VODO is trying to help solve three problems:
(1) How do we get works (texts, films, music) distributed efficiently and widely using current Peer to Peer technologies?
(2) How do we market these works that can rival mainstream media?
(3) How can we help creators distributing through P2P systems with developing a sustainable, or even profitable, practice?
Read more here.
I hope a lot of filmmakers give this a try.
10 comments:
Voluntary donations? This is fine for "budding" filmmakers and for those who make shorts or very low budget independent films, but certainly not for filmmakers with budgets of $1-2 M or more--we need non-voluntary revenue streams to continue. People have to be willing to pay per stream or download of our films. The current "free" internet approach is not a helpful mindset for our survival.
Or maybe there isn't just one model we should all be thinking about. I know as much as I wish I could make all my films for over $8M I now am trying to figure out how to make films for under $2M and earn a living doing it too.
Hey there. We're working on a series of revenue models around the core free-to-share proposition. For example, we could run pre-roll sponsorship spots on some content; for other creators, we can collect a database of zip codes helping them get gigs; for others still, merchandise and limited-edition media. There's lots of stuff to try around the core concept of sharing. We're working on it!
The numbers we're getting with US NOW suggest that we can work on the sponsorship/advertising model for any of our creators who want to try that out. But this is just the beginning :)
Ted, when you figure out how to make films for under $2M and earn a living doing it (plus pay back investors), please let us know your secret! If we find out first, we'll let you know~ :)
EitherOrFilms, How many people need to pay per stream or download, and how much do they need to pay in order to make back the budget and make a living on your $1 - $2mil dollar movie?
If you make $5 per stream net from each dl you need 200,000 buyers to make back the budget on a $1,000,000 movie.
If you offer up an early, high quality, unpublished work from the director for free on Vodo and a million people watch it. If 5% of those people decide that they want to see something else the director has done and pay for a stream of their new work you just made back a quarter of your budget. (all hypothetical of course).
I think this is the purpose of Vodo and the underlying belief behind Ted's Truly Free Film: Give something away to find an audience and create fans that will then pay for future content or products.
Vodo happens to go DIRECTLY to the source. People looking for content that are experienced in downloading and watching on-line. Those people are the market to attack when selling a downloadable movie.
I'm definitely interested in it.
Maybe the model for under 2M is TV. They do stuff for pretty cheap and pay a lot of people plenty of money.
Or to do a lot of them.
This is great a idea. In fact, we should all live in a world where all products are given away for free....free cars, free food, free houses, free bottles of French wine, free books...everything free as we all join hands together and dance in a circle and rainbows erupt in the distance and the borders of all nations fall in unison.....
Are you crazy? Free films? And there's no such thing as an independent system...think about it. In fact, the very attempt to establish one goes against all understanding of creativity.
It has always been about individuals with vision connecting to individuals with money who have a self-interested desire to make that vision happen. The rest will take care of itself. The only problem right now is individuals have less money and the only thing you can do about that is survive, think outside all boxes, use your street skills and find that money before the other guy.
Justin,
Go to Costco or Sam's Club or Trader Joe's (or many other grocery stores) and you can get free food samples every day. Go to a wine tasting and get all the free wine you want. Dealerships give free cars to people they believe will drive customers their way (read: celebrities). You can get millions of legally free books on the internet or that place called a "library". It escapes me now but I'm sure there's some way to get a free house if you really want it.
The fact is that it is possible to get just about any type of item for free, the reason being that sellers know that if you like what you get you'll come back and buy other similar items.
In fact, if I turn my TV on right now I can get tons of free movies through our VOD system and while I'm scrolling through looking for a free movie to watch I might just find a pay-per-view one to buy instead.
Your name links to a documentary about olympic boxers (I'm not sure of your involvement with the film) but why not make a short documentary that relates to the subject matter and put it up where potentially millions of people will download it, enjoy it and look for more on the subject? Could help build a fan base, no?
I found the experiment outlined on BoingBoing today by Cory Doctrow pretty interesting in light of the above conversation.
http://www.boingboing.net/2009/10/20/jonathan-worth-tries.html
Ted, Jonathan Worth's experiment is a perfect (and basic) example demonstrating how giving something away resulted in increased revenue that would not have otherwise existed. (although it was through a pre-existing fan-base.)
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