How To Make Money Off Movies That Cost Less Than $100,000 - J. Horton - YouTube

I’m J. Horton. I make movies  that make money. This is how.

Film Courage: J. why do you say you  are a filmmaker who makes money?

J. Horton, Filmmaker/Youtuber/Podcaster: Well, I'm making a very specific style  

of movie. I'm making low budget features,  usually under a hundred thousand dollars and  

the vast majority of filmmakers that I talk  to that are making movies at this level,  

a lot of them aren't making money, they're losing  from the distributors or they're self-distributing  

and not doing anything. They don't know  how to make money. I myself I've directed  

25 feature films at this point and the first  probably 10 years of my career like I wasn't  

making a lot of money on these movies like I  didn't know how I didn't know how to navigate it  

I learned how later on and I like to make  it so that other filmmakers can maybe get to  

that point sooner than I did and so I like  to share some of that knowledge with them  

it took it took me a long time before my movies  were breaking even or making money and so  

and and on top of that as I was starting my  Youtube channel I was there's a couple of  

growth experts that I'm following and they have  their little catchphrases I was like I need some  

catchphrase and it just like that just came out I  was getting ready to do it and I was like I'm J.  

Horton I make movies that make money this is how  and it just it just felt like something that would  

interest other filmmakers which was the whole goal  of the channel in the first place right you do  

that in your intro to the videos yeah it does work  when did you become the filmmaker who makes money  

so I've made money with my films from the  beginning I did struggle at the beginning  

but pretty much my first movie was distributed  in 2003 by York entertainment now it didn't make  

anything but from that and it getting distributed  and out there I started landing other filmmaking  

jobs and that's where I first started to  make money but like when I say I'm J. Horton,  

I make movies that make money I produce movies I  direct movies and I make money off those movies  

like I'm not necessarily talking about hey I got  I get hired as a editor or a dp which I have done  

but I'm specifically talking about making money  off the ex exhibition of the movies and I would  

say that started probably like on a study about  five years ago about five years when like right  

around the time that Amazon started opening up for  streaming and that's where I first started getting  

the rights back from some of my older films and  finding that you actually could make a little bit  

of money on your own and over the years I've  just gotten better and better at marketing them  

at picking the movies and making more money with  them do you think that was a big contributor is  

going back and getting those rights back or new  movies going forward once Amazon Prime opened up  

yeah there's a little bit of both it was the the  old movies coming back up for license that made me  

realize that I could be a like an entrepreneurial  producer I had rise of the undead and edges of  

darkness they were released in 2003 and 2008.  around 2014 or 15 I got the rights back for  

both of those within like a year and I honestly  at the time I didn't know what to do with them  

and there was a a service called Createspace it's  owned by Amazon but it was basically created for  

self publishers like authors but they were doing  a thing where you could give them like your iso  

video file from your movie for dvd and they would  make videos on demand or dvds on demand and real  

soon after that they started giving you the option  to go on to Amazon Prime and so this was before  

Prime video direct but it's still basically a  similar process like you'd upload yourself and get  

it up so I put these two movies up on Amazon Prime  and they were making a few bucks a month like  

like nothing big and then out of nowhere one  of them popped up to like a thousand a month  

and then it hit me I was like oh my  gosh like what if this was a new movie  

because this is like a 10 year old title at this  point and it's it's doing all right so then I  

started seriously considering producing movies and  like hey here's somewhere where I could put them  

even if I didn't do traditional distribution and  so I it was always in the back of my mind and then  

after I had a little sidetrack with gas money  pictures where I was doing animation animation  

studio and that took me off movies for about two  years but then when I came back I was like hey I'm  

going to do this like self-produce self-distribute  thing and I started making documentaries and  

that's that's where I really got immersed in like  the streaming and Amazon and then later Filmhub  

and then back into traditional distribution was  that the point of no return when you saw that  

email or whatever with a thousand dollars yes yes  because like from from that point on I realized  

that hey I can self-generate material I can make  these movies on my own without answering to anyone  

and I can make a a reasonable amount of money  on it if I made a thousand on this older one  

could I make five thousand or ten thousand  with a newer one so I was like hey I didn't  

I don't I don't need anybody to do this there's  no gatekeeping it's like it's almost anyone could  

put a movie up there so yeah it really really  opened up the the doors to me being my own boss  

and with this thousand dollars in one month  were there rumblings online did you see more  

was this a complete surprise complete surprise so  I was doing absolutely no promotion for it like no  

no social media had no social media presence  the like I said the movie was 10 years old I  

had pretty much written them off at that point  it was totally just a fluke of the algorithm  

it was on Amazon and a certain group of people  started watching it and it just it just took off  

it got a bunch of reviews after that and still  not a ton like you'll hear people talking about  

how critical user reviews on Amazon are but I've  never really found that to be true I don't think  

it hurts but I have plenty of movies that have  made 5 000 a month 10 000 a month and they have  

less than 200 reviews so I never thought that was  a big thing but yeah it just it really opened up  

from that point on I was just like hey this is  what I want to do and I've always had a problem  

working for people I just I always wanted to  be my own boss so here here it was I can do it  

did you quit a job after that or you were  freelance so I was freelancing around this time  

I was freelancing a lot so I was primarily making  my living as an editor I worked for fox cutting  

promos for a while I would cut other people's  features I was hired to direct other people's  

features like I directed about 10 feature films  for a company called AMG film partners and they  

were all between 25 and 50 000 after I saw the  self distribution thing and it took a few years  

now because I started making the docs and I’d  do one here one there took about a year before  

like my money was steady enough to where I  say hey I don't have to do freelance anymore  

and I did so I haven't done a freelance job  in probably three years now well I directed  

one documentary last year that was a for hire  but it was based off my the stuff I'm doing now.