The Future is Fan-Funded: A Conversation with Legion M’s Jeff Annison

Jeff Annison is the co-founder and President of Legion M, the world's first fan-owned media company that is using new equity crowdfunding laws enabled by the JOBS Act to create a film and television company built from the ground up to be owned by fans.

He was also the co-founder and CEO of Underground Labs, a product development studio that built mobile apps, websites, and enterprise products for clients including AT&T, Sprint, NFL, SEC, ACC, Universal Music, Warner Music, Sony Music, Diet Coke, Paramount Pictures, and more. Underground Labs also created the New York Rock Exchange, a first-of-its-kind marketplace that allowed fans to own a piece of a song.

Prior to Legion M, Jeff was a cofounder of MobiTV, one of the world’s first live mobile television services. Jeff led engineering and product development as the company scaled from 3 co-founders to over 300 employees, won an Emmy Award for Innovation in Television, and grew to over 25MM paying subscribers. 

Jeff started his career designing toys for Hasbro and theme park ride effects for Universal Studios. He holds a BS in Mechanical Engineering from UCLA. To connect with Jeff visit

 www.LegionM.com.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 1:16

Jeff Anison is the co-founder and president of Legion M, the world's first fan-owned media company that is using new equity crowdfunding laws enabled by the Jobs Act to create a film and television company built from the ground up to be owned by fans. He was also the co-founder and CEO of Underground Labs, a product development studio that built mobile apps, websites, and enterprise products for clients, including ATT, Sprint, NFL, SEC, ACC, Universal Music, Warner Brothers, Sony Music, Diet Coke, Paramount Pictures, and more. Underground Labs also created the New York Rock Exchange, a first of its kind marketplace that allowed fans to own a piece of a song. Jeff started his career designing toys for Hasbro and theme park ride effects for Universal Studios. He holds a BS in mechanical engineering from UCLA. And Carol, Jeff also has created a successful funding method for filmmakers.

SPEAKER_02 2:43

Yes, Claire. Thank you very much, Jeff, for joining us. Thank you very much for having me. I'm excited to be here. Yes, we want to cover everything and learn all about what Legion M is doing in the new paradigm of funding films. So let's get started with uh what does it mean to be a fan-owned media company? And how does this model differ from traditional film studios?

SPEAKER_01 3:13

Yeah, well, it's a great question, and it cuts to the core of what Legion M is. Uh, if you look at us from just a business standpoint, we're a film studio. We develop, produce, distribute, market, release, monetize, merchandise, film, and television, uh, just like you know, hundreds of other companies. Um, but what makes us unique is the fact that we were the first one to be built from day one to be owned by fans uh via equity crowdfunding that was enabled by the Jobs Act. And so, you know, our long-term goal, the M in Legion M, if you look at our logo, it's an M with a bar over it, which is the Roman numeral for one million. And that's because our long-term goal is to unite one million fans as shareholders of the company, because we believe a movie studio that's owned by a million fans has fundamental competitive advantages when it comes to developing, financing, producing, and releasing movies. So um, you know, we're uh we're we're we're a company that it only exists because of the Jobs Act and these new securities laws that enabled equity crowdfunding back in 2016.

SPEAKER_02 4:38

Wow, that's wonderful. So, of all the things that you're doing, you're helping to develop and to market, and your goal is to reach a million fans, that's who are shareholders. That's fabulous. Well, this would mean that we're making, you're going to be making films that people want to see. And that could be totally around what the old paradigm was. So you're breaking the old Hollywood model, right?

SPEAKER_01 5:06

100%. And it's so, you know, one thing that's important because I think that a lot of people hear the word crowdfunding and they say, like, oh yeah, like I know crowdfunding. I mean, obviously, people have known Kickstarter's been around for I think decades at this point, uh, and indiego and go fund me and that sort of things. Um, but you know, if you have any listeners that are not familiar with equity crowdfunding, that's a relatively new development. Um, that that became possible in 2016. And in fact, Legion M was one of, if not the first company in the United States to actually launch an equity crowdfunding campaign. And the difference between the two is if you back a project on Kickstarter, you are effectively donating to that project in exchange for whatever perks you get. So maybe you get your name in the credits or you get a t-shirt or a pre-order of the DVD or whatever it is. Um but yeah, it's just a donation. There's no way that you can ever make money from that. There's no, there's not even a legal obligation on their part to complete the project, right? And a lot of Kickstarter projects fail because even though they raise the money, they run into some other unforeseen problems. Um, when you uh invest in an equity crowdfunded uh company or movie or project, you are literally buying equity. You own a piece of it. And so you are investing in it in a way that can get you a financial return. And sometimes that's in the form of debt, right? Where you are effectively loaning money to the movie or to the project, and then you are going to, you know, there's terms that say, okay, we're gonna pay you back and we're gonna pay you back more. Um, or in the case of Legion M, you're buying stock in the company, you're buying early stage stock in the company. It's like if you go back in time and invest in Walt Disney Studios back when it was just Walt and Roy. So, you know, in that case, it's not the sort of thing where you get a financial return or you're getting royalties, but you literally own stock in the company. And so you can imagine if you had, you know, been lucky or smart enough to go back and invest in in Walt and Roy Disney, that stock would be enormously valued uh valuable today because of how large Walt Disney Studios became. So um, it's just an important distinction. And like I said, it was never possible, it wasn't legally allowed until 2016. And Legion M was one of the very first companies and kind of one of the pioneers in the space.

SPEAKER_02 7:56

Well, this is incredible. So when you make a donation to a film, you are actually buying stock in Legion M. Is that right?

SPEAKER_01 8:06

That well, you so we do it two ways. Uh, first of all, you're not making a donation to Legion M. You are literally investing, like that's the correct term. And and a lot of people call it backing or donating or something like that, but it's not. It's it's it's fundamentally different. You know, you are investing the same way that venture capitalists invest. And, you know, um, there's a lot of risk with investing in early stage companies or investing in movies, and there's no guarantee that you'll get your money back. Um, and the fact is most startup companies fail, right? So the most likely statistical outcome if you invest in a startup company, and this includes Legion M or any startup company, uh, the most likely statistical outcome is that you're gonna lose your investment. Um, but the difference is that if you donate to something, you're never gonna get a financial return. Whereas when you invest in a company like Legion M, um, if Legion M is successful, you can make money. And if Legion M is really successful, you could potentially make a lot of money. And so um, anyway, that's the uh, but but with Legion M, we have two ways that uh we use equity crowdfunding. One is we have people that invest directly in our studio in the manner that I was just talking about, where you're buying stock, it's the same stock, you know, that I own as one of the founders, that William Shatner owns as one of our advisors, and all the people that we work with, you know, there's there's just one uh from a financial standpoint, all the stock is the same, and you're buying shares in the company in the hopes that we can get big enough to IPO. The other way is that we have now had three movies that we have financed directly via equity crowdfunding where fans could invest directly in the film. And that's just a different model, right? It's it's more like the traditional Hollywood financing model. The difference is that rather than one person coming in and writing a big check for millions of dollars, we have thousands of fans making small investments as little as$100, and we're aggregating all that to come up with the budget for the film. And when you invest in a movie that way via Legion M, like I said, we've had three that we've done that with. Um, your investment is solely tied to that movie. So if you think about it, like the distinction I like to use, it's kind of like if you go back in time, would you invest in Walt Disney Studios or Snow White the movie back in the, you know, when they were about to launch Snow White, which that was their first feature film, um, and which really catapulted them from a company that made um shorts, animated shorts that ran before films, into a feature uh film studio. And, you know, the Snow White was literally one of the most successful movies of all time, you know, even if you adjust, especially if you adjust for inflation and such. But anyway, the point is like if you invested in Snow White, you got a would have got a return that was related solely to that movie. Um, and uh the same way that uh traditional financiers get when they finance films. If you invested in Walt Disney Studios, you would have benefited from the success of Snow White, but then also the success of Pinocchio and the success of you know Walt Disneyland uh when it opened in Anaheim, and the fact that Disney now owns theme parks around the world and Hulu and ABC and ESPN, and all that is kind of wrapped up into the stock price. Um, and so uh that's that's really kind of the difference. But you can either invest with Legion M in the studio or you can invest in the individual films that we offer.

SPEAKER_02 11:54

Well, that's terrific. So um what we'd like to hear are some success stories. So could you share your most notable successes, films or series that were made possible by the fan ownership model?

SPEAKER_01 12:10

Yeah, that's a that's a really great question. So when Legion M started, so keep in mind, we started 10 years ago, and we started because these laws changed. And for the first time, regular people had the ability to invest in a movie studio. Prior to the Jobs Act, the only people that could invest in a movie studio were what was called accredited investors. It was the it's the wealthiest couple percent of the population are considered accredited investors. These are the sort of people that um, you know, traditionally in Hollywood are financing films. Um, but in 2016, the SEC, you know, there's a bipartisan path uh or sorry, a bipartisan act in Congress that changed the laws and the SEC changed the rules. And now everybody has the opportunity to invest in these sorts of uh opportunities that were formerly available only to kind of the wealthy elite. So um when we started Legion M, we were aggregating money from fans and making small investments in other people's projects. So one of our first projects was colossal with Ann Hathaway and Jason Sidakis. And we weren't responsible for that project, we just made a small investment in it. And uh, same thing with Mandy, which is a Nicholas, like a crazy cult Nicholas Cage classic, um, uh where we uh the money that we weigh that we raised from fans, we as Legion M invested that in um we paid for the Johan Johansson soundtrack, um, which is an essential part of that movie. And it was actually one of the last soundtracks, uh, one of the last scores that Johan Johansson did before he passed away. And so, like, you know, those are examples of movies that Legion M kind of had an impact on, but it's only been over the last probably like three or four years that as a company, we've leveled up to the point where we can fully finance and produce films. And our first one was a William Shatner documentary. And, you know, we funded that. It was a$750,000 budget. It was a nice low bar because it was a documentary, so it wasn't like a huge budget. Um, and we financed that in uh four days from about a hundred or sorry, uh 1,200 investors that made investments as small as$100, and the biggest one was$100,000. And that's how we raised the money for that film. So that movie would not exist without the fans. Um, and then so that's a I think a really good success point. And I think the other one that I'd really point out is uh a movie that we just released this year called My Dead Friend Zoe. And that's an amazing story because it's uh it was a first-time writer director uh who was a bronze star combat veteran uh from Iraq. And he wrote a screenplay about his experience coming back and adapting to civilian life and dealing with PTSD and survival's guilt. And he had like a really unique take on it where he, you know, he he talks about the fact that veterans sometimes oftentimes get frustrated because when you see veterans portrayed on film, there's kind of two models. One is the Rambo, like ultimate warrior uh sort of um trope, and then the other one is the broken down, addicted to drugs, uh uh sort of veteran sob story. And you know, he said, like, that's not where most veterans are, like they're just real people and they they exist in the middle of that spectrum. And um, he really wanted to shine a light on some of the challenges that they face in a way that was not preachy, but was fun to watch and you know, comedic and touching and all that sort of stuff. And so he wrote this movie called My Dead Friend Zoe. And, you know, we he he made a short film and we ran across that film at a film at uh uh he actually took all the money that he had uh that he had saved up from his deployment in the military, and he he he made the short film and he he he he rented out the Legion of Honor Theater in Hollywood so that he could show it, have his own little red carpet premiere. And that's where we saw it. And so we saw the movie and or sorry, we saw the short film and we thought that it was really cool, and we thought that there was something there, and so we went out to our community and we raised the money. And this was, you know, this is this is a movie that stars Morgan Freeman and Ed Harris, um, Senequa Martin Green and Natalie Morales. Um, it's a a movie that's been uh mentioned as having awards potential. Uh Variety Magazine just named it one of the best films, uh, one of the top 10 films of the first half of 2025. Uh it's rated 95% on Rotten Tomatoes with critics and audience. It's literally uh one of the best reviewed films in Morgan Freeman's career, if you can, you know, uh imagine that. But it's shocking. Yeah, it is. And that whole that movie was entirely made possible by fans because we, as Legion M, which is a fan-owned company, we found the film. We thought, hey, this looks really interesting, we'd like to take it on. And then we went out and we raised the money. And we raised about two-thirds of the budget for that film came from, you know, like I said, people investing as little as$100 up to hundreds of thousands of dollars. And the last third of it came from traditional Hollywood finance, um, including Travis Kelsey as one of the investors in it. But but the whole thing was made possible by the fans and the people that own Legion M. So that's called my dear friend Zoe.

SPEAKER_02 18:03

It's my dead friend Zoe. Yeah, dead friend Zoe. Okay. And what's the title of the Shatner documentary?

SPEAKER_01 18:11

Uh the Shatner documentary is William Shatner, you can call me Bill. And so both of them are available uh now. You can rent them both. Uh, my dead friend Zoe is available. I think it's available to stream, or I I don't know if it's out yet on streaming. It's it's it's streaming on a on uh it's not one of the big streamers like Netflix or Amazon. It's it's on a much smaller network. And I don't know if it's public yet, so I I probably shouldn't mention it, but uh but both of them are available to rent if you'd like to check them out.

SPEAKER_02 18:41

Good. Yes, I would like to. Um I love William Shatner, he is great.

SPEAKER_01 18:47

Oh, he's amazing. We've done a lot of stuff. So William Shatner is an advisor to our company, and um, you know, we did this documentary with him and we've traveled and done events with him. Like one of the things that Legion M really likes to do with our movies is lean into uh kind of eventtizing them and turning them into um uh taking stuff that normally happens in Hollywood and kind of like opening the gates of Hollywood. So to give you an example, right? You know, most premieres, most movie premieres happen in Hollywood. And um, if you live in Hollywood, you know it's a total waste because you you'll go to these people that live in Hollywood and they, you know, they happen every day in Hollywood. And you're like, hey, you want to go to premiere of a new movie tonight? And you're like, nah, you know, I'd rather just stay home and watch Netflix. Like, I'm tired. I went to one Thursday, right? And it's just like it's crazy because it's totally wasted. And but if you take that anywhere outside of Hollywood, that becomes like a bucket list event for people that you're like, oh my God, yes, I want to go. I'm gonna go buy an outfit. And so um, you know, we we like to take the we do these things called rolling red carpet uh premieres, where we take that sort of red carpet event, like the whole thing, like the red carpet, the lights. Uh, we bring in photographers, you know, so that everybody gets a chance to, you know, be photographed walking on the red carpet into the thing, which again is unlike Hollywood. In Hollywood, you know, the the the real deal is when you go to red carpet, the talent walks the red carpet and gets gets photographed. Everybody else just goes around the side. But you know, as a fan-owned company, like we think our investors are the stars. And so we uh, you know, we'll we'll we'll have photographers out, everybody gets a chance to walk the red carpet, and then we'll, you know, we'll have the screening and we do a QA afterwards, and a lot of times after that, then we do photographs with the stars um and that sort of thing. And so we did that with William Shatner. And so rather than doing just a straight up Hollywood premiere, like we had a huge Hollywood premiere, which by the way was open to any of our fans and investors that wanted to come out and uh uh and and could make it. Um, but then we also did one in New York at the Lincoln Center, and we did one in Richmond, Virginia, um, at a classic old theater. We did one in Bloomington, Indiana in conjunction with the University of Indiana, and then we did one in Lexington, Kentucky. And so, you know, we just want to kind of find ways like that to kind of to open the gates of Hollywood so that everybody has a chance to to be a part of it. That is so smart.

SPEAKER_02 21:32

You're absolutely right. So this is a community-driven green lighting, is what's happening, right?

SPEAKER_01 21:39

Yes, yeah. So, so uh, so like I said at the outset, Legionnum's fundamental premise is that a company owned by a large community of people has competitive advantages. And so one of the most obvious of that is like, oh, when our movie comes out, we've got a million people in our community that are, you know, in have a financial interest as well as hopefully an emotional interest in coming out to see the movie. And so, whereas most films start with zero and they've got a okay, we've got our movie. Now we need to convince people to come out to see see it, we've got a head start because we've got this large community that literally has been involved with it. Um, so that's one of the competitive advantages, but another one is harnessing the wisdom of the crowd. And this this can be a little bit more tricky and nuanced. And the reason is is because um if you're in if you're making a film or if you're involved with the business side of filmmaking, uh you know this, that there's a lot of nuance to the sort of decisions, right? Like if you've got, say you've got a film uh that you've made and you want to um sell it to a distributor, or maybe you've got a, you know, you're a financier and you're looking at multiple projects that you want to decide which one you're going to invest in. There's a lot of information about those deals that is confidential. You you Can't just say, like, oh yeah, here are the deal terms from this guy, here's the deal terms from the other guys. Which one should we take? Let's vote on it. It just doesn't work because it's confidential. A lot of it is really complicated. And so, you know, you need people that understand the industry and you need people that understand the people you're talking to, right? To be able to provide guidance, like, you know what, like this might be a better deal, but this is not somebody that you want to be in business with, or you know, that sort of thing. And so um, bottom line is we think that our community, a community of fans, is one of the best resources on the planet to help us decide, like, what's cool? Like, hey, here are some log lines of movies that we're considering. What do you think of that? Hey, we're talking to the, you know, who are some directors that you think that we should be working with? Who's an up-and-coming creator that should be on our radar? And so we go to our community uh with questions like that all the time. In fact, actually, right today, I'm literally working on one of these, it's called an impulse that we send out, um, where we're going to be asking people a bunch of these questions. And so our community guides everything that we do, partly because they own the company and it's the right thing to do, uh, but also partly because we think that our community is way smarter than our team. Um, you know, if we can, you know, the the wisdom of the crowd and the the combined passion and experience of right now we've got over almost 60,000 investors. And so um we use we lean on them for the guidance to kind of create the North Star as to where we want to go. But then when it comes to navigating the business of Hollywood, we have this amazing advisory board, which is people like William Shatner and Dean Devlin, who's a billion-dollar producer, and you know, high uh executives, current or former executives at Netflix and and MGM, Amazon, and you know, all sorts, we've got it's it's over two dozen people that help us kind of navigate and figure out the business part of it that allows us to get where our community wants to go.

SPEAKER_02 25:27

That's incredibly good. How wonderful for everybody in the industry. That makes a lot of sense. Well, what makes a filmmaker fit? Tell me what makes a perfect project fit uh for Legion M. Are there certain genres or themes or values that you're looking for?

SPEAKER_01 25:49

Yeah, it's a wonderful question. So um for us, like I I think that fundamentally every project that we're gonna do, we kind of run through these polls in some form or another and get feedback from our compute uh from our community. So that's always the core of what it is, um, is something that the community likes. Um, that said, I think that we, you know, we've been doing this for 10 years now, and I think we've got some idea, um, you know, a lot of an idea of what the community, what we think will resonate with the community. And we know uh sci-fi, for example, is a genre that our community really loves. But that doesn't mean that that's all that we do. In fact, one of our um most popular projects is a period uh biodrama about uh a man named Robert Smalls, who was a uh uh an enslaved harbor pilot during the Civil War. And so, you know, in that case, that's a movie that's just an absolutely amazing story that people, when you hear the Robert Smalls story, you're like, oh my god, this should be a movie. And, you know, that's that's what our our community thinks. And so it's not so much that there's like, oh yeah, like we we like sci-fi and we don't like romance or you know, or genres or something like that. It's really just kind of like, you know, the um our community likes creativity, they like seeing things that haven't been done before, right? They like things that um that that are novel and interesting or important or impactful. Um, so I think that really it's it's a pretty broad net that that we focus on, but uh, or sorry, that that we're open to. Um and and and it it generally would come down to like either a story that just really resonates with people, um, either because of the story just seems so interesting and or impactful. I think that have movies with impact um a lot of times see success in in our community.

SPEAKER_02 28:15

Well, I know that marketing always wants to build a buzz early. So, what kind of marketing engagement do you do at Legion M to help filmmakers build their audience?

SPEAKER_01 28:29

Yeah, it's a great uh question. I mean, honestly, it it's funny because yeah, I I would argue that like marketing is like nine-tenths of the game when it comes to you know uh the business of Hollywood. Obviously, there's the art of Hollywood, but you can create the greatest movie in the world. And if you don't have the proper marketing behind it, it's not gonna go anywhere. And so it's really, I think it's one of the most important parts of Legion M. And uh, like I said, a huge part of our competitive advantage is that once the movie releases, we have a community of people that are at least gonna know about the film. And for a lot of them, they will be really excited to see the film and to support the film and to go out and round up their friends and come out opening night to see it because it's literally their movie, right? If they invested directly in the movie, then they're they're very well connected to it. Um, but you know, from a marketing standpoint, like we do some public marketing um of it to just the broad to the world, right? Uh as well. And I think that that's something that's really hard for independent filmmakers because if you think about it, like big studio films, they'll start marketing their movie. I mean, often years before, right? They're doing PR two years before a movie comes out because of the fact that they're making big announcements and there's big stars that are attached, or they're doing a Hall H panel at Comic-Con or that sort of thing. And then they might have trailers coming out a year before, right? The the trailer for the Odyssey came out this summer. I think they've already sold out some of the first screenings, which is which is crazy for the the next Christopher Nolan film that's not coming out until 2026. But you know, they have the resources to try and gain mind share early so that when that movie comes out, it it's not like, oh, I just heard about this movie yesterday. It's like I've been hearing about this movie for a couple of years now. And so independent filmmakers don't have that luxury. And my gosh, the number of times that you know I've seen independent films where you have a limited amount of money, and you know, typically the conventional wisdom is like, you know, if you've only got a hundred dollars to spend, you're better to spend it, you know, the the the day before uh the movie releases when tickets are on sale than the week, you know, then than uh two months before um uh when tickets aren't on sale, and there's nothing you can do, and you just got to remember. So it's like uh totally understand, and I think that it's really smart. Like you got to spend your money when it's so effective. But I think that most independent films are so um starved of marketing budget that that's all that they do. And it's really, it's just so hard because you know, I think in this day and age, it's it's so hard to break through the noise, and it's so hard to do it when you've got an unknown story, and especially if you have unknown cast, and like it's just it's it's almost impossible to break through. So we try and change those dynamics, partially because of the fact that we will do a little bit of marketing early, like even while movies in production, even if you're going out and raising money for a film right now, that's marketing of the film. And so, you know, on top of that, for our community, the you know, the almost 60,000 investors and the hundreds of thousands of people that follow Legion M on our mailing list and social and that sort of thing, uh, we'll provide them with constant updates. And here's a live stream from the set, or we're gonna do a Zoom call with the director and all those sorts of things that get people connected to it so that when the movie comes out, you've already got something. You know, you don't have to convince people, you don't have to introduce your people your movie to people. You just need to let them know, okay, now's the time to go see it in a theater. Wow.

SPEAKER_02 32:31

Well, a zoom call from the set or meet the director, you're really getting them into the product. This is great.

SPEAKER_01 32:39

Yeah, well, and that's that that's what they're buying in for. I mean, most of the people that that invest in Legion, I shouldn't say most, because people invest for different reasons, right? We have people that invest because they love the idea. And honestly, like we have people that will tell us, oh, I just made a donation to your project because I think it's really cool, you know. And I'm like, okay, well, you didn't donate, you actually invested, right? And you know, hopefully, my job is to make to get your money back plus you know more money. And uh um, so we've got people like that on one end of the spectrum that just love what we're doing. We've got people on the other end that, you know, they've invested hundreds of thousands of dollars. And for them, obviously, the financial part of it is really important, and they, you know, they understand the risk of that this, you know, this whole thing is still an experiment. Like there's no there's no guarantee that we'll even be around five years from now, um, you know, let alone profitable and a and a and a good return on your investment. And so, um, but there's people that invest for the finances of it, and then there's a lot of people in the middle. But you know, for most of the people, the opportunity to open the gates of Hollywood to be a part of something that you love is really important. And because of the fact it's just such a win-win, right? If we do a live stream from the set, all the people that tune into that live stream are more connected to the movie and they care about it more. And then they're more incented to go out and see the movie and bring their friends, which benefits them because they're shareholders of the company. So it's this wonderful virtuous circle that the more we can do to engage our shareholders in these films, the more it rewards them and the more likely it makes Legion M to become successful.

SPEAKER_02 34:26

This is marvelous. Well, because uh what you're doing is creating super fans from day one, and that's what filmmakers need. And with 60,000 people, you've got more than most filmmaking, most independent films have ever. So um, and then you multiply that because they are going to take their friends, and it becomes marketing better than the independent filmmaker can do it for himself.

SPEAKER_01 34:56

So no, 100% because and and you hit the nail on the head, right? Like, you know, studies show that people, and it just makes sense, right? If you see a Facebook ad for a movie, it hits you one way. If if I say, Hey, you should check out this movie, it hits you a different way. And so, you know, people getting recommendations from friends is I think one of the most powerful ways to market a movie. And, you know, and and like I said, just just trying to break above, break out of the noise, right? Like Legion M's goal when we think of marketing a movie, it's not how can we market it to our community and get our community out to see the movie. I mean, obviously we want our community out, but it's how can we use our community as an amplifier so that I can give you, as our member, you know, incent you to go round up your friends and come out and see the movie.

SPEAKER_02 35:52

Well, Jen, what I recommend to our filmmakers from the heart is a book called Contagious by Jonah Berger. And he says a lot of thousands, he gives you thousands of opportunities to market. He shows you how others have done it. But Jeff, when you close the book, you realize you say to yourself, word of mouth is still the very best marketing in the world. And that's exactly what you're doing. Word of mouth.

SPEAKER_01 36:24

That's great. By the way, I would totally second that book recommendation. I've read Contagious. That's the one, it's got a light bulb with like a feather in it, if I remember correctly. But it's it's a it's a great book, and I think it's really interesting way that kind of opened my eyes to, you know, some of these, you know, what what makes something go viral, right? You know, like that's really kind of the thesis of the book. Is this uh a guy who spent 10 years studying uh the New York Times uh uh list to see which articles got referred the most, right? And so, you know, like that's an interesting way to do a study is just okay, you got an ecosystem over 10 years. They've had probably you know thousands or tens of thousands of headlines, which are the ones that went viral, and then try and from that figure out why did those guys go viral and the other ones did not.

SPEAKER_02 37:19

Yes, it's all about getting viral, and that's your marketing. So uh give us some advice. What do you think is the most important piece of advice that you can give to filmmakers who are looking to fund their next project through community investment or alternative models like E-Legion M?

SPEAKER_01 37:41

So I I would say two things. First of all, making movies is hard. And you know, the difference between success and failure, or the difference between, you know, finishing and not finishing is literally like just don't give up. Like it is, it's so hard. Um, and it's it's it's it's an extremely difficult business to make money in. I'll say that. I think you should know that going into um, you know, as a filmmaker, I think you need to approach everything clear-eyed. And I think that for me as an entrepreneur, like this is my third company um and uh my third startup. And so, and I've worked in a number of different industries, including the music industries and apps and television and you know that sort of stuff in a startup, like as a senior executive. And all industries are hard and competitive, but filmmaking is the hardest or one of the hardest. And the reason is is because it's so I don't know what the right term is, so glamorous or so enticing for so many people. Like so many people want to create art, you know, or so many people want to be a part of the movie industry that you know, there's always there's so many people vying, you know, to make stuff happen. And, you know, uh the the industry, it like every industry, it's it's like a pendulum. Like, you know, it if I I like to think of uh of Hollywood, it's kind of like real estate, right? It goes back and forth. First, it's a buyer's market for a while, where it's like, oh, all the power is with the people trying to buy homes. And you know, the prices of the homes get get get pushed down, and then the pendulum swings the other way, you know, over time. And now it becomes a seller's market where sellers have all the power and they can people are getting in bidding wars, and you know, you're able to raise the price of your house. And like that's just the way that that economics works. I think that that's just a uh a phenomenon that you see everywhere. But like we are in an extremely difficult time right now. Like, I think the the pendulum in Hollywood has swung towards the buyers, meaning the distributors. So Netflix and Hulu and Disney and these guys, and away from the filmmakers, the people that are producing content. Um, I think it's it's it's it's probably about as hard as it's ever been. Um, and so, you know, I think everybody needs to be clear-eyed about that and you need to make decisions knowing that, okay, like this is what I'm up against. But if you do that and you think that it's worthwhile, then you know, the difference between success and failure oftentimes is the people that succeed are the people that don't give up along the way. And there's so many reasons to give up. Um, and so I just want to give a word of encouragement to everyone that, you know, it's like uh it's like Edison said, you know, genius is what is it, 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration. And I think it's the same thing in this world. It's like you can have a great idea and whatever, but honestly, at the end of the day, it's gonna be all the work that you put in that's gonna pay the dividends um in the end. So um, so that's just kind of general filmmaking. As far as equity crowdfunding, um, we're huge advocates of equity crowdfunding. We think it's a it's a wonderful new model that didn't exist before. But I think that the most, the people that are most effectively or sorry, the most effective at equity crowdfunding are not the people that look at as like, oh wow, this is a different way for me to get money, right? Like, oh, rather than chasing million-dollar investors, I can go chase uh a million, you know, one dollar investors, right? You know, it's it's uh um it is a different way to raise money, but it's it more than that, it's an entirely different way to build an entirely different type of business. And in my opinion, and this is just my opinion, but um, I think that like you know, when you when I'm talking about Legion M and all the things that we're doing, very little of the stuff that we've discussed on this call is actual filmmaking, right? You still have to do all the actual filmmaking and all the producing and all the enormous amount of work that goes into a film. But if you really want to be successful in equity crowdfunding, um, you've got to put in a lot of work to cultivate your community and to grow your community and to keep them um, you know, fed, uh, so to speak. And so I think that that's just something that that if you want to pursue equity crowdfunding, you know, it's not easy. It's not like you just, you know, put your put your uh project up on a platform. I mean, there's platforms in equity crowdfunding just like there is Indiegogo and Start Engine and equity crowdfunding, or sorry, Indiegogo and Kickstarter are the ones for regular crowdfunding. In equity crowdfunding, the platforms are Start Engine and Republic and WeFunder. And we've worked with with with a lot of these guys. But just like anybody who's done a uh a regular crowdfunding, just because you create your campaign and put it up on the page, it doesn't mean anything, right? Now you've got to go and get that in front of everybody. So the same way that you gotta, you know, produce a movie and then you gotta market a movie to convince people to see it. When you do an equity crowdfunding campaign, you got to produce the campaign and then you got to market the hell out of it to get people to come in and back your movie. So it's a lot of work to do. And but the value of it is that once you do that, you know, you are creating a foundation and relationships. And the way that Legion M looks at it is like our goal is not to get you to invest in a movie, right? Our goal is to create a long-term relationship with you. So you want to invest in all of our movies, um, or you want to own a piece of our studio. And so I think that that's really um kind of the best advice that I can give you from an equity crowdfunding standpoint is you gotta consider what you are willing to do and how comfortable you are answering emails and talking to people on social media and doing live streams from the set and putting questions out to the community. Like it's an amazing resource when you've got it, but it's not something that kind of comes for free. It takes work to cultivate that.

SPEAKER_02 44:37

A lot of work, Jeff. Thank you for explaining that because it doesn't do any good to make the world's greatest film and not have an audience for it. This absolutely we had Peter Broderick, who's been teaching the fact that you get your idea for the film, number one. The second thing you think is who's my audience? Right. And then you have to find your audience, engage them, attach them, keep them happy, and make a film. So you are right, that's what matters. Building the audience is the greatest part of your business right now. And having those people love films and want to be a part of choosing what they get to see. This is so kind of you to jump into the film world. So I know a lot of filmmakers are thanking you. And thank you.

SPEAKER_01 45:54

The same way that you'd evaluate an investment, but there's also emotional ROI. And I think that that's one of the things that's so powerful about this industry that we're in, because we're not making toothbrushes or, you know, trying, you know, uh doing things simply to try and make money in a different way or buy low and sell high and all that sort of stuff. Like we're literally creating art. We're we're creating the culture. And um I, you know, that's what so many people love about it. And I think that that's what Legion M really taps into is people that, aside from the financial standpoint, like, yeah, I think there's a chance that you know we could make a lot of money with this uh if it's successful, but also people that are like, either way, I want to be a part of this. I want to be a part of something that's bigger than myself that's changing the world.

SPEAKER_02 46:44

Great, thank you so much. And your films that you've created uh with Shatner, you can call me Bill. That sounds terrific. Uh, and the uh my dead friend Zoe. See, both of those are exciting, they're great titles, and they're um they're documents, documentaries really, because it's showing us what's happening in the world right now, both films. So they will have a long shelf life. Uh, and that is important in our industry. Make a film that will be seen and appreciated for 10 to 15 years.

SPEAKER_01 47:21

No, I agree. I mean, it's like it's uh, I don't know if you watch the studio, uh, the Seth Rogan series on Apple TV, which is great. But one of my favorite lines is uh from Catherine O'Hara when she's talking to Seth Green about what it's like running a studio and how horrible it is, and all the terrible just things and the stress and the anger and the absurdity of this business. But when you make a great movie, it's great forever. And I think that that's just such a wonderful line that kind of sums up, you know, what it is. I mean, I think that for you know, the first time that you see your name in the credits of a movie, like that's really powerful. And you know, we have thousands of investors that have, you know, their names in the credits of the movies, and they'll be able to show these movies to their grandchildren, you know, and and they were a part of making that happen. And I think that's just so special.

SPEAKER_02 48:22

It is, and we all appreciate this. Thank you so much, Jeff. And perhaps you'll come back in a year or so and let us know where you are. What's happening? Absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 48:31

I would love to. Well, thank you very much for having uh having me on your show. If anybody's interested in Legion M, uh, you can just go to Legion M.com. Uh, you can sign up for free. Like, you don't, we actually aren't open for investment right now, so you can't invest in Legion M. Uh, we're in between rounds, but you can sign up and get on the mailing list. And if it's something that you think is kind of interesting for you, um, you know, uh, we certainly love uh everybody. Uh, we're also on social media, I'm Legion M official, uh, on pretty much all channels. Um, and I would say that if you're a filmmaker um with projects, uh, we're we're primarily right now looking for distribution projects, meaning finished films. And so if you're a filmmaker with a finished film, um go ahead and you can send an email to team at Legionm.com. Uh, you could reference this podcast and and the fact that you heard me heard me mention this. But uh we're we're we're actively looking for films that we can distribute. Um, we're generally looking for bigger films with bigger stars and that sort of stuff. Like our last movie had Morgan Freeman in it and Harris, and we want to kind of build on that. But uh it's a pretty high bar, I know. We are open to to looking at just about anything. Um and uh yeah, you know, just follow along. And when we when we change gears and you know, when we're looking for stuff for production or if we put a call out for for partners or that sort of stuff, the best way to be on that list is just to join Legion M, whether you're a a free member on the mailing list or whether you're an investor. Uh, that's the best way to keep up. Thank you. Thank you, Jeff.

SPEAKER_02 50:15

Claire, thank you too. Wonderful to have you introduce your show.

SPEAKER_00 50:19

Yes, great information, Jeff. Thank you so much.

SPEAKER_01 50:23

Yes, thank both of you. This was a lot of fun.

SPEAKER_00 50:26

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 50:28

Bye bye.