We talk with Bitmax about their decades of online film distribution expertise supporting leading content owners and digital distributors.
Panel:
Transcript from Crew Talk
Katie Chonacas:
Hello, everyone. Thank you so much for tuning in. We have a special episode and it’s all about entertainment and film and the process of being. So you have just tuned in to another episode of crew talk and we are sponsored by shoots.video. Thank you so much. And with no further ado, I am your host. Katie Chonacas. I have a popular podcast called She’s all over the place and I’m working in entertainment and film and TV. So we have Bitmax with us today. So how about we do a round and everyone can introduce themselves. How does that sound then we’ll go into the questions.
Tristan Gregson:
Well, I’m Tristan Gregson. I’m the representative from the company BitMax. The way we were introduced, it feels like it’s a giant gorilla, but now we are a technology company that publishes films and I’m happy to be here today to talk about that process.
Katie Chonacas:
Awesome. And then what is the website? I was on the website last night and a couple times, but it was a little bit difficult to find you because now there’s a cryptocurrency called bit Mac. So it was like, it was, it took a minute, but how do people find you?
Tristan Gregson:
Some would say it always has been that way. You know, for, and for, for the longest time we have, and very much kind of inside the industry. And I think that’s what conversations like this are so important to enlighten filmmakers, cuz we don’t, we don’t have a flashy film distributor name with my lens flare. I gotta get rid of that. You know, we’re, we’re a technology company first that we also publish film. So when you think anything in that realm, you don’t think small maximum, like that’s not, you know, again, we start as a technology company and, and our website is also confusing something we’re working on and working on updating. So yeah, if you look at it now maybe we move files, which we do. And it’s hard to say, but yes, it’s it’s digital distribution. It’s encoding, it’s archiving, it’s a little everything. We are, we are many different things to many different clients. I always like to say we’re kind of like the Kevin bacon of district, but cuz at some level something goes through us. That’s how it’s works. It’s a shame Jennica is on mute because those laughs should be recorded. I’m working hard for these <laugh> but anyway, that’s you know, again, that’s the elevator version of how do you take a crazy stupid name like that? I say that with all apologies. So what’s so
Katie Chonacas:
What’s the website?
Tristan Gregson:
Bitmax.net. Just go to bitmax.net. If you search for bitmax, we better be in the top two results. If not, we’re doing it wrong.
Katie Chonacas:
All right. Bit max.net. I, I personally have to tell you when I found out about your company, I sent it to some of my filmmaker friends. I’m like, yo, do you know about this company? You do, you know, cause you know, as filmmakers will get into it we’re always looking for you, potential distribution. So now I can definitely, you know, it’s all word of mouth, like you said, having conversations here. So wonderful. Thank you so much for being here today and we’ll dive into some questions. So okay. Amanda, do you wanna introduce yourself please?
Amanda Baez:
Yeah, sure. Hi everyone. I’m Amanda Lynn. I am a comedian, a producer production coordinator, comedy writer out here in Brooklyn, New York. So cool.
Katie Chonacas:
Edit editing bay in Brooklyn by I love Brooklyn.
Amanda Baez:
Yeah. Brooklyn is very chill. I love it here. It’s freezing. Yeah. So I kind of wish I was over there, but
Katie Chonacas:
Oh yeah. I have a condo in New York, so I, I live in both places, but nice. Love to the east coast for sure. Tristan, where are you in the world right now?
Tristan Gregson:
Sunny Los Angeles for the next 20 minutes before this sun goes away.
Katie Chonacas:
Yeah. Yeah, definitely daylight savings time. Cool. So I guess we’ll just jump into some of the questions if that’s cool.
Tristan Gregson:
Did we introduce Jennica?
Jennica Schwartzman:
Hi, I’m Jennica. Hey <laugh> I’m an actress and filmmaker and I also have a small boutique distribution and publishing company called little sister entertainment. And I had already met Tristan before through bit Mac. So I’m excited to be
Tristan Gregson:
Here spoilers to future conversations very much so
Katie Chonacas:
<Laugh> wow. Very cool. Very cool. So I’m excited to deep dive into your story and we’re in the world. Are you right now?
Jennica Schwartzman:
I’m also in Los Angeles until the sun goes down and then it’ll feel very cold outside and I’ll forget where I am.
Katie Chonacas:
Yeah, yeah. Yesterday was brutal. I was, it was so moody. <Laugh> cool. All right. Should we jump into the questions? Okay, great. Great. So the first one I have on my board is in 2021. Let’s say I finished the post on my film Tristan. Now what?
Tristan Gregson:
Oh, that’s, that’s the million dollar question, right? What do you do when you make a thing? Especially nowadays you know, philosophically, I would say there’s still a, a shockingly large number of people out there that still walk around. Like it’s the nineties in terms of film distribution. They’re always like, I’m gonna make a thing. I’m gonna meet a person or an entity and they’re gonna take that thing off my hands in exchange for a check. And then that thing is gonna find an audience and it’s gonna be the greatest thing ever which obviously out the case. So you take that formula and you really just need to turn it upside down nowadays. This is the speech I give all the time where it’s just like, we, we live an influencer culture. We live in, you know, find an audience for whatever it is you’re doing, whether it’s comedy, whether it’s acting, whether it’s cooking or whatever it is, make a premium product for them.
Tristan Gregson:
Maybe it’s a show, maybe it’s a movie and then put that in a marketplace where they can consume it. It’s, it’s a rough lesson to learn because a lot of people that call me have already made the first mistake, which was to go and make a thing and then think that someone’s gonna go buy it from them. So wherever you end up putting it, whether it’s with a company like myself or whether it’s a distributor or whether you do it kind of on your own, on your own webpa website or, or all kind of combination of those things, just changing that thinking is what matters to me the most. Mm-Hmm <affirmative> because mm-hmm, <affirmative> the threshold to make something is so low, but know what you’re gonna do before you just shoot something.
Katie Chonacas:
Okay, cool. And then do you, would you suggest maybe someone going and shooting a teaser like a two to five minute teaser and then presenting it to you? Maybe
Tristan Gregson:
Not to me I only work with finished product. Okay. This, this happens a lot with episodic. Someone’s like I shot a pilot and I’m like, that is meaningless. What you really did was you shot what I hope is 30 minutes of video. And that is a short or one episode. If you could turn that into a, we can have a conversation because where I exist in the pipeline, we aren’t handing out funding to complete anything. We are looking at things that are done and saying, okay, well where can we work with you to place content in platforms that will accept it? So you know, small idea, proof of concepts up is great, but that’s usually for finding investors. I mean, that’s the, you know, the crowd funding classes, part of that process.
Katie Chonacas:
Mm-Hmm <affirmative>, mm-hmm <affirmative> mm-hmm <affirmative> OK, cool. And then we were mentioning TikTok and the era of social media and the shorter form, shorter form content nowadays. Do you, do you suggest maybe putting something like a two minute bit on TikTok or Facebook and then getting A’s reactions to, and then maybe presenting it?
Tristan Gregson:
I love when a person asks me for advice about TikTok, cause I am just barely old enough to have not signed up. My vine account didn’t go anywhere and I still have a Snapchat for whatever people use that for, but it’s, it’s just kind of idea of like where viewership is going. So as, as viewership gets younger and, and younger people, why consumer content, where is it going? And this is obviously a broad topic connecting to, you know, classic cable distribution and my parents having a three hour argument with them on how to install a peacock app on their television that doesn’t connect to their direct TV remote. So they’ll never use it anyway. Oh my God. Yeah. To kids that are like, oh yeah, everything in my life is, is through TikTok. I actually had a great conversation with, with with America’s test kitchen, which publishes their, their long form stuff on PBS.
Tristan Gregson:
You can watch a cooking show there. They take that episode and they chop it in half and make YouTube pieces. They chop that thing. They already cut in half, they cut it into fourths and they make tos and they’re engaging audiences all across the board. You know, where the dollar value comes in is, is going back up that stream to the top where it’s just like, okay, have our membership, you know, subscribe to our stuff, pay for our, our seasons. But being able to reach at every level where their viewership is, is absolutely critical now. So again, when you think about traditional films, people are like, well, I made a 90 minute movie and I’ve got a 92nd trailer. Maybe I have a poster. I’m good. Right. And it’s like, not even close, like that’s where are you gonna put that stuff? Mm-Hmm <affirmative>
Katie Chonacas:
Mm-Hmm <affirmative> yeah. Okay. So hacking the nineties mindset upgrading. So hopefully we can do it, you know, massage it out during this beautiful conversation. Awesome. So,
Tristan Gregson:
You know, again, you can’t help people that have already made stuff, but what you can do is you can, you can leverage what you’re making. And I think Jessica can speak to this a lot where you talk to filmmakers and it’s a, mm-hmm, it’s a dance of like, well, how can we market this? How can we get it to work for wherever you want to put it? Cause you can’t, you can’t, you’re not buying billboard ads. You’re not buying bus stop ads. It doesn’t matter what big of a, you know, major city I’ll drive down Los Angeles, I’ll laugh at something I’ll see in a billboard for a movie that I’ll never see being like, wow, we should have spent that money somewhere else. But that stuff is critical. And, and, and, and it comes up in many different ways where it’s just like, oh, well now my filmmaking is gonna be driven by what talent I can.
Tristan Gregson:
You know, I associate with this, if this person has 150 Instagram thousand Instagram followers, they, they are chewing cardboard on a scene, but you know, they can probably get some impressions that stuff’s pretty critical nowadays. I, I feel like I’ve trailed off, but the idea is that you, you have to have, you have to have impressions. You have to get people to look at stuff as there’s there’s too much. And you can’t just walk into a boardroom. I’ll tell you working in this business. I was shocked at how many people that made movies have learned all of their knowledge of the, of the business of filmmaking through watching other movies, which makes sense and is crazy at the same time or YouTube
Katie Chonacas:
Tutorials. Right? <laugh>
Tristan Gregson:
That’s even given them a little too much that, that next generation, the, the, the prior generation was the, yeah. I watched the movie where you just go into a boardroom and you yell about how great your thing is, and you hit the table a bunch and eventually some guy in his suit takes your movie and he’s smoking a cigar and everyone’s happy. Now the next generation will be like, yeah, I watched 80,000 YouTube tutorials. I bought the best, you know, black magic pocket, cinema, 4k camera I could afford. And I used DaVinci and I to, so I taught myself all this, and now I got two distributor. You still don’t know. Okay. So you got to somebody what to do, but at least you got that far, which the prior generation, maybe they even shot on film. I don’t even know.
Katie Chonacas:
Yeah. Well, speaking of you mentioned someone wanted to chime in, does anyone wanna chime in, chime in on what we’re talking about before we move on? I was gonna,
Jennica Schwartzman:
I was gonna ask because of all the information is coming out so quickly, ideally, Tristan, when do you want a filmmaker to message? You like go to bitmax.net today to learn anyway, but ideally like on the filmmaker journey, what’s the best time to meet them because she was offering before they start or anything like that. Where do you wanna meet somebody?
Tristan Gregson:
Yeah. I mean, I wanna talk to somebody and they have a, a completed package and they’re kind of shopping around their different options of what to do with it. Ideally, you’re having meetings with distributors, you’re, you’re showing ’em your deck and everything else you can offer to somebody and where BitMax fits into the equation is if you feel like you can leverage your title on your own, and you don’t need lofty promises of, of especially marketing, you can kind of come to us, direct the finished product and we can get you on the platform. So I ideally, you know, again, you’ve got a feature film that’s done or short film or series or whatever it is. You’ve got some basic poster element assets, you know, and you have some basic understanding of your metadata, you know, the information that’s associated with your film. And then I’m happy to talk to you. I talked to plenty of people before that stage, but those are the ones where it’s just low. Like, remember, remember the name, come back when you’re ready. But the idea is you’re, you’re, you know, we’re not the only stop. We are the self distribution option. We are the, you know, if, if you don’t feel like you’re getting what you want out of a, the distribution deals that are out for you, I am very happy where I work, because it’s all very clean. It’s all very like for this, I can do this. I’m not.
Katie Chonacas:
And you’ve been there about three years, right?
Tristan Gregson:
Coming up on four now. Yes. Four I’ve. Yeah. I’ve only been in Hollywood for about five and a half years. And when I showed up in town kids, I was working as a production assistant on reality TV casting. So it can have to you in five years, you can also be next to people that are distributing movies.
Katie Chonacas:
So, real quick, where did you come from in what’s your education? Like, did you go to college for anything that you’re involved in?
Tristan Gregson:
I did. I did go to college. I don’t like, I went to a for-profit film school, college that I don’t even wanna like give their name to give them credit because really I did it. But you know, I spent my twenties not being an adult, which is common nowadays. And then when I turned 30, I kinda had this epiphany moment where was like, I should become an adult. I wasted a bunch of money getting a film degree, but I had driving, I had vision that I was like, I was gonna move to LA. I was in Berkeley and I made it work again. I was standing outside Jimmy Kimmel in the summer of 2016 asking people if they wanted to go to and let’s make a deal. It, wow. That was my life at one point. Yeah. So you went to
Katie Chonacas:
School for film
Tristan Gregson:
Though. Okay. I did. I did. I, you know, and, and kids, you’re all wondering out there. Do I wanna drop 60 grand on a piece of paper that says I can set up a camera? No, but there’s a lot you do actually learn from going through that process. I am much better at all the jobs I’ve had in this, because I went through that experience of learning how to be on a crew, learning how to set stuff up, like, cause people could pick up point and shoot stuff and they can do what they, whatever. And I worked in a camera facility after I was not harassing people on the street about being on game shows. So I, I have done some things before I ended up in film distribution mm-hmm <affirmative> but that knowledge was critic. And I don’t think you can you me, maybe you can do that with just tutorials.
Tristan Gregson:
I don’t know. Most people are talking about the same kind of equipment though. Cause it’s it’s prosumer equipment. Like you can’t get your hands on an area, Alexa, you can’t get your hands on a Sony Venice camera. If you’re just watching tutorials, like you kind of need to go through some motions and actually do some stuff, get mobi pro certified, like be a to do these things. And it’s all camera department side, the same applies to other aspects of it. Whether it’s lighting, if it’s grip, if it’s all those kind of things, the only thing you don’t need it for and where I am now, which is hilarious is the business side of things. Like you could just go get a business degree. You could make your parents happy, go get a math degree, a business degree, and still come work with movies all the time because of people get that eat first, don’t shake your head at me, Jenna. This is the truth of the matter. They are very important. We all love artists. There’s a future many on this call, but the people that eat first are the people with the business degrees.
Katie Chonacas:
Thank you for sharing. Does anyone wanna say anything before I move on the next question?
Jennica Schwartzman:
I, I feel like there is a misconception there about coming to bit max as being a plan B to a distribution. And I feel like I’d wanna give you the opportunity to like reframe that because I think that’s how it came across because that’s also what I hear from filmmakers. When they think of self distribution, they think of five, 10 years ago. And there was a few different small companies that have it, a self-distribution model that advertised at film festivals all over the country, I’d meet people who would be like, well, or you could self-distribute and they meant it as a plan B, not as a alternative that was better for the project. So why would I S stop at you first instead of second?
Tristan Gregson:
Well, I do appreciate the softball and it’s kind of what I was talking about previously, where it’s about your strategy to engage audience. Because to me, people that sign with a distributor for a very long contract length for some kind of crazy recoupable is because they are deathly afraid that they don’t don’t know how to reach and engage an audience. And they think that whoever they’re talking to can magically make that happen. And when you talk to me, I’m not gonna oversell. Like I, I put movies on platforms that don’t do business. They are technically sound. They look and sound correct, which is my job to make sure they have the right artwork. Everything’s the right aspect ratio. But no, one’s engaging them with them because no one is there. You know, there’s a common thing that happens to me. It’s like, okay, my movie’s gonna go on up on apple TV.
Tristan Gregson:
What day it’s like, okay, here’s the day. Okay. I booted up my apple TV. I don’t see it. Well, yeah, you’re not in the top 20 titles of that day. Like you, you know, do idea how much content’s made. So come to me first, if you know how to engage your audience, how to drive traffic to those places, you can get it, come to me second. If you don’t have that. And you’re unsure about yourself and you’re learning that you can be sure about yourself to get your audience. Cause let’s be real. Every filmmaker out there is listening to this, you know, your audience better than any person in any room. It’s gonna tell you that they know it better. That’s just not true. That’s salesmanship. That’s the BSRI of like, you know, come to come by our oceanfront property in Arizona, wherever the song goes, things like that.
Tristan Gregson:
Like, don’t do that. But come to me first. If I know my audience, I know how to get my audience. They’re already, you know, they’re already following me on Insta. You know, I already have patrons. Like I did a crowdfunding campaign. Like I know how to, you know, I get that mailing list thing, which is something that’s slowly dying off on. But if any of that stuff, a regular distributor will look at that as huge leverage. Cause that’s legwork, you already did that. They don’t have to do. It’s like great. I don’t have to go and find, you know, 8,000 people that you’ve interacted with on social to mail them, that your movies coming out, like you already did it for me. So if you can do that, definitely call me first.
Katie Chonacas:
Great. I don’t know if we should deep dive into more of like how to find your audience. Do you have tips on that, of what people can do if they’re not good at getting an audience and finding an audience, like some people are the creators, but they’re not good with the promoting and marketing side. So, and it’s a business, like you said. So are you sharpen those areas where you have some insight of how people can obtain an audience?
Tristan Gregson:
I’m smarter than the average bear, but I’m never gonna get on the phone with somebody and be like, I know how to make your movie work. And I have plenty of anecdotal evidence after, you know, watching thousands of films come across my eyes of like, oh, that looks like it’s gonna be good. That’s definitely never, one’s ever gonna watch that. And obviously there are surprises everywhere in between, but I think, you know, kind of what you’re talking about dovetails into kind of more of, of Jen’s space where, you know, to me, this nice thing about having both of us on this conversation is that, you know, I’m working with the filmmaker that is a hundred percent empowered, a hundred percent driven, a hundred percent knows who they wanna find. Jen is working with filmmakers that maybe don’t know that kind of stuff, where she has expertise that can help them reach that audience and engage with people because she’s been doing it longer than I have. And I don’t even look at it because I don’t have the time
Jennica Schwartzman:
Mm-Hmm <affirmative>. Yeah. I think a lot of distributors have a different essence. Like if Amanda who’s in comedies working with certain filmmakers and working on stuff, that’s going to be with distributors that really handle that well and have expertise in that area and know how to, like, it’s not about your individual movie anymore, which I think is some of the stuff that like bit max is a able to carry now. And I think a lot of distributors are grasping about their own branding and who they are. And I don’t want my film to just be a one-off. I want my film to be, I know what a 24 movies are gonna be like, I know I don’t like so, and so’s movies, you know, you just wanna like have an idea of your branding is connected to a distributor or your idea of the branding is connected to your filmmakers brand your filmmakers relationships and what they put out in the world, their career longevity, and somebody who has that kind of confidence or their own marketing team, working with people who already know where you want it to go.
Jennica Schwartzman:
You know, a lot of filmmakers, I meet have an Oli car strategy. Like I want it to be these places. I don’t need it to be these places. And if you know that already, then it’s easy to work with somebody. There’s lots of dis different distributors that have a more a car. You can make your own decisions and you can work with a team to figure that out. But at the same time, a lot of distributors are still just creditors where they’re just putting out the marketing money <laugh> or I can give you this money so that you can market this movie knowing you might not make all of it back. I just really need you to market this movie. So when I think of a distributor as a creditor I know some people of bit max do not like that. You’ve been labeled as an aggregator.
Tristan Gregson:
It’s just a dirty word from prior generations. Like I I’m so sorry. No, I’m glad we’re laughing about it because it it’s, it’s, it’s confusing to some people mm-hmm <affirmative> and it carries a lot of baggage from, you know, prior are transgressions, which I totally understand. You know, we, we, unfortunately, when the big boys in the room where it’s just like, what does apple wanna call you? They wanna call you an aggregator. Cause what is an aggregator? An aggregator is one that takes the individual things and brings them all together and, you know, puts them all in a place that’s they aggregate quite literally you know, we, we do wanna change it to, to self-distribution to kind of like the empowerment of, of rec film licensing on your own. Will we get there? I mean, if companies like apple would just change their website yes.
Tristan Gregson:
That we could change the world that way. In the interim, we are kind of stuck with this, like, oh, you know, aggregators are a dirty business and I I’m on the personal mission to be like, well, we’re only as dirty as I will tell you straight out we are. And I, hopefully that’s not very much it’s, you know, you pay us this, we do that. That’s it. That’s all it mm-hmm <affirmative> it’s all over mm-hmm <affirmative> mm-hmm <affirmative> but I do wanna come back to what you were saying about kind of branding. Cause I do think that that is a place where small distributors still have a leg up, because again, if you’re looking at a brand like an 8 24, you expectation of stuff, that’s in that brand. So if you’re an individual filmmaker that feels like you align with that, then you are much more interested in being like, okay, well you might not have direct marketing cap for my specific movie, but if people see your branding surrounding my title, they’re already gonna be drawn to it, which is, which is great. And again, on the other component of my business, working on just the encoding side, we love the app is we love working with distributors that are bringing us content to encode and deliver that have a steady flow of that same kind of stuff. If it’s in their genre or their type or whatever it is. Cause I can’t do that.
Katie Chonacas:
Cool. Cool, great, great. Let’s keep it moving. So why would I go straight to an encoding facility with direct deals over sign with the traditional distributor?
Tristan Gregson:
It is, you know, the way that question is framed, it is confusing. Cause again, we’re just an encoding facility. What do we do? The upside is that we have a direct relationship with a platform and you are cutting out as many middle entities as possible. There’s still a middle entity. We are your middle entity. You can’t call Tim apple, like take my movie and he’s gonna say who but we can get it there. And then we are the only party that’s keeping, you know, your audience on that platform from, you know, your pocket, getting the money that comes into it. Cuz we, my head is literally right here. Have to process all that stuff in the middle where if you go to any other level, you’re adding in other levels, if you go to a distributor, they may have other agents that you’re in to go to different places. And all of a sudden the pie gets split up a million ways. So that is the most empowering. You know, if I was telling six years ago me about this, I’d be like, oh my God, that’s so great. I didn’t know. I could just call this place up. They would talk to me and I could get a movie out there. That’s great. That isn’t enough. You kind of need to know a little bit of what you’re doing, but that is the step one in why you would call me.
Katie Chonacas:
And then for example, if I called you and I’m like, I wanna have a deal with you. And with bit max are all deals the same or are they all different? Is it a one year contract? We’re gonna see how you’re gonna do six months, one year. Like how do you do the
Tristan Gregson:
Contracts? It’s it’s all uniform. I just, we are a volume business. I do not have the bandwidth to get into the nuance of like, well we wanna do 18 months and we wanna do five years. We wanna do this. The nice thing is because we’re self-distribution and we’re non exclusive. If you pay us to do the work, we publish a movie and then a week later you sign the, you know, amazing princess deal to get your movie on Netflix and you need us to pull it. We can pull a movie from somewhere. You know, we, I like to say, we’re, we’re a carpenter, we’re a mechanic, we’re a plumber. We’re, we’re a contractor. You pay us to do the work after that, you know, it’s, it’s whatever. It’s not like we’re coming and checking in with you. Like how are the pipes every week, everything good.
Tristan Gregson:
You know, we wanna make sure it’s working out for you. That is where we exist. So I tell clients, and again, this is to keep them empowered, keep reaching for those other opportunities just by signing with us. You’re not done necessarily in this process. Now I’ll also tell you the dirty truth is if you do publish this stuff to places that we have access to all of a sudden, you start to look less attractive to other distributors. Cause the low hanging fruit is already gone. Like, oh, you’ve already sucked up all of this transactional video on demand money that I wanted a piece of. I have to work harder to get your movie into places, cuz I don’t have that kind of access. So know that going into it. But you know, it keeps coming back to know your audience, find your audience. If you can do that, you should be calling the encoding house that has direct deals first as opposed to Googling distributors in my area and, and reaching out to the
Jennica Schwartzman:
That. I was wondering what don’t you cover? Like if somebody wanted to do their movie in more than just streaming transactional, like what is the the scope?
Tristan Gregson:
The, the, the biggest hole in our offerings would probably be subscription video on demand because video on demand services almost always require a unique agreement to be formalized and signed off on. And we just don’t do that. Cause we’re not doing things on a granular basis. We are experts at transactional video on demand, advertis supported video on demand that stuff’s easy. We know how to do it. It’s all that other space. Like if you need special theatrical or you need a, a special, you know, media printing or any of those kind of things, we aren’t gonna be able to help you. So if you can find a company like, like an arrow or a 10 91 or something that can do those kind of things for you and they’re willing to take you on and it’s important to your audience, definitely go to a place like that. Cause I don’t have that, that visibility.
Jennica Schwartzman:
And can you break that up between companies? Like give me the examples of what description video on demand that you don’t cover. And if those things can be covered in separate con, like it wouldn’t change anything cuz you said you’re not exclusive.
Tristan Gregson:
Correct. So when you come to us and you’re like, okay, and this, this is a common call. The common call is I want Netflix and I wanna do transactions on places like apple because that’s top dollar. And you’re like, okay, great. One of those I could take care of completely the other one, best of luck. If you get that agreement signed, whether through your agent or your distributor or yourself, whoever you do it, we would love to be your encoding facility. Cause we could still deliver it at their spec, which is a whole other thing. But that first part, that transactional part we can do and it’s non exclusive. So we can take care of that. That is where the line is drawn. If, if you come in saying I have to have C and D and I’m only gonna work with you, if I can do all of those, I might not be able to do it. But as we said, you know, if I can do a and B and you’re gonna have a conversation with somebody else, it’s like, well, I’ll only take it if I can do C and D. Maybe you have to go with that person. But again, I like that. It’s transparent to me. Here’s, here’s what I can get you to. Does that work for you? Keep, keep reaching for the stars, keep going other places.
Katie Chonacas:
Okay. Speaking of vog video on demand. My next question here is how do I market a film when it’s available on vog
Tristan Gregson:
Through all those sources you have access to. I mean, all these titles have direct links which is really how you kind of drag yourself out of, you know, UN searchability. You know, one of the, the, the poorest kept secrets is if you do presales on a title, if you have a direct link to a title and you drive traffic to it before it’s street data or it’s live date, all that energy, all that effort, you exert up to that release date, let’s say you, you get 8,000 impressions. You get 4,000 transactions on the first day of release. All of those sales count towards day one. So it looks like 4,000 people immediately signed on, you know, downloaded trolls three, even though it was six weeks of people, pre-ordering it for their kids. So they’ll shut up for 90 minutes. So that’s why you always see the big studio titles on these top carousel ads where it’s always like here’s the new, new, and trending and popular because they always put all that energy into their marketing to make sure that they’re there.
Tristan Gregson:
Someone will call me and be like, okay, I, I gotta be on an apple carousel. Like what do I do? What does it cost? You write a check. And it’s like, I would love to take that check. I can’t take that check, spend that money in marketing your title ahead of time, get a, get it package completed with us, get it hosted to a platform, get a pre a link, then drive traffic to that presale link, go ahead and buy the, I hate to save Facebook or me’s name out loud, but if you’re gonna give them money and get traffic, you know, whatever, do what you gotta do use that energy to drive traffic to your, to your, to your title, to get engagement with your title. And that’s how you kind of become cream out of all of this crop.
Katie Chonacas:
So you really think it’s better to market and free be when it, for when it drops. And that’s what you just initially said now. What if it, yeah. When it, so that’s how you got on the carousel in the beginning, but what if, what if you’re dumping marketing money into it while it’s out? Like after it drops,
Tristan Gregson:
Same type of strategy applies. You know, it’s just harder when you’re already in the mark marketplace to feel new and feel fresh and, and there are many opportunities to refresh and this is some definitely inside baseball strategy where you’re like, okay, well, I’m gonna do a couple platforms initially. I’m gonna do like a little media burst that I did those platforms. And then I’m gonna roll out to some other platforms the next few months, which gives me an excuse to say, Hey, same movie, new spot and the same thing with additional localized assets. So it’s like same movie now available in Latin American Spanish in Latin American territories. But also if you’re at home, you can watch it with Latin American localized time text as well. It’s an reason to have an email blast. It’s a reason to have a new social media post to say same movie, same people, same thing, but new bells and whistles. Gotta go check it out. <Affirmative> mm-hmm <affirmative>
Jennica Schwartzman:
Mm-Hmm, <affirmative> very cool. It sounds like you would have a, a lot of ideas about like what trends are happening for instance, years ago, it would be different that you’d want a huge day in date release. You’d wanna make sure that everything happened at once. And just the idea now that you’re saying there’s more opportunity to post about it. There’s more opportunity to do this. If you spread it out, like you do like a systematic rule rollout. Do you, are you able to share all those trends and what’s going on? Is that part of like your relationship as with the filmmakers directly, that you’d be able to counsel them in brand new marketing strategies that everybody else is doing? <Laugh>
Tristan Gregson:
So, so my, my own stuff is, is all anecdotal, cuz it’s just what I see on my own. And I don’t have, you know, hard client data to pass out to people because of confidentiality. But I would say that, and, and this, this kind of dovetails into reporting, you know, we’re as good at giving clients information as we are getting it from different partners and it’s not the same. People get very frustrated understandably in this day and age when they’re like, yeah, I put my movie up on Google play and I didn’t get my sales data yesterday. You’re like, yeah, Uhhuh, it’s gonna be a minute. It’s gonna be a week. It might be a month. Meanwhile, places like apple are very tech forward in the north America. You’re gonna get it, you know, twice, three times a week and you’re gonna get, you’re gonna get zip code geo data you in, in north America. So if you were putting, you know, marketing dollars into local ads in Madison, Wisconsin, and you all of a sudden saw more sales rentals in that area, you could see it’s working. That stuff is still tough to do, cuz you can’t see in the VOD space, you rarely are able to see very quick actionable kind of things. So yes, you’re right. It used to be all about in day and date because we, we were more
Katie Chonacas:
Physical. You’re buying newspaper ads. It’s gonna get stale. It’s literally gonna see it once now. And this is another reason why kind of so many small distributors have kind of popped up and kind of stayed, propped up is that long tail opportunities are massive. Just think about anyone who’s listening to this, how you watched media three years ago, how you watched media five years, know how you watched media 10 years ago. It has changed so much so quickly that as long as you have a title, it’s gonna be new in new places for a very long time. That’s why, you know, we all see the, the, the hoop dreams of like, oh yeah, you only need to make one et in your set for the rest of your life. Or it’s one of like 30 for that particular party. But the point it is like, you can have one thing and you can continue to make it happen over and over and over and over and over and over and over again.
Katie Chonacas:
You know, how many times about star wars on VHS as kids? Am I right? No one on this call. That’s right. You’re too young. It’s okay. But the, the, the point is the same that yes, you should find a way to, to keep making it fresh and new, even though it’s the same thing. So I have a speaking of titles, I have a question about titles and VOD. However, first speaking of the audience I have a live question from someone in the audience. And so does my film need to participate in festival now nowadays? Is it worth, it
Tristan Gregson:
Feels like a layup too. No, I get that one all the time. Festivals are tough because festivals are fun. Festivals are a lot of times, it’s the first step in being like, Hey mom and dad, remember you didn’t believe in me for 20 years. Look at me now I’m at the Livermore film festival. You know, most times those accolades aren’t gonna open any new doors. You know, even the top of the top of the top nowadays, it’s kind of like, oh, you were Sundance. Okay, great. What are your, what are your instant impressions? Like what, what kind of like total hits are you gonna get off of this thing? It’s not that you were there. So I, Hey. I mean, I’m not the only one to say this festivals are really passe. You do ’em for fun. You do ’em you know, to, to show mom and dad, you did something. But at the end of the day, especially with these VOD platforms, all those laurels get stripped off those, those posters. Anyway, because we are in such an, a D D world that you want to see, you know, orangey festival square. You might watch that movie. You’re not gonna be like, oh, what, what, what does that one say? I’m gonna zoom in real close. Oh, Toronto east. Okay. Well guess I’ll watch that. That’s just the truth of the matter. It’s the world we live in. I I’m gonna just there’s actually. Oh, great. I’m glad.
Jennica Schwartzman:
Yeah, I’m gonna, I’m gonna throw it down. I’ve been on the festival circuit for over a decade and my experience is exactly what you’re saying for direct to consumer marketing. I think it is useless in the consumer sphere. I don’t think there’s a single person who watches, who clicked on your video and watched your video today. That cares that you went to a film festival. However, I think direct to consumer is half of your marketing efforts. I think that your inter industry relationships are the reason that you make movies at all. Your inter industry, relat ships is the only reason you get hired again, or you get financing again, or you have a niche audience. When you go to Toronto east, what was the example of Toronto east?
Tristan Gregson:
It’s true Livermore than my favorite. Ooh, that’s that’s too high. Livermore is a, is a small wine town outside of Napa. That wishes. It was Napa. That’s the one percenter joke. So it’s the same thing for film festivals. Toronto east is actually probably
Jennica Schwartzman:
Pretty big. There’s like there’s small festivals. That exactly what you’re saying that are so niche that nobody ever wants to see or Laurel. And then there’s medium film festivals that you go year after year because you have relationships there and you build up so that when you don’t get into a film and you need to get awards for something, you just call up your friends who you’ve seen a hundred times. And that festival director gives you a break a little bit. It’s not to say that you pull strings, but it is to say that if you consistently sell out seats, you get free audience testing to go back and revisit the edit on your movie because something’s not working. You get free audience, like I’m aggregating. <Laugh> pulling all of these people together that follow this one, social media feed. So that when I say I won Betonville film festival, nobody cares.
Jennica Schwartzman:
Who’s watching it. But next time I have my next movie. It’s part of your branding and your career as a filmmaker is I, you know, I tag Bettonville film festival to say, my next movie’s coming out here. They share it on their social media and that is furthering your brand as a filmmaker. So most people who are clicking, which I think is the majority of what this conversation is about. It doesn’t matter. But when it comes to making movies, if you do not do the film festival circuit, you’re missing the key aspect of keeping relationships and legs under you. Let’s say you hit it huge and you win at Sundance and you have all these things and you go once and then it doesn’t have any value for your life. But if you’ve been at Sundance for 18 years and you win it once it is a very different experience.
Jennica Schwartzman:
You go to any film festival that you’ve been going to for years, and the audiences respond better. The film festival directors respond, but obviously the jury having to get to, you know, gotten to know you, they respond better. There’s more awards. There’s more things to get out of it, but also I’m an actor. I’m a filmmaker. I’m sure Amanda, as a comedian, when somebody recognized you and knows you that’s a fan and like a thousand dedicated fans does translate to the clicks that matter in the direct to consumer space, because then you have, you know, you have actual fans, your friends and your family are not your fans.
Amanda Baez:
Amanda,
Katie Chonacas:
Do you wanna chime in on any, anything? What do you think about the film Fu circuit? Have
Amanda Baez:
You par taped? I’m I’m alive guys. I’m here. Sorry. I was just learning so much from what you all were saying. Deep breath. Yeah. I was like, wow, where’s my notebook. But no, I just play, do the playback. Yeah. I can definitely agree. With Tristan and, and Jenna. I think film festivals are, yeah, they are a lot of fun and it’s great to just network. You never know who’s gonna be there. Who’s gonna just take your project and just bring it up to the, you know what I mean? Like it’s just, it’s like, it also depends what up festival it might be, but it’s rolling dice. Like I was just at doc NYC and they’ve been around for 12 years and I’m a huge documentary fan. And just for me going and I was a PA on their one film that they made three years ago and they invited me out cuz it finally came out and meeting like me award-winning directors and just like them following me back on Instagram. Like it, it it’s, it’s a, a new pair of eyes watching what I post now. You know what I mean? And like they wanna my comedy show, they wanna do this or, oh, they’re, they’re sharing things that I’ve posted. And it’s like, wow, just gain like 800 followers from that. Like, you know what I, so it’s
Tristan Gregson:
The, the, the social currency is huge. And I think that’s what you’re both talking about. It’s it’s not about your film. It’s not about that Laurel, that no one’s ever gonna read. It’s about the interpersonal relationships that genetic is making with the people that either run these things or a regular at these things you can network with and business with. And, and this is true about everything in Hollywood. You go to all these, you know, Tuesday night, weird premier things where you’re like, I could be at home, not wearing pants, but you’re like, I might meet somebody. That’s gonna turn into some great business contact five or 10 years down the road. You just have to do it. And we, you know, that culture gets made fun of that. You know, all people in LA do is just go to cocktail hours for movies are never gonna watch, but really it it’s work. You’re meeting people and, and it, and this hyper social media day and age, it goes even further. Cause it’s not just about like, oh, I remember that kid. He was spunky. Like the next time I need a PA for something it’s oh, wow. That person over there has, you know, 200,000 Instagram followers for their sneaker, you know, tos or whatever. And you’re like, oh.
Katie Chonacas:
Yeah. What are they real or fake followers. <Laugh> yeah, that is, that’s like the next question. <Laugh>
Tristan Gregson:
That is it. It depends. It’s not hard. It’s not hard to see what, you know, what kind of actual currency it goes to. And I’d like to think that if you’re in LA actually being at these events, you can only run that scam for so long, but it’s, it’s the day and age we live in. So very much I do see the value there. I’m also the guy that when I was making movies, I didn’t have a year to devote to a festival circuit and I’m not making a movie or representing a movie every year. So that’s tough. That’s the business side. That’s where you get a producer who can do that. Cause they’re already going to those events and they can bring your stuff along with you or tell you this one’s good. This one’s bad. You know, like this one’s just, you know, old white guy money and all they wanna do is make Jesus movies. Don’t go to that one. Unless you’ve got one of those things. Well, there is, I’m not speaking from direct additional experience now, am I? No, I am.
Katie Chonacas:
There are thousands and thousands of film festivals. And my advice from people in the industry is do four years and up because the first years they come and go, come and go. So if you’re gonna submit film festivals, you know, a lot of times I’ve been told you can ask, not only early bird, you can say, Hey, do you have a waiver or like a discount? Even if they don’t offer one, you can like email. Normally they’ll all give you one. So there’s some tidbits for people who wanna maybe explore film festivals and, and save money and give involved in, in a social way in business way as well. I know we are like flying through here. So I wanna get to some more of these questions. Circling back around to V D how do titles succeed in the VOD marketplace in coming up in 2022,
Tristan Gregson:
Everything we’ve been talking about. I mean, you know, hopefully if you’re listening to this and as this a ages, it’s gonna be people that haven’t made stuff yet. You can put these things in place ahead of time. And you can set yourself up to for success in those places. So you aren’t as surprised if you, you know, borrowed whatever the phrase is, borrowed, stolen, whatever else to make a thing and then find out there’s no audience for it. Don’t do that. Learn this stuff, you know, whatever your craft is to engage, get people interested and then make that premium product for them in, in 2022 is my hope. If you’re out there going, if you’re aspiring to make something next year, you’re, you’re, you’re tired of sitting at home for COVID. You got all your boosters and you’re gonna go make something. Think about everything I’ve said in the last 43 minutes.
Katie Chonacas:
Yeah, I think everyone’s gonna enjoy the playback on this. Okay. So why are closed captions such a big deal?
Tristan Gregson:
They are a big deal because the FCC in the United States requires them a and not all are created equal and not every platform accepts the accepts the same formats. I’m gonna get very animated about this because I enjoy nothing more than when someone gets on the phone with me and is like, I open premier pro and I wrote all the words down and then I hit center and I sent it to you and you’re telling me it failed. You know, we, we live in such a technology, diverse space. Now we need agnostic files. This is true of video. This is true of audio. This is true of time to text. So a lot of independent filmmakers can know their audience. They can make the thing for their audience. They can make a great snazzy trailer. They can get a friend to make a great poster. They can show up at my door and then they can languish in, in failures because their time text, AKA close cash file, never get across the finish line. So do it right. Or get somebody that does it right. Is huge because all that marketing energy that you want for, you know, your July 4th weekend release is worthless. If you call me in March and you never get a time text file done, Jan I’m sure has opinions about this. I’m sure you’ve lived through this nightmare.
Jennica Schwartzman:
I always pay for close captioning and never make it anybody’s problem. Never complain ever. Just do it. <Laugh>. And
Katie Chonacas:
Where do you find your son? We work fiber. I mean, they do it for like nothing. You
Tristan Gregson:
Can just have admin. That’s the problem. That’s the problem. Tell me, tell, tell us. I like, well, first of all, my company nowadays we’re actually, we’re actually rolling it into our pricing structure. So w it is such a headache for us that we are straight up eliminating, eliminating the headache. What we did was we found what the nominal price was. We just raised our price to include that. And then it’s just like, you don’t have to worry about it. That being said, we do work with a ride variety of clients that have already have some time text issues, places like caption labs. This is not sponsored. I’m I’m shouting them out because anytime I get something from caption labs, it passes and it’s just like, oh, we’re onto the next thing. The 800 pound gorilla in the room is rev.com. I want to love them.
Tristan Gregson:
Amy, my rep, who just came through last month. Great scones. Haven’t sold me on your service yet. But they’re working on it cause they have an automated system. It’s a dollar a and the automated system that’s created by a computer fails. Mm-Hmm <affirmative> all the time. Thank you for nodding Jessica, because, oh yeah, these are the independent distributors are the ones that are like, no, it’s totally fine. It’s all fine. They have more human options. They are working on increasing. Also not sponsored, not paid for by them. It is a, it is more to get it done by human operator, but they have an Uber system now, like they use independent contractors to get time text done. And the more success rate their rating goes up and they get more work. So in theory, this new process will help time. Text files be be easier to obtain high quality ones do not go to fiber. Do not open premier, do not ask your cousin that speaks Swahili to translate it for you. Get it done by somebody that knows what they’re doing. So
Katie Chonacas:
Pay a little more to save a lot of heartache headache later for you and the team.
Tristan Gregson:
I know, I know I had to go to film school to learn this there’s this thing called the triangle of production in the triangle of production. We have three things. We have time, we have quality and we have money, right. Something always has to be sacrificed. Yeah. That’s closed captions all the time. It’s always sacrifice in terms of quality.
Katie Chonacas:
Yeah. You really hit it. Thank you for that. It’s the importance. And now we understand why
Jennica Schwartzman:
That’s part of the decision making is that when you go to certain types of distributors or in the self dis distribution model, there’s a lot to take into account. And when it comes to that money, if you don’t have the money to like go through each step with your errors and emissions insurance to finish your distributor your all of your, every single thing that you need to do to finish your movie and put out in the world, if your deliverables are not gonna be done in your closed captions, like be done, I feel like it’s, Hey, like if you are watching this and you have a movie right now and you’re out of money and you’re done, it’s okay to go around to distributors and straight up say, I don’t have a penny more. And there are distributors who will help you because they’re set up to be a creditor and you’ll just pay it on the back end and that is a good deal. And what
Katie Chonacas:
Does that budget look like? I know it can be different for every project, but what typically, what is some cushion a filmmaker can put aside to say, oh, I wanna just have this for the things you both just mentioned, like how many thousands of dollars or even a thousand dollars or, you know, so they’re not tapped out bringing nothing to the table or if they are, and they’re gonna get it from the backend deal. How, how much is that around for that admin stuff? The important things that need to be done.
Tristan Gregson:
Yeah. And, and, and because the range can be pretty broad based on what people need or how long they just go through this kind of endless cycle of failures. And, and if anyone has ever written a budget, I know, right. A lot of PTSD personally on that one. So I, again, anyone who’s ever written a budget, you always want to over blow. Initially, you always wanna make sure you have enough cushion. You never wanna. And, and this is the thing. When I talk to people, they are standing in front of the finish line. They are standing there and they’re like, I’m dumb, broke I’m out. I spent every penny as Jessica has already mentioned. So to me, I will tell people, I was, I’ll be like, try to five fine gr five grand. I know you can’t try to. And odds are, that’s gonna be more than enough.
Tristan Gregson:
And the best thing is you’re gonna throw a great party for yourself. Once you get there with the expert, that’s left over, but you never wanna be the guy that’s like two grands. All you really need because for a lot of jobs, it I thank you. It is all you really need. But if you hit any snag, all of a sudden it isn’t. And we’re exactly where we were when I first got on the phone with you, which is I’m outta money. And I’m standing in front of the finish line, if at all possible budgeted in I, this film school did teach me this. We had a great post budget. We had a great rap party. Cause we stayed under our post budget that we lesson learned.
Katie Chonacas:
Yeah. I think this is kinda brewing into our, my next question, which is some of the things we’ve talked about, but why do movies fail on the technical? And then on the profit side as well,
Tristan Gregson:
Technical, side’s really easy, but that’s also where I can flex my education. Because nowadays people are using different cameras. Like you got a GoPro and you’ve got an a seven S three and you’ve got a black magic cinema and they’re shooting a different frame race, and they’re shooting different frame sizes. And a lot of times you don’t notice, cause the average eye isn’t gonna see a, a 23, 9, 7, 6 frame and a 29, 9, 7 frame. And any difference you put ’em into a timeline and it used to be that like final cut seven. Wouldn’t let you work with it. Cause it’d be dummy proof and be like, you can’t put these pieces of footage in the same timeline. There are different rates. No. And nowadays software is smart enough, probably wrong that it makes the frames that are missing. So for all the way back to 1 0 1, if the horse is running and you have 24 pictures of it and you move it really fast, it looks like it’s a moving horse.
Tristan Gregson:
If you have another series of flip book for a horse and there’s 30 pictures and they put, ’em try to put ’em together. Well, the one with 24 is missing to catch up to this one. So software will automatically make the missing components. And this is what we get, what we call a four, one cadence or repeat frames because ever for every four frames, the software has gone and made a frame to catch up to another. We a playback speed and that will fail at platforms because on the digital side, they’re looking for that kind of thing. And if your stuff doesn’t play seamlessly, they’re not gonna take it. And that’s always a heartbreak for people that I talked to and it’s like, yeah, we shot this over two years. And it was all this gorilla stuff. And it’s really great. We got on all these different things and it’s like, well, you got vignette here and you’ve got a four, three letter box here.
Tristan Gregson:
And then you also have stuff with, I mean, I know it’s a documentary, but there’s only so much leeway. And if it’s not a documentary, there’s no leeway. So yeah, on the technical side and, and we haven’t even got to outta sync, audio popped audio non-existent audio loose audio. Yeah. All that other stuff just on the picture side. Yeah. That’s the biggest takeaway for kids nowadays is yeah. Check your camera of settings. Everything you’re working with has gotta be the same. Cause I’ve definitely been on the call totally with people where they have that epiphany where they’re like is gonna
Katie Chonacas:
Happen. But also in it, I, to 1000 to everything you’re saying, I’m just saying like, as a creator, I’m thinking I’m like calling contemplating, but as a person who’s gone out and shot a bunch of content, like if you have a dope editor and colorist with vignettes and you know, different filters nowaday with the kids and making things look cool and multidimensional, even if something shot as long as it’s, even if it’s blurry, I guess not the whole thing, but I guess there’s always ways for in post-production to do things on a technical level, if we were gonna, if it goes with the story to put a different filter or something on it, right. If it’s not, maybe just maybe be cinematic and clean, there,
Tristan Gregson:
There there’s a big gray area there. Cause now we’re, we’re touching on a lot of things we’re touching on artistic intent. Yeah. Which is great for music, videos, music, videos can be all the audio can be off and it can be a, just a vomit color for four minutes. And no one cares when it’s a narrative film. The expectation’s a little bit different and for frames sizing, it, sometimes that’s easier to solve because if you shoot at a resolution that’s large enough, you can punch in and you’re not gonna lose what is gonna be the viewable resolution. And this is why the <laugh> the, the red cinema camera family. If we wanna go back to technical side and kind of adjacent to what we’re talking about, it’s a bro camera because it shoots at 8,000 you know, K 8,000 pixel resolution because they’re all so at shooting that they can always punch in and it’s still an HD and they’re just fine.
Tristan Gregson:
So they never have to frame something properly because they got 8,000 pixels, bro. It’s gonna get caught. Don’t worry about it. But when you’ve got a cell phone and a Sony tiny camera and you’ve got stuff, that’s not lining up properly. If you punch in too much, all of a sudden you’re pixelating cause you’re not at, you know, full HD or things like that. So there is some Finese, I don’t care what any post editor or colorist will tell you. They cannot create frames and pixels that do not exist. That’s where the fallacy is. You can’t just go and make stuff to fill in gaps of things that aren’t there. You can’t, if blacks were crushed and you didn’t shoot a high enough dynamic range, you can’t just lift the whites and make more black color depth. That’s just not a thing. It just got like, so there’s some, there’s some space like, again, if you can punch in and you can always get consistent frame size, you’re fine. But everyone out there that didn’t, that’s like, no, man, I’m gonna run through the Vici. It’s gonna be fine. It’s like, no, actually it’s not. I’m sorry.
Katie Chonacas:
Okay. So we have less than seven minutes left. I want everyone to do a lightning round, introduce, say hello of who they are, how they can find you. But there is a question from the audience that I would like to get to you really quick. So mark says, I have sold rights with a few of our non movie shows worldwide back in the eighties to early two thousands, and now all has changed with too much out there. It seems any tips for now.
Tristan Gregson:
So mark, are you, are you looking to take content from the eighties to the early odds and put it on VOD? Because that is still a very profitable opportunity. It may not be in premium trans action video on demand, but this is where places like advertisers supported video on demand, free TV or in many ways, the TV that we all grew up with as kids has come back to life. So places like TB TV, I probably watch a little too much of cause I can find hilariously bad eighties action movies that are shot in four, three, or who knows what? And the standards are a little bit lower. And if I have, you know, six ad breaks in it, you know, I watched it for free. They made a few pennies on that. Everyone’s happy. So, you know, content is, king is a big thing, but also content is timeless.
Tristan Gregson:
You know, that was like, oh, the pandemic really crushed you guys actually, no anyone that was ever sitting on content was coming outta the woodwork. Cause it was like, everyone’s watching stuff. We gotta, we gotta publish all of it. And I was like, that’s great. So guess because your stuff feels old doesn’t mean it doesn’t have value. Again, I spent three hours explaining to my father how to watch the Rockford files. And he is now watching the Rockford files in 2021. Cuz he figured it out. So whatever you have, no one knows what I’m talking about, but that’s fine. Hogan’s heroes, all this other crap that I don’t understand why people watch, but old people do, CBS all acts us exact same thing. So yes. Do that. And to give us five minutes left.
Katie Chonacas:
Cool. he didn’t write anymore if you ha he had that question for him, but does everyone wanna say how? They can find you on social media online? I go, Amanda, do you wanna go first? Oh wait. Maybe he answered. Came in. Oh he said, thanks. Oh, you’re so welcome. Thank you for being here. We appreciate you. Definitely. This has been a great episode, adding a lot of value. I’ve learned so much. I’m so grateful. It was very
Amanda Baez:
Educational <laugh>
Katie Chonacas:
How do we find you, Amanda? How can everyone stay in touch with you?
Amanda Baez:
Okay. You can find me @ amandalynnbaez.com. Literally my whole name. You Google that you can even find my arrest. Amanda IBAs, Instagram, Amandalynnbaez. Twitter. AmandaLynnBaez. YouTube bay with the Z podcast as well. You can find me doing comedy on there talking about film production, all that jazz. Cool.
Katie Chonacas:
That’s it? Yeah. Love that. Love that. Nice to connect with a fellow comedian. Yes <laugh>.
Jennica Schwartzman:
Yeah. I’m Jennica Schwartzman. You can find me mostly on Instagram. Jenna Renee. So it’s J E N N I C A like Jessica Renee, R E N E E. And you could also learn more about our boutique distribution and publishing house. Little sister entertainment, www.littlesisterENT.com
Katie Chonacas:
Thank you so much. Being with us today.
Tristan Gregson:
We’ll do the business side. First bitmax.net. We have a web form that I always like people to fill out, cuz it gives me the basics. I’m gonna ask for your IMDB link. I’m gonna ask for trailer link. I’m gonna say, you know, what country or part of the world are you in? That’s the best way to get ahold of me on the business side of things that doesn’t stop people from going to LinkedIn to go into my personal website, to go on Instagram, be like check out my beats. That being said, you can find me across all the regular socials @tristanGregson. You can also find my arrest record there as well. And I’m not currently podcasting, come on. I work in Hollywood. Right? You gotta have something, but I didn’t touch anybody. And I won’t those
Katie Chonacas:
Dodgers behind you, those little baseball guys.
Tristan Gregson:
Yeah, some of us call ’em bobble heads, little baseball guys is a good one though. I enjoy that. Yeah. That’s again, you gotta, you gotta, this is a networking thing you gotta get in the sports game if you wanna work in the, in the video distribution game. So yeah, I, I, I it’s true. I don’t know how many lunches you had at a sporting event, but it’s important.
Katie Chonacas:
Yeah. I grew up on baseball, softball because of my dad. So I mean he’s really softball, so yeah, Detroit, what’s up. Cool. thank you so much, everyone for tuning in. I am your host, Katie chin. I’m an actor. I do voiceovers and I have a popular podcast called she’s all over the place. Check it out and you can just find me everywhere on chin and I’m on all social media platforms. Thanks for tuning in. Thanks for all the great questions. We’ll see. Next time. This has been a crew talk experience.
Amanda Baez:
Thanks.
