Help me decide...

D

David W. Richardson

Chapelgrove Films
Five years ago, I made a rather unique independent feature-length movie called 'Tangled Web'. Great story. Some really great actors. Shot in just 3 days on a budget of only $1000.

I put the movie on Amazon Instant Video, hoping to at least make enough from it to repay my investors. To date I've barely made enough to pay for a decent meal in a restaurant. Mainly because I lack any funds to advertise or market the movie.

I've finally accepted the realization that this movie is never going to pay for itself. So I have a choice to make -- leave the movie on Amazon and hope for a miracle, or remove it from Amazon and put it online for all the world to see for free, knowing that if I do that I will never make another dime from it.

What would you do?
 
Put it up on youtube. If it's good and gets thousands and thousands of views, you could convert those fans into kickstarter supporters for the next project (maybe). If no one wants to watch it, you weren't losing any money you might have made on Amazon anyway since there never was a potential audience regardless of lack of advertising.

And, if you get enough views you can make ad money on youtube.

Honestly, in this day and age of streaming content, youtube videos, vimeo, facebook free games for entertainment, AMC, HBO, free to play games, etc., etc., it seems highly unlikely anyone would pay to see anything you could shoot in 3 days for a thousand bucks. I mean, maybe if you have Scarlet Johansen, and you spend the entire budget on whip creme, otherwise probably not.
 
out of curiosity, how much money goes to you for each rental on amazon instant video?
 
Why is Amazon the final option? You have so many other VOD options out there. Vimeo Pro is one option that comes to mind because you decide how much to charge and can rent out and/or sell the videos.

In any case, no matter where you're showing your film, if you don't have an existing audience or aren't working on building one then you're going to have difficulty getting anyone to watch- much less pay- for your films now or in the future.

Hoping for a miracle is not going to bring viewers. You need to go out find people who would be interested in your film and connect them with it.
 
Took a look at the Amazon page and couldn't even find a trailer? Who rents or buys an unknown film without even seeing a trailer? If there was a trailer it was well hidden (didn't like the layout/presentation of the Amazon page at all) and maybe others don't find it either...
 
The poster is terrible, no way I'd rent going off it. Seek out someone maybe studying that kind of thing and see if he/she will do you up a decent poster.

Another thing your movie might live or die on to a potential buyer/renter is the synopsis. It sounds like you have a story in there but the synopsis doesn't intrigue me at all.
 
Jive said:
Why is Amazon the final option? You have so many other VOD options out there. Vimeo Pro is one option that comes to mind because you decide how much to charge and can rent out and/or sell the videos.

In any case, no matter where you're showing your film, if you don't have an existing audience or aren't working on building one then you're going to have difficulty getting anyone to watch- much less pay- for your films now or in the future.

Hoping for a miracle is not going to bring viewers. You need to go out find people who would be interested in your film and connect them with it.
Click to expand...

Amazon is as good as any other outlet. It certainly has tremendous traffic and name recognition. The problem isn't the outlet. The problem is the marketing. No matter if it's on Amazon or Vimeo or both, if people don't know it's there then they won't find it.

I did 'work on building' an audience. But there's only so much you can do without spending a lot of money, and what I did didn't work. I pushed it as hard as I could through social media like Facebook. But my efforts didn't result in sales or rentals. At least not very many.
 
dmitrizigany said:
Took a look at the Amazon page and couldn't even find a trailer? Who rents or buys an unknown film without even seeing a trailer? If there was a trailer it was well hidden (didn't like the layout/presentation of the Amazon page at all) and maybe others don't find it either...
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A fair point. FWIW, I did provide links to the trailer in my Facebook promotions. I will see if Amazon will allow me to include the link in the description text, since I can't find any other place where they would put it.
 
tmnt said:
The poster is terrible, no way I'd rent going off it. Seek out someone maybe studying that kind of thing and see if he/she will do you up a decent poster.

Another thing your movie might live or die on to a potential buyer/renter is the synopsis. It sounds like you have a story in there but the synopsis doesn't intrigue me at all.
Click to expand...

I'm sorry you feel that way. If you know anyone talented at making posters who would be willing, I'd love to hear from them. I sought, but did not find anyone.

I just realized that Amazon doesn't show the entire synopsis, which does include a link to the trailer. I should've caught that before now. Here is the entire synopsis:

A unique suspense/drama seen entirely from the point-of-view of webcams.

Shannon Hunter is kept a virtual prisoner in her own home, at the mercy of her abusive husband Alex. Her only comforts are her children, her best friend Kelly, and Taylor -- the man she truly loves. But Taylor is 3,000 miles away. Their only contact is via their Internet webcams.

One night, after Shannon suffers a terrible beating from Alex, Taylor devises a desperate plan -- a DEADLY plan! If it works, Shannon will be free and she and Taylor can finally be together.

But Shannon doesn't know that someone is secretly watching her through her webcam -- a twisted lurker with evil plans of his own!

With more twists than a hangman's noose, "Tangled Web" is a story of suspense that will keep you guessing right up to the very last second!

View the preview trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UsI-oCNXrcU
 
It's odd. The description editing screen says I can use a maximum of 4,000 characters. My complete original text used less than 900 characters -- by its own count -- and yet it only displayed some 300 of them. It seems to only display the first paragraph. I'm editing now, but I have no idea how long it will take the changes to appear.
 
You're a good example of taking criticism and running with it. Hold off for a little bit on putting it up for free.

Also when I saw the poster is terrible, I mean terrible for a paying customer. For people on this forum it's not bad at all. Definitely need to do it better, maybe someone here can help?

Here's a better synopsis. It has to be short and concise, don't give the reader too much info.


Trapt by an abusive husband, a desperate housewife confides in her webcam lover and a murder plan is hatched; only someone else is watching.

With more twists than a hangman's noose, "Tangled Web" is a story of suspense that will keep you guessing right up to the very last second!


I've got an idea for a poster too, I'll give you an example tomorrow maybe.
 
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tmnt said:

Trapt by an abusive husband, a desperate housewife confides in her webcam lover and a murder plan is hatched; only someone else is watching.

With more twists than a hangman's noose, "Tangled Web" is a story of suspense that will keep you guessing right up to the very last second!
Click to expand...

That first line would make a good logline as well. :-)

I'm almost afraid to give the audience too little, rather than too much, in the way of description. Since it's an unknown indie film, with no recognizable names in it, I'd wanted to try to get the readers of the synopsis to identify with, and perhaps sympathize with, the main character.

I need something to 'hook' the reader emotionally, so they're willing to take a chance and spend 2 bucks to watch the movie. Don't you think?

You assume it's a 'murder' plan. Without giving too much away, it's not exactly murder in the strictest sense -- it's more in the vein of being prepared to kill in self-defense. And at the very least, that last bit should include "...someone else is watching. Someone with a deadly plan of his own!"
 
tmnt said:
Also when I saw the poster is terrible, I mean terrible for a paying customer. For people on this forum it's not bad at all. Definitely need to do it better, maybe someone here can help?
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That poster actually wasn't done by anyone here. It was done by the Executive Producer, John Jenrette, who is a pro photographer. He took all of the photos used in the poster. We certainly wouldn't mind a better poster. :-)
 
I've just watched the trailer.

First thoughts is that the footage doesn't feel like it's from webcams... it looks like we're seeing overly lit video footage and hastily built sets... as it stands now, I wouldn't impulse purchase it.

My thoughts would be to do a couple of things (if you can), change the GUI/onscreen graphics to look a bit more modern/designed and (importantly) degrade and give a 'look' to the webcam footage... even if that's crushing the blacks and adding noise/grain etc. Really try and spruce up the visual side of things.

I'd also look to give each person's web-cam footage a unique style... so, as the viewer watches the story progress, he'she will start to identify the various people's webcams.

It's surprising what some art direction can do to shots - even if it's all post work. Plus (as tmnt says) a much better logo treatment and poster is needed.

I don't know if you have the time to make the changes I'm suggesting... but this might certainly help drive a few more sales.
 
David W. Richardson said:
That poster actually wasn't done by anyone here. It was done by the Executive Producer, John Jenrette, who is a pro photographer. He took all of the photos used in the poster. We certainly wouldn't mind a better poster. :-)
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Avoid using photo montages in a no/low budget production poster... it'll only draw attention to the lack of names :)

Go for some design - play with typography and get an arresting image... that will help more, IMO.
 
Derek Chingwell said:
I've just watched the trailer.

First thoughts is that the footage doesn't feel like it's from webcams... it looks like we're seeing overly lit video footage and hastily built sets... as it stands now, I wouldn't impulse purchase it.

My thoughts would be to do a couple of things (if you can), change the GUI/onscreen graphics to look a bit more modern/designed and (importantly) degrade and give a 'look' to the webcam footage... even if that's crushing the blacks and adding noise/grain etc. Really try and spruce up the visual side of things.

I'd also look to give each person's web-cam footage a unique style... so, as the viewer watches the story progress, he'she will start to identify the various people's webcams.

It's surprising what some art direction can do to shots - even if it's all post work. Plus (as tmnt says) a much better logo treatment and poster is needed.

I don't know if you have the time to make the changes I'm suggesting... but this might certainly help drive a few more sales.
Click to expand...

Yeah, I realize the footage (shot with a DVX100a) looks too good to be webcams. I may have to consider degrading it.

It was hard to get the GUI done. Given our microscopic budget, I went with the best we had at the time.

I'm not completely sure why each person's webcam image needs a style of its own. It's clear from the person sitting in front of the webcam who's cam we're looking at. We tried to dress each person's room to look different, but considering both rooms were in the same house, that was difficult. At this point, I'm not sure what can be done with the footage we have to make such style changes.

I do wish we'd had an art director.
 
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