Interview with Beau Ryan of Machinima.com

With the web becoming an ever-growing environment new media companies are becoming major intuitions for both established and new entertainment professionals. Machinima.com is becoming one of the major hubs to distribute already established content and new & original series. In the past few years Machinima has worked with studios like Warner Bros. to produce and distribute the Mortal Kombat: Legacy web series.

I talked to Beau Ryan a Junior Entertainment Programming Manager for Machinima. It is Beau’s job to browse YouTube for content that Machinima can distribute and also talk with directors and writers about original content for their YouTube channels.

Me: Do you take different approaches to negotiating with someone who already has an established series you are looking to distribute and any original content you bring to Machinima? 

Beau: Yes, we were looking to distribute There Will Be Brawl on one of our channels so we had to work with the creators and TheEscapist.com on getting the rights to the series. We figured that by bringing it over to Machinima, we would be able to introduce it to a whole new audience. However, after the first few episodes we weren’t receiving the views and SEO hits we hoped for and people were pointing out that people could watch the whole series on TheEscapist.com.

When working on new and original content our negotiating takes a different route. We tend to work with the creators on establishing a relationship were both parties can prosper. We’ll work with them on making the series a hit were the views and SEO meet both our ideal numbers.

Me: How do you handle positional bargaining tactics?

Beau: If someone comes in with a figure and mind, but it’s not in our budget we’ll offer them what we have in our budget. It also depends on who the person is. When someone like Kevin Tancharoen comes to us about a series and they have a number in mind then we will talk with our Ad Sales department on helping to find sponsors for the series and help cover those costs.

Should John Doe come to us about their series we will work with them on getting something to cover upfront costs and then offer them some of the CPM traffic. So say for every 1,000 views we’ll offer them $3 dollars, which in the long run can become more then a figure they originally wanted. It really all depends on who the person is and what they have done.

Me: Can you give me an example of how you worked toward mutual benefit when you were negotiating a deal? 

Beau: It depends on their needs and what they have in mind. Sometimes people have a figure in mind and don’t want to hear about CPM traffic payments. Some examples of us working toward a mutual benefit were when we worked with EA on the DragonAge: Redemption series and Warner Bros. on Mortal Kombat: Legacy. For those both parties knew this was going to be a relationship that would prosper and worked on making it so.

Of course, there are cares where we have to say no to people no matter what because they refuse to work with us on negotiating a deal that would work for all parties involved.

I want to thank Beau for his time. You should check out Machinima.com and RadNerd.com.