| DIY Distributors is a venture created by the production company, Yellow Brick Studio (YBS). It focuses specifically on the final stage of its customized movie making process, distribution, under LegacyVision Films, which is yet another venture under the YBS umbrella of companies. As much of what constitutes the distribution (and marketing) process for independent movies is already documented in detail on the “Distribution & Marketing” page of LegacyVision Films, viewers who want more extensive information on these topics are advised to go to that page and review all that is written. What is described on this page is the very practical experience and information that YBS has learned over the years about one of the three distribution avenues that YBS has established for which DIY Distributors focuses on: 1. Amazon; 2. Filmhub; 3. Others. What follows relates to Filmhub. |
Filmhub
Filmhub is a worldwide full-service film & TV distribution company. Filmhub has built deep relationships with thousands of world-class producers & distribution partners across theatrical, digital streaming, broadcast, Pay TV, and physical media rights. Filmhub is founded by world-renowned composer and producer Klaus Badelt and Silicon Valley entrepreneur Alan d’Escragnolle. They are backed by top investors in media and entertainment and their main headquarters is located in London, England, specifically at Unit 2, Shoemanic Productions Ltd, 7-13 Cotton’s Gardens, London E2 8DN, in the United Kingdom.
Founded in 2016 as Kinonation and rebranded in 2017, Filmhub was created to help films get strong distribution with as little hassle on the part of the filmmaker as possible. Their approach was essentially the opposite of the hands-on approach most aggregators were taking at the time: filmmakers would upload masters of their films and fill out an extensive metadata form, and Filmhub would take care of the tech, including encoding and AC, and their proprietary algorithm would suggest where it would or could place the film. In other words, they will do most of the work, and in return, they take 20% of whatever revenue is generated. The following video provides a good overview.
A Filmhub Overview: How Filmhub Revolutionized The Movie Business For Filmmakers – J. Horton
It was on the heels of Amazon’s great transition to allowing individual filmmakers to create their own Amazon Prime Video Direct accounts, rather than use an aggregator, that Filmhub founder Alan d’Escragnolle composed the following email to YBS co-founder Eric Nemoto.
Thu, Jan 30, 2020 at 5:00 AMIntrigued by the context of the email, Eric responded, and began a discourse, including occasional phone calls to Alan in addition to emails, to learn more about what Filmhub offered, and what he heard about their services greatly interested him. The positives, at the time, seemed almost too good to be true. For one, there would be no cost to uploading any of Yellow Brick Studio’s movies. Filmhub would only get paid if the movie were to make money from its sales. And what Filmhub would make, 20% of any sales realized, seemed appropriately fair and affordable. Two, Filmhub purported to have connections with over a hundred online movie platforms and streaming television channels. It seemed that posting YBS movies with them would subsequently save the time of researching these platforms individually and seeing if they accepted unsolicited content. This latter point was most important. Not all platforms were open to individual requests for uploading. So this idea alone, saving the time of researching further distribution with other platforms, seemed worth it. And it made sense financially. YBS was in no position to “pay” distributors, and even if so, where do you put your money to get the best bang for your buck? Three, from what Eric could glean from his research on Filmhub, Alan and his team knew their stuff. Partnering with them would prove beneficial not only from the perspective of uploading YBS movies, but the experience could ultimately educate Eric on the distribution process overall. Something that could always help YBS. So given all of this, Eric would work with Filmhub to distribute one its movies, “A Boy, A Girl And A Dead Cat.”
“Dead Cat” – Yellow Brick Studio’s First Movie Uploaded To Filmhub
To be sure, YBS found that getting a movie successfully uploaded to Filmhub is no walk in the park. Filmhub maintains very stringent quality standards on both the technical aspects of the movie as well as all of the supporting posters. And with respect to the movie posters, because different platforms have different presentation styles, it’s not just one poster than must be submitted, but many, all with different dimensions. As such, after much back and forth on the quality of the movie, as well as all of its supporting documents, “Dead Cat” finally went live on Filmhub on July 2nd, 2020. After the experience of uploading this first film, YBS would soon follow with more of its movies, “Juniper Lane” on August 11th, 2020, “The Landline Detective” on September 29th, 2020, “Closing Costs” on November 16th, 2020, “Parts Of The Same Circle” on March 5th, 2021, “Covid Release” on July 15th, 2021, “So Close Shig” on December 14th, 2021, “Before The After” on March 4th, 2022, “The Hidden Battle” on March 11th, 2022, “Natural Reaction” on July 12th, 2022, “World Buffet” on August 19th, 2022, and “The Curse Of Witness Protection” on June 23rd, 2023, making it – at the time of the creation of DIY Distributors – 12 YBS movies that have been successfully uploaded, and subsequently distributed, by Filmhub.¹
Some Of The Online Movie Platforms & Streaming Channels That Make Up Over 100 That Filmhub Has
¹YBS will continue to upload its movies to Filmhub, but for the purposes of this web page, these movies alone will be stated here (and not include future uploads), because these depict the YBS movies that had been uploaded to date at the point in time when YBS decided to establish DIY Distributors, which opened up YBS’ distribution efforts to all other filmmakers for a fee.
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