Pitching Projects to Amazon Prime

Tyler Bern – Head of content for Amazon Prime Video (Australia, New Zealand, and Canada) Tyler’s role is to curate a VOD service -  particularly for Australia.  His team localizes the service – looking at what Australians want to watch.

This can be content:

• Commissioned originals
• Licensed Content (TV & features)
• Live sports

They have 15 – 20 people on the ground in Sydney to support Prime video (Content marking & PR)

The team in LA, however, deals with the content – commission originals & working on licensed content.

What are the factors driving Amazon’s decision when commissioning local originals for this market?

To build a slate that appeals to the most amount of people – which means particular shows targeted at particular customer segments.

When looking at future commissions, they are very focused on what they’ve commissioned before – how customers have reacted to it.

Is there a certain scale that's required for an Amazon show?

There isn’t.  They commission smaller shows (The Moth Effect) as well as big ones like ‘The Lost Flowers of Alice Heart’.

Are cast and attachments necessary at the pitching stage?

A big director certainly helps – but isn’t a prerequisite.

Most of the Australian originals have been greenlit with a production company and a writer.

When you're thinking about cast you just never know whether it's going to resonate – unless it’s one of a couple of names that are ‘top tier’.

What’s the first thing that Tyler looks at in a pitch or pitch document?

Amazon has a higher barrier to entry compared to broadcast TV – as users are paying for the service.  So they are trying to figure out which projects are going to get their customers past that pay wall.  It’s about building an emotional connection with people.  They are trying to commission projects that are ‘must-have’ .. buzzy and generating conversation.  Something that when you see the trailer you know you have to watch that show.

 

The ‘Peach on Demand Initiative’

This initiative was created to give streamers like Amazon the opportunity to consider gaps in their slate and provide a specific brief to Australian producers.  

They are looking for projects that are shot and set in Australia.

Three briefs:

• Scripted TV
• Unscripted TV
• Feature Film

Scripted TV

Amazon recognise that they have a gap here - their development slate’s a little light.  It’s hard to pin down what they want.  One example is the YA show ‘Sex Education’.  It’s creative, buzzworthy and has an emotional connection.   

Amazon is really looking for is for the show creators to understand who they are making their show for.  Who is the audience?  Why do you think this audience will watch the show?  If this is a show that 18-25 year old females will come to Prime Video to watch the show, then that is fine – their doesn’t need to be a wide age range (or male audience).  They are aware that trying to broaden the appeal can water down the appeal for the original customer segment.

Unscripted TV

Lux Listing Sydney was an enormous success both in Australia and globally – they are making a Season Two. 

This comes back to buzzword, conversation driving TV shows.  They want to lean more into guilty pleasure – it doesn’t have to just be real-estate.  But it really need to make you watch it and make you talk about it. 

Feature Films

Amazon is a 'bit behind' in their development pipeline – they’ve been developing TV projects now for 3 years but only started developing features of the past year.

A thriller and comedy would be the two that they’d like to focus on but they are also open to rom-com and action. 

Quick Followup - 'Seeking Investors'

Mid last year I wrote about an amusing company that was trolling Craiglist looking for investors.

It seems that finally the law has caught up with them - they've earned themselves a 'Cease & Desist' for their methods. (Although California seems to call them 'Desist and Refrain' orders instead.)  Not much of a penalty - but the Pollyanna part of me would like to think that it will be enough that they'll change their ways.

Mind you  - it appears that it was a different project - this one they were offering a return of 150% and five percent (5%) of the net revenue generated from any and all distribution.

I wonder how many 'investors' they've been working with?

Presales - Learning from the Experts

When a distributor buys a film that hasn't been made yet they are almost blindfolded - they can't see the finished product.  So what determines what they are willing to pay ?

Even though old timers mutter about how pre-sales today aren't anything like the glory days .. for those of us in the indie sector it is still a vital part of film financing.    So I thought I'd ask some experts for some answers on what we need to do to our projects to help pre-sales.

Chinese Coproductions - Learning from the Experts

China has an annual box office of around US $1.5 billion and a growth rate that makes the rest of the world jealous.  But if we want access to Chinese cinemas for our productions we hit a problem - China has tight internal regulations that limits non-Chinese films to a limited number of slots.

Thankfully there is loophole, however - Australia's co-production treaty with China offers a method to get around the import quotas on foreign films.

So it was worth hearing from some Aussie producers talking at the latest SPAA conference about their experience working in China.

Are Business skills really needed to run a company?

It was a fairly straight forward annual report for a public company:

"Financial position
The net assets of the Company have increased from $8,008 as at 30 June 2009 to $191,448 as at 30 June 2010, which is an improvement on prior year due to the improved operating performance of the Company.
The Directors believe the Company is in a stable financial position."

Getting your indie film onto iTunes

Plenty of distributors talk about putting your independent film onto iTunes.  They wax lyrical about how good they are at it, give estimated timelines .. talk about what deliverables you need .... but if you ask for a single example where they've successfully done it before then you just hear silence.

The reason why is fairly simple - Apple simply doesn't want to work with small distributors .. they want to work with large aggregators who provide a known quality of product.  To be blunt - they can't be bothered working with independent films.     But there are solutions.

Product Placement - Case Study (Heinz Ez Squeeze)

In some ways product placement for our indie films is trivial.  For example, set designer Margaret McDonald was telling me recently how she gets Woolwooths to supply free groceries for set dressing.

However, real product integration is something that provides the producer with real value - either with money upfront or marketing support later on.  As much as we'd like to save $50 on set dressing - for a $10 million film it's not exactly value for the producer.  So I thought I'd look at some examples of successful product integrations to see how others do it.

Example 1 - Heinz 'EZ Squeeze' bottle.

Marketing Brief:  Heinz Ketchup had a new 'EZ Squeeze' bottle.

They'd worked for years to get people to recognise their old bottle - now they were taking a totally different product to the market.  Not only that - but the bottle was used quite differently too .. so would the public accept this new shape?


So Heinz worked with a US company called 'International Promotion' to include the new bottle into product integration on TV and film so that the consumer 'would consider the EZ Squeeze bottle as an everyday household product'.