The Emmy-nominated filmmaker Eric Swinderman is best known for his feature-length movie The Enormity of Life and the anthology Made in Cleveland, which starred big names such as Busy Philipps and Gillian Jacobs, but he’s now adding to his fame as a co-founder of MicroFilmz.
Swinderman brainstormed the idea of the streaming service during the pandemic with his business partner, Andrew Gordon.
Different from other streaming services, MicroFilmz features short films and web series only. An important aspect of the service is to give back to the filmmakers whose work is being published.
“I always feel like short filmmakers are working so hard to create content, and they’re not really getting anything out of it,” Swinderman says. “This was sort of our way to pay homage to the thousands of artists out there who are working outside of the studio system.”
MicroFilmz gives 60% of the revenue back to the filmmakers. The service handpicks the films being submitted via MicroFilmz’s website. The platform also plans to designate 20% of its revenue toward funding artists’ independent projects and creating their own original content.
“I think that it’s really exciting that short filmmakers, who typically fund their own films, will come to us and get a check to make their own film,” Swinderman says.
The $1.99 monthly (or $19.99 yearly) streaming service currently features more than 250 films, featuring big names such as Paul Rudd and Jason Sudeikis. It is also the home of David Wain’s 39-episode web series, "Wainy Days: The Complete Series."
“We’re very excited it’s on Roku,” Swinderman says. “Once we move on to Fire TV and Apple TV, we could potentially be in millions and millions of homes.”
Swinderman’s plan is to drive average Netflix viewers to MicroFilmz for the purpose of quality and quantity.
“The films that you will see are as high quality as any film you could go see in the theater today,” Swinderman says. “You get the same satisfaction that you would get out of watching a feature film in a six to eight-minute span.”
Find more information about MicroFilmz at microfilmz.com.