This is one of the best films/interviews/lessons on ensuring a film is commercially viable that I've been able to find on the Internet. It gets REALLY in the second half too, and I managed to learn valuable information all the way to the end - which is rare for me as I am one of those young people with a short attention span 😝 Thank you so much for sharing it here ❤ Love your channel so much. It's taught me so much on my filmmaking journey, and as someone who has finally taken the leap to committing to this path, I'm grateful to have come across this now. It feels like the stars are aligned 🥰
Thank you so much Diana! You're right, this one has a ton of valuable information. If you are looking for more practical info on the business side of filmmaking we recommend checking out this channel - th-cam.com/users/JHorton We interviewed J. last week. Our first clip with him goes up tonight. He's figured out a way to make movies for less than $100,000 and build it into a career. There are so many viable paths toward being a filmmaker / creator. Our best to you as you learn and grow Diana!
This isn’t even that brutal lol, it’s straight up facts. What’s brutal is knowing how little some distributors will offer to license a film for their territory if there’s not much going for it, but it’ll fill space in their pipeline.
After watching the whole Part 1 & 2, gold looks cheaper than this MEGA masterclass. I'm independent Concept Artist for the entertainment industry with some personal projects on the way and this open my eyes with acid, but helped me to put foots on the ground and look more for the project management / legal sides of this industry. Thank you @FilmCourage team for all your content in the channel, and Jeff Deverett for sharing to the world your experience in such an easy way to understand for everyone.
This is still probably the most relevant piece of information for all filmmakers out there that are struggling to get their films made and distributed...I've just finished my second feature, but both are still in post-production and haven't gotten to the marketing/distribution side yet, but we've got plans on how to get them seen....thank you so much for giving us this long thought out video!
Great masterclass. What I got out of it personally was a greater general sense of the need for a healthy balance between creativity and practicality pretty much throughout the process. You have to be a bit crazy to embark on a creative project that's potentially going to eat years of your life with no guarantees of a decent financial return, but in order to do it long term you need to be a realist too, and be prepared and serious in your approach to the business side of things. I've been moving in this direction for a while now but this helped galvanise some of the thinking. Thanks Jeff, thanks FC.
So great. Just being made AWARE of distribution issues gives you so much ammo. If you fire some lingo bullets during phone calls and meetings, they are made aware that you can't be taken advantage of and sometimes will offer more (info, $, etc) ahead of time. But I will be spending my money for Jeff's expertise when my film is done.
45 minutes in and one of the take aways for me is, be willing to sacrifice your vision to get something made (or write a book), but don't sacrifice your dignity to pursue your dream. I kind of feel he's spot on. Now he tells me.
Film courage, what a nice little gem i found on youtube. Im not in any kind of movie related industry. I just like to hear Jeff (and all this movie experts) talk about all this interesting stuff :p
I’m here because I had a dream that felt like a movie. Woke up at 4am and got out of my bed and began writing what i dreamt about. This is the 3rd time I’ve had a dream so strong and interesting that I had to wake up and write it down. I always have vivid dreams but these specific ones I could just not ignore. So now I’m here trying to figure out how to make my dreams something real. I’m a 27 year old lead machine operator for a company in Dallas . didn’t even finish high school but am work above people with college degrees . I thank god for putting me in such a great position. But I can’t ignore this anymore. This video is the first step in my journey ,to finding out how to make something out off my new passion.
I didn't realize Jeff did one of my favorite movies on Netflix (Full Out #1)!! I watched that movie sooo many times on Netflix until they took it down... That was a sad day but you can bet I was watching the last night of it up there. :P Thank you for doing this interview!!
To agree with Jeff Deverett, what a lot of people Don't know about The Blair Witch Project, is that once the film was sold to a studio, the studio spent $400,000.00 alone in marketing. Then they spent money on upgrades to the film, edits, and distribution. So much for a cheap budget!.
Thanks John! After we finished this interview Jeff said that what we covered was exactly what he covers as a professor at San Diego State University. We'd say this is a 4 hour condensed version of a semester of going through this material.
1:48:40 - The word production, as in "production company," has the word product built right into it. You're going to "produce" a thing, and that thing is the product of your effort.
Good point. Shame the word even needs to be defended in this context - another indication of the almost allergic reaction some creative people have toward business. I understand the impulse to 'stay pure' but counter it in myself with common sense arguments such as 'think of all the fantastic art/films/music I would have missed out on had there not been smart business people involved in getting the 'product' out there'.
@@JKL_Lazarus It’s easy for many creatives to try and “stay pure” and avoid the business stuff. And one of two things happens: they don’t get anything made that sells/sells for more than pennies in traditional distribution, or, they get utterly and completely fucked by the machine which will keep every penny possible. If filmmakers acted more like musicians who go independent for the entire process, there’d be much less trouble and less broke filmmakers.
That debate, while understandable, came off incredibly naive to me. If you’re making a film to sell to the marketplace, like it or not, it’s considered product now to those companies handling it. Once commerce comes into play either stop being precious and adapt to this stage of the game, or get a producer partner to handle all those icky conversations for you. Because they’re going to happen once money gets involved.
He is clearly the best sales man ever, I just watched full out 2: you got this! but will all respect a pretty hard film to watch, lacks of a lot of things a decent screenplay should have, sorry, he is actually pretty good in business, and can give good advice , no doubt about it, if he can make it, everybody else can. great interview by the way.
Any chance you can tell us when this interview was shot? I'm interested to know if it was within the last year, only because the distribution landscape moves pretty fast. Can't wait to sink my ears into this though
I think a film falls under an EXPERIENCE PRODUCT and the ones I remember time and time again have been my favorite and usually have resulted in some positive change in my life.
Bombillomedina!!!! Thank you for supporting our channel! We appreciate you giving back. Hope this one helps you navigate the business side of this industry a little better.
Great question about writing for an audience! In his answer he states you should consider the audience (which makes sense), but I don't think he trusts 'writing for yourself'. That's very interesting; according to that you yourself are flawed as audience and apparently disqualified as stakeholder. I truly hope it says more about him than it does about me 🤣
Not really. I don’t think it means you can’t “write for yourself”, but that innately means you already come with a bias - you wrote it. It’s obviously a story that matters to you, but that doesn’t mean it’s going to obviously matter to everyone in the world. If anything, perhaps after writing for yourself, look at the finished script and ask yourself, “what kind of story is this? Does it fall into particular genres? Are there other stories or movies or shows out there similar to it? Who do you think would enjoy your story the most?”. At least you’ll start to get out of your own head, and start trying to think objectively of who you think is most likely to see it. Then you have ammo for either potential investors or sales agents/distributors to get interested. I worked for a sales agent for 4 years. If you can put on your business hat and intelligently answer these kinds of questions, you’ll get so much more interest from them.
"Write a book" lol, best filmmaking advice ever. Seriously. I'm an indie filmmaker & it's cool & it's my calling. But, yeah, writing a book is a much cheaper & easier way to express yourself than making a movie. Save yourself & write a book. Filmmaking is SOOO HARD! lol, writing books sounds way better. Anyway, happy filmmaking y'all lol
@@filmcourage Everything related to the movie business was captivating, you don’t often hear such detailed information in this important matter, definitely Mr. Deverett was very generous to sharing this, and as he often said, your questions were on point!
I've said it before and I'll say it again: If you can't -- or don't want to -- get involved in the business side of the movie business, then hire Jeff to do it for you.
LOL Knowing he is an identical twin and being one as well listening to him talk about fairness in negotiations is just too real. There was a lot of negotiation and debates about fairness growing up as a twin. For example custody of toys because people would give us things to share.
12:25 "Public Companies focus on creating wealth to distribute to their share holders." - Jeff Deverett He's absolutley right! But with all of the constant WOKE and Forced Diversity Film and TV Failures you wouldn't know that to be true today. This is your best Interview!
Throughout this entire interview all I’m thinking about is how NFT will allow filmmakers to create and distribute movies without going through all these bs big company’s that will ruin their movie and finances
This video almost made me quit filmmaking. Its hard to get in and if you do the distributors will screw you and even if you sue and win you still lose. Sigh....
We still would say to do your due diligence, research the companies, and talk to other filmmakers and producers about their experiences. Here's another video we just published that we believe is helpful in this regard - th-cam.com/video/jb4V4y9JWjA/w-d-xo.html
"I believe that anything unique, good and really entertaining, can actually create a trend itself and can find an audience." Then why would you make a gymnastics movie especially for those who are already interested in gymnastics? Shouldn't it be a movie which makes everyone else be interested in gymnastics? Why would you limit yourself (and the movie) because of an ancient marketing theory? Imagine if Whiplash was made for musicians..
You have a point, but it only goes so far. If Whiplash didn't have J. K. Simmons, I likely never would have seen it. Even with his performance, I'm not hungry to see more movies like it, which I suppose supports your perspective. On the other hand, scifi was a niche market until Star Wars. I suspect Jeff Deverett makes sports movies because he believes he can make good sports movies and maybe if the stars align, it might touch a cord that propels it forward. If not, at least he knows that the limited audience that he is targeting will watch it.
![Beginner's Guide To Selling A Movie (PART 2) ** Masterclass ** Jeff Deverett [FULL INTERVIEW]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/u90oPeep_pU/mqdefault.jpg)
![Beginner's Guide To Selling A Movie (PART 2) ** Masterclass ** Jeff Deverett [FULL INTERVIEW]](/img/tr.png)
This is one of the best films/interviews/lessons on ensuring a film is commercially viable that I've been able to find on the Internet. It gets REALLY in the second half too, and I managed to learn valuable information all the way to the end - which is rare for me as I am one of those young people with a short attention span 😝
Thank you so much for sharing it here ❤ Love your channel so much. It's taught me so much on my filmmaking journey, and as someone who has finally taken the leap to committing to this path, I'm grateful to have come across this now. It feels like the stars are aligned 🥰
Thank you so much Diana! You're right, this one has a ton of valuable information. If you are looking for more practical info on the business side of filmmaking we recommend checking out this channel - th-cam.com/users/JHorton We interviewed J. last week. Our first clip with him goes up tonight. He's figured out a way to make movies for less than $100,000 and build it into a career. There are so many viable paths toward being a filmmaker / creator. Our best to you as you learn and grow Diana!
❤
Wow 4 hours!You guys are awesome!
We think this is one of the longest interviews we ever done. Compliments to Jeff for going the distance. This one is the real deal.
Rasheki Hendrix on Facebook I sell movie 🎥 scripts
This is brutal but incredibly valuable. Fantastic interview.
Yeah, ya gotta know some people
This isn’t even that brutal lol, it’s straight up facts. What’s brutal is knowing how little some distributors will offer to license a film for their territory if there’s not much going for it, but it’ll fill space in their pipeline.
This is so good. SO GOOD!
After watching the whole Part 1 & 2, gold looks cheaper than this MEGA masterclass. I'm independent Concept Artist for the entertainment industry with some personal projects on the way and this open my eyes with acid, but helped me to put foots on the ground and look more for the project management / legal sides of this industry.
Thank you @FilmCourage team for all your content in the channel, and Jeff Deverett for sharing to the world your experience in such an easy way to understand for everyone.
Thank you for the time stamps! Excellent interview. Awesome work
Thanks! We need to step up our time stamp game. Excited to have this interview posted.
This is still probably the most relevant piece of information for all filmmakers out there that are struggling to get their films made and distributed...I've just finished my second feature, but both are still in post-production and haven't gotten to the marketing/distribution side yet, but we've got plans on how to get them seen....thank you so much for giving us this long thought out video!
Glad this one is helpful! Best of luck with your second feature!
Definitely the most valuable thing any filmmaker who wants to get a return on their investment can watch. THANK YOU Jeff and THANK YOU Film Courage!
Maybe the best interview on this channel. So good and informative.
Excellent interview! 4 solid hours of knowledge sharing. Thank you film courage team. God bless you.
Great masterclass. What I got out of it personally was a greater general sense of the need for a healthy balance between creativity and practicality pretty much throughout the process. You have to be a bit crazy to embark on a creative project that's potentially going to eat years of your life with no guarantees of a decent financial return, but in order to do it long term you need to be a realist too, and be prepared and serious in your approach to the business side of things. I've been moving in this direction for a while now but this helped galvanise some of the thinking. Thanks Jeff, thanks FC.
So great. Just being made AWARE of distribution issues gives you so much ammo. If you fire some lingo bullets during phone calls and meetings, they are made aware that you can't be taken advantage of and sometimes will offer more (info, $, etc) ahead of time.
But I will be spending my money for Jeff's expertise when my film is done.
LOVING THIS! I want to hire this guy. Would love to work with his company
He gave me some consulting advice for my web series - super great guy and I learned a lot! Go to his website :)
Thank you Jeff Deverett for being open and sharing your life experiences 🙂
been searching for this kind of a video forever, thanks.
45 minutes in and one of the take aways for me is, be willing to sacrifice your vision to get something made (or write a book), but don't sacrifice your dignity to pursue your dream. I kind of feel he's spot on. Now he tells me.
Film courage, what a nice little gem i found on youtube. Im not in any kind of movie related industry. I just like to hear Jeff
(and all this movie experts) talk about all this interesting stuff :p
I’m here because I had a dream that felt like a movie. Woke up at 4am and got out of my bed and began writing what i dreamt about. This is the 3rd time I’ve had a dream so strong and interesting that I had to wake up and write it down. I always have vivid dreams but these specific ones I could just not ignore. So now I’m here trying to figure out how to make my dreams something real. I’m a 27 year old lead machine operator for a company in Dallas . didn’t even finish high school but am work above people with college degrees . I thank god for putting me in such a great position. But I can’t ignore this anymore. This video is the first step in my journey ,to finding out how to make something out off my new passion.
Great video. Amazing to hear Jeff's pathway into the film industry.
I'm a fan of Jeff
That is awesome. Thanks a lot for video and good speach.
I didn't realize Jeff did one of my favorite movies on Netflix (Full Out #1)!! I watched that movie sooo many times on Netflix until they took it down... That was a sad day but you can bet I was watching the last night of it up there. :P Thank you for doing this interview!!
Best distribution film video ever
To agree with Jeff Deverett, what a lot of people Don't know about The Blair Witch Project, is that once the film was sold to a studio, the studio spent $400,000.00 alone in marketing. Then they spent money on upgrades to the film, edits, and distribution. So much for a cheap budget!.
I came across this channel in divine timing!! Thank you for this invaluable content 🙏🏾.
🎩🎩🎩Thank you so much for giving us such thorough & comprehensive content...this is gold. 🤔☕️🎩✌️
Thanks John! After we finished this interview Jeff said that what we covered was exactly what he covers as a professor at San Diego State University. We'd say this is a 4 hour condensed version of a semester of going through this material.
Essentials! ✊🎩
THANK YOU!!! MR JEFF FOR SHARING YOUR EXTRAORDINARY KNOWLEDGE.
I've made a few remarks already, but it's a great interview, he sure knows his business 👍
World class distribution knowledge here, amazing.
Film Courage: 4hrs of Jeff Devertt
Us: Let's Go 👑
Great Interview ty!
This will forever be amazing and timeless!
Love this one.
Massive thanks.
1:48:40 - The word production, as in "production company," has the word product built right into it. You're going to "produce" a thing, and that thing is the product of your effort.
Good point. Shame the word even needs to be defended in this context - another indication of the almost allergic reaction some creative people have toward business. I understand the impulse to 'stay pure' but counter it in myself with common sense arguments such as 'think of all the fantastic art/films/music I would have missed out on had there not been smart business people involved in getting the 'product' out there'.
In hiN pool how I n in h I’m out up I I’ll I in i I I I I look i boo I I’ll in I hon Uni up I I yo Di I N p B b I I mom I’m Mc uv
I CB you up h I job j no v in BJ I do m m
@@JKL_Lazarus It’s easy for many creatives to try and “stay pure” and avoid the business stuff. And one of two things happens: they don’t get anything made that sells/sells for more than pennies in traditional distribution, or, they get utterly and completely fucked by the machine which will keep every penny possible. If filmmakers acted more like musicians who go independent for the entire process, there’d be much less trouble and less broke filmmakers.
That debate, while understandable, came off incredibly naive to me. If you’re making a film to sell to the marketplace, like it or not, it’s considered product now to those companies handling it. Once commerce comes into play either stop being precious and adapt to this stage of the game, or get a producer partner to handle all those icky conversations for you. Because they’re going to happen once money gets involved.
This is awesome thank you
4 hours of straight fire.
A treasure trove of knowledge.
Huge! A complete course of high value. Thank you so much!
Glad it was helpful!
He is clearly the best sales man ever, I just watched full out 2: you got this! but will all respect a pretty hard film to watch, lacks of a lot of things a decent screenplay should have, sorry, he is actually pretty good in business, and can give good advice , no doubt about it, if he can make it, everybody else can. great interview by the way.
At 1:19:21 I immediately got a vision in my head of The Macho Man and I could hear him saying it....Iykyk #Cream
This interviewer is the tiiiits!
This is the video one must watch before typing the title of his feature.
thank you so much for your honesty and wisdom. amazing interview.
Its so awesome that this is up, thank you!
Cheers!
Any chance you can tell us when this interview was shot? I'm interested to know if it was within the last year, only because the distribution landscape moves pretty fast. Can't wait to sink my ears into this though
Hi Film Platter, no problem at all. This interview was filmed the last week of October 2020 so approximately 6.5 months ago.
@@filmcourage awesome, thanks heaps
@@filmplatter Cheers!
fantastic interviews and guests. You've done a great job with your channel
Thanks for visiting!
Extremely valuable info! Thank you very much, Film Courage!!
We're glad this one found you Asi!
Excellent interview! thanks for sharing 🙌
Incredible interview. 4 hours of valuable information.
This one is the real deal. Thanks for watching Bertie!
@@filmcourage 100% 😊
Interesting.. I'm an identical twin and a film maker. I can relate with this interview. 🔥
TRULY, THE GREATEST STATEMENT, AND MOVIE-MAKING BELIEF SYSTEM, IS THE FACT THAT THE MOST VALUABLE ROLE IN ALL MOVIES IS... THE AUDIENCE!!!
Around 1:54:11 when he's talking about a new term for digital media as opposed to "product" - maybe "content"?
Thanks for this amazing long but so much valuable.
I think a film falls under an EXPERIENCE PRODUCT and the ones I remember time and time again have been my favorite and usually have resulted in some positive change in my life.
Thanks Jeff and Film Courage for this most valuable information. I hope we could also do something together.
Thanks!
Bombillomedina!!!! Thank you for supporting our channel! We appreciate you giving back. Hope this one helps you navigate the business side of this industry a little better.
Thank you, FIlm Courage.
I have completed a script and I'm trying to sell it .Fingers crossed
Good luck! And keep writing new ones!
Great question about writing for an audience! In his answer he states you should consider the audience (which makes sense), but I don't think he trusts 'writing for yourself'. That's very interesting; according to that you yourself are flawed as audience and apparently disqualified as stakeholder.
I truly hope it says more about him than it does about me 🤣
Not really. I don’t think it means you can’t “write for yourself”, but that innately means you already come with a bias - you wrote it. It’s obviously a story that matters to you, but that doesn’t mean it’s going to obviously matter to everyone in the world. If anything, perhaps after writing for yourself, look at the finished script and ask yourself, “what kind of story is this? Does it fall into particular genres? Are there other stories or movies or shows out there similar to it? Who do you think would enjoy your story the most?”. At least you’ll start to get out of your own head, and start trying to think objectively of who you think is most likely to see it. Then you have ammo for either potential investors or sales agents/distributors to get interested. I worked for a sales agent for 4 years. If you can put on your business hat and intelligently answer these kinds of questions, you’ll get so much more interest from them.
"Write a book" lol, best filmmaking advice ever. Seriously. I'm an indie filmmaker & it's cool & it's my calling. But, yeah, writing a book is a much cheaper & easier way to express yourself than making a movie. Save yourself & write a book. Filmmaking is SOOO HARD! lol, writing books sounds way better. Anyway, happy filmmaking y'all lol
2:07:05 "500 lifetimes worth of content on TH-cam"- Yep, 497,5 of which are absolute worthless crap... Now, that's dilution! Brilliant video.
This is great!
I'm interested in how it works for animation
Real good work
amazingly informative, great video, thx!
Thanks Arcan! What were some of the highlights for you?
@@filmcourage Everything related to the movie business was captivating, you don’t often hear such detailed information in this important matter, definitely Mr. Deverett was very generous to sharing this, and as he often said, your questions were on point!
I've said it before and I'll say it again: If you can't -- or don't want to -- get involved in the business side of the movie business, then hire Jeff to do it for you.
Thank you!
Cheers Miklos!
Thank you ,
Thanks!
Thank you so much Michael! We appreciate you supporting this channel!
He just said if your a independent filmmaker go make a book,haha
LOL Knowing he is an identical twin and being one as well listening to him talk about fairness in negotiations is just too real. There was a lot of negotiation and debates about fairness growing up as a twin. For example custody of toys because people would give us things to share.
🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥
12:25
"Public Companies focus on creating wealth to distribute to their share holders." - Jeff Deverett
He's absolutley right!
But with all of the constant WOKE and Forced Diversity Film and TV Failures you wouldn't know that to be true today.
This is your best Interview!
They HAVE to focus on creating profits to distribute out to shareholders legally, most people either don’t know, or ignore, that fact.
Is there a transcript of this available?
Why does this have so few views?!!
Throughout this entire interview all I’m thinking about is how NFT will allow filmmakers to create and distribute movies without going through all these bs big company’s that will ruin their movie and finances
yes , some virtual automated distribution system is needed.
4:04:57
All film distributors rip off filmmakers. ALL of them. No exceptions 😮
sad but true
Plot twist- This was actually the other twin... 😜
Am I reading that right?!?! 4hrs?!?!
Believe it or not.
4 hours?
Yep, all business.
Filmmaking tip: if you're going to film a 4-hour interview against the same back cloth, maybe get an iron? I can't stop looking at those creases.
This video almost made me quit filmmaking. Its hard to get in and if you do the distributors will screw you and even if you sue and win you still lose. Sigh....
We hear a lot more stories from filmmakers these days of them getting paid than not getting paid.
@@filmcourage thanks for the reply. Whew!
We still would say to do your due diligence, research the companies, and talk to other filmmakers and producers about their experiences. Here's another video we just published that we believe is helpful in this regard - th-cam.com/video/jb4V4y9JWjA/w-d-xo.html
I watched that one too :) I watch most of your awesome videos. Thanks!
20:37 *Indian people ARE Asian.
P
Who’s watching this that has 1.5 million dollar projects? It’s so annoying to hear those giant numbers.
A lot of great tips, just a few things he says. I’m just guessing most people watching are indie filmmakers with budgets like 10-60k to make a film.
One day you may grow out from INDIE.
Has shane stanley forsaken you?
"I believe that anything unique, good and really entertaining, can actually create a trend itself and can find an audience." Then why would you make a gymnastics movie especially for those who are already interested in gymnastics? Shouldn't it be a movie which makes everyone else be interested in gymnastics?
Why would you limit yourself (and the movie) because of an ancient marketing theory? Imagine if Whiplash was made for musicians..
You have a point, but it only goes so far. If Whiplash didn't have J. K. Simmons, I likely never would have seen it. Even with his performance, I'm not hungry to see more movies like it, which I suppose supports your perspective. On the other hand, scifi was a niche market until Star Wars.
I suspect Jeff Deverett makes sports movies because he believes he can make good sports movies and maybe if the stars align, it might touch a cord that propels it forward. If not, at least he knows that the limited audience that he is targeting will watch it.