Releasing on Digital Platforms - First Samplings

Thomas Mai of Festival Darlings who is hosting a conference in Berlin on crowd sourcing says that a filmmaker can expect to make between $50 - $1000 per month per platform (some more, some less).  If there are also social media campaigns, this number can increase a lot. A release should go to about 25 -40 platforms, including iTunes/ Amazon/ NetFlix/ Hulu etc. Making a digital master is not expensive, but each platform uses its own format so a filmmaker might need to come up with 12-15 different format versions which can cost about $500 each. The master should cost around $1200-$1500. 

To book a place at "Dawn of The Micro Major Film Producer: Everything you want to know about VOD and Crowdfunding"" on 16 February at 09:00 until 1:00 at the Ritz Carlton in Berlin, click here.

Thomas has come a long way as has film itself since he began at the onset of Lars Von Trier's company Trust when Von Trier was calling the shots for indie filmmakers with his Dogma 95 rules of filmmaking. He has since sold his international sales company to Nordisk and Thomas has moved on as the only European international sales agent (perhaps with the exception of Celluloid Dreams) to fully embrace the digital technology as the answer to the crisis faced by international sales and distribution.


The quick and dirty on Sundance film's Bass Ackwards which went on You Tube during the festival for a limited time per producer Gil Holland:  Going the web route is possible for them because the film only cost $30,000 to make. The YouTube experiment is a first for the festival – a half-dozen current and former Sundance entries are being promoted on the video services front page for full download.

By the second day of the festival, “Bass Ackwards” had 289 downloads, Holland said – generating about $600 for the filmmakers. “That’s about 2 percent of our shooting budget.” said the producer.

So the first experiment has occurred but in my opinion, the "experts" are being too quick to predict results!  See the report below:

UPDATE: NewTeeVee has this report on the You Tube experiment:

Written by Ryan Lawler
Posted Monday, January 25, 2010 at 4:39 PM PT
YouTube Users Pass on Paying for Movies

Indie filmmakers looking to YouTube as a possible new distribution outlet might want to think twice, based on weekend returns from the video site’s new movie rental service. Last week, the online video site teamed up with the Sundance Film Festival to make a small selection of critically acclaimed full-length films available for rent for 48 hours.

But, despite a post on the YouTube blog and pickup from various tech blogs, very few users have actually taken YouTube up on the offer. Based on a quick look through the movies that were made available, it appears that YouTube viewers rented the five films less than 1,500 times in total, or an average of 300 times each. At $3.99 a piece, that means the indie films generated less than $6,000 in total sales over the course of the weekend, or about $1,200 per movie — and that’s before YouTube took its cut for hosting the files.

Video Views:

Bass Ackwards 308
Homewrecker 308
The Cove 303
Children of Invention 301
One Too Many Mornings 250

That’s bad news for the films involved, and could be bad news for YouTube, which is looking for new ways to monetize videos through sales and rentals. While the films are independently produced and haven’t generated the same amount of buzz as some Hollywood blockbusters, the low view counts are surprising, given the buzz before the film festival and prominent “featured” placement from YouTube.

The good news for YouTube is that it’s still expected to become profitable this year. In a recent research note, Barclay’s Capital analyst Doug Anmuth suggested that YouTube would add to Google’s bottom line for the first time in 2010, with revenues growing more than 55 percent year-over-year to $700 million.

Take Digital Control of Your Project: Berlin workshop with Stacey Parks and Thomas Mai for

Thomas Mai of Festival Darlings invites you to "Dawn of The Micro Major Film Producer: Everything you want to know about VOD and Crowdfunding"" on 16 February at 09:00 until 1:00 at the Ritz Carlton in Berlin.  Support comes from Screen Daily as does the text of this blog.  I post it here because Thomas has come a long way as has film itself since he began at the onset of Lars Von Trier's company Trust when Von Trier was calling the shots for indie filmmakers with his Dogma 95 rules of filmmaking.  He has since sold his international sales company to Nordisk and Thomas has moved on as the only European international sales agent (perhaps with the exception of Celluloid Dreams) to fully embrace the digital technology as the answer to the crisis faced by international sales and distribution.

The event aims to inform attendees how to stay on top of the changes in financing and distribution models and teach producers how to take control of their projects in the new world. For more information or to book you seat, please click here.

Parks and Mai will cover topics such as:
- engaging and aggregating your audience via social media platforms;
- bringing on marketing and promotional partners for your film at various stages of production;
- executing effective email campaigns to your target audience;
- leveraging crowd funding for financing your next film and combining it with traditional forms of financing;
- combining crowd funding with other traditional forms of financing;
- optimizing your film’s website for direct-to-consumer sales;
- maximizing VOD revenue:
- capitalizing on specialty screenings.

“The whole film business as we know it is rapidly changing and for the independent producer it is one of the best times ever to be a producer,” said Mai. “No more gatekeepers and no more exclusivity means that you can fully finance, shoot and distribute your own films worldwide through the internet. It is now possible to be truly independent and make money while you are sleeping as a producer. We have created this event to help producers not only understand the new tools but also teach them how to use them.”
Added Parks: “We want to teach film producers how to leverage all the new opportunities out there to make better films for audiences, and to actually be able to sustain a career making films. That’s everything from fund raising, to promoting, and of course distribution. There are so many new and different platforms out there, and we want to show filmmakers how to make the most of all of it.”

Parks has been a sales agent since 2001 and, after several years in the trenches of film and programme distribution, wrote the book “The Insider’s Guide To Independent Film Distribution” in 2007. At the same time, she launched FilmSpecific.com, a website dedicated to educating film-makers about film financing, distribution and marketing. In 2009, she launched Media Sparks Entertainment and currently focuses on film and TV projects for all media platforms.

Mai, who was formerly head of Trust Film Sales from 1998 to 2000 and head of new business at TrustNordisk from 2006 to 2009, has produced four feature films and is a well-known speaker on new digital possibilities.