Indee Blog

Self-distribution is a loaded word these days. It covers far too wide an operation from pre-production to securing a studio marketing deal, which in my opinion, is ridiculous.

In its essence, all it means is that the filmmaker is taking on the work of sales-agents & distributors and keeping all the proceeds that would normally go to them. One of the most important tools you need for self-promotion is a screener.

People always want to see some footage of whatever you’re pitching to them. Professional sales agents know this and they spend thousands of dollars on their screeners and shipping.

However, there are three huge concerns with DVD screeners:

1. High costs
2. Zero reporting about viewing and engagement
3. Easy piracy

Costs

Running the numbers, we see this is a huge expense for almost anyone. A screener DVD costs between $1-$4 to produce and between $3-$20 to ship. This ignores all those lost in the mail or misplaced and broken DVDs that usually adds between 10-20% to your screener budget.

Reporting

After sending out the DVD screener, there is zero reporting to know if the film has been viewed or even reached the recipient in the mail. Dont even bother obtaining more important metrics like your most popular scenes and which scene loses most of your viewers. Thats the kind of empowerment online screeners can offer.

Piracy

Imagine if you made Paranormal Activity in 2007 and have had to send thousands of screeners over the course of two years. Now it’s 2009, you’re just getting ready for a wide release. Dozens of the DVDs you’ve shipped over the last couple of years are bound to make it right into the hands of pirates the world over, ruining a great film with an early prerelease cut and terrible post production. Not to mention the lost revenue from piracy.

With online screeners you can choose to have your film expire in a day, a month or anywhere in between and get in-depth analytics while you’re at it.

Learn more about Indee’s screeners here.

Photo credit: SuperPipo2010

I was part of the lynch mob that showed up with Netflix announcing its higher prices and splitting of the membership base into separate streaming and DVD factions.

Why would they complicate an otherwise terrific model of renting movies?

Netflix, as I remember,  is a company whose focus has always been their customers. They had it going for them with a flawless pricing and delivery model along with the sublime use of the renting queue to line up your movies.  They were amongst the earliest users of the  Javascript navigation on a mainstream site. My favorite is when they began offering streaming at the same price point with DVDs; sure it reduced their costs of distribution, but they were benevolent enough to offer this added functionality without premium pricing like I would imagine BestBuy or Apple would do.

With this great service offering, they were also making money hand over fist. Why then would they turn their backs to a very faithful and contented consumer base? Here are my two cents worth:

Higher Prices

Let’s be honest, the films on Netflix Watch Instantly (WI) are pitiful.

Here are the newest arrivals in the Comedy genre:

On the one hand, the studios expect to get the world for their premium content and on the other hand Netflix with their limited base(U.S & Canada) simply can’t afford it. Netflix, I think is attempting a gamble here to make it work by:

1. Increasing revenues per subscriber
2. Use the increased cash-flow to dangle the billion dollar carrot in front of the studios which are hurting in revenue growth
3. Get the primo films for WI
4. ???
5. Profit and Happy customers

I don’t know about you, but I would be more than happy to spare a couple of extra dollars to see a film worth 2 hours of my time on Watch Instantly, then the crud that’s on there right now. With historical evidence as my witness, I would much rather Netflix figure out how to do this than anyone else.

Splitting The Customer Base in to DVD & Online factions

Netflix’s concept of weaving DVD and streaming services as one package meant that every member, irrespective of the kind of service they chose, ended up being counted as a member with access to the digital version of the film. Now, the studios charge Netflix by the number of subscribers with access to the digital version of the film, and that is where the predicament lies.

A few well written words from a man wiser than I, Adam Knight

The Internet’s memory is short so let’s go back a week ago to when Netflix lost the Sony movies and almost lost Starz. Why did that happen? Netflix WI (Watch Instantly) subscribers passed a certain number specified in the contract with Starz and Sony and so they lost the right to stream that content. After some talks they came back online and now, one week later, Netflix is breaking apart their WI subscribers from their DVD subscribers. I find it hard to consider this a coincidence.

Having a ton of DVD viewers that are not using WI artificially inflated their WI subscriber numbers and almost invalidated a content contract. The only way to lower that number is to remove their access and only let people that want WI subscribe to it and pay into the service. So now WI isn’t a bundled service but one you ask for and pay for. This way, Netflix lowers their perceived WI subscriber count, keeps their content deals without renegotiations, and generally carries on.

It all boils down to how you can keep tabs on the films.  In an ideal world the studios charge Netflix for every film viewed. However, online rights are sold as purchased licenses based on the subscriber size. For Netflix, that number was inflated by DVD subscribers who would never watch a streamed movie. So until studios change their pricing models, Netflix has to do the dirty job of tidying up.

I am willing to give Netflix the benefit of the doubt and let them suck a few extra dollars from me to give me a more respectable library of streamed films online.

Netflix, you’d better deliver after this.