Film Courage: How does the back end of distribution work? Let's say we have
a movie that makes a hundred thousand how does that a hundred thousand get divided up?
J. Horton, Filmmaker/Youtuber/Podcaster: It really depends on the movie.
On most indies, the way I structure most of my films, so let's say I'm bringing in investors.
I typically go investors first and first out. If an investor puts in twenty five thousand
dollars the first twenty five thousand dollars the movie makes goes to the investor. Another
way you could do that is you could say the first the first monies that come in up to that
$25,000 you split 50/50 with the investor until the 25 is paid off and then once it's paid off
maybe their backend goes to 20 or something like that. But as far as where it comes in if you're
not going through a distributor say you're doing Filmhub or self-distribution, it pretty much goes
directly from the platform to Filmhub to you it's and it's all pretty automatic and automated or if
you're doing it yourself through Amazon it's just Amazon and you but in today today three years ago
I would have said do Amazon on your own and then do Filmhub for everything else today I would say
just let Filmhub do it all because the more that they have data for the more data points the more
platforms you're going to be eligible for the more they have to work with to sell your film it's just
I just let them do it but wouldn't film nothing against Filmhub but wouldn't they be getting more
of a cut because it's more of a middle person or know that the platform Filmhub is its own
search and play no no no they are getting they're getting so the the way Filmhub works
they weren't just kind of an aggregator so it's they they placed the movie with Amazon and then
Amazon does whatever their split is with them which might be 50 50 and then whatever Filmhub
gets you get 80 of what Filmhub does so yeah you are losing another piece there but you're just in
today's in today's age I don't think there's a lot of value in just going for one platform so
maybe two years ago Amazon was the highest playing platform but there's these 20 other ones and once
you add start adding those up there they become comparable and if you were not giving Filmhub
Amazon because Amazon's it was the first line of either defense it's the first platform it's
the first thing they start getting numbers on and the more your movie is doing the more attractive
it's going to be to other platforms whereas if you they didn't have those Amazon numbers
they just had all the little ones your movies not looking as attractive to other platforms so they
might not take it so and then the other thing that's happened is now Amazon started their own
AVOD [Advertising-Based Video on Demand and Free Ad-Supported TV] service which is IMDb TV which
is apparently and it's still fairly new but we're on the street anyways it's going to be paying more
than what Amazon was because AVOD’s doing better these days but you can't go to IMDb TV on your
own and if you just upload to Amazon on your own your unless your movie Just does exceptionally
well it'll never be eligible for IMDb TV but on through Filmhub or through a distributor they
can get there but you can't necessarily do it on your own and having those Amazon numbers helps
them to make help gives you a better chance to do that where else does Filmhub upload your content
they have film up has probably a hundred platforms they're working with on their website they have a
list and and it's all the The Usual Suspects the the Tubi Amazon hoopla stream go media they have
connections with say Apple TV they just signed a deal with Apple TV I just had my first movie
selected for there actually not sure what the returns are yet but we'll see and it's just and
it grows you remember everybody's talking about how how great Tubi is right now for independent
film Tubi has been around for I don't know 10 over 10 years and five years ago it wasn't that big a
deal you weren't making that much and now that little platform that was there on Filmhub that
I was making nothing off of is now where I make 80 of my Revenue so who knows what the next one's
going to be because because eventually I think these things they bubble out they burst something
else comes up so what's going to be the next one it might be Plex right now on through Filmhub
you're making pennies on Plex but maybe five years from now that'll be something substantial
and is it guaranteed that your film if you do have Filmhub acquire it is on all these platforms or
maybe some of them can't be placed there no it's it's not the the only thing about Filmhub is none
of it is guaranteed you're not guaranteed to be on any platforms it's it's totally up to the platform
whether they'll take you or not but the cool thing about Filmhub and the reason I keep using them is
it's completely non-exclusive so if Filmhub can't get my movie to Tubi but I can get it through
someone else I can do that I have that freedom do you have the rights back to all your films
I have the rights to most of them at this point I have been working with Indie Rights
distributor [film distribution company] over the past couple years so I think they have five or
six of my titles aside from those I think I own everything at this oh and death days with ITN
how much would your movie have to make in order for you to get a hundred thousand back
as a filmmaker on a platform oh wow that's a good question I'm sure it varies from yeah yeah it
would vary but let's just say most of them do most of them are 50 50 or 60 40 with the distributor
aggregator and then maybe another 20 on top of that so you'd be looking at a hundred and fifty
we need to make like a hundred and between 150 and 175 to make a hundred something that
and that would be normally what span of time probably over several years it again it really
depends so for for me I have about I have about 60 titles in the market that I see numbers from
on a regular basis and my titles make between as little as a few bucks a month all the way up to
five or six thousand a month which so if I have one that's making 5 000 a month you know take a
a year to do that but I I've seen numbers from other titles a comparable budget levels to mine
and even under that are making as much as twenty thousand a month or there's one just just this
last month that I saw that did a hundred thousand dollars in a month now these are outliers I think
my General five to few dollars that's where that's where most are living between five dollars and
and are there certain platforms where if it's not family friendly don't even bother don't
waste your time don't waste their time yes all that to to be honest I don't know too many off
the top of my head I'm starting to experiment a lot with putting titles up on YouTube because my
my channel is monetized and now a bunch of these networks have come out multi-channel networks I
think they call them MCNs [Multi-Channel Networks] and a lot of distributors are striping striking
deals with these different companies so for example Indy rates put out my UFO documentary
I want to believe through a multi-channel network and on their YouTube channel it was
making a couple hundred dollars a month not not much on the off of YouTube and when they put it
on that multi-channel thing it did like 2000 in a month just there but but on YouTube the
extreme stuff is not going to be matched with good advertisers so it needs to be family
friendly. But something like Tubi that's also advertising based but they're a lot friendlier
to horror and more graphic content so like I'm seeing I'm seeing really big numbers from Tubi
on some pretty graphic stuff and it's a DOD and I would assume IMDb TV is the same way
and UFOs not considered family friendly? No no the UFO one it was, is was family friendly.
okay yeah yeah yeah. The aliens were fully clothed? Yeah yeah, they were fully clothed,
there was no adult themes with them but the difference though was their their channel it
just the multi-network channel has millions of subscribers and they're specifically targeted
for supernatural stuff so the only stuff on that channel they have some documentary and
some narrative and it's all UFO paranormal based so they've they've really got their audience