Meet Shawn Bercuson. He is the founder and CEO of Prescreen.com, a new social media platform to deliver the right movie for the right person. This platform is makes movies highly sharable to your friends. I had the opportunity to talk to Shawn about his time at Groupon.com, the Sundance Film Festival and the founding of Prescreen.com and what it can do for you.
Signing up for Prescreen is free, so I encourage our readers to sign up and “discover one new movie, each day.”
You can also listen to the audio conversation between Shawn Bercuson and myself.
Rudie Obias: So doing some research on you, you went from VP of Business Development at Groupon to founding Prescreen. How did you go from that transition from Groupon to Prescreen?
Shawn Bercuson: Yes, so. I’ve always been involved with, well for at least last couple of years, early stage technology companies. So Groupon was actually not the first one that I was involved with. I perviously started another company and sold it and I was working for the investment group that initially invested in the company called The Point. Then I joined The Point as the VP of Business to help them figure out a way, as a side project, to help people figure out how to use The Point and that eventually became Groupon. So I was there from the very, very beginning. I’m actually not considered a founder, but that’s another story for another time. But I was an original person there. I was there from there from the very, very beginning to help launch, grow and start it. Then I was the first guy overseas, internationally. And then when I was done with Groupon, I actually went back to venture capital for a couple of months for a company called Light Bank, which was started by the Groupon founders. And then for about four months of doing that, I realized I was only 29 and as much as I enjoyed venture capital, I wasn’t ready for that yet in my career. I still had a lot of energy and I ended up moving to San Francisco and wanted to start another company. So in that time when I took some time off, I ended up going to the Sundance Film Festival last year, not to ready go and enjoy Sundance for the movies, but actually, well part of it was that but it was more because my dad and I are skiers and we went to Sundance because there’s no better place to ski then in Park City during Sundance because all the hotel rooms are taken up and the mountains are empty. But while I was there, all my friends know me as their go to tech entrepreneur and everybody was talking about digital distribution and the future of the movie business. DVD revenues were declining and what was next. And they said would you mind if I set up some conversations because you should really be part of this. So having a background in venture capital and being interested in new industries, I said “sure, why not!” And the movie business is sexy so I’d be an idiot to say “no.”
So I ended up talking to filmmakers, producers and distributors, a whole host of different people, and just saying “look, where are you guys seeing all of this and where do you think it’s going?” (that) I’m not really don’t know the movie business that well, at least I didn’t at the time, and know learned it quite well, but what I do know is technology and where do you guys need help, where do you see this going. They basically gave me the road map so when I got back from Sundance, I still wasn’t sure how I was going to approach the market but I realized how big of an opportunity there was in the movie business especially with some of these independent films. And the major revelation I had was that people’s habits in consumption habits and what they desired, in terms of films and content hadn’t changed but their access to it had. So when I looked at what was in theaters, I saw movies that were based on books, sequels and movies that were based on superheroes and that was essentially it. And I started to watch some of these movies that were at Sundance, and figured out, these were movies that used to get picked up and distributed but were no longer doing that and so they ended up on iTunes, Amazon or Netflix but they were one of ten thousands titles, it was really hard for them to get in front the right consumers. And for consumers it was really difficult to find what they really wanted and stuff that was more applicable to them or much more relevant to their lives. So that’s kind of how it started.
Rudie Obias: So you were at Sundance last year, did you see any movies you got excited for at that Sundance?
Shawn Beruson: So in initially, no. It was hard to get tickets and that was one of the (bad) things. The one I really wanted to see was a moved called “Connected,” just because of my background, it was the Tiffany Shlain movie. Do you know that one?
Rudie Obias: No, I’m not familiar.
Shawn Beruson: Long story, short, what I discovered when I started looking into the market a little bit more and I realized there was 4,000 film submitted to Sundance that year, of those only 120 got accepted, full length feature films. And of those only 40 got picked up and distributed, at least during Sundance. And so that right there was really intriguing to me and I wanted to figure out a way to make this process much more efficient. But the ones I since seen so many of them from last year, I liked. When I watch movies I sometimes not the best judge because I kind of like all of them (laughing). But I tend to keep an open mind, then I know I should be more critical, I guess.
So there’s not one that really stuck out but really what the revelation was coming out of there (Sundance) was that, of the ones that didn’t get distribution, there was about… of the ones that didn’t get distribution, I started watching 42, 43, 44, all the way up through 70, and I realized, “you know what? These are pretty good movies, and should be distributed.” Maybe they don’t have the big blockbuster appeal but there’s certainly an audience and these movies should be profitable, if you could put the right movie in front of the right people. It was not one specific movie that really was that “ah-ha moment” but it was the accumulation of 20 or 30 or 50 of those movies that weren’t going to find their home, or were going to have trouble finding a home. Where I thought there was certainly an audience for them.
Rudie Obias: So tell me about Prescreen.com, the platform itself.
Shawn Beruson: So about the platform itself, so what we’re trying to do is aggregate an audience. As a filmmaker, you’re basically spending a lot of time, well actually that’s the problem, most people don’t spend a lot of time trying to build an audience, they’re trying to make really good films. And when it comes to the business side of the marketing, a lot of times, they rely a little bit heavily on the current distribution platforms. What we realized is, look, if were able to create signal out of noise here, in understanding in curated a little bit, we’d be able to help these movies find a home. As a consumer, it a way to discover and share new movies. If I don’t necessarily like or if I watch all the stuff I wanted to watch on Netflix, iTunes or Amazon and I’m kind of looking for “what’s next,” or that next tier of movie, it’s really, really hard and I typically don’t have much time to do the research and discover that.
For example, we use a lot of the same mechanics that we used at Groupon, where we didn’t invent the coupon at Groupon, in fact, there’s Coupon.com and plenty of other sites out there that had coupons. Restaurant.com is a great example of the barometer, what we are in the movie industry. But with Groupon, Restaurant.com existed but what we did was present the coupon in such a way, that was really, really easy to consumer and even easier to share. If I knew I wanted to go out, I’m starting to look at Groupon.com instead of Restaurant.com and it gave me new ideas. It wasn’t like, I had to consciously think to kind of go, search through the 200 Restaurant.com things that were out there, it was much more of a push to me, rather than pulling me in. And that’s what we’re trying to do on the consumer side with Prescreen.
But for the content owner, what it is, is a much more efficient way to understand who your audience is so you can continue to go out there and have success going forward. We provide a detail analytics report so based on who has viewed your trailer, who has actually bought your movie, (and) who shared it. We’re able to understand who these people are and how to aggregate these people. We have a privacy policy, so I can’t say “Rudie bought this movie, but I can say there’s 1000 people and here’s a demographic makeup.” If you were going to do a four-wall in New York, maybe it would make sense to go to Nashville, Tennessee because there happens to be a huge concentration of people who love your movie than national(ly). So they’ll be able to spend their money a lot more efficiently.
Rudie Obias: So people get different recommendations from person to person, and not one big recommendation for everyone?
Shawn Bercuson: For Prescreen to the consumer?
Rudie Obias: Yes.
Shawn Bercuson: Well, right now it’s one big recommendation to everybody. In the future we will certainly have the ability to target. But the other thing we know here is that people on average consume about two movies a month. There are certainly whales that consume a lot more but then there are people that aren’t nearly going to consume that much. But what we’re trying to do is to create conversations around one title. So even if you don’t like it, hopefully you’ll appreciate why we picked it. Maybe you don’t like horror movies but you can see it was a really good horror movie. But you might not buy it, but you know four friends who really love horror movies so you’re more likely to forward it on to them. So the goal is to try and create conversation around titles and to try to create signal out of noise. To put the right movie, in front of the right people at the right time. Part of the way we do that, is yes, through data on our own backend, but the other part we do that is the intangibles. The holistic stuff, maybe we can’t capture but you as a friend will certainly know about another friend and the you would put that movie in front of them. It adds value to them because they’re getting good movies that they enjoy (and) it helps us grow. For you, hopefully that comes back. That sharing, once they know the site, and for whatever reason, you didn’t check it out. They watched the trailer, you didn’t. They say “This is really going to be relevant to you.” You’ll be able to discover more movies, ultimately, by more people using the platform.
Rudie Obias: So how are you working with filmmakers to get their movies in front of audiences or your users?
Shawn Bercuson: We work with them directly a lot of time. Or we work with the distribution companies. I mean, right now, we’re working a lot with distribution and sales companies or whatever because people are just now learning about us. We’re starting to get filmmakers that are submitting directly to us. We’ve set up a page that’s prescreen.com/submit, where they give us their trailer, we take a look at it, the we look at the genre and the other awards it has won and we invite them to send us the whole thing and we screen it or we don’t. So we work directly with them. It is basically a marketing partnership. They never paid us anything. We collect the money up front from the subscribers as they buy it and then we split the proceeds. We give them (the filmmakers) 50% rev(enue)-share. We also give them all the data and analytic behind it. We don’t actually own any rights. We ask for the exclusive for 60 days so that the concentration of people are viewing so we’re able to get the demographics to the people who want this film and not just a sub-segment of people who want the film and are on Prescreen. We’ve seen that for some movies that it worked pretty well.
“I Am” by Tom Shadyac. Are you familiar with that film?
Rudie Obias: That came out, couple of months ago, I think.
Shawn Bercuson: Yeah, I think 2 months ago now. But we sold over 1000 rentals for that. So that was super, super early. We saw the conversion rate (that) was really, really high. We were able to give them (the filmmakers) a lot of good data. And now he’s using Gaiam, who is the distribution partner on that one, and is using that data, hopefully, to go out there and market much more efficiently, then they otherwise would.
Rudie Obias: It’s an interesting thing, usually filmmakers will make a movie, and then do the festival circuit, the Sundances, SXSW, Tribeca, do the rounds doing that. Trying to get publicity, or trying to get distribution but now it seems like they can forego that and do platforms like Prescreen, or iTunes. But what separates Prescreen from other platforms like iTunes, Netflix and Hulu.
Shawn Bercuson: Great question. Ultimately, we want to live at a different part of the life cycle. So we want to be pre-theatrical or day and date, again, understanding who is interested in these movies. So for us vs. them, in fact, there’s a really big debate going on right now, I don’t know if you’ve heard it, but from a lot of the distributors, they say “Maybe these iTunes and Amazon, don’t have our interests at heart because what they’re trying to do is give away our content for free so they can sell devices. We trying to differentiate ourselves a little bit by being more of a filmmaker’s tool, then just a distribution platform. What we want to do is help them understand and market a lot more efficiently. The way it works right now, is that we’re giving them all this data and analytics. And a lot of the time, they don’t know what to do with that. So ultimately, we hope to then help them. So hopefully they can raise a bit of a fund, even $20,000 for example, we can (help them) understand who response to it on Prescreen. We are then able to draw that trend-line, and put the movie in front of the right people. When we do marketing, it’s very, very measurable. I mean, right now a lot of these films, when they market, they’re kind of coughing out in magazines or newspapers or on TV. They don’t really understand what they’re return on investment is. With us, we know what the cost per click is, we know what the conversion rate is, and we can tell you, whether you should keep marketing, in real-time, and the minute it doesn’t make sense to market anymore, we can turn it on. Again, our grand vision is more than just indie films, our grand vision to to really transform the way the movie industry markets their titles, in a much more efficient manner. Again, it’s a daunting task and the studios will certainly are always the last to move. But remember, some of the studios have become interested because of the information we’re able to give them and again, kid of shift their economics. If you want to spend, if you have a P&A (prints and advertising) fund and you want to spend half of that, to make the movie potentially reach profitability mush faster. You are not necessarily sacrificing any eyeballs but you’re using the money to put the movie in front of the right people for half the cost.
Rudie Obias: Is (Prescreen) also available on other devices? Or can you only really rent movies on your computer? Are you available on Roku?
Shawn Bercuson: So right now, we’re only available on your computer. People forget because we’ve grown so fast, we’ve had a lot of good industry penetration that we’re only 4 months old. We just launched in September. It takes some time to get on those platforms. Ultimately, we plan to be ubiquitous, in terms of platforms, so wherever you want to watch a movie is where plan to live. But right now we’re still trying to optimize our site, in terms of conversion rate. In fact, we did a little bit of conversion and optimization last month, and we saw our trailer views increase by 4x, in just one month. We’re continuing to do this stuff. What were doing right now, we’re optimizing and building vertically, meaning making sure people are responding to what we’re doing so it’s in the best interest of the filmmakers, ultimately. Once we get there, we’re going to go horizontally, what I mean by that, is that we’re going to be on all different platforms. So iOS, Android, so we’re available on tablets and connected TVs and set top boxes, you name it. That’s very, very high priority for us in the coming year but again we’re just getting started, so we’re not quite there yet.
Rudie Obias: Sounds very good! That’s all I have at the moment. Thank you, Shawn for joining me.
Shawn Bercuson: Thank you so much, we really appreciate you taking the time and learning about our service.
by @Rudie_Obias
