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  • Hey all, just changed over the backend after 15 years I figured time to give it a bit of an update, its probably gonna be a bit weird for most of you and i am sure there is a few bugs to work out but it should kinda work the same as before... hopefully :)

REDRAY Comments

Brandon J.F. said:
Mike's posts got me curious about where people watch movies primarily now days so I posted the question on Twitter. We have over 200,000 followers so the results will be interesting.

Here is the Tweet: https://twitter.com/hybridvigorfilm/status/274951578312663041

Lots of interesting replies. I'm RTing them as they come in. You can see the replies here: https://twitter.com/hybridvigorfilm/

if you use Twitter you can RT my Tweet so we can get a wider sample.
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wahts the age group of your demographic? ... come to Tigard OR on any friday night to the Bridgeport Cinemas... TEENS will never stop going to movie theaters in our lifetime. Its one of the few SAFE (relatively) place parents let kids go with their friends.... and these SAME teens will also watch the content again on a multitude of digital devices.

Anther phenomenon in our city is the rise of SMALL venue niche theaters... amazing seats... gourmet food and cocktails... still a relatively big screen but now 25 to 40 PREMIUM seats - attracting a25 to 60 year old demographic ... GOING to the movies are also a BIG part of date night for many adults.
 
Tim Whitcomb said:
Jon. can you talk to the following:

1. Your box office control systems you will have in place? We have an explosion in small venue theaters here in Portland, OR (an ODEMAX city yes!) these venues opt for smaller 50 seats and serve gourmet food. Beer, etc. Curious how one can track box office with your system. Obviously separate from the Red Ray Player and part of the fee structure?

2. How does one obtain a channel? Say I wanted to buy and install 100 Crimson projectors in 100 Cities to create my own Indie Theatrical Chain via small venue exhibition... (something Ive been hoping to do with this for years)

thanks for your time
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1. Odemax supports all current Box Office ticketing systems. RTS, Vista, etc... Odemax offers a streamlined solution and pricing if your venue uses such, thus allowing the theater to create an engagement just like they would now, sell tickets and remit the data and Channel Owners' take. Odemax will collect the money for the Channel Owner. If a theater cheats, we have ways of dealing with that. For smaller venues, the Channel Owner is also able to set a 'one-time' up front fee, knowing it's for a multi-seat venue of any size. They can lock their asset to a NOT VALID BEFORE or AFTER date and time. They can also use the Odemax account to actually set the exact times of play and even automate the process. Cheating will happen here and there. But knowing it and when it does, (we will announce ways for the Channel Owner to manage this) is the first step at dealing with it. Keep in mind, we have built tools that "Build relationships" directly between the Channel Owner/Distributor and the Theater Owner in a way that's never been allowed before. We believe that fairness and true profit incentives on both sides is the best way to regulate this.

2. All you need are the rights to distribute your own, or rights to another filmmaker's movie and you're good to go. Your plan of 100 Crimsons is EXACTLY the type of business model we are excited about supporting with this distribution platform. Let us help you do that!

j.
 
Jon Farhat said:
1. Odemax supports all current Box Office ticketing systems. RTS, Vista, etc... Odemax offers a streamlined solution and pricing if your venue uses such, thus allowing the theater to create an engagement just like they would now, sell tickets and remit the data and Channel Owners' take. Odemax will collect the money for the Channel Owner. If a theater cheats, we have ways of dealing with that. For smaller venues, the Channel Owner is also able to set a 'one-time' up front fee, knowing it's for a multi-seat venue of any size. They can lock their asset to a NOT VALID BEFORE or AFTER date and time. They can also use the Odemax account to actually set the exact times of play and even automate the process. Cheating will happen here and there. But knowing it and when it does, (we will announce ways for the Channel Owner to manage this) is the first step at dealing with it. Keep in mind, we have built tools that "Build relationships" directly between the Channel Owner/Distributor and the Theater Owner in a way that's never been allowed before. We believe that fairness and true profit incentives on both sides is the best way to regulate this.

2. All you need are the rights to distribute your own, or rights to another filmmaker's movie and you're good to go. Your plan of 100 Crimsons is EXACTLY the type of business model we are excited about supporting with this distribution platform. Let us help you do that!

j.
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This is incredible news... I'll see you guys at Sundance... and I have a relatively simple solution for keeping the box office counts honest in small venues... a $50 webcam in the theater with night vision capabilities :)
 
Tim Whitcomb said:
This is incredible news... I'll see you guys at Sundance... and I have a relatively simple solution for keeping the box office counts honest in small venues... a $50 webcam in the theater with night vision capabilities :)
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Seats with pressure sensitive sensors with timestamp :)
 
Bill Anderson said:
"Studio distribution chiefs and their partners will analyze how they are deciding the best way to deliver their films to today’s audiences, and maximize revenue across windows."


I imagine they have had something just arrive in their inbox.
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heh heh heh....
 
Marketing, Marketing, Marketing

Marketing, Marketing, Marketing

Jarred Land said:
you are half right. iTunes, Netflix, Amazon, Vudu, Cinemanow, Epix, etc. etc. etc. are basically all the same. They cater to the top 1% of films and they all share the same content.. more or less. There are not very many exclusives with studios and distribution channels anymore.. unless these companies produce it themselves like Netflix. And if you are a nobody filmmaker..good luck getting in. The Studio films have almost become a commodity.. because they make a ton of money, which is good for everyone involved. There is nothing wrong with that, and ODEMAX will have those movies as well.. but the magic really happens when you start to open the doors to the rest of the 99% of the filmmakers out there. Of course, there will be a shitload of content that will not be worth watching.. that's inevitable. But you can say the same about some 200 million dollar hollywood films as well.

Youtube is powerful.. it shouldn't be discounted. Alot of stars have been born of of Youtube. It is how 99% of music videos are watched now adays, and alot of films. But the experience of watching, and finding content via youtube on your television is not an enjoyable experience, even with built in device apps, and there is no real revenue program for the producer except for selling janky ads, which nobody wants. Its just a bit clumsy. Vimeo I believe is a better experience.. but it is not commercial. Odemax almost cross-pollinates the best of all worlds.. and combined with REDRAY it provides you an outlet with no quality restrictions.

This levels the playing field like Jon said.. but to a whole different level. Instead of playing on the field, it is more like playing on the roof of the stadium.
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Big picture guys it still boils down to your marketing strategy. If there is a ton of content out there (like there is now) its a major challenge for large numbers of people to find you and want to drop $10 to watch your film; you have to be able to differentiate yourself from all the other film clutter out there no matter the distribution pipeline. Studios pick and choose the indie films they pick up based on how much money they think they can make off of them. Then they have a formulae as to how much money they're going to dump into the film's marketing and advertising whether it goes theatrical, straight to dvd or on demand, etc. Its really about the marketing strategy and how much money you can devote to advertising your film and getting people to want to see it. The pipeline really only reduces the "P" out of the "P&A" costs for a distributor. But again, with a glut of content it doesn't matter so much about the pipeline. People still have to find you. The studios use a push strategy and force feed you trailers and ads telling you must see this because.....; indie's either have to have deep pockets to do the same and assume the risk or have the studios pick up the film and do it for them; or the indie can be crafty and use a pull strategy to differentiate yourself from the crowd and attract people to you film - no matter where its being shown. This is a nice addition to the pipeline to reduce the print costs and partner with a potential content provider - BUT it boils down to marketing your film which can be very expensive either way. There is no holy grail.
 
Kurt Mayry said:
Big picture guys it still boils down to your marketing strategy. If there is a ton of content out there (like there is now) its a major challenge for large numbers of people to find you and want to drop $10 to watch your film; you have to be able to differentiate yourself from all the other film clutter out there no matter the distribution pipeline. Studios pick and choose the indie films they pick up based on how much money they think they can make off of them. Then they have a formulae as to how much money they're going to dump into the film's marketing and advertising whether it goes theatrical, straight to dvd or on demand, etc. Its really about the marketing strategy and how much money you can devote to advertising your film and getting people to want to see it. The pipeline really only reduces the "P" out of the "P&A" costs for a distributor. But again, with a glut of content it doesn't matter so much about the pipeline. People still have to find you. The studios use a push strategy and force feed you trailers and ads telling you must see this because.....; indie's either have to have deep pockets to do the same and assume the risk or have the studios pick up the film and do it for them; or the indie can be crafty and use a pull strategy to differentiate yourself from the crowd and attract people to you film - no matter where its being shown. This is a nice addition to the pipeline to reduce the print costs and partner with a potential content provider - BUT it boils down to marketing your film which can be very expensive either way. There is no holy grail.
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Marketing your film has and will not ever change. This is the responsibility of the producer/distribution company. We are not trying to solve all the worlds problems here. Only one of the biggest, and solving the P in P&A is still a huge, and an 'old boy' network that is broken.

Having said that, you are totally right. You need to market your film. But even the big studios are realizing that the traditional TV buys and billboards are not doing what they used to. And a savvy marketing mind, knows not only how to sell, but what movies to make and sell. RED never said that just because they made cameras better and more affordable at a high resolution - was going to solve the problem of still needing talent behind and in front of the lens. We're not saying that here either.

Odemax does provide however trailer delivery, online and theatrical, analytics and marketing tools that take advantage of what the Internet is good at. But like every movie out there, 'story is king'. The interruption age of advertising is over. But as filmmakers apply their skills of making movies to the task of also advertising them with 'story-based' rather than 'interruption-based' advertising, you'll find that even advertising is cued up for a major shift. We just need to solve this problem first, so they have something to sell.
 
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Kurt,

Do you think push strategy and force feeding are more important than great stories with great pictures?
 
I've worked on more than a dozen films that really pushed the deadline right until the mass duplication 11th hour. I'm wondering how digital distribution is going to effect that final push to the light.

I'm curious about the tablet and network connectivity. Can't wait to see a demo of how people purchase, queue, and link to media to upload to the REDRAY player.
 
It just occurred to me that encoding my non-critical stuff to a 4k .RED format means I can free up a bunch of back-up HDDs that I always figured I would have to save in order to re-create as 4k content. It would not take many 3TB HDDs to pay for the Red Player.
 
Corey_O said:
Kurt,

Do you think push strategy and force feeding are more important than great stories with great pictures?
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He is not saying that... but what I think he is missing is that his argument holds true for traditional theatrical releasing... its next to IMPOSSIBLE for indies to crack that market with BILLIONS being spent on saturation marketing.

But Red and ODEMAX just lowered the cost of entry to where short run theatrical runs for indies (a completely different market segment than blockbuster audiences) can now be created... and smart targeted social media campaigns in select cities could allow a film made for $250K to make money! For very little marketing dollars.

The movies still have to be good. agreed and with the glut of films there is a lit of crap... but there also that many more good ones falling thru the cracks. 12000 Sundance submissions... hello? they couldn't watch 1200 films if they tried.

I see 4 or 5 AMAZING movies at Sundance every year that never get distribution... so I think this IS the Holy Grail for Indies... and a godsend to STUDIOS... (because P is still a SUBSTANTIAL cost for the latter)
 
I look forward to cutting out the middle certainly (many personal stories on that topic), but in doing so you become your own middleman was my point and with something like this, the challenges for making money using it don't go away. That said, yes the potential to profit certainly increases since the middleman isn't taking a cut and using schemes to keep the rest should you decide to go it alone. I'm all for ODEMAX and REDRAY and what they can potentially do for the prepared indie. I placed my order yesterday.
 
Given the "cons" queries, it's not as if the majority of filmmakers have an equal alternative at their disposal. Nothing close. This is an incredible opportunity for every rank of filmmaker.
 
Any film (slight exaggeration) can make money if it it budgeted to the proper scale. If your film costs $100 to make and $50 to market (or vice versa), it can be "successful" as long as it takes in $300 or so. So, this is not about marketing budgets that compete with Spiderman 6, but about marketing and production budgets that are properly scaled for the audience they are intended to reach. Odemax and RedRay really do democratize this model.
 
Bill Anderson said:
Given the "cons" queries, it's not as if the majority of filmmakers have an equal alternative at their disposal. Nothing close. This is an incredible opportunity for every rank of filmmaker.
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So true... and like I said in an earlier post, the ranks of Indie movie makers may swell... from the top down.

EDIT: meaning that many who have been working on studio projects may decide to work for themselves as Independents.
 
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Among many other seasoned filmmakers, auteurs, wait until you hear what David Lynch has to say about this turn of events. Something he has been lobbying for, for a long time. Someone get on the blower. I think it will be worth it. ( :
 
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