Filmmaker Magazine has a cool piece on the growing VOD market and the ability for filmmakers to turn it into a profitable distribution tool. Our friend Joe Swanberg is also mentioned. Seems like audiences are still going to flock to genre films as well as star driven vehicles, but overall, looks like an interesting avenue nevertheless. It would be even cooler, if this avenue of cable VOD options for filmmakers was opened up to more films than just those that were lucky enough to premiere at a top tier film festival, since films without theatrical releases tend to benefit the filmmaker the most. What are your thoughts? Read about it after the jump:
If you're a filmmaker looking for an edge in today's new digital distribution universe, it can't hurt to come up with a title for your movie that begins with the letter "A" or "B."
It may sound facile or crass, but with Video-On-Demand an increasingly important segment of the business, recent indie movies like The Answer Man, A Quiet Little Marriage or Bart Got a Room will advantageously sit atop the catalogue of cable operator's On-Demand listings, while movies like World's Greatest Dad and What Goes Up will sit at the bottom.
"It always helps," admits Nolan Gallagher, CEO of Gravitas Ventures, a new independent company which licenses VOD content to cable operators. "We've seen examples where films have benefited from the fact that cable guides are alphabetical in nature," he says, noting the success of a recent documentary called American Meth. "We definitely think the titling had an effect on its buys."
VOD is certainly here to stay and growing at 20 percent annually, according to recent industry estimates, which has prompted more and more distribution companies, from the biggest studios to the smallest indies, to stake their future on it. But how much can individual filmmakers actually gain from the new distribution platforms, both monetarily and in exposure?
Read the full piece HERE.
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