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Demystifying The Indie Film Journey
This is Truly Independent, a show that demystifies the indie film journey by documenting the process of releasing independent films in theaters. Each week, Garrett Batty and I, Darren Smith, will update you on our journey, bringing guests to share their insights into the process and answer your questions. In today's episode, we talk with filmmaker TC Christiansen about his recent theatrical hit, Escape from Germany, and we answer 2 listener questions. The first, how big of an audience do you need? And when you raise money for marketing, is that a separate raise?
Daren:Lots to come in this episode of Truly Independent. This is episode 9.
Garrett:Here we are. Welcome to Truly Independent. I'm Garrett Batty. Good to have you, Darren.
Daren:Hey. It's good to see you, man. How's it going?
Garrett:Doing great. Another, another good week. Another good week on the path to put the Carpenter in 600 screens on November 1st.
Daren:Yeah. My goodness. We've made some good progress. We've had some fun, exciting things happen on both movies that we're working on right now. And so it's it's weird.
Daren:The questions I'm getting from people in DMs are like, are you seriously releasing 2 movies this fall?
Garrett:Yeah. That's cool. I well, and and if yeah. You mean you wish we could have more?
Daren:Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Let's just do one every month, I think. I mean, that's a good Bring
Garrett:it on.
TC:Bring it on.
Garrett:Movies are coming out. We might as well participate in them. So, yeah, it is fun. It's a lot of work and Faith of Angels in September and, Carpenter on November 1st. So it's getting to the point where we gotta keep track of the different meetings and what the topics are.
Daren:Yeah. Very cool.
Garrett:This yeah. This week for we had a great onboard meeting with our, marketing company and our distributor and everybody getting together and saying, okay. Let's build the calendar of, assets that are gonna be needed and the release structure, and then who's handling the website, and who's handling the graphics, and who's handling the trailer, and the poster, and, all the elements are now coming together.
Daren:Well, cool. You see any good movies this week?
Garrett:Oh, yes. I didn't do my due diligence as far as seeing an independent film, yet, but week's not over. I saw we watched oh, well, no. Here's what really is. We watched I watched Rogue One.
Daren:Any good movies lately?
Garrett:I watched Rogue One with my son.
Daren:Hey.
Garrett:You know, he's 13. My wife and daughter are out of town for for 2 weeks, and so we're probably gonna do some some Star Wars watching. And I loved watching it because I'm thinking Gareth Edwards, this is his second movie after, Monsters, right, which was his first independent movie made for 800,000.
Daren:Yeah.
Garrett:And, you know, did everything he could with his little Sony X3, running around Central America recording footage and then cutting it into this movie. And his next movie's Rogue 1. And, I just love that story. It's such a such a a a banner moment for independent filmmakers. So this is a good story.
Garrett:Fun fun story.
Daren:Yeah. He's a very talented filmmaker. So we, April and I, my wife and I have been on a kick to kind of go through kind of our favorite movies of the eighties, the nineties, the early aughts, if that's the thing. So I got to bring up early aughts. So we've we introduced for the first time our kids to Napoleon Dynamite Oh.
Daren:Which was so fun to watch with them. It very much fits with my kids' style of humor. They have been calling it nonstop for the last 4 days.
Garrett:So they tracked it. They they because we
Daren:were we were eating dinner last night, and my youngest son, Liam, goes, Gina, you fat lard. Eat your because my middle son hadn't finished his dinner yet. And I was just like, this is amazing. This is we are a movie household. We quote movies all the time.
Garrett:That's a that's a parenting win.
Daren:But you know, I that movie came out when I was, I was serving a mission for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints in 2003 to 2000 5, and so that movie came out in o four, and everyone was talking about it when I got home. And it was the very first movie I watched after 2 years of, like, no media whatsoever. No music, no TVs, shows, no movies, nothing for 2 years. So I come home, and that's the first one. And I did not get it at the at the time.
Garrett:Yeah. Yeah.
Daren:And I'm looking at all my college friends going, like, you guys have a weird sense of comedy. Like
Garrett:What has happened? Weird
Daren:taste. What's happened to this world? It's grown on me for sure, and it's a very, very fun movie to watch. So there you go. An oldie but a goodie.
Garrett:Also, you're a great example of independent film and taking risks and, winning big with that one.
Daren:Yeah. Very, very true.
Garrett:Cool.
Daren:Well, we've got an awesome guest today. A few episodes ago, we chatted with Susan Tuckett who did the release of Escape from Germany. But we thought it would be fun to bring on the director, cinematographer. Is he the writer of this movie? I'm getting my credits, maybe.
Daren:But writer, director, cinematographer of Escape from Germany, TC Christiansen is joining us today. I'm so excited to dive into a conversation with him. Gary, any thoughts before we bring him on?
Garrett:Let's bring him on.
Daren:Hey, indie filmmakers and movie lovers. This show is sponsored by Purdy Distribution. Since 2011, they've been bringing incredible independent films to theaters, like Garrett Batty's The Saratov Approach, T. C. Christensen's Love Kennedy, and MacLean Nelson's Once I Was A Beehive.
Daren:They've worked with top notch directors like Mitch Davis and Mark Goodman specializing in family, faith based, and funny films. This year alone, they've released hits with JK Studios like Go West and Villains Inc, and have even branched out internationally with films shot in South Africa and Japan. Purdy distribution works closely with indie filmmakers designing personalized distribution plans whether it's a theatrical release or straight to streaming on platforms like Amazon, Itunes, Google, and more. If you have a PG or PG 13 film ready for the world, think about reaching out to Purdy distribution. They're approachable and knowledgeable, ready to help you visualize your film's distribution.
Daren:Even if your film isn't fully polished, they can offer valuable guidance. Plus, if you need that crucial distribution piece for investor packages, Purdy Distribution can provide a letter of intent to distribute, helping you secure funding without locking you into a contract. Mark your calendars for Purdy Distribution's upcoming releases, Tokyo Cowboy on August 30th, the digital release of Thabo and the Rhino Case on September 1st, Faith of Angels in theaters on September 12th, Villains Inc on Amazon and Itunes on October 1st, and The Carpenter on November 1st. To stay updated on these releases and more, sign up for their newsletter at purdiedistribution.com. That's purdiedistribution.com.
Daren:Now, back to the show. Amazing. We're here. Thank you, TC. You have joined us on the Truly Independent Podcast.
Daren:How do you feel? This is a momentous occasion in your career.
TC:I can die. Just kill me now. We'll wait till it's over then, Tim. Yeah.
Garrett:Let's wait till it's over, TC. Don't anything rash. Hold on the please. Thank you, for being here. It is it is a thrill and an honor and a big fan of you and your work, and and, I can't wait to hear how you do it.
TC:Me too. I've I've never thought this through before. I'm gonna have to.
Garrett:TC, we that. Go ahead, Darren.
Daren:Yep. We were gonna say the same thing. Yeah. TC, 2 episodes ago, we had Susan Tuckett come on the show, and we talked at length about the distribution strategy for your most recent film, Escape from Germany. And we thought what better follow-up than to have the filmmaker to come on, talk to us about the principles that you apply when you're thinking about distributing your films.
Daren:There was a weird emphasis on distributing instead of distributing, but that's okay. This isn't a grammar podcast. It's a film podcast. So we'd love to dive into that, but why don't we start with helping the audience know a little bit more about you? Tell us about who you are, how long you've been in this industry, what you do.
Daren:Be great to know a little bit more about you first.
TC:Well, look at me. I'm old. It's all I've ever done. I've never had a job. I've never had done anything else.
TC:You know? We we started making, at a profession while in college, and and it's a thing you'd you know, I'm I'm happy at this point of life to look back and go, hey. The phone kept ringing. I kept getting jobs and doing my own films. And so okay.
TC:I guess mission accomplished. Because when you are when you're young and you're just getting going, especially, you're just thinking, man, I don't know if I'm gonna end up having to sell used cars or or something else to supplement because I don't know if I can do this. So anyway
Garrett:When does that feeling go away? Because I'm I'm ready. I'm I'm I'm hopeful that feeling will go away at some point for me.
TC:For me, it went away when I was 68.
Garrett:Okay.
TC:So, so my career really has been as a director of photography and helping other directors make their films. And then it was, about 14 years ago that I really started thinking, you know, I've got my own ideas. How come I'm just doing everybody else's and started making my own films? And then my career went a different way, and I don't do much work as a cameraman for other people anymore. And, I just kinda
Garrett:to to shift then from well, I know we I guess we're talking about independent film and and and, the entire process. We do wanna get into the distribution. But just ideally, I mean, what was your involvement in that, like that first independent film or whatever? I know you did some shorts. Yeah.
Garrett:That received distribution. Is that how did that come about and and is that still your process today?
TC:Well, I I I feel like I came into this at a really good time because short films were viable. You could actually return a dollar on on short films. I don't know how you could do that anymore. Maybe there's some people are doing it. I I don't and don't have any interest in it in it anymore.
TC:But it enabled me to, on a small budget, to make a film and show an investor that I could turn a dollar and get the money back. As I think that's one of the toughest things anybody out there trying to make their own films is people are just saying to them over and over, how do I know you can do this? You what have you done that that shows me or anybody else with a financial background? And people with that with money tend to be smart. And, film is not a good investment, typically.
TC:And so they're looking at you kinda out of the side of their head, and short films gave me a way to go, look. I did this. Look what it did. I did this. Look what it did.
TC:Let's move on to something bigger. And then the way this works, financially, I think, is I just have to keep paying back those that invest with me. If I don't, then eventually that's gonna run dry. To me, it's like the this is a, you know, Walt Disney quote that he said, I don't make films to make money. I make money so I can make more films.
TC:And especially at this stage of my career, it's not for me. It's not about, excuse me, that I'm trying to amass some amount of money or whatever. I just wanna keep making them. And as long as I can keep an investors happy, then I get to keep doing it.
Garrett:Seems like there's 2 there's those 2 sides of it, and we've talked about this a little bit on the podcast. There's certainly the ability to make a film, which you have to you have to prove. You have to have that ability. Right? If, you might have a great idea, but if you have no idea how to make that film, it doesn't matter how much money you have, that is not gonna work.
Garrett:And then there's that ability to turn a profit or or in theory, like, show an investor how you're going to recoup. And speaker. In theory, my my, Siri just heard me. Anyway, so you've got both of those sides of it, and I mean, I've always said, look. For, you know, for me, I gotta make movies.
Garrett:It's not because I'm the best filmmaker or the best business guy. It's that I know a little bit about both, and I'm able to, raise money and put together a crew. It sounds like that's, your experience supports that and what we've talked about on the podcast.
TC:Well, you're gonna because it is a business. And Yeah. Most of us, especially as young filmmakers, I think, go into it thinking, I'm gonna make a film so good that whatever. It's gonna make money. It's gonna be great.
TC:It's gonna be the best film ever made, and, that doesn't that often really turn out that way. You have to be good, on the business side or surround yourself with somebody with people who are that can help you get through all of that because it's, there's a lot of traps you can fall into.
Garrett:Well, you've seemed to avoid those time after time after time with your hits from 17 Miracles, Ephraim's Rescue to Love Kennedy, Kokeville Miracle and, and then and now just recently, congratulations on an escape from Germany.
TC:It's good. You rattled off a pretty good list there, Garrett. Thank you.
Garrett:I'm sure I missed some TC, but, but no. I was just kinda picturing my DVD library and, like, okay, let's just go down the line.
Daren:What's the DVD, Garrett?
Garrett:It's a gift that, Christian audiences give to each other. It's things that
TC:We hope. Yeah.
Daren:TC, I'm curious, because Garrett and I have talked a little bit about budgets of our movies and how that plays into the profitability equation. Right? If you spend as much as possible, so you can pay yourself as much as possible and have all the visual effects and the helicopters and the extra big cameras and all those things. Yeah. It's fun in production, but maybe that hurts your possibility for getting a return.
Daren:I'd love to hear. How do you think about budgets going in? What are you playing and coming up with the budgets? Are you just raising as much as you possibly can? You go make a movie?
Daren:Are you setting budgets ahead of time and then going out and raising that amount? How do you approach that part of the business?
TC:It's more of the second way that you you said, Darren. 1st the first film we did, feature film, was 17 Miracles. And so then I didn't have anything to base it on other than what other people have done. So you start looking and see, okay, if they spend this much, and how much really are films paying back and and try you you wanna be in an area where you have a chance to make it happen. You can use maybe some people are able to raise really pretty pretty big amounts of money, and sometimes that's the worst thing you can do.
TC:And I'll tell you a thing. In every pre preproduction meeting on every one of our films, I say to our crew and staff is, a great I don't know who said this. I'm not I I know a lot of other people's quotes. This isn't for me. But they said, to make a really good successful movie, you need to have not quite enough money and not quite enough time.
TC:I think that's really true. When people are just are unable to just spend and do whatever they wanna do, those very probably do not make a good business choice.
Garrett:Yeah.
Daren:And it really can hurt your profitability as well. I think it highlights the difference between what we do as independent filmmakers and kind of the studio model. And you see what happens with the studio model is everybody's trying to get as big of a paycheck up front as they can because they know they're not gonna see any residuals or back end from streaming and from all the other ancillary methods that the studio is going to make money on their movie. And so their fees go way up, and you're paying tens of 1,000,000 of dollars to different talent. And that just makes it really hard to make your money back.
Daren:Whereas we're kind of approaching it differently and saying, look, we're gonna have a responsible budget, but we're gonna be resourceful, and we're gonna pay people fairly, but we're not gonna have exorbitant things. And I think one of the things that I keep seeing from you and from Garrett, the comments that keep coming in are, wow, this movie really punches above its weight. Because people probably have an idea of what the budget was, and they go, that was amazing. And I just love that about your films. I love it about Garrett's films, which is why I've been so excited to work with him the last two movies.
Daren:It's like we get to go and play and we get to figure it out. It's a there's always the problem of not enough money, not enough time, but we're still gonna do it. And that's pretty exciting.
TC:Yeah. It's a roll of the dice. You you know, I don't know the statistics really for independent film, but I know for studio films, it's, only 1 in 5 of their films make money. And, you know, they're a big studio, and they the one that makes money makes so much money that it can cover all the others. When you're a little rat guy running around like us and making these little films, I can't make one that makes money and then make 4 that don't.
TC:You you have to be smarter than that. And and and I think if you get yourself in that situation where you get to make a film, then you better be thinking about that, that it's a business and not just entertainment.
Garrett:TC, we did a screening a few weeks ago of a movie that we're releasing. We've talked about it on this podcast called The Carpenter. And when we went to the theater, it was a Thursday night. You were in probably week 10 of your release of Escape from Germany. And we went to the theater to kinda check the screen and make sure everything was there, and you were there.
Garrett:This is week 10, and you were there just checking the audience or checking the load or making sure the print was going. What I mean, do you sleep? What is that process where in week 10, on a random Thursday night, you're going around to the theaters? Is that part of the is that what we're we signed up for?
TC:That's funny we had that connection with that. I yeah. That's true. It it, it wasn't week 10. And the reality is I live in up up near Lagoon in Davis County, and I don't get to Utah County all the time or regularly even.
TC:And I was there for a few meetings, and in between meetings, I had an hour and a half. So what am I gonna do? I'm, oh, I'm gonna go over to the theater. So that was more of what it is. And it wasn't really so much that I go and check on projection and sound.
TC:But if if I'm there, I do because I'm very opinionated about that. But the main thing is I like to, shake hands with the with the people that come out of the theater and tell them thanks for being there. So the if you have a nice theater manager, they'll let you do that. And I just stopped in on that occasion, and they said, yeah. Go in.
TC:And and so I went in and got to meet people, and then I saw, one of the one of the Purdies outside and Yeah. Do the annex and so forth and ran off to my next meeting.
Garrett:Well, it's, it's both a testament that you were there doing that and that there's an audience there, that late in the, in the run and, and that you also that you have that relationship with theater managers. You know, you set the bar so high in this market and just as an independent filmmaker that I think we could all take a take a page out of your take a note out of your playbook.
TC:Well, maybe I could everybody could find their own way with things. It was actually see, one of the great things I was telling you I really was a director of photography for so many years. That was a position I could learn in where I'm working with directors and producers all the time, and I'm watching them, and I'm going, that was smart. When I get a chance, I'm gonna do that. And I'm also, a lot of times, thinking that was dumb.
TC:Don't ever do that. And, I I just think that we've gotta we each find our own way and try to just figure it out.
Garrett:Yeah. Yeah.
Daren:So, TC, you've chosen to release, I think, every one of your films in theaters. I know a lot of independent filmmakers will go streaming or they'll go direct or they'll even do the day and date thing. I think they call it pay 1 now. Is that right? Like, I'm I'm out of the loop on this.
Daren:But can you talk to us a little bit about why you put your films in theaters and maybe what you've learned over doing 6, 7, 8 movies over the years theatrically?
TC:Well, I, grew up going to the theater. To me, that's movie making. And so a part of that is just to instill that if you're making a real movie, then you put it in a real theater. I think there's there's still a positive stigma that goes with that that you're in a place where people are willing to come and pay 10 stinking dollars see what you made. That's scary and risky, but when it happens, that's just so gratifying.
TC:And that, we tried as our business model, the first one, 17 miracles, and it was it was successful. So, of course, you kinda go like a dog do his vomit. You just keep going back and doing whatever worked. If it that hadn't had worked, then we would have probably figured out some other way to do it. But when the when the thing's working, I'm not gonna change it.
TC:And we have, not every one of our films have made their money back theatrically. They had to wait for some of the ancillary venues. But for the most part, they have. And so, yeah, I wanna be in there slugging it out with the big boys.
Garrett:And I think those ancillary markets, the fact that you're profitable at that point is a result of that theatrical, statement that's saying, hey, this belonged in theaters, it played in theaters, and, it it creates a level of interest and awareness for those ancillary markets to succeed. We use you select a date, TC. So an independent filmmaker right now, Darren and I are at okay. November 1st, we're releasing The Carpenter. We have our date.
Garrett:We've got, we've interviewed Purdy Distribution. They're gonna help, release they're they're gonna help book theaters. We've We've got some marketing. What the what as an independent filmmaker, you've got your date, you've got 4 months till till release time. What's your day to day, or what what are you doing, to prepare for that date?
TC:Well, let me I wanna back you up just a minute and and say how I think it's really important. That date is not something you throw a a the dart on the wall. You have to put some thought into that. And, you know, all the major studios release the upcoming dates that they're releasing, and there are, businesses that kind of add weight to meaning saying, this is gonna be a big film. This is gonna be a small film.
TC:And you you gotta deal with all of that and try to choose a date that that you don't get squashed because there's gonna be so many big, studio films come out and also a a date where people hopefully will or can go to the theater. And, that's that's hard. We've done every one of our films has been released the the week after Memorial Day, And that worked and worked, and at one point, I just was a little unhappy with it and just thought, well, there's other dates that go good, and let's find another date. Did the research, talked to people, met with the theaters, and ended up with, the the April date that we did for, Escape from Germany Germany. I was very happy with it.
TC:It's hard to know if really how much of it is the date. You know, there's so many factors that that go into it. What's going on in the world at that time? You know, if you will we released, not in theaters, but released a a a short kid film that I tried years ago, and it was released the week of 9/11. Well, guess what?
TC:We the world was not thinking about no. What I wanted them to be thinking about.
Garrett:Sure. Sure.
TC:I think we just can't control that. It's just part of the deal. Alright. But then, what what am I doing, in in that 4 months beforehand? Probably, to a great degree, I'm still finishing the peep pick and film.
TC:I get that with you.
Garrett:Yeah.
TC:And then also all of the, marketing side of it because, we don't farm out the trailer and the little, maybe you're doing little, short pieces for the Internet to push it. That's all done, you know, under my umbrella. So Yeah. So much of that to be doing and taking care of. And and try to be smart about it and not spending a whole bunch of money on it, but still try to get something that people, hopefully will go, hey.
TC:I wanna go see what that fat bald guy did. I saw that preview. It looks good.
Garrett:I'm, I feel attacked.
TC:Because hey, but we got this, Jared, but that's where it's that's where it stops.
Garrett:It's it's amazing. Yeah. The amount of work that you again, you continue to put it you make the movie, and you think, oh, I'm done. I mean, that that seems like that's where the work starts is once you hit, you know, picture lock, done on the movie. Now getting it out there is just as much effort to to get people to see it.
Daren:Yeah. But at that point, you don't have a 120 crew and all the cast and all the support from everybody. It's like you and a handful of hand select people, a small team. Yeah. And you gotta hustle it hustle every single day on your own.
Garrett:Yeah.
TC:And the and the, the that marketing plan, I I stay very involved with. I I took a different route than most filmmakers were doing with with some things when we did 17 Miracles, because I, again, I hadn't done it myself. I'm watching, and I saw things that I thought didn't make sense. And I tell you, the the main one of that was that the and I guess it's still the common way that it's done is that the distributor will front the marketing money, and then they get first out on that. The first moneys that come back go to them to to pay for that.
TC:Well, that causes some problems, so I thought and I said, I'm not gonna do that marketing company. We're gonna raise an additional amount of money to pay for the marketing, and then we have to approve the marketing. Because what was happening was there'd be very good films, and they'd be coming out. And so the the, distributor would just spend and spend and spend because this is gonna be great, and we gotta get it out in front of people, and they're gonna wanna come and see it. And they would dig a hole so deep that the film could maker could never get out of that hole.
TC:It woulda happened to my most colossal hit. They said, we're not gonna do that. We're gonna start small and build, do that number instead of coming out with all the flash.
Garrett:Yeah. Yeah. I, very similar realization on on my releases, you know, say, hey, the distributor is making 10% of every dollar they spend on this. Well, there's no incentive to pay the filmmaker back. They're gonna just spend.
Garrett:That's like printing money for them as long as it's making money. So there has to be that balance and I think I I heard you talk about that and that influenced that, in our release, plan as well. Yes. TC, you've been, you've you've been so generous with your time and with your with your knowledge and experience. I I can't tell you how excited I am, and we to chat with Susan and just, congratulate her and you on on incredible release of an incredible film, with Escape from Germany.
Garrett:I noticed the other day, something came up that said a an at home, at home movie pass or something. And I got an abundance of texts from people saying, what's this? How does this work? And, and I thought, oh, well, that's again, TC coming up with new ideas or inventing something or what is that?
TC:Well, I would like
Garrett:to speak.
TC:I'd like to say I had this genius idea, but it was, really, it was, Susan Susan Tuckett, in marketing and Laurel Day with Desirard Burke as we Yeah. Meeting and discussing different ideas of how we could handle this. And they're the ones that came up with it. It's a, it's a video on demand thing, but it would enable Deseret Book to have a window where they can use their resources and get it out. And because, you know, I needed a I we're I still we're gonna sell DVDs.
TC:Might sell one to my mom and your mom. Yeah. And and
Garrett:I'll get 2 or 3 from people for Christmas.
TC:That might be it. I that'll be a big thing for us to see how well we do with that. But for to get a distributor to do that, they they they're not that interested in it anymore because it's pretty much been dead. Yeah. Enable us to have a a something that our marketing and distribution people felt good about, and now they're happy to do the DVD because they have the video on demand right as well to start with.
Garrett:Cool. Well, I I'm so excited for that and and, anxious to see how that goes. And, we do we need to figure out a way to replace that DVD income that we no longer have.
Daren:Yeah. Casey, thank you so much. I'm curious, what's next for you?
TC:Oh, thanks for asking. You know, like everybody, COVID was bad for me and that I wasn't willing to risk anything and go out and get shut down, so we just waited. But as soon as it was a time that I felt safe with cast and crew, so we ran out. We've we've got 2 other films going there. One of them is shot and in postproduction, and the other one is about halfway shot and halfway through postproduction.
TC:And so they're both going to be theatrical releases and very excited about both of them. So just trying to keep the machine
Daren:going. Amazing.
Garrett:Well, we're we are excited to support it. And, if you wanna if you're listening now and you want a chance to go see TC, just go to one of his screenings. He'll probably show up at the end of the credits somewhere. Doesn't matter how late into the run it is.
TC:Yeah. That don't tell him that.
Garrett:Don't tell him that. No. But, no, it's it was great. It's great. Thank you very much for coming on.
Garrett:It's been a pleasure to chat with you. Congratulations.
TC:I love to talk about movies. So thanks for letting me say and act like I know something. That's not fun. Yeah.
Daren:Where can people go to find out more about you, TC? Do you have a website we can send people to?
TC:Well, there's, there's a Facebook thing that Susan administers.
Daren:I
TC:think it's TC Christianson director, something like that. That that's they they don't need to find out about me. Just Google and look up the films and see see what they're doing. That's a better way.
Daren:Sounds like a plan. We'll find those and put some links in the show notes for people so that you can get easy access.
TC:Thank you. Thanks for letting me be with you.
Garrett:Of course. Earth. Congrats. Thank you.
Daren:That was really good. I've I've heard TC talk about his movies before, and I've always wanted to ask some of these questions. And so, man, that was great. And the thing that stood out to me the most, I think, was this idea of the more responsibility you personally take as a filmmaker, the the bigger the upside, the more opportunity you have to have these big results from theatrical. Because over time, over a number of films, he's just progressively taken on more and more.
Daren:He does his own trailers. He does his own social media stuff. I don't know who does the poster, but he's handling so much of the creative side of the marketing. And so he gets to participate in all the upside when his movies do really well, like Escape from Germany he is right now, that's that makes it possible to go make more movies, which is what we all wanna do.
Garrett:It's amazing to hear him talk obviously about his movies, but about the business side of it. And he's done what we've talked about a lot on the podcast, which is to focus on building your audience. Right? Right? He makes the movie and then he doesn't just turn it over to a distributor.
Garrett:He he carefully guards that and and an audience knows what they're gonna get when they go see a TC Christensen movie. He has an audience and he's got access to
Daren:them. Very cool. Alright. Well, that brings us to our audience questions. I have the first one queued up, Garrett, and the the question from the last episode was how big of an audience do you need?
Daren:And I think it's an interesting one to talk about in this episode because if you look online, TC doesn't have a massive following. I don't know if he's got an email list that he's sending out to tens of thousands of people, but, you know, he's like he mentioned, he's an older guy. He's not maybe the most tech savvy. We're not saying that to say anything bad about TC, but Yeah. Generation and different approach to social media for sure.
Daren:But here he is with, you know, a really powerful theatrical release on a movie. And so it's hard to answer that question. Like, how many people do you need? I think you can always have more. You definitely want an engaged audience over a big number that is disengaged.
Daren:Right? If you're looking at email, for example, I'd rather have an email list of 5,000 people with a 60% open rate and people clicking on links and participating and getting responses and stuff, then have 50,000 people with a 1% or 5% open rate. Because the 50,000 doesn't matter. It's who's opening your emails, who's replying to you, who's engaged, who's who's saying I'm raising my hand to be a part of this release and come to the movie and coming to screenings. So I think you kinda have to reverse engineer based on what kind of result do you want in the in your theatrical release.
Garrett:Yeah. I think that that's, I mean, that that's a a great answer and a great question, and I don't know if it's a numerical value. You know, I've got x amount of followers or the audience can be, I mean, a repeated audience of 1 if that one person is funding your movies. Right? And so whoever is funding your movies is is your audience.
Garrett:And, TC, certainly he can go anywhere in where his movies play, and they know you know, they are his audience. If you say, this movie is done by TC, you he knows what that is, or, we know what that is. So, yeah, I don't know if there's a numerical value or or not, but the audience is certainly the one that is supporting him.
Daren:Yeah. I do think and I've talked about this in, you know, my other businesses and stuff, but, like, there is the idea of a minimum viable audience, which
Garrett:is,
Daren:you know, if you've got a plan to put your movie in 600 screens, well, and you want to have a $2,000 per screen average, well, you can kind of work out how many people need to buy a ticket to your movie. And that's kind of your minimum viable audience for that strategy. But if you look at, you know, maybe other movies that start their release on 4 screens or 25 screens, that may be because they know they can get that many people to a theater and have a good per screen average. And that's what expands the movie in the weeks following to go, oh, that this is a big movie. We wanna have it in our theater.
Daren:And then the theaters and the marketing and the extra P and A that you have goes to expanding it to people who aren't currently in your audience. And then, as we're going to talk about more in other episodes, the strategy then is to capture the audience you don't currently have. So if a member of your audience brings their family and friends to a screening or a church group comes to your screening, they bring a 100 people. Well, you might have one email, but now you want to capture the other 99. So how are you going to strategically do that through the release of your movie?
Daren:So that by the end of the release, you've got 10 times the audience that you started with. And that's a part of the thinking as well.
Garrett:Yeah. Yeah. I look forward to chatting with those, about that in future episodes. The question I received this week, it came in from from the website. So if you go to if you listen to the podcast and you think, oh, I wonder I have a question, you can go to 3 point pro.com/podcast, and there's a form that you can just fill out and ask questions.
Garrett:But it I received one that said, when you when you do this is kind of business specific. When you do money for when you raise money for marketing, does that go into the cost of the film, or is that a separate raise? And that's a I mean, that's a super savvy question, and and, I love that they're they're thinking that, and and there are probably a number of different ways to do it. In my in our case, typically, I raise the money for the film, which is equity investors, And then separately, I don't I don't ever wanna dilute that. I think those equity investors, they come in very early on when the film is just kind of in concept phase, sometimes even before there's a screenplay, and they invest based on a lot of speculation and a lot of risk.
Garrett:And we make that worth their investment. And then there's the marketing element, and that's once the film is already done. They kinda get an idea of what this is, maybe what we've done in the past. And so that's almost, it's there are a number of different ways to fund that marketing element, but my, you know, rule of thumb is not to dilute the equity investment. So it's a separate raise, and they get paid back first, Typically at a lower percentage, there's much lower risk, and then we focus on the equity investor.
Garrett:It's a good question.
Daren:Yeah. At that point, the movie's made. The risk is the downside is covered a lot more than at the early stages, pre screenplay or preproduction. And so you've done the work of derisking the investment. So at this point, you can even structure it as a loan in some cases or even lend off of things like minimum guarantees or lending off of your tax credit.
Daren:These are really more advanced strategies that we could probably dive into if we wanted to.
Garrett:I think I think we should when we go yeah. As we get you know, maybe dedicate an episode to that.
Daren:Yeah. There's a lot of ways to do that. But at that point, you got to think about the risk and reward. And so the earlier someone comes in, the higher their reward should be. At least that's my approach to investing.
Daren:And you need to be able to structure the investment so they can make a profit off of that investment. And so make you're being responsible with the way you're raising money and the way you're structuring those deals. And then you can be savvy and you say, look, this is a derisked investment, so there is no equity offer at this point. You're coming in and we're gonna offer a percentage on top of what you invested and it's within a certain time period. And, you know, there's obviously downside.
Daren:There's no guarantee here, but you kinda cap the upside for them because they didn't come in as as early as those equity investors.
Garrett:I still try to make it I agree exactly what you just said. And the equity investors are certainly welcome to participate in the marketing side. You know, say, they've given their their initial investment. The film turned out great. They're feeling good about it.
Garrett:I wanna participate in the marketing. So I usually do, you know, it's a whatever, a 10% return on the marketing side. Plus for for the the the investor that does want, you know, an opportunity, if if the film does really well, they are taking a risk and their money is important and they're smart. So I take a 10% so they get the whatever their investment is, plus 10%, And then, there's a section of the box office that should this film take off, that that is split with the marketing, the p and a investors. And that just incentivizes and and hope you know, it it says, hey.
Garrett:If we win, everybody wins.
Daren:Yeah.
Garrett:It doesn't dilute the equity, though. That's important to me.
Daren:Yeah. And that's such an important principle because if you can really treat your investors well and your movie makes money, guess what? You can fund your next one because they had a good experience, they made some money, They liked working with you. They trusted you. You treated them fairly.
Daren:You took care of them. You made sure that when more money came in, they got more money as well. Like, those are all things to be thinking about. It can't just be about you and your production company making money. Because if you, quote, unquote, burn your investors, they're not gonna come back and then they're not gonna tell their friends about you.
Daren:And if their friends ask, they're gonna say, don't go there. So we don't wanna burn investors. We wanna really bring people into this industry and show them what's possible and how much fun this investment can be to come on set and to be a part of it and to go to screenings and bring your family and friends. Like, those are all things you can do because you're an independent filmmaker and there are kinda no rules. Like, just do whatever serves the film the best.
Garrett:It's fun to talk about for sure. It was
Daren:Awesome. Awesome. Well, another good episode. I was so glad we got to talk with TC today.
Garrett:Yeah. That was fantastic. Thanks for setting that up, and, congratulations again to him for, Escape from Germany. If you haven't seen it, go see it and then check out his his other films.
Daren:Yeah. They're all good. That's what's awesome about TC. It's like, not only are they good films, they're extremely well filmed because he shoots all his movies too.
Garrett:He does shoot. He's incredible DP, and they're good business. They're good business strategy. The way he balances the budget, takes bigger stories, somehow puts them in a in a world that he can build with with well managed resources, and it gets him out there.
Daren:Yeah. Awesome. Awesome. Alright, Garrett. We'll see you on the next one.
Garrett:K. Don't forget to, subscribe to our podcast and send any questions you have.
Daren:Thank you for listening to this episode of Truly Independent. To join us on the journey, be note screenings and ask us questions about today's episode, head over to 3 coinpro.com/podcast, and put in your name and an email address. If you're a fan of the show, please leave us a review on your favorite podcast app, and be sure to share this friend. Thanks for listening, and we'll see you next week. Our intro and outro music is Election Time by Kjartan Abe.