The Honest Filmmaker
Are you about to leave Uni with a filmmaking degree? Or want to change careers and work in a creative industry? We want to give you the tools you need to enter the real world of production or freelancing. Honest and open career advice from people in the business.
We also talk to those in other creative industries to discuss their careers, the potential cross over with film production and practical tips for a successful and fulfilling career.
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The Honest Filmmaker
Using Data & Statistics to be a Better Filmmaker with Stephen Follows
#filmmakingpodcast #filmpodcast #movieproduction
This week on the podcast I talk to educator, producer and film industry data researcher Stephen Follows. Stephen has produced over 100 short films and two feature films, he also co runs Cat Snake Story Agency. He's taught at all the major film schools and specialises in film industry data.
I chatted to Stephen about some of the insights that film industry data brings him, especially in relation to indie filmmakers. We also talked about Stephens recently released Horror Movie Report which is a comprehensive case study of the horror genre, looking at data of every horror movie ever made, it looks at development, production, distribution and profitability. I asked Stephen about how Indie filmmakers can use data to improve their movies and how they finance, produce and sell them. I asked about any surprises from the insights of his report, if film festivals are worth entering and we chatted about why i HATE the term 'elevated horror'. Enjoy!
The Horror Movie Report: https://stephenfollows.com/p/the-horror-movie-report
Check out the re-release of Jim's first solo directing feature The Witches Hammer - out now on amazon
https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/video/detail/B0F235F4T8/ref=atv_dp_share_cu_r
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HONEST, OPEN ADVICE ABOUT YOUR FILMMAKING CAREER
Are you about to leave Uni with a filmmaking degree? Or want to change careers and work in a creative industry? We want to give you the tools you need to enter the real world of production or freelancing. Honest and open career advice from people in the business.
We also talk to those in other creative industries to discuss their careers, the potential cross over with film production and practical tips for a successful and fulfilling career.
Join the community: http://www.thehonestfilmmaker.co.uk
hi Jim here and you're listening to the honest filmmaker podcast career advice from people in the business this week I'm speaking to educator producer and film industry data researcher Steven follows Steven's produced over a 100 short films and two feature films he also co-runs cat snake story agency he's taught at all the major film schools and specializes in film industry data so I chatted to Steven about some of the insights that data brings him especially in relation to indie film production and we also talked about Steven's recently released horror movie report which is a comprehensive case study of the horror genre uh he looks at data of every horror film ever made and it looks at development production distribution and profitability enjoy so um let's start off tell me a bit about your route into film uh well when I was a a teenager I knew I wanted to do two things I wanted to do film and thinking and I didn't know what either of them meant and uh everyone said go to university and study thinking and then just do this film thing on the side so I did the opposite because you know pathological demand avoidance so I went to film school and I was a producer and I did bits of writing and set up a production company after that and then did short films that evolved into viral videos and adverts and that company still exists and I I still run that uh with a my business partner there's about 10 of us and we we' now evolved into a company that raises money for Charities using storytelling so that is TV aits but it's also strategy and stuff but over the sort of 20 years that took to evolve and change I was moving further and further away from film film and I like film and I like the film business and I like filmmakers so I decided to sort of do the thinking part in film and uh so I maybe years ago something like that I set up a Blog where I was just sharing things I thought was interesting and I was helping friends with their business plans and all that sort of stuff and then it sort of grew from there and I started to get asked to do bits of number crunching I found causes that I believed in to do with gender equality and other forms of inequality that I could bring my skills to um a couple years ago Guinness World Records reached out and I now work with them which is the dream gig they just the the Uber Geeks and I'm an Uber geek within one field and uh it's a match made in heaven and so I write some of the tiny parts of the book each year and uh yeah and I've also had a route through teaching as well during when we was setting the production company up we didn't have any money didn't make any money for years so I used to teach the Met film school because it was on it was at heing Studios where we were and um so I have a sort of a hand in education the whole way through which is sort of an a mix of all those things so yeah it's it's kind of strange my mom doesn't understand what I do and every now and then I'm in I'm in the news or mention something and she's like why why did they come to you I don't so I don't know if that that's the Potted history I don't know if that's enough detail or too much no that is enough because I think looking at your website right you got a very not a strange career but you've got you got eclectic that's a good word for it um that's a kind word yes it's a kind word and obviously data comes up and like all this research you do and stuff so does that how much does that inform the creative side now for you it's great because it's a great question because I I actually love the interplay of the two so I like two things I like figuring out how things work and I like then using that or helping other people use that and so almost everything I'm doing I'm doing I'm either bringing order to chaos or chaos to order and it's important for me to know what I'm doing in each space so for example on my story agency we are doing a lot of systematic stuff understanding audiences but then we use creatives and human writers and you know we're not using Ai and things that to write um and so uh it is that interplay and it's the same with the film industry it's the business of Art and business is about figuring something out once and doing it a billion times and art is about destroying everything every time and so how do use sustainably create sustainably being a career or being an IP or whatever or even just a company that interplay that you can figure out quite a lot of detail what did work but you can't ever know what will work beyond the fact that it's it's aligned somewhere from those two points is the joy that keeps it going for me so I like that people most people don't understand enough about the data and so I'm I mean I was teaching in NYU a few years ago and someone asked me what what are you teaching there and I was like well I was teaching um filmmakers how to use data and lawyers how not to and it's exactly that I would walk from one classroom where I I'd start with like screenwriters and they would be like I just want to do this I like well you know that's never worked or like maybe you should look at this you know Trend or whatever and then I'd walk across to one of the other buildings and the lawyers would be like what's the formula for this and I'm like there isn't one you have to find someone you believe in and back them and I then would go home and be like that was a great day because I didn't resolve anything nice nice um so thinking about uh Indie filmmakers specifically um how could How could an indie filmmaker use data to help them well I think the best thing to think of because when we talk about data a lot of the languages deliberately or at least unintentionally some of it's unintentionally standoffish it's like well you didn't do maths you don't want PhD you don't even think of yourself as a scientist and you know we use phrases like big data and actually there isn't much data in the film industry I have friends who are astrophysicists who laugh at how little we know about the film industry and they're studying the early universe and they're like yeah we got loads of data um so it's let's it is data and data is important but fundamentally what we're talking about people who've who've you know trod the the path we want to go down and what's happened to them you know what are the desire lines that they've done you know like the lines go that go through fields or whatever that everyone's walked on why is everybody sort of swerved at that point uh and when you get there you realize oh there was a hole and you're like okay well if I could have seen that in advance maybe I would have done a different thing so data is the correct word but I would also I would prefer to frame it as look what's gone before and what happened and then understand what that means for you and I'm I'm still sort of forming it into a into a theory and it's not going to be a Theory of Everything But the closest I've got to so far is that you need to know everybody's expectations which is entirely based on the past and then you need to in each case decide whether you're going to to deliver or subvert and you can do either like in every case and most of the things you should probably deliver because you can't change everything you can't deliver a you know a a 23 minute feature film but if you just deliver everything they expecting the very best it's going to be is derivative uh but if you choose carefully where to subvert I'm going to subvert the casting here the title the feeling I'm going to subvert the distribution methodology whatever it will be that's where you really can find your voice your passion you can make money art whatever the you know the thing you're trying to make is so the key is not to have your head in the sand and just make whatever you want to make it's look what's gone before and then say to yourself I am delivering on that path what's the bank or I am subverting that path and I'm fine with it I think that's it's just being conscious I think rather than being an automaton following a formula yeah it's a tough one because you are maybe you leave University I'm going to change the world with this film and I'm going to ignore everything that's come before and I'm going to do something special and people are going to believe in it and I'm going to get an agent from it etc etc but then what happens is you make a film and you go to to a sales and distribution market and they go well it's not really it's not a copy of this thing that we know how to sell so sorry tough luck you're not going to sell it anywhere or worse they give you a deal or worse they give you a deal and it doesn't S it yeah screw you over um so it is tough to get that line in the middle isn't it between something that's sellable and that people actually want to watch but it's it's also got originality in it and that you enjoy working on um it's worth saying out loud like if you're going to follow the rules to the letter and try copy everything that's worth don't get into film it doesn't reward that well it's really hard work it's not that's not a reliable you know go become an accountant or I'm not sure what people do and they follow the rules because I'm not one of them but like I I I'm not saying do everything that everyone else have done before but at the same time if you like say exactly as you just said I'm gonna be this Aon class there's a queue and it's like those people that that climb Everest and they're like I'm about to get to Everest Peak and then there's this big queue of people you're like yeah there's lots of people that have had that model you're not the first one to have invented this yeah definitely so so all right so then based on what you know and I know I'm trying to get a a an answer out of something that's a much bigger question here so I appreciate that but I want an answer is I'm an indie filmmaker genre what what genre should I make what's going to be the best one for me to make uh to make a return or to actually see anything well there there's two answers to that one and one is the unhelpful honest one and then the other one is the uh more helpful but kind of so that the unhelpful one is whatever you want like ultimately it is a industry of passion and if you're going to make something cynically you're not going to do it very well or even strategically you're not going to put the stupid amount of time in energy into it and I I get that question a lot sometimes when there's a project that I've done for my blog or whatever that's taken a lot of time and people are like why did you do that I'm like I don't know it was fun you know some people do Lego I do this and if you to say to someone if you just try and force someone to pay someone to make Lego pieces you can't afford to do that you need someone who's obsessed and so you need to find you need to make whatever you're obsessed with it's going to be ridiculously stupidly hard and so you need to have that little dose of passion and naivity and and drive so that's the first answer the second answer which is probably closer to what you're trying to get at which is that if you know nothing else like if the only piece of information you have is the genre then horror is the one to go for it's the one that well of of films that reach cinemar which is everything every piece of data can be uh like cut up and you know you looking at this time period or this clatter ification and anything what we include as a feature film uh affects things and so if we were to include everything that somebody thought was a feature film maybe horror would do far worse because it's more likely people have picked up an iPhone gone into the woods with a couple of friends and said we've made a film and it's a horror film than they've gone in and said we've made a western because of the nature of the budget but if we look at films that reach the professional realm which we can use as a proxy of going to Cinemas then horror is the one that most frequently returns and also has the chance of going stratospheric because it's more likely to be on a lower budget like Avatar 2 is never going to double its money it can't there's not enough money but um if you make a film like terrify 3 it's possible to double the money you put into it yeah absolutely see I could be really clever with the editing here and just reduce all your answers to one word I go definitively said horror that's what you said um I mean you wouldn't be the first and also the film industry is full of people telling stories about how they tell stories so yes I'd rather you didn't but I wouldn't be shocked if you did undermine your brand personally right exactly yeah okay good I feel safer then not going to do that um so uh when you've looked at indie film is there anything that you that surprised you or that you think would surprise people in that uh information that you found that's a really good question um let's have a think I think that when you try and figure out a model or you not literally just an algorithmic formula but you try and work out what works it's amazing how much breaks whatever model you come up with and uh I know there are films like Napoleon Dynamite which is uh a film that all the analysts who write recommendation algorithms hate there isn't an algorithm there isn't a recommendation algorithm on the planet that can tell you if you're going to like Napoleon Dynamite or not even if it knows everything you've rated before it's it's a sort of like it's Mar might but on you know random and there's that's the extreme one but there's lots of films like that and I I think it's really pleasing that we it's more matchmaking I've made a film there is an audience out there but it's not as simple as put it on the conveyor Bel there is the pipeline and then the audience will watch it and they will give it the vote um which is always the way that the world Works partly have convenience but also we have a single IMDb score and we say that is the score the audience gave it or rten tomatoes or whatever and actually what is the audience the audience isn't a group of people it's different like in every film it's different and you can see the same film and the same context with your mate and disagree about whether it was any good I've had huge fun like I say arguments probably debates with people about this watching the same movie and coming out with totally different Impressions and um oh yeah we saw so a group of my friends and I we were at can number years ago and we saw Fox catcher which is the Steve Carell film about the wrestling it's a true story about the American wrestling team and the coach was weird and he shot one of the chanam tan in this film now there was four of us and we all had different information about the film I knew it was about wrestling but that was it someone else knew that there was a shooting someone knew else knew the whole story I can't remember anyway there were all four of us were had a different piece of information and I thought it was incredibly boring because I just was like it was just a slow burn and I didn't know where it was going and then suddenly out of nowhere someone got shot and I was like what the hell was that the people who knew there was a shooting was incredibly tense because they didn't know who was going to get shot when or like it could have happened at any point and then the people who knew the story Inside Out were kind of gripped by the performances and so we all walked into this screening not knowing any no not basically not anything but knowing one piece of information more than the other and we walked out having had fundamentally different cinematic experiences I couldn't tell you about the performances because I was just like why is this so boring and and so and so one of us I saw a boring drama someone else saw a captivating drama someone else saw a thriller and it was the same movie sitting next to each other and that really highlighted to me that there isn't like a truth there is a group of people that you need to find and is different every film so so with that in mind audience should Indie filmmakers find that audience before they make the film and how do they do that so the film industry itself as a group of people is a load of um middle people like middle men women who you have to rely on and sometimes they're screwing you and sometimes they're helping you and sometimes they're doing both but fundamentally the relationship is between you and the audience it's just that those people are a necessary function you don't own a Cinema you don't know how to get you know a Kazakhstan distribution agreement or whatever so fundamentally audience relationship is the key one and if you can sidestep as many of those things as possible whether it's through patreon substack whether it's having you know selling direct whatever then that's great you may not be able to reach the certain Heights and certainly you won't be able to get a sort of the scale of Cinema advertising or release but the more you can build a sustainable connection with your audience and understand what they want and they understand you the more more you've taken control of your entire career and but at the same time if you can't cut out all those middle people they are there and even if they're wrong which they're often not because it is their job they're not doing it to screw you um then they there is there is information if they're telling you to change the title of your movie there's a reason and they may have bad suggestions but they have identified a real problem so if you can s side step all the white middle people brilliant if you have to please any of them make sure you try and understand what they actually one and why might be that they're lazy it might also be that they just know that calling it the table is not going to sell and they they haven't got they haven't got the time and they can't be bothered to explain to you so they've come in and said like everybody dies that's the new title and you're like no that's crap but spend the time to go okay but how did you get there why why and then they're like well it needs to be clear it's a horror film and like all right well give me three days and I'll come back to you with 10 options with that and then you get the title you like the killer table the table where everyone dies I don't know clearly that's not my fault but um yeah so I think understanding those people cuz you you can't argue with them because they just want to do a deal with you yeah yeah yeah good advice good advice so another I'll make another question that's probably not got a simple answer to don't worry they're my specialties yes um film festivals Indie filmmakers is it worth it it's a lot of money you've got to pay loads of cash out to get into them um when you if you you're lucky enough to get into them what does that actually mean for you you know financially um what what's your opinion on that or what have you found from that well I mean they serve an interesting function and and a set of functions they are a discovery methodology um for you know people discovering that your film exists and seeing it they're a validation methodology you know you when the audience Vote or people talk about it they also serve as a way of us meeting each other uh in an international business everyone going to a small number of festivals or if you're in a local community or sub genre going to Festival that is the key festival for that thing will really help you embed in that World um and they also Pro provide knowledge because if you go to a market and you walk around it you're like oh that's how they sell movies I get it and it's really depressing but it's also really interesting because you get to sort of Le so they serve multiple functions and where you are in your career will um you know will dictate what's important to you I think the the myth of like you go I mean I I grew up people telling me about the the Indie movies of the 90s and the the template I was told was that you make this amazing movie on credit cards or paid for by dentists you go to Sundance you get into Sundance it's like amazing screening and then you hold the negotiation in the lobby with all of the Distributors offering deals and you don't leave without a deal and and like that may have happened on two or three films but it didn't really work then and now there are about 10 times as many movies and I don't know comparably many more routes to mark it and also that relied on you getting to Sundance like looking at the odds I mean the number of people that submit to Sundance is in the tens of thousands like the odds you getting in is next to zero and then the odds on it like how many films that Sundance are play and then never heard of again so it's not that you shouldn't have that dream it's just that that isn't plan a right I need to know that's not your or at least that's not your only plan and so thinking about what plan B would be be it' be like okay well I need I do need to do networking well that's okay to go to festivals and I'm going to meet people that maybe 10 years later I'm going to form real careers with where we all go up fine I can do that um I'm going to learn how the film business works well you only need to go to one or two once or twice like you should go to more if you want to and then you'll learn more but the first time let's say the first time you go to the can market and you walk around that will do 90% of the learning you never need to do uh of getting the framework in your head the Paradigm um and then about meeting people you got to reup those relationships you they've got to have a reason for meeting you if you meet them every year and tell them you're making a film and you never make a film you're you're teaching them the wrong lesson so breaking down why you're going why you're submitting your film what are the odds uh then you can be a bit more rational um but it's it's kind of sad that there's no point in the process where somebody takes things off your hands and says don't worry son get in the car we'll take you there it doesn't work like that ever everything is a right yeah you're right and I think I guess the thing I'm finding with uh now everything's uh for indie films you know it's it's mostly straight onto streaming is you get told take the Laurels off the poster nobody cares the the sales of Distributors no not interested unless it's a big one of the big five or how even then I I see posters on the tube and they say can film festival and they've got like a sad woman on the cover and I don't think that's selling anything more than at the the kurone or the Everyman or something small I I can't test this ever but I think winning can is functionally irrelevant if because if it's a good film anyway like if you let's assume which is not always the case the best the win the one that wins can is the best film it's gonna get good reviews and it's gonna get good word of mouth I wonder whether for the audience it does nothing now it may have helped for attracting Distributors getting a better deal like there's many good reasons and also we should re celebrate great art but when it comes to distribution I'm not sure winning can helps and so anything down from that which is a way of saying everything um I mean winning an Oscar qualifying Festival certainly adds changes the game now you are qualifying but it's not the goal in and of itself yeah it's a tough one isn't it because you for me if I put a film on we watch a film I wouldn't go oh I've picked this film because it one can I'd go oh this one yeah we'd watch it and i' go oh this one can and then we'd make a judgment based on you go oh yeah I can see well that one can or you go oh yeah it's really good um can you imagine that I mean like I think that that test is great that test of finding a civilian who you probably in a relationship with CU two filmmakers that's complicated and but if you're if you find a civan and ask them to describe your movie back to you or describe why they chose a movie yesterday I promise you it's really depressing it's kind of like that had Judy Dench this one's a thriller that one looks kind of sexy and like you have put your heart and soul into it but the thing is that it's not that they don't care about you all the nuance and all of the art that you're going to do it's that that's not that's not going to help get it get them in the cinema once they're sitting down right now you're in charge you're in charge of what they see and here for two hours like you're a God to them but getting them in that's got to be tailored to them and the way they speak and you're right I can't imagine I can't think of anyone in my life that would be enough for me to say go see this it one can and then stop talking what I'd probably do is and I love it and it moveed me and this and that but can itself would do nothing I just sort of look at it and sort of shrug slightly yeah i' maybe even I'd be cynical because I imagine it to be a certain type of movie oh okay so it's going to be long and it's going to I might like I might love it but who knows um so so talking about uh distribution um getting your film out there what what plat is there any info on what platforms are the most beneficial for indie filmmakers or is there any sort of methodology there so quickly I don't know if this is better or worse but you know 30 years ago there would only have been a single route there were set Windows of release that happened at certain times and you sort of got on the single conveyor belt and that was it now there's a myriad of options but they keep changing and so there was one year where at Sundance Amazon bought almost everything and then next year they bought nothing and like they don't know what they're going to do and so you can't rely on a single named platform that's not to say anything good or bad about Amazon that's just to say they are they change their minds and they learn things and they're still figuring out um and also new things come up and But ultimately it's the same audience they just they want things conveniently in a way they like so I I would Lo to give any specific recommendations partly I don't know which are the best ones but also even if I did it would be different in six months um I think the point is think about your audience think about where they are talk to recent filmmakers I mean that would be my number one tip would be find someone who's just ahead of you in the journey and and email them or call them some people most people might ignore you might not but my experience with filmmakers is first of all they love to gossip so if they do hate their distributor get them on a zoom take them for a drink whatever they'll tell you um but also they will they're very generous generally with their information like it's bit self-aggrandizing but also fundamentally kind I think because they're like well I wish I'd known this and I wish I'd done that and also you're networking and you're not competing you're just how many filmmakers are you actually competing with for the things you care about so you care about funding well they're not films aren't funded by a single person that will go to one or the other you're competing by being picked up by Distributors I mean you'd have to be exceptionally unlucky to have had another film made at the same time for the same film market so the three-month window that you get them to finish they've Al got a comparable rival and you lose a deal from that rather than taking both and then also for the audience that's not really so you're not competitors and you if anything you can really support each other so I would suggest reaching out to uh past filmmakers and experienced execs and having uh yeah I mean one actually one of the things I did I from my recent horror movie report I looked at the correlation between experience and profitability on future films and I found that for writer producers being a first time creative in that in that realm first time meaning making a feature film so you could have done TV whatever had functionally no difference like it's a firsttime director means nothing it means nothing good means nothing bad it's like saying a blonde director it's like I okay but the one place it did make a difference was that when there was an experienced exec producer on the project it seemed much more likely to be one of those Mega hits now I don't know if they're good at picking the projects like they they like oh this good I'll jump on it or whether they're transforming the projects you know this is some things you should do here's some people you should call or it's a bit of both I'm sure they're not coming on the average random projects but at the same time I'm sure they make a difference but an experienced EXA producer is one of the few things that actually if you look at experience actually correlates with better success outcomes yeah okay so so since you brought up the horror report are there anything anything that popped out of that that surprised you in particular about horror I mean the divers of horror was huge and and it's not that I didn't know that but just like it's I think we sometimes have narratives in the industry that like oh horror is a group of people like they are the horror fans or they are the horror filmmakers but when you go and meet that group of people it's so diverse in so many ways and the kinds of films and the kind of experience like even like I mean I saying that I don't like horror films that's fine everyone's able to say what they want but it's it's not much far off saying I don't like films it's it's what you're probably saying as I don't like feeling adrenaline while watching films like or something like that maybe adrenaline is not the right one cor I'm not sure but it's it's there's a particular type of experience but that is such a huge deep complex place whether you're I mean on the one hand you've got snooty terms like elevated horror like the lighthouse and then the other end you've got equally bad but for different reasons term torture porn by sore and hostile and everything in between mon the movies and like this we're exploring what it is to be human and so to put it we have to have labels in life but to put it under the banner of horror I kind of I kind of feel like I should have written and I kind of have but put it under one Banner uh like this is a type of horror report this type of horror report like it's such a huge deep vast space creatively and production wise that when people are like oh that's a genre film and then they move on you're like there's a world there like in Men In Black where they got that little thing around the cats thing that's like a whole world it feels a bit like that when people say horror yeah and I hate the words elevated horror I hate them so much because I think it's really uh it's sort of condescending to people who make regular horror which can be really fun um and it also I think it's a bad thing for students to hear as well because it makes you think that there's something wrong with a just a good oldfashioned horror film you've got to make it you've got to make it a certain way or a it's also come from the wrong place it's come from a snooty place of it's a sort of false logic I'm a I'm a a Critic who likes art I have somehow inexplicably liked a horror film now I could update my image of horror films on myself but instead I shall come up with a term this is not like the others uh like it's just I mean I understand it and it is also a consequence of diversification you know like in the 1950s there was only the pop chart there was popular music and now we have much more subvariants and that's all good and I'm slightly ribbing critics here and I don't think they're all just snooty but at the same time it doesn't come from a good place in the same way torture porn doesn't come from a good place it comes from a dismissive place which is sometimes appropriate sometimes not um but yeah I I I really bristle at the phrase as well yeah definitely um and looking at again looking at horror cast so are there any insights around so my methodology in the past has been I go I get horror make a horror movie I get a cult star you're going to tell probably tell me this is all wrong but I go for a cult so the last one's got a doctor who in it right so I go for a doctor who my theory is right I'm going for something that a lot of people will recognize that may have some fan base with it and that is also traveled uh internationally rather than somebody from a soap in the UK maybe who's only known in this country and that that audience wouldn't necessarily like that genre does that make sense yeah yeah yeah first of all don't worry partly because I I can't disprove anything and but second of all that that makes it sound very Sound Logic to me um certainly I think the traveling and like working with someone who's thinks they're a big star because they're big over here would be all the pain of working with them and none of the advantage outside your home territory so yeah that that definitely tracks um I I have an entirely non datab backed Theory here which is that the casting when it comes to levels of Fame and their social media reach all the things that are outside of their talent and appropriateness for the role is irrelevant to the audience I don't think the audience care I think it's vital for the Machinery of the internal workings of the film industry to give people confidence why should I invest in this why should I distribute this why should I exhibit this why should I promote this over that one I think and it's just a personal opinion uh that that is just about it's a very risky business with a lot of unknowns and they're fearful and they want to keep their job and pay their mortgage so they go for the what's perceived as the less risk I actually think the only thing the audience care about is how good it is for the role they're doing and good isn't necessarily like can you know are they a great actor it's like does it work you know so Paris Hilton didn't work in a horror film not because she's a terrible actress she is but that's not the reason didn't work it's because it didn't it you're always watching Paris Hilton whereas when you have someone who just fits in a role you don't care if they're famous or not you like wow that person because it's a willing suspension of disbelief so um I think it it therefore is vital to think about International Fame and cult status but we have to remember the reasons why that's the case and then really try and understand who we're trying to impress if we're trying to impress a sales agent and they tell you they don't care about Doctor Who but they do care about Twitter followers or vice versa you need to take their H as gospel if it's that person you're trying to impress and if they all have the same opinion they will share that opinion then that is effectively gosp truth to you but I I just I mean I know it must have some effect and there are some actors I will go and see no matter what but that's mostly because they are shorthand for something else you know J Jason stth and Bruce Willis they're shorthands for a type of movie experience whereas if one of them in their Prime was in a very strange film like Adam s is a good example when he was in like uncut gems how many people were like well I don't care what the film is I just want to see Adam Sandler and then they watched it and were like great I watched Adam Sandler I don't think that happened maybe some of them started it but I don't think many of so I think it is about understanding that it's not about the product it's about the product's journey but that therefore still makes it essential and your logic sounds is sound to me and sounds defendable to an investor or to a third party which arguably as I said that's the job they just need to know that you're you're on top of this like do I trust this guy and they're like yeah that sounds like he's thought about it checks out okay you know what do you need yeah and would say I've had the the other experience I've had a sales agent or maybe distributor agreement where they've asked for cast listed with social media accounts oh yeah definitely that's that's definitely happening people are being cast for that reason yeah people are buying followers for that reason like it's that's 100% what they're doing and I think they're doing it out of fear because what else can they use especially if it's a pre-sale they haven't seen the film and many genres like horror and certainly low budget is execution dependent not the execution you're thinking of but like the actual doing of the film is the actual film any good so in the absence of any other information I kind of understand why they run away to this thing I don't like that they do yeah I kind of get it yeah and I would say uh from somebody who's made a couple of films somebody who's made films put cult stars in them the value actually as a filmmaker also comes in that if you're trying to get a location or you're trying to convince someone to help you make the film and you're making the film you can go oh it's got Sylvester McCoy in it and the people at the pub it's silly they go oh Dr H you might be in the scene you're shooting there but it does open doors and it gives the people who help you something to sort of great because they're really getting that if they really want to meet or at least know that their Pub was was s McCoy and he's okay with being paid for for for trading on that name that's superb that's great that's that is the true entrepreneurial Spirit of a filmmaker is there any uh Within that horror report are there any types we talked about the subg genres of horror are there any types of horror that do better than others well uh I refer the member to my previous answer where I said make what you want what you love now I've said the hell marries I'll answer the question um uh I mean obviously the things that are made on a lower budget tend to have a better chance if they're going to make money the money will go further because there's less to pay back so found footage films tend to go when they go astronomical you know it is they're the ones that are in the top like in the sort of greatest of all time like Paranormal Activity uh or Blair Witch anything like that um obviously things with low cost you know open water or anything like that it's just easier it's it's been a smaller cheaper film to make initially although let's remember that the distribution isn't necessarily any cheaper promoting a film is promoting a film and and they might put less resources into it but they're not going to put less because you spend less on the camera or the sets they're unconnected figures um so those ones tend to do well but there's certain kinds of Horror that need bigger budgets like post-apocalyptic you can do it on a low budget but it's it people are thinking it'll be I Am Legend and so they're going to want an I Am Legend budget which is much more studio uh than it is Indie um so I think that you know any film can any film can be in profit if you make it for a lowest amount of money it's sort of an asine thing to say but it is reme worth remembering that there it isn't inherent in the project it's in the combination that you put together and where you end up on the bottom line you know how much have you actually spent what deals have you made with people uh that's what's going to dictate whether you make money or not you know yeah absolutely right and I will put a link to the horror report in the description for this episode um so then looking forward to the future we're obviously in a bit of a slump with Film Production um no one seems to have any money to make anything at the moment and it feels like everyone's cutting their budgets what do you think the future looks like so I um I used to follow The Narrative of the British film industry or the global film industry or indie film industry whichever sort of put upon group you want to pick uh I used to follow the narrative as much as everybody else until I started reading about film history and I read about the the state of the British film industry in the first quarter of the last century so 1920s whatever and there were questions in Parliament about like but now that the film industry is in Decline and now that the Americans are taking over we must have quotas or whatever it would be and as you read forward into the 30s the 40s the 50s like well now that we're in Decline and this threat has come and then I remember my version of that being like well no longer is this thing and it's In Perpetual decline but in a way that is sustainable in a very weird sense so my sort of slightly weird pep talk for filmakers is that you've never had it good it's always been crap and that's where we Thrive and so I it's not worse than it was because it couldn't have got worse and it and it it can only get better it won't but it can only get better and so I think you make do and you make it work and certainly there are things that have radically transformed over the last 30 years the number of films being made is almost 10 times more uh so in the in the 80s it might have been 150 horror films a year were made and now it's one and a half thousand so there are some things that are just fundamentally different but the plight of somebody who wants to put their art on the screen and wants to do it in a business-like way is the same no one is going to love your film as much as you most people are not are completely indifferent no one's against you you're going to have to do a hundred things for one to work but if you do 200 things two things might work and if you do a thousand things maybe 10 things will work you know what I can't remember who said it but there was a quote about you know success is all down to luck and I find the harder I work the luckier I get and it's just that so I'm not suggesting don't moan because being moaning is part of the essence of being a filmmaker and a an artist and and a Brit whatever but at the same time just know that this is the game this is what you're doing it's like in Bill and Ted where they they fall and they're like ah and then it cuts to like a few minutes later and they're still falling and they're like cuts to five minutes later and they got magazines and they're like ah because they're in like I know wind tunnel or something but like that's what we're in we're in a Perpetual state of falling but this is what sustainability looks like and it's not going to get better next year it's not going to get worse next year it's going to be a different version of this so get comfortable get good at this you as I said I'm not saying don't moan but know to yourself that this is it this is what it looks like and yet that's always been the case and everyone before you has made the films you've seen so it's not dire it's just not fun it's just really really really really hard and you chose it so you know I feel sorry a bit I what is it I have um empathy and not sympathy I think I'm gonna go yeah yeah that sucks but it's your fault but it must suck you know yeah well thank you for that pep talk I need did it work sometimes people are like wow I feel fight up other times not so much I'm not sure a a filmmaker filmmaker I chatted to on here use the term which I always quote now which I love is film making is the most miserable fun you'll ever have oh that's super miserable fun um and last one on this would be um AI so uh controversial for creatives and I know you've done some experimenting with AI scripts and stuff where do you stand on it all I think at the moment where it is is that AI is fantastic for transforming things it's not very good for creating things because it's derivative and also designed to shoot in the middle and it's not very good at creating the final output because it is for the same reason derivative or it's got a very particular style or language so I don't use it to come up with stuff and I don't use it to write stuff but in the middle it's been transformative I mean for me I deal with lots of data but I I haven't I last thing I did last time I studied anything to do with math or thing was 15 years old I don't I I I don't know how to code but I don't need to because I say to chat gbt I give me python code that will take this spreadsheet and then pull out all the things with an F in it and then sort them alphabetically and it goes okay here's the code and I run the code and it does thing so transforming stuff is fantastic I know a um a friend who had a script that was based in America and it needed to be set in Britain and so he said here's the script tell me what kinds of things I need to change and it found amazing things like Bas that's not a language that we use in the UK we say Corner shops and or that they often have delies in in Bas they don't have them in corner shops so that bit where they buy some meat from the corner shop won't work like it can be really useful in tasks but you can't rely on it and it's not the output we are I I mean I don't know here but I can't unless the speed of or even direction of travel of improvement slows down which there's no sign it will it should at some point but if everything carries on the directory on it will create brilliant scripts brilliant video you will never need to write or shoot anything ever again however we will because that's we don't don't need vinyl records I don't need artisan cheese in fact we don't need 99% of the calories we buy we want them we like handmade we like the perspective so um it might be a smaller industry but there'll always be an industry of creatives because so many things have been invalidated we don't need to write things down we don't need printed books now we have Kindles and I love reading a printed book and I don't own a Kindle um so I'm not concerned for it but it but it will be radically different than it is now and I think there is a lot of creative destru on the you know coming in the next 10 years and the idea that we could strike about it or complain about it or tweet about it and it make any difference is totally human and understandable but just we are playing violins on the Titanic but we should realize it's not necessarily sinking it's changing there are other ships there are other things it's just that all we all have losser version it's so easy to see what we're going to lose because we know we're going to lose it but it's so hard to see what we're going to gain but you try going back to the 1950s or the 1850s and tell people there like imagine somebody who who rears horses in 1870 and be like yeah no that's not a thing anymore but that human being than what they loved about horses or doing their job there be other jobs for them and so the further earlier you can embrace it and try and identify what those new roles for creatives are going to be the quicker you'll be able to jump onto the next sinking ship and then the next and then the next and then you die I don't know again I'm not sure whether I'm an inspirational speaker or not but um I don't think bearing in the head in the sand I don't think Banning people from doing things is going to make a jot of difference I hope you enjoyed that episode if you'd like to hear from more industry professionals how they got into the business and how you can do the same or you just want to listen to some cool stories from movie sets around the world then please do subscribe to the honest filmmaker podcast
