Joston Ramon Theney, Screenwriter, Author, Director, Producer: If someone had those
ideas today and they were asking me about making a movie I would tell them to stop.
Film Courage: How do filmmakers continue to make movies if their films aren't profitable?
Joston: They can't not from any standpoint. You can't do it if
you rely on investors and you can't do it if you're relying on yourself financially.
The best thing that I can ever recommend is but that's why I always say, I always give
before I tell someone oh make it yourself I tell them to learn distribution and learn what your
specific film what on average does that film kind of make based on a number of different
factors and then you try to stack as many of the marketable elements into your film as possible
so that while you're being free creatively to create whatever you want to and to finance that
you've stacked a certain number of things in your favor to make it profitable if not for you
for the person that invested in the film how does someone really learn distribution though
without really having gone through sort of the the heart school of hard knocks with it
that's the that's the catch-22 I think that everything that you learn about if you if
you watch a video and someone explains to you this is how everything works and
that's how it worked when they made that video because it's already changed
things that worked in 2014 don't work today they just don't because as equipment has become
cheaper and the ability to market the film has become more democratized
more people have started making films than ever before now
anything that you've learned leading into this period of time you've been able to build upon
but if you're now watching things back then about how the industry works you are so far behind
you're so far behind the best way that you're going to learn
is to take a certain amount of money that you can afford to lose get in the game that's really
the best way that you're going to learn it if you've got a thousand dollars you can make a film
and I'm telling you this because I made a film that's in distribution and it cost me 1500 bucks
and it's on to be right now I think it's on to me which is adam k right that film cost me 1500 bucks
and I have a name in it fair abraham who she was number one trending on twitter at that time
but yeah roughly 1500 bucks is what it cost me to make that film you can do that and you can get
into the game that's the best way that you're going to learn how to do it because trying to
to gather that information from things online I think you'll end up being behind the ball
when it comes to distribution specifically when it comes to how to write a story when it comes to how
to cast actors when it comes to how to produce a film when it comes to development when it comes
to those things those things are integral to getting the film going but the conversation
that needs to happen before that is the one that keeps changing which is distribution
because all that affects everything else until you get to that point and that's the part that just
keeps changing so the best way to understand it is just shoot something just shoot something anything
it's so cheap to do so right now whether they have the the iphone you can plug the little anamorphic
lens adapter for 100 bucks on the back of it and then you're shooting something just go do it
understand unders understanding the windows of how to release things is important but you only
learn all of those things after you've distributed something after you've already invested in it or
you've gotten someone else to invest in it so it's like if you're in a flight simulator or you're
let's say playing some day trading game unless that's like your real money or you're really
flying that plane you're not really going to learn I mean it's going to be you're going to take more
chances and different things and so when you really have skin in the game it's different yeah
it's very very different it's very different and I'm going to tell you it's so funny that
when I was making a film by committee with financiers and stuff
and I would say I I really believe that we should have this in the film and and this and it would
help and I would give out all these great ideas but it was coming from a creative standpoint right
and at that time I hadn't really learned about the marketable elements like why this film needed
to be made and why does it need to be made this way those are the things I didn't understand or I
should say I applied all of those questions to the creative part of it and not the distribution part
of it and I had all these ideas and it was like ah but if if someone had those ideas today and they
were asking me about making a movie I would tell them to stop just stop what you're doing right now
I'm going to explain to you why that's not the conversation you should have
right now right now you should be defining who is this film for and don't say yourself
don't say yourself unless a lot of people like you and how to reach them don't say that figure
out who your audience is for this movie because if who your audience is you'll know what's important
to them and you'll know if what you're talking about is important at all especially if you
have to spend money because every idea you come up with all I hear is a cash register
that's all I hear because it's going to cost money in order to do it so just make sure that
it benefits the film somehow financially and if you've got enough marketable elements sure be free
go off and do whatever in mid-sentence make a wormhole open and the guy gets sucked in and
whatever I don't whatever it is you're thinking about doing just make sure that you've done
the homework up front to define your audience because that's ultimately what's going to matter
are you able to know the exact moment like let's say a film is paused and re-watched or
where people drop off with your movies do it to that much the analytics are that strong for you
yes and no it through amazon you don't know it through the others and that's only because you're
going through an aggregator that aggregator has that information but they typically don't
share that information but if it's if it's if it's amazon prime you can definitely see
where people are falling off and and and you'll sometimes rack your brain wondering why why why
why at this moment and you go back and you look at you can't see it but there's there are things
where people just they fall off for whatever reason but yeah you can see it you can see
it I i think in all honestly that's how I don't I don't know if this is bad to talk about or not but
with netflix people have started to become a little bit disenchanted with the content sometimes
right and they always say it just seems like like there's no real connection and I said
well there may be a reason for that because they can see the analytics and they can see when
something drops off maybe they think they know why and they go back and they look and they're
like oh I see because yeah there was before that this brunette was in it and she walked through
and then she left the scene and then people stopped caring so that's what we need we need
more brunettes we need more hers or whatever that's what it was it they don't know but they
think they know because they have they have the analytics and they're looking at it and trying
to dissect it and figure out what any of it means and they're doing it to such a granular level that
it's got to be maddening but I think that's what they're doing I think they're using that same
that same stuff to try to figure out how to make movies that keep people engaged more because
ultimately that's why it exists is for you to see and for you to know that people are falling off
do you think making a successful independent film is like winning the lottery
it depends on your definition of success I mean if your definition of success is you made a movie for
10 grand and made 10 million that's definitely a lottery ticket I don't think that there's
any way that person planned to do that but my definition of success is how much closer did I
get to the vision that was in my head when I was making the movie how much closer did I get did I
get closer this time than I did last time because that's a success for me and one one day I want to
be able to look at a film and say I got exactly what was in my head because I pleasing this guy
or this lady whatever like that that's not really what I'm making films for what I'm
making films for is to to get closer and closer to the movies that are in my head I wanna I wanna
I want to get all the stuff that's in here on a page and from a page on the screen and do it in
such a way where I didn't compromise too much I didn't compromise too much if if your success is
who you got to be in the movie or who who saw your movie and reached out to you I think quentin
tarantino was trying to make reservoir dogs as a short film and his success is that he made it to
I want to say he said he made it to harvey keitel or somebody and that person was like are you crazy
this should be a feature that's a success you were going to make something small and then
it became huge that could be a success it all depends on what your definition of success is
so that vision it sounds like has always been there because when you went to that one investor
who said here are my notes and I it's my way or we don't make this thing
you knew that no it had I really want what was in my head to be on that screen this isn't going to
work for me well I would say it wasn't as strong back then the only thing I knew was that his notes
or his new scenes didn't fit the film it just didn't fit the film like to give you an example
there's a there's the people go walking off to go look for this guy and he wrote in a scene where
one of the characters lady pulls up in a in a jeep and they're like oh how'd you go back and
get the jeep and she's like well my father used to race jeeps back in the day through the desert and
like what does that have to do with anything it was just it was the most useless piece of piece
of backstory and why would they have a vehicle if they had a vehicle then they could just leave like
it was just it opened the thing for like why it doesn't make sense in this film
and that was the reason why I didn't want it in the film not because it wasn't part of my vision
but because it just didn't fit in the film and none of the things that he wrote fit in the film
now I would say if if someone comes to me and they can give me very sound advice I had it
on the previous film where somebody came to me and they said I just I don't really
get this and then we talked about it and I realized wow from a really objective sense
your idea does work better than my idea and so we we took that idea and incorporated it into
the film so I'm not so much about being so vain as to say my way is the only way
but I believe there should be one voice that one voice should ring very clear throughout the film
and along the way because it's a collaborative process there'll be times when someone will
have advice for you that really makes that moment way more honest than the one you created and you
have to take that advice as the voice that that advice is good sound advice but it can't just
be shoved into the film because this guy said so because it can really take people out of the film.