Legion M Twitches Its Way To New Heights!
We just got back from Park City, and, boy, is it cold there! While we take a minute to bring our bodies back up to temp, let's take a look at everything we accomplished over our fun-filled and jam-packed weekend in the mountains.
THE LEGION M LOUNGE
For our third year in a row, Legion M hosted its lounge at the Red Banjo Pizza on Main Street with free-flowing libations and, of course, pizza. We've always said, the Legion M lounge is the best way to promptly throw all of your healthy New Year's resolutions right out the window. You're welcome!
Our partners for the second year in a row were Getty Images and Pizza Hut. For three full days, celebrities of all walks of life came in and out of the Legion M lounge for a pic and a slice. We want to give a special thanks to our good friend Tay Tay (known to the public as Taylor Swift) for swinging by and gracing us with her existence.
But that's only the beginning. We hosted events for our members and investors every night (sometimes two!) to keep the party going all weekend long. From our festival kick-off party (no footballs were harmed in the making of this event) to karaoke nights to our Women Impacting Entertainment event (no entertainment was harmed in the making of this event) to private parties for Sundance films "Dinner in America" and "Amulet," there was no shortage of fun at the Legion M lounge.
In fact, Legion M investor, employee, and just all around great guy Taylor Gledhill absolutely rocked the socks off the Legion M Lounge with his magical karaoke cover of Avril Lavigne's 'Complicated.' Fueled by a near constant supply of Pizza Hut's best, Taylor returned for second and third encores to sing millennial favorite "Semi-Charmed Life" by Third Eye Blind, and closed down the night with "Rocket Man," leaving the one British citizen in the audience to comment 'It was like watching Elton John himself.' At least that's how he remembers it. (Mr. Gledhill may or may not have written this particular account – no one can say for sure. Some things remain forever a mystery at the Legion M lounge…)
TWITCH BROADCAST
For two straight nights, Legion M brought the party to viewers at home! Totaling nearly eight hours in broadcast time on our Twitch channel, our host Bernie Bregman (AKA the Geek Gatsby) played Jackbox games with festival attendees and celebrities alike (including Leonard and Jessie Maltin), with some opportunities for the folks watching to play along and, more often than not, even affect the outcome of the game. Behind the scenes, Legion M rock stars Taylor Gledhill (I'm sure you remember him from earlier) and Matan Goldstein (also known as "Twitchy G") made television magic out of a dimly lit basement and some scrappy tech that we definitely did not buy and return solely for this livestream event. Our homepage featuring on Twitch.tv for three hours on Saturday night led us to more than 61,000 views, which I think makes us more popular than Post Malone, probably. We handed out Legion M swag to the winners of some of the games, and even brought our audience live interviews with the Maltins. Which leads us to our next headline…
MALTIN ON MOVIES – THE MINI VERSION
Leonard and Jessie Maltin (hosts of the Maltin on Movies podcast, and bringers of rainbows all over the world) braved the wispy mountain winds of Park City to bring us more than a dozen intimate interviews with filmmakers and cast of various films at the festival from the balcony of the Legion M lounge. From dawn until desk, we heard from some of the hottest names in independent filmmaking right now. And thanks to Ashley Williams, we also learned way more than we ever anticipated about how to butcher a lamb and bring it home on the New York subway.
FILM SCOUT
Perhaps our biggest achievement at the festival this year (besides operating on an average of 0 hours of sleep every night, give or take) was our brand new Film Scout App, which we launched just a few weeks ago for iOS and Android devices. Building on our wildly popular Film Scout program from last year, which led us to the acquisition of Memory: The Origins of Alien, Legion M's Film Scout app brings the festival straight to your door (or the drawbridge to your yacht) so that you don't have to travel to the Beehive State (where did that nickname come from, anyway?) to lend your voice to the Legion.
In the app, you are given a series of "matchups" between two films playing at the festival, along with a brief description and applicable cast. After you rate each film on a scale of one to five for your personal opinion, we put your film executive skills to the test by asking you how well you think others will rate the films. You can play as much as you like, but every handful of matchups gets you closer and closer to Elite Scout status (which basically means we'll name our next film after you – maybe).
The Film Scout App saw nearly 2,000 unique users who cast almost 100,000 votes by the end of the festival! Just imagine, if we had a penny for every vote, we could toss a coin to your Witcher every day for nearly half a millennium. The data that we get from this app is crucial for Legion M because it tells us a number of valuable things – 1) which films our community is responding to most, 2) which films we should focus our time and effort on watching and pursuing deals with, and 3) who in our community has their finger on the pulse of what's hot and what's not (did we mention snow = definitely not hot?). While there's no guarantee that we will buy a film at the festival this year, if we do, it will be because of the votes cast in our Film Scout app. (Or because a filmmaker gave Jeff a free snowmobile ride – it's really a toss-up.)
The app also gives folks on the ground in Park City an opportunity to let us know what they think of films they actually had a chance to see at the festival. While our matchup data is important for guiding our way, the scouting reports are critical for us in making our final decisions. Sometimes a movie may sound great but not deliver on its promise – and sometimes, a film with an unassuming description may in fact be a hidden gem. It's like having a magic eight ball for how these films will be received in the market, but with real tangible information instead of "cannot predict now" or "ask again later."
While the festival may be over, the Film Scout program will continue, as we still need feedback on the films that premiered at the festival. In a few months, we will be able to publish the players’ scores to see who did the best job having an opinion.