How to get your film on Netflix

How to get your film on Netflix, iTunes, and Hulu

Should filmmakers have to pay to have the privelege of an audience watching their film? We certainly hope not.

In today's high-paced technological world, filmmakers have become abundant. It has become increasingly harder for Indie filmmakers to get good exposure.

Sadly, winning film festivals does not always pay off. Films are too often picked up by distributors at the price it took to make them- leaving the filmmaker with no chioce than to break even. The film "Ballast"- winner of the 2008 Sundance film festival, for example, was offered a distribution deal by IFC. This, however, only left him breaking even. The $25-50,000 budgeted film was too much of an investment to turn down any distribution deal.

Technology however, has also brought a mass market of media over the internet which has helped many Indie filmmakers expose their film to mass audiences through big retail giants like Netflix and iTunes. But how does an Indie filmmaker get their video aired on such big platforms like Netflix and iTunes when they are now over saturated?

Platform giants don't have the time of day to wade through the millions of videos that are being made- no matter how good of a filmmaker you are.

They must have a filtering system to prevent poor quality content and determine what is acceptable (according to their audiences) and what is not. Distributors help filter content. They contract with big distributers who offer catalogues of movies to choose from that have already been rated by audiences. Unfortunately, these companies rarely choose Indie filmmakers who only have a few movies under their belt, have a low budget, or unknown actors. Frustrating isn't it?

Does this mean we are approaching an age where the filmmaker becomes the modern age starving artist?

Luckily there are companies out there who recognize the struggle Indipendant filmmakers face. New companies refered to as "aggregators" began popping up allowing Indie filmmakers to acces these larger retail platforms with, of course, a fee for their services. This, unfortunately, quickly became a way for greedy companies to become greedier. Some of their upfront fees included a percentage of the film's profits usually ranging 15-50%. This is a huge chunck of profits considering the aggregators are doing very little front work and don't even assist in promoting the film. They end up getting away with this overcharge because too many filmmakers are desperate to expose their film.

The love of art has not died.

Fortunately for filmmakers, there are still companies out there who recognize us for our art and not just a means of profits. These companies began seeing the hard dividing line between the distributors' and filmmakers' interests.They strategized a new model that would better fit the charge of services for filmmakers. This new model takes away the many middle men the old model had- which only allowed the filmmaker to receive the smallest share of profits. The new model conserves the payout rates of the retail platform (usually 100%) to the filmmaker by instead charging a full upfront price.

How big are the payouts on platforms such as iTunes and Netflix?

Once you finally get your film onto one of these big retail platforms, what's the payout? Is it even worth it? Each platform has different outcomes for each filmmaker; research is a prority when deciding where you will showcase your movie. Here is some information on the most popular patforms:

iTunes may be the way to go if you're looking for the platform with the highest payout rate. iTunes offers a split of 70/30, wherein the filmmaker receives 70% of profits and the remaining 30% is left for iTunes. Keep in mind, however, that the payout depends on the traffic and conversion rate your film has. The downside of iTunes is that it is less effective in terms of mass exposure.

Hulu may be a preferable choice if you're seeking mass exposure. Hulu streams films free; 50% of the revenue from advertising goes to the filmmaker and the other 50% to Hulu. The downside to Hulu is that ad revenue is not generally high in profitable payouts.

Amazon VOD shares 50% of what they collect to the filmmaker. Downside- not one of the highest traffic platforms.

Netflix will purchase a license for your film for a period of 1-2 years wherein this allows them to play your film any number of times within the contracted period. This is a great platform for filmmakers looking for mass exposure. Licensing fees, however, are based on a film to film basis so it is difficult to determine the actual payout you will receive.

How can we find legitimate companies that can help us access these platforms?

Here are a couple of recommendations suggested by NYC Lights and Film School that offer these services with an upfront fee and assure 100% profits the film makes to the filmmaker.

Distribber: Upfront cost: $1295 (SD) $1595 (HD). Distribber was purchased by indiegogo and is one of the most popular aggregators for filmmakers. Distribber has access to US and Canada only, however they access more retail platforms than TuneCore.

TuneCore: Upfront cost: $999 (SD) $1249 (HD). TuneCore started off helping musicians get access to larger retail platforms but has now branched out to help filmmakers as well. TuneCore seems to have access to more regional iTunes stores than Distribber, but again has access to less retail platforms than Distribber.

Make sure you do extensive research with both companies to find which distributor suits you/your film best before commiting to one of them. Check them out and see what they have to offer. The important question is: will the investment be worth it?

Never give up for the love of art will never die.

For more information on aggregators and distributors check out NYC's Lights and Film School website:
How to Get Your Indie Film onto iTunes & Netflix

How to get your film on Netflix!

How to get your film on Netflix, iTunes, and Hulu

Should filmmakers have to pay to have the privelege of an audience watching their film? We certainly hope not.

In today's high-paced technological world, filmmakers have become abundant. It has become increasingly harder for Indie filmmakers to get good exposure.

Sadly, winning film festivals does not always pay off. Films are too often picked up by distributors at the price it took to make them- leaving the filmmaker with no chioce than to break even. The film "Ballast"- winner of the 2008 Sundance film festival, for example, was offered a distribution deal by IFC. This, however, only left him breaking even. The $25-50,000 budgeted film was too much of an investment to turn down any distribution deal.

Technology however, has also brought a mass market of media over the internet which has helped many Indie filmmakers expose their film to mass audiences through big retail giants like Netflix and iTunes. But how does an Indie filmmaker get their video aired on such big platforms like Netflix and iTunes when they are now over saturated?

Platform giants don't have the time of day to wade through the millions of videos that are being made- no matter how good of a filmmaker you are.

They must have a filtering system to prevent poor quality content and determine what is acceptable (according to their audiences) and what is not. Distributors help filter content. They contract with big distributers who offer catalogues of movies to choose from that have already been rated by audiences. Unfortunately, these companies rarely choose Indie filmmakers who only have a few movies under their belt, have a low budget, or unknown actors. Frustrating isn't it?

Does this mean we are approaching an age where the filmmaker becomes the modern age starving artist?

Luckily there are companies out there who recognize the struggle Indipendant filmmakers face. New companies refered to as "aggregators" began popping up allowing Indie filmmakers to acces these larger retail platforms with, of course, a fee for their services. This, unfortunately, quickly became a way for greedy companies to become greedier. Some of their upfront fees included a percentage of the film's profits usually ranging 15-50%. This is a huge chunck of profits considering the aggregators are doing very little front work and don't even assist in promoting the film. They end up getting away with this overcharge because too many filmmakers are desperate to expose their film.

The love of art has not died.

Fortunately for filmmakers, there are still companies out there who recognize us for our art and not just a means of profits. These companies began seeing the hard dividing line between the distributors' and filmmakers' interests.They strategized a new model that would better fit the charge of services for filmmakers. This new model takes away the many middle men the old model had- which only allowed the filmmaker to receive the smallest share of profits. The new model conserves the payout rates of the retail platform (usually 100%) to the filmmaker by instead charging a full upfront price.

How big are the payouts on platforms such as iTunes and Netflix?

Once you finally get your film onto one of these big retail platforms, what's the payout? Is it even worth it? Each platform has different outcomes for each filmmaker; research is a prority when deciding where you will showcase your movie. Here is some information on the most popular patforms:

iTunes may be the way to go if you're looking for the platform with the highest payout rate. iTunes offers a split of 70/30, wherein the filmmaker receives 70% of profits and the remaining 30% is left for iTunes. Keep in mind, however, that the payout depends on the traffic and conversion rate your film has. The downside of iTunes is that it is less effective in terms of mass exposure.

Hulu may be a preferable choice if you're seeking mass exposure. Hulu streams films free; 50% of the revenue from advertising goes to the filmmaker and the other 50% to Hulu. The downside to Hulu is that ad revenue is not generally high in profitable payouts.

Amazon VOD shares 50% of what they collect to the filmmaker. Downside- not one of the highest traffic platforms.

Netflix will purchase a license for your film for a period of 1-2 years wherein this allows them to play your film any number of times within the contracted period. This is a great platform for filmmakers looking for mass exposure. Licensing fees, however, are based on a film to film basis so it is difficult to determine the actual payout you will receive.

How can we find legitimate companies that can help us access these platforms?

Here are a couple of recommendations suggested by NYC Lights and Film School that offer these services with an upfront fee and assure 100% profits the film makes to the filmmaker.

Distribber: Upfront cost: $1295 (SD) $1595 (HD). Distribber was purchased by indiegogo and is one of the most popular aggregators for filmmakers. Distribber has access to US and Canada only, however they access more retail platforms than TuneCore.

TuneCore: Upfront cost: $999 (SD) $1249 (HD). TuneCore started off helping musicians get access to larger retail platforms but has now branched out to help filmmakers as well. TuneCore seems to have access to more regional iTunes stores than Distribber, but again has access to less retail platforms than Distribber.

Make sure you do extensive research with both companies to find which distributor suits you/your film best before commiting to one of them. Check them out and see what they have to offer. The important question is: will the investment be worth it?

Never give up for the love of art will never die.

For more information on aggregators and distributors check out NYC's Lights and Film School website:
How to Get Your Indie Film onto iTunes & Netflix

Behind the Scenes 5: Flashback, Desert Wasteland



Carlos Rubio multi-tasks as DP and MJ's father in this flashback

 Our flashback scene proved to be a creative and smooth endeavor for Desert Wasteland.

 

Today's scene focused on movement shots to creatively portray Melania's childhood memory (played by Taylor Vau).

The challenges we faced were small yet critical; we needed to shoot this scene after the sun went down, but before Taylor's bedtime. We had two crane shots, a slider, and several close-ups to take care of before then.

Taylor Vau playing MJ



 We set up and rehearsed camera and crane movements as quickly as possible as we raced against the setting New Mexico sun.

Our first crane shot proved to be the trickiest as it was a on a dolly. As the dolly moves forward, the camera swipes down from the sky ending close to the ground. Any slightest bit of dirt on concrete will severly affect the shot- the area must be thoroughly swept.

The race of time was the fire that was keeping us moving. We finished all our shots just in time for bed : )

Rubio and Vau rehearse the scene

Levi Hart, editor & AC, sits in for lighting

: )

Behind the Scenes 4: Desert Wasteland

Script supervisor/set decorator Melisa Aragon prepares the set

Assistant Director Ronnie Stepney is ready to go

Day 6 on set of Desert Wasteland: "The 14th take wonder"

Our day consisted of a slider shot ending on a rack focus. This shot proved to be tricky because the timing of the actor's actions and camera movements needed to sync perfectly.

The essense of this scene lies in the sybolism behind the actions of the actors and camera. In this scene MJ (played by Jade Diaz) is giving herself to her boyfriend Steve (Kasey Seats) who later betrays her and destroys her life.

The slider moves across the scene, racking on MJ's actions, ending on a clock-which racks to a shirt that she throws ontop of. Sound confusing? Several rehearsals and shots later (16 total takes) we finally got it right. (Getting the shirt to land just right on the clock proved to be a challenge)

The scene flew by quickly and ended sweetly.

Rehearsals are a beautiful thing, never let them go to waste. : )

"Let's get this goin"

Carlos Rubio prepares the slider

Camera view of slider

Behind the Scenes 3: The Making of Desert Wasteland

Our break-in scene proved to be another challenging, fun set.

In this scene, we had two thiefs (actors Ronnie Stepney and Angelo Sanchez) "break in" M's house. We had originally planned on obtaining sound effects for the breakage of the window...

 But what fun and excitement would that be?! We were determined to film this as real as possible...

Carlos Rubio gluing the glass into place

We wanted to break glass for realism but not necessarily an actual window; we had to rack our brains and inventory for something we could glue to an open window and actually break.

Rubio loads the glue gun

Then it hit us- glass from a picture frame we had. We took the frame apart and hot glued the glass into the frame of the open window. The drawback here, folks, is you only get one shot to get it right. Unless, of course, you happen to have several picture frames at your disposal...

Reflections... are we inside or out?

Our counterstep? Two cameras rolling on both sides of the window breaking shot...

A brilliant idea!

Rubio ready for action

The begining stages of prop making...

Turning blocks of wood into "bricks"

Our next step in preparing the set was to make the props the thiefs were after...

To show that Melania is a trusted drug hustler of the cartel, we decided to make props that resembled "bricks" of drugs.

Levi Hart concentrates as he wraps the wood in duct tape

Fake money was the easy part, now we needed to figure out a way to make inexpensive props that look realistic.

  

Through our extensive research, we came to realize that most seized drug packages appear similar to bricks tapped and sealed up. (Hence the slang term "bricks" for drug packages)

 Our first idea was to get actual bricks and wrap them up in duct tape...Then we realized we had no bricks to tape up.

We began searching our inventory for anything that resembled a box that we could tape up. Fortunately, Rubio found planks of wood that could be cut down to the perfect size.

Duct tape came in real handy on set today

"Am I doing this right?"

We wrapped several blocks of wood with different colored tape. For an added effect of realism, Rubio got a small bag of mixed dark spices and taped it on top of the block of wood. Cutting an X across the taped spices gives the illusion that block of wood is full of the substanance peeking out.

Rubio adds an effect for realism

The finished products (minus the coffee mug)

 The Shoot!

Finally, it was time to shoot.

We began by filming the introduction as many ways as possible before we moved to the actual breaking in shot.

The anticipated moment we all had eagerly been waiting for came and went surprisingly fast. Apparently, our actor (Sanchez) was just as eager as we were!

The built up anticipation served us profoundly. Ahh, the serendipity. : )