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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 :)

Stopping pirates?

On advertising in your work:
Sure. Lots of folks do it. Wesley Scoogins is a user on this forum, and he works for Indy Mogul which offers their weekly show for free on Youtube. In the middle of every <10min episode, there is a brief advertising interruption. Indymogul has been around for a time now, and their production values havent suffered, so i'd wager it's working quite well for them.

On the Digital Era:
I'm amazed that, in this forum of all places, so much of this type of talk is taking place. The digital revoltion has taken away a bit of our creative control with the finished product. This much is true.

But it has given us SO MUCH MORE. Digital technology has not only given us TENFOLD the options we had twenty years ago with AQUISITION (these days you can make a GOOD LOOKING feature film with $30,000 and NOT have 80% of your budget go to film stock expenses. But it has also given us dozens of totally new options for DISTRIBUTION.

Case in point:
I'm making a feature film this summer with a modest budget of about $50,000. If it comes out the way i want it to, then it starts the festival circuit. Going about it the old fashined way.

BUT WHAT IF I DONT GET A 7 FIGURE DISTRIBUTION DEAL (like 90%+ of all the films that make it into sundance, tribecca, and toronto)

I STILL HAVE VIABLE OPTIONS. I'll try my darndest to get my movie onto netflix (totally doable...I've seen GARBAGE go up there) to recoup my production costs, while simeltaneously self distributing the movie on AMAZON in digital DL form and on DVD (with a BUNCH of bonus features as purchase incentive...i'll give each of the cast members a flipHD camera and have them give us quirky "making of" antics).

THEN, i'll simeltaneously post the whole movie (in 4 parts) for FREE on youtube or some other such website, with a 1 minute commercial about every 10 minutes.

GOOD GOD HE'S MAKING A PROFIT!

There's NOTHING unrealistic about this plan. And its all thanks to digital.

But what about piracy? Well, i (to a degree) make P2P and torrent sites moot by offering it for free in the form i mentioned earlier. As a safeguard, I'LL PUT IT IN THESE P2P SITES MYSEFL WITH THE ADS INTACT. Will it eliminate pircacy? Hell no. But I'd be willing to bet t's take a sizeable chunk out of the problem, and *may* even work to my benefit.

So yes, we have piracy-a-plenty, but there has always been (remember the tape trade of the 80s?). It's on a larger scale now, mind you, but so are our options.

This is no different from the whiny comic artists moaning that their medium is collapsing under them, whyen all the while, webcomics are thriving. They don't want to go digital because they feel "it's beneath them to sell t-shirts."

YOU ARE AN ARTIST FOR A LIVING. You have among the most FUN jobs in the world, and you DARE complain? If you want to KEEP getting paid for doodling, jamming, or shooting a flick, EVOLVE.

Creative aritsits (musicians and filmmakers primarily)are all too willing to embrace the IMMENSE advantages that digital has given us, but with them we must ALSO adapt to the drawbacks.

Inspite of piracy being a household practice, this is still BY FAR the most exciting time to be a creative professional EVER.

So...ADAPT.

*edit*
Sorry for the long winded soap box trip. Back to the ORIGINAL topic, Dude, just get a bunch fo your friends to peacably boycott the business on the sidewalk outside. Print out neon fliers and hand them to every potential patron that walks through their doors. Its CHEAP and you'd be surprised how much it will work.
 
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I STILL HAVE VIABLE OPTIONS. I'll try my darndest to get my movie onto netflix (totally doable...I've seen GARBAGE go up there)

And how much money do you think the filmmaker got?

I've got a couple friends with movies in Blockbuster and those deals were crummy. Not sure of the exact numbers but I think it's fair to say you could be in Netflix and in Blockbuster and not see anywhere near $50k back in your pocket.
 
you could be in Netflix and in Blockbuster and not see anywhere near $50k back in your pocket.

Like i said, the DVD would have a BEEFY bonus features section, and Netflix would effectively make sure that the EXACT demographic that i want to see my movie (who would possibly actually BUY IT) SEES IT. And that will help spread word around to non-netflix subscribers as well (word of mouth is powerful)

Basically Netflix would be paying me back at least *some* of the cost of my production for some of the most demographic-specific advertising you can come by. I see this as being NOTHING BUT SWEET.


*edit*
dude, ALL filmmaking is a big risk. Just ask the folks who produced Cleopatra.

There are NO sure things in life, least of whcih in the movie business, but at least now we have a plan B, C, D, E and even F

20 years ago, failure to get into (let alone win) a film festival was about the end of the line for you in regards to that film. Even getting strait-to-video distribution was hard.
 
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THEN, i'll simeltaneously post the whole movie (in 4 parts) for FREE on youtube or some other such website, with a 1 minute commercial about every 10 minutes.

The thing is though, how long is your feature, 90 mins? 120 mins? YouTube based? Surely this is a bit of a killer on your quality, that sweet time you took to colour correct and make everything worth seeing big.

Would it not be more reasonable to cut an epic trailer and post that on YouTube.

Post a link to your site with advertising and have a downloadable version or better yet to just have the feature in 4 parts as you said at maximum potential quality on your own site with the adveritisng as you suggested. Would this not be a some what better option to present your film in as close quality as it was originally intended to be on DVD?

The digital era is great. It has its upsides and downsides. One can take advantage of it or shove it away and go old school. The issue is however, the digital era needs to push more for the quality of viewing for the end user. Even more so there is the fact that you, as an artist, must come on top of all that crap that is placed on YouTube where you are almost a 'nobody' although some of REDUser have got names for themselves, in the vast world outside of this community, only a few a strongly known (assuming...maybe I'm wrong here.) Fair enough, this can be countered by social networking but this would take a strong social networking push to get yourself on top of the YouTube views of the dancing fat man or other foolish videos that people seem to sit down and watch endlessly. I've seen some great stuff on YouTube no issue there. It's the fact when I've now wanted to go back and try and find that video or others like it I can't. Not to mention some channels are just filled with ripped videos.

YouTube needs to sort itself out but having it on YouTube opens it back up to Piracy. Remove the 1min advert and just play the full movie. What are you then achieving? Views but no revenue.
 
Basically Netflix would be paying me back at least *some* of the cost of my production for some of the most demographic-specific advertising you can come by. I see this as being NOTHING BUT SWEET.


Yeah, I think using Netflix as advertising for something else you're selling makes good sense. You might only make a few grand getting on Netflix. Hopefully a lot of people see it and look for more. That's a pretty big hope though. I've watched a lot of Netflix movies and rarely have gone online to find more info about them.

I like the idea of having some streaming only bonuses. And physical products. If you had some really bitchin' sci fi gun in your movie that collectors could buy from you then having your movie online for free makes sense. I don't know how else to think about it... unless you've already got a distributor onboard before filming begins.

*edit*
dude, I know. Invite me to the yacht party.
 
Would it not be more reasonable to cut an epic trailer and post that on YouTube.

Post a link to your site with advertising and have a downloadable version or better yet to just have the feature in 4 parts as you said at maximum potential quality on your own site with the adveritisng as you suggested. Would this not be a some what better option to present your film in as close quality as it was originally intended to be on DVD?

i like this even better. I concede :)

dude, I know. Invite me to the yacht party.

lol if there ever is such a yacht party you'll get an invite. I the meantime you can come to the wrap party...we'll have Milwakee's Best on tap and jello shots made from plastic-bottle-vodka. I'm a simple man.
 
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I think there is a lot of opportunity for profitability on the really low end. But most really low end features are actually a loss because so much time is 'donated'. Sure you can shoot your feature for $50k... but if it takes 2 weeks to shoot and requires 20 people then you're paying under minimum wage and your crew has to collect food stamps.

When you shoot for free everything is profit, but not all films can be shot at a loss--and not all of us want to tell stories about two people sitting around a kitchen table.
 
Thanks Gavin, I'm in the process of gathering enough proof which is easy enough, i have not registered it as copyright but I'm sure in Australia if you write.... copyright, your name, and year of release you are covered, (as I have done). They are definately doing this illegally and I'm wondering how many copies they may have sold on the side.
Thanks again

I'm sorry, I didn't realize you meant that someone was using your work commercially without your permission. That requires action, I agree.

When I think piracy, I usually think cam videos on bit torrents...
 
Yes, I also got that misunderstood.

I apologize, as the original poster was talking about a different kind of piracy. And in the case he described, that is really a serious crime and he should take measures.

---
Otherwise, torrents and Internet piracy are harmless in a way, as nobody is really profiting from them. Non-commercial.

But there are solutions for *that* kind of piracy as well.

Peace. :thumbup1:
 
Back to the wider discussion of piracy:

INDIE FILM INK PIRATED, FILMMAKERS PLEASED

"Winans: Kiowa and I don't see it as lost revenue, but fans gained. In fact, our revenue on the film has quadrupled in the last few days as a result of the exposure. It's still a fraction of what we need to be making to make it work, but it's a big step in the right direction. People are coming back to our website and buying disks, the soundtrack, posters, shirts, and making small donations."
 
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