Where does The Oath fit in today’s market? Who is the audience you’re hoping to reach?

The Oath fits into today’s market as a popcorn flick on the surface, and a political drama underneath with a social movement baked in. Thrillers are included in the top 3 genres across all major audience demographics, which helps us cast a wide net for an audience. It’s got the ‘clickable thumbnail’ imagery of terrifying assault rifles. The synopsis is easy to spread by word-of-mouth: “Did you see that new movie about the militia with the hostages at the lake house?” 

Intrinsically, the story of The Oath overlaps nicely with the true-crime genre since it’s based on real events. Every streaming service wants the next socio-politically themed content because it’s provocative. It may be a tall task for us to control the PR narrative about our film, but if done right, there should be no shortage of opinions and conversation provoking material. 

Persuading investors/collaborators/supporters that our film can find its audience will lean on our past experience. They’ll take comfort in knowing this this not our first rodeo. Some Are Born launched an independent theatrical distribution strategy which was successful in partnering with Emagine Theaters regionally in Michigan and we set out on a tour of college campus screenings. In our first effort as 22 year-olds, we gained TVOD and SVOD distribution which put our film on the growing Amazon Prime Video platform and China Mobile. To date the film has been viewed in the US and 21 international territories including the UK, Canada, Spain, and China among its most successful. Now with my most recent film Hayseed finalizing its distribution deal soon with 7 offers in hand, we are even more seasoned in navigating the indie film distribution market. We’ve also grown immensely in our marketing experience by working with commercial clients producing trailers, posters, and social media content campaigns. 

On investors specifically, our film has the advantage of utilizing a social cause of anti-radicalization. We have a larger than life goal of exposing violent extremism for the cancer it is to our society, which has been snowballing with support since actively pitching the project. We hope to align passionate investors on social impact and even associate ourselves directly with a notable journalist or nonprofit organization if possible. In an unfortunate way, the relevant news stories just don’t stop coming which we hope gives a sense of urgency to our project. For example, I pitched The Oath at AFM days after Paul Pelosi was violently attacked with a hammer in his home. It’s sickening how often these violent extremist attacks keep happening, but it’s all the more reason to expedite our response to it.