He's offering the best advice I've ever heard ever in his segments. I searched, struggled and pounded pavement from NYC to LA for years trying to find what he's explaining for free.
Cut and dry, that is it! No mumbo jumbo pep talk. Loved this interview! The bizz reality that Jeff eloquently just introduced us to, let us know in advance that there's no sunshine and rainbows in this industry, like any other out there, where a real economy is at stake!
Makes a lot of sense once you hear this advice multiple times as a filmmaker. I've had to hear this multiple times over the years to really begin to understand it. Letting my mindset of filmmaking evolve from engaging only as an artist to realizing the next level is growing as a business person as well.
Which is good. But bad in the sense that he borderline makes you want to throw your script or idea out of the window and go work at Hobby Lobby for the remainder of your days. I at least need hear a little encouragement in my endeavor. Geesh!
@@TenealeBenderMusic The guy talks words of wisdom but.....dont forget he is selling his services so ofcourse his intrest is to scare us young film makers.
When it comes to marketing, it all depends on the audience you’re trying to reach. For example, if a guy opens an Italian restaurant, he’s not going to start selling burgers because they happen to be a more popular food choice. He’s going to market to people who like Italian food. So very often, filmmakers try to market to the lowest common denominator, caring more about mass market appeal than niche audiences.
And that's why many of them FAIL. You know why? Because it costs so much more to market to a mass market compared to a niche audience. Several times over. The more generic your targeting is, the more money you have to burn to reach out to them. You have to pick a sub-niche and laser target that audience to even have a shot at success.
If someone's bubble bursts from just this, they're not cut for this. Knowing this beforehand, if you got this kind of money to make a film, it's a smart move. You can foresee a lot of things. Cut a lot of things from your screenplay. Make a smaller movie. Spending smarter the money. Get the money back.
Just wonderful; his solid advice "I don't depend on luck"! Not sure if you guys asked him here, it's in the SD filmmakers meet, he goes into detail about negotiating with distributors - I have Jeff's advice about doing that tattooed inside my eyelids :)
This is Just the cold hard truth But it's good to hear . as for your question you definitely need a good marketing budget otherwise your Film Doesn't really go anywhere that's the truth
Actually he is saying if you have a total of $500k, $200k goes to production and $300k to Marketing. 300k vs 200k is is a 50% increase to marketing compared to production. So he is saying if you spent $500k on Production, you actually want to spend another $750k on marketing. So if you raised $500k just for production, You'd want to spend 150% of that on marketing as well, bringing the total of a $500k production cost to 1.25M total if you included the added marketing. The marketing is 150% of the production costs, not 60%. At least that's based on what he is saying in this video.
Here’s the problem that I have with this interview, to quote Martin Scorsese “ if you are in this business to make money then you’re in the wrong business! But if you are in this business because you have to tell a story, then this is the class for you” so in my opinion every independent filmmaker should have the passion to do a story that they need to tell from the heart, but if you’re gonna sit there and write something for an audience to make money it is likely that you will not succeed in this Industry. I write and film what I want to write and film, whether I’m successful or not. My passion supersedes my interest for success and that’s what every filmmaker should have, The passion and addiction for filmmaking.
@@victorseastrom3455 You do realize making a movie is exactly like creating a startup right? Your comment is kinda dumb. Watch more videos and actually listen to what Deverett is saying. You can either make a movie with no intent for financial profit or you can make a movie with the intent to make a financial profit in which case you follow all the same steps of creating a business. "with a business you can work hard, develop a business plan, create a product and market it.." umm yeah that's exactly what you do with a movie too lmao
@@victorseastrom3455 Perhaps it needs to be possible to grow more adept accomplices from a petri dish concoction. Like synthetic meat. An online lab could sell the distinctive cultures that could be used to develop the desired clone with the requisite skillset.
I know nothing about this business. I have no desire to make a movie. But if I did I now know what not to do. I enjoyed his delivery his passion. I have been involved in the music business and it seems in my experience very similar.
If the movie is just not interesting, it's wasted money.. I think that there are more bad movies out there, then movies that haven't got enough attention. For example, I shouldn't make a movie for teens, it's been too long since I was one.
He is telling truth but indie filmmaking usually has nothing of value that marketers could use to leverage audience interest. Marketers can't work off "a riveting story". If you don't have at least one known celebrity or won some kind of awards, it really is useless to budget off 40-60% for marketing. If you're in it solely for the money, there's plenty of other facets to do so, indie filmmaking usually isn't one of them lol.
No, as a marketing professional I can see you've misunderstood the purpose and benefits of good marketing. Marketing is about letting your customer know you exist and that means catching their attention among all the other adds, billboards and other noise out there. If your marketing team does it's job, you'll find and catch the attention of people who will see/buy your movie. People are hungry for story and it's one of the few products that people will continue to pay for even in a rough economy... because it reduces the pain of existence. Movies are in many ways easier to market than a lot of products on the shelves. Your comment basically boils down to "If marketing this film is hard, I'll invest less and give up instead of investing the required amount of time and resources to be successful." So... trying less hard should help in a hard situation? That doesn't make any sense.
It's also true the movie business and especially Indie movies aren't the steadiest way to make a living. Generally feast and famine from what I hear. It might be different when movie production costs go down over time due to technology being easier to use and more widely available. And the movie related skills of the average person going up, reducing the cost of pay expected in those once highly rare skill-sets.
hard facts, i feel from what im hearing you can either try to strike high from the start or start at smaller film festivals that are much more economical and then build from there.i sure don't have 40k to spend on pleasing people.
So basically what he is saying is this. Independent film is high school Sundance is Ivy League Hollywood is World Leader. I like that he is telling us what to look out for and that he doesn't want to get people's hopes up and again that is good. But at the same time a little bit of encouragement wouldn't go unnoticed. They already know that they are going to face a lot of failure than success is in this business. But if they do not learn from their mistakes then how will they come to appreciate that coming success even more?(that is a rhetorical question.)
"It's like getting into UCLA" As someone who was accepted to UCLA and most of the other top-tier film schools (not USC, didn't apply to NYU) let me say this: *It's very doable!* Don't let the numbers scare you. Tarantino has a quote about indie films that goes something like "all those other crummy films (competing in the marketplace with your film) don't matter if your film is a piece of dynamite." And he's right. Just like with film school applicants, 90% of indie features, spec scripts, aspiring filmmakers, etc etc aren't serious competition for someone who dedicates their life to film. So don't let the raw numbers scare you, the pool you're competing in is much smaller than it seems.
This is completely true. The biggest hurdle with a film is getting it seen. The biggest hurdle with a script is getting it read. The reason for this though is there are so many bad films and bad scripts that people have to wade through to find yours. I just directed a film and did an open casting call. I ended up with a great cast of actors, but the vast majority of auditions were awful. Some of them were incredibly lazy. All these people thought they could act. Even among the people who could act, they submitted reels of past work, and a lot of those low budget films they had been in were horrendous. You could tell that just by watching a single scene that the actor had chosen to showcase their abilities. Bad writing, editing, cinematography, you name it! 90% of the people you are competing against for any creative job are either talentless, lazy, or both. It isn't like buying a lottery ticket.
If Jeff Deveret ever reads these comments: I want to ask - What is the possibility of getting finance from a studio for a feature film after creating a successful proof of concept short? Is it as slim as hoping Netflix would showcase one’s film?
Not sure if Jeff will visit the comments. It does happen where shorts are turned into studio features. We imagine you are familiar with David F. Sandberg? - ruclips.net/video/VQUuDkxrrQA/видео.html (P.S. this is a massive interview with Jeff. We haven't scratched the surface yet. A lot more coming on finance and distribution)
Anybody who thinks art is about expressing one's self needs to read _Worldly Goods_ by Lisa Jardine. All those timeless, inspiring works of Renaissance art? Yeah, they were the result of long contract negotiations, lists of specifications down to the number of cherubs and cost of colors, and endless arguments about delivery dates and cost overruns. And who was the art made for? Culturally impaired, often illiterate aristocratic goons who wanted to one-up other goons with their collections of shiny things. Jardine described the great Renaissance artists as general contractors, which sounds a lot like how a flick should be approached.
That sounds more than mildly interesting. Does she discuss any shenanigans within guilds? There's some half forgotten factoids in my brain waiting to be reawakened on this topic.
This is very similar to great chefs who fail in opening their own restaurants because they dont understand or how to manage labor, food and R&M costs. Or choose a poor location because rent is cheap. (Understanding audience)
This guy's way of thinking is what has destroyed movies - look at his filmography. There's one reason to make a movie, write a novel, graphic novel, short film, stage play, rock opera - because there's a story that needs to be told. Just look at the state of theatrically released films these days, if you're not a franchise or a reboot there's no way your movie is getting made. I love the MCU, Star Wars, all that stuff, but we still need serious work for adults as well. If you're simply trying to make money, pick a different industry. There is enough instantly forgettable junk out there already.
As I started to listen to more of the interview I started feel more depressed! I am a indie filmmaker and he just made me think I will never get my movies seen because I don’t have money for marketing so I need to just throw my film away 🤦🏿♂️🤦🏿♂️🤦🏿♂️🤷🏿♂️🧘🏿
Excellent. Reality check ! A film is a product and it is in an over-saturated market and penetrating that market to reach your target audience costs money. You may have made the best film ever, but if no one knows it exists ........ Even before you start making a film , do some market research - you think you've got a a great storyline , but do OTHER people think so ?
@@mr.b6789 The purpose of market research is to to see whether it is WORTHWHILE in time and expense producing a movie - the point is who says it is the "best movie " - the target audience or those involved in producing it ?
Strange.. I thought that there would be distributors out there who have positioned themselves at the lower end of the market. Maybe some movies are not that likable?
I thought that's what made Indie movies so much better than almost anything coming out of Hollywood these days. What happened to movies like Dr Zhivago, Lawrence of Arabia and Gone with the Wind? Too expensive? Public is too stupid? Take your pick but you will never see movies like that again. It's all garbage, marketed for garbage. Lol sorry.
.... but he left out that part about how MANY deals actually get done (literally on an iPad with weak battery) b/c someone spread butt-cheeks for the right person, snorts with the right clique, is down with the lipstick mafia, or flies the "rainbow" flag.
I heard this many years ago and I dismissed it, not because I didn't believe it, but because I thought it was impossible to raise enough money. I'm gonna do my best to follow this next time, but marketing is really not my area, so it's scary.
I find it hard to believe everything this guy says, he's about 99% doom and gloom. If he were a General leading his army into battle they'd surely be defeated. I think I'll watch someone else a bit more lifting.
This video is BRILLIANT. I 110% appreciate how factual he is about the process of getting a film made. His insider knowledge is phenomenal and rare.
He's offering the best advice I've ever heard ever in his segments. I searched, struggled and pounded pavement from NYC to LA for years trying to find what he's explaining for free.
Cut and dry, that is it! No mumbo jumbo pep talk. Loved this interview! The bizz reality that Jeff eloquently just introduced us to, let us know in advance that there's no sunshine and rainbows in this industry, like any other out there, where a real economy is at stake!
Makes a lot of sense once you hear this advice multiple times as a filmmaker. I've had to hear this multiple times over the years to really begin to understand it. Letting my mindset of filmmaking evolve from engaging only as an artist to realizing the next level is growing as a business person as well.
Its crazy how a lot of videos in this channel makes u really inspired and thinking u can do anything while this guy is dropping reality on your ass 😂
Which is good. But bad in the sense that he borderline makes you want to throw your script or idea out of the window and go work at Hobby Lobby for the remainder of your days. I at least need hear a little encouragement in my endeavor. Geesh!
I know right....but he seems like a nice guy that delivery doesn't hurt too bad... but he is speaking the good bad and the ugly.
@@TenealeBenderMusic The guy talks words of wisdom but.....dont forget he is selling his services so ofcourse his intrest is to scare us young film makers.
this guy just spitting hard facts
hard facts that also support his own business model.
These interviews are so eye-opening, across the spectrum. They are a tremendous resource!
Thanks Garth! We are glad you are finding value here.
“Or you can get lucky… but I don’t depend on luck.” Damnnnn
When it comes to marketing, it all depends on the audience you’re trying to reach. For example, if a guy opens an Italian restaurant, he’s not going to start selling burgers because they happen to be a more popular food choice. He’s going to market to people who like Italian food. So very often, filmmakers try to market to the lowest common denominator, caring more about mass market appeal than niche audiences.
And that's why many of them FAIL. You know why? Because it costs so much more to market to a mass market compared to a niche audience. Several times over. The more generic your targeting is, the more money you have to burn to reach out to them. You have to pick a sub-niche and laser target that audience to even have a shot at success.
I get the impression the Mr Deverett may be bursting a few peoples' bubbles here.
If someone's bubble bursts from just this, they're not cut for this.
Knowing this beforehand, if you got this kind of money to make a film, it's a smart move. You can foresee a lot of things. Cut a lot of things from your screenplay. Make a smaller movie. Spending smarter the money. Get the money back.
Just wonderful; his solid advice "I don't depend on luck"! Not sure if you guys asked him here, it's in the SD filmmakers meet, he goes into detail about negotiating with distributors - I have Jeff's advice about doing that tattooed inside my eyelids :)
“A feast is made for laughter, wine makes life merry, and money is the answer to everything.” -Ecclesiastes 10:19
i love this beautiful man's brutal honesty
Me too
This is Just the cold hard truth But it's good to hear . as for your question you definitely need a good marketing budget otherwise your Film Doesn't really go anywhere that's the truth
Tough, but very wise advice.
Great advice. If I can raise $500k for a film I just need $300k more for marketing. Got it. 💪
Actually he is saying if you have a total of $500k, $200k goes to production and $300k to Marketing. 300k vs 200k is is a 50% increase to marketing compared to production. So he is saying if you spent $500k on Production, you actually want to spend another $750k on marketing. So if you raised $500k just for production, You'd want to spend 150% of that on marketing as well, bringing the total of a $500k production cost to 1.25M total if you included the added marketing. The marketing is 150% of the production costs, not 60%. At least that's based on what he is saying in this video.
Here’s the problem that I have with this interview, to quote Martin Scorsese “ if you are in this business to make money then you’re in the wrong business! But if you are in this business because you have to tell a story, then this is the class for you” so in my opinion every independent filmmaker should have the passion to do a story that they need to tell from the heart, but if you’re gonna sit there and write something for an audience to make money it is likely that you will not succeed in this Industry. I write and film what I want to write and film, whether I’m successful or not. My passion supersedes my interest for success and that’s what every filmmaker should have, The passion and addiction for filmmaking.
Third! This was great. Nobody wants to acknowledge that movie making is a business.
@@victorseastrom3455 You do realize making a movie is exactly like creating a startup right? Your comment is kinda dumb. Watch more videos and actually listen to what Deverett is saying. You can either make a movie with no intent for financial profit or you can make a movie with the intent to make a financial profit in which case you follow all the same steps of creating a business. "with a business you can work hard, develop a business plan, create a product and market it.." umm yeah that's exactly what you do with a movie too lmao
@@victorseastrom3455 i feel like none of us are in the real business and the older of us are at least a bit bitter. Am i wrong?
@@victorseastrom3455 Perhaps it needs to be possible to grow more adept accomplices from a petri dish concoction. Like synthetic meat. An online lab could sell the distinctive cultures that could be used to develop the desired clone with the requisite skillset.
very good stuff, ill be talking to this guy if i ever finish my damm film
DAMN JEFF! 😂 Dropping these massive truth 💣 and kicking our collective butts in gear 💸💸💸💸
".... minimum... M.I.N.I.M.U.M!!!"
🤣 love this guy
I'd be inclined to go 60% these days but 50% is normal for sales and marketing of most products. Cheers Film Courage!
I know nothing about this business. I have no desire to make a movie. But if I did I now know what not to do. I enjoyed his delivery his passion. I have been involved in the music business and it seems in my experience very similar.
Very practical advice.
What are your thoughts on spending 40% of your budget on marketing?
If the movie is just not interesting, it's wasted money.. I think that there are more bad movies out there, then movies that haven't got enough attention. For example, I shouldn't make a movie for teens, it's been too long since I was one.
This channel is God sent!
I love this guy.
It makes sense today to have some thing of a marketing budget when I go to a film market you’re looking at $1000-$3000 easy
He is telling truth but indie filmmaking usually has nothing of value that marketers could use to leverage audience interest. Marketers can't work off "a riveting story". If you don't have at least one known celebrity or won some kind of awards, it really is useless to budget off 40-60% for marketing. If you're in it solely for the money, there's plenty of other facets to do so, indie filmmaking usually isn't one of them lol.
No, as a marketing professional I can see you've misunderstood the purpose and benefits of good marketing. Marketing is about letting your customer know you exist and that means catching their attention among all the other adds, billboards and other noise out there. If your marketing team does it's job, you'll find and catch the attention of people who will see/buy your movie. People are hungry for story and it's one of the few products that people will continue to pay for even in a rough economy... because it reduces the pain of existence. Movies are in many ways easier to market than a lot of products on the shelves.
Your comment basically boils down to "If marketing this film is hard, I'll invest less and give up instead of investing the required amount of time and resources to be successful." So... trying less hard should help in a hard situation? That doesn't make any sense.
It's also true the movie business and especially Indie movies aren't the steadiest way to make a living. Generally feast and famine from what I hear. It might be different when movie production costs go down over time due to technology being easier to use and more widely available. And the movie related skills of the average person going up, reducing the cost of pay expected in those once highly rare skill-sets.
hard facts, i feel from what im hearing you can either try to strike high from the start or start at smaller film festivals that are much more economical and then build from there.i sure don't have 40k to spend on pleasing people.
So basically what he is saying is this.
Independent film is high school
Sundance is Ivy League
Hollywood is World Leader.
I like that he is telling us what to look out for and that he doesn't want to get people's hopes up and again that is good. But at the same time a little bit of encouragement wouldn't go unnoticed. They already know that they are going to face a lot of failure than success is in this business. But if they do not learn from their mistakes then how will they come to appreciate that coming success even more?(that is a rhetorical question.)
Good advice.
"It's like getting into UCLA"
As someone who was accepted to UCLA and most of the other top-tier film schools (not USC, didn't apply to NYU) let me say this: *It's very doable!* Don't let the numbers scare you. Tarantino has a quote about indie films that goes something like "all those other crummy films (competing in the marketplace with your film) don't matter if your film is a piece of dynamite." And he's right. Just like with film school applicants, 90% of indie features, spec scripts, aspiring filmmakers, etc etc aren't serious competition for someone who dedicates their life to film. So don't let the raw numbers scare you, the pool you're competing in is much smaller than it seems.
This is completely true. The biggest hurdle with a film is getting it seen. The biggest hurdle with a script is getting it read. The reason for this though is there are so many bad films and bad scripts that people have to wade through to find yours.
I just directed a film and did an open casting call. I ended up with a great cast of actors, but the vast majority of auditions were awful. Some of them were incredibly lazy. All these people thought they could act. Even among the people who could act, they submitted reels of past work, and a lot of those low budget films they had been in were horrendous. You could tell that just by watching a single scene that the actor had chosen to showcase their abilities. Bad writing, editing, cinematography, you name it!
90% of the people you are competing against for any creative job are either talentless, lazy, or both. It isn't like buying a lottery ticket.
If Jeff Deveret ever reads these comments: I want to ask - What is the possibility of getting finance from a studio for a feature film after creating a successful proof of concept short? Is it as slim as hoping Netflix would showcase one’s film?
Not sure if Jeff will visit the comments. It does happen where shorts are turned into studio features. We imagine you are familiar with David F. Sandberg? - ruclips.net/video/VQUuDkxrrQA/видео.html (P.S. this is a massive interview with Jeff. We haven't scratched the surface yet. A lot more coming on finance and distribution)
@@filmcourage Hi yes I am very familiar with David F Sandberg’s story. Thanks, can’t wait to see the full interview with Jeff!
Love this guy. Nothing like hitter reality.
Yes markting important but more important content!..!
Anybody who thinks art is about expressing one's self needs to read _Worldly Goods_ by Lisa Jardine.
All those timeless, inspiring works of Renaissance art? Yeah, they were the result of long contract negotiations, lists of specifications down to the number of cherubs and cost of colors, and endless arguments about delivery dates and cost overruns.
And who was the art made for? Culturally impaired, often illiterate aristocratic goons who wanted to one-up other goons with their collections of shiny things.
Jardine described the great Renaissance artists as general contractors, which sounds a lot like how a flick should be approached.
That sounds more than mildly interesting. Does she discuss any shenanigans within guilds? There's some half forgotten factoids in my brain waiting to be reawakened on this topic.
@@mothratemporalradio517 I don't think so, but it's a great read :-)
@@frenstcht Cool :)
This is very similar to great chefs who fail in opening their own restaurants because they dont understand or how to manage labor, food and R&M costs. Or choose a poor location because rent is cheap. (Understanding audience)
Great info!
is there any straightforward thing in hollywood?
Thanks!
Useful.
This guy's way of thinking is what has destroyed movies - look at his filmography. There's one reason to make a movie, write a novel, graphic novel, short film, stage play, rock opera - because there's a story that needs to be told. Just look at the state of theatrically released films these days, if you're not a franchise or a reboot there's no way your movie is getting made. I love the MCU, Star Wars, all that stuff, but we still need serious work for adults as well. If you're simply trying to make money, pick a different industry. There is enough instantly forgettable junk out there already.
As I started to listen to more of the interview I started feel more depressed! I am a indie filmmaker and he just made me think I will never get my movies seen because I don’t have money for marketing so I need to just throw my film away 🤦🏿♂️🤦🏿♂️🤦🏿♂️🤷🏿♂️🧘🏿
@@JOESUBA122 team up with ppl who have lots of money and no ideas
Who is it for? "People. It's for people".
my thoughts on 40% marketing:
OUCH.
This is why I want to make horror films. 💀🔥
Excellent. Reality check ! A film is a product and it is in an over-saturated market and penetrating that market to reach your target audience costs money.
You may have made the best film ever, but if no one knows it exists ........
Even before you start making a film , do some market research - you think you've got a a great storyline , but do OTHER people think so ?
I'm not sure if research and marketing are capable of making 'the best movie' 😄
@@mr.b6789
The purpose of market research is to to see whether it is WORTHWHILE in time and expense producing a movie - the point is who says it is the "best movie " - the target audience or those involved in producing it ?
@@Tom_Roberts And you're right, but when movies are made because the subject should appeal to a certain audience, it's probably not the best movie
so may gems in this video
Thanks for watching Ahmed!
I love this interviewer! Can we know who she is? Can we have an interview about what her thoughts/experiences are? I'm a big fan of whoever she is!
Strange.. I thought that there would be distributors out there who have positioned themselves at the lower end of the market. Maybe some movies are not that likable?
All very true, but try to convince the wannabes.
Go Bruins! #eightclap
After this video, I want to throw my script in the trash.
Big Hollywood is like big government.
...but if the story, acting, camera, music, editing is crappy, no amount of money spent on marketing is going to help the audience to like it.
I thought that's what made Indie movies so much better than almost anything coming out of Hollywood these days. What happened to movies like Dr Zhivago, Lawrence of Arabia and Gone with the Wind? Too expensive? Public is too stupid? Take your pick but you will never see movies like that again. It's all garbage, marketed for garbage. Lol sorry.
.... but he left out that part about how MANY deals actually get done (literally on an iPad with weak battery) b/c someone spread butt-cheeks for the right person, snorts with the right clique, is down with the lipstick mafia, or flies the "rainbow" flag.
its not about money. its about capitalism.....
100
I heard this many years ago and I dismissed it, not because I didn't believe it, but because I thought it was impossible to raise enough money. I'm gonna do my best to follow this next time, but marketing is really not my area, so it's scary.
Find people in your vicinity that come from a marketing background and have a passion for movies. Ask them for their help!
Hate to admit it but filmmaking really is a mug's game.
I find it hard to believe everything this guy says, he's about 99% doom and gloom. If he were a General leading his army into battle they'd surely be defeated. I think I'll watch someone else a bit more lifting.
No money no honey. This is not new.
……or you just make a genius movie))