How to make money on Film Hub with Jason Horton

Today I’m talking to Filmmaker Jason Horton.  Jason has a lot of credits both documentary and fiction features. He’s also a bit of a guru when it comes to online aggregators like film hub and indie rights. 

His tag line is "I make movies that make money” which is actually a bold claim at the micro budget end. So I wanted to dig into the methods of distribution he uses, his advice for low and micro budget filmmakers and some things to avoid. Enjoy!

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Transcript

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[Music] hi Jim here and you're listening to the honest filmmaker podcast career advice from people in the business this week I spoke to filmmaker Jason Horton Jason's got a massive IMDb credit list with tons of documentaries and feature films under his belt Jason also has the tagline I make movies that make money which is actually quite a bold CLA these days with micro and lowbudget filmm making so I wanted to dig into the methods Jason uses for distribution advice for filmmakers and also some of the things you should avoid enjoy so my first question is going to be uh distribution so you got a lot of films on your imdp a lot of films in a short reasonably short space of time what uh can you talk me through the different methods of distribution uh you've used yourself sure sure so I started making movies back in 2005 I think was when my first movie came out um and uh for probably the first 10 years of my career it was all pretty traditional like you know like that first movie I I was living in New Orleans I finished it and I just went online and started looking up like lowbudget Distributors because it was a small movie we made it for about five grand and I I didn't even know a market existed for five grand movies back then but anyway I just you know I looked it up I I found uh like maybe a dozen uh different distri rors that dealt with very small movies so I just started sending emails and uh one of them picked it up and that's pretty much how it went for about three years and then uh I started getting hired to direct lowbudget films and those guys kind of had their own distribution already set up so like they would come to me with a movie and be like hey we got this script uh and this they'll come to me in February like hey we got this script it's going to be on show eles in April you know so then make the movie you know so we did that and then I watched how they were doing distribution and I was like I should be doing this for myself so then I started you know I would make movies for my on my own in between movies for them and then about five or I guess six years ago now um I had just made the decision that I wasn't going to work for other people anymore and I'm I'm going to make my own movies and do my own distribution or my own traditional distribution and go from there and then the last five years I've predominantly went with either Indie rights which is a traditional distributor for the most part and then um I do filmhub which when they started they called themselves uh H I forget what they were calling themselves but you know they weren't quite an aggregator weren't quite a distributor but now they're they're saying they're a distributor so like you know that that line between what Distributors do and what aggregate creators do or it's all blurry you know so but that's pretty much and I haven't done a ton of straight up self-distribution you know like selling off my website or something like that I've done a little bit but predominantly it's either been with you know a distributor or a sales agent or you know a place like filmhub yeah and so leading nicely into filmhub because if you Google the words filmhub I guarantee you your name comes up after it because it's funny yeah like Guru on it yeah I buil I mean you know my face or my YouTube channel which you know I initially I was building it as helping filmmakers in the business of distribution and marketing and I just started that pretty much at the same time that like filmhub was kind of gaining popularity and I was personally just starting to see some real returns from filmhub so I was like like this is fantastic and even to this day I mean there you know we can get into some of the problems with them later but I still regardless of the problems regardless of the things that have changed with them as far as you know their paid teers or whatnot that a lot of filmmakers absolutely hate I still say with you know 100% certainty filmhub was a great thing for the independent film industry you know for filmmakers like myself like it like I'm not you know you know I'm not a you know a famous director I'm not a worldclass you know Quinton Tarantino Robert Rodriguez director I I am just a guy you know like working class dude like from Indiana from a trailer park you know no no money no connections and I can make movies for money that I can scrape together from you know a minimum wage type job go to a place like filmhub get him up on these platforms and actually make some money I mean I'm not I'm not rich I'm not living in a you know a giant mansion anything like that but I make my living and on making movies and you know places like filmhub or what allows me to do that so I absolutely love them you know like I I I understand people's problems but I but I I don't necessarily agree so so so for people who haven't used it before can you explain what filmhub is and how it works yeah so before it used to be you had as a filmmaker you had to find a traditional distributor and basically the distributor's number one job regardless people will say different things but really a distributor's number one job is to get a movie Into The Marketplace and as an individual we can't with very few exceptions we can't go to the big platforms and just upload our movies you know we can do YouTube uh you know Amazon has a thing where you can do it but for the most part the platforms that are paying 2btv you know or you know Myriad of others you can't get to them directly so you need you know a middleman to get there that's what a distributor was and then a few years you know after you know Distributors were happening and streaming networks were springing up um aggregators started popping up and these were people who were doing the basic job of a distributor and getting you placement but that is all they would do you know no marketing n nothing like that it's just pure placement you know so filmhub took this like kind of hybrid approach they basically took the idea of an aggregator and made it like you know uh added you know a tech company component to it created this algorithm and you know created an online platform where filmmakers could upload their movies and then all of these you know streamers you know whether it be you know 2btv Amazon all of them they sign up for it and they get the list of avails you know of movies that are available to them and they pick the movies that they want taking away that you know so now instead of having to go to an aggregator and pay up fromont money you can upload a movie for free to filmhub and just have it available to all these people now it doesn't guarantee you placement but you know like 95% of the movies that are uploaded there they get up on Amazon they get up on tub and then there's a bunch of others but so so it's basically that's what they are you know they it g it gives away for pretty much any filmmaker anywhere at any budget level to get their movies out and available to the public on platforms that do pay if if the movie takes off you know now it's not a guarantee you can get a movie up on Amazon and you can make pennies you can get a movie up on 2btv and make pennies you know it's still up to the movie and your marketing and the poster and all that to move units but you know filmhub in a in a pretty cool way democratized uh distribution yeah you know so and some people will say Well it also you know maybe it's partially responsible for flooding the market with you know less than Stellar content that's an argument for another day but I I I personally am a glass half full guy so I look at it as like you know when when I started you know like 20 years ago I there I couldn't be making the living that I'm making now you know I I would I mean like there's just there was nobody that would took all those things you know there was and the and the the Market's there for these lowbudget movies do do you think because you've got a lot of films I notice you got your sort of uh genre films but you've also got a lot of documentaries yes do is the reason you're able to make money because you've got a high quantity of stuff yes yeah yeah absolutely and and and you know so some people say you know it's a a quantity over quality thing but the the thing that makes because because just having the the quantity isn't necessarily going to do it for you somebody else could look at what I'm doing and say oh I can make 80 movies and I can make them you know as good as this guy and they go and do it and then they don't make no money the the difference isn't necessarily like I filmmakers get so caught up in objective quality you know like you know it has to look this way or be shot on this camera or you know whatever that be um like audiences if you know your audience and like what makes my documentary things work is like I know those audiences like I know them really well and yeah it was a little try and error to figure that stuff out but now when I make a documentary I know exactly what type to make I know exactly what questions ask the people like I know you know which ones you know like 60 70% of the time are going to be the ones that perform you know and every now and then I'm surprised and I take chances and stuff but yeah so it's not you know it's not just you know like a lot of filmmakers have this uh if you build it they will come mentality so like if I if I they they they don't like and and the the only reason that they do to these is like like I'll use the bigfoot documentaries as an example I've done a lot of Bigfoot documentaries and I I am making a very specific type of Bigfoot documentary I I usually make General subject stuff it's not very it's not uh uh you know woow woo I don't you know I don't say oh look here he is you know and and there's a certain segment of that audience that really latches on to those so like I can pretty much you know like if I if I'm having a bad quarter I can pretty much say all right I'm gonna do two big foot docks this month and and I know those are going to make at least a certain amount of money you know I mean I have and it's not just and some people would listen to that and say oh great I'm gonna go out and do bigfoots but but again it's because like you have to understand the audience like I'm not necessarily a Bigfoot of fishing out of I don't believe in it but I started you know I I I did one of them with a friend of mine and it it did well so I was like oh let's do another one and then why is this doing well and then I start watching the comments on these videos whether it be on Amazon itself or on YouTube and I started interacting with the people a little bit and now four years in I've probably done I don't know 10 Bigfoot things so like now I like I know that one pretty well and and I know how to make that perform yeah and do you have you do you enjoy those those films that you make or are you like I love all the genre stuff and I do the documentaries to pay the bills or do you actually are you enjoying making all that stuff so it's it's it's kind of two things at once um so I I've often said and I've said on my own channel that like the documentaries are kind of like my day job like it it's like my my floor now like I make you know like 12 of them a year year and those are what I make my living on and then like narrative features I've you know I've slowed that down to like one every other year and I do them for a little bit more money$100,000 or plus and if it fails or if it doesn't do so great I you know I got my my my you know my day job but the thing so it sounds like I'd say oh yeah I just you know I I don't love them but the thing about about me um and making movies is like I am I I love making movies I love the process of making movies whether it's narrative or documentaries like I love putting things together and like in documentaries there's kind of a cool thing where you're putting together all of these elements that you know really shouldn't or weren't made to tell a singular story but then they do or you know you make it do that and like so I like it I like that a lot and as far as the documentaries go I really like like I like learning about new things so like for like for example I mentioned the Bigfoot and I don't like I said I don't believe in Bigfoot but I am fascinated by the people that do and why they do you know um you know we did a couple of uh documentaries on uh uh Fighters uh we did one on it was like a pro wrestler a boxer and an MMA fighter and I am I don't watch Boxing I don't watch MMA I don't watch wrestling I'm not a fighter myself I'm totally not into it but but but their the passion that these people have for it like like is one of my favorite things I've worked on you know so that that that I really like that aspect of documentary film making but you know there's a you know there's a creative thing that you get from you know putting pen to paper and writing a script and then creating that script with actors so I don't think I'll ever completely give that up but as far as you know making a pragmatic living from from movies these days it's like you know the the marketplace is gotting tough um it's I I wouldn't say it's necessarily harder to make money with a narrative film but it's harder to make narrative films you know especially at a lower budget price you know like for for$10,000 I could make a documentary that looks high-end you know now with a narrative feature for$10,000 maybe not so much some people say they can make you know a million dollar movie for 10,000 but they can't it it just you know what I mean there's just more moving pieces and also has I get older I not that I don't like collaboration I do but you know I don't like the the problems that come with it sometimes and you know like the documentary thing even when I'm working with another director usually they just give me the material and then you know I produce and I edit it and you know and that's that's that we don't really go back and forth on the edits it's it's me so I don't have that I don't have anyone to answer to which I really like yeah yeah yeah and just uh going back to uh the way that filmhub works so um the different platforms have got different um charging mechanisms so advertising subscription all that kind of stuff yeah do you as a do you see that when you so you've uploaded your movie do you get to see all the platforms do you get to see if people are buying it uh streaming it uh you know what what do you actually get to see so filmhub has a dashboard which does give you some general like reporting like for the month but it's not like you know like if you have YouTube you can look at your analytics and you can tell exactly how many people watched and for how long you don't get that there you basically get this is how much money you made this month and and that's that's that's that and and some people you know like there's been a lot of you know fervor in the independent film Community people say well we need more information you know we should and and look I would love to have more information too but you know especially you know some of us older dudes have been doing it longer I mean back in you know 2005 we would get one report from a distributor you know like six months after the movie was out and that report would have just like a number at the Top This is how much money you made and that's it if you would if you're if you're lucky if you even get that you know like I so you know with filmhub I can like like pretty much on a weekly basis you get usually get some kind of update like you know Amazon and tub are the two biggest platforms and usually two three times a month those numbers for the month that you're in will update you know like Amazon tvod or uh uh 2B avod so like like this month we're like 7 Days in and my reports are starting to come in so I can tell like generally how much I making on Amazon and you know tub those are usually those are the ones you know every now and then there'll be others but but those are the ones that report the the most steady but yeah that's that that's that's pretty and I for me that's good enough yeah I I I don't get me wrong I would love real time analytics to be able to you know tell all my marketing's doing this and that but guys we've been making movies independently for you know 50 years and we never had that before we did okay we can we can do okay with that live without it live without it yeah yeah and so uh another thing I see often pop up is people put their movies up and then it takes a while for any money to come through so is that a common thing that people have to just get used to you just have to get used to and the thing is again you know in the old days you would give it to a distributor you know it would be like they would they'd usually pay a quarter behind so you know your movie would be released in January first month of q1 you know so you would not see that January money till uh like September the following year you know so like there would be the the quarterback plus maybe there was a delay in release like it could be like it would typically be about a year before you start seeing money after something's released unless you you know were one of those lucky few that got you know money up front or a buyout or something like that but that that just doesn't happen as much as it used to and really if you're making a movie for you know 250,000 or under you might as well just like write off the whole idea of getting an mg I'm not saying it's not possible it doesn't happen but it just doesn't happen much so just like like let that go but but yeah so like with filmhub now basically so you'll submit to them goes through their QC process which for me has always not been that long usually a couple weeks tops sometimes less than a couple of days um I've heard of people waiting you know a month for it is this a human or is it a is it an automated thing um I believe it's a mixture so I I do think somebody's watching it but I but just like with everything else it's becoming more and more automated so and I and they don't really publicly share their QC process they they say that people are looking at it but I mean they have they have over 15,000 filmmakers with multiple films I cannot imagine they have enough manpower for everybody to be looking at all that stuff I I just don't I don't see it and I know I know places like Amazon it's almost all third party at this point and it's all algorithm you know just like how does it how does it compare deliverables wise to a uh standard distributor delivery um I I find it easy although distribution delivery in the last five years has gotten pretty easy across the board unless like again once you get into like you know $250,000 or up budgets then you start opening up different distribution avenues like you know pay cable and stuff like that and then deliverables become more complicated but when you're dealing with a basic like you know streaming distribution DVD Blu-ray the the deliverables are pretty simple you know like you're basically looking at a you know an uncompressed or almost uncompressed you know video file trailer um the most complicated thing on filmhub is the poster sizes so they want like I think it's six different poster sizes and dimensions are very specific and you can't you know distort or squeeze things to make it fit so like you know I'm not a graphic designer by trade but I had to learn some basic graphic design to so that I could create the different poster sizes for them but now it's something I do and I mean I could I can do the different poster sizes and deliverables in about like 12 to 15 minutes per title myself where like the first time you do it it might take you an hour but like once you kind of get it down it's very quick it's like it's like it's like doing anything online it's so you know it's very kind of intuitive they have an interface type in your title upload your title you know upload your art it's I I I find it easy yeah but I do understand how somebody could be overwhelmed right at first with it especially if you're not prepared with your artwork and exact exactly like if you yeah if you didn't know the artwork thing I mean that could take you you know days to do if you if you didn't know it was coming and didn't have it prepared yeah yeah and and of that's the only thing that I've ever had issues with like in the early days was the poster size it took me a few to understand what they meant by don't distort or don't squeeze are you know and now now their big thing is fonts cuz like when you're delivering a movie to a a streamer online they are they're like the platforms are getting to be like Nazis about it like even if your poster is in like like tiny thumbnail size they still want that title completely like readable and like so they don't want like ornate fonts they don't want anything that's even slightly hard to read I mean I had a really nice one just a couple weeks ago that I I was I had I and I normally do my own art but I I paid for somebody to do this they did a really nice job it was a slightly ornate font but I I could read it fine in thumbnail I was like this is GNA be great and it didn't pass like it they didn't like it and they ended up using this really generic almost like comic Sands font which you know I found upsetting but it's like it's and and and people will blame filmhub but it's like film hub's dealing with 80 different platforms they're just a middleman they they're just they're not the uh what do they say uh don't don't shoot the messenger they're the messenger they're not the you know they're not you've got you've got to realize some people are going to be looking at on their phone you know it's all different shapes and sizes so you can't unfortunately it's got to be so clear and crisp and I think I maybe it was on one of your videos when you spoke to them about don't bother putting Festival rosettes all over all that sort stuff because it's just pointless yeah most and most streamers like it's like it's a rule they won't you can't do it and then you know like I have this dude that I worked with he's like well I go to Amazon all the time and I see they they have their Laurels I'm look people slip through but the G and and guys this kind of sucks but for independent filmmakers the rules are not the same for us as they are for Studio stuff yeah so like if if a studio does something and they get away with it great good for them but we can't necessarily get away with the same stuff like you know for example um I think Amazon's the ones that's really big about this you can't have like a URL anywhere in your movie that's leading to somewhere else you know so like sometimes in a documentary you might have somebody that say I'm so and so and I you know I created the website blah blah blah and if you put that website in their lower third they will fail that movie you can't put that up you know or uh you know some people will do the you know like the the Marvel thing that's gotten real the the in credit Stinger thing m and and sometimes I'm not saying it happens every time but sometimes they will reject films just for that one of their because what some filmmakers were doing was they would upload a 90-minute movie and then they would like tack on like you know 10 or 15 minutes of just like at the end hoping to get you know somebody that just walks away or just leaves it streaming So eventually they made a rule where like there can be nothing after the end credits and you know and sometimes when you're dealing with an algorithm you know they don't read that post credit Stinger is what it actually is so they might fail it interesting yeah yeah um and you spoke about so uh previously anyone uploads now you say they've got this sort of tiered payment system in do you use that or do you just carry on as usual I just carry on as usual um so the this is my thing on the paid system um so basically Bally they they and I understand why they installed it like I understand why people are mad about it because like you know if if you're somebody that signed up two or three years ago and you talk to your rep and they said yeah man you use us we're not exclusive um if you decide to to pull you just pull no problem and now they're like well if you pull you have to give us 99 bucks you know so and I understand people being upset about that but but what I mean basically what happened though you got Antion these guys got popular and a lot of filmmakers were putting up movies that to be blunt shouldn't be anywhere you know but the filmhub doesn't like discriminate so they put all this stuff up and you had all of these movies that were making nothing I mean like literally nothing like you know five 10 cents you know and they have hundreds of them maybe thousands and then what I have found and you know this will be not popular among some filmmakers but I find the people that c that make the most noise about these changes are the people who are putting up the content that probably shouldn't have been up there in the first place that really wasn't going to make any money e anyway and and now they're and now they're upset you know but anyway and and people were contacting filmhub like all the time like you know because back in the day you you know if you if they put you on a platform and you didn't want to be there you'd be like you know what I don't want to be on that platform and they'll take you down but now imagine you have thousands of these like rinky ding films that aren't making any money and you know once or twice a week you have the same individual filmmaker contacting you hey I don't want to be on stash anymore hey I don't want to be on hoopla anymore or hey you know what I I know I told you to take me down from hoopla but now I want you to put me back up yeah filmmakers can be a pain in the butt so and and so I think it just got to a point that they're like we have to do something to to call this so okay we're going to create a tiered system because I don't really think it's about the money I don't think they can be making that much money off of it I think it's a way to you know ease up on their Manpower yeah from from things that were problematic so now there is a tiered system and I I don't personally use it but I think it's $99 is the lowest tier and with that you can block channels so you can say hey don't distribute here don't distribute there and I will say this about that too they're there are filmmakers with legitimate reasons to not want to be on certain platforms I I'm not saying in general that that is a bad thing you know like there's a filmmaker in my group uh he he runs his own YouTube channel he has like like 150,000 followers he makes some good revenue and he wants to keep his YouTube content exclusive so for him you know like filmhub putting up on YouTube or stash or YouTube movies or whatever that could potten hurt his channel so he doesn't want that so he'll he'll pay the$99 as long as he's making enough revenue from the other channels yeah like I I get it in his case but basically he's a YouTuber you know like he's he's not a filmmaker in this I I I don't mean that in an insulting way but he's not a filmmaker in the same way that say I am yeah he's you know he's a you know he's making his money primarily off YouTube and it's material made for YouTube have you you know have you ever thought about all put a movie on YouTube and made I do oh yeah yeah yeah you YouTube YouTube is fantastic for independent uh film distribution right now for a lot of types of content now if you're if you have a movie that's about drugs or you know it's like you know hardcore sex or you know if the violence is very very extreme you might have trouble monetizing on YouTube but for like the documentaries and even a lot of my horror stuff like it's done really well I've had some of my biggest months on you YouTube you know either on my own channel or through Indie rights Channel they I think they have like 400,000 subscribers now I had a movie this summer uh made $5,000 the first month it was on their YouTube channel yeah and this and it came out so like that movie it was called uh I want to believe two it was a UFO documentary and it came out the same month on Amazon for rental um tub avod and YouTube and it made what I said it did 5,000 on YouTube it made another two grand in rentals on uh Amazon and did like three I think it was two or three thousand on avod on tub you know just in a month but the point being is like YouTube didn't kill those other platforms yeah you know they're they're they closed ecosystems so like filmmakers you know the the common distribution track you know 15 years ago was you would a movie would come out maybe maybe you would get a limited theatrical or something then you know you would hit uh the rental stuff you know the dying days of uh DVD or Blu-ray and then maybe you would get a paid cable deal then after the paid cable deal You' do like paid rentals or vice versa and then after that window then it would go onto the subscription based channels and then dead dead last after the movie was dead like three or four years later it would go to like like YouTube or you know the free stuff and that is just not how regular distribution goes for smaller movies now like if if your if your movie is under 250,000 and you don't have like a marquee name and I don't just mean like a recognizable name I mean like a marquee name the distribution is all basically the same it's all it's it's it's most it's predominantly streaming it's predominantly Amazon tub and YouTube there are others but like those are those are the main three and you're going to get to those with pretty much any distribution Avenue you go to You're G to be on the same platforms making the same money that so that's which is another reason why I like film Hub because there kind of no must no fuss you don't have anybody to deal with there's no interpersonal politics it's just it's you it's you and the upload yeah and do you think uh doing that does that then put more onus on you to to do promotion for your films it absolutely does and and here's here's another thing so again 15 years ago there were plenty of Min major Distributors that actually did do some their fair share marketing some but even back then like for smaller movies nobody markets them they say they do they say they do this this and this it's almost never worth the fees that they charge and it almost never moves the needle and today I would say it's almost completely gone like unless you get like a major deal with a major distributor or somebody that focuses like there's a distributor called Terra films that does just horror movies and so they have this little marketing machine with them and you know if you have a horror movie with them you you that that marketing might be worth it but generally speaking as an independent filmmaker making a movie Under 250,000 you are going to have to Market it yourself you're you you're you're going to have to or or hire somebody to do it distributor is not going to do it and the ones that and like I said the ones that say they do they're mostly full of yeah yeah horror director um is is it horror because you love horror or is it horror because you know that's got an audience and it will sell well I wouldn't even call myself a horror director I I've done a lot of horror movies but if you actually look at my my CV um and not counting the documentaries of directed about 25 features and I would say six or seven are horror movies MH you know so I I I like making horror movies a lot like I I like the blood and I like the monsters I I think I like uh I like the heightened emotionality of it the like life and death Stakes of it you know it's like I I feel like you don't really meet a person until their life is really in Jeopardy kind of thing so like I like that about it um but I like all kinds of stuff um so but as far as self-producing I I probably will I probably stick in horror yeah and and do you what about the actual sellability of it do you think because I hear it a lot that it's I don't I don't I don't think that's necessarily true anymore um I'm not I I think there will always be a market for good horror you know and and I but I think the it's a misnomer that you know you're going to put out a horror movie cheap and be able to sell it well like actually right now I have a friend that's doing these um he's doing these uh like uh Beach uh comedies like like runchy like PG-13 you know no major nudity like sex comedies and you know they make them for four or $5,000 super cheap and he's cleaning up on them like he does horror and that and like his Beach comedies are like astronomic astronomically higher than horror um I I think with horror there's just it's it because of that old adage and like hey we can just go do a horror M that's what that's everybody's first stop so there's so much of it and there's so and there's so much and it's so hard to do a good a good horror movie you know like people say oh like horror is easy just do but like to actually craft a a scene and make it suspenseful that's tough like to to actually just go out and shoot a you know a talking head drama there's not a lot you know there there's more mechanics to a to a horror movie like physical mechanics and I I think that makes it hard for you know newer and experienced filmmakers to make money off of them so you talked about a lot about the positives so what are the downsides of filmhub what are the reasons you would say it might not be right for people so uh first one I kind of talked about the art before but you know you know I talked about filmhub democratizing everything and making it so anyone can upload but the truth is is if you don't have some base level like Proficiency in film deliverables or editing or like you don't understand what a bit rate is or you don't understand what an overcompressed file is or if you don't know how to fix you know close capturing or how to pay to get those fixed or if you don't know how to create this artwork that's going to pass their quality control without you know so if you can't do those things it's not for you it's not just it's not YouTube you know where you can just you know upload and upload any old thumbnail and it's fine you know like there actually is you know a slight barrier to entry there you know um second is people need to understand I wouldn't even say so much this is a negative as it's just how it is people need to understand that like we're not living in an instant society as far as you put something up and you get paid the next month you know so like if you put something up there you know like on Amazon for example Amazon pays on a 90day delay then they pay every month after that but the first time you put a movie on Amazon whether it's through filmhub or yourself or any distributor if your movies get released on January 1 you're not going to see that January money till February March April probably into of may you know before that money will be released you know so there's that you know so if you put a movie up on filmhub like it it might like on average you're probably going to wait somewhere between four and seven to nine months before you see your first money depending on the channel that it's on and how long it takes to get there because that's the other thing too like I said you upload the film Hub that goes through their QC process which is supposed to only take a couple of weeks or less but sometimes can be a little bit more then it's available on their platform but then it could take it could take months for platforms to pick it up because that's all on their schedule so there might be some months where Tu is just like snapping stuff up right and left and there might be a month where they're not you know like I I've had titles get selected and get up on tuby in like a matter of days or weeks and I've had others that have taken months you know one of one of my first movies I put up on filmhub this was way back in the day uh 2009 18 or 19 and uh it called monsters in the woods and uh I think it was on filmhub probably for a year before it actually got on to tbtv yeah now this was way back then I haven't had anything take that long since but that that one did you know and then this year around the summer things were slowed down for a little bit and I had I had two or three titles I think that took almost three months from upload before they were up anywhere so of course you're not going to get paid for that and then you have the 90day delay on Pay Plus that so you're looking at you know six months before that money starts to roll in so you need to understand that yeah um and then the other thing and this is something that that is a negative about them that I just I can't really defend it's just what it is and I've learned to live with it their communication has never been great um you know like they will get on an initial like call with you to explain their thing and they're pretty good about that but then after you you know start uploading and stuff I mean even before the tiered system you know it it would take sometimes three four days to hear back from them you know email support or chat support sometimes it's less but you know like I I get pretty decent support because I'm a pretty regular uploader I make pretty good money through there and you know I have the channel thing I've interviewed the CEO on my channel so like I get decent you know customer service from them but a lot of people don't and even me mine's not mine's not instant I mean if I if if I have a problem there and you know I email them on Monday I mean chances are I'm not GNA hear nothing before Thursday yeah you know you know okay so there so there's all of that and and and I hear a lot of filmmakers keep referring to themselves as customers and this isn't necessarily a customer service you know that this is a this is a really particular like skilled service you know but they're not like like I don't know work for you yeah they don't work ex they work with they don't work yeah they don't work for you they work with you and like a lot of filmmakers you know have this you know they work you know for me attitude and that's that's just not well they're not going to they're not going to get customers like that they're going to be okay yeah yeah true um and it's a far cry from the situation where you've the old model where you've gone to a distributor or a sales agent and you kind of can feel like they work for you because you're paying all these marketing fees and sales fees and stuff sort of get even more frustrated nothing's happening um totally that system um talked about filmhub what about Indie wrs have you used them what do you think of them yeah I have uh five or six titles with Indie rights um I I like them quite a bit um they're like I for me and the reason I keep going back to them um they're they're super transparent and honest you know and like I said a little bit earlier like distribution these days streaming distribution it's pretty much the same wherever you go you're going to be on the same five six channels you're going to make the same money on those five six channels regardless of who gets you there so at the end of the day to me the most important thing is like trustworthiness and reputation and they have that on both ends you know and the only people that I've ever heard say anything bad about them are people that just don't really understand how distribution works or they like overinflated their idea of what their movie should have made or didn't understand the market like God they must be ripping me off that that's one attitude that really makes me out of filmmakers in general whether it be Indie rights or filmhub or any other distributor the that they jump right to I'm getting ripped off because like here's the the hard truth is like movies in general independent movies in general are not making much money they're not you know what we hear about all these you know like you know the golden gooses that are and so everybody thinks their movies is worth this and they're they're not there's so many people making movies and the quality is getting better and better as equipment gets cheaper and it's cheaper to make them and you can do more stuff with technology so the market is more and more saturated you know the the movies I'm making now you know they're not worth the same money that they were four years ago like they're not God yeah I mean when I think back to what they were worth in the late 90s to what they wor now yeah that's it's painful because it's the same amount of effort obviously you're not you know you'd be filming on film um so so something I did miss out actually which we should talk about and it'd be interesting to compare this with Indie rights and filmhub what what do filmhub take where where do they how much money do they take out of your money that comes through and what about Indie rights what's the sort of difference in those deals um they're actually exactly the same uh 20% right and that's off the top that's off the top yeah yeah yeah yeah okay and and and no no no sales fees no anything else now with filmhub they do have that tiered system where you pay so much a month if you want and you know you can get extra customer service or you can block channels or you get a dedicated project manager what you know whatever it is but you know certain paid Services right and so I understand correctly with Indie rights do they then go direct to Distributors they've not got a platform have they they kind of act like a sort of sales yes yeah yes yeah they they are they have direct uh contacts direct deals with like 95% of the platforms they put up with now there are now you know real Distributors will subcontract certain platforms like I I don't I couldn't tell you off the top of my head what you know any rights subcontracts or what they don't I know you know for a fact that they direct deal with Amazon and tub and probably most of their others you know like for or like YouTube for example they've built up their own YouTube channel over the past couple years like I said they have 400,000 subscribers so I think they mostly put stuff there but a couple of years ago they were licensing titles to other multi-channel networks on YouTube I I had a uh the actually the I want to believe one uh through an MCN through Indie rights made a few grand on one month there but yeah so but yeah for the most part they'll have their direct deals and like filmhub they're they're dealing direct I don't think they're subcontracting stuff out thanks for listening if you want all the behind the scenes information that's going to help you with a career in a creative industry then 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