For film schools, festivals and programs
A program spends two years turning strangers into filmmakers and then hands them a certificate and no infrastructure. A festival assembles four hundred of them for a weekend once a year. Both build exactly the thing this pays for, and neither has ever been paid for building it.
Free to join, and it runs at the institution level with one payout destination.
01 What a program loses at graduation
- An alumni network that exists as a mailing list nobody has budget to run.
- Graduates who go on to raise real money, none of which ever comes back to the program that taught them.
- A festival whose entire commercial model is submission fees and sponsorship, both of which are getting harder every year.
- Careers advice that ends at the certificate, because there is no platform to point anybody at.
02 How it works
- 01
Put it in the program, not beside it
A syllabus line, an induction pack, a workshop on distribution that uses the real thing. The link forks eight ways, so a student picks the path that matches the film they are actually making.
- 02
Or in the festival packet
Submission confirmations, selection emails, the program itself, a QR on the venue wall. A festival edition puts hundreds of filmmakers through one funnel in a fortnight.
- 03
Teach the distribution half properly
Deliverables, clearances, a city plan, a crowdfunding campaign, a licensing deal. These are the things a program is criticised for not teaching, and they are all live surfaces students can use on their graduation film.
- 04
The institution earns as they work
30% of every plan subscription an alumnus takes, on every renewal. 20% of the platform's 5% fee when one of them raises money for a film.
- 05
And the alumni list stops decaying
Every referred graduate lands in the institution's own contact book as a client record, tagged and dated. That is an alumni network with a reason to stay current.
03 What actually pays
- They subscribe to a plan30%of the subscription, on every renewalThe largest rate in the program, and the only one taken off the full price. If you read one row, read this one.
- Their household takes a MovieHop Pass20%of the platform's fee, on every renewalA share of what OpenFlix keeps, not of what the household pays.
- They buy a Station Pass20%of the platform's 20% share of the pass price, on every paymentEach day pass and each monthly payment is its own sale. The processing fee is never part of it.
- They raise money on the Film Fund20%of the platform's 5% feeRewards crowdfunding. Backers get perks and credits; nobody is buying a share of a film.
- They sell a placement inside their film20%of the platform's 10% feeBanked when the balance is collected, not when the slot is reserved.
- They buy credits, on the web or on a television5%of the purchaseIncludes top-ups bought inside the Google Play, Roku and Amazon apps.
- Somebody you brought in does this too3%of their sales, one level deepOne level, by design. This is not a pyramid and it does not pretend to be one.
Rentals, pay-per-view, channel subscriptions and riffs are bought with credits — and those credits already paid you a commission when they were bought. They appear in your dashboard as activity, so you can see your people are actually using the place, and they earn nothing a second time.
Commissions clear a 45-day window against refunds and chargebacks before they can be withdrawn. New affiliates start on Bronze — a 90-day hold and a $500 minimum — and the tier ladder shortens both as you build a payout record. Every payout is released by a person, never automatically. Identity verification is required to withdraw, never to earn.
04 One cohort, three years later
What a graduating year is worth.
Not a projection — the shape of the record a program would be looking at.
Two graduates raising on the Film Fund
Thirty-one alumni on plans
One graduate licensing a short
The rest of the year group
The row that pays for the program is the recurring one, not the dramatic one. That is true of almost every account here.
05 The terms, briefly
On a plan subscription
30%
Of the full price, every renewal, per alumnus.
On an alumnus raising money
20%
Of the platform's 5% fee.
Cost to the institution
Nothing
No fee, no minimum cohort, no exclusivity.
06 Questions
Is it ethical to put this in front of students?
It is the question worth asking, so: nothing here costs a student anything, the platform is free to join and free to use for the things a student film needs, and the institution earns only if a graduate later chooses to subscribe or raise money. Be transparent that the program has a partnership — every institution doing this well says so plainly in the induction pack.
Do students have to spend money?
No. Uploading, building a channel, running a campaign and applying for things are free. The rates on this page are triggered by an optional plan subscription or by the platform's fee on money a graduate actually raises.
We are a festival, not a school. Does it work the same?
Better, in one respect: a festival edition puts hundreds of filmmakers through a single funnel inside two weeks, and every one of them is at exactly the moment they are thinking about distribution.
Can this replace sponsorship?
No, and it would be dishonest to suggest it. It is a second line that grows with the alumni network rather than being renegotiated every year. Treat it as diversification, not a replacement.
How does the institution get paid?
Commissions clear a 45-day window against refunds and chargebacks before they can be withdrawn. New affiliates start on Bronze — a 90-day hold and a $500 minimum — and the tier ladder shortens both as you build a payout record. Every payout is released by a person, never automatically. Identity verification is required to withdraw, never to earn.
07 Not you? Pick another
- You have been on other people's setsActors and performersEvery call sheet you were ever on is a list.
- You already represent the roomAgents, managers and castingA roster is the densest network in the business.
- You hire the whole unitProducers and production companiesEvery crew list is a referral list with dates on it.
Go
Set up the institution code
One account, one payout destination. You will be asked to make an account first.
