Marketing, Publicity, Social Media at the World Premiere

We hired Ingrid Hamilton, a prominent Toronto-based publicist, to help make our premiere a splash. We also notified our own immediate filmmaking community and partner organizations. We pre-planned and created our daily social media and weekly email blasts, and flew Mr. Toilet to the premiere from Singapore along with our whole team from Los Angeles—producer, editors, and executive producers. Mr. Toilet already had a large following on social media so his “shares” helped to spread awareness and led to additional interviews.

Regarding our publicist, Ingrid Hamilton, she and her whole team at GAT PR worked non-stop a month and half before our premiere, as well as during the festival, to set up interviews with news outlets, film reviewers, podcasters, radio hosts, and TV shows. Mr. Toilet and Lily were interviewed on CTV, Canada’s leading News station, as well as Sirius XM Canada, CBC Radio, and Breakfast TV Toronto, as well as having a special feature in POV’s newsletter, and multiple podcasts and newspaper outlets. These interviews were significant contributors to the successful initial exposure and launch of the film.

The film was also a Staff Pick by the head programmer of Hot Docs, which was announced at the festival press conference, and we won the Docs for Schools Audience Award. Before the premiere, our film team also notified our film community, and partnering organizations such as Chicken & Egg Pictures, International Documentary Association, and World Toilet Organization to help encourage additional press coverage and social media shares. In a fun grassroots effort, Mr. Toilet and Lily also ran around the streets of Toronto dressed in poo costumes for a day to hand out postcards, take selfies, visit the Poop Café in Toronto, a toilet-themed café, and tell locals about the film.

The Search for a Distributor

Lily and Producer Tchavdar booked a spot at the Hot Docs Meet Market, which allows filmmakers to secure 20-minute meetings with interested broadcasters or distributors. We also reached out to agents and distributors with whom we did not initially get a meeting, so that we could set aside separate times during our visit to meet. Tchavdar utilized some of his contacts from previous films to gain interest from buyers or ask for intros. We also had a few platforms, such as Netflix, reach out us right after the press announcements were made (which was before the festival).

Producer Tchavdar had a long-standing relationship with The Film Collaborative, who was very helpful with the release of his film The Desert of Forbidden Art, and also the film he edited, Valentine Road. The Film Collaborative was brought on early in the game to advise us on how best to handle distribution. TFC’s founder Orly Ravid, also an attorney at Mitchell Silberberg & Knupp LLP, served as legal counsel for the film.

We licensed educational rights for North America to Grasshopper Films. All domestic and international broadcast, VOD, and streaming rights were given to Kew Media Group, while we retained the theatrical rights in North America. Unfortunately, Kew went bankrupt, but we were luckily able to transfer those rights in March 2020 to Journeyman Pictures, who will be working on our behalf for future sales.

The back-story of how all this happened was that in April 2019, we met with Nikolas Bars of Kew Media at Hot Docs. After we left Toronto, we furthered the discussions with him by including him in many conversations with our distribution lawyer, Orly Ravid. Journeyman Pictures, another distributor in Europe, had also reached out, and was interested in securing the film just before Hot Docs.

However, we made the choice to work with Kew Media for a few reasons: 1) they seemed to have strong relationships with both U.S. and international markets; 2) their slate contained a handful of recognizable films; and 3) they offered a higher minimum guarantee (MG) than Journeyman. Unfortunately, in early 2020, we found out that Kew Media had fallen into debt and collapsed, leaving many filmmakers, including us, unsure if payments from previous distribution deals were going to be made. They had sold a 47-minute cut of our film to Aljazeera English for non-exclusive worldwide rights (excluding the U.S.), starting on November 19,^, 2019. We eventually re-obtained these rights from Kew Media and signed with Journeyman, who still feels very confident about VOD options for the film, especially during this coronavirus pandemic, where millions more people are at home consuming content.

Theatrical

After the April 2019 premiere, it was important for us to plan a theatrical release around November 19—World Toilet Day. This UN Holiday was adopted by 193 countries in 2013 and is an especially important day in New York. Many cities and organizations around the world use it as an opportunity to host events or post humorous and informative content about the toilet.

Our team raised an additional $40K from our two top investors to pay for a one-week theatrical release in Los Angeles and New York, which included funds for the following: 4-walling theaters, a theater booker, travel (with Mr. Toilet), advertising, hiring a publicist, and an outreach assistant coordinator. We hired Publicist Sasha Berman of Shotwell Media a few months before the release. She secured many podcasts, television and publication interviews and reviews, including: The Daily Beast, the Los Angeles Times, the New York Times, BBC radio, Women in Hollywood and KTLA (Los Angeles’s local morning news).

For advertisements, we focused on social media ads (Facebook) and a targeted email blast by the International Documentary Association. Most of these ads were launched in the two weeks leading up to the theatrical releases.

We were also featured on the Kickstarter events page and e-blast. Lily and an outreach assistant focused their efforts on schools located near the theaters, as well as major water & sanitation organizations with large social media platforms, documentary film communities, companies with toilet-related products, and Mr. Toilet’s (Jack Sim’s) immediate communities and partners. Many of these organizations or schools gathered groups to attend the film or supported us by posting about the film the week of the release. Jim Browne, a theater booker, was hired 2.5 months before the theatrical release to help us secure theaters in both in New York and Los Angeles. We secured the Village East Cinema in New York for $10.5K, and the Laemmle Monica Film Center Santa Monica for $6K. We generated about $2,963 in tickets sales in Los Angeles and $2,724 in New York.

Lily also secured partnerships with Tushy (bidets) & Poopurri (toilet spray). Both provided free product for the day of release of the film in each city, and Poopouri also donated 100 film tickets the United Nations School in New York. This offered a fun and engaging way to interact with audiences, and spark interest and shares on social media.

Additionally, during the weekend of the Los Angeles theatrical, we partnered with the Boys & Girls Club of Santa Monica and the Kohler Company for a toilet art display at the Santa Monica Promenade, a busy outdoor mall that is located two blocks from the theater showing the film. The kids at the local Boys & Girls Club decorated the Kohler-donated toilets and displayed them on a stage along with our movie posters at the Promenade during high-traffic hours on a weekend so that passers-by could take pictures, and learn about the film and World Toilet day.

Lastly, we made sure Mr. Toilet (Jack Sim) himself attended both Friday and Saturday Q&As in New York and Los Angeles so that audiences could take pictures and get the opportunity to ask insightful questions about the film.

Event / Hybrid Theatrical

After the premiere at Hot Docs and our theatrical, we received a handful of requests for event screenings, not only from art houses, but sanitation-related organizations as well. However, due to the Coronavirus pandemic, many of the events scheduled for March 2020 and beyond were discontinued. Depending on the event or organization hosting, we usually charged between $200-300 per screening. Our total net as of March 2020 is about $1,400.

Deals

Partnerships and Other Support

Revenue Net Analysis

Below is a quick overview of funds raised and revenue earned entering Q2 2020. This does not include the payment owed to us from Kew Media for their sale to Aljazeera English (after recouped MG), nor does it include any future distribution deals through Journeyman or Grasshopper Films.

According to our internal agreement, the producers on the film were to receive a 7% cut from the budget of the film, while the director/producer received 10%. This amounted to a total of $30K-$50K or under, per person, and was spread throughout the 5 years of production. However, oftentimes we chose to forgo our payment in order to make sure we had enough for post-production needs. As for backend, 50% of the earnings from the film go to the “investors pot” and 50% of the earnings go towards the “producers pot.” The investors pot is then split again between our handful of investors based on their percentage of investment. So, the investor with the highest investment will receive the highest amount of the split from the investors pot and the investor with the lowest investment will receive the lowest split. The owners (producers) also get a share of the investment pot based on the amount of sponsorship or grant money we raised that was outside of investor money.

Takeaways from the filmmaking team

Looking back, we definitely would repeat the theatrical release (even though it was costly). It helped the film get exposure in two of the biggest markets—Los Angeles and New York. We also kept track of the budget fairly often and for the most part stuck to our original numbers, and this constant attention was vital to making sure we efficiently spent our funds.

Lily would definitely also repeat her experience with the Chicken & Egg Pictures Accelerator Lab. Even though applying for grants can be stressful and tedious, this one paid off not in just terms of money ($25K), but also in terms of mentorship, resources, connections, community, and feedback.

Working with The Film Collaborative also proved to be extremely helpful for festival submissions. Using their services helped make the process much more manageable and fruitful in terms of securing screening fees.

Finally, using Orly Ravid for distribution negotiation was key in helping us better understand our options and gave us a stronger negotiation power.

In terms of what we might do differently, we would definitely take a different approach to the crowdfunding campaign. Either: a) with much more help; or b) deciding to forgo it all together and instead put all the efforts into securing another sponsorship, donation, or investment. Even though the crowdfunding campaign raised its $45K target, it proved to be overly time consuming for the amount of money actually raised after one subtracts the Kickstarter fee, the Kickstarter rewards prize costs, the cost of making the video, and putting in about $5K of our own money to meet the goal. The upside, however, was that it accelerated the decision-making process for one of our prospect investors, who made a $10K investment to match a week’s worth of money raised on the Kickstarter, and convinced an existing investor to invest an additional $10K+.

We would have also been more proactive about requesting money owed (our MG) from our first distributor much sooner. Had we done so, we might have avoided the fall-out after their collapse.

Also, had we known this project was going to take more than five years, we would have allocated a higher fee in the budget for producers. The fee we included was not even a part-time sustainable salary and we believe directors and producers should be compensated much more for all the services that go into making a film.

In terms of what takeaways we think might help other filmmakers, we can offer this:

• Always read contracts thoroughly and stay up-to-date on all accounting and budget goals;
• Make sure you’re prepared for your film’s premiere and theatrical release – get lots of help from your team, organize tasks at least 3 months in advance, and hire a publicist if possible;
• Make the most of your opportunities, including networking, by:
  1. attending the festival meet markets as often as possible;
  2. introducing yourself to decision-makers at events;
  3. communicate often and keep supporters and investors informed;
  4. find unique, enticing ways to keep building your audience as you shoot; and
  5. take part in a Lab or grants opportunity that provides you with the mentorship or network that you need.
• Be honest with yourselves about the budget even if it seems high—there’s always going to be unexpected items that come up and it’s better to overweight than underweight.
• Always get feedback on your story from trusted professionals and always have a lawyer’s second opinion on negotiations, contracts, or anything that could pose legal repercussion later on.

In the end, we realized some of our goals, such as premiering at a large festival and launching a theatrical release in New York and Los Angeles, but we also have some dreams and goals yet to be realized. Journeyman will work on our behalf to continue exploring distribution deals. We had a good start with the non-exclusive broadcast sale to Aljazeera, but we are hopeful there will be more streaming and/or other fruitful broadcast deals. We are also hopeful about securing Airline sales as well as some type of educational program partnership with a sponsoring organization to help fund it.

We realized our goals in raising our full budget of $500+, which is a huge feat in itself. We also are proud of being able to hire publicists to help us with exposure for the film, as well as animators for post-production, which was a huge cost. We were able to do a festival tour of almost one year in over a dozen cities, and the film also received two awards. Overall, I think we are happy with how the story turned out, and how we were able to come up with a project that is both informative and entertaining.

TL;DR

We’ve learned at The Film Collaborative that oftentimes call-to-action films that are solely issue-driven have a hard time getting buy-in from film festival programmers. Lucky, in this case, director Lily Zepada found the perfect hook to make this also a character-driven film: an eccentric former entrepreneur Jack Sim a.k.a Mr. Toilet, who uses humor to campaign for something no one dares to talk about: shit. At their Hot Docs premiere, the filmmaker leveraged all their contacts from previous films and from when they were in production to attend the Hot Docs Meet Market, where they met with several distributors, one of which (Kew Media) they decided to go with, in a hybrid rights deal. They licensed North American Educational Rights to Grasshopper Films and all domestic, international broadcast, VOD and streaming rights to Kew Media Group. Unfortunately, Kew Media recently went bankrupt, but they were able to transfer those rights to Journeyman Pictures this past March. Before going under, Kew had made a sale to Aljazeera, but to this date, the filmmakers have not received any money from Kew.