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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 :)

Best Microbudget Film Setup

Yeah I've noticed that it's even tough doing a 12-minute short for online distribution, it's just too long, 3-5 minutes is good if there's any way you can tell a story in that little time. It forces you to be creative.
 
Thanks David appreciate the clarification and the well thought out advice.

joelnet thanks for the suggestions on possibly doing a complete scene out of the movie. Probobly would be a good test of the concept.
 
Interesting point JonathanLB but thinking about it I wounder if it has more to do with quality. I have watch hour length British Comedies on youtube all the time. And full length movies on Stage6. But most of the stuff made for the web really just does not have the story and quality to hold some one very long. Atleast thats what I find. I see watch a lot of shorts online and most have secound rate story, writing and production values.

By the way take a look at Four Eyed Monsters http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k8rRFFi_stY Its 71 minutes and decent quality and doing well on youtube. They have a sponsor spout.com and since they have added it to youtube on june 8 they have made about $31,000. There is a running total next to their video on spout.com. They also have 635,511 views, 4627 ratings (4/5), 2955 comments, and its been Favorited 4235 times. Any way a really interesting idea and it confirms to me its more about quality than length.

Oh and here is a wired article on it also http://www.wired.com/entertainment/theweb/news/2007/06/youtubefest
 
Eh, sometimes, but I'm convinced most people on those sites don't want quality at all. My first short had a nice, dramatic story, it was well told visually, coherent, etc., but got a very mediocre rating (on MetaCafe) then I click over to some fart jokes or 30 second long things with hot chicks and they get 4 out of 5 ratings. I mean, ok, whatever! People rate high what they enjoy, and most people don't really enjoy much on those sites besides humor. I'm the same way, though, I frankly don't go to YouTube or other video sites to see serious films, I go to see stupid comedy shorts.

Instead of getting angry about people being too crass on YouTube and other sites, I'm more interested in playing to their demographic. I'd rather just make short 1-5 minute things with hot chicks and comedy and get the viewings and ratings, because that's taking advantage of your audience. No use making things they won't watch.
 
Look at the dographics "Men are 20 percent more likely to visit YouTube than women...
Visitors between 12-17 years old index the highest among the various
age groups... They are nearly 1.5 times more likely than the average
Web user to go to YouTube.". Having teenage boys as the main audiance is part of what you are seeing. You also have a large demographic of people at work watching something quick and funny. But I think the Four Eyed Monsters link I posted shows something long and dramatic can do well. Also possibly it really is just very mediocre?
 
LOL, no it's better than almost anything else on YouTube, but it isn't funny at all. I mean it's a story about a guy trying to come to terms with losing his girlfriend, so it's really not a story most guys are going to be like, "Oh yeah, great story, I'll send this to all of my friends!" I wouldn't rate the video as anything great, of course, but it deserves better than a 2.2-something-whatever out of 5. It's definitely a 3 to a 3.5 quality work. But the ratings mean nothing. I would be more concerned if I made something for that demographic and THEN got a 2.2 or something, that's bad.

I guarantee I could get nothing but 4s and higher if I was just casting hot girls (easy to do, man oh man, lots of them around) and then throwing them into comedy bits or something. It's not hard to figure out what gets a good rating. It usually has nothing to do with video quality, sound quality, story, etc. It's all about whether it entertains the audience. Drama isn't entertaining to this demographic, at least not on YouTube, they might like drama but they might just not want to see it when they're browsing sites like that.
 
OK so the question is why is did Four Eyed Monster getting such good ratings and comments? It does not fit what you describe. Any thoughts?
 
*shrug* I'm sure there are some exceptions. But if the right audience is finding it, that would explain it pretty well. When you put something up randomly and only have a few hundred people see it, you're going to get a random demographic from that group, not the focused demographic you need.
 
That probobly explains it. From my experence on youtube you need to still promote the video. For example on forums for indie film makers etc. This will help get high ratings and views to start with so other people see it. You an also make your video a response to one that has the demographic you want that is getting lots of hits already. As an experment I did that with a little short I made as a test with a real budget of $0:) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mXQFqlVMrrc It did ok just posting on Christian forums to get feedback. But after I made it a response to the other video the number of views a day it gets has shotup. So at the moment its getting about 1000 views every 8 days or so.

Another thing I am going to do as soon as I get my camera is start a production log and post those videos and sample shots on lots of video sharing sites and indie film sites. Start building interest and getting feedback early on in the process.
 
What matters more is what your potential buyer wants than what a film archive or cataloger considers a feature. I've seen many deliverables requirement letters to producers from distributors buying the movie, and often the letter says that the movie cannot run shorter than 80 minutes. But that time figure tends to be particular to a distribution company and what market they are aiming for.
 
pat@hpnc.com said:
OK so the question is why is did Four Eyed Monster getting such good ratings and comments? It does not fit what you describe. Any thoughts?
Click to expand...

Seeing as how YouTube only counts how many times someone started watching the video, my guess is that only one in a thousand who started watching actually finished it and most of the ones that dropped out after a few minutes didn't bother rating it except for the few that really dislike it. If you invest over an hour in a show then- one, you probably liked it and -two, you are more likely to take the time to rate it and leave comments.
 
David Mullen ASC said:
What matters more is what your potential buyer wants than what a film archive or cataloger considers a feature. I've seen many deliverables requirement letters to producers from distributors buying the movie, and often the letter says that the movie cannot run shorter than 80 minutes. But that time figure tends to be particular to a distribution company and what market they are aiming for.
Click to expand...

David, perhaps you can shed some light on something. I assume that most big-budget movies are made with distribution decided beforehand. But if an Independent movie maker does a film, should it be done with the idea of finding a way to shorten or lengthen the film and not disrupt the flow of the story? I am also assuming there is seldom a deal between a distributor and the maker of a low budget movie done beforehand,
 
number6 said:
David, perhaps you can shed some light on something. I assume that most big-budget movies are made with distribution decided beforehand. But if an Independent movie maker does a film, should it be done with the idea of finding a way to shorten or lengthen the film and not disrupt the flow of the story? I am also assuming there is seldom a deal between a distributor and the maker of a low budget movie done beforehand,
Click to expand...

The aim is to write your script so it is the right length for your target market, not make the film so that you can shorten or lengthen it to match a distributor's whims. With a tight script, every scene drives the story forward. So, you can't take a single scene out easily because then the story will be missing something without it. That's a good thing.

Scenes that aren't essential to the story always feel boring. It's not like a modular thing that you can add pieces to in case the distributor wants more. The best way to tell if a scene should be in a movie or not is to take it out and see your movie gets worse. If it doesn't, you made the right move in taking the scene out.

Of course, that is only the ideal and in reality a lot gets chopped and changed. And that's sometimes a good thing!

Bruce Allen
www.boacinema.com
 
pat@hpnc.com said:
Four Eyed Monsters
Click to expand...

The Daily Reel: Tell me a little about the genesis of the film FEM (and your marketing of it) over the past four years. What is unique about the different ways you've released the film?

Arin Crumley: Susan and I met on the Internet towards the end of 2002. We started making the movie about how our relationship began at the end of 2003; submitted to festivals at the end of 2004; showed a rough cut of the film at festivals through out 2005; started posting monthly video podcast installments about the story behind creating the film in the end of 2005 and through out 2006; and then in the end of 2006 and 2007 we posted video blogs about self-distributing our film.

THOSE GUYS MARKETED THEIR BUTTS OFF FOR YEARS. Finally they got a deal with youtube to feature their movie (which runs 80+ minutes).

Look, I can find you 52 people that become millionaires this year -- by playing the lottery. That doesn't mean playing the lottery is a viable movie funding gameplan. You shouldn't base anything on the ONE example you can find. Actually, what you can take from FEM is that marketing is, was and will be king. Word of mouth marketing is the Nirvana everyone hopes for.

OTOH - there is PLENTY of content is good and under 5 minutes and get a zillion views - and generating money. Short AND GOOD have value these days and going forward. Long and Good have value. Medium length and good just doesn't have many examples supporting it.
 
Bruce Allen said:
The aim is to write your script so it is the right length for your target market, not make the film so that you can shorten or lengthen it to match a distributor's whims.
Click to expand...

Tell that to a TV writer. An hour show has 4 acts and have to nail EACH commercial break to the second with a cliffhanger. The best writers in the world seem to be writing the top TV shows. Think about how Sopranos and ROME etc. hit it to the minute. TV commercial writers seem to nail their constraints too.

I think if you're a good writer you can hit a time pretty closely.

I think when Internet distribution is more fully fleshed out and lots of people are really selling downloads then perhaps typical time formats could get broken. But right now you're shutting yourself off from many income opportunities by doing that.
 
I'm amazed at how successful television shows are at nailing those time constraints, I mean for me personally I would not want to do that. I'm not saying that one day given the opportunity to write and direct for TV wouldn't be a total blast, but man, it'd be really tough, and it's not something I'd consider ideal. I think it's a pretty tongue-in-cheek argument to suggest that you're cutting to make the story "flow better," when really you're just cutting for commercials and everyone knows it. The story is only important insofar as it allows more commercials to be played in the future. It bothers me, but that's how they make money. I guess the way I'd want to do it is to make something that was close enough, then it could be trimmed slightly for TV, with the deal being in my contract that when those episodes hit DVD everything is put back to the director's cut.

If I couldn't have that much power over the content, which really isn't asking much, considering that most people would rather have more content on the DVDs than less (gives the studio a nice marketing device: "See the episodes in their full length, more than 1 hour of added footage for the season!"), then I wouldn't be interested anyway.

What they do is amazing, though, how close they time it. Very impressive.
 
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