The Film Element
Where real filmmakers give insight into the industry without Hollywood PR fluff.
The Film Element
Interview: Luke Covert
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I speak with filmmaker "Luke Covert" behind the Tubi film "Turbo Cola" about the shifting landscape in film distribution and how today's producers need to think outside outdated models.
Hi everyone and welcome to the Film Element Podcast. I'm your host, Mike Galant, and I'm gonna do a special uh episode today, an interview with a fellow filmmaker who's someone I followed on Instagram and has said some really great things, especially about distribution, that I think a lot more people need to be talking about. So he and I have gone back and forth on DMs and had a lot of really great online conversations. So I thought I would bring him in and uh we would chat semi-face-to-face uh over the phone. So without further ado, Luke, how are you? Hey man, I'm doing great. How are you? Good. Oh, by the way, his name is Luke Covert. I don't know if I got that in yet, but uh That's fine. The filmmaker Luke Covert. So I really appreciate you taking time to speak with me today. I hope uh you weren't too busy. And so I purposely didn't want to do a lot of research on you um beforehand because I wanted to ask you questions and have you sort of talk about this stuff on your own uh throughout the podcast. So why don't you tell people where you're from and what you do specifically in the film industry?
SPEAKER_01Sure. Yeah, I'm I'm from a little town called Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. Okay, which is the unlikely capital of Pennsylvania. Everyone thinks it's Philly or something like that. And uh it's not a big film town, so I I grew up here uh making short films with friends and doing kind of the quintessential young filmmaker stuff. And um eventually, you know, I'm 31 now. Uh about three years ago, I had the chance to make uh my first feature film. I'd done so many shorts and so many things up to that point, and uh we put the money together and we got the script already, and we shot this thing um 13 nights locally, you know, kind of like a micro medium budget film. And uh that's that's sort of my inception into this world was um shooting that movie and knowing a lot about the craft of filmmaking, but almost zero about the business of filmmaking, and kind of getting a rude awakening a little bit, you know, because the movie ended up getting some success critically and people loved it, and we were selling copies, and then uh, you know, you you find out what everybody finds out eventually, unless you're insanely lucky, which is that the business side needs to be taken seriously, or else you kind of uh the filmmaker gets the short end of the th of the stick sometimes. Often.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Yeah, there's like different tiers, right, of filmmakers. Once you get to a certain tier, then you are the one who benefits the most. But uh the I would say the vast, vast, vast majority of them uh get raked over the coals, even if they own the IP and wrote it, directed, produced it, edited, all that stuff, usually you're the one that's gonna get screwed first. Uh A because you put in a I was just gonna say because you put in a lot of free labor, right? Yeah, which is worth something that you will never get back. So that's just sweat equity that's out the window. And then second of all, unless you're a savvy business person who can simultaneo and even if you are, can you simultaneously navigate the you know, relentless negotiating tactics of the people who can potentially distribute and promote your film, right?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, and and you've spent, at least in my case, spent so many years just kind of dreaming and almost fantasizing about making a feature that when it starts to happen, you're just like, I can't believe I'm on the conveyor belt of making a real movie now. Someone's giving me money to make a real movie. And uh as fun as that is, um, you know, there's a whole side to like once you finish the film, you're kind of halfway done, you know?
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_01And as crazy as that sounds, because there's a whole lot to be done after you've made that movie if you want people to see it, you know. And if you want to make your money back, uh, which if you make your money back, it really helps you be able to make another one. That's that's a key piece most people, um, a lot of young filmmakers don't think about. They think making money is some sort of ego play, or it's to have like a big fancy house and car as a filmmaker. This is kind of the wrong industry, if that's what you're going for. But to me, the big golden goose egg at the end of the rainbow is if you have a successful movie, more people are likely to give you money to make movies for the rest of your life, you know.
SPEAKER_00Well, and this is exactly why I wanted to talk to you specifically, because I think, and there's a couple of other filmmakers I've been, I don't know if the algorithm is bringing you guys to me or what's going on, but I think that you, like, I'll I'll go with you specifically. You are talking about something that really needs to be discussed. And there are producers and a lot of people that I interact with that do think like this, and those are the people that are uh navigating this business properly. You know, they're working towards making sure that their films are marketable on some level. I work with a lot of people that are in that um camp as well, but I think guys like myself, uh, and I I don't put myself really in that anymore. I'm sort of somewhere in the middle, but uh I mean you're about almost nine or ten years younger than me. So definitely when I was your age, I was starting to think exactly the way that you did. Because I did a film basically 10 years ago as well. I did my own feature back then, and I thought exactly the same as you. It was my first feature, so I thought, alright, uh, just as long as it gets done, it's gotta make money. And this, and you also have to remember 10 years ago, it was a different world. Now, things were literally shifting exactly around that time. Five years before that, so if you go to 2011, 10, you could actually make a lot of money on a very, very cheap movie. And I went into my film around 2015, 2016 thinking that that was still how things were going. And it wasn't. That everything was changing pretty much right around then, and to this day, everyone's still figuring out how to navigate that specifically. And I think um, and I think it's great that people like you are coming out of the woodwork saying, like, listen, it's not enough to be a filmmaker. We have to be responsible, especially for this money that we spent. We can't do these vanity projects or these art projects and then just move on with our lives and just say, oh, you know, it didn't make a lot of money, or that money's gone. It's not really my fault, but it is what it is, so I'll move on. And I think that's a that's a really egregiously bad way to look at film, but a lot of artists do treat it that way. A lot of artists don't want to participate in the commerce of it.
SPEAKER_01Right. Right. And and there's this idea that I don't think is talked about enough, which is like you need to be an artist while you make the film, otherwise you make a bad movie, right? If you're a if you're a salesman or you're a business guy making a movie, we all know how that goes. You get like, I won't name names, but you get some of these massive movies that just aren't good because a boardroom kind of wrote the script. So you have to stay an artist and stay true to that, and that's kind of the magic sauce of indie film. But then there is a point where your movie's locked, it's it's done, it's ready to be delivered, and now the movie is still art, but it this like alchemical thing happens where it turns into a product too that needs to be sold. And most filmmakers um historically, because it was hard to distribute them, it used to be actually hard to distribute a movie, you know, and so there was this kind of old way of thinking, which was that you just find the guy who can handle a product. Like you did the art side, now it's a product, and then you find the the guy in the suit who tells you he's gonna make everything okay, you know, and you give him your movie, and he gives you a fair cut, and then he goes and does all of his magic wizardry of selling your DVDs and and getting you in theaters and all the stuff that you know people used to do. Um the problem is like if you look at how movies are making money now, even big blockbusters aren't uh they haven't been able to consistently make money for a while. It's still a guessing game for these guys, and they're throwing they threw money at TikTok influencers to be in movies and that didn't work. And for a while there they were only hiring actors who had 30,000 plus followers on Instagram, and that didn't really work, and they're they're still just kind of uh it seems like they're shocked when a movie makes m money nowadays, even with big name stars. You know, the the landscape has shifted, in my opinion.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, and I think there's also I saw um I I I don't know where I saw this, but there was a study done, someone did a really intense study. I think it was mainly about independent films, uh things that are made under about a million dollars. Um there is actually no secret sauce uh for a money for a film with that kind of budget under a million dollars. More likely the 700, the 200 to 700,000 range. Uh there is no secret sauce for a recipe of success for that. Outside of, you know, unless you're making an MOW that's going straight to uh Lifetime or uh Hallmark and it's already been pre-sold, they know how much this actor gets, blah blah blah blah. But even that model has been shaken up several times over the past couple years. So and they did so they did a model, they say it doesn't matter if it's horror, it doesn't really matter if you have name talent, doesn't matter this, that, and the other thing. Chances are if you made a film for that budget, there is no there's we have no idea how and if it's going to be successful. The best you can hope for is that you make a really great film and it ends up where it's supposed to be. That's the best you can hope for. Whereas I guess once you start getting outside of those budgets and get higher and higher, there's more of an ecosystem that can take care of your film and help it succeed. Because I think a lot of people, I don't know how it is in Pennsylvania or in the circles that you run with, but certainly around here, I know that horror films seem to do seem to find a home pretty easily, but at the same time, the market is saturated, so a lot of people think that they're you know, they think it's a slam dunk when they do it, and then it's not. Yeah, so but before I go deeper into that stuff, I actually want to talk first, I want to talk about your film. Um tell tell us the name of it.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, my movie is called TurboCola, and it's uh uh it's a uh a 1999 New Year's Eve set movie, so right as Y2K is hitting, and it's a it's a teen comedy, it's a heist movie blended with a teen comedy, and so it's in snowy Michigan. This kid is trying to uh follow his girlfriend to New York City um because she got this big scholarship, and he and his stoner best friend sort of have a terrible, wonderful, amazing, awful idea where they can steal like 80 grand out of the ATM if they play their cards right, just this one night. And so, you know, like an 18-year-old would they're like okay?
SPEAKER_00Like as in everything's going to reset.
SPEAKER_01Essentially, the TurboCola soft drink we made for it plays big into it, which I know doesn't make any sense, but if you watch the movie, it makes a lot of sense. Um, and they are basically trying to pull off this small town heist that they, you know, they're 18, they think it's gonna set them up for life, and and they'll be you know rolling in it. Uh it's a terrible idea, and it's uh it's all a one-location movie, so it's like as they're trying to accomplish this uh this small town uh crime, all the their friends from high school and his mom and all these different people are coming in in and out of the store and interrupting his night, and uh, you know, it's it's got a cool punk rock soundtrack that um this one band that we found did the entire soundtrack for, and then a musician in Philly did the score, and so it's it's got kind of a lot of that 1999 uh grit to it. And it's it's sort of about you know um leaving your small hometown and like where where do you go from there and what if you feel stuck there working at a gas station and all of that. But you know, there's laughs along the way and and and some intense stuff. It was a a super fun experience, man. We shot it for 13 nights in the middle of winter here in Pennsylvania, shot Pennsylvania for Michigan, and nobody seems to know, and uh, you know, got a big blizzard in the middle of it, which helped, and and it's just a it was a great time.
SPEAKER_00That's awesome. So why don't you talk to me a little bit about like how did it come to be? Um I don't know how much you can or want to talk about uh funding um and how that all came to be as well, and then also tell us where is the film now, like what sort of stage are you at with it?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, so um I had been done with doing short films forever, and this was like the middle of COVID times here, right? Like 22 or 23, whenever that that you know we we were um finishing the movie. And so before I shot this film, uh I banded together all of my friends who were like bored because of COVID and didn't have work, and we shot a short film um in my attic, and I needed a stunt guy for this film, and so I was talking to this guy who owned a martial arts academy and you know about a commercial thing, and and he said, Hey, if you ever need a stunt guy, let me know. I promise it's going somewhere. And uh and um I I was quiet on the phone and I was like, What about Sunday night? You want to come to my attic on Sunday night? Like we've never met in person before. You want to be in a short film? Little no-budget thing. And so he's quiet and he's like, Yeah, sure, why not? Um if you fast forward six months later, he and I yeah, find out he's like a producer, you know, and he wants to make this script. He finds this script for a play called New Year's Eve at the Stop and Go, and he sends it to me and is like, Should we make a short out of this? And me being, um, it's pretty cheeky, I didn't realize it at the time, but I literally emailed him back 20 minutes after reading it, being like, dude, this isn't a short film, this is a feature film. And we'd need to change a lot of stuff to make it a movie, because a play isn't really a movie, it's just a different pace and a different way it's told. But I love these characters, I love this arc, I love this setting. Um, and so he, you know, let me rewrite it with a friend of mine, and we, you know, bought the rights out from the playwright, and uh about nine months later he had funding lined up and we shot it for about two hundred thousand dollars, uh, all in if if you if you count everything. So like that's not like uh just photography, you know, and um brought in actors. We we did a casting call, but everybody was out of work, and so online we got 1,300 submissions for all these roles of you know young uh 20-something actors who were just hungry and also like blowing me away with how talented they were, you know, and and willing to get on a plane from Los Angeles or or Austin, Texas, or take the train down from New York and come shoot with us through the night in a real gas station that we'd close down at 7 p.m. and leave at 5 30 so they could open, you know. And um that's that was the story. Um we released it uh with a distribution deal with a company that um was pretty like reputable. We had some offers from really sleazy companies. We talked to Lionsgate and they turned us down because we didn't have anybody famous in it. I mean, maybe that's not the only reason. That was the reason they gave. Um, and so we went like a step below them and got a distribution deal that I was super um excited about and and the movie they put the movie on Amazon and Apple TV.
SPEAKER_00So talk about that uh that step between when the film was finished and then when you started having conversations with distribution. Because I think and correct me if I'm wrong, it sounded before like you said that you guys were in film festivals and got some critical acclaim, and uh, or did I hear that wrong?
SPEAKER_01No, we did. We won some I I told people we won a lot of the medium film festivals and we got rejected from the big massive ones. So we were sort of in this weird thing where it's like we could win the Philly film festival, but we couldn't get into Cannes, you know. Um and we traveled around, you know, South Texas and Michigan, and um we won Film Threats Indie Movie of the Year, which was a cool award, and and we won their indie comedy of the year. We got two awards there. We flew out to LA not expecting just to have fun and not have no having no clue that we were gonna win uh those awards. Um but you know, I did blow through the distribution thing. We before we real because we got rejected from Sundance and some of these big players, we didn't wait around to see if there was gonna be like Hulu was gonna be at the Central Michigan Film Festival. You know what I'm saying? Like there was no reason to be like, okay, Amazon Prime is coming to the Philly Film Festival. And so we you know, our producer talked to all of these dist different distribution companies, got us a lot of calls. Um, he was literally just reaching out, and the the interesting part is that um people were sort of pandering to us or kind of being I guess being nice to us, like, oh, that's cool, you made a film, send us the trailer, I guess. And then they'd watch the trailer, and then they'd be like, Can we get on a call now? Because I think our trailer had something um that was like that they liked, right? It felt real to them. And so that that taught me a lot about just how important the trailer is for an indie movie. Like if your trailer looks I tell people all the time, our trailer is better than our movie, you know. Like it's and I and I love the movie, you know, for what it is. Um I think that I think that's a big deal.
SPEAKER_00It's funny. Uh obviously you you want the inverse, but I think on our level, uh like the chances I mean $200,000 is a lot of money, so you would want to think you can make a really spectacular film with that, but that doesn't mean that um, like for instance, I I what you're explaining is exactly what I went through with my first feature. Like my trailer would sell it at markets. Uh when once it got picked up for distribution, the sales agents told me that a lot of places just bought it on the trailer alone. And I'm like, I have a lot of experience in like short editing, especially from like the 2010s and the two late 2000s. So like I would shoot, I would uh edit music videos and event videos, and I was almost like known for a very kinetic editing style. So and I get paid to edit a lot of movie trailers even now, and what would I say a lot? A few. I've edited a few, a decent amount, I would say, and so I I I knew I knew how to make trailers, and I knew that that was going to be a strong aspect because, like you said, a lot of independent films, indie films, have pretty terrible trailers, even if they're good movies. Like there's there a lot of people have promoted their film, but then I watch the trailer, I'm like, this is terrible. I don't know what's going on, I don't know what anything has to do with anything, and the storytelling is just not great, right? So I always felt confident in that. But I think what you're touching on is extremely important is that the movie can't sell itself, it needs all of this peacocking around it with your key art, your poster, uh, your trailer, and then something you mentioned even now is talent. And you can have great acting talent, which obviously always helps, but at every level, even if you're doing a movie for like $20,000, if you can get someone that people recognize in there, or someone, or even best, even better, is someone blows up after they do your movie, and then suddenly it comes back around and yours is more valuable. Uh, those are extremely important to try and nail. Uh, so I I if you don't mind me asking, I'm surprised. Was there a reason that you didn't try and get more names in your film? Because I think for your budget, you probably could have got someone, or did you have someone, or what sort of happened there, or was it just something that you kinda you guys didn't really consider at the time?
SPEAKER_01So at the time, people that we could have had access to um would have blown our budget pretty far out of the water. Do you know what I'm saying? Like like in a $200,000 movie, you kind of are gonna need to spend like $80,000 on a great talent. Unless you have just like a bit part that's maybe f coming in for three days or something. It's honestly one of the things that um knowing what we know now for the next movie became super important. That we we knew that we even needed to kind of do the goodwill hunting thing where like legendarily they wrote a role for an actor, like for Robin Williams, that was like mostly him sitting in a chair just monologuing that was like juicy so that it would attract somebody like that. And um, so I mean, going forward, that's like a big learning thing for me was hearing how many massive distributors were like, but you don't have anybody famous. And they're like, even if it's on the poster, that still helps. Um I d I tend to think like that's similar to a trailer to me, in that um, it hasn't nobody has reached out to me and been like, I loved your movie, but I would have loved it more if you'd had Reese Witherspoon for six minutes. You know? But but from a distribution angle, everybody everybody said that. You know what I'm saying?
SPEAKER_00And they're not and I think, you know, it's like that meme, it's like maturing is realizing blah blah blah blah blah. I think maturing, especially as a filmmaker, is realizing that they're actually right about that. Because but until you've made a film and you've sort of gone through the paces and understood how hard it is to market to begin with, let alone doing it without name talent. Um and there's a lot of people that hate hearing this, but it's just it's just the reality. And when you spend your own money that you'd like to get back, you go, so they they are right. And it's something that we want to resist, right? Like we just want to believe that the movie can speak for itself and it will find its audience and just everything will work out the way it's supposed to. Um that's just not, you know, for 99.9% of the films out there, that's just not how it goes. You need to, you need to put people that people recognize it. And I can speak on that. Like two of I made a short um like in 2018, I shot in the US, and I put a name actor who's like a guy from Training Day and Fast and Furious, uh, and he was he just coincidentally ended up being a perfect casting anyway. Um, but he did exactly what you're talking about, just had this really great gangster monologue, this really great scene, and he's by far-I mean, everyone is great in it, but he his moment is such a great moment. And that alone, uh, when I put that together as an anthology film uh earlier midway through last year, I had a sales agent right away reach out to me, and I'm like, you realize this is an anthology film of short films, right? He goes, Yeah, but you got Noelle uh Gugliemi in it. I'm like, okay. Like that, like just like that. And you know, he only accounts for maybe 10 minutes of a 72-minute film uh in the anthology, but that's how much it changes it. And then the same happened with my feature, is that I didn't I didn't have name talent in it initially, but uh literally, because we shot in Mexico, the day or two we left to go to Mexico to film, uh I got in into a conversation with my entertainment lawyer at the time, and she was basically screaming at me, she goes, put someone in the movie, like that anybody knows, like you're gonna fuck yourself. And uh so I was like, oh shit. And there was a small role that we were trying to cast locally, and I just expanded that role. Uh I gave her a couple more scenes, a lot more dialogue, and then we casted someone from Mexico, but was like super well known. Like um, it just and she ended up being like an absolute perfect casting for it anyway. And I was able to get a sales agent uh, you know, six months later because of that. So you go, you like as much as you want to resist it, it is a fact of life, at least in this business.
SPEAKER_01Um absolutely, absolutely, and I think we we were able to get a sales agent um that sold us on some airlines, and that was actually our biggest like windfall, if you want to say whatever it is. Um but partially I write that up to uh the fact that we were working one-on-one with somebody. Like the sales agent took a cut, right? Like that's I'm totally fine with that. Like, you were gonna get us somewhere, that's amazing. The thing I'm more disenchanted by is the idea of distribution companies in general for indie projects, because it's just a numbers game to them, right? And they are they are taking on five projects, ten projects, twenty, however many they're taking on, right? And they're spreading, they're kind of like a diversified financial institution, right? And so they care overall about the the profit they make on their entire catalog of movies. And so unless you are that top of the leaderboard movie, which if you're someone who's talking about bringing on, like me, you know, whatever, bringing on a named person for you know, 10% of a film, 20% of a film, you're probably not the top of their leaderboard of movies. And so um, I've just talked to, I don't know, 40 or 50 filmmakers at this point since I started talking about this stuff online, who all have the same story, which is the distribution company mostly most of them do what they say they're gonna do. But if you calculate how much money you actually made after the inception levels of accounting they do, and all of the expenses they charge you back, and all of the subcontractors that are hired, and the posters and the captions and all these things that can be done on your own or hiring directly, I don't think it's worth it, just to be blunt, I don't think it's worth it anymore to go with a distribution company unless they're offering you a pile of cash up front. Because to me, what that means, that minimum guarantee, that MG, literally means we're taking the risk on. We believe in this movie. And we're gonna we have it, we have skin in the game incentive to push the movie. And and so when I talk to young filmmakers, it's like, yeah, they're offering you a 70-30 split, that's great, but I predict into the future not to be doom and gloom, in three to six months, you're gonna be the one marketing your movie anyway. Yeah, and you're still gonna be having pay done. And so that's why, unless you get a great big deal, if you get a lucky unicorn deal, take the money. That's awesome. But if you're the rest of us, to me, the move is actually doing it all yourself nowadays.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I mean, I I completely, completely understand your sentiment. I've gone through my own. Like, I actually have what I would consider pretty great sales agents, just in terms of, you know, they're I've met them several times at TIFF. Uh, we try and have a meeting pretty much every time they come through. Uh, you know, they pay, they're very transparent about all the numbers, they pay what they say. I know a lot of filmmakers that don't even see any money. Even if money is made, they don't see it. Uh, so I consider myself, I guess, lucky in that sense. But I think what you're talking about on the split is interesting and frustrating, right? Because they start out, they have to uh take $7,500 marketing fee. Now, that I don't pay that out of pocket, but that comes out of a certain percentage of sales for a while until that's paid off. So that's almost like an initiation fee. Let's start there. And then on top of it, they're taking, you know, and then they're 25%. And then once that's paid off, then I start getting my full 75%. Now, the other thing too is that I have no idea how hard they're marketing this film. I don't know, you know, I'll never know. And that I understand that there's always going to be mystery to that. Why is my film selling? Why is it, you know, why is it film selling? Why is it not selling? Whatever. Uh, you know, for instance, we have a deal with China that was the biggest uh windfall that we had many years ago, and then they re-upped it for like uh 30% of last time, which you know obviously makes sense, but they're like, Yeah, we don't know when that money is coming, and it's been a couple of years now. So there's stuff like that where it's like, I'm just trusting you guys that it's going to appear one day, and I guess I just have to accept that that's how it goes. And then on top of it, you know, they partner with other people sometimes, so they partner with another company that went uh did the aggregators specifically with uh Tubi. So, and then Tubi ended up being the biggest moneymaker, and I'm so frustrated that I didn't understand that. Like it went on, I think, in 2021 or 2022, and uh in the past year I just really started going back through the numbers and seeing how his stuff was doing, and I'm like, oh my god, this was making like 500 bucks a month, and then the problem is I have to split it twice, so they give this other company another chunk, and then they take their chunk, and then I'm left with uh what's left over. And yeah, go ahead.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, and and to be clear, when I say do it yourself, I don't mean you literally do everything yourself. I mean more like you don't give somebody 30% to hire people you could hire, you know? So instead of paying them to make the poster and the captions and do the marketing at their markup, right? Like we're all filmmakers, we have massive rolodexes of talented people all over the industry, uh I'm sure, right? And so it's like you make get the poster made, you get the captions made, you deliver the film, you make you know, you don't go sell to China, you can't do that, but you do get the sales agent who can do that. You know, you you get the aggregator, like there's there's film hub was the big one, there's a couple others now that um seem to be good, but like there are some where you can pay them three thousand dollars flat, and you get on Apple TV, Amazon Prime, and Tubi, and then you pay them no more percentage. So they're gonna do no work marketing your movie, but like you said, the distributors, it's it's in flux exactly how much they're doing, what they're doing, what's working, what's not. So it's not even like a I I don't feel like I'm necessarily leaving behind the perfect system, you know, it's more like cutting out as many of the middlemen. I have a friend who's produced, you know, account I don't know, eight movies at this point um over the last few years, and he said he got a check from a movie he did 10 years ago for $400. Like this was two months ago when we were talking, and his first thought was, how is this distribution company dumb enough to not come up with an expense and take this $400? He's like, this is like this is weird that this somehow made it through um what he calls the inception levels of accounting, you know, versus pretend that you paid somebody one time to get you on Tubi, and then every time your movie's watched and you make eight cents, you just keep all that money. It's like the old way did make sense, but now and now more and more it doesn't quite the numbers don't quite work for me. And it's not about the 70-30 split at all, because if they're doing work that's fair. It's more about um giving away your rights and giving away the transparency, because while we do get sent spreadsheets every quarter, right, with our earnings, uh they from someone with a marketing background like myself, they leave a lot to be desired in what caused what influx when. So if I just see that Amazon Prime made $3,000 minus 50% that goes to Amazon, minus 30% that goes to the distributor, minus recoupable expenses, that's great. But I want to see, did that Facebook ad campaign cause the $3,000? Or was it the semi-viral TikTok video, or was it something totally else? But I can't I can't see any of that.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, and the reality is like the the films just don't cost enough money for them to justify the spending all that time, right? Like to to go through that with all of the films that they have with all the filmmakers. I can completely understand like you're preaching in the choir, yeah. Yeah, that they're that they're not gonna do that, and I don't even blame them. It's like, yeah, that probably is a waste of time. I would rather you guys just be out there marketing the film as best you can. Um yeah, I think I feel like I could talk about this forever with you. But uh, but I think in terms of marketing, now there's a lot of there's a lot of interesting ideas out there of people trying different stuff. And obviously, I think the biggest uh you know, obviously verticals are taking off, but I also argue that they're not really blowing things open the way, at least I would say in the Western world, uh the way it is in the Eastern world right now. Like w verticals are big in the Eastern world, but they even want Western sensibilities with their verticals. Like it's a very strange model. And I know this because I uh I directed a couple verticals and had to sort of navigate those sensibilities a little bit and what they look for. And uh it's very, it's very like old school, like it's like the world hasn't advanced in the past 40 years, just the thinking and the way that they approach uh their content. But um I think like in your mind, because I have a lot of thoughts about this, but in your mind, what do you think independent filmmakers should do and how should they approach their projects now? And what do you think even is a budget that makes sense? You know what I mean? Unless you're gonna get studio funding that has a very clear ecosystem and path for success. What do you think is the best way independent filmmakers can approach their projects? And what should they be thinking about budget-wise at the very least?
SPEAKER_01You know, budget-wise is a hard question. Everybody's trying to figure that out right now. Um I think the sentiment is cheaper than you think, you know, is sort of the sentiment. Um I think it has to do more with some sort of calculation about your audience that you already have. Um filmmakers don't, you know, I've heard this exact statement, I want to be a filmmaker, not a film marketer. Um, but I also, everybody I've talked to has said that, has begrudgingly become a film marketer because no one else was going to do it for them the way they wanted. So uh to me, the move um is keeping your rights. Just, you know, you I paint this picture, right? Like you stayed up all night writing the script, you worked with lawyers you didn't want to work with, you hired cast, you s you slaved away on this thing with not enough crew, you probably edited it yourself, or at least were heavily involved. You did all of this work all this whole time, and then as soon as the movie's out, you say, I don't want to do any more work. Like you you kind of you leave it, you basically set the project at the finish line and say, Would someone else please run this with the same passion I have to the finish line? And I think that model is outdated. I think it's a it's a a cold glass of water for people to admit that that's not uh work. It doesn't make any sense. Um, because nobody wants to be a business film marketer, really, if you're an artist. But so to answer your question for real, what I think people should do is two things. I kind of preach this. I think you should be everywhere you can be. Uh you need the credibility. So your movie should be.
unknownAnd what do you mean by that?
SPEAKER_01Yeah. I think you you should use an aggregator. Or or or a s or a sales agent if you have, you know, that and and you think the they're fair and they're gonna do good work, to get on Apple TV, Tubi, Amazon, Google Play, I I don't really care, all of them, basically. And pay that cash up front, work it into your budget, right? Maybe it's four thousand dollars or something. Um and then I think you should pick what I call like a landing pad for your movie, where you keep 90% of the money, and that's where you drive all of your marketing to. And so w what that could look like, and this is self-serving because I'm building something I can use for my next movie, and I have a lot of interested filmmakers on it. I'm not here to to pitch that, but the the the cheap way of doing it would be to build your movie its own website, which people do already anyway, and then to have a way that people can buy the movie there and rent it there and buy DVDs direct from you, where you keep as much as uh to a hundred percent, as much up to a hundred percent as you can, as close to that as you can. And so that the phrase that I personally want to, and I'm just speaking for myself, that I want to be able to say to somebody when they say, Oh, you made a movie, where is it? I want to be able to say, Yeah, TurboCola's on Apple TV and Amazon Prime and Tubi, and then they always say, Oh, it's a real movie, which is kind of insulting, but like that's just how people think, right? And then I want to follow it up with, but if you go to the site I'm building or whatever the movie site is, if you go to our site, we keep pretty much all the money and it really helps us. And do I think that everybody's gonna go do that and buy it on some shady site that they've never heard of? Probably not, but the difference between them paying five bucks to rent it from you and you keep all five dollars, and you know who they are and you keep their email address and they're in your Rolodex and and you can retarget them and sell them a DVD and all this stuff, the difference between that and buy it on Amazon for five bucks, Amazon takes two dollars and fifty cents, your distributor takes another dollar, then they charge you fees, and you end up with 60 cents on the sale in three months, versus you make a sale on your website and your phone buzzes, and when you wake up, you're like, oh look, I made some more sales last night, and the money's already in my account. To me, filmmakers need that if you're gonna do the work, you need the carrot in front of you of like, and I get paid now for this thing, you know? And that that's without going I mean, I'm monologuing now.
SPEAKER_00No, no, no, but I think what you're saying is 100% true. Like, the thing too is uh you you you talk about that I don't want to say laziness, but sort of that cognitive dissonance that happens sort of when you're done your film and you just assume the universe will take care of it once it's done, and it'll just end up at a festival where it's supposed to end up, you're not gonna have to market it. Someone will, you know, everything will just roll. You're like, you know what, I'm an artist, I'm not a marketer, like you said. And the reality is that you've only done about 20% of the work so far when you finish the film. Like the you have 80% more work to do, and that's really daunting and exhausting to think about, but it's the reality, especially if it doesn't get picked up and you're self-financing and you're self-promoting. If you're lucky enough, I'll tell a story. Um, maybe we talk about this over DMs, I don't know. Uh, but someone I know was involved with The Undertone. Have you heard of The Undertone?
unknownI haven't heard of that.
SPEAKER_00Okay, so it's a new A24 film that's coming out in about a month uh on Friday the 13th. And uh it was picked up during Fantasia, it went through a six studio bidding war. The film costs about $400,000, $500,000. It's a horror film, it's a chamber-contained thing. And A24 bought it, they're saying in variety, for uh was it I think it was seven figures. So between one and ten million dollars. Uh yeah, and for a film that, you know, was just made for half a million dollars, unknown director, unknown uh I mean the producers, one of the producers is kind of known in the horror space, but certainly not in a he's not a household name. And it blew up to this huge thing. And I I know the guy, like he was actually at my house uh a couple months ago, and I know actually, I definitely know one of the producers. I've edited a couple of his films, so I'm very connected to it, but it's one of those stories that you hear, you're like, but this is what's not supposed to happen. I keep like you don't want to hear that because then you think, oh, so it is possible. Like, oh, so that could happen to me. Like, I think it's the biggest acquisition in Canadian history, like Canadian film history, and uh it's like a record, I think it's a record-breaking acquisition just overall, especially for the budget. So A24 really believes in it, and hopefully it makes it, you know, it uh makes the money that they want. But again, it's one of those so rare instances, and you're like, is the movie really, really that good? Because again, the someone that's in it, the star, it's mainly her, and I don't I don't she's not a household name yet. I know her, but it's like I don't think the average person does.
SPEAKER_01I just looked it up, it looks great, but I don't recognize anybody. I mean, it may be one guy a little bit, but a lot of these people are credited as voice actors too, so it's like it is a chamber piece, I think, and it Yeah, 100%.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, it's just basically one actress the whole time. She's like taking phone calls. But I'm saying it's just wild that it like defies all the logic that we're talking about, and you just go, of course, like this is gonna this is gonna mess me up.
SPEAKER_01It is, it is, and you can look at outliers all day and hope to be the next pulp fiction. And and that's I think I tell people, you know, I've been saying this, there's three kinds of filmmakers. You have the jaded ones who've been through it, right? If in terms of distribution, you have the naive ones who um are excited and bushy-tailed, you know, and think that's gonna happen. And then you have the really lucky ones that mess the whole mess all the stats up for the rest of us. And I'm not resentful to them, I'm actually stoked when big deals get made. But I do think those are kind of the three categories. Um, and you know, there's obviously it's a spectrum, right? It's not like a light switch, but like to me, when I hear that, or like people were mad at me because I was talking about Iron Lung, that Markiplier movie that came out recently, which he shot for three million, self-finance.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah, yeah. The guy who financed it himself, right? The YouTuber.
SPEAKER_01It made twenty-seven million dollars twenty one or twenty seven opening weekend in theaters. And um, I'm like, dude, we should talk about this because how did they do it? I I feel and and people were saying, But we don't have thirty million YouTube subscribers, and it's like, Well, it's not a it's not a one for one template. It's just what can I learn? So in my twenty one million dollars.
SPEAKER_00Like Just like apply it to you, like scale it down to your level.
SPEAKER_01Yes. Be create. We're creative people. Let's put some of the creativity into the business side of this too. You know what I'm saying?
SPEAKER_00And it's it's really interesting because I'm so like going back to Undertone. Like he's now, and this isn't a secret, it's in the trades, like he's directing the new paranormal activity move uh film. Yeah. And he was telling me, he pitched that when I when I met him at my house, like he uh someone who knew him invited him over. And it's one of those things, it's like, how am I this close to the circle of people that have this crazy of, you know, uh their their lives have changed so in such an instant. Um and it's it's what you hear about, right? And it's like, oh, if I read this story, this happened to some guy in Vancouver or even in the US, or oh, what a crazy story, and then it's like you're literally right next to me, and this happened to you. Like this is this is crazy. But it's good, like, it's always good to hear those things, especially because it's not only get an acquisition, but it's getting a theatrical release and a wide release, and the uh the promotion for it has been crazy. But uh, but yeah, so it's just it's just wild to see that, but you also have to remember, like, that's not gonna happen to everybody, but it is good to see that it is still happening, right? That the studios and still believe in all of this stuff and still are finding diamonds in the rough. So all the belly aching and the you know the naysayers uh you know don't have a really a leg to stand on. And that makes me feel good, because then you think hopefully you can be a part of that.
SPEAKER_01People people kind of talk down on like video on demand, right? Like it seems like it's the final resting place for movies to just sit there. But the but to me the proof is in the pudding that Apple TV and Amazon um are still cranking that through amazing numbers, video on demand, and then you have all these things popping up, like Letterboxd is selling movies on demand now, and and all of this stuff. And I feel like the as filmmakers, we all want the big theatrical release, and we should I think we should hope for that. It's kind of like fuel for the fire. But honestly, I feel like the the bad part is when we like expect it to happen for us, and it's it's and and that's our plan A, you know? Plan A is to get lucky, and plan B, well we'll talk about that if I don't get lucky. Yes, exactly. Versus, like that's that's the that's the problem, you know.
SPEAKER_00Well, it's funny too, you were talking earlier, uh, and I think you're 100% right, is that people have to remember that they have a product, and it's not this thing that just disappears into the ether. They can come back around. Like I said, the one I have, like I have a feature film now that I'm trying to figure all that stuff out, which is why I find this stuff fascinating right now. But I also have one I did 10 years ago, the one I was the Mexico one, and it's still generating revenue, and even my sales agents have told me that its level of prolification, like how long it's been doing this is almost baffling to them. They're like, it's the longest running, it's one of the longest running films we have in our catalog. Like, so many more peter out way earlier than yours is, and I don't even think it's that, like I like the movie, but I don't think it's like particularly great or anything. Um but but going back to that, it's like I'm now in a space where it's like, oh, I should just start promoting it and marketing it again. Like, there's no reason not to. I have everything that I need for it, and I can just start reposting, because if I can drive more traffic to there to Tubi, then I can generate more revenue. And I'll I know a lot of people that you know have had films that were like 15 years old and then just threw it on Tubi and started it started generating revenue for them again. Like it's a really bizarre way to resurrect old projects.
SPEAKER_01And it's not it's not that every movie will be your retirement plan, but it it is like at a certain point, if you own the rights or you have a good deal, you you know, the movie doesn't necessarily die. Like it doesn't go rotten. It it it loses the fire, right, of the first blaze of glory. But, you know, I like the one movie I talked about was Thunder Road, which is sort of like a 2010's film school case study extravaganza. Like Jim Cummings made this movie for $200,000 and it's his retirement plan, and it's it's um people love talking about that movie, but literally what he said in the one interview was that this is his retirement. He had no idea when he was making it, that this movie was gonna make so much money and continue to make money that it's like, and and for a bunch of us, it's like we're not gonna have one big massive success like that that's gonna put us on a cruise ship for the rest of our life. But you make enough movies over the next 20 years of your life, right? And and you have a catalog personally, and if you own a big chunk, in his case, he owns 40% of that movie because he gave stuff to other producers and people, but they kept all the rights they self-distributed, and he's like, Because I own 40%, it actually matters when someone buys it for five bucks, you know, that actually adds up for him, you know. And I I I see that as a cool, a cool future, you know.
SPEAKER_00Well, look, this was really great. I I've like I said, I feel like I couldn't talk to you for hours about this, but I think I'm gonna cut it off there. Uh, I really appreciate you taking the time to speak with me. I think it was very productive and very informative for a lot of people that are trying to navigate and figure all this stuff out. So, real quick, just tell people where your film is and where they can check it out.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, man. So TurboCola is on Apple TV and Amazon Prime and Tubi. If you like ads, feel free to watch it there. Um, and then I'm on all the social media things as uh covert film, you know, C-O-V-E-R-T film, and people like to listen to me or argue with me talk about this. So if you like either of those things, you know, you can come hang out. And it's just a it's a good group of filmmakers, I feel like, that are the filmmakers that are actually thinking about this, I tend to really like as people, you know, because they're they're kind of um, like I said, being creative, not just on the page or with the camera or with the editing. They're like they're kind of zoomed out and thinking like mini little artistic entrepreneurs, and it's pretty cool.
SPEAKER_00Yes, absolutely. I thanks for having me on, man. Yeah, I appreciate it. I I completely agree with your sentiment. I appreciate you that you're talking about this. So we're gonna wrap it up there. That's uh that's Luke Covert, and uh thanks for watching. So subscribe, uh all that stuff. See you later.