Antoine Allen, Filmmaker: I got a sponsor to cover the whole AMC theater. So I made all
profit and I sold so merch [merchandise] and that night alone I did like $9,000.
Film Courage: When should new filmmakers expect to make money from their movies?
Antoine: It's up to them. When I first got in the game I started out the door. I said if I want to
make this film, I'm going to rent out venues. I'm going to sell because I already had that mindset
from the music business. Now some filmmakers don't have the experience. If you're new and you
don't know, for now just make some films until you comfortable and then learn the business (take baby
steps). If you do a short film that's 10 minutes there's tons of areas you could rent out, you even
do a parking lot now, do a drive-thru that's not that much money. So just you just want to create.
You want to start a pattern of not putting out a free product because then no one will pay for it.
Film Courage: You think that by putting a price tag on it, it creates a value?
Antoine: Yes, because sometimes we have friends and family… “Oh I want to get a free ticket. I
want to get free, free, free,” and then after a while you in the free zone. It's okay the
first time, second time but you have to say to your friends and family “No, listen, This is my
passion. Respect my job.” There's no difference. I have a store if you go to any of the store you're
going to pay for a shirt like everybody else pay for my product don't do it because you my
friends and family it's 20 you spend all that in Uber Eats so yeah you pay you respect my craft
and with the short filmmakers that you brought in were you giving a cut to everybody yes I took care
of them yeah okay so that's another thing too I mean not big cut because I'm the boss but but
yeah that's another way to get a new audience in so if you have a short film you might not have a
lot of people to come then another filmmaker come together so you have to broken your orders and
together and build together no different than so the mindset too go back to our music business if
you go on tour you have other acts everybody bring everybody bringing their friends and family so
we could all work together and have a fun time so each showing there were four showings a day with
this night and 900 a day wow yeah that's actually that's a really good price yeah that's back in the
day now it's not oh yeah yeah that's what I'm just trying to see if today today you could do
it so let's talk about something more recent before 2020 I did a premiere for my film Lola
and I did 30 hours a ticket I got a sponsor to cover the whole AMC data
so I made all profit and I sold so much and that night alone I did like 9 000. and may ask
how did you find the sponsor once you start building your brand up people start coming
so i've been doing this for a while and I had a friend that had a shoes I want to help you on
a sponsor so it's like the more you invest in yourself the more people invest in you
so it wasn't like overnight I knew people I was meeting people hearing it so
they want to invest in me so they sponsor the whole venue for me what was in it for them
I always helped them do stuff sometimes I put their clothes in my film so it was like oh okay
I'm big on helping people so now people just want to help me make him
once even the best position they can possible okay so you had already built this relationship
so I'm big on nurturing relationships a lot of times in the industry people don't want
to nurture relationships if they have a value or unless you could get something sometimes you got
to build a relationship nurture a relationship because someone won't have nothing to help you
now when they can help you a year from now so a lot of times you want to oh you can't do that
for me that's it no nurture relationships you don't know where it's going to take you
okay so if you hadn't had that sponsor though then it would have been a totally different yeah
I would probably pay for it myself okay but it's sponsors out there but if you
don't got paid for it for yourself it did as I did this before I paid for it myself and
stuff like that happened and do you only do these kind of screenings on like Fridays and Saturdays
yeah because that's like the weekend like party weekend so it might come out
because most people working during the day so I try to do this Fridays Saturdays or Sundays
so if someone if a theater said what I have this amazing deal it's a Wednesday afternoon
I'm not done it before oh yeah I didn't make the money I posted but if it depends depends on the
overhead so if I could there to Wednesday it's a cheap deal why not try it out and so you make it
an event with food yeah I make it an experience experience okay so a lot of times like I do
raffles I get do giveaways so I make experience I don't just just come see my movie I make it you
have fun so Antoine if I buy this ticket and am I doing I'm online you pre-sale yeah okay so let's
suppose I'm spending thirty dollars and maybe there's an administrative fee on top of that what
do I get for my ticket did you see me okay that's it that's enough okay and you do raffles so I do
I make you like not just seeing the movie you're going to get raffles you're going to get some food
you're going to have a great time I just make it experience get to me some of the stars of the film
take some pictures I just make experience I try to because sometimes you go to the movie theaters
and you pay for this money and all you get was a hundred hundred dollars in fees and popcorns and
everything like you get to meet the filmmaking to talk to somebody because I do a q a ask questions
so it's a little more intimate than going to a big data you just go and see it and that's it
and do you allow tickets at the door no so I tell everybody do pre let them buy online I mean if
it's a friend they don't have that's different but try to do pre because then you could ignore your
money in advance and I'm like oh I don't know how much I make you get all your money in advance and
then when you do cuddle time so for example if your film is next Friday by the week of Monday
or Tuesday you should know where your ticket sells at and some people wait till last minute
but online is better because the money coming in you use some of that money to pay for something
else so always do pre I don't do door especially now you want to do everything online and plus two
a lot of people say well oh yeah I'm there they never showed up and they never show up you wait
she just wasted a seat so everything's online cash app everything online okay now merch is different
merch I do cash out give me a cash up or if you have cash I do that but when it comes to the
ticket for the movie it got to be online but for merch and sometimes I do packages I might have a
50 ticket you might get a free hoodie a shirt you just do different marketing things to try it out
do people really care about merch yes why it's the experience it's no different than like star
wars you get a star wars thing especially if they know the filmmaker that's even more experienced
so a lot of times it's my friends my family my co-workers all coming out they want me to
merge you want to feel cool and then also I have name actors in my film that's another experience
so all these little things are just marketing and knowing the business sometimes you watch
the radio you only like the song we keep hearing it a hundred times that's marketing programming
you ever have a song you keep hearing how do you like this song we keep hearing and hearing it
it makes you want to like the song on the radio it's a marketing program just like if you go
around you see marvel movies come on Friday they got posters all over the place you keep seeing it
you wasn't even thinking about seeing it but you keep carrying it and hearing it
that's marketing marketing program with the merch are you pre-ordering the shirt or only cut only to
order so if somebody wants one okay great and then you send in the order and then it's so sometimes
right now have a website a little movie merch they could go online buy it but if they come to my
premiere the march is to be there yeah look at the options okay how do because like if you look at
Diane von Furstenberg with her amazing wrap dress the first time just it was it it put her on the
map but then another time the the trend had moved on she'd ordered too much I know now they've come
back but that was the one thing that just that really taught her that she ordered too much of
her merch basically so how do we know I don't wear too much yeah for me I don't have that problem but
you buy little you buy 50 and see how it goes so if you buy 20. if it doesn't sell then you have
don't buy a whole bunch buy like 20 50. see where is that and then you test the waters out okay
so you're not you're you're not like filling up shelves you're just doing being very conservative
okay okay and you have it there for people to see at the screen uh-huh you didn't get on the website
and buy it right so it's a nice website by the way go there and buy merch and get stuff right to you
but I mean for these screenings so you bring oh yeah so I bring so like for Lola I brought like
100 shirts 100 because I knew that the man was going to be there and they were all over
actually I needed more so yeah oh okay so so it was you you had to take names down yeah
okay the demand was really big so yeah if you build it they will come what about when
people don't buy the merch what what's behind that no sale no but I mean what why
because we we were taught hey get this merch have your own store but doesn't always happen yeah I
mean it happens it's like in life you might get a hundred people to buy it and five people say
no I'm good no you could do so just you have got to take the good the good with everything
see but what do you do to create a desire for the merch that why we should care for it
what the movie the movie you're going to see on social media a lot
I'm very personable so you have got to cater to your audience with Lola it was I have a star
artist and star actors in it I was promoting like crazy online it made it at this big festival
African-American film festival permitted so it was so much press going on people really loved
it merch is it also the message behind the film yes another that's another thing woman empowerment
a lot of times you can come up with a product they got to have a personal human connection so this
film had a human connection woman empowerment winter and my audience could relate to it.
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