Film Courage: Was 1BR fully finished by the time you got Netflix to look at it?
Alok Mishra, Producer: Oh yeah, it had gone it had premiered in 2019 at Fantasia and we've gone
on a festival run for like six seven months all over the world and so it was completely finished
at that point yeah and like I said they showed it to him twice and they rejected it twice until
they finally said yes because the VOD numbers were very good when we debuted in April of 2020.
how did you get that initial meeting with Netflix what did your distributor does it for you Netflix
will never talk to you as an independent filmmaker like they need someone else they can trust and
talk to someone who they perceive is going to deliver the product in the exactly technical the
technical Perfection that they're looking for and they don't want to have to deal with some single
person they want to deal with somebody they've dealt with before who has other products with
them let's say projects products it's it's it's something where like they have to take it to them
like it's very few people who can directly go to Netflix independent filmmakers and forwards sorts
who can go straight to Netflix and try to make a deal with him why did Netflix reject you the first
time unclear unclear look that there wasn't any heat behind it like it's always a thing where it's
not special until someone else tells you it's special right and sadly like here's the truth
of it they're really more concerned about their original programming and I think there's a sense
of Pride if they did not come up with it it's not under their sort of like incubation it's not under
their incubation places there are different companies that they have deals with and they
are less likely to want to take you and it's even more so nowadays I would tell you like it's harder
it's much harder to actually get a film bought by Netflix that's not one of their originals
but that's just what it is the other thing too they're not going to help you market it either
like literally we've been on their social media one time and and having been top five for like
eight days and number one and whatever else we put us on their social media one time but why is that
because they put their Originals on there that's what they're concerned with is the stuff they've
spent money internally making that's what they care about and I don't I can't fault with them
board it's just it's part of their model the second time they rejected you any any excuse no
just yeah it's not for us just to pass okay yeah and this is after after we had been successful in
our Festival runs and everything else and we're winning Awards it's not interesting what gave
you the confidence to go to Netflix the third time well again wasn't us was our distributor
and distributor saw how well we did on VOD and it was like it was kind of like it blew up like
we were like number two or three on iTunes like in the horror section like we were only beating this
was like the Invisible Man and something like that like so we were never gonna be the Invisible Man
I don't think but like this little movie that's by and large didn't have any real stars they're stars
to us but apparently that is recognizable the rest of the world but it had very few recognizable
Stars it blew up and it was like trending like all over the place like on Google and it was
like Google Play was doing very well and like all the different platforms we had it on it was doing
very well and it had a big pre-order I guess on iTunes which was another thing and they and they
and one thing feeds another so when you have good pre-orders they obviously give you a good Prime
placement we were at the top Banner let's say on like iTunes and like so these are all things that
people took notice of especially Netflix and we're like okay there's a good amount of awareness for
this song so this and covet was also happening so I think that was another motivation for them was
like we're gonna need material here so let's pick this up let's take a chance so they did
how long was it on Netflix for we we were on for two years approximately
we just came off as of December 31st but it was a great run a great run we know a lot of people
were able to watch it on there we can tell from the social media and different things and also
Nielsen has a Tracker that kind of tells you how they think you've done and maybe it's right maybe
it's not but I think it's a little right so if your deal with Netflix is not huge in the money
sense it's still worth it because of all the exposure absolutely if you have a movie that
you think has a franchise potential or anything like that I have could have SQL whatever you want
as many people to see it because if as many people watch it as possible then there's awareness right
there's awareness then maybe you have a theatrical opening for the second one
all these things feed into each other if you have a second movie then people are going to
go back and watch the first movie so money's to be made that way too so the the main missive
people were making like we couldn't understand why we were coming on Netflix they've already
paid us their money they've already paid us licensing thing why are we trying to Hype it
still because we were trying to build awareness that was the main thing whether it it's very
short-sighted to just do a press push once for something you press push every single time you
come on a big platform if you want awareness if you want to build awareness if you want to have
enough awareness to get people to go watch something theatrically for the second one
how does the SAG ultra low budget film become number one on Netflix
from marketing what we did is that we thought we're gonna have a theatrical opening right we
were sitting there in the beginning of March 2020 coming out in April 2020 and we're like
oh this coven thing it'll all blow over by the middle of March we're like we are focaccia. What
are we gonna do here? So we pivoted we pivoted like we made sure that like look we need to do
every podcast interview we need to get reviews right and so look your distributor like we had a
publicist in our Festival run and they were great they helped us get like 15 20 Rotten Tomatoes and
credited reviews right and then when it came down to our distributor and their publicist they helped
us get some more but we weren't certified fresh yet and in my mind it was very important that we
get to certified fresh right so what we did is we we had different openings that were happening
between when we found out we were going to be on Netflix we found out in May and we were going
to be on in August of 2020. so we had the whole summer of be on VOD and to try to sell the movie
during covid when everyone was literally at home trapped at home and so we made it our our goal in
life to keep on getting reviews every opening we would have in different countries we would
also for example we opened in England in June we would talk to the distributor over there they Farm
it out to somebody else somebody said Hey listen how can we help you in that market let's get we'll
get you actors we'll get you whoever we'll get you the director to do review to do interviews
and whatever else so we can kind of make it a bigger Splash there at the same time you're you're
publicist for your distributor helps you as much as they can but they have other movies they're
working on too so it's up to the producer to keep that momentum going right so what we would do is
we would like look at movies that were like not good movies on like horror movies and C on Rotten
Tomatoes who'd given that a good review then we would write that we would write that particular
journalist and say Hey listen we're just doing a post-mortem Val or publicist did did they send
you the movie oh they didn't send you the movie Let Us write that wrong right now so we would
send in a movie in a very way they would give us a good review and so we got another 40 reviews 4043
reviews that way and got to certified fresh that was a big thing for us and kept the reviews coming
over that entire summer right so we're always sort of in the Zeitgeist we were in the public horror
Public's eye let's say right and so we did that the whole summer we had nothing else to do to be
honest too if it added in covet I don't know if this would have happened but we did have nothing
to do so we did this entire summer and then we were waiting for like the first day we were coming
on to Netflix we thought like we'd be lucky if we cracked the top ten well not only we cracked the
top 10 we wanted the top five first day and stayed in the top five five four four three two one and
then three and then four and then five and then we were just gone we just didn't we didn't say
in the top ten it just disappeared and we were like well that was a good run so I tell you like
everything he had done to that point whether it be the festival run the strategy we had there
how we designed the poster and also the trailer we worked very connectedly with our distributor to
design all those things and then once we actually debuted on VOD and all the things leading up to
that and then pivoting to just doing podcasts and interviews and everything we could do during that
summer led up to us being number one that's what happened like that's the the marketing that we did
everything we did and look it could have seemed at a certain point where there was just like it's
a Fool's errand to try and do this stuff the movie's already out on VOD it's probably the
best it's going to be oh now it's on Netflix well I got to number one well we should just we've done
it we finished no you haven't finished every time you debut in a new set of platforms you need to
do a publicity push especially if you want to have a sequel or a franchise out of it's very
important that you build the awareness in such a way that any subsequent sequels will have at
least eyeballs on them I don't know if they'll be good or bad hopefully they'll be very good but at
least they'll have eyeballs on them and first will get eyeballs again that's what you do why did you
decide to move 1BR off of Netflix and onto Tubi well to be fair I the AVOD marketplace whether it
be Tubi peacock Voodoo Pluto TV Roku TV Plex Zuma there's like a billion of them right well we went
on to eight new platforms starting January one and I thought at first because we had the first deal
we did with Netflix was for a year then we re-up with them for a second here right but we could
have in the meantime instead of re-upping another year with them we could have gone
straight to AVOD platforms and I felt like that would have probably made it made us a lot more
money than probably the deal we were getting from Netflix let's say right but you'd go with Netflix
because by and large it has the most viewership of any platform in the United States and Canada
at least there's 74 million households that have it 2.11 is the average household so 140 something
million people have access to it that we know that aren't stealing it let's say because there's
probably more that are stealing it although they're supposed to crack down on it this year
so let's call it 116 million people that already have it well if you do want to be a franchise
then take the shitty money and go and be on Netflix for another year that's which we did
now we're at the point where we're like we feel like enough people seen it on Netflix we need to
expand out like Tubi for example has 60 million subscribers peacock is like 40 to 50 million or
something like this right there's so they're probably a crossover between the people having
Netflix too let's be honest but there's a lot of different AVOD platforms where people like can't
afford Netflix right now it's a tough time in the economy and people don't mind watching like
some of the commercials with these things because the commercials are so short they're so short in
fact that you don't even have time to go to the restroom and come back like you literally have
to pause the movie because you're going to miss some of it unless you you're the fastest peer in
the world so the the idea is that moving on is AVOD platforms a is one of the most profitable
things that independent filmmakers can do at this point especially if you have something that people
are going to watch all the way through because you get paid pretty much per commercial per impression
like they call it like per impression that people watch a commercial it's like there's like 22
commercials like on a Tubi movie and there's like 17 or 15 during a peacock movie and stuff
like that so filmmakers can make anywhere from like approximately a cent a commercial
but some some people say between 10 and like freebie for example pays you per hour they pay
you 10 cents per hour so if your movie's an hour and a half you get 15 cents per view if they watch
the whole thing we know that from testing a movie or maybe had very little rejection and people
would watch it all the way through we had a very high retention rate so we felt very strongly that
people will watch the whole movie and watch all the way through commercials in some way
so we wanted to bring it on there as soon as possible we waited another year on Netflix to
have more people watch the film but now it's the perfect time well we're going to be shooting a
sequel for the movie this year to be on another set of platforms make some money hopefully make
all of our money back for the film we're not quite there yet almost there but have a bunch
of different people who haven't seen it before a new audience watched the film right and then
make some money and bring out the second film and then hopefully that has such a Groundswell because
people have seen the first movie that people want to pay theatrically to see it hopefully.