Sometimes I wonder if indie filmmaking is worth the hassle. Every Monday I do accounting, updating spreadsheets, tracking the business expenses and sales. Almost every week there are columns marked in bold and red — money still owed. Sometimes these owed columns don’t change for months. Sometimes years.
As I write this, I have been emailing IndieFlix since October 2023, chasing payments owed since 2021. These payments are pennies, under $100, but since their policy is to payout every quarter if earnings are above a $1 threshold, I think it is fair to expect the license agreement we signed to be honoured.
IndieFlix is a funny one. We have two films with them, Friends, Foes & Fireworks and Daughter, going back to the start of 2019. In the beginning they reported and paid on time every quarter and our films would earn a small amount on their platform, barely over three figures. But then one year into the deal a funny pattern would begin to emerge: every quarter like clockwork they would still send the reports but always forget the follow-up part… actually paying the money owed.
The money dwindled every quarter so it was never a high amount outstanding and never a top priority for me. But after I felt the missed payments had built up enough, I would begin chasing for the money owed. It would take months of hassling via email, but I would get paid. The pattern would continue. Indieflix sends reports. Don’t pay. I let it build. Hassle. Get paid.
I am currently in the hassling phase again but the amount owed remains so minimal that the effort to be paid seems disproportionate — five email follow-ups, dealing with the audacity of being ignored most of the time, then when they do reply dealing with the irritation of repeated broken promises of imminent payment, and the constant red bold letters in my accounting spreadsheet marking this as unresolved and feeding my frustrations. How can this be worth the time and effort for such a modest return?
Another filmmaker lashes out at IndieFlix for not paying.
I guess I can count myself lucky, in a way, that our films don’t perform on IndieFlix. Type in IndieFlix in any of the forums and chat groups dedicated to filmmakers discussing distributors, and you will find stories of IndieFlix not paying filmmakers over and over again, with some filmmakers owed thousands of dollars. It is especially galling as IndieFlix’s marketing talks about supporting filmmakers and how they pioneered a revenue sharing system called Revenue Per Minute (RPM), which pays filmmakers for every minute their movie is watched, while they tend to focus on social impact films and making a difference in the world. But beneath the carefully cultivated image, they are unethical or incompetent or both.
And IndieFlix is far from the only one. The distribution landscape is crowded. There are too many distributors, too many platforms, too many films. Too many players fighting for a slice of the pie, and too often all we get in this broken landscape is crumbs, if anything at all.
This scenario unfolds all too often: someone launches a new streaming service and seeks content from filmmakers. They pitch, "Send us your films. We can't offer an upfront payment, but you'll receive a share of the revenue your film generates on our platform and everyone will win.”
However, operating a legitimate platform involves significant costs. For example, Filmhub charges platforms approximately $15,000 per year to access its catalog of content. Yet, this content is hardly exclusive, presenting a significant hurdle for emerging platforms. Here you are, a new platform with modest funding, striving to draw in audiences willing to pay for films that are readily available elsewhere.
It is a formidable challenge and why so many would-be platforms don’t survive, even the ones with deep pockets. Take Quibi, the short-form streaming platform. Raised 1.75 billion from investors to launch in April 2020. Shut down by December 2020 after failing to meet its targets for subscribers. The envisioned win-win scenario in a revenue-share model often ends in a lose-lose situation for everyone involved.
So the platform doesn’t make much money, and you the filmmaker don’t either. But the legitimate and honest platforms still plate up the pie, no matter how small the slice. The Indieflix’s of the world dodge and inveigle and ignore and continually break the clauses in their own contracts.
There used to be a platform that played nothing but Australian films called Ozflix. I had two feature films with them, Friends, Foes & Fireworks and Dace Decklan: Private Eye. The films made pennies on that platform. But it took me 14 months of emailing and messaging the CEO on Facebook to learn that. Each response ended with "I’ll get onto it” or "Here is our new acquisitions manager, she’ll get onto it.” But nobody ever did get ”onto it” until I stopped asking nicely and threatened legal action and social media condemnation and demanded my films be removed from the platform. Finally, I got my reports and a lecture on how the platform can’t justify the time to send sales reports for films not earning.
Maybe we should just stay away from any platform that ends with ‘Flix’.
It seems I mistakenly assumed that preparing and distributing sales reports was a fundamental aspect of managing a streaming platform, especially since such tasks are typically outlined in license agreements — a legally binding commitment. So Ozflix was unable to allocate the necessary time and resources to fulfill its contractual obligations and I was expected to let it pass, I guess. Unsurprisingly, Ozflix is no longer in business.
But how can platforms and distributors do this? How can they break clauses in contracts and not fear any repercussions? It’s because they know the filmmaker usually has no recourse to actually force the platform or distributor to honour the license agreement. Are you really going to take legal action over $50? $100? $500? The legal fees you'd incur would dwarf the nominal sum you might (or might not) coerce the platform or distributor into paying.
Luckily, for me, I do have a lawyer who is used to my battles with distributors and platforms and is willing to offer free advice, and often this advice is enough to find a path to resolution. If not, a legal letter for a reasonable fee is the next step, and if that still fails, I might just be spiteful enough to take somebody to court over pennies.
But why even bother? How is the stress, hassle, and finance even worth it? The answer is it’s not, but I can’t help myself. I am one of those people who is principled, and expects agreements to be honoured. You promised me that $50, so I intend to collect. Because it will pay for my Adobe subscription for a month. Because I expect the parties I deal with to be respectful and accountable. Because it is damn hard being a filmmaker and we don’t deserve being screwed over, even for pennies.
Of course, the longer I stay in the indie filmmaking game, the more adept I have become at spotting the bad actors from miles away and staying clear. Last year, we were approached by a distributor of short films asking to license our film The Dance. A quick search among forums and FB groups revealed this distributor had a poor reputation and was known for ghosting filmmakers on reports and payments once you actually handed your film over. I pointed this out in my reply email and asked for a MG (minimum guarantee) instead. “Money up front, please. “
Chasing some of these platforms for pennies can feel like chasing unicorns. https://unsplash.com/@anniespratt
But this distributor wouldn’t do that, of course, instead promising the world and lamenting the fact I was missing out. Everyone is full of promises and sweetness in the courting phase. Not everyone intends to deliver.
So MG’s can be a great way to separate the genuine distributors and platforms from the rest. If you really think my film will make money for you, then this shouldn’t be a big ask. Show me you are serious and put some skin in the game. The prevailing sentiment in the indie film industry is that MGs are dead, nobody offers them anymore, as the market is too oversaturated with content and nothing is guaranteed to make money. And though I agree that getting an MG is harder than ever before, it is not unheard of. Just this year we have already signed three deals for money to be paid upfront for our content. And it is only March.
However, we are not one of those filmmakers who insist we need a MG on every deal or there is no deal. If you have built a reputation as an honest distributor or platform, we are happy to work with you if we feel it is the best partnership for us.
Which is why we appreciate aggregators like Filmhub. As soon as a streaming platform pays Filmhub, be it Amazon or Tubi or Plex or whatever, the money is shown on our Filmhub dashboard, we initiate a transfer, and a day or two later, the money is in our hands.
Or platforms like Beamafilm or Clickview from Australia. We have been working with them for years and every quarter without fail they report and send payments through. Once Clickview even paid out the 0.02 cents we earned for a short film. The bank fees would have cost more than the transfer amount. But they did it, and that is not respectful to filmmakers, I don’t know what is.
More recently, Allied Vaughn, a distributor we use to sell DVDs of our films, has proven to be reliable. Every quarter we get our sales reports and payment soon follows. Even if sales of one of our films have tapered off to pennies, we are still paid out without prompting. Distributors like Under the Milky Way and Lion Heart Distribution, who are handling different rights for Cats of Malta, are also proving to be honest, communicative, and delivering exactly what they say in their license agreements.
If they can do it, why can’t you, IndieFlix?
So I continue to fight for my pennies, knowing that the reward — if it ever comes — won’t be worth it. Luckily the list of good, honest, and reliable platforms and distributors we work with grows every year while our list of Indieflix and their ilk shrinks.
And I realize chasing after every owed penny might seem trivial to some. It even seems that way to me sometimes too. But each email, each follow-up, each escalation serves as a reminder that our work has value, that contracts should be honored, and that indie filmmakers deserve respect. After all, it's the principle that matters, not just the pennies.
Written by Ivan Malekin
SIDE NOTE:
Much of our success as filmmakers in the last few years has come via having our films on Filmhub. And for that we are grateful. Film distribution is difficult and you have to approach each potential opportunity and offer with caution. Research everything and everyone. The best plan for each film depends on the film. But for many films, especially micro-budget work, we have found Filmhub is often the best way to get your film out there and be paid.
If you are ready to join Filmhub, we invite you to take advantage of this link with the referral code ‘Nexus’ to receive 82.5% revenue share for the first 18 months instead of the standard 80% at no cost to you. We approached Filmhub ourselves to be an affiliate, because of our own positive experience with their service. We have seen too many filmmakers taken advantage of by distributors and we want filmmakers to know there are options out there, like Filmhub, that make distribution straightforward and are completely transparent in how they operate.
*Disclosure: We only recommend services which we use ourselves and all opinions expressed here are our own. This post may contain affiliate links that, if you use these links, we may earn a small commission at no additional cost to you. Thank you.