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website New Platform for Theatrical Distribution - Kickstarter for Showtimes

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NomineeCOO

Hi everyone! My name's Viveca and I'm the COO of a new distribution startup called Nominee (if you didn't see my welcome thread, please check it out :). The goal of the app is to give every movie an equal shot at being seen in the theater.

If you are a filmmaker, you can use Nominee to:
  • Organize your premier/fourwalling ABSOLUTELY FREE (No room rental, deposit, or prepayment. Just get a minimum number of people to show up.)
  • Have you film run as a public show in participating theaters.
  • Invite friends, family and market on all social platforms.
  • Notify other movie-loving app users in the area about your show.
  • Sell tickets, with all payment (including sales tax) taken care of, and QR coded tickets generated on the app.
  • Qualify for audited Audience Awards
We're just getting started, so currently we have participating theaters in NY/NJ, LA and Milwaukee. We'd love your movie to be one of the first on the platfom! You can email me at viveca@nomineeapp.com to discuss details.

Thank you, and I hope to see you at the movies!! - Viveca
 
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Sounds interesting. So I run some ads for a film and then if I can hit a minimum prepurchase number costs are covered out of the take?
 
In the music biz we call this pay-to-play. Bands sell advance tickets and have to meet a minimum to not be charged the ticket fees to play a certain venue, usually a large venue they could never play otherwise. Some bands get excited over the ability to play a large concert venue, they are handed 100 tix to sell, they beg their relatives and friends, the room ends up 10% full with family, and they eat the cost of the other tickets. Pay-to-play, nothing new. But good luck with your success, I hope it works. In the music biz, if anyone is pushing advance tix and minimums, bands usually know to stay away. The protomer should be doing their job and the venue or ticket service should be selling the tickets, not the bands (filmmakers in this case). But I do wish you the best of luck with this model. It has had success. Mostly with empty seats being paid for.
 
I agree with you, all valid points. However...... The reason I find this interesting is that things are changing in film, on the production end, at what I'd call an alarming rate. There are youtube creators (of narritive content) who could easily sell out theaters and end up with a net positive. Granted, not a lot, but there's going to be another fundamental difference. The actual quality with which an indie creative can hope to render a story is right now transforming into a state of exponential gain. Things that were outright impossible 2 years ago will be commonplace next year. You couldn't say that about the change in film from 1930 to 1960.

My point is, and we'd both have to stretch our imaginations a bit, because no one has ever seen this before. People are going to be making small indie films that others ACTUALLY want to watch. Without being related. Every lead in to an indie film I see now is practically identical. Two unknowns filmed with a mid camera, and you can tell they can't light a scene, from the movie poster. Within a few years, you'll see people with no agent or studio connections come out of nowhere with stuff that looks like a blockbuster, with up front trailer hooks like exotic locations, huge cgi set pieces, super attractive women, and maybe even some lower end famous people hawking their likeness on the cheap.

So would this old pay to play formula maybe actually work for some people, now that "The American Astronaut" isn't the pinnacle of 2 million dollar filmmaking? Would a few hundred people maybe show up to a NYC theater to see something that actually looks incredible.

Maybe I'm missing the forest for the trees here. Do people still go to theaters? I'm not sure.

Here's a 2 million dollar Indie film from around 2000


Here's a 30 dollar film I made a couple weeks ago in one night. Bad example, since it's just a reel, and quality is too low, but a couple years from now, 10 million people will have the ability to mill solid 4k footage at .0001% of it's former cost, and you can see one of the steps toward that here.


So the question is, if the reality of film shifts in such an extreme way, wouldn't we also probably see a shift in which forms of marketing and promotion were effective. I'd probably go to indie films if they just took place in more than 3 locations.
 
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Oh it can work yes. Staying with music for my point, a successful band could sell the 100 tix no problem, the way the model works is, they are always being paid their costs, from actual seats filled or empty seats, and most bands get so exited to play a huge venue they say "F it" and pay-to-play knowing they can probably only sell a handful. They do it for clout. The venue experience. It's a model frowned upon as you end up looking like a beggar and emailing your third cousins and grandma is at the metal concert. (Which is actually awesome lol!) So in the music biz it just looks like desperation.

Let me tell you how many "SOLD OUT" shows I attended, and there were 20 people there. Let me also tell you how those bands to this day post how they sold out that venue! Like it was some feat, and literally, they didn't. But the marquee outside had SOLD OUT on it, and they took a pic. Because they bought all those tix lol!
 
People don't know this somehow, but the way KISS rose to popularity was this. The label bussed in crowds of attractive women, gave them all front row seats, and just told them to scream exitedly no matter what happened. Then radio stations would give away tickets to make sure plenty of real people were there, and they sold the rest through tv ads. That's how a guy who learned to play 8th notes on bass became a billionaire. Trump wanted to appear like a real estate mogul, so he paid people that owned skyscrapers to simply hang a sign with his name on it. He doesn't own the building, just gave them a check to allow him to post a misleading façade.

Fake it till you make it works like anything else. It works if you have enough money to make it work. I'm simply pointing out that while I consider this a shit strategy, it does work if you step on the gas hard enough. Of course, everything does.

My interest though was more in a scenario where indie filmmakers who produce something people actually want to see could at least have an inroad to a venue. I understand that this corporation isn't doing anyone any actual favors. None of them are, lol. For example, Mad God took 11 years to make, and while it's not great, it's brimming with individuality. As a stranger, I would have bought a ticket to a local theater to see it, just to support that kind of effort and initiative.

But yeah, I'm interested in hearing from these people as well. Is this also a potential profit center for organizers as well? Like if you have a big social media Prescence in Chicago for example, say 400,000 area followers, and you want to throw a weekly showing of "The Room" or "Rocky Horror" for people to throw popcorn at, would this be a viable way to do that with clicks on a website?
 
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Oh I'm aware of fake it till you make it, and DIYing that. But when a service is used that service is either going to get a good or bad rep depending on how this is handled. So far I like the wording. There used to be this Gorilla Showcase in NYC and they had submission fees. Basically, you guessed it, everyone got "accepted" and then you got the "Congratulations!" email with the tickets you were responsible for. A pay-to-play service aka a scam here in NY, so you just have to be careful. I suppose that was my main point. lol
 
Here's a coincidence. The app screenshot shows the cinema right down the street from me. 😲

So you nominate a film. Let's say I nominate my own as that's why they posted here for self-distribution. I pick my cinema and my time. Now I have to spam social to get people to vote for it to play. People may not have any issue with that and will want to support. So let's say the votes meet the threshold and the film can play there. Great! But what next? The email about how many tickets I need to sell? Does this service help sell to the people that voted? Do I now have to contact all those people to ask them to buy a ticket? Is there something in the app that lets me contact them with the push of a button? Or is it like starting all over again, first the poll, now the tickets?
 
By the way, the way it was pitched here was for self-disto but when looking at the app it looks pretty cool, to be able to pick an obscure or favorite film and have it be able to show at your cinema, and you get all your friends to go. Could work for cult followings. I understand they came here because of self-distro but I think the app could have been explained better so I didn't jump into the pay-to-play angle so fast, even though, yes that's what it is, even if not your film.
 
indietalk said:
Here's a coincidence. The app screenshot shows the cinema right down the street from me. 😲

So you nominate a film. Let's say I nominate my own as that's why they posted here for self-distribution. I pick my cinema and my time. Now I have to spam social to get people to vote for it to play. People may not have any issue with that and will want to support. So let's say the votes meet the threshold and the film can play there. Great! But what next? The email about how many tickets I need to sell? Does this service help sell to the people that voted? Do I now have to contact all those people to ask them to buy a ticket? Is there something in the app that lets me contact them with the push of a button? Or is it like starting all over again, first the poll, now the tickets?
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Ok, so something that might be missing from the math here is the affordability and targeting of modern ads. In my 2019 film that was shown in local theaters, It was hard sell, and it worked out, (kind of, recouped hard costs). Here's what I did. I placed about 1100 dollars in facebook and adwords ads, and called up the local news stations. Here's the relevant bit. You can now target those ads almost block by block. Not quite, but you can drop a pin on a map and say focus my entire advertising budget in this 3 mile radius. So if you took a film with a strong trailer, and like I said, they're about to get a lot stronger on average, across the board, and then dropped say a grand into an area very close to the showing, you might get some traction. I got around a third of a million views across the ads, each one of which was a condensed version of the trailer. Production was good, and it was something of local interest that didn't require a long trip to get to. So via this hyper targeting, we returned the investment.

I'm just noting this because so many people forget that you can inform a third of a million people about something with a grand. It does factor in to the viability of a service like this. If they were smart, they'd just integrate it into their service package, and start optimizing the placements via the kind of advertising experience that a company doing 200 of these a year could get, and no one indie filmmaker ever would.
 
Nate North said:
Sounds interesting. So I run some ads for a film and then if I can hit a minimum prepurchase number costs are covered out of the take?
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Hi - no, you don't have to run any ads. The app has a built-in sharing feature. Once you nominate or vote on a movie, the app opens your sharing menu so you can invite your contacts using text or email, or post a trailer on socials. We create the text/email/social post for you so it's super easy! You can choose to pay FB/twitter etc to promote your post if you like, but that has nothing to do with Nominee and isn't required at all.
 
indietalk said:
In the music biz we call this pay-to-play. Bands sell advance tickets and have to meet a minimum to not be charged the ticket fees to play a certain venue, usually a large venue they could never play otherwise. Some bands get excited over the ability to play a large concert venue, they are handed 100 tix to sell, they beg their relatives and friends, the room ends up 10% full with family, and they eat the cost of the other tickets. Pay-to-play, nothing new. But good luck with your success, I hope it works. In the music biz, if anyone is pushing advance tix and minimums, bands usually know to stay away. The protomer should be doing their job and the venue or ticket service should be selling the tickets, not the bands (filmmakers in this case). But I do wish you the best of luck with this model. It has had success. Mostly with empty seats being paid for.
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I hear you. But the key difference is that there is no obligation to sell any tickets on Nominee, and any tickets "sold" below the minimum are refunded (actually, not charged) since your movie won't be running. So you will never have to "eat" a single ticket.

Here's how it works: the theater sets a (say) 20 seat minimum for the Nominee slot, which is Tuesday at 7pm. People "vote" by putting down a credit card and holding seats for their preferred movie. If the movie they voted for wins, the show is on! Their card is charged and they now have tickets. If it doesn't win, nothing happens. Their card is not charged and another movie will play in that slot instead. So it is truly zero obligation and zero risk. @Nate North
 
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Nate North said:
I agree with you, all valid points. However...... The reason I find this interesting is that things are changing in film, on the production end, at what I'd call an alarming rate. There are youtube creators (of narritive content) who could easily sell out theaters and end up with a net positive. Granted, not a lot, but there's going to be another fundamental difference. The actual quality with which an indie creative can hope to render a story is right now transforming into a state of exponential gain. Things that were outright impossible 2 years ago will be commonplace next year. You couldn't say that about the change in film from 1930 to 1960.

My point is, and we'd both have to stretch our imaginations a bit, because no one has ever seen this before. People are going to be making small indie films that others ACTUALLY want to watch. Without being related. Every lead in to an indie film I see now is practically identical. Two unknowns filmed with a mid camera, and you can tell they can't light a scene, from the movie poster. Within a few years, you'll see people with no agent or studio connections come out of nowhere with stuff that looks like a blockbuster, with up front trailer hooks like exotic locations, huge cgi set pieces, super attractive women, and maybe even some lower end famous people hawking their likeness on the cheap.

So would this old pay to play formula maybe actually work for some people, now that "The American Astronaut" isn't the pinnacle of 2 million dollar filmmaking? Would a few hundred people maybe show up to a NYC theater to see something that actually looks incredible.

Maybe I'm missing the forest for the trees here. Do people still go to theaters? I'm not sure.

Here's a 2 million dollar Indie film from around 2000


Here's a 30 dollar film I made a couple weeks ago in one night. Bad example, since it's just a reel, and quality is too low, but a couple years from now, 10 million people will have the ability to mill solid 4k footage at .0001% of it's former cost, and you can see one of the steps toward that here.


So the question is, if the reality of film shifts in such an extreme way, wouldn't we also probably see a shift in which forms of marketing and promotion were effective. I'd probably go to indie films if they just took place in more than 3 locations.
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So first of all - wow! I am totally blown away by the effects in your short. As a non-filmmaker myself, I'm always amazed by the artist's skill. :) Second, you are totally 1000% right about the shift towards decentralized distribution and purchasing. And that's why we are so excited about this new model. It truly makes the movie business a meritocracy. If your movie is great, you post it on the app and people can choose to see it, share it, talk about it, and see it over and over again. For literally no risk and no cost to you (please see my response to @indietalk above). As to whether people still go to theaters, we're betting that they will. We asked hundreds of regular (non film) people if there was any movie they would pay to see in the theater even if they could watch it for free at home and EVERY SINGLE ONE said yes. Every one! So now the question is how you can find enough of the people who love Movie X enough to pay for a theater ticket. And that's what we are doing - helping movie lovers find each other and create audiences for new and beloved films.
 
indietalk said:
Oh it can work yes. Staying with music for my point, a successful band could sell the 100 tix no problem, the way the model works is, they are always being paid their costs, from actual seats filled or empty seats, and most bands get so exited to play a huge venue they say "F it" and pay-to-play knowing they can probably only sell a handful. They do it for clout. The venue experience. It's a model frowned upon as you end up looking like a beggar and emailing your third cousins and grandma is at the metal concert. (Which is actually awesome lol!) So in the music biz it just looks like desperation.

Let me tell you how many "SOLD OUT" shows I attended, and there were 20 people there. Let me also tell you how those bands to this day post how they sold out that venue! Like it was some feat, and literally, they didn't. But the marquee outside had SOLD OUT on it, and they took a pic. Because they bought all those tix lol!
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Totally agree, that sucks. And that's why we don't use that model.
 
So the model is similar to kickstarter. The vote is the pre-purchase to fund the screening, the number of seats is the goal, and seeing the movie is the perk. Money is returned if goal is not reached. Kickstarter model but not funding a film, seeing one. That's pretty damn cool. Thanks for the clarity.
 
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