Which Do You Think Is More Profitable? Straight to Video or Starting in the Theaters?

[Zach Goodwin2]

Before the rise of video in the 1980's people used to buy film and project it in their homes as well as mostly for the time being people went to movie theaters like they were theatrical plays as a gathering to watch an entertainment. Ever since home video was around, more and more companies made movies straight to DvD, yet from what I gather they don't do so well opinion wise and financially wise. Now with the advent of internet video, people more often want to get their films from the internet, yet they'd rather get the A-list Hollywood films that were in theaters more so than B-movie youtube films. Another thing is that I don't know that many people who go to film festivals or who are familiar with independent films? When making B-movies, could you profit more and get just as good as a critiqued reception and financial gain from going straight to video just as you would going to theaters?

[fuzzynormal]

There are ways to get into the black doing a "4-wall", but the numbers are modest, so the realistic idea is to just use theatrical release as promotion. 

[Zach Goodwin2]

What's a 4-wall?

[fuzzynormal]

On 3/23/2020 at 9:21 PM, Zach Goodwin2 said:

What's a 4-wall?

Taking your film into a movie house. You pay to have it screened in their auditorium with 4 walls.  

You take the film to the next town and do it again. 

And so on. 

The old fashioned way of doing indy film distribution.  

[Zach Goodwin2]

I see, well what are your thoughts on distributing directly through Amazon and Vimeo?

[fuzzynormal]

3 hours ago, Zach Goodwin2 said:

I see, well what are your thoughts on distributing directly through Amazon and Vimeo?

Fine options if you just want your work to be seen. 

Making money doing it?  You need to put a lot of work into marketing. 

In order to make modest money with sales on Amazon or Vimeo, you'd need to make a product that 10's of thousands of people would be willing to pay a few bucks for.

Easier said than done. 

[KnightsFan]

6 hours ago, Zach Goodwin2 said:

I see, well what are your thoughts on distributing directly through Amazon and Vimeo?

My experience with Amazon prime video direct has not been great. It honestly feels more like a beta at this point, and to be fair, it has improved its interface in the past few months. It says they review titles for publication in 2-4 days, but it's more like 4+ weeks, and their system for telling you about issues is frustrating and poorly implemented.

In the end you will end up with like 5 cents per hour watched if you release for amazon prime users to watch for free. So you can do the math to figure out how much content and how many views you need to make a profit.

[Zak Forsman]

12 hours ago, Zach Goodwin2 said:

I see, well what are your thoughts on distributing directly through Amazon and Vimeo?

I don't think you're going to make any money going that route. if money isn't a goal, that's fine. but even if it's to be seen, the film will be buried so deep in their libraries that almost no one will even accidentally stumble upon it. a good avenue for indies that want eyeballs and decent money (that aren't picked up by a mini-major for distribution) is still cable VOD. it outperforms all other platforms. not that you shouldn't also get it onto itunes, netflix, prime, hulu, etc. but cable VOD will account for the majority of revenue. the last time i released a feature, it was 79% of revenue. itunes was about 15%. all other platforms combined made up the remainder.

my advice is to submit it to small distributors that have strong relationships with cable providers across north america. do a day and date theatrical release of at least 15 north american cities, and make sure the cable providers know you're doing it, so that your title is listed under "new release" and "now playing in theaters" on their VOD systems. Otherwise you run the risk of going in as a library title where no one will find you unless they already know you title and browse alphabetically for it. a day and date theatrical release will give you premiere placement on cable VOD system resulting in 5-10x more revenue.