The Long Shelf Life of a Feature Film

We just received a lump sum payment via Filmhub for a license deal on our feature film Friends, Foes & Fireworks. The buyer was ReelShort, a new streaming network, which opted to purchase the film upfront rather than paying a percentage of sales or ad revenue, as most platforms do.

This marks the second buyout of Friends, Foes & Fireworks this year. A Belgian streamer also purchased the film for their network earlier.

Friends, Foes & Fireworks was originally released in 2018, six years ago. Back then, it performed poorly in terms of revenue — and, to be honest, it continued to underperform, with only brief spikes in revenue here and there.

But this year, out of nowhere like the RKO, we received two licensing deals that nearly doubled the revenue Friends, Foes & Fireworks had generated in the previous five years. This just goes to show the value of owning the rights to your film — feature films have long shelf lives, even those that didn’t initially succeed.

Read More

The Battle Over Pennies: Trying to Get Paid by Platforms as an Indie filmmaker

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.

Read More

Indie Film Distribution: Why We Use Filmhub

Despite filmmaking being more democratized than ever before with readily available technology enabling almost anyone who wants to make a movie able to do so, film distribution remains somewhat obfuscated. They don’t teach you the business of selling movies in film school.

So many filmmakers are left naïve, confused on what to do with their completed film, and gullible to the sweet words and empty promises (and one-sided boilerplate contracts) of the many sharks out there also known as film distributors.

Here is a sad story we have seen play out time and again. Broke independent filmmaker finishes their first feature after many years of blood, sweat and tears. Broke filmmaker signs a contract with a shady distributor …

Read More