Ever heard of Shark Tank-like pitching for Faith Driven Businesses? I just spent two days in Dallas with the winners of the Tampa Lion's Den pitch competition, LOOR.TV. The Lion's Den connects investors with faith driven entrepreneurs. LOOR.TV is creating a game-ified, equity-crowdfunding, streaming platform aimed at funding and sharing movie, TV and documentary content that young people actually want to watch.
The business model for independent filmmakers is broken. It's a winning-the-lottery mentality where they beg, borrow and steal to make a movie that's hopefully not too compromised in apparent production value (making $100K look like $1M) and then sells for a profit at film festivals or to streaming channels. The chances of making money this way is super low, and I keep meeting exhausted filmmakers that are sad when they can't find a distributor that will spend the same kind of sweat equity selling their movie as they spent to make it. So, they give their precious baby away, but at least the movie they slaved on for years is out there for people to see. Repeat after me: It's a movie BUSINESS.
The smart (and Biblical) way to finance a movie is to count the cost in advance and pre-sell the movie before making it. Kinda like a high-rise apartment complex will determine a need and start pre-renting apartments first. Ideally, filmmakers copy the model of Angel Studios and raise the fans in advance who pre-purchase tickets to the movie. LOOR TV is pursuing this model. This is hard work. I helped produce two features that are upside down for the investors. I intend to remedy this.
The problem with most Christian movie distributors is they don't know how to reach young people, nor do they even try. So we have generations of film goers who are being spoon fed junk food by a Hollywood world view that is in conflict with Biblical values. There's some good content out there, some neutral, but tons of woke content that clearly contradicts God's truth, goodness and beauty.
And young people get all the content they want on social media for free, so why should they pay for my movie? What's my value-add to them?
Eyre Films and LOOR TV have a lot in common. How to cancel Cancel Culture with slightly irreverent movies that appeal to young people (likely mostly to young men, but niche down to find those super fans). As I reactivate the fans who have watched "Run Cholo Run" 2.2M times, but with music I didn't license :(, and promote the digitally enhanced re-release of Vengeance Trail, I will be learning to find superfan audiences for Prey For Mason, Smash and Run, and Puberty From Heck! all in various stages of development. Stay tuned.
Meanwhile, here's Jason Farley and Marcus Pittman enjoying a pitch I made for a Romans 6:23 monster comedy that might have to be hosted in Finland, lol! It will definitely cause Cancel Culture to get triggered!
Ian
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