{"id":653821,"date":"2025-02-17T14:25:17","date_gmt":"2025-02-17T11:25:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/en.buradabiliyorum.com\/olyn-secures-beatles-biopic-for-its-shopify-for-filmmakers\/"},"modified":"2025-02-17T14:25:17","modified_gmt":"2025-02-17T11:25:17","slug":"olyn-secures-beatles-biopic-for-its-shopify-for-filmmakers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/olyn-secures-beatles-biopic-for-its-shopify-for-filmmakers\/","title":{"rendered":"#Olyn secures Beatles biopic for its \u2018Shopify for filmmakers\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"
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The recent Brian Epstein biopic \u201cMidas Man<\/a>,\u201d a film about the manager of The Beatles, debuted not on a platform like Netflix or Amazon, but on a startup that bills itself as \u201cShopify for filmmakers.\u201d So what, you might ask? <\/p>\n

The answer is that the new platform, Olyn, claims to offer a new model for film and video distribution that leans on the power of social<\/a> referrals to spread \u201c\u00e0 la carte\u201d streaming content. Although any size of production \u2014 from Hollywood blockbuster downwards \u2014\u00a0can use the platform, the company claims it could be a game<\/a> changer for the independent film industry, which tends to struggle against the marketing budgets of the bigger movies<\/a> distributed on mainstream streaming platforms. \u00a0<\/p>\n

California-based Olyn \u2014 founded by Ana Maria Jipa, Jeremias Buireo, Kiran Thomas, and Malcolm Wood \u2014 allows filmmakers to retain up to 90% of their revenue while giving audiences access to a streaming experience. Instead of films being sold to platforms like Netflix, the model hinges on the marketing budget of the filmmakers themselves, combined with influencers, film critics, and content creators acting as distribution partners by embedding purchase links within their content, blogs, and social channels.<\/p>\n

This peer-to-peer app<\/a>roach does away with the platform as a middleman and turns movie distribution into more of an e-commerce-style engagement.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Jipa, Olyn\u2019s CEO and co-founder, told TechCrunch that the company provides filmmakers with the equivalent of a full-blown streaming platform. \u201cWe provide all the tech that implies: from DRM, 4K streaming, casting, a full landing page that presents the film in the same way that it might appear on Netflix or Apple TV, plus all the other tools such as geo-targeting, analytics, and audience data. They promote their movie with PR, journalists, bloggers, film critics, etc,\u201d she said, adding that a recommendation from someone you trust carries far more weight than a suggestion by an algorithm on a streaming platform.<\/p>\n

Olyn also gives filmmakers analytics on viewership, such as which country the movie is doing well in, as well as minutes watched, and a database of users that have watched the movies. \u201cFilmmakers can spend years making a film but don\u2019t ever get to meet or own their audience at all. So we see this as a very powerful tool. It becomes an audience that you can directly address for your next movies and then grow from there,\u201d said Jipa.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The question is, can Olyn compete with the convenience and scale of major streamers? While its model offers much higher revenue shares for filmmakers, it also means all the weight is placed on the shoulders of production teams to drive marketing and partnerships.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Perry Trevers, a producer at Studio POW<\/a>, which used Olyn to distribute \u201cMidas Man,\u201d sees the platform as a helpful step in the right direction. \u201cOlyn has enabled us to think beyond traditional platforms, letting us become our own streaming service [\u2026] It\u2019s about empowering filmmakers to market and distribute films in a way that mirrors the direct-to-consumer success of e-commerce [\u2026] It\u2019s a chance to retain control over our work and redefine how movies reach their viewers,\u201d he said in a statement.\u00a0<\/p>\n

One of the most pressing issues in the film industry is piracy. Many users turn to illegal sources simply because a movie is unavailable in their country. Jipa argues that Olyn\u2019s global reach can help combat this issue, because if someone can pay for a movie and watch it instantly, they\u2019re much more likely to do so.<\/p>\n

Olyn\u2019s foray into film streaming came about partly when entrepreneur and filmmaker Wood joined as a co-founder of the platform, which initially launched as a way to catalog physical assets. Wood launched his own film, \u201cThe Last Glaciers<\/a>,\u201d on the platform.<\/p>\n

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The Olyn team.<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cIndependent filmmakers have already taken the financial risk to produce their movies themselves. Studio POW is self-financed. They created the \u201cMidas Man\u201d movie. They have the freedom to be able to sell those rights to whoever they want. They did a deal in the U.K. market with Amazon, but they felt that it was more profitable to go direct to their audience in the U.S. market using Olyn as a tool,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Wood feels Olyn can be best thought of as \u201cShopify for filmmakers with a referral link.\u201d <\/p>\n

He noted the average film on Amazon in the U.K. gets only around 2,000 views per year. \u201cSo there\u2019s a bunch of films that are getting millions of views, but the majority of films fall below the 2,000 view mark,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

Major streaming services typically offer a lump-sum licensing deal, meaning filmmakers receive a one-time payment regardless of how many times their film is watched. Olyn flips this model on its head by allowing filmmakers to monetize directly based on viewership.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWith Olyn, a filmmaker can still sell their rights to the U.S. market and use that to pre-fund the film, but then also capitalize on going direct-to-consumer in, say, Asia,\u201d said Wood.<\/p>\n

But could the platform be used by the adult film industry to distribute pornography?\u00a0<\/p>\n

Jipa acknowledged the challenge: \u201cRight now, this is not the tone we want to set, and it would be easy to attract that category,\u201d she said. \u201cAt the beginning, we are setting the tone by ensuring that the films featured on Olyn are high quality.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cBut in the long term, we aim to create a space where filmmakers, not the platform, decide what gets distributed,\u201d she added. \u201cWe don\u2019t want to act as gatekeepers. Our vision is to allow filmmakers to have full control over what they distribute, eventually moving to a full SaaS model.\u201d<\/p>\n

Olyn has so far raised only a small amount of funding \u2014 a total of $2.8 million \u2014 in a combination of $1.8 million from U.S. VC firm Hard Yaka<\/a> and a number of angel investors.\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Source<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The recent Brian Epstein biopic \u201cMidas Man,\u201d a film about the manager of The Beatles, debuted not on a platform like Netflix or Amazon, but on a startup that bills itself as \u201cShopify for filmmakers.\u201d So what, you might ask? The answer is that the new platform, Olyn, claims to offer a new model for…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":653822,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/02\/Biopic-Brian-Epstein-Photo-Kerry-Spicer.jpg?resize=1200,800","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[151443,1377,154405,154406],"class_list":["post-653821","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-technology","tag-media-entertainment","tag-netflix","tag-olyn","tag-streaming-platforms"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/653821","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=653821"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/653821\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/653822"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=653821"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=653821"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=653821"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}