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How did you first hear about Filmhub?
I had heard of Film Hub, but in its previous incarnation as a different company. I was skeptical but some friends said it was working for them, so I decided to try a couple of titles. Those went well, so I let them have all my titles at that point.
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To be honest, I don’t recall. I think their name just started to be “in the air” and I read about them on newsgroups.
Through a colleague who was making pretty good money on Filmhub for his short films
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I’m not sure. I signed up with them about REDACTED number of years ago when they were initially called Kinonation.
I honestly can’t even recall. Alex Ferrari’s Facebook group, maybe?
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From a few other filmmakers including Jason Horton. Began joining some filmmaker Facebook groups and contacting other filmmakers to ask about their experiences.
I have a couple of films where the sales agent rights had thankfully expired, so rather than relicense with a sales agent, I decided to see if I could release through an aggregator instead. I did my research, created a list with pros/cons, and then chose Filmhub above the rest.
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What motivated you to work with them?
I used Filmhub to distribute old titles that went out of license from traditional distributors. I wasn’t sure how much life an old film would have, so their streamlined process, easy delivery, and transparent accounting were appealing to me.
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My North American distributor agreed to a non-exclusive deal, so I was free to distribute to platforms they didn’t work with. Filmhub was a good fit since they were non-exclusive, only took 20% with no expenses, had a lot of transparency through their online dashboard, and worked with many platforms that other places didn’t.
I figured it couldn’t hurt to list some of my older films for which I control the rights on Filmhub.
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I couldn’t afford the deliverables required by other distributors.
Our first feature was extremely microbudget. We had about half a dozen offers for distribution but none we were extremely excited about. We had other projects in pre-production, and we wanted to use the initial project as a low risk test to see how self-distribution with Filmhub would go, what kind of numbers we would do, etc.
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I was impressed with their website, and I liked the 80/20 rev share and no/limited expenses model. I noted that they had secured a large amount of financing through a capital raising which gave me the comfort that they had the funds to continue operations for a few years and hopefully not do a Distribber and go belly up. I did searches through Reddit and other boards and found mostly positive comments about their service.
What went well?
I’ve been very pleased with Filmhub as a partner. I had no problems with QC or rejected delivery on numerous titles. They even picked up some old short films of mine. One thing in particular that impressed me was [A SPECIFIC WAY FILMHUB GOT INVOLVED TO SUPPORT A TITLE WITH AN ERRONEOUS LEGAL CLAIM FROM A PLATFORM]. We eventually ended up redelivering to that platform. I thought they were very communicative and helpful in this situation and given that it was an old title and probably not hugely lucrative for them, they gave it some attention. The rep we spoke with was also knowledgeable and quite reasonable.
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The onboarding process was straightforward, and money started rolling in within a few months. After having had to chase down distributors and sales agents for sales reports and payments in the past, I was really happy to see that I could track my sales on Filmhub in real time and take out a payment at any time. The money arrives in my PayPal account within minutes.
I’ve made a decent amount of money with them, and each of my titles have gone to about REDACTED number of platforms in addition to the platforms my North American distributor got the films onto, so Filmhub has really increased their reach. The data they give you in their online dashboard is really helpful, and you have the ability to cash out your royalties as soon as your money is in Filmhub’s account instead of quarterly, so you get paid more often.
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Uploading the ProRes copy of my film and all the associated materials went very smoothly. I really like the design of their website and the reporting functionality. The ability to drill down into film/platform/month, etc., is very useful, particularly to assess film marketing effectiveness. Filmhub secured releases for my films on various TVOD and AVOD sites. That process did take some time, but I know those platforms are swamped with product and a 4-6 month time frame before your film gets added to those sites is not unexpected. 8 months out I started to receive monthly royalties, which, so far, has been very consistent.
At first, it went pretty well. There was a decent flow of money and while the support wasn’t amazing, they did answer questions and address issues.
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I found the QC process easy due to their detailed Q&s. We passed it quickly and went live on platforms within 3 weeks.
It was a relatively efficient process from delivery to publishing. FH’s support was quick and personal.
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What went poorly?
I wouldn’t say I’ve made a huge amount of money. But again, mine were old titles, and I did zero work in terms of marketing. So, I’m essentially happy with the result.
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Nothing at first, but in the past year there have been some very unsettling issues. They launched their own “channels” in the form of some YouTube channel—sounds like a conflict of interest. Then I saw my movies playing on channels on Roku that I hadn’t licensed them to. [DISCUSSES VERY SPECIFIC LICENSING ISSUE].
Since you don’t have a release date (although that’s a feature they recently added for an additional fee), PR can be a challenge, and it can take platforms quite a while to pick up your film and put it on their platform. They also recently changed their contract so that it’s harder to make changes to your title’s availability and you now have to pay a monthly subscription if you want to block any additional channels moving forward.
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Communication was initially great. In 2023 things seemed to take a turn in regard to communication and the like. I’m not a high maintenance filmmaker with tons of requests and questions, but we had a few issues that arose over the course of the year and if we reached out it became difficult to get a response. It would take 3-4 weeks and often they would not answer our question when they did respond. Then they revamped the site, and it became very glitchy. Around the same time, we noticed a steep drop off in our earnings. Could be related, could not be. But many other filmmakers experienced the same. Then they rolled out their new “subscription services” with monthly fees.
I have no complaints.
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I can’t think of anything I would describe as going “poorly.”
It seems there are some filmmakers making money on the Facebook group, but in my case, even though the film is on 8 platforms, does not make more than $20 per month.
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Nothing went poorly. Overall I’m very happy with Filmhub and would recommend them to fellow filmmakers.
Did they breach the contract?
There really isn’t a contract so I can’t say they did or didn’t breach.
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Not as far as I know, but I haven’t gone back and looked at the contract in a while.
No.
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No.
Technically, no. There is a clause in there that says they can change parts of the contract, but if they can change it, what protections do we really have? With the addition of their monthly subscription plans, people now have to pay to receive things we used to get for free, so it feels as if they breached the contract even though technically they haven’t.
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Technically, yes. After I pulled the movie from Filmhub, I later found two channels still streaming the movie. FIlmhub was responsive to my email regarding this. It really wasn’t a big deal.
Not that I’m aware of.
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Filmmaker Friendliness?
I find them to be communicative and reasonable. I’ve heard that other people haven’t had the same experience. But mine has been good.
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Originally, they were very friendly. Now, with their new “subscriber platforms,” they are not friendly at all. Support rarely answers, and if they do it’s very late.
I have never spoken directly to anyone at Filmhub, but their customer service chat function has worked well for me the few times that I needed help. After being on Filmhub for REDACTED number of years, I was approached about upgrading the artwork for my film which was generating the most sales from the REDACTED number of films I have listed. Filmhub said they thought the film would sell even better with some flashier artwork. They offered to have their designers do the upgrades for $275, which would be deducted from my revenue. I would have final approval over the new artwork. I accepted the offer because I figured they knew best what would attract more buyers and was satisfied with the artwork. My email exchange with Filmhub to clarify all the details was friendly, and all my questions were answered promptly.
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You won’t get the level of personal attention here that some distributors offer. However, I haven’t gotten meaningful attention from other distributors I’ve worked with either, so all in all I’ve been happy with Filmhub’s service…they’re more transparent than other companies. That said, the company has been undergoing changes that aren’t great; they have started charging people for better customer service, which will likely affect the customer service they offer for free.
Very filmmaker friendly.
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With all dealings with them, I have found them to be very friendly and efficient.
I feel initially they were responsive and provided great info and advice in their website Q&As. Since the website revamp I feel it’s gone pretty steeply downhill.
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What would you have done differently?
Nothing.
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Nothing.
Nothing.
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I don’t think I would change anything. I’ve been happy with what Filmhub has done for all REDACTED number of my titles, particularly since they’re non-exclusive. That said, due to recent changes with the contract and how that would impact the non-exclusivity, I have mixed feelings about using them for my next film.
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For the project we used Filmhub for, I think I would use them again knowing what I know. But going forward if I wanted to self-distribute / use an aggregator I think I would utilize Bitmax instead.
This is a tricky question. Every sales agent I have contracted with has provided a sales advance, which has been critical in financing my films. The sales agents have also gone on to sell my films in multiple international territories for decent four to 5-figure MGs. I can’t see Filmhub replicating this as they just don’t have the staff or major presence at key film markets. So, in retrospect I would have aimed to limit the contract period with the sales agent to as short a period as possible and then after that period ends, move the film straight onto Filmhub. I currently have a title with REDACTED distributor (they did pay a MG and the film has done well). When the rights expire I will move the film across to Filmhub.
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Any Final Thoughts?
The main issues as I see it are they don’t seem to vet the channels—someone applies, agrees to pay Filmhub’s price to be included as a channel that can license movies, and they’re in. Frequently I’ve had movies licensed by channels that aren’t even in the “Channels” page on Filmhub. So, you’d have to Google that channel to find out what the channel’s even about. The other issue is that Filmhub seems to just trust the channels. If the channel says they only owe Filmhub $10 for your movie that month, then that’s it. They pass it on to you. And this new dashboard is way worse than the old one. It’s hard to understand how much you’ve actually earned, and you can’t even see the amount until you decide to transfer the money. I’ve also noticed a large discrepancy between “Reports” and “Verified Earnings” starting in September 2023 when they used to be nearly identical. Their new subscriber platforms where they want us to pay in order to have our movies removed from channels is a no-go for me. If they license my movies to another channel that I don’t want, and they refuse to remove it unless I subscribe, I’ll remove all my movies from Filmhub. I can say that I once recommended my filmmaker friends to Filmhub, and even uploaded and set up some of my friends accounts for them, but I would not recommend Filmhub now.
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They are the only platform that made a huge effort to find a solution for independent filmmakers, but now asking filmmakers to pay for the service might be a sign that they struggling, wishing them the best.
My largest revenues on Filmhub were the first 18 months that I had my films listed there. This coincided with the pandemic, when VOD consumption was probably somewhat higher than normal. I have done very little marketing to promote my sales on any of the REDACTED number of channels where Filmhub has placed my REDACTED number of films. They are all older titles, and I’m busy working on new projects. I’m happy to have these REDACTED number of films widely available and generating passive income. In the five years they have been on Filmhub, my total revenue has been just shy of $13K, which I consider quite good for my REDACTED type of film. It’s nice to know that the films are still out there somewhere and being watched.
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Too many filmmakers get duped into having Filmhub distribute their films to platforms like Amazon when the filmmaker can simply do this for free.
Takeaways
As mentioned previously, Filmhub has made some changes recently. One of the major changes includes the addition of two monthly or yearly “paid” tiers, which give filmmakers more flexibility in their distribution strategies. Some of the options in these tiers were apparently free before these changes were implemented, and some of the filmmakers we interviewed expressed their frustration with this.
For example, with the changed fee structure, one can only get a say as to which platforms one does not want to be on (“channel blocking”) by paying a monthly the $100-$200 monthly fee in addition to the revenue percentage.
Why is this so important?
Well, they have also been adding streaming channels as partners, even ones that are not at all household names, or, more importantly, even necessarily fully vetted or secure. We have heard that they apparently put your film on regular YouTube. Not the TVOD one that comes with GooglePlay when you go that route…plain old garden variety AVOD YouTube, which is not a secure platform. It’s easy to rip a high-quality version of your film from watching YouTube from a computer browser and retain a copy quite easily. It seems that unless you pay Filmhub each month to exclude YouTube, you may not have any choice. You have to pay to not play this game.
So, to the extent they can get films onto AVOD platforms like Tubi, Pluto, Roku, or Freevee, Filmhub might be one of the easiest and cost-effective ways to achieve distribution beyond the usual TVOD players (Amazon, Vimeo, both of which one can do one one’s own, basically for free). And while it is slightly irksome that someone would want to give a company 20% of one’s earnings for something that they could do on their own, with very little tech ability, many filmmakers don’t want to be bothered and will gladly give away their 20% to not have to do it.
What we at The Film Collaborative don’t love about this is that the whole idea of DIY (Doing It Yourself or even Doing It With Others) has the added benefit of empowering filmmakers, because you learn by doing. Filmhub’s process seems to encourage filmmaker ignorance/apathy, which is antithetical to TFC’s approach.
If you sell your film to a distributor, they own your film for the territories outlined in your agreement and they can do (or not do) with it as they wish. They often want to be a true partner but they are not obligated to be. A film aggregator, on the other hand, has traditionally been a third-party service that can help you get your movie, short, or series distributed on platforms. The key word here used to be “help”…and it was a pretty important word. With an aggregator, you were supposed to still in the driver’s seat and merely pay the Aggregator for services rendered based on a rate sheet or customized packages.
Many aggregators are blurring this line, to the point that true aggregation may not exist in a few years, because there are fewer and fewer companies that offer it. And all this fosters less information being made available to filmmakers, not more.
But many filmmakers still like FilmHub, and maybe a workable strategy can be achieved if you pay the monthlies. Filmhub may be an especially good option for those with multiple films (perhaps who are getting their rights back after a number of years), because the $99 tier includes 5 films and the $199 tier includes 20 per year.
