The old way of making an indie film — submitting it to film festivals and finding a distributor — is dead. . 

This week Alex Ferrari, founder of Indie Film Hustle, shares the new realities of what it takes to get your independent film made in today’s digital world.

He also gives an exclusive look at his brand new company, Filmmaker Process.  

Listen to Alex share how your film can make money in today’s environment.

Key Points:

1:12 – How he got started
2:30 – Shooting a movie for the mob
3:27 – Starting Indie Film Hustle 

Skip to: 12:00 The problem with dollars for hours

14:12 – Multiple income streams for filmmakers
17:43 – What it takes to be a Filmtreprenuer 
21:40 – Future of distribution 

Skip to: 26:20 How many indie films that make a profit

32:35 – Breaking of the mold of traditional filmmaking

Skip to: 36:06 Talent worth the ROI

40:53 – What gear do you recommend 
44:54 – Getting someone to work at a lower rate

Skip to: 45:32 Getting started

50:00 – Exclusive Announcement 

Show Links:

Shooting for the Mob
Indie Film Hustle
Rise of the Filmtrepreneur: How to Turn Your Independent Film into a Profitable Business
Protect Yourself from Predatory Film Distributors/Aggregators
DaVinci Resolve 
Blackmagic Cameras
SIGMA Lens
Filmmaker Process

Full Transcript

Alex Ferrari (00:00):
I was in my 30s, and then there was a 24-year-old that shows up into my post suite with a feature film that he got three million bucks for, and I’m editing it, and I’m doing all the post and this guy, and he’s just like, “I’ve never seen Blade Runner.” I’m like, “Shut the hell up.” And then, of course, I’m sitting there editing. Why don’t… I could do this job. I can… All this crap, this is all crap. Look at it. I can’t even save this movie, and I could have done something much better. Why won’t someone give me $3 million? Blah, blah, blah. I was an angry and bitter filmmaker for a long time. And then everything changed after I launched Indie Film Hustle.

Tanya Musgrave (00:19):
Welcome to The Practical Filmmaker, an educational podcast brought to you by The Filmmaker Institute and Sunscreen Film Festival, where industry professionals talk nuts and bolts and the steps they took to find their success today. On today’s show, Indie Film Hustle’s Alex Ferrari chats distribution, balance, and an exclusive intro to his newly launched business, The Filmmaker Process that provide services to get your film funded, finished, and distributed. Find the full transcripts and more at thepracticalfilmmaker.com. I’m your host, Tanya Musgrave, and today we have indie director and host, blogger, educator/guru of Indie Film Hustle, Alex Ferrari. Welcome to the show.

Alex Ferrari (00:19):
Thank you so much for having me on the show. I appreciate it.

Tanya Musgrave (00:19):
I’m super stoked. So, I would like to start with your journey so far. How did you get here for the people?

Alex Ferrari (01:48):
I’ve worked as everything you can imagine from every position almost on the set, but I really made my bones in post-production and commercial directing when I first came up as a commercial director, and music video director, and post-production. And then where I really made a living was post-production. And then I would occasionally go out and do directing gigs. And I’d done that for a long time. Worked on, I think I’ve delivered over 60 feature films in post-production as a editor, online editor, colorist, post supervisor, VFX supervisor [crosstalk 00:01:48], all sorts of things that we could do in post-production. So, I’ve seen a lot, and I’ve been a lot, and I got a lot of shrapnel as I like to call it in the business. My dream has always been to be a feature film director and the dream of every independent filmmaker is to make a living being a filmmaker, has basically always been my dream as well.

Alex Ferrari (01:48):
So, I’ve been blessed to direct two feature films. Both I got released, distributed, sold. My first film was made for about $5,000 and was licensed to Hulu for a little while. So, that was great. My second film that I just did world premiered at Raindance in England. So, I’ve had a really interesting journey. When I was 26, I almost made a $20 million film for a mobster.

Tanya Musgrave (01:48):
What?

Alex Ferrari (01:48):
I wrote a book about it called Shooting for the Mob which is my whole year long journey where an actual gangster, I was basically locked in to this deal with the devil to make a movie about his life and our production offices were in a racetrack and all of that kind of good stuff. Hollywood took him seriously. And then I was flown out to Hollywood and I met the biggest movie stars in the world, the biggest producers in LA. I’m at the Chateau Marmont. I’m at the Ivy. And I have a whole chapter dedicated to Batman where I went to Batman’s house and hung out with Batman at his 10,000 acre ranch talking about how he was going to be in my movie. I was in a penthouse screening room watching the sizzle reel I made with this billion dollar producer and all this crazy while my life is being threatened on a daily basis from a bipolar gangster.

Tanya Musgrave (01:48):
Awesome.

Alex Ferrari (01:48):
I’ve gone through some stuff in the business. And in 2015, I decided to launch the Indie Film Hustle podcast and blog to help filmmakers because I got tired of seeing filmmakers get chewed up and spit out by this business. And again, being a post guy, I was in the room eight hours a day, 10, 12 hours a day with filmmakers, producers, listening to the stories, hearing their tales of how distributors were screwing them over and how they didn’t get paid, or this drama there, that drama there.

Alex Ferrari (01:48):
That, in addition to all of my own personal experience being in the business, I looked out in the marketplace in the podcast world, and I just didn’t see anybody that was telling the truth as I knew it, and was coming from a place of experience. There was a lot of people out there talking about it from their point of view and their perspective, but no one really that I saw though that had real experience in the business was talking real. It was all like-

Tanya Musgrave (01:48):
Rubber meets the road.

Alex Ferrari (01:48):
Go to film school. You’re going to be great. Everything’s going to be fine. That’s not the world we live in. So, I wanted to put out a resource that could prepare filmmakers. And then after that screenwriters for the realities of our business, and one of my quotes that I always say is follow your dreams, but don’t be an idiot. No matter who you are, no matter what level of success you have, whether you have Oscars, whether you made billions of dollars, you’re going to get punched in the face by this business at every stage of your career. Steven Spielberg still gets punched in his face. I promise you. Now, the difference is that he’s taken a few punches over his career. He knows how to take the punch and keep going. He knows how to duck. He knows how to weave. And occasionally he knows not to be where the punches being thrown, and that is time, but everybody gets hit.

Alex Ferrari (01:48):
I think a lot of filmmakers walk into this business not knowing that there’s fist going to be coming their way. And then when they get hit, they’re out. They just get knocked out and they’re gone forever from the business, or they get so discouraged that they just become angry and bitter. We all know an angry and bitter filmmaker. And if we don’t know an angry or bitter filmmaker, you are the angry and bitter filmmaker that everybody else knows. Because I was an angry and bitter filmmaker. Oh God, I was pissed. I was in my 30s, and then there was a 24-year-old that shows up into my post suite with a feature film that he got three million bucks for with some stars in it. And I’m editing it, and I’m doing all the post for this guy-

Tanya Musgrave (01:48):
You’re editing it.

Alex Ferrari (05:53):
I’m editing it and this guy’s [crosstalk 00:05:53], and this kid in the background, and he’s just like, “I’ve never seen Blade Runner.” I’m like, “Shut the hell up.” And then of course, I’m sitting there editing, “This mother…” Why don’t… I could do this job. I can… Oh, this crap. This is all crap. Look at it. I can’t even save this movie. And I could’ve done something much better. Why won’t someone give me $3 million? Blah, blah, blah.

Tanya Musgrave (01:15):
Seriously, seriously. What dues did you pay?

Alex Ferrari (06:18):
Yeah, exactly. Exactly, what dues did you pay? How dare you? So, I was an angry and bitter filmmaker for a long time until I realized it just wasn’t helping me, it wasn’t getting me anywhere. And then everything changed after I launched Indie Film Hustle. My entire career, my entire world changed for the better the moment I started being of service to my community and to the filmmakers.

Alex Ferrari (06:43):
And so, many filmmakers out there, so many podcasters and blogs and things like that, a lot of the times they lead with trying to make money and trying to get money from filmmakers, and I don’t. I give away so much content. It’s obscene how much I give away. And I only charge for a little bit, but if anyone’s like, “Oh, I can’t afford this course that you’ve done.” I’m like, “That’s okay. There is 700 hours of top-notch interviews and conversations and content that you can go into for free. And if you never pay me a dime, I’m good with that. If that helps you on your journey, I’m good with that.” So, I always lead with service in the moment that I did that door swung open and opportunities presented themselves. It didn’t happen overnight, but it started to gradually growing. I’ve been doing this, in July it’s going to be six years.

Tanya Musgrave (07:35):
That particular pivot is just, it’s so striking to me because it reminds me of a book. It was something simple. It was just called Love Is the killer App. He was a guy who had made multi-million dollar deals on a handshake. And just talking about the flip of being worried about where you’re going in your own life versus putting out something great into the universe where you can just like, “Hey, actually, I want to help you.” It’s a mindset change. It’s like the difference between worry and gratitude.

Alex Ferrari (08:11):
If you want your dream to come true, help somebody else with theirs. And it’s so true because I’ve had the blessing and the privilege of talking to a lot of my listeners over the years at festivals or at AFM or at events and things that. Listening to my podcast has changed their life has changed. It has changed their career. They’ve read one of my books and just goes, “Oh, my God, my whole world has been changed upside down.” One guy’s like, “You saved me half a million dollars from signing a horrible deal with this distributor after I listened to this podcast, and then I bought your course. And then now, and I went through your course and now I’m prepared to deal with these distributors.” Things like that, and I can’t tell you. It’s a high. It’s a drug that I’m addicted to now. So, I need to continuously do that to know that I’m making that kind of effect on people’s lives is really addictive.

Alex Ferrari (09:04):
It’s the same thing as when you give. We’re wired to give. We’re wired to be collaborative as a species. So when we give a gift and you see the happiness in someone else’s face, we get endorphin rushes. That’s chemical. That’s wiring. We’re wired for that. That’s why I’m just addicted to doing as much as I do. I might’ve gone a little overboard. Every time I get on a podcast, the first thing the podcast asks is how are you doing this? [inaudible 00:09:32]. I don’t understand. How do you do this?

Tanya Musgrave (09:35):
Yeah, no. Yeah, I don’t get it. I don’t get it.

Alex Ferrari (09:38):
I don’t understand it. And then the second question after was like, “How are you making money?” You live in LA, that’s not cheap. How do you do this?

Tanya Musgrave (09:45):
That’s a valid question. Why don’t you understand that? How about just for me?

Alex Ferrari (09:53):
Basically, and for people listening, and I wrote it in my book, Rise of the Filmtrepreneur is building ancillary product lines and services that are just multiple revenue streams. [crosstalk 00:10:06]. So, it’s some of them five bucks here, 10 bucks there, 500 bucks here, 1,000 bucks there. And at the end of the month, it starts to add up, and then-

Tanya Musgrave (10:14):
Yeah, stuff gets paid for.

Alex Ferrari (10:15):
And stuff gets paid for. And then all of a sudden, you look at your balance sheet. You’re like, “Oh, that’s working.” So when one goes down… It’s like diversification 101 when one’s like, “Oh, that affiliate isn’t doing a whole lot of money this year, but this has gone up,” and it balances it out. And then you bring in a new revenue stream and like, “Oh, boom. That just jumped up a little bit of money and, oh, boom. That just jumped up.” And some things that were huge for me three years ago are nothing to me now because they dry up. People are not… I used to be masterclasses number one filmmaking affiliate. I sold more Aaron Sorkin, Werner Hertzog masterclasses than probably anybody.

Tanya Musgrave (10:54):
That is amazing.

Alex Ferrari (10:56):
And now everybody has masterclass. So, it’s not as big of a revenue stream anymore. So, things like that. But they always ask me, do you have sponsors? I’m like, “Eh, occasionally.” It’s not a big thing. That’s not a revenue stream for me. If it comes, it’s great. [crosstalk 00:11:09].

Tanya Musgrave (11:09):
That was a thought in my head. I’m just like, “Do you have sponsors?” But yeah.

Alex Ferrari (11:12):
Sponsors because podcasters think because this is the traditional way podcasters make money. Don’t get me wrong. When sponsors show up it’s fantastic, and it’s great, it’s fun money. And it’s like, “Woo-hoo, great.” I don’t have to work hard for it. It’s great. But I use my podcast as revenue generation for 1,000 other revenue streams that are much more valuable to me than a sponsor. I do have ads. I do run ads, but that’s some money. It’s not a whole lot of money every month, but it’s something. But yeah, that’s a little bit.

Tanya Musgrave (11:43):
I know people who are teaching ESL classes at the same time. They’re getting up at 5:00 AM to do that while they work on an editing gig here and then… They piecemeal themselves out.

Alex Ferrari (11:58):
So the thing is this, the problem with most mentalities as filmmakers is everything you just told me like, “Oh, they have this gig over here. That gig over there.” It is all dollars for hours. So that is the limitation. You only have so many hours in a day to make money when you’re trading your time for money. And most of humanity has been trained to do dollars for hours. Now, it could be high dollars. It could be 300 bucks an hour as an attorney, but it’s still a limit to how much money you can make. Everybody’s got 24 hours in the day. Nobody has more, nobody has less. It is 24 hours in a day. So the key is to create assets for yourself that generate revenue passively. And when I say passively is a little misleading because you’re working. But when I say passive means that you’re not doing dollars for hours. Real estate is a “passive revenue stream.” Meaning that every month rent comes in off of an asset that is creating revenue for you.

Alex Ferrari (13:00):
What I’ve done is I’ve created digital assets and the digital world. So a book is a digital asset. And then off of the one book, I’ve got audio book, ebook, paperback, all of those. And then in the book itself there are lead generators to go to my website to upsell them to courses, or just introduce them to my ecosystem and give them more free content. Or if they want to go down a paid route, they can go down paid routes and so on. Imagine hundreds of those spread out through a bunch of different ways. So as filmmakers, if you can find ways to create assets for yourself, so a film that you own and can put up on platforms and sell and create multiple revenue streams around a film, that’s the whole Filmtrepreneur Method. Those are assets.

Alex Ferrari (13:48):
I just interviewed a filmmaker who’s been making money for the last 10 years, strictly off of just basically three or four documentaries he’s made, but he has a niche audience that he’s focused on. He’s created multiple ancillary products and services around it. And he’s been able to generate obscene amounts of money off of just that. Rise of the Filmtrepreneur, that’s what the whole thing is about, and I literally break down something I call the Filmtrepreneur Method, which is how filmmakers can create a film. But when they’re creating the film, they’re thinking about a niche audience. So you’re focusing on a niche audience. That’s the key to the film. That’s the key.

Alex Ferrari (14:22):
If you try to make a broad comedy, you’re going to fail. If you make a vegan chef comedy, romantic comedy, then you could focus that on the vegans, on the vegetarians, on paleo, and people who are that audience, you can target those audience. You can reach that audience. And then you can also create a cooking a course on how to become a vegan, and then maybe possibly some books and maybe team up with someone else and maybe sell some ancillary or affiliate products for people. So if you have an audience, figure out what they want and what will serve them and sell multiple services, products, whatever, because they’re going to buy those products or services somewhere. Might as well come to you because if you’ve built up that trust with the film that will help. So that’s one way that filmmakers can go.

Alex Ferrari (15:04):
But if you’re doing the dollars for hours thing, try to always have multiple skill sets, multiple tools in your toolbox. So when one revenue stream, which is, let’s say editing, dries up, or COVID hit production is not really happening right now, really helpful to understand editing at that point in the game. So if you’re a camera assistant and then all of a sudden COVID happened and there’s no production for seven months or longer, maybe I could still do editing. So you constantly should be building skillsets. And like we said before the interview started, I essentially ran the entire Indie Film Hustle universe, which is pretty broad by myself for years, meaning that I did all the work myself with very little help from anybody else.

Alex Ferrari (15:54):
I was only able to do that because I built so many tools. I’ve put so many tools in my toolbox over the years that I’m like… Look, before I launched Indie Film Hustle I didn’t know how to really build a website. So I taught myself and now I build websites. People ask me all the time, “Can you build my website?” I’m like, “Absolutely not. Absolutely not, I will never build a website for anybody else.”

Tanya Musgrave (16:13):
I won’t put myself through that again.

Alex Ferrari (16:15):
Never again, but I could easily charge $5,000 a website comfortably and build out because I build out websites like water as you guys know. I have so many different websites, but that’s a skill set that I built. So now that’s something I always have in my back pocket and then editing and then color grading and VFX and camera work and all these other things that I do. So I’m constantly broadening all the different revenue streams that I can create. I think where filmmakers get caught up is like, “I’m only going to be an editor.” I’m like, “I wish you the best of luck because the marketplace will change.”

Tanya Musgrave (16:50):
Well, piggybacking on that this actually does come from, this is a listener question from a student. She was curious what some of those pros and cons of each would be. For instance, a lot of what you’re saying is if one would continue wanting to be an indie filmmaker and having that kind of freedom and not necessarily being worried about the union and that kind of thing. She was still curious, what are the pros and cons of each? Which one do you think is better in some areas, or weaker in others? Specifically, because in traditional Hollywood some of the people who are… They get into the union and that’s all they do. That’s their shtick. That’s the alley, the lane that they are in. Some of them don’t feel the need to diversify or that kind of thing. And the hustle per se looks a little bit different for them.

Alex Ferrari (17:43):
So, as far as being an independent filmmaker and a Filmtrepreneur and entrepreneurial filmmaker, you need to have a specific kind of personality to do that. That’s not for everybody. It’s just not. I can’t be an accountant. You do not want me to be your account. Absolutely not. Absolutely. You do not want me to proofread your book. You do not want that. I promise you. So, everyone’s got their own lane. You have to figure out what that lane is for yourself. Now, when you’re in a union, there’s no guarantee of work if you can get in, but it depends on your market. It depends on where you are. It depends on the world that we’re in. There’s so many different things that happen. Unions are wonderful, and I love them.

Alex Ferrari (18:28):
Sometimes they could be anti-worker meaning that, oh, you can’t work on anything other than unions so that limits you. Especially, if you’re on the lower end of the union spectrum. If you’re a big guy with a lot of credits and you can… That’s different, but when you’re just starting out, you just got to hustle for work. So, depending on the state you live in and all kind of that stuff, and I’ve seen that work. I lived in a right-to-work state and I live in California. So there’s a completely different mindset there.

Tanya Musgrave (18:56):
Oh, yeah.

Alex Ferrari (18:56):
There’s people who will be happy working at a job for the next 10 or 20 years doing what they love to do. For me that’s personal hell. I can’t do that. I am unemployable. I am intellectually unemployable. I cannot work for somebody else. I can work with other people. I can partner with other people. I can work with companies, but I can not be… I can’t have a boss like that. I’ve been fired from the two full-time jobs I’ve ever had years ago. This is 20 years ago when I did that. So you need to ask yourself the question, what kind of person am I? Am I willing to put in the work to be an entrepreneur? Am I willing to put in the work to hustle that hard to get those jobs and get those different skillsets and really get out there.

Alex Ferrari (19:39):
If that’s not inside you then try to go down more of a traditional path, but understand that there is no guarantee in this business. That whatever traditional path you walk into, the carpet could be pulled right from under your feet at any moment. Things change so often. Before in the ’50s, ’60s, ’70s, ’80s, even in the ’90s, things were a lot more stable and things didn’t move so quickly. Now, things are changing so rapidly. Our business is essentially under attack, the theatrical business has gone. So the world’s shifted so rapidly over the last year. Before that it was changing. So there’s no real stability anymore. I’m not saying I’m from the streets, but someone who hustles the streets and people who are in corporate America all day, both of them are going to have difficult times in each one, but I promise you the street hustler when they get into corporate America, oh, they’ll figure it out. But corporate America going down to the street level, they will probably die. But that’s that kind of hustle that you need to have inside you.

Alex Ferrari (20:48):
I’ve been doing that since I was nine. I was hustling garage sales when I was nine and 10 selling stuff and making… I was the only 10-year-old with a fat wad of $100 bills in their pocket going out buying them baseball cards, comic books, and garbage [inaudible 00:21:02]. You have no idea what I just said.

Tanya Musgrave (21:03):
I don’t, sorry.

Alex Ferrari (21:06):
I know you don’t because you’re young and that’s fine, but I was hustling at that age, and that’s something that was completely inside of me. And I’ve been a hustler in that way all of my life. So that’s just the way I’m built. So you have to ask that question of yourself.

Tanya Musgrave (21:22):
A bit ago I remember listening to one of your podcasts. It was about traditional distribution just being dead. [crosstalk 00:21:29]. Yeah, not even the distributors know what to do. Everyone’s just throwing stuff to the wall and just seeing what sticks. I’m curious what changes you’ve seen.

Alex Ferrari (21:39):
Distributors now a lot of them really don’t know what to do. What they had held onto for decades is gone now. So what was the thing that made money was DVD. DVDs boom in the late ’90s, early 2000s all the way up to probably 2010, my God, you could do sniper seven, and it was an automatic $5 million done, 5 million. Easily, because of DVD sales and international DVD sales and all this stuff. So, DVD was the savior, but when streaming showed up, it started to just completely destroy. And now DVD market is essentially dead, for the most part. There’s still people making a lot of money with DVD.

Tanya Musgrave (22:19):
For the most part, except for I saw one on your… About DVD not being dead.

Alex Ferrari (22:24):
No, but it’s a niche. It’s a niche audience and he’s selling DVDs out of the back of his cars essentially and making bank and that’s something you could do. But the mass market DVD market sales are… Just every year it’s going down and Blu-ray is going down. Unfortunately, I think physical media might go away completely one day from the major studios. I hope not. I hope it stays around like vinyl does.

Tanya Musgrave (22:46):
Yeah, well record sales are. I mean, they’re going back up.

Alex Ferrari (22:48):
Yeah, record sales are up. So I’m hoping that Blu-rays, which is still the best way to watch a movie at home, not theatrical, but at home it is the best way to watch a movie. It’s much better than any streaming compression. I hope that it will stay alive, but these distributors that have been holding onto the old traditional ways of doing things, they just can’t grasp what to do. And they’re trying to figure things out, and they’re trying to move, but literally things are moving month to month where before it took years, if not decades for movement to happen. Now it’s happening so quickly that these older distribution companies, the dinosaurs, they just can’t move fast enough.

Alex Ferrari (23:26):
It’s hard for distributors to make money with films and they have the connections and they have the outlets to put things on. So that’s why a lot of these predatory distributors will then screw the filmmaker even harder and make sure that the deals are structured in a way that like, “Okay, we’re going to give you $10,000 upfront.” And the filmmaker is like, “Great.” My movie costs $100,000 to make, I’m going to get 10,000 up front, great.” I promise you that will be the only money you will ever see. Even if you get that first check because many times they just don’t mean to pay that. But that $10,000, don’t make sure that your marketing cap, which hopefully you’ve got one because if you don’t then you’re absolutely screwed. But let’s say your marketing cap that you put on a distribution contract, let’s say it’s $50,000, which is heavy-handed to say the least, but doable.

Alex Ferrari (24:12):
I’ve seen $150,000 marketing caps on movies, which basically states that the distributor is going to spend $50,000 on marketing your film to the masses. When they give you money up front, they know that they can make 20, 30, $40,000 instantly because they can call up their buddy in Germany, “Hey, I got this movie, do you want it for five grand?” Great. Calls the friends, great. Calls up the streamer, boom. They have output deals already. They already know it’s a guarantee for them. When they hit that $50,000 mark, which is contractually where they have to start paying out to you they stop. They stop working the movie dies. Right then and there it dies. And they know that because it’s on iTunes and Amazon and all these other places that’s trickle money. That’s five bucks, 10 bucks, 30 bucks, 50 bucks, 100 bucks. It’s nothing. So they stop working and they do that to 10 filmmakers a month. It’s not a bad living.

Tanya Musgrave (25:10):
No, of course not.

Alex Ferrari (25:12):
Do you see what I mean?

Tanya Musgrave (25:13):
Yeah, yeah.

Alex Ferrari (25:14):
And a lot of times it’s not even money upfront. Money up front is a rarity if you can get that. But most of the times they’re like, “Oh, you don’t like our deal. There’s 15 other filmmakers behind you with 15 other movies.” So, that’s the world we live in, and that’s why that was the genesis of that whole death traditional. It was pretty intense, I remember [inaudible 00:25:36].

Tanya Musgrave (25:37):
There is a listener question about this. One of our previous guests had mentioned this off interview. He’s just like, “Yeah, there’s a Facebook group.” I think it’s yours.

Alex Ferrari (25:48):
It is mine.

Tanya Musgrave (25:49):
Hey, it’s yours. It’s Protect Yourself From Predatory Film Distributors and Aggregators. Filmmakers are just like, “Hey, have you heard of this company?” And they’re just like, “Dude, never, stay away.” I think those resources are fantastic, but I want to know from you, this is the listener question what percentage of indie films that get distribution or money back?

Alex Ferrari (26:14):
You mean that make a profit or that distributors actually pay?

Tanya Musgrave (26:18):
I mean, how about both?

Alex Ferrari (26:20):
Independent films that actually make a profit, probably 1%.

Tanya Musgrave (26:22):
Really?

Alex Ferrari (26:23):
One or 2% of all filmmakers, all films [inaudible 00:26:26], this is true. It’s about one to 2%, maybe three in that general world that actually get paid by distributors. Probably a little bit higher. I’m going to say… This is a number I’m literally pulling out of my rear end, but that get money back I’m going to say a good 20, probably 20, 25% of filmmakers will get money from their distributor. And I think I’m being generous there, but there’s a lot of them that just don’t or they get so minuscule amounts or the reporting is jacked up. Look, there’s there’s a term called Hollywood accounting. The Me Too Movement when it happened, it shined a light on a systemic issue in our industry.

Alex Ferrari (27:07):
The casting couch was a punchline in movies for decades. Oh, you want that part you’re going to have to sleep with the director or the producer on the casting couch. It was a standard business as usual thing for decades. It was just the way business was done. And then the Me Too Movement happened and thank God all that stopped. And now the abuse with Scott Rudin and those kinds of guys, and obviously Harvey. The abuse is not just physical, but now verbal and all of that stuff that’s already [inaudible 00:27:43]. But that was business as usual. When Chaplain, Fairbanks, and Pickford, the three biggest movie stars of the silent era got together to create United Artists was because they were getting screwed by the distributors. It has been around since the birth of our industry. So this systemic issue of being screwed by the distributors, screwed by the studio has been with us since the first time Edison hand-cranked something and you saw a horse jumping. It’s been around since then. So, that systemic issue is still with us.

Alex Ferrari (28:24):
I’ve talked to distributors who they don’t see what’s wrong because it’s like, but that’s just the way it’s always been done. I had a distributor say to me, “Well, you just got to check. Most filmmakers don’t even get a check. What are you complaining about?” That was a quote. And I was like, “Oh my God, there’s such a systemic problem.” So I’ve been saying this that what’s happened to independent filmmakers now by the traditional predatory distributors out there, not all distributors, there’s a segment of them is a financial raping, a financial abuse of the filmmaker that someone needs to shine a light on it. I’ve done a little bit of light shining in my day with what I do. But there’s still major issues. It’s literally called Hollywood accounting, and why do you think movie stars get 35 million bucks up front? Because they know they’re going to get screwed on the end. Help, Paramount said that Forrest Gump made no money.

Tanya Musgrave (29:18):
What?

Alex Ferrari (29:18):
It was publicly out there that like, “Oh yeah, we’re still in the red on Forrest Gump.” You mean the movie that won the Oscar and made $700 million worldwide, and it costs 60? You guys are really bad business people if that thing has still not made any money. So, but that’s the way Hollywood accounting works. It is a problem that’s systemic with our business. I think there are a lot of good distributors out there who pay, a lot of honest distributors who want to help filmmakers, but they are rare. I truly don’t believe that they’re majority.

Tanya Musgrave (29:54):
Looking at your numbers of the 1% versus the 20% that might actually get money back, you would still recommend the distribution, right?

Alex Ferrari (30:02):
Depends on the movie. In the book, Rise of the Filmtrepreneur, I’m telling you how to do this without a distributor, or to build up a system where the exploitation of your film is not your major revenue stream. I created a system within the Filmtrepreneur Method where the movie being stolen from you and you not getting paid by a predatory distributor is okay because… It is wrong. It’s horrible. It shouldn’t be done. I’m not suggesting you do, but if it happens, you’ve got all these other revenue streams that you control. If you can control the revenue streams, then you use the movie as a loss leader. You use the movie as free marketing, and it’s just put it out there and whatever happens. And if I can make some money off of it, great. If I don’t, that’s fine, too.

Alex Ferrari (30:53):
But I promise you in the vegan chef movie conversation you’ll make more than the 2.99 or 3.99 rental on Amazon or iTunes. You’ll make more selling a $50 online cooking course. How many books will you sell? Vegan books that have branded the name of the movie or something along those lines or how you work the whole story, and how you do the whole thing. So, it’s a different mindset. It’s a shift in mindset. And most filmmakers don’t understand that. They just think make movie, ugh, finish movie, ugh, go find distributor, ugh, sit back, collect check, ugh, go to the beach. That is the way, but that’s what we’ve been taught. Most of our… That’s what film school teaches.

Alex Ferrari (31:37):
Film schools don’t teach multiple revenue streams and how to become an entrepreneurial filmmaker. They teach you the traditional way of making a movie, traditional way of posting a movie, traditional way of distributing the movie, and then how you have to go. And if they even teach that last part. It’s a miracle most film schools don’t even talk about that stuff. They just teach you the craft. I love film schools, and I think they do a great part, but there’s some of them a little behind.

Tanya Musgrave (32:04):
I am going to wrap a question up in some backstory. I’m actually currently at my alma mater right now. This is their studio helping to produce their micro budget feature. So every four years they put together a feature so the students have the opportunity to be part of a larger scale project. My question to you would be what would be your advice for breaking out of that mold for this particular project, for this micro budget project, what’s your advice for breaking out of that?

Alex Ferrari (32:35):
What’s your genre?

Tanya Musgrave (32:36):
The genre, probably family.

Alex Ferrari (32:39):
So, it’s a family film. Okay, good. Is there a dog that saves Christmas?

Tanya Musgrave (32:43):
No, it’s a chef who figures out balance.

Alex Ferrari (32:47):
It’s a what?

Tanya Musgrave (32:47):
As chef who figures out balance, life balance between the art and the rest of his-

Alex Ferrari (32:52):
Chef, like the chef. So, it says a family niche. Good. Okay. Any bankable stars in it?

Tanya Musgrave (32:58):
That is a no for right now, but that is another question coming about, the name talents being worth the ROI spend.

Alex Ferrari (33:08):
What’s the budget?

Tanya Musgrave (33:11):
I’m not sure if I’m allowed to say.

Alex Ferrari (33:14):
When you say micro budget, are we talking six figures or under six figures?

Tanya Musgrave (33:19):
Six figures.

Alex Ferrari (33:21):
Okay. So, it’s a six figure project. Okay. So, that’s not… That’s not a micro budget for me. That’s a low budget for me. A micro budget is I made a $5,000 movie, and then a 3,000-

Tanya Musgrave (33:31):
All right. So, it wasn’t $5,000. It wasn’t 5,000.

Alex Ferrari (33:34):
Okay. So, your question is how to break out of what? What do you mean? What’s the question?

Tanya Musgrave (33:38):
So, because you were mentioning how for distribution, everything is just super traditional in one lane when it really should be doing X, Y, Z. What is the X, Y, Z that they should be doing?

Alex Ferrari (33:52):
Because it’s a family chef. It’s a family film with a chef involved you have the potential of teaming up with a let’s say local celebrity chef or something like that. And since you guys are in a school, I’m assuming you have resources. So you can possibly put together an online course. You could arguably build out a little bit of an online business around this film and generate other revenue that’s not about that. And then you can start targeting not only the family, people who are interested in family films, which is super broad, and it’s very difficult to target that. But that’s why I like when you said chef, I’m like, “Okay, people who are interested in getting films about cooking or films about chef, that’s a market, that’s a niche.” Start focusing on those, you could build some other stuff out around it.

Alex Ferrari (34:39):
Whereas in hopefully you’ll be able to get some money upfront from a traditional distributor. And there are probably really good distributors who you can probably get a nice licensing deal from Pure Flix or something like that. But without stars, it’s going to be difficult unless you follow a certain format. If I was making a movie about a chef, a family movie about a chef, I would incorporate in the storyline somewhere if it makes sense for the story that he or she starts creating online courses on cooking.

Tanya Musgrave (35:12):
Nice.

Alex Ferrari (35:13):
So then you start implanting the idea of online courses of cooking. And imagine if you watch your movie, you enjoy the movie, and at the end of movie it’s like, if you love this movie, you could actually buy the courses by the chefs here.

Tanya Musgrave (35:25):
If you actually want to make the desserts that were featured in this film, here you go.

Alex Ferrari (35:31):
Right. And then you could build out a blog around different desserts and different recipes and different things. You could do interviews with this chef and other chefs. And you could do… There’s a lot of things, but it’s all work. It’s all work, and it’s outside the traditional way you think about making a movie. This is the Filmtrepreneur way of making a movie, which is very different than ugh, make movie, ugh, finish movie, ugh, distribute movie, ugh, sit on a beach and collect check. That is a very different model, and it’s not for everybody.

Tanya Musgrave (36:01):
You were mentioning about named talent. This was one of our other listener questions. He was asking do you think all name talent are worth the ROI spend? And it sounds like it is.

Alex Ferrari (36:13):
It is and it isn’t. So, it all depends on who you’re getting. So, if you have a name and a name could be very different in different genres. So if you’re a chef, just a celebrity chef who has a million followers or two million followers on Instagram, that’s name talent that you can insert into your movie, which by the way, would be doing that anyway. I would try to go out and get as many influencers in the chef’s space, maybe in my mindfulness space, if that’s part of the storyline, and connect those and try to insert them in the movies because a lot of these guys want to be in movies and they’ll be like, “Oh, my God. Yeah, I’d love to be in a movie. Sure.” Can you do a cameo? They’ll be ecstatic to do something that. And they’ll promote it to their audience, blah, blah, blah. And then maybe you could partner with them.

Alex Ferrari (36:56):
Now, imagine partnering with an influencer in the chef space who’s in your movie, and then once they’re in the movie… It’s a cameo, they’re playing themselves. Let’s say they’re playing themselves. And then afterwards you sit down with them and go, “Look, man, this movie is coming out. Can we partner on a course on how to cook flambé?” And they go, “Sure, we’d love to. We’ll promote it on our side. You promote it on your side. And let’s come up with some terms that make sense for both of us.” And then he promotes it or she promotes it to their three million followers. I promise you, you’ll make more money off that course than you will make off of selling that movie traditionally.

Alex Ferrari (37:35):
Now, wouldn’t it be great that you make more money selling the courses based on the movie and also make a little bit of money traditionally? So, that’s that, but as far as name talent, non-traditional name talent. Traditional name talent has a dollar value attached, and it depends on the genre they’re in. So, like Dean Cain, Dean Cain was Superman back in the ’90s. So, Dean Cain does a lot of family movies and she’s not unobtainable. If he likes the project, you send him a proper bid he’ll come out for a few days for X amount of dollars. Not that expensive, believe it or not. I’m not saying, and I don’t know what Dean’s rate is and things like that. But traditionally you’re not in the crazy world. You can get Nicholas Cage for a million bucks a week, but the second Nicholas Cage is in your movie, you’ve got a presale of five million bucks automatically just because Nick is in the movie. Do you see what I’m saying?

Tanya Musgrave (38:35):
Yeah, yeah.

Alex Ferrari (38:36):
And the same thing goes with Bruce Willis and Stallone. These guys all, they’ll show up for a million, a million and a half a week, which sounds like a lot, but in the scope of business you bring a Stallone in, that’s probably a 10 or $15 million buy worldwide because it’s Stallone. I’m sure they’re not that cheap, but you get me. They’re not $20 million like they used to be. They’ll show up for three or four days, shoot out their scenes, and you’re done. So, some name talent has that value, but then other name talent, there’s what I to call paycheck actors who will just show up for the paycheck and they’ll do anything and everything first come first serve. I won’t call out the names, but there are these actors and they do have value. But sometimes that value diminishes, depending on the year.

Alex Ferrari (39:22):
I worked as a post guy on two to three movies with the same actor in it, and that year he made 17 movies. His value completely got diluted. So when this poor producer/director was so excited about like, “Hey, I got this person in the movie.” I’m like, “Oh, that’s great.” And then he goes, “I got two other movies I’ve been working with him on.” And I’m like, “Oh, that’s cool.” And then he went out to the marketplace to try to sell that movie and they go, “That’s okay. We already got two other movies with him in it,” because he was everywhere. So this year it was worthless. And that was what he was banking his entire budget on.

Tanya Musgrave (39:56):
No.

Alex Ferrari (39:57):
Do you see how it works?

Tanya Musgrave (39:59):
Yeah, yeah.

Alex Ferrari (40:00):
Is it valuable? Yes. Some name talent is valuable, but there’s so many different definitions of name talent where there’s people like that, like Dean Cain, Michael Madsen, Eric Roberts, Danny Trejo, these guys that you see all over the place, they’ll show up, you pay them, and if they like the project they’ll do it. But then there’s influencers. A chef in a chef movie that has three million Instagram followers is more valuable than Michael Madsen. There’s a lot of things that need to happen for that to work. But anytime you can get a face, a recognizable face or name in your movie it’s a good thing. It’s all about ROI. So you have $100,000 movie, you pay 50 grand to get this person in. It’s generally not a well-balanced scenario, but if that $50,000 automatically guarantees you a three, $400,000 buy or pre-sales, do the math.

Tanya Musgrave (40:51):
Specifically for gearing gadgets, what software or even resources, I guess, for you, too. What are your favorite old reliables?

Alex Ferrari (41:01):
DaVinci Resolve is what I use for all my post now for color, for editing. I was one of the first guys editing features on DaVinci. I love Blackmagic cameras. I think they’re great. I think they’re the best bang for your buck anywhere. I’ve done tests where I’ve shot with… And this is heresy, but I’m going to say it. I shot with an Alexa and I shot with a Blackmagic. And if you shoot down the middle with the same lenses in the same lighting, you shoot it right down the middle, perfectly exposed. I promise you probably won’t be able to tell. The normal human beings will not be able to tell. The moment when the Alexa becomes the Alexa is when you start losing light, and it starts to break, and it will hold onto that image so much more.

Alex Ferrari (41:44):
That technology is so much more solid in Blackmagic’s, but that means that you’re not doing your job as a cinematographer. And I know personally cinematographers who shot Alexa on sets of Oscar nominated films. And they always have one or two Blackmagics onset quietly to shoot a little bit of B roll or pick up shots. And I ask them, “Why can’t you use it?” I can’t man. It’s politics, man. I can’t. But that’s that. So for me, Blackmagic has been my go-to for cameras.

Tanya Musgrave (42:11):
Any specific one?

Alex Ferrari (42:12):
I’m old school. So, I shot my last movie on the 1080P Pocket, which was awesome. The 16, super 16 sensor, it looked gorgeous. I haven’t gotten the 6K yet, but I had the 4.6K, the URSA, 4.6K old-school. Probably next cameras I’ll get, I’ll probably get the 6K pocket. Lenses, I love the Sigma 18-35. It’s a great photo lens.

Tanya Musgrave (42:35):
Are you talking about Sigma art. That kind of-

Alex Ferrari (42:38):
Yeah, the art lenses.

Tanya Musgrave (42:39):
Yeah, the art lenses. Oh, man, they’re crispy.

Alex Ferrari (42:41):
The 18-35… Yeah, they’re crispy, they’re beautiful. It works really, really well with the Blackmagic and I’ve shot my features that no one knows, and I love vintage class, too. I have a lot of vintage class that I just have old still cameras.

Tanya Musgrave (42:57):
Like what?

Alex Ferrari (42:57):
I have my favorite lens is the Kinoptik 5.8.

Tanya Musgrave (43:01):
What quirk about that one do you love about it?

Alex Ferrari (43:04):
Well, it’s 5.8 and it doesn’t fisheye.

Tanya Musgrave (43:06):
Oh, okay.

Alex Ferrari (43:07):
So there’s that.

Tanya Musgrave (43:08):
Okay.

Alex Ferrari (43:09):
It is nicknamed the cubic lens because it is the baby brother of the 9.8 Kinoptik, which is the 35 millimeter lens. I have the 16 version, which are you in the pocket. The 35 millimeter one, which is the 9.8, that one Kubrick shot Shining and Clockwork Orange scenes with both of those in there. So, you’ll see, anytime you see a super wide shot.

Tanya Musgrave (43:30):
Super wide, yeah.

Alex Ferrari (43:31):
I mean, super wide. Super, super wide. For all the film geeks out there in The Maze shot, all The Maze stuff was shot with the Kinoptik in the snow at the end of The Shining that was, and then the scene right before the raping in Clockwork Orange, which is such an insane way to got away with that. The doorbell rings and it’s a pan over from the living room to the study, and then the doorbell rings. That’s a Kinoptik. It’s so wide you’re just like, “What?”

Tanya Musgrave (44:03):
Interesting.

Alex Ferrari (44:05):
And then when they all come down and they start doing what they’re going to do in that scene, that’s all Kinoptik. So, it’s an old French lens. They don’t make it anymore. It’s vintage. And it’s stunning. I was over at a friend of mines. He’s a big director and he’s like, “Can you bring over the little pocket camera?” This guy makes 50, $70 million movies. And I brought it over and he was like, “Oh, my God, this is awesome. What is this? Oh, my God.” He goes, “Is there a 35 version of this? Why don’t I know about this stuff?” I’m like, “This is super geek stuff. This is heavy, deep peak lens stuff. So I’m a lens fan. I love lenses.

Tanya Musgrave (44:44):
So, wrapping up a couple of the other listener questions. When working on a low budget project are there any tips for trying to convince a working professional to work at a much lower rate?

Alex Ferrari (44:56):
Get them really excited about the project. Really share your vision of what you’re trying to do. And if you can maybe do something that they haven’t done before or they haven’t been a part of before. I mean, it’s going to be tough to get the grips to come down on their rates because they’re grips. So they’re like, “I’m not going to put this on my reel.” That’s going to be a bit more difficult. But for the artistic side, the production designers, the costume designers, the makeup people, the VFX artists, the DP, all of these kind of more creative heads, you got to get them excited about the project.

Tanya Musgrave (45:30):
The last listener question is, can careers jumpstart from a strong festival run in today’s industry, or is it more about quantity/history/experience?

Alex Ferrari (45:39):
That was the world of the 1990s. Linklater came out with Slacker, and Mariachi, and Clerks, and Brothers McMullen. And all those films that came out during that time. That’s where that myth still lives. I’ve been involved with filmmakers and films. I’ve been in Sundance. I’ve won Sundance. I saw firsthand what it does, nothing. It can, it all depends on the movie, it all depends on the timing, it all depends on where you are, when you are, how you are. Does it automatically mean anything? No. Can it? It’s not the guarantee that it used to be. It’s just not. I’m not trying to dash haul dreams here, but it is the reality. So I want filmmakers to understand it’s not. Does it happen for some people? Absolutely. There’s always the outliers. But the majority, no.

Alex Ferrari (46:23):
This is the way I look at independent filmmaking in general, if you’re waiting for someone else to give you the opportunity to make your film, you will more likely fail. You need to figure out a way to make a living as a filmmaker and do your own thing and create enough noise with your films and with what you’re doing, that maybe someone from Mount Hollywood will show up and knock on your door and go, “Hey, you’re doing some cool stuff. I’d like to offer you a job or I’d like to represent you.” That’s the route I would go. But if that knock never happens then you’re okay because you’ve built the business doing what you love to do. And that is where most filmmakers fail. They’re always trying to get seen, get discovered, get found. That does not exist. Does it happen every once in a while? Sure. But you just have to do the work.

Alex Ferrari (47:11):
When you think about lottery ticket winners. Let’s analyze who we’re talking about. El Mariachi, Robert Rodriguez, still the most mythical one of them all because he was the first $7,000 movie, right? Then you’re talking about Richard Linklater, possibly, because he kind of like that, but Clerks. Paranormal Activity, Blair Witch Project, anything happened in the last year? In the last five years? In the last 10 years, really? I had Max, the director of Palm Springs, who sold his movie at Sundance for $17.5 million and 69 cents and now they have the official biggest movie ever sold at Sundance. And he told me the entire story of how he got there. And it was this magical like, “Oh, this person knows this person, this person knows this person. Oh, it got into the hands of Andy Samberg. Andy Samberg said, “Sure, I’ll bring you on. I’ll get my buddy J. K. Simmons to come on. I’ll bring this actress on, and we’ll all go out and do it.” And they sold it for $17.5 million.

Tanya Musgrave (48:12):
Mercy. But it’s that history and experience that they were asking about. It’s you actually need to build so you can get to that, so you can get to that. That doesn’t happen without that history and experience.

Alex Ferrari (48:23):
No, you’ve got to have some sort of track record. And I think that Max had either directed just one movie, or I think this might have been his first feature. But he had directed a bunch of shorts, and he wrote the script. So if you can own the material and own something that’s really popular, you have more more power, and more say in where it goes and what you do with it. That’s another piece of advice. But don’t hold on to the lottery ticket mentality because it’s not going to serve you well.

Tanya Musgrave (48:46):
I feel like that lottery ticket translates these days also as like, “I’m going to get on Netflix, or I’m going to get on Hulu.” Because you’ve gotten something on Hulu, and I had chatted with somebody else who he had gotten his film on Netflix, and he was like, “Honestly, I’ve done it. I’ve done the thing that indie filmmakers want to do. I’ve done it, but it’s honestly a little disappointing.”

Alex Ferrari (49:13):
Because I know what Netflix pays, and I know what Hulu pays, and it’s not what they think it is.

Tanya Musgrave (49:17):
Yeah, yeah. [crosstalk 00:49:19].

Alex Ferrari (49:19):
It’s just not. They think it’s like, “Woo-hoo, stack and cheddar.” It’s not. It’s not that. They don’t do that. They just don’t. And even if you get on Netflix, unless you get half a million upfront, which doesn’t happen, it doesn’t really matter. It’s great. Don’t get me wrong. It’s awesome to get your film up there, and lot of people could see it and all of that kind of good stuff. But it can lead to other things. Sure. Could you get some more work out of it? Possibly. It’s a good thing, but it’s not going to be the same thing for everybody.

Tanya Musgrave (49:51):
So what current projects are you excited about?

Alex Ferrari (49:55):
Well, on the show, I’m going to give you an exclusive.

Tanya Musgrave (49:58):
Fantastic.

Alex Ferrari (49:59):
I’ve never spoken about this to anybody else yet because when this recording comes out, it will hopefully be released. So now I actually have pressure, but thank you for that.

Tanya Musgrave (50:08):
You’re welcome.

Alex Ferrari (50:09):
To make sure I release it before then I wanted to create a new company that helps filmmakers fund, finish, and distribute their films. And there is no other company on the planet that I know that does all of these things all under one roof. It’s called Filmmaker Process. Now Filmmaker Process offers comprehensive services that will help your film get to the finish line. We provide budget and scheduling, business and financial forecasting, pitch decks, production contracts, and form templates, payroll, post-production services, trailer editorial, poster DVD, and VOD artwork creation, and much, much more. Our goal is to assist filmmakers working at any budget level get their film produced and distributed.

Tanya Musgrave (50:53):
Interesting.

Alex Ferrari (50:55):
So if you need a pitch deck for your screenplay, or for your project, when you’re trying to get to investors, we can create that pitch deck for you. If you need a budget and schedule, which you will, if you’re going to try to pitch to an investor, we could do that for you. If you need sales estimates from international… Perfect example, your macro budget film, I would ask you, “Okay, who’s in it?” No one’s in it. Okay, well, this is the forecast, doesn’t look good. But if you put a name in it, then I’ll go, “Okay, well, in this country, this will sell and this will sell.” And this is done by a real sales agency who has sold hundreds and hundreds of films. So they really have real numbers, and it’s a really detailed thing.

Alex Ferrari (51:34):
We have legal contracts and forms. We have $25,000 worth of contracts that are real contracts solid, not rinky dink things that have been used on hundreds of 20 plus million dollar films. Post services, we have a post house that we’ve partnered with to provide independent filmmakers with everything you need to finish your movie and trailer editing. We do a trailer editing for 2,500 bucks, and you get a full blown properly done trailer by a professional trailer editor. And there’s different packages.

Tanya Musgrave (52:06):
Okay. Yeah, yeah because I was curious if it’s like, all right, is it project by project basis where it’s just like, “We take you through the whole entire thing?” Or just like, “Well, I actually only need this one thing.”

Alex Ferrari (52:16):
Oh, no. No, no. This is not all of it. This is all piecemeal. So, you can pick up whatever you want. So you could get… I just need trailer editing and someone to design my poster for me, we got you. Oh, I need all my film deliverables because I just got signed with a distributor or I’m going to self distribute it and put it out on these platforms. But I have no idea what deliverables I need, I can get you deliverables because that has been the biggest thing ever. It’s film deliverables because filmmakers do not understand film deliverables at all. And they’re like, “Oh, iTunes needs this kind of bit rate and this thing.”

Tanya Musgrave (52:46):
Their random checklists.

Alex Ferrari (52:49):
And we have that as well, and we have payroll. We partner with one of the leading payroll companies in the business. So if you’re doing payroll for your film, we can do that as well. So it is something that’s never really been put together all under one roof and I’m hoping that it will help a lot of filmmakers out there.

Tanya Musgrave (53:05):
Interesting.

Alex Ferrari (53:06):
So, I’m really excited. So it’s filmmakerprocess.com.

Tanya Musgrave (53:09):
Filmmakerprocess.com.

Alex Ferrari (53:10):
Filmmakerprocess.com. It lives on the Indie Film Hustle website, but that’s the direct link. But that’s what’s going on there. So I’m just trying to build out as many resources as I can for filmmakers-

Tanya Musgrave (53:19):
Absolutely.

Alex Ferrari (53:20):
… to have all the things that I do through IFH Academy for courses and IFH TV, the streaming service for filmmakers, and I just launched a new podcast called The Next Level Soul podcast dedicated to figuring out more deeper questions about life, about a person’s spirituality, not religious spirituality, but about just asking the big questions about life. Why are we here? How do we find our mission in life? How do we get through the obstacles that stop us? How do we deal with our egos? All of these kind of larger questions that I really couldn’t tackle in my filmmaking world and universe, the Indie Film Hustle universe. I’ve touched upon it and some stuff like my meditation and stuff, but to go deep dive into those kinds of things. And we’ve got some very big guests coming up in the next couple of weeks, next two, three weeks. And that’s at nextlevelsoul.com.

Tanya Musgrave (54:14):
All right. Last question that I ask every guest, what question should I have asked you?

Alex Ferrari (54:18):
What is the lesson that took you the longest to learn whether in the film business or in life? To answer that question, for me is patience. I needed to learn patience. When I had… And I’m going to be that douchey LA guy who drops names, but when I had Richard Linklater on my show, and I was talking to Rick he said profound question for all independent filmmakers, however long you think it’s going to take, it’s going to take twice as long and be twice as hard. And I was like, wow, that’s from an OG indie filmmaker. He’s been around. I think he just turned 60 this year. So, he’s been around and for him to say that I was like, “Wow,” that makes all the sense in the world, and he’s absolutely right, impatience.

Alex Ferrari (55:06):
I was so impatient. I was like, “Why hasn’t Hollywood figured out I’m a genius? Why hasn’t Steven Spielberg knocked on my door and given me $20 million to make my Opus? Why is this not happening? Don’t they understand I’ve watched all the movies. Don’t they understand I worked at a video store just like Quentin Tarantino and Kevin Smith. Why do I not get this treatment? Where’s the truck of money that’s supposed to come and fall on my doorstep?” But the patience, patience is the biggest thing. It’s going to take you a lot longer. It can’t be a one year plan. It’s got to be a 10 year plan. And if you don’t absolutely love this, get out, do a Jordan Peele and just get out.

Alex Ferrari (55:48):
It is tough. It’s brutal. It is merciless, and it will crush you if you don’t love it. Because if you don’t love it, and you’re in it for fame, or in it for God forbid, money, or whatever other reasons you’re in this for, if you don’t love what you’re doing, get out, go find another job. Go get a real job. Go work at a carnival.

Tanya Musgrave (56:10):
And find what you do love.

Alex Ferrari (56:11):
And find what that thing is for you because if it’s not this, this is just too tough, man. It is just too tough. The disease that is filmmaking would not let me go. It just kept calling me back like a siren because this is what you need to be doing, Alex.

Tanya Musgrave (56:27):
Yah. Alex, thank you so much for your time.

Alex Ferrari (56:30):
Of course, of course. Thank you for having me on the show. And thank you for doing what you do. I appreciate you pulling up the good fight out here, so I appreciate it.

Tanya Musgrave (56:38):
If you enjoyed this interview, follow us right here and on Instagram and check out more episodes at thepracticalfilmmaker.com. If you have comments or know someone who would be a great guest on our show, send in your suggestions to tanya@thepracticalfilmmaker.com. Be well and God bless. We’ll see you next time on The Practical Filmmaker.