We've known Ryan Koo for a while. There aren't a lot of successful indie-film websites in New York City where I and my S/W co-founder Andrew Allen were both based, so meeting Koo in 2011—founder of the young, but already popular film-education site No Film School—was both fortuitous and natural. Both Andrew and I leaned heavily on Ryan's keen business and marketing sense exhibited in managing NFS as we grew this site.

For as long as we knew him however, Amateur was on his mind. It was always his intention to step back from the editorial role he carved out with No Film School—providing advice to young filmmakers—and continue his own path behind the camera which had started with his Webby Award winning web series The West Side. The idea that captivated him was Amateur, a sports-drama centering on a 14-year old basketball star whose online mixtape goes viral, propelling him into a shady world of coaches, agents and alumni boosters. Koo was determined to shine a light on the corrupt underbelly of youth sports, where big money is to be made on the backs of "amateur" athletes who could not themselves partake in its benefits. Designed to be his feature-length debut, many remember him leveraging his personal audience into a $125k Kickstarter campaign which was, at the time, the record for any film project on the crowd-funding platform. Others may recall his short film proof-of-concept for the project, also called Amateur, which featured here in 2013.

Developing a project that publicly however had its downsides—despite the crowdfunding, it's impossible to make quality feature of Amateur's scope on $125k, and with a thin directing reel and an unconventional subject, Koo faced criticism from his crowdfunders and loyal fans as he repeatedly re-wrote the film's script, and embarked on a multi-year campaign of trying to attract collaborators and financing.

The project found true believers and a home with Netflix though. One of the first original features commissioned by the platform, the film finally premiered this month, so we caught up with Ryan to discuss his long journey with the project.

Amateur dropped on Netflix Friday April, 6th...how tired are you right now?

Not as tired as I expected! It's very different with a Netflix Film, because their platform is so large that they are automatically doing a ton of work to find the right audience for the film as soon as they put it out. I think as independent filmmakers we're accustomed to hustling for every individual viewer and working day and night just to get eyeballs on the movie, but with Netflix it's less about that, because any efforts of my own are quite frankly a drop in the bucket compared to their worldwide machinery which is so effective.

That's interesting! Of course it was a lot of work getting to that release stage. Your path with Amateur has been one of the more public development processes we've seen in the last several years, due to your profile as Founder of No Film School, and the Kickstarter campaign that kicked things off. As briefly as possible, can you summarize the timeline from 2011 (the Kickstarter campaign) to 2018 (the Netflix release)?

I ran the Kickstarter campaign shortly after I'd completed a first draft of the script, because part of it was being read on stage here in NY and it seemed like if the project was going to be public then that would be a good time to launch the campaign. Little did I know that I would do many many years of re-writing, and that in the process I would discover the most interesting version of the film was also larger and would require more financing, and that the independent film industry wasn't exactly eager to finance a movie about a 14 year-old basketball player (who could not really be played by anyone "famous" or at least financeable in their eyes). In the years since, I made a short prequel (featured here on SOTW, thank you for that!), wrote dozens of new drafts of the script, got into the Sundance Screenwriters Lab, and then eventually got the script to Netflix who was just starting to finance original films at the time, and then over the past two years went through casting and production and post... to finally arriving at this point!

Yup! Featuring your short was a pleasure. You made the short film AFTER the successful Kickstarter campaign however, which is a somewhat unconventional order of operations. Can you explain your reasoning behind making the short film?

I had heard "no" so many times in pitching the feature that I began asking myself what else I could do to help get the feature made. Between running No Film School and working on draft after draft of the script, over the past few years I hadn't directed anything, and as a result felt that I didn't have anything on my director's reel that was either recent OR topical. I had done a DIY web series with a co-director, Zack Lieberman, called The West Side, and viewing it through a producer or financier's eyes, I didn't see how they would look at an incomplete, no-budget, black-and-white "urban Western" and have any inkling that I could direct basketball. So the short came about because I wanted to create a new directing sample in the same genre as the feature I was trying to get made.

Do you feel it was a successful move—both creatively, as well as practically for the reasons you describe?

In the first five years of this long process, making a short was one of the absolute best decisions I made. Not only did it have the desired effect practically—I got into the Sundance Screenwriters Lab after making the short (when I had been rejected before), it attracted attention in both the film and sports community, and it helped the project and my career in many ways even after getting financing from Netflix—but also creatively, it was an opportunity to work with the largest crew I'd ever had on set (even though it was a small crew!), and to find collaborators I wanted to work with on the feature (producer Chip Hourihan and cinematographer Greg Wilson both did the feature as a result of having done the short).

"In the first five years of this long process, making a short was one of the absolute best decisions I made."

Prior to the short, how had you gone about pitching the film? Did you have an agent or manager at that point brokering meetings?

I had an agent earlier in my career (coming off of The West Side), but he had left the agency world and I didn't feel a need to sign with anyone new because I felt that this was a passion project that I wasn't going to be pitching to studios. Ironically, I guess, the biggest studio of our time ended up making it. But throughout the process I didn't—and still don't, as of this writing—have an agent or a manager. That wasn't because I didn't want one, it was because I was busy putting my head down and writing many drafts, working on my craft, and then thankfully a number of organizations ended up functioning as an agent in a way, in terms of making introductions to producers and financiers: IFP, Tribeca, and Sundance. I was able to pitch the film to a lot of prospective collaborators on the producing and financing side through those organizations.

Yeah, that was something I wanted to touch on—it's interesting that as an indie filmmaker you haven't interacted a ton with festivals—The West Side was a web series, and the Amateur short debuted online. Some would look at that and say "hey, it's possible to sidestep the traditional indie world!", but you did have the Sundance Labs and IFP and Tribeca as you say. Are there other ways these orgs helped you, and what is your feelings regarding the value of working with these traditional gatekeepers?

I think some of the topics I've been interested thus far haven't been the best match for traditional film festivals, each of which has a particular identity or audience. But festivals have also adapted to newer, less traditional forms, so maybe some of it was timing. Our web series The West Side won the Webby Award for Best Drama Series a full ten years before Sundance launched their new Indie Episodic section this year (but The West Side was a DIY no-budget labor of love—please do not go back and watch it evaluating it through festival eyes)! I think for most of these festivals, oftentimes the organization component—meaning the Sundance Institute as opposed to the Sundance Festival, and the same for Tribeca—operates fairly independently from the festival, and the Institutes are looking to give new voices a leg up, regardless of what the eventual distribution medium is.

That idea of fit is a good thing to explore—you mentioned the trouble you were having pitching the film during this process, and on "The Watch" podcast with Chris Ryan you said something I found interesting—that your type of film would be difficult to market in a traditional theatrical way because of the subject, and the demographics of the art-house filmgoing audience. Why was Netflix different?

Independent films have traditionally been financed based on recognizable, "financeable" actors that you can attach to your film to pre-sell the rights to foreign territories in order to raise your budget. There's no other way to say this, so I'll just go ahead: the actors that are seen in the industry to be financeable are—or were, up until recently (I hope things are changing!)—almost always white. Time and time again in the last couple of years that notion has been proven wrong, but keep in mind I was trying to get this movie financed from 2011-2015, with a predominantly black cast, and also, importantly, a teenage lead—someone who, regardless of race, was not going to be old enough to have attained widespread fame.

So traditional independent film finance—which is tied to distribution, keeping in mind that most arthouse theaters that play independent films attract generally older, generally whiter, audiences—did not see my independent basketball movie as something they could finance. Netflix, on the other hand, has 117 million subscribers, and the most advanced recommendation engine on the planet. They have subscribers or all ages, races, and because it's inexpensive and I think it's inarguably a great value, those subscribers aren't constrained to a particular profile like the arthouse theater demographic is. All of the ways that this movie didn't make sense for a traditional financier, I think it DID make sense for Netflix, because a lot of the projects out there at the time were trying to fit into this narrow model that Amateur was specifically fitting out of.

[caption id="attachment_29376" align="aligncenter" width="640"]

Behind the Scenes of the Amateur Shoot. Credit: Netflix/William Gray

Behind the Scenes of the Amateur Shoot. Credit: Netflix/William Gray[/caption]

"All of the ways that this movie didn't make sense for a traditional financier, I think it DID make sense for Netflix..."

A lot people are really excited about Netflix, and Andrew has been long of the opinion that the content wars between them, Amazon, and eventually Apple, will create a lot of opps for the filmmakers we feature. How was your experiencing working with Netflix, and maybe if it doesn't complicate the answer too much, how do you feel about critics like David Erlich that say Netflix is killing indie-film?

My experience was fantastic—Netflix read the script and they wanted to make the movie that I'd written, not some other version of it. And they wanted to make it at a higher budget level than anyone else. Amateur was still a modest budget, especially for a sports movie with a lot of on-court set-pieces requiring a lot of moving parts and extras—but it was an absolute no-brainer for us because of this. I also felt for the subject matter that Netflix was the right platform, because of what I mentioned before—that their audience was much larger and more diverse than what we think of as the independent film industry. I think Andrew is absolutely right that all of these newer entrants into financing and distribution are creating more opportunities for young filmmakers—look no further than the fact that I was trying to get a film made for years, and couldn't, until Netflix came along. I also understand where David is coming from, that what Netflix is doing is new and unfamiliar and if you're accustomed to a more bespoke approach to a film's rollout, over a period of months, across multiple platforms like theatrical and VOD, that this is all new and different and changing so very rapidly—but far be it from me to be able to analyze all of the ins and outs. For me it was simple: Netflix was the best option for getting my film made, and it was also the way the film would be seen by the most people.

Netflix is famously tight-lipped about their metrics, even with their creators. How are you tracking the film's reception (social media, reviews etc)?

Social media has been insane, if you just search on Twitter someone is posting about it every minute, and of course it's quite divisive -- either the best film ever made or the worst dumpster fire in history -- but the feedback there has been overwhelmingly and inspiringly positive.

How did the Netflix deal happen?

My producer Jason Berman was taking Amateur around town in Los Angeles to see who was interested—most of the pitching I had done in the early days was in New York—and Netflix was just getting into financing Original Films. At this point they had been doing series, but not features yet. So I sent them the script, they read it, I came in for a pitch, and then they bought it in the room. It was actually one of the first films they financed. Obviously, they've made a few since...

Wow. Who were you pitching to at Netflix?

Netflix has an Indie Content team, who are the ones taking bets on smaller films and less-established filmmakers, so it was Ian Bricke and his colleagues in that unit who believed in Amateur and gave us a chance.

Do you think you will (do you want to) have a long term relationship with Netflix?

Absolutely. There's a reason so many creators at the top of their game are joining forces with Netflix, and it's not just money. Their platform's ability to find viewers all around the world is unprecedented. They're giving creators ample budgets and creative freedom. And the fact that a smaller film can be "trending" on their platform the same way a larger film (or series) can be is a game-changer. I don't think people realize how revolutionary that is. That said, every film is different, and I don't think all creatives are simply going to join forces with Netflix and that will be the end of it — not at all. A theatrical experience is different. Some films require different marketing touches or define success on a different scale. Some series prefer to roll out over a longer period of time. Netflix isn't the only one out there, but it's great to have someone of their size creating a lot more opportunities for up-and-coming filmmakers.

Stepping back now—do you think the process you went through in getting the feature made could (or should) be a model for other aspiring indie filmmakers? Partly interested in your impression of the long journey you went through to get this done. Was it challenging because that’s what it takes to get something like this done or because you were figuring things out along the way?

Both. It wouldn't have taken me seven years if I had more experience as a screenwriter at the beginning. This was the first feature I wrote on my own. Very few writer-directors get their first screenplay actually made, so I think in that sense, yes, I was figuring things out along the way. Also, I was building and running No Film School during those same years — my day job, if you will — so just like anyone else, I had to support myself with something that would pay the bills (because writing one screenplay for five years certainly will not!), and that took time as well. Also, there are a lot more opportunities now to find financing and distribution. When I was starting on this project, there was no Amazon, no Netflix, no Hulu... and we were coming off of a recession in this country. Traditional film finance models were falling apart and production companies were closing their doors. Now there's a much greater hunger for content, which is great for filmmakers.

What I do think is a model from what I did is this: I picked a topic I was very passionate about. I had pitched other projects and not gotten them made, so I chose basketball as a player and fan myself, with the idea being that my passion for the topic would sustain me through all of the rejection. I think that's an applicable approach for a lot of filmmakers.

How is No Film School doing?

Good question! To make this film I had to leave No Film School in the hands of my capable editors, and I also left social media entirely for almost two years, so I was away from a lot of things during this process. Obviously, it's been a crazy time to be away from the internet. I'm just now trying to reorient myself to all of the changes that have taken place in media, publishing, politics... It has been an adjustment to say the least. But one thing that's great about No Film School is being able to come back and share with other filmmakers what I learned in this process, in-depth, and that's why we launched The First Feature, a step-by-step longform podcast series about every phase of production. It's been fun and cathartic to be able to really dive in and share what I learned on this long journey.

Final question: For as long as we’ve known you, you’ve had this dream of making a feature film. Now you’ve made Amateur and it’s being watched by millions around the world. Have you thought about what you want to do next?

Everything! I found it to be fascinating to go to a couple of advance screenings of the film, which we did in LA and NY, and watch it with an audience, because in my head I was still in post-production — I was still making mental notes about what to fix and change. But I can't! The film is done. And that made me want to immediately dive into the next thing, because in this process you build up so much new knowledge and technique that you want to apply all of it while that newly developed muscle memory is still fresh. I'm not sure what's next, but given I was trying to get this made for the last seven years, there was no shortage of other ideas during that long time period. I can't wait to get back to it.

Thanks Ryan!

***

You can watch Amateur exclusively on Netflix worldwide here.
Also Follow No Film School's podcast series on the making of Amateur: The First Feature

For more of our thoughts on the impact of streaming on filmmaking check out: