Behind the Scenes, Oklahoma

The Business Behind the Big Screen with John Moss

• Tom Biolchini and Ana Berry • Season 1 • Episode 11

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In Episode 11 of Behind the Scenes Oklahoma, we go beyond the spotlight with John Moss, co-founder of Firebook Entertainment — a film distribution company making waves from right here in Oklahoma.

John breaks down the business side of film: how genre films get seen, what filmmakers need to know about distribution, how it's all about who you know and why Oklahoma is becoming a serious hub for global storytelling.

Whether you're a filmmaker, entrepreneur, or just love the behind-the-scenes world of cinema, this episode is packed with insight, inspiration, and industry gems.

#BehindTheScenesOK #JohnMoss #FirebookEntertainment #FilmDistribution #OklahomaFilm #IndieFilm #FilmBusiness #HeartlandHollywood #FilmIndustry #BTSOK

Behind the Scenes Oklahoma is hosted by Ana Berry and celebrates the people, productions, and places shaping Oklahoma’s film and television industry.
Subscribe and follow for new episodes featuring exclusive interviews with actors, directors, producers, and the voices behind the scenes. www.BehindTheScenesOK.com

SPEAKER_02:

Hey everyone, I'm Anna Barry.

SPEAKER_01:

And I'm Tom Biolchini.

SPEAKER_02:

And this is Behind the Scenes Oklahoma. Hi everyone, this is Behind the Scenes Oklahoma. I'm Anna Barry and my co-host is in another state today. Nice to see you. Tom, how are you doing today?

SPEAKER_01:

I'm doing great. I'm with my family in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. So everything is well. We just celebrated an awesome 4th of July. Thank you Thanks for having me on. I'm

SPEAKER_00:

curious, what's the temperature difference where you're at compared to Tulsa right now? Because we're in the 90s, so...

SPEAKER_01:

Okay, I'm going to make you feel bad. I know you are. Well, we woke up and it was in the 40s, so I bet you it's, my guess is right now in the shade, it's going to be high 60s. 70 degrees, actually. Hey, you hit

SPEAKER_03:

70. Yeah. Lovely.

SPEAKER_00:

Oh, that's fantastic. But no, guys, thanks for having me on. I appreciate it. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah. Well, you have a long history in media, John. I know that we knew each other on one station back in the day. And then this came about. So it's Firebook Entertainment, an international film distribution company based in Tulsa, but you operate on a global scale. And from what you were telling me, it's the only international film distribution company in Oklahoma.

SPEAKER_00:

I don't want to shortchange anybody, but as far as I know, And what's been made aware to me, that is correct, yeah. We're the only international sales and distribution company that's headquartered in Oklahoma,

SPEAKER_02:

yeah. Okay, well explain that to me like I was a five-year-old.

SPEAKER_00:

Ooh, that's fun. Okay, so where the sales and distribution comes into play is once a film is finished, right? So it goes through production, goes through post-production, and then sales and distribution takes over. Some films have a festival strategy attached to it. Some, if you think of like the blockbusters from the bigger studios, They don't need festivals. They just get finished. They might premiere somewhere like in Cannes or somewhere like that. And then all of a sudden, they're in theaters and they're in 5,000 some odd theaters, like as many as they can get into. And they don't need to worry about festivals. But smaller independent films, it's that festival circuit that really, I guess, amps up the... The more you hear about a film going through the festival circuit, the more eyeballs are going to be put on it, either when you have a streaming deal or you go into theaters. And so that's part of the strategy around the distribution. And while that's happening, there's a handful of markets each year in which the sales teams go out and they try to sell the film. There's roughly 44 territories around the world that constitute the world when it comes to film sales. And so the sales team while the festival strategy is going on and the distribution strategy is trying to sell it to all of those territories around the world. So they sell it to distributors around the world and then they have the right to do with it, whatever they want. They can put it into theaters, they can stream it, whatever that is. We get a cut of that obviously as a commission. And then we handle the thing about Firebook that we've started recently is we have our own theatrical distribution network in-house as well. So we can, if there's not a good enough deal, see now I'm, explaining it like you're an adolescent, maybe not a child. So I'm talking more and more. It can be very complicated. Yeah. If there's not a better deal domestically than what we feel like we can do for the film by putting it through our theatrical system, then we'll just hold on to those rights and do that ourself. So there's a little bit of strategy. I'm a big puzzle guy, love puzzles. So it's fun for me to look at the pieces in a macro level from 30,000 feet, right? And try to figure out for each film, because each film's different. Each film doesn't need the same strategy, doesn't need the same steps. And so that's the fun part, how the job is different every day for me and for my team, because it really just depends on what film we're dealing with at the time. But yeah, we deal with all 44 territories, co-productions in multiple countries around the world, which we can talk about in a minute. So it's My Duolingo is always busy on the phone trying to make sure I at least know a cursory amount of whatever language it is that I'm supposed to be dealing in.

SPEAKER_02:

Oh, fascinating. That's certainly a fun part. We might have lost Tom.

SPEAKER_00:

I saw that, yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

I mean, he's going to come back on, or he's going to text one of us, or we will figure it out. So we're going to just keep going. But you didn't come out saying, I'm going to Start a film distribution company. Actually, you and Juan Reynoso wanted to make movies. And then this came about. So it's fun. It's like the creative, yet the business. So many of us love the creative side. Hey, I'm an actress. I want to be in a movie. But then, hey, how does that movie actually make money?

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. And that's, I don't want to sit here and pretend like I figured that out, because if I figured that out for every movie, I wouldn't be sitting here. I'd be on my yacht with Jeff Bezos somewhere tied up in the islands or whatever. But I'm working to figure that out. And that's the fun part, because like I said, each film is different. And it really, we at Firebook deal in what the industry calls genre films mainly. And so that's any kind of scary movie, thriller, suspense, horror, sci-fi, in that realm uh mainly because it makes more sense the path to profitability is easier because the budgets for those films are historically lower than your budgets for dramas and comedies and action films especially um so your barrier of making roi for the investors it's an easier hurdle to jump over because the budgets are smaller

SPEAKER_02:

that makes sense to me welcome back tom

SPEAKER_00:

The

SPEAKER_02:

horror film genre. I always am like, why, why is it another horror film? And I guess that you just explain that because the budget's smaller, their for-profit margins are bigger.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. And I can take you a little inside baseball. There's really, there's a dead zone when it comes and I hope when I explained it, it makes sense. So we typically for the first year and a half of the company, we're looking at$5 million and under for budget of a film that way. Sure. Sure. Below that, you're not worried about that. You're just making a good movie. Hopefully the creative's good. Maybe there's a good producer, director involved. But it's that dead zone in the middle that historically you want to try to avoid because it's not big enough to have A-list cast, but it's too big to not have A-list cast. So unless you just get totally lucky, it's going to be really hard to make money in that little dead zone between five and ten.

UNKNOWN:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

What do you think about that, Tom? I know you're actually going to be appearing in a horror film. Can we spill the beans?

SPEAKER_01:

Oh, yeah. I think we can spill the beans. I never thought about it. I get to be a cop on Horrified that's being filmed in Tulsa this summer, and I get killed on film. So, bucket list. I love this for you. I love this. How about that?

SPEAKER_02:

Is it a gory death? Do you know anything yet?

SPEAKER_01:

Yes,

SPEAKER_02:

I

SPEAKER_01:

get shot in the eye. Oh. Yeah, how about

SPEAKER_00:

that? When is that? You said this summer? Yeah,

SPEAKER_01:

they're going to film in August. Okay. So it's a great script, and it's a great crew, and we're actually going to do the behind the scenes when I'm actually filming. So our viewers will be able to watch part of that when it comes out.

SPEAKER_00:

I'm going to get you an eye patch for after that, just so you can always be in character. It

SPEAKER_01:

is interesting though. I think what John, I mean, I can repeat what he said because it's true. That is this notion that there is a fine line. I mean, if you want to make money in this industry, you got to keep your budget really low or you've got to go out and get the Brad Pitts and these big, huge actors, which, you know, which is a challenge. It's really a challenge for actors and actresses that, are not known for them to get a shot. Because once you have a name, then that's how people make money. So obviously they're going to hire the famous

SPEAKER_02:

people. Tell me about it. Yeah, right. Unless it's a local Tulsa production. I don't have any pull or

SPEAKER_03:

sway.

UNKNOWN:

It's like...

SPEAKER_02:

Oh, well, okay. So when it comes to horror, are you going to stay in that genre? Are you going to expand or are you staying there?

SPEAKER_00:

So Firebook will stay in the genre space. It's the niche that we kind of wanted to carve out. We already have a really good reputation within that, I guess, industry, if you want to call it that, or that, that niche of film. And it's a very, once you're in, you're in and people support people and it's a, it's a cool community. And so to stay in that makes sense. Juan did branch off and he focuses more now day to day on a company called Lookbook, which he always wanted to do non-genre films. He wanted to do comedies and action and whatnot. So he still is my partner and has a piece of Firebook, but he is now also working on the non-genre side. So that was our solution to keeping Firebook in its lane that makes sense while also allowing him the flexibility to go play with other types of projects.

SPEAKER_02:

Perfect. And so you basically go and buy movies. You go to Cannes and you've been to different places, right? So you're acquiring, you're buying films that are

SPEAKER_00:

already made. A lot of it. So there's two, if I go to a market, so there's different terminology, right? If I go to a film market, 99% of the time, that's where you're looking at projects. So they're in Some kind of development, usually in script form. They're looking for funding. They're looking for that sort of a thing. If I go to a festival, that's obviously for finished films because they're playing. And so... It's more rare to find, but every once in a while you'll find a diamond in the rough at a festival that does not yet have sales and distribution attached to it. Maybe the director just submitted it for the festival. Normally, the sales company takes care of that, so that's why it's hard to find that. I try to negotiate as best I can so that I don't have to buy a lot of films. I can say, hey, like, This goes into the co-production side as a project at a market where I can say, hey, if we do your post-production in Canada, we can contribute about$250,000 USD to your budget because of the tax rebates and stuff up there. It only costs us way less than that to do that. We get... an amount of equity in the film for that amount of money, and we get the sales and distribution rights on the back end. It has to be a project that completely blows my socks off for me to come back to the team and say, hey, I think we should put up, fill in the blank, hundreds of thousands of dollars to buy equity into this film. What I would rather do is tell the producer director that We want to be your sales and distribution company. We can put it into theaters. We'll cut you a higher cut of the gross of the box. But also if you need money, we can maybe pre-sale a couple of territories around the world, get the money from that territory, give it to you. And then you can use that in lieu of going and getting an equity advance or something like that.

SPEAKER_02:

Okay. And here's a question for both of you, because I know, I mean, you're in banking and you're in the film business. People need money, right? So film financing. I mean, what do you say? We'll start with you, Tom. When someone comes and says, hey, Tom, I want you to invest in my movie. What do you do? What's that process for you?

SPEAKER_01:

Well, if they're asking me to invest, that would be different than financing. So I have invested in a movie where I have an equity position in a film. But I've also looked at the financing and actually participated in the financing piece. So how that works is, let's take Oklahoma. They have an Oklahoma tax incentive. I will finance or put that money up in advance. So let's say it's$100,000. I'll put that up in advance. That way, the people doing the movie can actually use those funds to get the movie done. And as soon as the movie's done filming, not post-production, but at least when the filming is done, then the state of Oklahoma will write a check for$100,000, and then they pay me back plus interest. So I've been a part of that. And then Vast Bank in Tulsa, it's headquartered, for people that don't know, Vast Bank is headquartered in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Been there for 40 years. My family's a part of that. we are looking to do film financing. So we are actually going through those little scenarios and trying to build a program at Bass Bank to help the film industry in the state of Oklahoma.

SPEAKER_02:

Okay, so film financing versus film investing.

SPEAKER_01:

Yes.

SPEAKER_02:

Okay, and does Firebook invest or finance? And thank you for explaining this to me like a five-year-old.

SPEAKER_00:

No, you're good. We do not finance. We need the relationships like a Bass Bank. Because the producers have to go, if it's a rebate from a country or province or wherever, or state, or it's a presale or an MG or something from a different territory, the producer still has to go figure out a bank that will loan against that. And so that's where the financing side comes into play, the relationships with banks like VAST or different banks around the world, vitally important for the producers to have in order to get the cash in exchange for the promise that's made on paper.

SPEAKER_02:

And so you work with VAST or other banks like that directly. And what are you looking for when it comes to saying yes to a film? And feel free to answer both.

SPEAKER_00:

We have a checklist of a few. So just a cursory overview of a film for us. Somebody involved in the creative process. Well, it needs to be a genre film for Firebook to be interested, right? So that's box number one. Box number two is the budget has to be right. Like we just talked about, either five or below if there's not A-list talent, 10 or above if there is. Somebody involved in the creative has to be a needle mover of some sort. I've had good history... you know, whether it's festival history or box office history or streaming history or something. There has to be something there to grab onto to make you think that, okay, like once this movie is made, person X is going to help us recoup some of this money by, you know, fill in the blank. And then we have to, I mean, the easiest one is you have to like the script. You have to like the project, the deck, the script, all of that. So we really, we go through this process for every film we look at. We check the boxes depending on which ones are checked yes or no. It's an easy answer of, are we interested? And then it just starts the conversation. Sometimes the creative team needs more than we're comfortable offering. And so we either slow play it and say, go find this amount of what you need and then come back to us. And we can talk about connecting you with certain people to help fill in the rest. Or sometimes it's a hard no, or sometimes it's an easy yes. So it's really those first few questions that determine if we're interested in a project though. And that's pretty much across the board for anything we look at.

SPEAKER_01:

Perfect. You know, I think it's interesting is it goes back to this notion of how do people make money in the film industry? And things have changed. They used to have DVDs. Well, they don't really have DVDs anymore. I mean, you really have to know what you're doing. And the way I understand it, John, and I know you can probably talk in more detail, you have your options to sell in 44 territories. There's only so much money that these territories are going to pay. You can go out and... obviously go to theaters around the United States or otherwise, and you can make money there or you can not make money there. And then, of course, it's selling it, either pre-sale or after sale, to a major network. I mean, what am I missing there, right? No,

SPEAKER_00:

that's pretty much it. And the analyst side of this hates when I say it, but it's the truth. A lot of it is so much luck. And it's not luck that the film is good. You know, the price or the cap that some of these territories have around the world for buying film could be solely dependent on something that is completely out of your control, whether it's world politics, whether it's war, whether it's something else going on. So, like, the timing has to be right. You have to have... If you do theatrical... So, let's take a Nora, for example. Just one best picture from Neon. Love Tim to death. Great guy. There was this... prevailing sentiment, like, oh, yay, an independent film finally won Best Picture. This is great for independent cinema.$8 million film, sure. And that's one of those rare instances where it was in that dead zone, didn't really have A-list talent, but it still won Best Picture. And so people look at that and they're like, well, why was this film the one that did that? What they didn't tell you is that Tim and Neon spent$24 million on the press and advertising.

UNKNOWN:

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_00:

So it's an$8 million film. Yes.

SPEAKER_01:

There

SPEAKER_00:

you go. 100% accurate. They spent$32 million to make the film and to win Best Picture. Probably going to recoup that in the long run for Neon because now they have access to the level of film that they didn't before. I mean, they already did Long Legs, but now they have a Best Picture on their resume. And so you have to be dealing with either access to a fund, producers, investors, someone that understands that around two to two and a half X of the budget needs to be put towards P&A if you want to have this massive successful film. Now, that's not necessary just to recoup, but if you want to build the type of business that Tim and Neon want to build or that I want to build or that A24 wants to build or Jason Bloom from Bloom House, you have to account for that. in what you're doing as well. So that's another piece to the puzzle.

SPEAKER_02:

That's fascinating. And that brings, that opens up a whole different layering of this business. Just a side note. I, it was a great movie. I don't know if it, if it was worthy of what it won the best actress to her versus Demi Moore was so shocking to me. I just have to say that. I mean, I'm about legacy and you give Demi Moore that best actress opportunity. oscar because she transformed i'm not going to say anything negative but i was i was shocked at the oscars this year i was

SPEAKER_00:

i really wanted substance to win just because it's a genre film too i thought that would have been great but

SPEAKER_02:

yeah i mean talk about horror film it gave me nightmares for days did you see it tom yeah the substance

SPEAKER_00:

yeah

SPEAKER_02:

you're like yeah that's fun i'm a guy i don't have to think about

SPEAKER_00:

that that third act of the film it went It went bananas. It just went weird. Yeah. It

SPEAKER_02:

was too weird. I definitely won't watch it again. But if I had to pick, hello,

SPEAKER_01:

Jamie Moore, fist bump. It's nice to see Jamie Moore back too. Oh,

SPEAKER_02:

right. Okay. Well, talk a little bit about your team because when you guys had an event here in Tulsa, I got to meet some of those– players in your team, like David Bond, and he's got a pretty nice pedigree. I mean, he's the who's who in the horror film industry.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, it's really funny. At one of the markets last year, one of the festivals, someone pulled me aside and they're like, we figured it out. We were trying to figure out who David reminds us of. He's your Rain Man. And I was like, yes, he is. Like, he has forgotten more about genre than anyone I know ever knew in the first place. Like, the guy is an encyclopedia and he is so... just useful on a day-to-day. I talk to him more than I talk to my family, more than I talk to anybody in my life. So as I was saying before we started recording, I think the hardest part of my day is time zones and scheduling when to have meetings because we have Kelly Price who handles casting production services type stuff. He's in Los Angeles. David is in Edmonton, so Alberta's mountain time zone. Juan and I, or in Tulsa. And then we have a handful of sales teams. So we have one in Toronto. We have one in Paris. We have one in Spain. And then my logistics coordinator extraordinaire, Lauren, is in the UK. And then depending on the type of film, we just acquired the rights to North America for a film where one of the producers was in Argentina and the other was in New Zealand. So we had to figure out like what day we were even talking because that's all confusing. And so it's just trying to, and I'm usually, which is I'm fine with it. I don't sleep a lot anyways. So I'm usually the one that's either up late or up early, you know, to make it work for the other people. We're co-producing a film right now between Italy, the Netherlands and Canada. And so trying to figure that one out, it's a nightmare sometimes, but yeah. It's also fun.

SPEAKER_02:

How fun. I mean, and how cool that Oklahoma has, has this and, and Tom, I mean, what do you, how do you believe in Firebook and your, I mean, your physical investment into it?

SPEAKER_01:

Well, I mean, I'm learning as I go, to be honest with you. So I, I'm, Ultimately, I'd like to touch every aspect of the film industry, including being in this film as an actor, just to see what it's like. And so, you know, John has done an exceptional job of reaching out and getting his name known. And now it's just getting projects, important projects on the books and, you know, taking them through the process to where the company can make money. So the company only makes money if the, you know, if the... if the film gets out there and starts, you know, it gets into theaters and they are, they're successful in selling them into the 44, uh, places where you can sell the film. Um, so that has to happen for them to make money, but they've done a nice job. And John, I might've missed this when I fell off earlier. I'm sorry about the interruption, but, um, did you guys talk about any of your projects? Some of your bigger?

SPEAKER_00:

No, we haven't

SPEAKER_01:

gotten projects. Talk about some of those. I'd really like the audience to know, uh, some of the things that you have signed up.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, absolutely. So the one I'm going to have to tread a little bit lightly because some that haven't, The ink hasn't dried on the paper all the way yet. I'll try to like allude to who I'm talking about and let the listener fill in the blank. So one project that the ink is dry is so Sterling Harjo, speaking of Oklahoma, he had written a genre script a handful of years ago. It's called The Blind. And we were having coffee a few months ago, and it just dawned on him that he had this script. He's like, oh, God, read this. I want you to read it. And so that started the process of he wants to make that film. Rocky wants to make that film. Everyone here in Tulsa wants to make that film. And so it was a long process of dealing with his representation and CAA and California and all of that. But we finally got that squared away. So now we're waiting for the final version of the script to come back from Sterling. And then we'll go raise money to make the film. And that'll shoot here in Northeastern Oklahoma. So that's one of them. I can say this. So we are on board for a Clive Barker project. He hasn't actually physically produced a film in a really long time. And so that's what's different about this one. It's called Rawhead Rex, and he will be producing it. alongside us, which will be really cool. Won't be directing it. That'll be a guy named Anthony DeBlasi out of California. Just an extremely talented director. And then there's a couple more that the ink isn't dry on. One was involved in a film called Pinocchio and one was involved in a film that's out right now called The Life of Chuck. I won't say their name because I don't want to get in trouble for saying their name until the ink is dry. But those are bigger budget. Those four films are bigger than any budget we've ever touched before. So it's really the level up for Firebook. You know, we're still obviously working on the five and unders, the one I talked about, the co-production out of the Netherlands and Italy is a film called Mobius with a really well-known kind of virtual, he's a director, but he's also like, he likes to physically create the monsters and he's just really good designer in that way. Really well-known in Europe. And then we have a handful of projects down in, Mexico, South America, Spanish speaking, um, Parvalos is out. You can rent that now. Um, it's on demand right now and it'll, it'll hit streaming later this year. Um, so there's a lot of, there's a lot of fun things going on. What

SPEAKER_02:

was the project, uh, in Montreal at the film festival?

SPEAKER_00:

So that, thank you. That one's called every heavy thing. Mickey Reese was the director. Uh, he's an Oklahoma city based director, extremely talented, really good cast. Josh Batum, who's a comedian up here in Tulsa. Uh, not a, comic or not a comedy film, so he was in this very dramatic role with it. It's produced by a guy named well, alongside us, a guy named Peter Kaplowski, who runs the genre division of the Toronto International Film Festival and was the lead producer for In a Violent Nature, which was one of the best genre films in the world last year, I believe it was. And so he was there, and then the cast was really good. Outside of Josh, there was a guy named James Urbaniak, who was in Oppenheimer, Barbara Crampton, whose royalty when it comes to genre filmmaking, this up-and-coming actress named Tipper Newton, who was fantastic. And so that's when we're taking up, it'll premiere, make its world premiere on the 21st, uh, in Montreal, the first day of Fantasia, um, for that market. And then we'll do a festival run with it. It's already, I think we're at seven festivals right now that have accepted it. And then, um, we'll try to get a handful more, um, and then we'll put it into theaters probably mid year next year.

SPEAKER_02:

And then that, that's how we in Oklahoma will get to see it. Is that correct?

SPEAKER_00:

And I was talking to circle cinema the other day, randomly, um, at the farmer's market. One of their owners was there and they want to figure out some way to put it on its circle, maybe even before it's like out for some sort of special screening or something. So I'll keep you guys in the loop on that.

SPEAKER_02:

We'll do. And Tom, this is, I'm speaking for both of us. I mean, we want to come to Toronto or these places and show how Oklahoma's on the big screen. I mean, how exciting that you have that this group of Oklahomans in whatever way on this big screen. So how can we help tell this message, whether obviously we're not going to go to the film festival right now, but when it comes back to Tulsa and we can see it at circle cinema and support the independent movie house and this movie. So yeah, please.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, absolutely. And I'll do my best to get you, I mean, I know Mickey would come on with you guys and talk and he's made a handful of really kind of art house popular films in the past. I know Josh would. I'll try, I'll get with James or Barbara and see if they, because the more pub that you get around the film, like the grassroots side of it, right? Totally. It can't hurt, right? It can only help.

SPEAKER_02:

Totally. Well, how else do you help local filmmakers, actors, producers? I mean, how else does your company help all of us?

SPEAKER_00:

That's a great question. So what we're really trying to do, and this is big on Juan's heart. He's always been big about shepherding and giving back and teaching and that sort of a thing. And so on all of these projects, it's been a little difficult just doing the sales and distribution because we haven't really had the opportunity to give back as much. But once we start doing the productions, whether it's the people that we bring onto set that are just there really to learn and to soak it in or the internship type opportunities and things like that, those will continue to grow and progress and there'll be more room for that as we start doing the production, specifically here in Oklahoma, to be able to give back and kind of grow the base that other films have to choose from when it comes to building out their crew.

SPEAKER_01:

Wonderful. Part of the challenge is just getting people, getting them started somewhere. That's the idea. And that

SPEAKER_00:

is, as good as Tulsa is becoming and Oklahoma in general, when you talk to the people that come here from Atlanta or LA or wherever, if you want to call it a knock, the only knock is there's a handful of crews, there's usually two, that have that high-end experience of producing really good cinema. And once they're booked, once they're on a project, well, they're on a project for... 45 days maybe. And so you have to work around that if you're a producer and it makes you kind of want to run somewhere else where there's a bigger pool to choose from.

SPEAKER_02:

It's a catch 22, but that's what this industry is. When I lived in LA, I, I, I couldn't get an agent unless I got a supporting role, but I couldn't really get a supporting role unless I got an agent telling me the same thing. I'm like, mother effers. Just give me a shot.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

And I'm sure it's the same thing here for Oklahoma, but I mean, the more production we have, the more actors get to get in front of real actors on set and real directors. I mean, so yes. So what advice do you have for some local creatives here in Oklahoma, whether they're actors, they're writers, they're producers, what advice do you have for them since you get to deal with these people at the level of LA and Europe and whatnot?

SPEAKER_00:

The most important thing is don't give up. Just keep doing it. Just keep doing it. Don't give up. And honestly, like there's been, you know, our first can, we went with maybe like four or five meetings that were pre-scheduled on our calendar. And it was really to try to get the word out about the company and do all these things. Well, by day two, I mean, there was a line at our booth of people that were waiting to talk to us that had heard about us or heard through someone about us or whatever that is. And a lot of them, like they just kind of showed up with their project and it wasn't a, like, they didn't expect anything from us. It's all about how you approach it. Like if I'm approached by a writer, a producer or director in a way, that's like, Hey, I'm not expecting anything from you. Like, I don't think you should purchase this film. necessarily but like i just want to get your thoughts on it or your opinion or some notes or something like that always be asking always be growing take criticism and notes well you know don't think it's an attack on you because it's really not it's an attack on what's on the piece of paper or the film itself and then use it to grow and that's as long as you kind of combine all that like you put yourself out there you ask the right people for feedback Because now there's a handful of guys that I know now and ladies that if I have a project that needs a director, they're kind of front of mind because I've seen them grow from what they originally gave me to look at to what the second and third versions of that thing was. And so I've seen their progression in a relatively quick amount of time, which gives me confidence that even though they're not a name name, if the budget's right, they could fit that film. And it was just because they put themselves out there. So always be willing to do that.

SPEAKER_01:

Totally. Well said.

SPEAKER_00:

Thank you.

SPEAKER_02:

What do you see the future of film in Oklahoma? How do you see it?

SPEAKER_00:

I think we're at a really interesting crossroads or we're about to be at a really interesting crossroads really quickly. Um, I think Texas just added, I don't even remember the dollar amount, some billions of dollars to their film industry, um, to up the tax credit. LA just enacted a tax credit. So ours, one of two things is going to have to happen. We'll have to be okay with getting lower tiered projects if we stay pat with the percentage and the rebates and the stuff that we're offering. Or we'll have to, like I say sometimes, spend money to make money. You've got to up the You got to up the pool. You got to bring people in. You have to... And they're trying to do that, like the Film Collective. And there are places that are trying to teach and trying to shepherd to the next level. But the big thing, like if I'm Guillermo del Toro or Stephen King or HBO or... There's... With LA and Texas and now Kentucky and Atlanta and all of these different rebates, there's not enough here in Tulsa for me to just automatically say, yeah, that's where I want to go. There would have to be a reason. The story would have to be Oklahoma, kind of like Scorsese and Killers of the Flower Moon. There would have to be a reason to be here. And if we're okay with that, we're okay with

SPEAKER_01:

it. And that's why we need... this is where we need to go to the Capitol and start talking to lawmakers to tell them the truth that we need more money in this program. We are not as competitive as some other states. And, heck, John, you and I have even talked about that before, where we're looking at a film that's supposed to be filmed in Oklahoma, but then the guy comes back. I've taken it elsewhere. We can go to Canada and save you a million bucks. I mean, it's hard to say no, but it's simple math.

SPEAKER_00:

I mean, honestly, so that, I'll give you a quick example. math breakdown and then we can either end or talk about anything else you want to talk about because I know I can get into the weeds with this stuff but as we're growing as a production and co-production company I'm learning on the fly on how to strategically structure and stack these other countries and what they offer from a co-production and tax rebate incentive level and so for the film called Mobius the producers live in Italy the director and the creative team live in the Netherlands and so and then we're obviously well headquartered here and so but the us doesn't do co-productions well like we don't it's not a thing that we do which is something i hope they change really quick another thing that needs to change but if we structure it correctly we can get up to roughly 65 to 72 percent of the cost of the film covered in soft money from these different territories. If we do Benelux, so if we do Belgium, Netherlands, and Luxembourg, we do, for the majority of the spend, they have a really good rebate. We spend some on visual effects and some different pickup shots and whatever in Italy to get that covered, and then we take it over to Canada to do post-production, specifically either Alberta or Ontario. Then we can get roughly 70% of the budget covered, which means on my side, when I'm coming in to help raise the money, I can either raise$5 million or I can raise 70% of$5 million. It makes my life a lot easier if I'm only raising the leftover 30%.

SPEAKER_02:

And that's because of these incentives and rebates that you said in the different parts of

SPEAKER_00:

the world? Yeah. And so you can

SPEAKER_02:

almost pick and choose? Like a buffet?

SPEAKER_00:

You can, but you have to have the relationships, which is why I travel way too much. And that's what I'm doing when I'm at these. I'm looking for films, yes, and projects, yes, but I'm also meeting with production companies and representatives from different countries and different cities within the countries and different regions and all these different things to try to figure out, like, okay, if I need the UK, I know right off the top of my head four companies I can call that can enact the UK tax rebate of 40% if I need it. I know someone in Benelux. I know someone in Italy. I know multiple people in Spain. I know multiple people in Mexico and South America and Canada. So like I can play that game pretty well right now where I can sit there and be like, okay, this makes sense. This makes sense. This makes sense. And hopefully someday it will be the U S as well. That would be nice, but we're not quite there yet.

SPEAKER_02:

Wow. So different than sports on a local news station.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. Just a little bit, just a little bit candlelight up on the hill. Yeah. A little bit, a little bit different than that one.

SPEAKER_02:

I'm still there, so I, you know, in my own little way. How funny. Now, let's talk, not politics, but the geopolitical landscape of the world. How is this new administration, I mean, we've seen the social media, la, la, la, la, la, and this is not a political statement, but how does this new administration either help or not help the film industry, Hollywood?

UNKNOWN:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

Permission to speak freely? No, I'm kidding. No, I'm kidding. And this isn't a political statement either, but I think sometimes, so when the initial, I think it was a truth social storm or tweet storm came out about the tariffs on film and all that, like I had, I mean, David, I thought was going to have an aneurysm. Like he thought that we were going to die and we needed to. So, you know, I quickly, now I'm a phone call away from setting up a company, a subsidiary of Firebook in Canada, Mexico, or the UK. So I can make that call at any point if I need to, to CYA when it comes to dealing with the tariffs. So I think what our president does at the moment sometimes is he gets a little happy with the fingers and the tweeting and the truthing or whatever he calls it before he really knows the full scope of what he's talking about. which can be scary at times. And so once his, and I forget what he called it, but the three actors that he was using as his like Hollywood consultants or whatever it was, I read the five page report that John Voight submitted. And that was way less serious or like damning to the industry sounding than what Trump wanted to put out right away, you know, with his thumbs and forefingers. And so, and, What Voight wants to happen makes sense. If you're in a state, well, A, he wants the U.S. to have a tax rebate. And so just a blanket tax rebate for doing film in the U.S., which is great. That would help with all those co-productions I was talking about. I could add that to the stack. It would be fantastic. But the states would still have the right to stack on top of the U.S., tax rebate. If you're a production that's in one of the states that is stacking on top of the national rebate, and you still choose to go do your project in another country, you will get tariffed, but only tariffed on the amount of rebate that the other country gives your project. Not on the entire budget, not on anything weird like that, which is kind of how we made it sound right off the bat. So it wasn't... And I think that's a... Still seems a little short-sighted, but it's a little bit more of a meat in the middle than we're just going to tear a few hundred percent on the film and just leave it at that. And no one knows what you're talking about.

SPEAKER_02:

And this was more of a threat. It wasn't enacted.

SPEAKER_00:

No, no, there's nothing. It would be really hard to enact, because as we know, Hollywood is more left-leaning than right-leaning for the most part. And so he would face a lot of pushback. But to his credit, if you look at what it started to do, now L.A. is... rolling out a tax credit. Now Texas is spending billions of dollars on their tax credit and their infrastructure for film. So just the threat alone sometimes can push people to act that have been really lazy, if you want to call that, or just kind of sitting back on their laurels and not acting.

SPEAKER_02:

Well, that was, I love, I love these discussions. I mean, there you go. It's, it's, it did something positive and hopefully LA will up the ante a little bit so we can keep it in America, North America, at least.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. Yeah. And I'm totally fine with that. I just, you know, it was scary for a minute. Cause like I said, a lot of our films, like of the 20 some odd films we have on our slate, there's really only like, less than a handful that are US productions right now. Riches. And so, yeah, it was scary. It was a scary couple of days where I was like, okay, how am I going to navigate these waters? And so that's where the, you know, calling people to help me set up with the government in Mexico and Canada and in the UK, certain ways to shelter ourselves from that. I was ready to pull that trigger. I didn't have to, thankfully, or haven't had to yet. John, as

SPEAKER_01:

we conclude, thank you for your time today, by the way. Of course. Thank you for having me. Let's stay in touch. Obviously, I will, as you know, but on your projects and what you're doing, especially if you do have a film that you're a part of that's going to be in Oklahoma, we'd love to know about it. Do you have any concluding thoughts before we... and our little podcast.

SPEAKER_00:

I don't know if you've... I like what you guys are doing, though. I think pulling back the curtain a little bit and having these kind of conversations in a space in which hopefully people can listen to it and, if not learn from it, understand it more. Because it's a fascinating business to learn. From what you see just from a cursory look as a consumer of film to understanding a little bit of... under the hood of, of how the film gets from point A to point Z. It's fascinating. And so you guys having the type of people on that can have those conversations and pull back the curtain for your listeners and viewers, I think is really cool. So keep doing what you're doing.

SPEAKER_02:

Oh, well, thank you. And we want to keep supporting you. So anytime you have some great projects, let us know and we'll, we'll do our best to interview them and hopefully be there in person one day.

SPEAKER_00:

I love it. Sounds like a deal.

SPEAKER_02:

All right. Well, Tom, you get back to the mountains.

SPEAKER_01:

I will. I'll do my best. John, good to see

SPEAKER_02:

you. John, you get back to the international calls, and we appreciate everyone for watching Behind the Scenes Oklahoma.

SPEAKER_04:

Behind the Scenes Oklahoma Steps and let the breeze blow through your hair As soon you're feeling that, you know it's in the air Top hat music, man, the deck almost said May the place your spirit can shine Travel through the galaxy of souls