Tommy Harper, I watched it last night, he made a good point. Brands will go and spend a million, half a million on a two-minute commercial, right? Or they could put 200,000, 225,000 into vertical, and they're able to take that hour, however long that that that is, and cut it up into pieces and use that for their social.

Mark Roberts 14:55

Let me just say, this guy has learned a lot from our show. He watched the episode with Tommy Harper, and look at what he knows. He's like an expert on verticals.

Rod Rinks 15:04

I mean, it makes sense. Just saying. That's you know, the brand integration, right?

Mark Roberts 15:10

Well, that's one way.

Rod Rinks 15:11

The only the the the issue I have, like in my small mind with your small mind, if you went to this said company that I know you're you know, said company, yes. I'm not gonna throw the name out. But if you did and you gave them that example, and you gave the person that I know that you know that we're talking about, yeah, if you said, Look, you could either make a commercial and spend a million bucks, half a million, whatever, or we could do this vertical for 200.

Mark Roberts 15:36

Yeah, the problem is it's like asking someone for a hundred dollars out of their pocket when they have like 30 cents. That's the problem.

Rod Rinks 15:43

Oh, well, that's different because it's if there's nothing there, then there's nothing.

Mark Roberts 15:46

It's just not of interest to them. Uh and yeah, I mean, I think I think they should be doing that. I agree, but then I would have to do it all the time. I would help do that, but uh, but it's just not that interesting.

Rod Rinks 15:57

I mean, if you have a brand out there and you want me to make you a vertical, let us know. There you go. Davey and I will jump in on that. Roberts will cruise up in his jag and play the big time guy, and then it'll drive away.

Mark Roberts 16:08

But how do you how do you make money? How do you how do you make money in today's market? I mean, look, all of us are capable of creating content, doing shows, coming up with ideas, doing a vertical, doing uh uh something on your phone, but how can you monetize that? How do you make money? I mean, is it what Tommy said, like on the vertical? Like you make it and then like you hope people watch, but uh well that's that's everything.

Rod Rinks 16:37

You make a you make a feature and you hope you get distribution. You get it.

Mark Roberts 16:41

Well, yeah, but most people don't. 10,000 movies a year, two or three of them get distribution, right? I mean, I'm that I'm probably off on my numbers.

Rod Rinks 16:48

Right, and this whole movement with like the verticals and the low budgets and all that, it's it's more based off of like small money, bigger reward, right? You make a film for that's why those cable networks are doing them for a million bucks because they're trying to recoup something versus five million or whatever the budget used to be, and they're gonna keep going lower because technology keeps getting better, right? You don't need as much, and with the AI and all that stuff, you're getting rid of full departments, you know what I mean? I'm not a fan, but it's just the way it is. And so that two and a half million dollar movie, you could probably make it for 500 and it's gonna look pretty much the same now, right? Or close to it, and they know that, and now look at their margins. Now they're like, oh, two and a half, oh five? Oh, you know what I mean? That's just what I'm thinking. So to answer your question, they're gonna keep coming down, and it sucks for us because we're the ones making it, so our fees go down. That's just the way it goes, unless you can own own something, like you said.

Mark Roberts 17:46

I mean, you have to there's an opportunity, I think. Like I said, in cable, I think there's an opportunity for filmmakers, uh, because you could, you know, like I said, you can there there are certain companies, and I'm not I can't name them exactly, but they're deals that I have made where you get a million and a half dollars, and then you use the tax credit, which is another three, four hundred thousand, and you add that to your budget on top of it, and you make yourself a movie and make them a movie that's you know, sort of valuable. You know, you have to shoot the thing in 15 days. I'm gonna give you a little some rules for your script right now. If you're thinking about doing this for cable, 15-day shoot, eight to ten characters, 10 locations or less. There you go. That's the formula, dude.

Rod Rinks 18:35

I love that, Robert.

Mark Roberts 18:36

You need to do a seminar, write that down, get the get the pen and paper.

Rod Rinks 18:40

Get your pen and paper.

Mark Roberts 18:41

I am gonna I am gonna do, I'm gonna do an incubator. I'm gonna incubate 18 scripts. 18 scripts. I'll tell I'm gonna tell you guys about it in the upcoming shows, but I am I'm doing an incubator. It's gonna be uh film hustlers in incubator. Yes, and uh we're gonna invite 18 writers and we're gonna develop, we're gonna develop first, we're gonna develop the one to two pager, then we're gonna develop the outline.

Rod Rinks 19:06

I love it, the old and that's what you need.

Mark Roberts 19:07

Look, uh, are our companies buying scripts? They are buying scripts. Are they buying pitches anymore? No. Are they buying anything but scripts? No. I mean, I think if you're a known writer, you can pitch somebody something and they'll be like, oh, I know your work, yeah, no problem. But if you're not that well known, the new model is you got to give me a script.

Rod Rinks 19:29

Really? So it's not outlines, because for a while it was outlines.

Mark Roberts 19:32

Well, outline, look, the reason I'm I'm telling you right now, the reason you do an outline is because you in an outline in 20 pages, 21 pages, you prove to an executive that you know your beginning, middle, and end.

Speaker 2 19:44

Yeah, right.

Mark Roberts 19:45

Sometimes if you write a two, three pager and it's good, you still don't know what's happening in the middle of the movie. You know, you know it starts this way and you know it ends this way, but what's happening in the middle? Where's all the meat to this story? So what happens is like you write an outline, and if you get all right, let me since we're on it, I'm just gonna tell you how it works.

Rod Rinks 20:07

So what happened to wave? You're gonna do something later on.

Mark Roberts 20:10

Well, no, I'm just gonna tell you how it works. I want to know too, actually. This is what we're gonna work on in the incubator. But if you write a high concept idea, and it's one to two pages, and you're able to get that to an executive, someone says, Okay, fine, send it to me. Yeah, you send it to them, they like it, but they don't trust you as a writer, you might say, How about I go to outline with it, get you an outline so that you feel the full story, yeah, and we go from there. An executive might even say, you know what, great idea. Why don't we meet up about what might make it a movie that works for us? Go to outline, let me see the outline, and we'll go from there. At least you're not coming up with this full script and showing up to a pass. Because that's what everyone's doing. They're writing a script, sending it over, and people are going, like, hey, that was really fun idea, but it's not really for us.

Rod Rinks 21:10

Or you write a comic book. Right, or you write a hundred-page comic book. 133 pages. So in your incubator, your film hustler incubator, everybody go on. You're gonna talk about this?

Mark Roberts 21:21

Because I love this, because this is like we're gonna have uh executives, we're gonna have distributors, we're gonna have other writers that have written Christmas, that have written rom com. You know, in some cases, they've done like 30 or 40 movies in this area. So yeah, I mean, uh the the the art of selling your idea and selling your script is really in the opening process, which is the log line, getting someone to go, like, oh, that's interesting, then having a pretty good two to three pager, and then your outline is what gets you to a script buy. If you do an outline really, really well, that's 21 pages. Pages, 24 pages. Like you're talking about a script that's a third of the way there when you have an outline. So when when an executive reads an outline, if you can get them to do that, they're pretty close to reading what your script is. There's dialogue.

Rod Rinks 22:13

You're almost green lit, then, right? No. Well, you're almost signed off, though.

Mark Roberts 22:17

They might say if your outline is fantastic, they might they might say, like, you know what? Let's uh pay you to write this script because we love what you did.

Rod Rinks 22:27

Yeah, we loved your outline. But like we loved your pitch, we loved your outline. Eh, let's see.

Mark Roberts 22:31

I I will I will go as far as to say that if I was a young writer, producer, director, young, I would skip the scripts for now and get into let me just see if I can get people to bite on a good idea, and then I'll work my butt off to get a great outline. I'll take notes for free and do the outline. And then if the executive likes it, I'll write it on spec based on the outline that they approved. Dude, how great is that? That's a great idea. Yeah, I know you still have to get to an executive and they still have to say, okay, but look, they're around, they're doing incubators, they're doing their guest appearances at people. Like, look online, look on Facebook. There's groups of people that are meeting with executives and pitching them their ideas. Yeah, it's a different world. You have to be a little bit more sully in your opening idea. It's got to have a hook, you know. Like I someone wrote to me the other day and was like, hey, I have this idea for a movie. It's about this girl who comes back into town, or first mistake, comes back into town for Christmas and ends up staying to save the youth center before Christmas Eve. Okay.

Rod Rinks 23:48

I've never seen that before.

Mark Roberts 23:49

Yeah, exactly. You have seen it before, and that's the problem, is that you're end up, people end up being lazy because they're like, oh, well, this has a going middle, this is fun. So it was it's not fun for me. And I'll tell you why, because I don't like saving youth centers, never liked youth centers to begin with. It's true, I'm gonna be honest. I don't know. You like the boys club? No, don't like the boys club. Never went, don't know anything about it. That's just me. I'm not saying it's a bad idea, I'm just saying it's me. And I don't like people coming back into town from the Christmas thing. And I know most of those tropes happen in my movies, but not everyone, not everyone. Like some people are just like sort of I try to keep them close. I try to keep them like I just drove down the freeway to get to you. But anyway, my answer to this was like I, as a producer, want an idea that's uh 45-year-old mayor finds his fourth grade Christmas wish list, and it's starting to come true now. And Santa's in town to make that happen. Like, that's a pitch that excites me. We should make that. We made it. I made that movie, I sold that movie, right? So we made that. Hey, take it easy.

Rod Rinks 24:53

What about a dad who works for UPS and his daughter?

Mark Roberts 24:56

Oh, by the way, that's the most authentic reason to not be celebrating Christmas. He's a principal, he lost his wife during Christmas, so as a result, he takes a job at UPS so that he doesn't have to deal with Christmas because he works all the way until the holiday delivering gifts. I love that idea. Like we made that movie too. What's the other one? Uh, I mean, there's a lot of them, but anyway, the point is that if you have an idea, it's gotta be semi-original or at least fully original, so that you get the attention of somebody. Like, you know, executives are just people, right? And they're looking for you to have the best idea they've ever heard. I promise, I promise, they're looking for you to have the best idea they have ever heard. Because that's the job. They don't want to go to their boss and go, like, oh, by the way, I heard this pitch today, just wondering if you want to do it. It's about a guy who comes back into town, finds his old love, and whatever. I don't know. I can't even make it up at this point. But they don't want that, they want to hear a really idea where they lift their eyebrows and go like, wow, that's a really clever way of doing that. I'm gonna go to my boss about this and I'll let you know. Or let's do the outline so that we have so that I can go in there with confidence that you can write this script. So I don't know. I mean, there's a lot of things you can do, I think. Uh that's just my opinion. I could be wrong. I'm not right about everything. I'm not, I'm not right about anything. I don't know what's happening. No one does. Look, ask producer Patrick, you don't know.

Rod Rinks 26:26

Hey, sometimes executives will tell you that you did a movie and you're like, you don't feel like that was very good. And they say, This is the greatest movie I've ever seen in my life.

Mark Roberts 26:35

And you're like, it's an instant classic. Instant classic. But but it's true, you know, it's true. You can work the system now. Believe it or not, the system is coming to you now. Cable networks are coming our way, they're coming this way, they're not going that way anymore. So you can get in there. It just depends on what you're committed to, man. If you're committed to doing business with Annie or with Lifetime or with Hallmark, it's not like they're not making 40, 50 movies a year. They're making them. Yeah, they're going to their go-tos, they're going to the people that they know they're going to get a great movie from. Are they looking for something new and different in their area? Are you going to are these networks going to come to me and Mario and say, Will you do it for a lower amount? What are we going to say? No, we can't. Guess what? They're going to have to find other producers and directors that can do it and that can do it as good as well as we did, and they'll find them because there's filmmakers out there that can make it happen. You're probably one of them. You're probably one of them. You could take $500,000 and make it look like $2 million. No doubt.

Rod Rinks 27:37

I'm just saying, we're at the place right now in 2026 where I mean, I don't.

Davie Dave 27:42

Am I far off with AI and everything? What you can do, you can make a vertical, put it on socials that executives do have access to social media accounts and watch that and get boom.

Rod Rinks 27:54

You know how many executives watch Brooklyn Coffee Shop? If you go and look at who follows Brooklyn Coffee Shop, you're I follow my wife.

Mark Roberts 28:02

I but dude, I got I got stuck watching all kinds of Brooklyn Coffee Shop because it's super short and probably some of the best writing. Yeah, yeah. Oh, really good writing.

Rod Rinks 28:11

Yeah, but there's so many uh uh survival of the fittest, that reality show about the records.

Mark Roberts 28:15

Can we get them on? Can we get them on the show?

Rod Rinks 28:16

The survival of the fittest guys? No, no, no. I reached out, she's like, hey, come on, I reached out to you, didn't get back to me. What's their name? Winnie the Pooh, that's what our social handle is. They're great. I would love to get them on. And they did a BTS. Did you see the BTS the other day? No. I mean, it's legit, it's a legit production. Like it's not oh yeah, I did see that.

Mark Roberts 28:32

Yeah, they're doing it every Friday, she said. Every Friday for a year they've done it.

Rod Rinks 28:37

Every Friday for a year they've done it.

Mark Roberts 28:38

So they gotta write in a week, they gotta write all that funny, awesome dialogue.

Rod Rinks 28:43

Yeah, but like the production value is there, it's just not an iPhone and a in a in a light. Like they're they're putting some money behind it, but they also got brands now, I think. There was like a big brand that was behind them.

Mark Roberts 28:53

I saw that they were yeah, so be good, be talented, be the best writer in the world, and you're get brands behind you.

Rod Rinks 28:59

Yeah, but also with Davy's point, like make stuff, put it up there. Yeah, I get it, you know what I mean? Like, look, this uh tech guy was talking about like investments, right? And he was saying, why would you not, if you're looking at it from just a purely business financial standpoint, why invest five million dollars into one movie when you can invest $100,000 into five verticals thing?

Mark Roberts 29:26

Vertical shows, uh and it's an incubator, you could decide if it's great and move on, do move it to bigger or do more.

Rod Rinks 29:32

Well, like Tommy said in his thing, and he was it right on the he was right with it. He said, put this out there, is a production value great, you know. But do the people like it? Do they connect with it? Do they like the story? If they do, cool. Let's put more money behind it. Let's let's get it into like let's make it a series, let's make it a feature, let's it's a way to get it out there so people could see the idea. And with social now, it's easy. Before we used to try to do it with, you know, festivals, if you can get into festivals or however whoever you can get.

Mark Roberts 30:01

I mean, festivals are not what they used to be. That's look, if you want to be noticed, you have to work within what the system is giving you right now. Cable networks are coming our way, lowering budgets, needing filmmakers to make stuff for less money. Uh, they're willing to compromise, they're willing to give uh value of foreign distribution for you if you make the movie for a certain amount of money. So investors actually might have a better shot these days at those types of movies, making their movie back, than a complete indie that has no zero opportunity because the distributors keep coming back and going, like, I don't know, man. There's no, you know, no one's buying anything all over the world. What are you gonna do? And they're still making $300,000 a market. I don't know. It really bugs me. You know, I got it really does.

Rod Rinks 30:51

In another life, do you want to come back as a distributor? I do not.

Mark Roberts 30:54

I never want to be a distributor. But no, but look, look, the the there's the reality of that. Like, if you think about, oh, people aren't watching movies in theaters anymore. The writing on the wall gonna come back. I think it's telling you, it's they're telling the industry is telling you what it needs right now. It may all come back, but really it's never been closer to you making a movie for one of these cable networks, yeah, Tubi, Roku, they're all making 300, 400,000, 500,000 movies. Who's gonna make those? Me? No, I'm not gonna make that because I don't know how anymore. But you do, you do, you do. So why not? Like that's that's available. Like, spend your time doing that. If you're spending your time thinking, huh, I'm gonna make a movie and I'm gonna, it's gonna be awesome, and I'm gonna distribute it, I'm gonna make a bunch of money and buy houses. Is it I don't, I'm not I could be wrong, but I don't think so. I think you prove your worth, you get out there, you do what David Dave's saying, you you produce your product, it's great, you put it out there, people respond to it. Like the guys from Brooklyn Coffee Shop, they took their shot, and guess what?

Rod Rinks 32:00

It's paying off, it worked.

Mark Roberts 32:01

Yeah, so take your shot, yeah, and let's make it work. Let's see what happens. What if it doesn't work? Well, maybe you should reconsider. Did you see?

Rod Rinks 32:09

Yeah, do another one, do another one. Yeah, uh, did you see I I I think I sent it to you, Foos. I forget who the actor was, but he was talking about how he went to this big producer's house in Malibu and he walks in and he's like, all the movie posters that the guy made, and he's like, Wow, you know, he made this guy's it, right? And he goes, he goes and sees the guy, and the guy's outside and he's all pissed off. How's it going, man? He's like, Great. He goes, I saw the I saw your posters, man. That's amazing. He goes, 35,000. He goes, What is it? What do you mean? 35,000. All those movies you see right there, all I made was 35,000. He's like, and the guy was like, dude, that was like some great movies. He didn't say the movies, but yeah, that that the and then he walked away. He was he was mad about something, you know, but he's like, 35,000. All those movies, that's all I made. 35,000.

Mark Roberts 32:57

It it's a tough business if you're if you're living in a dream, because it's a business, it's hard, it requires an enormous amount of grit because you're gonna get slapped around and turned down and door closed on a lot. And it feels like that when someone just says, like, oh no, that's not for us. Like it feels like someone just slapped me in the face, like punched me in the gut. Every time I send out an email and someone just writes back and goes, Yeah, it's not for us. It feels bad, you know, it doesn't feel great, and you get used to it, but because sometimes you send it out and it does work, and you've and then you've got to get on that moving train and finish and then do it again. You ever did it again?

Rod Rinks 33:40

Do you ever send something out like just kind of like it's not gonna work? And they're like, I love it.

Mark Roberts 33:44

You're like, you do all the time, dude. All the time. We went this is a true story. We went in, Mario and us, we went into uh one of these networks, we went in with five pitches, five different ideas. I was certain three of the ideas were fantastic and they were gonna buy them. Three of them out of five. I thought these are gold standard, high content. I knew it. Perfect, perfect for them.

Rod Rinks 34:12

Pitched them all, and the long shot the one you just threw out the Rocky Solid.

Mark Roberts 34:19

The long shot that Mario pitched, they were like, I like that one.

Rod Rinks 34:24

Which one was that? Environment.

Mark Roberts 34:27

Outcry.

Rod Rinks 34:28

Oh.

Mark Roberts 34:29

So it was like, wow, I had no idea. So yeah, sometimes you go in with a bunch of ideas and you don't know which, and you're sure it's gonna be something else, and you're wrong, and it's uh it's uh the other one you pitched. But it is a numbers game. I think it's kind of like um I compare it a lot of the times to to Wall Street, you know, or or to sales, you know, you're constantly pitching, and someone comes on the lot and you're like, what about this car? What about that car? And then you don't close them. Yeah, that's disappointing too. It's a little bit more disappointing when you had this dream of being in Hollywood and making movies and buying houses and going to premieres and stuff, and now there's less premieres and less movie theaters, and that was the dream. Make an adjustment. There's there's business available out there, and you guys are right.

Rod Rinks 35:13

If you got into it for that, then you got like I love creating, I love being on set, whether it's a big set, like you know, I was on the studio or it's Davy Dave, me, two other guys, we're shooting Gorilla Styles. I just love creating, I love seeing stuff come to life. You know, yes, did I have illusions of making money and all that other stuff? I did, of course, we all do. But at the end of the day, like you get to the point where you're like, look, that's not what it is.

Mark Roberts 35:40

I had illusions too.

Rod Rinks 35:42

Yeah, but but at the end of the day, like if you're really creative and you love and you and you have a passion for it, like Davy said, go do shit, dude. But like I cannot not sit still. Like Pruno Perez, I pitched I pitch Davy all the time because we're together all the time. So I'm like, hey, what do you think of this? What do you think of that? Some things like some things like Davy actually pitches some good shit too. The bouquet thing, two bouquets. He pitched me a great eye, I went and wrote it. Uh um another vertical. And when I say verticals, they're really just shorts. Yeah, they're shorts, yeah. And but I just cliffhang stuff in every two pages and and get it quick, you know what I mean?

Mark Roberts 36:14

You're the George Harrison of these Beatles. Think about that one. After the show's over, you're gonna be like, oh, he's the George Harrison. He's not the Ringo star. But yeah, well, look, there's yeah, there's two sides to it.

Rod Rinks 36:30

If you're uh, you know, so I always say this about And with that said, I'm unemployed in September, so I might have to change my whole perspective about this.

Mark Roberts 36:37

I say this about writers all the time. When you're a great writer or a working writer, it's because if you don't write, you die. If you don't write, it will it hurts your soul. And I love writers like that because they're the real deals, you know, they're out there and that you know that they have to write every night for them to like purge their minds and their souls. It's therapy, you know. For filmmakers, it could be the same thing. If you're making projects, go make projects, go do them. If you don't care about making money, it's fine. I mean, there was a time when I was sort of like that, but uh my life changed. I I am about making money, I'm about make getting paid for doing doing movies because I am a technician. And if you if you want a technician to do your movie, then you're gonna have to pay for that. Yeah, it's like people fixing your uh your car or your refrigerator.

Rod Rinks 37:25

Yeah, no, I agree. I'm not I'm not saying that's not, and of course, like you know, professionally I'm a makeup artist. So somebody says, hey dude, come do my makeup, you know, just because you love it, I'm gonna be like, Yeah, not that's you're passionate about doing my makeup, come on. No, I'm not, but at the same time, I'm at a at a place in my filmmaking career where like unfortunately those doors aren't, you know, no one's banging on my door to make their movies, so I have to just keep making things you do, and uh and get it out there because there's there's something great that I that all filmmakers have right now, and it's this thing right here. You could put go shoot stuff, cut it yourself. I'm learning cap cut. Uh huh. Phone case. That's a phone case. I'm learning Cap Cut right now, which is great. You know what I mean? It's on my phone. You can it's easy.

Mark Roberts 38:09

Yeah, I'm learning all kinds of stuff too. You guys think this show just showed up on your computer? No, it had to be shot. We had to buy cameras, we have to edit.

Rod Rinks 38:17

We had to convince you to host it.

Mark Roberts 38:19

It goes to Mexico. Little Eddie over there cuts it, he sends it back, we put it up. I go to Opus Clips, which I paid 170. We paid $175 for. You put the show in there, it creates 20 clips, you pick the best one, you throw it on YouTube. Dude, I'm exhausted. I'm exhausted just thinking about it.

Rod Rinks 38:37

Podcast maker, Robert, and he didn't want to do this. Remember that, David? He quit, he quit on us. He quit twice. He did quit twice. We kept one under wraps, but we did, we did. And then the other one, the other one he missed it. Remember, and then he came back.

Mark Roberts 38:49

So in the meantime, I want to say like Paul Newman in uh Colored Money. I'm out of here. I'm back. I want to say thank you to extreme music.com for being the best music library in the business. I'm doing a new movie, these guys are doing uh vertical, uh, and we're gonna be making deals with Russ Emmanuel. Why? Because he's the best, and so is extreemusic.com. Thank you for supporting us, and thank you for being a friend to all filmmakers, independent or not. You are uh yeah, true inspiration. Great businessman.

Rod Rinks 39:19

And thank you to our boy Vic over here at the library for us, you know, hang here, do the show here. It's awesome, beautiful. If you like cigars, good cigars. So uh look them up on Instagram, the library uh cigar lounge in Studio City. It's a private club, so you just can't cruise in here.

Mark Roberts 39:36

But uh by the way, don't they need more members? They're like they're only a few. There are only a few left, right?

Rod Rinks 39:42

Yeah, it's kind of like the mob that closes the books to 50 members. So you need 50 more people to join, and then that's it. It's over with. So uh check them out.

Mark Roberts 39:51

Check them out because Picky Blinders does stuff. By authority of Picky Blinders. What is it? By authority by the authority of Picky Blinders.

Rod Rinks 40:01

Sure, and that too. But you know what, Robert? Maybe we we do need more sponsorships. So if you're out there and you want to be a part of the filmbusters, let this guy know. Or give me a call. Give him a call. Let's make it happen. Hit us on the gram.

Mark Roberts 40:15

Thank you for listening. Comment, subscribe.

Davie Dave 40:21

Just watch it, just watch it.

Mark Roberts 40:22

Just watch it, Joe. Send it to your mom. Send it to your mom.

Davie Dave 40:25

My mom watched the watch.

Mark Roberts 40:26

Thanks for listening. We'll see you next time on Film Husters. Oh wow, this time it's really we'll see you next time on Film Husters.

Rod Rinks 40:31

That was good. Lucky he's proud of himself. Thanks, guys.