VOD Success Stories/Case Studies?

S

sladen

Active member
While VOD is getting a lot of attention in the indie filmmaking community, I haven't found much info as far as whether or not films are financially successful if VOD is their primary distribution channel.

I understand there are many variables that dictate success, such as marketing spend, whether or not there are name actors, the reputation of the director, genre, etc. But for a filmmaker who is interested in distributing their first film (assume a conventional genre, such as a horror film) via VOD and working with a small budget ($50K or lower), what are reasonable expectations? By month? By year? And is it necessary to get a distributor if VOD is your only distribution channel?

I'd be interested in hearing from filmmakers who have used VOD, and actually turned a profit.
 
Two case studies:

http://independentfilmblog.com/archives/vod-realities-a-mini-case-study/

http://independentfilmblog.com/archives/micro-budget-case-study-wake-the-witch/

A PDF analysis/report on VOD numbers from Gravitas Ventures (a heavily VOD-focused distrib):

http://www.thefilmcollaborative.org/sxsw/American_VOD_SXSW2012.pdf

A podcast from Stacey Parks and Michael Murphy of Gravitas:

http://www.filmspecific.com/public/1157.cfm

That's all I can really give you, but there are others here who have had their films distributed in VOD. There are also a few recent threads on this topic, so if you haven't read through those, definitely make use of the search box, as there's lots of great info here about VOD.

-JMT
 
In my experience, you need to do REALLY well on VOD to make much of anything. I haven't written it off completely but to me it's not the distribution platform I would rely on. The money made from DVDs and things of that sort is far greater from what I can tell.
 
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