SHORT: End of DIRECT TO VIDEO market
- Thread starter sonnyboo
- Start date
Finn Yarbrough
Well-known member
Thanks for the information.
You're kind of cherry-picking, though, when you compare what independent productions "could have had back then" with what blockbusters "had back then." A small production NEVER would have sold 50,000 copies of their film to every brick-and-mortar rental place in the country, so in that sense, not much has changed.
Our profits are tiny, but so is our overhead, so the margins aren't that bad. And there is a small army of us being supported by these feeble revenue streams nationwide. Plus, nobody is ripping or torrenting our films, I can all but guarantee. That's the beauty of obscurity.
I guess my main point is that we are seeing a massive de-centralization of production, and since the big studios still vice-grip the production line from production through distribution, they choose to play it safe in the theaters. But DTV is alive and well in the form of niche online subscription-model sites, advertising-driven streaming, and documentary-meets-reality-TV. Sure, it's a horrible mess. But it's our horrible mess ; )
You're kind of cherry-picking, though, when you compare what independent productions "could have had back then" with what blockbusters "had back then." A small production NEVER would have sold 50,000 copies of their film to every brick-and-mortar rental place in the country, so in that sense, not much has changed.
Our profits are tiny, but so is our overhead, so the margins aren't that bad. And there is a small army of us being supported by these feeble revenue streams nationwide. Plus, nobody is ripping or torrenting our films, I can all but guarantee. That's the beauty of obscurity.
I guess my main point is that we are seeing a massive de-centralization of production, and since the big studios still vice-grip the production line from production through distribution, they choose to play it safe in the theaters. But DTV is alive and well in the form of niche online subscription-model sites, advertising-driven streaming, and documentary-meets-reality-TV. Sure, it's a horrible mess. But it's our horrible mess ; )
sonnyboo
Well-known member
I guess the devil is in the semantics and definition of "small production" from your point of view. There was an entire industry of $250,00.00 to $2 million production "straight to video" productions that no longer exist. Poor Shannon Tweed and Jeff Fahey and the entire Cinemax catalog of near soft-core porn has gone away. And that's not even taking into account the boom of "indie films" by filmmakers that went via distribution on VHS to DVD in the 1990's.
And I had a small production in the early 2000's that sold those kind of numbers right before the bubble popped and it all went away. That's the basis of my numbers, and are generalized, not exact numbers. And even then, we got torrents and the world wide market stopped purchasing. That's an entirely separate issue. So I wouldn't say "NEVER", as I'm not alone in selling similar numbers via distributors (most of which have also gone out of business because of the shifts mentioned in the video).
It isn't just the mid-tier/low-end direct to video that has been killed off, even higher budget films are feeling some effect. The worst part is that recently the studios have actually taken steps to increase the pain, with their two week early release for digital purchase. It's like they don't even realize that having all those copies in all those physical stores is one of the greatest advertising deals they could ever get. Normally to get that level of market exposure you'd need to pay huge amounts of money, but with retail shelf-space you pay a cut after the sale (more or less). Instead of enriching this self-advertising channel, the studios have moved to pretty much kill it.
Right now a theatrical release generates a huge amount of marketing, every theater showing the film becomes a giant billboard. Every local paper. Every local TV station with a at the movies type show. It's why direct to video has never done as well as theatrcial. But direct to video also had it's own channel, all those rental stores. All that shelf-space on local Wal-Mart and Target stores. Every 7-11 in the country. This push to an on-demand pay-per-view online market kills off all that marketing. And what it means is that fewer and fewer titles will be hits. And the long tail is dead. Every film now has to compete with the greatest films of all time for attention. Your film we only be on the new releases so long, then you are fighting every film ever made for attention.
It means smaller films need to market themselves a lot more than they have been. They have to make up for all that exposure they used to get from being on store shelves. Social media and other new avenues may help but in the end they are going to have to spend a lot more money. They also need to make a much better product. In a world where only big name blockbusters make any money, you need to be a blockbuster. Not sure where the low-budget indie and micro-budget films can fit in this world.
It might be worth rethinking the whole online availability thing as well. Release on DVD/Blu-ray for 3-6 months exclusively BEFORE releasing online. I'd bet retail stores would be happy to stock a product they don't have to fight pay-per-view and on-demand for. Reward product channels that offer you the most wide spread exposure before you focus on channels where you are just another stock number hidden in the bowels of a search engine.
Right now a theatrical release generates a huge amount of marketing, every theater showing the film becomes a giant billboard. Every local paper. Every local TV station with a at the movies type show. It's why direct to video has never done as well as theatrcial. But direct to video also had it's own channel, all those rental stores. All that shelf-space on local Wal-Mart and Target stores. Every 7-11 in the country. This push to an on-demand pay-per-view online market kills off all that marketing. And what it means is that fewer and fewer titles will be hits. And the long tail is dead. Every film now has to compete with the greatest films of all time for attention. Your film we only be on the new releases so long, then you are fighting every film ever made for attention.
It means smaller films need to market themselves a lot more than they have been. They have to make up for all that exposure they used to get from being on store shelves. Social media and other new avenues may help but in the end they are going to have to spend a lot more money. They also need to make a much better product. In a world where only big name blockbusters make any money, you need to be a blockbuster. Not sure where the low-budget indie and micro-budget films can fit in this world.
It might be worth rethinking the whole online availability thing as well. Release on DVD/Blu-ray for 3-6 months exclusively BEFORE releasing online. I'd bet retail stores would be happy to stock a product they don't have to fight pay-per-view and on-demand for. Reward product channels that offer you the most wide spread exposure before you focus on channels where you are just another stock number hidden in the bowels of a search engine.
sonnyboo
Well-known member
This is all incredibly accurate and true. I agree with you 100%.
Martay
Veteran
Great topic.
I was fortunate enough to get a distribution deal in 2010 and yet it was unfortunate timing in the sense of many of the markets for DTV were gone by the time of the release so ultimately a lot of revenue was lost to us (and the distributor mostly). We were a small budget film so that didn't "hurt" us on paper. However, it certainly didn't help us in reality.
As for ripping and torrents, well, as small as we were, our movie was available for download within hours of release. Perhaps we did such a good job of marketing that they thought it was a major release
I like the points that msorrels makes about retail shelves being a great marketing opportunity. However, the market shifted online as technology changed. I still don't watch movies on my phone (okay some trailers and shorts maybe) but I do watch them on my iPad and laptop now which is something I resisted and still don't consider ideal. The truth is that demand for those physical DVDs has dropped so far that the shelves in retail stores were being used inefficiently in the retailers minds.
I like the idea of the availability model shift you're describing. I think that's definitely worth exploring. However, with our next project trailers.apple.com/trailers/independent/blackhats/ we'll likely go down the path of our last one and let the major distributor mishandle the release (hopefully less badly this time) because we need to turn around the process of making movies quicker and preparing to roll out in the manner you're describing would be quite an undertaking for an indie company like us.
I like the discussion, though, and hope more can be had here. Thanks for the video Peter. Well done.
-M
I was fortunate enough to get a distribution deal in 2010 and yet it was unfortunate timing in the sense of many of the markets for DTV were gone by the time of the release so ultimately a lot of revenue was lost to us (and the distributor mostly). We were a small budget film so that didn't "hurt" us on paper. However, it certainly didn't help us in reality.
As for ripping and torrents, well, as small as we were, our movie was available for download within hours of release. Perhaps we did such a good job of marketing that they thought it was a major release
I like the points that msorrels makes about retail shelves being a great marketing opportunity. However, the market shifted online as technology changed. I still don't watch movies on my phone (okay some trailers and shorts maybe) but I do watch them on my iPad and laptop now which is something I resisted and still don't consider ideal. The truth is that demand for those physical DVDs has dropped so far that the shelves in retail stores were being used inefficiently in the retailers minds.
I like the idea of the availability model shift you're describing. I think that's definitely worth exploring. However, with our next project trailers.apple.com/trailers/independent/blackhats/ we'll likely go down the path of our last one and let the major distributor mishandle the release (hopefully less badly this time) because we need to turn around the process of making movies quicker and preparing to roll out in the manner you're describing would be quite an undertaking for an indie company like us.
I like the discussion, though, and hope more can be had here. Thanks for the video Peter. Well done.
-M
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